[78-L] NBC (was: YOU)

[Michael Biel]

From: Sammy Jones <sjones69 at bellsouth.net>
> I recently got a 12" 78 rpm lacquer set of the War of the Worlds that was
> supposed to have been owned by Orson, himself, and it has that station
> break intact.

So YOU got that set!!  I saw it listed. I figured it would go for more
than I could afford so I didn't bid.  

> The Harry Smith labels say CBS/WABC, but there is no WABC station ID
> in the break or at the end, so it must be from the line and not off-air. 

CBS did allow line connections because they supposedly didn't have their
own internal recording service.  Decades ago I heard that Sidney Frey
had bought the Harry Smith studio and archive, and that this is where he
got the WOW discs that comprised the Audio Rarities LP in the 50s.  Do
you have that LP to compare side changes and surface noise?  I could
send you a CD I dubbed last year.  The story I had heard is that Welles
contracted Smith to do the recording and told him to lay low because
there will be people checking every studio to see if they have a
recording.  But since these are HIS, hold them till he comes to get them
when things die down.  Supposedly they were in the wrong format and that
he needed them to be dubbed.  If this is a set he supposedly owned, then
this would be a dub from the 16s and that the 16s are what were still at
the studio.  

The Audio Rarities LP is missing the open, close, mid-break intro and
outtro, and a page worth in the middle.  I have been in contact with
Frey's daughter who has his files, but have not yet gotten to them to
see what might be there about this production.  

> My copy also has a few words spoken by Carl Phillips which are missing/garbled
> due to a bad side change/tape edit on all of the commercial reissues I've heard.
> Sammy Jones

What are the words and where are they in the recording?  I really only
have played my tape and although I have the LPs I don't know where this
glitch is that everybody mentions.  If yours plays thru it, I need to
compare it with my tape (on CD) and the LPs and CDs -- which all seem to
be derived from the Evolution Manheim Fox version.  I got my tape a year
before any of the LPs.  Have you transferred your discs yet?

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 



Mike Biel wrote:
So does the script in the sourcebooks mediaFusion book. This one also
says "the best next thing" which was Welles verbal error. Do the other
books say "the next best thing" which is what should have been said? 
(By the way, for the second year I will be broadcasting from the Grovers
Mill landing site om the night of Oct 30. This year the broadcast will
be on RadioOnceMore.com and might be from 6 PM to midnight.) We'll be
playing the master tape I have that includes the 30 seconds of slight
surface noise during the middle station break. We might also be
analyzing the modifications some fiend made to the recording last year
to try to trick people into believing there were two performances
recorded. And we hope to have the WKBW version from 1968. 

On Thu, 2010-10-14 at 11:23 -0700, Sammy Jones wrote:
>> I didn't mean to imply that I'd seen a script where the longer name
>> was crossed out. I've never seen a facsimilie, only the reprints
>> that appeared the the Invasion from Mars book published shortly
>> after the broadcast and a book (whose names escapes me) by Howard Koch.
>> 
>> Both of these versions say "Columbia Broadcasting System."