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

[David Lennick]

Indeed, many singles were cut faster than their LP originals even in the 70s 
and 80s. But rarely more than a semitone if that. As well, many Capitol 78s 
from the 40s are on the fast side..a few years ago I transferred Sparky's Music 
Mix-Up, and at the end of one side we hear a bit of Mendelssohn's Violin 
Concerto. I had to pull it down 3% to have it in E Minor where it's supposed to 
be. And then there are all those Deccas that should play at 80 because the 
cutting tables in New York were off speed. The post-1943 recordings dubbed from 
33RPM lacquers play correctly on LP but reissues of pre-1942 recordings are 
often slow.

But TWENTY PERCENT!? Gimme a break.

dl

On 12/13/2010 7:05 PM, Thatcher Graham wrote:
> Actually deliberately pressing a fast version has numerous historical
> precedents. Several of Fats Domino's sides were deliberately sped up.
> The book Blue Monday covered it in some detail. Though admittedly in
> this case, 3 semitones is hard to believe.
>
> -Thatcher
>
>
>
>
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> On 12/13/2010 5:48 PM, Frank Scott wrote:
>> 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/
>>>
>>> ________________________