[78-L] Spoken work records...

[David Lennick]

Michael Biel wrote:
> 
>> I'd like to know how it came to happen that Muzak put out a
>> whole 20-disc album of 78s of Carl Sandburg reading whatever
>> happened to come to mind (and improvising a few stories as well). dl
> 
> Well, remember there are those Decca Sandburg albums "The People, Yes"
> A/DA 273, and "Cowboy Songs and Negro Spirituals" A 356.  I know that
> certainly does not add up to 20 discs, but were these included?  There
> was a Western Electric tie in between Muzak and World wasn't there, and
> World was owned by Decca in some of the 40s.  Where is the Muzak album
> listed?  
> 
Right on the cover of the album..I have it. Took me years to find a copy. Here 
are the contents, from my track list when I transferred it a couple of years 
ago and thought I was just borrowing it (ended up buying it). I have no idea 
why it's not listed anywhere, unless it was a limited pressing for MUZAK 
employees or clients. (There was also a single Muzak LP around 1951.)

CARL SANDBURG -- Recorded by MUZAK, 1942

Record 1A (mx BL-13802-B) The Man With Broken Fingers, Pt. 1
  (Reading) 4:18
Record 1B-1 (mx BL-13803-B) The Man With Broken Fingers, Pt. 2  1:44
Record 1B-2 ("""") Lumber Workers (Song) 1:07
Record 2A (mx BL-13804-B) Free America, 1775 (Song)  4:11
Record 2B (mx BL-13805-B) Gallows Song  3:22
Record 3A (mx BL-13806-B) Foggy Dew (Song)  2:39
Record 3B (mx BL-13809-B) Cahoots; Ossawatamie; Night Stuff
  (Readings) 3:38
Record 4A (mx BL-13807-B) Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz; Maybe; Phizzog;
  Fragment from The Windy City (Readings)  3:55
Record 4B (mx BL-13808-B) Upstream; Primer Lesson; Is God, Too,
  Lonely; Sea Chest (Readings)  3:37 (clicks)
Record 5A (mx BL-13810-B) End Lines of Good Morning America
  (Reading) 3:55 (clicks)
Record 5B (mx BL-13811-B) Hells and Heavens; Precious Moments; Baby
  Song Of The Four Winds; They All Want to Play Hamlet (Readings)  4:10
Record 6A (mx BL-13863-B) Opening Sequence from "The People, Yes"
  (Reading) 4:22
Record 6B (mx BL-13864-B) Opening Sequence from "The People, Yes"
  (Reading) 3:59
Record 7A (mx BL-13865-B) Colorado Graveyard; Father And Son
  (Readings--from "The People, Yes") 4:18
Record 7B (mx BL-13866-B) Infantryman; Man and Sphinx; Salzman;
  Every Man; An Even Whack (Readings--from "The People, Yes") 4:04
Record 8A (mx BL-13867-B) Possessions; Right to a Job; Pioneer
  Hoppers; Andy Adams (Readings--from "The People, Yes") 3:37
Record 8B (mx BL-13923-B) Old Time Barn; Alive Yet; Purple Martins
  (Readings--from "The People, Yes") 3:15
Record 9A-1 (mx BL-13924-B) Struggle; The Arch (from "The People,
  Yes") 1:48
Record 9A-2 ("""") The Two Maggots (Story)  2:13
Record 9B (mx BL-13942-B) Proverbs (Reading--from "The People, Yes")  3:04
Record 10A (mx BL-13943-B) Proverbs and Miscellany (Reading--from
  "The People, Yes") 2:45
Record 10B (mx BL-14006-B) Skyline America (Reading--from "The
  People, Yes") 3:08
Record 11A (mx BL-14007-B) Many Occupations; Grand Canyon of
  Humanity (Readings--from "The People, Yes") 4:17
Record 11B-1 (mx BL-14010-B) Gags (Reading, from "The People--Yes")  1:30
Record 11B-2 ("""") Waillie (Song) 1:58
Record 12A (mx BL-14008-B) Snider's Vinegar, Inc. Part 1 (Story) 3:02
Record 12B (mx BL-14009-B) Snider's Vinegar, Inc. Part 2 (Story) 3:23
Record 13A (mx BL-13938-B) Lincoln Sequence, Part 1 (Reading) 4:04
Record 13B (mx BL-13939-B) Lincoln Sequence, Part 2 (Reading) 3:02
Record 14A (mx BL-13940-B) Lincoln Sequence, Part 3 (Reading) 3:28
Record 14B (mx BL-13941-B) Lincoln Sequence, Part 4 (Reading) 3:53
          from "The People, Yes"
Record 15A (mx BL-13929-B) Lincoln Now, Part 1 (Reading) 4:44
Record 15B (mx BL-13930-B) Lincoln Now, Part 2 (Reading) 3:30
Record 16A (mx BL-13928-B) How Much?; Wind Song; Far Rockaway; Night
  (Readings)  3:18
Record 16B (mx BL-13931-B) Jazz Fantasia; Losers (Readings) 3:16
Record 17A (mx BL-13932-B) Sea Wash; Chicago Boy Baby; M'Liss
  (Readings) 4:42 (note: last word missing, is at start of next track!)
      --Side 17B starts with what should probably be the last word of side
    17A and possibly the last 55 seconds of the same reading)
Record 17B (mx BL-13934-B) The Way of the World; We Have Gone
  Through Great Roooms Together (Readings--from "Good Morning America) 3:06
     (first named piece, intro occurs about 55" in!)
Record 18A (mx BL-13925-B) Definitions of Poetry, Part 1 (Reading) 4:15
Record 18B (mx BL-13926-B) Definitions of Poetry, Part 2 (Reading) 2:08
Record 19A (mx BL-13935-B) For You (Reading--from "Smoke and Steel") 3:14
Record 19B (mx BL-13927-B) Opening Sequence of Good Morning,
  America; Milk White Moon Put the Cows to Sleep (Readings)  3:13
Record 20A (mx BL-13936-B) The Press Is Peculiar, Part 1 (Reading) 4:10
Record 20B (mx BL-13937-B) The Press Is Peculiar, Part 2 (Reading) 4:10
          --from "The People, Yes"

  Inside front liner :

Chikaming Goat Farm, Harbert Michigan

December 22, 1942

Dear Bill Benton

      Pretty fine work Muzak did on those recordings. What we have
  wandered into on this odd venture is a curious book. People may be
  thanking us when our last toe-bones have become an ash-grey dust.

  As always
  Carl Sandburg

--dl