[78-L] Compo comments, was Re: Hollywood Bowl recordings

[David Lennick]

On 10/1/2010 11:07 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
> From: "Michael Biel"<mbiel at mbiel.com>
>>>> I made special mention of the [1928 Mac] Hollywood Bowl recordings,
>>>> which were quite
>>>> unusual for the time. They were the first outdoor recordings Victor had
>>>> made,
>>>> and special precautions had to be taken so as not to get any extraneous
>>>> sounds
>>>> on the recordings.   Cary Ginell
>> On 9/27/2010 1:18 AM, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:
>>> Not exactly, Victor recorded the Victory Tower, (later the Peace Tower),
>>> carillon in Ottawa on July 1, 1927, and, of course, studios were fairly
>>> small in
>>> those days so they recorded it outdoors.   db
>> Do we consider Canadian Victor as the same company as VTMC or RCA Victor
>> in the U.S.?  VTMC, of course, had released recordings taken off the air
>> of the Lindbergh Arrival in Washington DC, and the speeches at the
>> Washington Monument which were made several months before the Ottawa
>> Canadian National Exhibition recordings.  Of course the CNE recordings
>> released by Canadian Victor were recordings they made, while the Compo
>> recordings of the event were broadcast recordings.
>>
> There ISN'T a simple answer to this question...! Herbert Berliner, the son
> of
> Emile, set up a company (actually, he inhertited a company foundeed by
> his father...?!) In Canada; from 1918 onward Herbert recorded MANY sides
> for his Canadian-based 216### series in his Montreal studios. Around
> late1922, the US-based VTMC elected to take over Herbert's supposed
> "branch operation," on the basis that he was issuing more of his own
> recordings than the US sides he was supposed to be issuing...?!
>
> In the meantime, Herbert's "Compo Company" side operation had
> started to issue its own electric sides (Compo started recording
> electrically as an experiment in mid-1924, and issued its first
> electrical recordings in late January 1925...!). As a result, VTM(C)
> started issuing electric "VE" records from "the get-go"...and even
> issued a promo disc which paired an acoustic Jack Shilkret side
> w2ith the same titile title, supposedly recorded acoustically by
> the same band...!
>
> Steven C. Barr

Herbert's Compo Company also issued a couple of "Tenor Solo" discs that were 
clearly pirated from John McCormack Victors, and I've long suspected that many 
Compo pressings were done at the Berliner Gramophone Company plant or that 
Herbie stole er redirected the shellac compound from there to his own factory 
in Lachine. The McCormacks were replaced pretty soon with rerecordings by Billy 
James, but the original pirate versions are easily recognizable.

Herbert Berliner had another quirk..around 1940 he decided that radio stations 
should start paying for the privilege of broadcasting all Canadian Decca 
pressings. The broadcasters felt otherwise, so for about 9 years all Canadian 
Deccas carried the words "Broadcasting Prohibited" on the label and a sentence 
on the record sleeve swearing that the disc was sold with the express condition 
of not being broadcast on the radio. One result is that Canadian radio station 
libraries are missing all the Deccas from this period and the years preceding 
(the CBC had two Mae Questel 78s which survived, somehow). Around 1949 the DJs 
started sneaking Deccas on the air (one jock told me the first one he played 
was "Good Night Irene" by The Weavers) and the ban just fell away. US Decca 
bought Compo outright the following year. And stations subscribing to the World 
Program Service were getting lots of Decca product on transcriptions in better 
quality, although not the major artists like Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo and 
the Andrews Sisters.

dl