[78-L] Selling Sound Book Signing

[Michael Biel]

Selling Sound's author David Suisman had a reading and book signing at
the 18th St. Barnes and Noble tonight, so Leah and I went there.  Strand
Bookstore on 12th St. had gotten one copy of the book in on Tuesday as a
half-price reviewer copy so I QUICKLY ordered it for store pick-up since
I knew Leah and I would be going in anyway.  So with our half-priced
book in hand, we set out.  I had already checked out the Harvard U.
Press' web site and went thru the index and read the first part of the
book.  Pretty good.  He has good references to prove that "After the
Ball" WAS a big hit song.  I recall that some have written in the past
decade or so that the song was not really a big hit at the time of
writing in 1892 because there were only one or two recordings of it at
the time. He proves it was a hit. 

The portion of the book he read concerned how Victor turned Caruso into
one of the first nationwide media celebrities not just thru the strength
of his voice but thru astute promotion and advertising.  In the book he
does mention others such as Tomango, but Caruso broke out of the pack
due to the aforementioned promotion and advertising.  It is a good thing
that he did not include in his reading the factual error on page 106
when discussing Caruso's first Gramophone session with Gaisburg "Indeed,
a few earlier recordings he had made for Zonophone and Pathe Freres had
attracted little notice."  It has been determined for at least the past
20 years that the Zonophone and A.I.C.C. (not Pathe) recordings came
AFTER the first Gramophone session.  He is using a very OLD source,
Caidin's discography in Dorothy Caruso's book.  But he also cites the
Martland article in ARSC Journal V25,N2,1994 "Caruso's First Recordings:
Myth and Reality" which gives an April 11, 1902 date while he still
cites the recordings as March 1902.  That article also cast doubt about
Gaisburg's memories of how he came to record Caruso, but he seems to
disregard this and seems to lean towards Gaisburgs mistaken version of
the story. He needs to get a copy of Bolig's Caruso discography.

Another factual error on page 117 concerning Victor annual catalogs,
citing them as being hardcover.  He might be used to seeing copies that
libraries like LC and NYPL have had bound, but have any of you come
across Victor catalogs that were originally issued hardbound???  I sure
haven't.  But these are nitpicks of real, real, real minor errors in
what seems to be an excellent book.  By the way, this is a rewrite of
his Ph.D. dissertation which was financed by an $18K prize he won for it
at Columbia University that was awarded for the purpose of financing its
publication.   

In discussing the cover photo with him after his talk, he says he likes
the ambiguity of what the fallen dog means!  He didn't have an
interpretation of his own. It could mean whatever we think it means! 
Yes, it could even mean that Nipper was bowled over by listening to a
Crapophone.  That the phonograph is a fake also adds to the ambiguity.  


Apparently the photo was already in existance and had been used in a
magazine spread. The name of the photographer is Jack Daniels!  He
thought that was quite funny when he found out. But take a look at the
name of the cover's designer -- Annamarie McMahon Why!!  Because! I
don't know, and I don't give a damn.  Ooohh, that's our shortstop!  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com