[78-L] Ethel Gabriel of (e) fame

[Randy Watts]

re: RCA LPM-2041 -- I've seen two different public domain CDs that "borrowed" the cover art from that album--portions of it, anyway--for their own releases.
 
re: reverb -- Reverb was more ubiquitous than fake stereo. If you were buying music from the 78 r.p.m. era on LP, you could choose to avoid electronically rechanneled stereo, but almost everything had a greater or lesser degree of reverb added to it. One of those Decca 2-LP "Best of's" the label did in the 1960s acknowledges the added reverb in the liner notes, but speaks of it in glowing terms, as adding "life and sparkle" to recordings made originally in small, "sound-deadening" studios.
 
Reverb proved to be more durable than fake stereo. The latter pretty much died out early in the CD era, but reverb stayed around longer. Quite a number of early CD releases of 78-era music may have been mono, but still had noticeable amounts of reverb added to them.
 
I don't remember what terminology the labels all used for fake stereo. Decca's was "enhanced for stereo." RCA's was "stereo effect reprocessed from monophonic." Capitol's was "Duophonic." Columbia's was "electronically re-recorded to simulate stereo." Don't recall about the others.
 
Randy 


>________________________________
>  Speaking of pleasing the public with fake stereo and fake echo,
>I recall talking to older fans in the 1960s who gave me their 78s and how much they really
>thought the sound on the LPs they were buying really was soooo much better than what
>was on the 78s – and they were talking about stuff like the Reader’s Digest
>sets and Ethel’s Miller Camdens.  I
>particularly recall one guy who was so thrilled with the Hal Kemp RCA
>LPM-2041.  [Dave - remember Doc Kreideman?]  I had forgotten how bad that
>really was until recently when I went to lift a track from it for my show because
>my 78 was so beat up.  Next to the nice
>78s and other tracks I had, that echoed up mess on LPM-2041 was so bad I cut
>the tune from my playlist instead.  
>Hard
>as it is for us to comprehend it today, maybe it really was some form of public demand that drove the fakery and
>we just have to chalk it up to taste and context, both of which were driven by what was made available.
>Interesting discussion and I really appreciate Mike Biel taking the time to explain some of the technicalities that went into it - and  why some of it can be un-done and some can't.