[78-L] Lester Young - or Arnold Corey?

[warren moorman]

The typo misspelling of Covey's name is less eyebrow raising to me than the assertion that in the fall in '39, he was the Goodman guitarist who was "the father of modern jazz-guitar playing". Covey, deserving as he his of being better remembered, and Leonard Ware, another brief Goodman consideree, obviously didn't carry the influence of Christian.
 
Still, I wouldn't impeach Peerless or his peers for that one line. Colin Escott, who's authoritative knowledge of country and early rock&roll is unquestionable, was associated with the most incredible liner note howler I've ever known, not once but twice. In his first book on Sun records, he printed an extremely unlikely explanation about Eddie Hill's record "The Hot Guitar", then many years later, a Mercury box set he produced carried a different but equally preposterous explanation. Yet he's undoubtedly expert, and has corrected himself on other things, such as his introduction to the 1987 Sun discography, where he confessed to errors in an earlier edition based on accepting session logs at face value. So I assume the "Hot Guitar" errors sprang from a collaborator. A rockabilly project I worked on had liners by another participant that included several glaring and easily preventable errors, such as marveling at how prolific a songwriter
 "W.S. Stevenson" was, when it's widely known and easily found that's a pseudonym used by 4 Star owner Bill McCall to cut himself into royalties.
 
Then again, as a recent 78-l post mentioned, there's the use by Joel Whitburn and perhaps others of intentional misinformation, allegedly to detect infringers. That technique, IMO, is counter to the goal of research, and in the age of internet perpetuation of nonsense, unwieldy and counterproductive at best, a perversion of history at worst. The wide gamut of Allmusic reviewers comes to mind, from the notoriously self-indulgent Eugene Chadbourne to the admirably knowledgeable, self-disciplined and straightforward arwulf arwulf (any ideas who that is?).
 
And speaking of those who often merged useful information with utter nonsense, anyone know the latest status of Steve Barr?
           
On Thursday, March 6, 2014 8:16 AM, Julian Vein <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
 
On 06/03/14 04:36, Rodger Holtin wrote:
> All this discussion brought to mind one of the dumbest liner note guffaws I've ever seen.  Even I figured out it was wrong.
>
> Columbia Jazz Masterpieces series 1987, Benny Goodman Vol 1 "Roll 'Em" CJ40588
> Liner notes by Brian Peerless
> For the last track it says...
> "The final item, "Honeysuckle Rose" is a classic by the orchestra with solos by Goodman and Elman, and the father of modern jazz-guitar playing - the young Arnold Corey. ..."
>
> Yes, it really did say that, "Arnold Corey" [sic].  They at least got Covey right on the Sept 13 1939 session list, but c'mon....   I wonder if this world-class boner was fixed on the subsequent printings or the CD version.
>  
> Rodger
>
>
>
================

The CD version has the same typo. I knew Brian Peerless and I'm sure it 
wasn't done out of ignorance. He is/was well-versed in the Swing Era. He 
was manager of the World's Greatest Jazz Band for a while.


      Julian Vein
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