[78-L] Robert Johnson records claimed to be recorded 20% slow

[Philip Carli]

This is waaaaay out of my league and I generally hold that the low pitch theory sounds crackpotty, but I'll throw one thing in, and don't kill me: what cycle current were San Antonio and Dallas on in 1937?  I mention it because of one case: in the early 1930s Los Angeles, and a number of other US cities, had 110v/50cycle electric service, and when they changed to 60 cycle Southern Calif. Edison offered an exchange program of electric appliances affected by the change -- the most significant were electric clocks, because the cycle change would make the earlier-manufactured ones run incredibly fast.  I don't know whether the cutting equipment used was DC or AC, but this might be a factor.  Or not.

________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Frank Scott [scottfrank at toast2.net]
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 5:48 PM
To: '78-L Mail List'
Subject: Re: [78-L] Robert Johnson records claimed to be recorded 20% slow

The technical explanations seem very thorough and impressive particularly to
a non musician like myself but the whole theory doesn't make sense. Johnson
was recorded on five different dates with about seven months between the
first batch of sessions and the second. Are we to believe that the recorder
was running slow at all those sessions? Or are we to suppose that they did
it deliberately to make Johnson's recordings sound more exciting?

And of course there were the people who knew Robert well like Son House,
Johnny Shines and Robert Lockwood who never claimed that the records seemed
too fast to them.

It's an intriguing idea that has been discussed at lengths on the blues
lists and the consensus amongst most of the blues scholars on those lists,
some of whom are accomplished musicians, is that the theory doesn't hold
water.

Frank

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [mailto:78-l-
> bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Lichtman
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 2:19 PM
> To: 78-l at 78online.com
> Subject: [78-L] Robert Johnson records claimed to be recorded 20% slow
>
> When I found the following article several weeks ago I paid it little
> attention, as it seemed like a crackpot theory. The claim is that
> Robert Johnson's records were originally recorded three semitones
> slower than how they're typically played back (i.e. people have been
> playing them back about 19% too fast). Assuming that they're usually
> played at 78.26 RPM, that would mean the proper playback speed would
> be around 65.8 RPM. Here is the article, along with samples of the
> recordings slowed to the speed the author believes is correct:
>
> http://www.touched.co.uk/press/rjnote.html
>
> Now I see that this article has gotten attention from The Guardian:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/may/27/robert-johnson-
> blues
>
> and something called The Daily Swarm:
>
> http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/everything-you-know-about-robert-
> johnson-wrong/
>
> I think the idea is nonsense. I can believe that the correct playback
> speed for Johnson's records is something other than 78.26, but I
> highly doubt that the difference is three semitones.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>                         -        Jeff Lichtman
>                                  jeff at swazoo.com
>                                  Check out Swazoo Koolak's Web Jukebox at
>                                  http://swazoo.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
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