[78-L] Robert Johnson

[David Lennick]

That idiotic theory about Robert Johnson's records being at the wrong speed has 
surfaced again (sorry to divert the list from rock 'n' roll). I don't know who 
wrote the following but it should certainly settle the issue forever. Of course 
it won't. Repeated from Bruce Conforth's posting on Facebook.

dl

RE: ARE ROBERT JOHNSON'S RECORDINGS AT THE CORRECT SPEED

Here's an interesting note a friend of mine just posted about the theory of 
some that Johnson's recordings are at the wrong speed

"A friend of mine is the lead archive engineer for Sony: l asked him about 
this, and here's his incredibly detailed answer, which is the last word on it, imo:

"This again? *sigh* Okay, first of all we have established that there was 
nothing at either recording location, Dallas or San Antonio, that was wrong 
electrically that might have caused a change in pitch. Plus, these sessions 
were separated by a period of weeks or months as well as miles. The reason I 
know that there were no electrical issues is that we ordered in a number of 
recordings of other performers from each of those days and they are in (or very 
close to) correct keys. So, that eliminates that as a possible factor. What has 
often been thrown around out there is that they decided to speed up the 
recordings to make them more energetic, ie. uptempo. If that were the case Don 
Law would have had to have decided to SLOW DOWN the recording on site or make 
changes to the pitch after the fact by making a disc-to-disc dub, changing the 
speed of the original and recording at normal speed for the dub. In the first 
case you wouldn't know your result until after the fact. Remember you have to 
plate metal masters and press before you hear the recording. I doubt they would 
have tried to playback freshly cut wax. Suppose it sounds like shit? In the 
second case we would have heard not just the surface noise of the masters we 
were playing but ALSO the surface noise from the discs they were speeding up 
and recording from. We didn't hear that. Another question would be: why would 
they decide to take the recordings of an itinerant black blues musician and 
lavish attention on them in that way? Incurring additional costs to sell in the 
"colored" market? Highly unlikely. And, yes, we have listened to the original 
metal masters for a good chunk of those recordings from both sessions. They DO 
exist. They were rediscovered around five or six years ago. So, in short, no, 
they were not sped up. People just want there to be some great mystery 
surrounding these legendary recordings. That's all."