[78-L] 78 Album Sets outside the US & Canada

[David Lennick]

An odd thing about Victor..they couldn't get around the idea of a classical work that required only two discs being in an album. I don't know if there were exceptions, but every one I've seen through the 20s and 30s has been a pair of single discs..they may have begun putting older titles in albums (with late catalog numbers) around 1940, maybe when they started repackaging every set in Drop Auto sequence. And US Decca put out many sets from English Decca and Parlophone in the budget 25000 series, but without albums as far as I know. (Victor DID put some 2-disc works into albums, but in combination with other works, such as Ibert's Divertissement coupled with MacDowell's 2nd Piano Concerto.)

dl
 
> Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:23:17 -0400
> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] 78 Album Sets outside the US & Canada
> 
> I covered a lot of the history of albums in my ARSC presentation that 
> will eventually be on their website "The Illustrated Album Cover Before 
> Steinweiss." The Europeans were doing classical album sets long before 
> we did in the U.S., before 1910 in fact. In 1917 HMV started to have 
> beautifully illustrated covers on their operetta sets, but by the 
> mid-20s these and all their other sets were packaged in embossed 
> leatherette-like fine library-edition albums. It was only in 1924 when 
> Columbia, then Victor and later Brunswick started doing classical sets. 
> Prior to that time (and occasionally even afterwards) multi-disc works 
> were sold as individual discs.
> 
> The concept of popular music in album sets was not immediately apparent 
> because single records fit the format better. Victor did have several 
> short-lived thematic albums in 1926 for Mother's Day, Christmas, and the 
> public intro to Orthophonic, and they also instituted the C- album 
> series with composer sets like Victor Herbert, Stephen Foster, etc. We 
> are still looking for the catalog details of the Jimmie Rodgers album 
> they put out around 1932. Both American and British Brunswick had 
> beautifully designed albums in 1932 for the revivals of Showboat and 
> Blackbirds [of 1928], and the British also started issuing jazz 
> compilations, sometimes in limited subscription editions. They really 
> had the idea of pop albums going before the U.S. did. The Bix 
> Beiderbecke memorial on Victor and the Bessie Smith memorial on Columbia 
> started things happening in the U.S. as general record sales picked up 
> in 36 and 37. These were reissues, but then some labels started doing 
> new recordings in album sets, Benny Goodman on Victor, Artie Shaw on 
> Bluebird, Kostalantz on Brunswick, Boogie Woogie on Vocalion, along with 
> numerous albums by Liberty Music Shop, Musicraft, and others in 37 and 
> 38 were topped by the Decca Album series which started at the end of 
> 1937 and hit 100 albums by the end of 1939.
> 
> British Brunswick and British Decca started their popular album series 
> in mid-1939 both borrowing from and giving ideas to American Decca. It 
> was only AFTER all this that American Columbia picked up on the album 
> set idea and started their red label popular series at C-11 in late 
> March/early April 1940 with Steinweiss's first cover after almost 200 
> illustrated covers on other labels had led the way. The war did 
> restrict the British record industry in general, but I think album sets 
> did continue although a lot of classical works were once again being 
> sold as individual discs. From what I see of post-war British sets 
> imported into the U.S., in just about all cases the discs were imported 
> and the album books themselves were manufactured in the U.S. This also 
> was the case of a lot of the British LPs. It was cheaper to make the 
> albums in the U.S. than to ship all that paper and cardboard, so only 
> the discs were shipped.
> 
> Since The Gramophone magazine is available on-line, that is the best 
> source for info on how records were packaged in England in the 30s and 
> war years. And our own Geoffrey Wheeler has done a good job documenting 
> the growth of the jazz albums in his books "Jazz by Mail", and 
> "Collectors Guide to Jazz on Bootleg & Reissue 78 RPM Records 1932-1952" 
> (although he does have a bug as to whether Columbia has a legitimate 
> claim to any ARC and earlier masters,, and calls a lot of their reissues 
> "bootlegs"!)
> 
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
> 
> 
> On 7/31/2010 11:21 AM, Jeff Sultanof wrote:
> > In fact, the first Ted Heath sides issued in the US consisted of The London
> > Suite, a set of three 10" 78s of themes written by Fats Waller. The liner
> > notes clearly state this. This was issued here in 1948.
> >
> > I can also attest that at least some of the albums themselves were printed
> > here. I once had the Carousel original cast set, and discovered that there
> > was another cover below the Carousel cover. Curiosity got the best of me, so
> > I tore the Carousel cover off to discover the cover to an album of Ansermet
> > and the Suisse Romande performing Stravinsky's Petrouchka.
> >
> > Jeff Sultanof
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 10:58 AM, David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not sure about album sets of popular music in Europe, although there
> >> were some jazz compilations issued in the 30s and the Brunswick Showboat
> >> album was definitely issued as such (I have it), but classical album sets
> >> were definitely marketed in Europe and the UK, probably before the idea
> >> caught on in the States. During the 40s there was a serious restriction on
> >> the material used to make albums, and sets were sold without them as late as
> >> 1950 I believe. London and Deutsche Grammophon album sets were definitely
> >> imported into North America in the late 40s, although the albums themselves
> >> were probably manufactured in the States. London sets included Ted Heath,
> >> George Shearing, Ambrose, Harry Roy, plus dozens of classical works.
> >>
> >> dl
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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