[78-L] Request.

[David Lennick]

On 12/23/2010 6:06 PM, Taylor Bowie wrote:
> Although it comes in the form of sad news,  I'm grateful to be able to read
> the obits and thank those of you who alert the rest of us to the passings of
> musicians and people from the world of sound preservation.
>
> Sometimes the poster assumes that the rest of us already know the person in
> question.  Often,  I don't (esp. collectors and academics)  and would
> respectfully ask that when someone posts an obit that they tell us a little
> bit about that person and what they had done during their life.
>
> Thanks from
>
> Taylor
>


I'm going to answer this by quoting a comment that just appeared on the Toast 
of New York list.

On 12/23/2010 6:06 PM, Dave Dixon wrote:
> I am so sorry to hear this news.
>
> Jack Towers was a very special person in that very small community of
> audio magicians.
>
> I met Jack at several Duke Ellington conventions over the years and I
> had the opportunity to tell him how much the 1940 Fargo recording,
> which he made on a portable machine, has meant to me.
>
> My first indication of how he could rescue badly cared for lacquer
> discs was in the early 1980s when Wayne Knight was gifted with a set
> of soundtrack pre-recordings for the film New Orleans. As I listened
> to these recordings I realized that here was all the music that should
> have been in the soundtrack but was either truncated in the final film
> or talked over with inane dialogue. The problem was that these discs
> had been played and played until they were unbearably noisy and one
> disc (Where The Blues Were Born In New Orleans) was unplayable for the
> first one minute or so.
>
> If you have heard the resulting LP after Jack Towers went to work on
> them, you would never realize what a mess he started with. Except for
> Where The Blues Were Born In New Orleans which was not salvageable and
> had to be faded in after the opening. So that was how the U.S.
> pressing came out.
>
> But Jack wasn't happy about being defeated by this faded in opening.
> He kept remembering this problem and some months later he unbelievably
> came up with a playable copy of the very same recording which another
> producer had found. Jack tipped off Wayne Knight and a deal was
> reached for the use of that better copy. So that is why the English LP
> pressing of the New Orleans soundtrack has a complete version of Where
> The Blues Were Born In New Orleans (they didn't change my liner notes
> so I am still apologizing for the missing opening which of course is
> no longer missing).
>
> So when you hired Jack Towers you got the full service package.
>
> He was a great guy and he loved the music.
>
> Dave Dixon
>