[78-L] Average age was

[Michael Biel]

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> I think we were all pretty clearly talking about the early fifties, despite
> Mr. Barr's reference to ARC, unless Steve merged three decades into one

Actually Steve was very accurate for what happened in 1940, but not for
what happened in Feb 1952 which is what I was commenting on.  Your
references were in the mid 50s into the 60s with the mention of Vintage,
and that was yet another era.  Geoffrey Wheeler's books are good guides
to this.

There are several distinct eras.  In the 30s there were legit licensing
of masters by UHCA, HJC, and Commodore which ended when the majors
decided to increase their own reissue projects in 1940.  This continued
thru the 1940s, but in the post-war years some new companies took it
upon themselves to start reissue projects on 78s and then LPs without
licensing the masters from the owners.  All of these companies
voluntarily closed down suddenly within days of Feb. 7, 1952, the date
Jolly Roger's Dante Bolletino agreed to the out of court settlement. 
This cleared the way for the other reissues by the majors which were the
subject of the rest of your comments.

In Jan 1952 only Jolly Roger had gotten sued because it was continuing
to issue Louis Armstrong LPs even after Columbia had issued four 12-inch
LPs with much of the same material.  To everyone's surprise Louie
entered into the suit because he actually had a royalty contract with
Columbia that even covered his 1920s recordings.  His 1924 contract had
included a royalty clause for him but only a straight payment for the
rest of the band!  Surprisingly, Columbia had been honoring that
contract and had actually been paying him royalties.  

The Record Changer articles noted that had any of the other companies
waited and later got sued and took the majors to court, the outcomes
might not go automatically in the favor of the majors because the
settlement does not set any legal precedent.  Noting that the majors had
been rejecting legitimate requests to license masters, they called for
the majors to license companies to use their masters they are ignoring,
and said "We intend to press as hard as we can for a system of
authorized, licensed, independent reissues of jazz classics."  Bill
Grauer had been the writer of the earlier Record Changer articles and
might have written the March 1952 article and editorial, and shortly
thereafter he started doing reissues on Riverside.  

> and I missed something or the cat got in front of the computer screen again.
> Always best to blame the cat. She can take it.  dl

Not OUR cat.  Chuck will not tolerate being blamed for something he was
not responsible for -- and he knows how to take revenge.  Be careful. 
Be very careful.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  


On 11/12/2010 11:09 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Average age was
> From: "Steven"<stevenc at interlinks.net>
> Date: Fri, November 12, 2010 7:10 pm
> To: "78-L Mail List"<78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>
> From: Michael Biel
>>> I've just been reading some Record Changer magazines from 1949-1952,
>>> seeing the growth and sudden demise of the independent re-issue labels.
>
>> Oddly enough, it was the sudden growth of the "independent re-issue"
>> labels that led to their "sudden" demise! All of this vintage jazz material
>> was "owned" by Victor and/or American Record Corporation; however,
>> neither firm was aware of the amount of interest in the stuff...! When
>> the "pirate" re-issue operations became rather successful (as well as
>> profitable..!), Victor and particularly ARC realized the potential value
>> of re-issuing the material. They quickly forced the new labels to shut
>> down...and started their own re-issue projects! Steven C. Barr
>
> You are in the wrong decade (and Lennick and Pemberton are in yet
> another wrong decade!). If you looked, I was talking about 1949 to 1952
> which was a decade after ARC. In the mid to late 1930s the majors did
> license Commodore, Hot Record Society, Hot Record Club of America to do
> reissues from original masters if available. These were NOT pirates but
> were legit licensed issues with the blessings of the majors. But around
> 1940 they backed away from licensing and started their own reissue
> series, mainly albums but some singles. The era I was discussing was
> after the war when a NEW batch of companies started doing reissues that
> were totally unauthorized and were dubs instead of master pressings.
> They were well known and well advertised, but some rivalries developed
> between Metronome's George Simon and The Record Collector which reviewed
> the reissues and accepted their advertising. In Dec 1950 or Jan 1951
> Metronome published an expose of the unauthorized reissue companies. In
> the Jan 1951 Record Collector there was an article "Editor Bites
> Editor", and letters of support followed in the March 1951 issue.
> Columbia was putting some of their earlier re-issue albums on 10-inch
> LP, and in the summer of 51 issued four 12-inch Masterworks reissues of
> Louis Armstrong, which were reviewed in the Sept Record Changer. But
> Jolly Roger had already issued four 10-inch LPs of some of the same
> Armstrongs, and continued with several more. Although there had been
> some hints it was coming (and Clef Music Shop announced in the Feb issue
> a HUGE 39 cent sale of the 78 reissues from many labels) suddenly in Feb
> 52 Columbia sued Jolly Roger which accepted an out-of-court settlement,
> paid Louis $1000, destroyed their stock, and scared EVERY OTHER COMPANY
> into destroying their stocks and going out of business (except for any
> new recording work they were doing with current musicians.) Clef bought
> up remaining stocks of everything that was in all dealers' hands, and
> advertised them in the March issue. That issue also summarized what had
> been happening, including the discovery that Jolly Roger had been
> pressed by RCA's Custom Division.
>
> The discussions of DL and RP have completely overlooked the reissue
> programs the majors had on 78s in the 40s, which is what I had been
> discussing, and the 1930s club reissues that Barr had been discussing.
> I don't think you can claim heavy handed echo and compression when the
> reissues are pressed from from the original masters.
>
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
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