[78-L] Air Raid, was Re: Bessie Smith album

[David Lennick]

According to the info I transcribed when I sold (or traded) the LIMITED EDITION 
version of Air Raid (copy #147, signed by MacLeish), it said "as introduced by 
Columbia Broadcasting System, February 28, 1938". Where does October 17/38 come 
from, or is that a rebroadcast which was the source of the 78 issue?

The timings are as follows:

1. 4:57
2. 4:58
3. 4:44
4. 4:32
5. 3:48
6. 4:48
7. 2:46

My notes from that transfer say Orson Welles? (he's listed in some sources but 
definitely not audible on the recording), Betty Garde, Ray Collins, Frank 
Gallup. No music (Bernard Herrmann or anyone else).

dl

David Lennick wrote:
> One of my sets of Air Raid has sides 1 & 2  with gold labels (like the Mercury 
> sets), Columbia Full Range Recording. No album number on it, but disc # is 
> 69353-D, same as on CBS labels in C-5. "Sold in complete sets only."
> 
> ME-23 isn't even listed under Welles or Mercury Theater in the October 1940 
> catalog, nor in Rust, although his listings of the Welles recordings in CED2 
> are totally wrong. Somewhere I found a note that C-33 (Macbeth) was "to be 
> released November 1940" according to David Hall.
> 
> dl
> 
> Michael Biel wrote:
>> From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>>> Re the South American recordings, are you thinking of the Brazilian music 
>> recorded when Stokowski was down there? There are definitely unissued 
>> recordings among them, and supposedly lost, according to an article that
>>
>> appeared on one of these lists last year.
>>
>> Yes, that's it.  I was trying to see if the issued albums are these,
>> probably the two tango albums. But now with the reminder that it was
>> Stokowski who was involved I have googled about it
>> http://daniellathompson.com/Texts/Stokowski/Stalking_Stokowski.htm
>> and found that the albums are C-83 and C-84.  But the earlier albums are
>> also in the similar vein, one of them being Cuban bands.
>>
>>> I've never seen ME 23..didn't know it existed.
>> It's in the numerical listing of all of the ME discs with no
>> explanation.  I never knew about it until I saw it there.
>>
>>> All the Mercury Theater 
>> Shakespeare sets were renumbered in the MM series (in the 700s I think)
>> in the 
>> late 40s. "Julius Caesar" was the only one to make it to LP..that set is
>> seen 
>> in the I Love Lucy episode where Orson is a guest. (I did all of those
>> sets as 
>> well as the abridged Julius for Pearl some years ago.)
>>
>> I remember you needing a cast listing for one of them which I had in the
>> published script booklets.
>>
>>> Is "Air Raid" actually taken from the CBS broadcast? It runs well over 30 
>> minutes, has no announcements, no cast list (unless anyone has seen a
>> booklet 
>> for it), and about the only voice I've ever recognized is Frank Gallop.
>> Ray 
>> Collins seems to be the only other name turning up on internet searches.
>>  dl
>>
>> The cast list is in the published book.  Yes it is from the broadcast. 
>> The closing announcement on the broadcast (not included in the recording
>> but in the script) mentions that the recording is going to be released. 
>> Somewhere I have the rehearsal schedule from one of the original scripts
>> I came across many years in an archive.  I don't remember the timing but
>> it is not much if any over 30 minutes.  It is only 7 sides, not 8, and
>> the 7th side is only a little over a minute.
>>
>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  
>>
>> Michael Biel wrote:
>>> >From the record numbers in particular series, you can see that the
>>> albums were not issued in the order of these retroactive numberings. 
>>>
>>> C-1 Tango Album No. 1 342-M - 347-M
>>> C-2 Tango Album No. 2 373-M - 378-M
>>> C-3 Rumba and Congo Album 351-M - 356-M
>>> C-4 the first issue of Air Raid, which no living person has ever seen
>>> C-5 the second issue of Air Raid 69353-D - S 69356-D
>>> C-6 Merchant of Venice ME-1 - ME-12
>>> C-7 Twelfth Night ME-13 - ME-22
>>> C-8 Bessie Smith 3171-D - 3176-D November 1937
>>> C-9 European Dance Album 310-M - 315-M
>>> C-10 Julius Caesar ME-24 - ME-34
>>>
>>> By the way, ME-23 is Excerpts From Merchant of Venice/Excerpts from
>>> Twelfth Night. Does anybody have it or even seen it? 
>>>
>>> Mercury Theater's abridged Julius Caesar is Masterworks Set 325 11117-D
>>> - 11121-D issued May 1938.
>>> Macbeth was C-33 ME-35 - ME-43 December 1940.
>>>
>>> Air Raid was broadcast Oct 17, 1938. War of the Worlds was broadcast
>>> Oct 30, 1938. CBS bought ARC/Columbia/Brunswick/Vocalion in December
>>> 38, just at the time when Air Raid was probably being released. As I've
>>> been reading stories in the magazines of the time wondering how this
>>> would change things, I realized that if they issued War of the Worlds
>>> they would have had a HUGE HIT on their hands!!!
>>>
>>> The four foreign dance albums are an enigma. Have any of you ever seen
>>> any of them? I'm still looking for issue dates since the monthly
>>> Columbia new release supplements on the films at R&H end at Dec 36 and
>>> resume only with that Sept 39 cumulative supplement and the 1940s
>>> numericals. I recall a posting that was linked from either here or
>>> the ARSCList about a South American archive looking for the unissued
>>> sides. Something like 40 songs were recorded in ONE NIGHT aboard a ship
>>> in a harbor where local bands were invited on board to play and be
>>> recorded. The sets are so rare that they didn't even know about the
>>> second Tango album till a dub was given them, and some of the surviving
>>> performers don't remember ever being notified of the releases. Does
>>> this sound familiar to anyone? I should also ask on Arsclist. By late
>>> 1940 all the pre-C11 albums other than the Mercury Theater were gone. 
>>> (I'm hoping they will let me go thru the shelves at R&H next week and
>>> they might be there. There's a new regime there and I don't know the
>>> new higher-ups, and am getting my intros to them via Seth.)
>>>
>>> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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