[78-L] Early electrics - again

[Bryan Wright]

Today while cataloguing some Victor 19600-series records in my  
collection, I came across Victor 19621 - the Trinity Choir singing  
"Hark, Hark My Soul" and "Prayer of Thanksgiving." What intrigued me  
is that this is an electric recording. I can tell this both from  
listening to the record and also by the customary "VE" bug in the  
runout. Both sides of my copy show take -1. I looked the disc up in  
EDVR and they show only takes 2 and 4 issued, with take 1 for each  
title marked "Hold." All takes appear to have been made on the same  
date: March 4, 1925 in Victor's Camden studio. The EDVR page has a  
note that the prefixes to the matrix numbers (BE-32167 and BE-32166)  
suggest electric recordings, but a handwritten entry in the Victor  
ledger says "Miss Bushnell says elec. rec'g started Mar. 11, 1925 in  
one room only." Does anyone have a copy with takes 2 and 4? Are they  
acoustic or electric?

I know that Victor 19626 (Mask and Wig Glee Chorus) is always cited as  
the "first" Victor electric recording. The two sides of that record  
were made March 16 and 20, 1925. We know that the "Miniature Concert  
by the Eight Popular Victor Artists" (Victor 35753) was recorded  
electrically in Camden on February 26, 1925, but not issued until  
several months later.

EDVR shows that 19626 was issued in April 1925. I suppose then that it  
qualifies as the first electric recording that Victor released. 19621  
was issued the following month, but it was recorded first and bears a  
lower catalogue number. I realize that Victor went back and re- 
recorded a few earlier titles and released them under the original  
catalogue numbers (Dalhart's "Wreck of the Old 97" comes to mind), but  
might 19621 be the lowest catalogue number *and* the earliest  
recording in the standard 10-inch popular series to be originally  
issued as an electric recording? EDVR doesn't show that the title was  
ever re-made at a later date, so I assume the electric recordings on  
my copy were made on the March 4, 1925 date shown in EDVR. (And if  
they *were* remakes from later, wouldn't the take numbers be higher  
since Victor usually kept the same matrix number for remakes?) I  
wonder if Victor made acoustic and electric versions on the same date  
as they had with the "Miniature Concert" record the week before?

Bryan W.