[78-L] blue amberols

[Taylor Bowie]

Great question about record color,  Donna.  I have always assumed that 
colored records were offered was as some sort of marketing device,  to make 
them stand out from the plain old black ones.

Despite Vocalion's brave claim,  I never have thought that "Red Records are 
Better" and a lot of the time they aren't as good...certainly not compared 
with a nice laminated surface!

Taylor




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:53 PM
Subject: [78-L] blue amberols


> This month, I am teaching a group of adorable and very precocious
> immigrant kids (Chinese and Vietnamese mostly, ranging in age from 8
> to 12), tutoring them in English and helping them learn about
> American history/pop culture, etc. I brought in some artifacts of
> early media, like a newspaper from 1865, a children's magazine from
> 1889, and a couple of cylinders... they were especially curious about
> the blue amberol I showed them  -- why was it blue, how did it get to
> be blue, did the color affect the sound quality in any way, etc.  I
> do recall an ad campaign from Vocalion Records in the early 20s about
> how "Red records are better!"  But I am not an expert on cylinders-- 
> like, why the color blue was chosen or how the color was achieved...
> We may have discussed this a while back, but I don't recall. Any
> explanations would be appreciated!
>
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