[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

[Michael Biel]

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> This W actually refers to World, which did the recording for Columbia
> for a while in the early CBS period. I don't think Columbia was using
> Western Electric after the early 30s.  dl

I think you have it backwards.  Wasn't it Decca where the lead matrix
prefix letter W denotes World? Remember the discussion with Doug Pomoroy
last week about the Decca vertical masters of the operettas?  And by the
way, World used ONLY Western Electric equipment.  Their labels note that
Sound Studios of NY was a Western Electric licensee.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com


Royal Pemberton wrote:
> 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)?
> 
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