[78-L] Obscure Columbia catalog...

[David Lennick]

Another little-known series is English Columbia's "Special Cinema Records". 
Presumably these were for pre-show and intermissions (or to clear the theatre) 
instead of background music for silent films. They played at 33RPM and were 
center start, ran about 8 minutes a side, and consisted of dubs from existing 
78RPMs like Ketelbey's Orchestra, Debroy Somers' Orchestra and the like. I've 
turned up 4 of these..I don't know how many there were. And they predate the 
EMI merger since all the ones I've seen have been laminated.

They also sound terrible..you think Program Transcription dubs were bad? Mind 
you, these probably took the huge theater speakers into consideration and were 
cut with no bass and a treble boost.

dl

Steven C. Barr wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
>> From: Graham Newton <gn at audio-restoration.com>
>>> Somewhere around 1932, Columbia in the UK produced a catalog titled:-
>>> "Catalog of Film Accompaniment Records"
>>> It contained hundreds of their standard records of the day listed under 
>>> 18
>>> headings of 'Characteristic and Mood Music' and it included specialized 
>>> mood
>>> recordings for film synchronization by composers like J.S. Zamecnik.
>>> I wonder if that was something issued by Columbia only in the UK or would 
>>> it
>>> also have seen the light of day in America? I've never heard anything
>>> previously about it... does anyone, by any chance, have a copy?
>> Wasn't this around the time when UK Columbia was recording sound effects
>> records that did also appear on U.S. Columbia?  Since that was a special
>> series, was this effort also involving a special re-labeling of these
>> records, or could it merely be like Edison had done in the late teens by
>> publishing a booklet "Mood Music" that just listed suggestions of using
>> certain records in the regular catalog to create certain moods?
>>
>> On a similar note, yesterday at the Wayne NJ show I saw a record on a
>> non-Gennett label but with a Richmond Indiana address of a background
>> music-type record with a label notation that it is NOT licensed for
>> synchronization.  Wish I could remember the label name.  Sound familiar?
>>
> My first instinctive reply was "Ask Graham Newton"...until I noticed that
> the original question had come from GN himself...?!
> 
> However, note that there were MANY 78rpm UK labels which
> issued "Background-music libraries" (when did these first appear?)
> and these "Columbia 'mood music'" issues MAY relate to those?!
> 
> ...stevenc 
>