[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

[david.diehl at hensteeth.com]

 Moten Swing and a couple of other mid-1940's CBS "W" items have intrigued me for years. They clearly have nothing to do with the Columbia association with World in the 1939-40 period. My guess is it has to do with a pressing plant.
DJD

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-----Original Message-----
From: David Lennick [mailto:dlennick at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:33 PM
To: '78-L Mail List'
Subject: Re: [78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

Michael Biel wrote:> From: David Lennick >> 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.comDecca bought World around 1942, probably to get at their 33RPM mastering process. I'm sure David Diehl will document Columbia's using World's facilities in 1939-40 while they were building their own.dl> > > 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)?>>> _______________________________________________> 78-L mailing list> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l> > _______________________________________________> 78-L mailing list> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l> > > _______________________________________________78-L mailing list78-L at klickitat.78online.comhttp://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l