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

[Cary Ginell]

Listen to "Your True Love" by Carl Perkins on Sun - I believe that was another one that was recorded slowly deliberately to make the song sound more exciting. 

Cary Ginell

> Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:05:22 -0500
> From: thatcher at mediaguide.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Robert Johnson records claimed to be recorded 20% slow
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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/
> >>
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