[78-L] Sholem Aleichem

[Michael Biel]

  On 8/7/2010 7:40 PM, Sherry Mayrent wrote:
> At 05:27 PM 8/7/2010, Michael Biel wrote:
>> Since you have the set, does the Aleichem record in it have both stories
>> and the comments after?
> My copy of the recording does indeed have both stories on it, but we
> included only the first, because of time constraints.
> -- Sherry  Sherry Mayrent  Associate Director, KlezKamp www.klezkamp.org

It is disappointing to hear that the recording was edited on the reissue 
because that is something that is deeply frowned upon unless detailed 
information about this is described in the liner notes. Henry knows 
this, and I hope he did detail the editing in the notes.  We gave Martin 
Williams hell about this several decades ago concerning what he did in 
his Smithsonian broadway show original-cast re-creation albums, and have 
continued to pound him about it past his grave.  It is an altering of 
recorded history and removes it from being an accurate document.  In 
this case especially because of the folklore concerning the comments 
recorded at the end.  (In Martin's case we have to continue to warn 
people about not trusting the sets for accuracy about what was on the 
original 78, and the case of the Gershwin recording which tricked a 
important researcher into thinking she could use the Smithsonian version 
for analyzing Gershwin's performing style.)

I hope that you or someone with this original purple label release will 
post the entire recording.

The fact that nobody -- including Spottswood's discography and the 
Victor project -- seem to know about the black label version that Victor 
edited and released is going to condemn me to the basement to find my 
copy of it so I can report the number.

At least it IS Sholem Aleichem's voice, so it is not as bad as some of 
the tricks Edward R. Murrow played on history in his "I Can Hear It Now" 
albums which have been plaguing historians and documentarians for sixty 
years.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com