[78-L] Long length Billy Murray acoustical Victors

[Ryan Barna]

In answer to Mike's question,
 
Victor records from 1908 to 1912 are particularly frustrating because they do not show takes, and just because a take was listed as "Master" in the ledger does not necessarily mean it was issued. For instance, there are a number of unissued titles in the ledgers with "Master" written next to the takes, but were obviously rejected and destroyed at some point, without anyone updating the status in the ledger. In another case, there are two takes that exist of Murray's "Over on the Jersey Side," but the ledger only lists take 3 as being issued, take 2 as destroyed, and take 1 as (probably) being held in the vault in Camden. Yet, two takes of "Over on the Jersey Side" were issued, based on aural evidence.

 
Some later pressings on the batwing labels will show which takes were issued, but then again, a good portion of later pressings I've looked at don't.
 
Just to make sure this response will be as accurate as possible, I looked back at my digitized images of the Victor ledgers and can confirm that this is what they list:
 

BB 8698 "M" [Master] Night Trip to Buffalo (Descriptive) "Spec Label" 3/11/10
BB 8698-2 "Des." Night Trip to Buffalo (Descriptive) "Spec Label" 3/11/10
BB 8686-4 "M" [Master] Casey Jones 3/11/10
BB 9142 "M" [Master] Farmyard Medley 6/28/10
BB 9142-2 "Des." Farmyard Medley 6/28/10
 
Takes 4, 6, 7, and 12 of "Casey Jones" were indeed marked as "Master" in the ledgers.
 
"Farmyard Medley" (mx. 9142) definitely shows a "BB" prefix in the ledger, and should be noted in EDVR. (But interestingly, the blue history card only shows a single "B.") I've inspected two copies of 16676 -- one pressed in 1912, and another from around 1916. The grooves on the 1912 pressing are a lot narrower than I usually find them. The grooves on the 1916 pressing are wider, but the label is smaller, much smaller than the 1912 pressing. And I can assure you that the takes are the same, by aural comparison.
 
Regarding Nos. 3090 ("Farmyard Medley") and 3513 ("Night Trip to Buffalo") -- one of the earliest numerical lists I have is July 1, 1905, and it doesn't list any records in the 3000 series, so we can assume that by this time they were all eliminated from sale, maybe earlier. The blue cards for the discs do not specify when they were withdrawn, which is probably why they're still on EDVR as being issued with these numbers.


For "A Night Trip to Buffalo," I don't know where EDVR got take 3 from. It's not noted in the ledger or on the blue card. Was it from their "legacy" data? They should cite a source.
 
Nos. 43 ("Night Trip to Buffalo") and 124 ("Farmyard Medley") continued to be listed in the catalogs until they were finally out in the May 1912 edition. I have never seen copies of either one of these numbers with Billy Murray and the American Quartet, but based on the catalogs, I assume they were issued with those catalog numbers. In many cases Victor continued to offer the same selections in both single-sided and double-sided forms for customers who only wanted a single selection. (The 10" single-sided discs were 15 cents cheaper than the 10" double-sided discs.)

-Ryan