[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

Sat Jan 23 16:45:15 PST 2010

Did Sacro also continue the payment of patent license royalties to WE after
its takeover of Columbia, and if so, for how long?  None of the Columbias I
have from the Sacro era (wouldn't that be technically a more accurate name
for the post-Grigsby-Grunow/pre-CBS period?) have the W in the dead wax
(though I've seen labels of some I don't have, that showed the matrix number
as something like 'CO-W-1xxxx' or 'W-CO-1xxxx' that I presume did have the W
in their dead wax areas).

I wonder why the W symbol reappears on some mid-1940s Columbias?  I don't
mean repressings of, or even dubbed reissues, of previously released
electrical sides recorded by Columbia between 1925 and 1934 or so, but
mid-40s recordings.

Here's a pair of examples of what I'm asking about:  17409-D, one side is
CO.35354-1, the other is CO.37025-2; 37351, matrices HCO.2138-1 and
HCO.2139-1 (37351 being 'Moten swing' by Harry James).  On these records the
old W appears at the 3 o'clock position relative to the matrix numbers which
appear at the traditional 6 o'clock position.

For how long were Victor and Columbia required to pay patent royalties to
WE?  Only until the patents concerned ran out (and when did they do so)?

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:

> Welcome to the 78-L, Geoffrey.  I'm a big fan of your Jazz By Mail, and
> tried to get your Collectors Guide To Bootlegs and Reissues, but the
> Jazz Record Center was out of stock (temporarily they said) when I went
> there a couple of months ago.  As you probably don't know, the
> introduction of electrical recording is one of my research specialties,
> and back in 1977 I presented a landmark paper at ARSC that is still
> being quoted "Electrical Recording Before Western Electric."
>
> In your posting, are you the "author" in possession of the
> correspondence you quoted?  If so, we really have to get together!!
> This is great stuff.  For my current project of documenting the
> pre-Steinweiss illustrated album covers I do need some additional
> confirmation of what went on inside Columbia between 38 and 40, such as
> who dreamed up the idea for album C-11 and who authorized the resumption
> of the C series.
>
> But while I am here on the topic of this thread, there were some
> questions raised.  Yes Columbia and Victor continued to use their old
> cutting lathes with the new WE cutting heads.  In some published
> articles about WE there were some stupid comments made that WE built 78
> RPM into their standard because otherwise Victor wouldn't have been
> interested.  Speed is not specifically mentioned in the WE standards
> because they didn't necessarily supply the turntables.  They mainly
> continued using weight-driven turntables because slight variations in
> voltage and frequency of the AC could affect conistnacy of speed but
> have little effect on the operation of the amps and other parts of the
> audio chain.  Do you notice any of your equipment malfunctioning when
> there are changes in power?  Do you even notice changes in the power?
>
> WE recording did not occur overnight.  It has been discussed here that
> there are a number of test recordings made over a period of almost two
> years of NY Philharmonic broadcast excerpts.  The several takes of the
> 1922 soundtrack to a film about the Audion tube recorded by engineer
> Stanley Watkins in LC and Bell Labs.  But they were not the first.  The
> first released electrical recording was the Memorial Record recorded by
> Guest and Merriman of portions of the ceremony of the burial of the
> unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey on Armistace Day 1920.  It is
> detailed in Ed Moogk's Roll Back the Years.  They also did electrical
> recording experiments at American Columbia in 1922 and 23, and they
> sound lousy!  There were experiments being done at Victor during that
> same era by Albertis Hewitt, and Alan Sutton reports that one of his
> 1922 tests exists.  Victor even had a radio station to supply audio for
> test recordings.  Benjamin Franklin Miessner claimed to have done
> electrical recording experiments at Brunswick in Chicago in 1921 and 22
> using a modified Baldwin headphone as a cutter head.  Charles Hoxie of
> GE developed his Pallophotophone to record sound-on film in 1922 but
> also developed the Pallotrope which recorded electrically on discs which
> became the basis of the RCA system Brunswick used in 1925 for both their
> light-ray recording and Panatrope electrical phonographs.  It also was
> on loan to Hewitt at Victor in late 1922 and he might have based some of
> his system on it.  And of course there is Orlando Marsh in Chicago, and
> there is a good description and preliminary discography at Alan Sutton's
> site.  It seems to note that Marsh was releasing electrical recordings
> in 1923. Sponable and Case, as well as Lee deForest were doing good
> electrical recording on film in 22-24.  So there was a lot of activity
> during those years when WE recording "suddenly" hit in 1925.
>
> As for what happened to the acoustical recording equipment, there wasn't
> much stuff to do anything with!  Since the lathes and turntables were
> still being used, all there really was were the cutter-heads and horns.
> Edison's are still at the Site.  EMI has one head and a couple of horns.
>  Most everything else was trashed or taken home, especially the Victor
> heads which were hand-made by the Sooey Bros.  And Columbia continued to
> use it for Harmony.  As to whether their financial troubles and license
> fees were a reason to continue to use the acoustical recording equipment
> for Harmony, I don't know.  It has also been conjectured that since the
> majority of people were still using acoustical players that some still
> preferred the less harsh acoustical recordings.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording
> From: Geoffrey Wheeler <dialjazz at verizon.net>
> Date: Sat, January 23, 2010 1:20 pm
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>
>
> On February 25, 1925, Western Electric Company sent Columbia Phonograph
> Inc. a contract regarding the conversion of Columbia Phonograph from
> acoustic to electrical recording. The original copy shows written in
> ink to the left of the last paragraph “Accepted May 14, 1925 H. C. Cox
>
> Pres.” Most of the correspondence from Western Electric between 1925
> and 1933 in the author’s possession comes from G. E. Cullinan, General
>
> Sales Manager, Western Electric Company Inc. General Supply Department,
> 100 East 42nd Street, New York City. Between 1925 and 1933, the
> principal issues raised by Columbia Phonograph regard how to calculate
> royalties on either records pressed or records sold, discounting
> returns, and the submission of payments. Columbia was forever behind in
> its payments, which may explain why it was slow to covert Harmony from
> acoustic to electrical recording. In December 1933, Columbia Phonograph
> was forced into bankruptcy, owing monies to various creditors,
> including its parent company, Grigsby-Grunow. Columbia Phonograph was
> sold Monday, April 16, 1934 as a single lot in Chicago federal
> bankruptcy court to Sacro Enterprises Inc., a New York corporation
> formed Saturday, April 14, 1934. Purchase price was $70,500. Sacro
> acquired legal rights to all physical, intellectual, and financial
> property, including the trade name Columbia Phonograph but not the
> legal right to the corporate name and charter. Columbia Phonograph was,
> as they say, dead, dead, dead, and really dead as a corporation. Best
> evidence shows that most likely Sacro was created and funded by
> Consolidated Film Industries and managed by American Record
> Corporation. Sacro itself never paid taxes and never filed required
> forms with the IRS or the State of New York and was declared
> involuntarily bankrupt December 15, 1938. At no time did CFI, by then
> listed on the New York Stock Exchange, file that Sacro was a wholly
> owned corporation. This is, in part, why nobody at the time had ever
> heard of Sacro and there is nothing to document its existence other
> than its corporate filing. CBS itself does not seem to know these facts
> until 1977 when it was involved in a copyrights lawsuit before a
> European court. Once it had this information, CBS did not pursue or
> disclose it to shareholders, business partners, the FCC, banks, or any
> other governmental or institutional entity worldwide!
> Geoffrey Wheeler
>
>
>
>
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