[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

[Michael Biel]

From: Geoffrey Wheeler
> advertisement for (E) Brunswick "Blackbirds" recordings July 1933,

Does the (E) mean that this is this an ad for the British issue?  If so,
did they also issue this set in an album, and is there a picture of the
album in the ad?  Your mention of it in "Records By Mail" only give the
record numbers for the British issue with no mention about an album like
you describe for the American issue.  If the British issue is in an
album, they they give the album a number?  (I haven't hit the Gramophone
on-line yet since I can do that at home.)  This situation of the early
popular albums from many companies being unnumbered at first is
interesting in that their contemporary classical album series were
numbered, including Anerican Brunswick.  Of course Columbia gave their
FDR Inaugural Address album a non-prefixed number of 500.

I hate to be seemingly writing my presentation in public but there are
some concepts that I have mentioned in the past in other contexts.  Our
discographical emphasis is almost exclusively based on recording dates. 
Early discography in the 30s and 40s was almost exclusively based on
release numbers and release dates.  I have talked about the influence of
a record begins upon its release, not its recording.  And now in this
study of album covers that I am undertaking I am interested exclusively
on release dates although I am going to bring in a factor of the
chronology of "project conception" influence using a combination of
release and recording dates.  And as some of the Al Duffy discussion
shows, our discographies are almost useless in determining release
dates.  I've been searching reviews, ads, and monthly (and annual)
catalogs, and the ephemeral nature of these and the incompleteness of
files is maddening.

> I don't have a copy of "Jazz By Mail" in front of me so I am not
> sure I mentioned in the text that one of the first albums described
> to me by Steve Smolian was issued around 1906 and included several
> size of discs. If I recall correctly, Steve said it was European
> and that he had donated it to Yale.

I haven't seen this mentioned in the book.  I guess I need to contact
Steve and Dick Warren for details and hope that someone can get me
photos.  It has been mentioned several times in the past year here (dl?)
that there were several illustrated albums that came out in England
around 1910 (Gilbert & Sullivan?).  Details anybody???

> I believe the book album to be a very important step in
> marketing records and creating the means for developing
> the idea of a "concept" or "themed" album.

I am going to have some comments to make on this in my presentation --
the pre-1940 era is much different from what most of us is familiar
with, especially since most of us have not paid attention to album
release dates.

> It also became another medium for the use of
> cover art and photography. 

Of course this is the main topic of my presentation, and everybody seems
to have this wrong on how it developed.

> Most small independent record companies did not issue albums
> but some did so extensively. . . . A lot of collectors seem
> suspicious of book albums, but I think they are marvelous
> and enjoy collecting them.  Geoffrey Wheeler

Once again, 1930s albums is a fascinating era that is not covered in
discographies and histories, and is different than what we generally
think about albums.  I'll be showing color shots of over 150 albums that
most of you have never seen before because they cover such a wide
variety of topics that might not be in your collecting area, and some
are rarer than you think.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com