[78-L] Heartaches and Decca 25000s

[David Lennick]

My understanding is that the deejay who popularized it (Kurt somebody) was 
playing the Bluebird, which Victor then "reissued by request". The 25000s were 
a reissue series, mostly album sets, and I've never found when they 
started..anyone know? Personality Deccas skip from 24999 to 27000, I seem to 
remember.

dl

On 1/11/2015 10:24 PM, Rodger Holtin wrote:
>
> Was Fletcher Henderson 78
>
> Congratulations, Art.  You are the only one I know who has a copy of the
> Bluebird of Heartaches and I've always been curious about that tune and
> Weems.  If it is so scarce on Bluebird, it must not have been a big seller
> when it was new and must not have stayed in the catalog very long, and yet
> he re-recorded it in 1938 for Decca, something I would have expected if it
> had been a hit.  Even as fond of history rewrites as he is in "Pop
> Memories," Whitburn does not even show it as being a hit for Weems in 1933.
> I have seen/owned several of the blue label Deccas #2020, so I guess that
> may have been the "hit" which prompted Decca to recycle it on the black
> 25000 series, of which I have seen almost as many as Near You.  I assume it
> was the black label 25017 that the record dealer had so many leftovers and
> started sending them out to radio stations, and it became the mega hit,
> although Whitburn lists the Victor!  Hooboy.
>
> The first copy of the Weems on 25017 was given to me by a neighbor who said
> he got it before he shipped out to the south Pacific, before the war was
> over.  When were the Decca 25000s started?  Based on what he told me and
> what I have seen on the earliest of the 25000s, I have always assumed they
> were a ploy to get around the OPA Price Ceiling that went into effect with
> the war in 1942 so it was a way to recycle a lot of proven blue label sides
> onto the higher priced black series.  Always looked to me like that's what
> Victor did with so many Bluebirds recycled on to the Victor 20-1500s.
> Right?  Wrong?  Maybe?
>
>
> Rodger
>
> For best results use Victor Needles
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of zimrec at juno.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 4:39 PM
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: [78-L] Fletcher Henderson 78
>
>
> David Burnham&  J. E. Knox wrote:>>  Bluebird 78s seem to abound in any
> record collection I doubt if any of them is rare enough to become a
> collectors' item and I'm not really interested in the monetary value of
> records generally anyway, but I came across one record which I like simply
> because of the physical artifact itself.  It is a U.S. pressed Bluebird with
> the "Victor" label style used between fall 1938 and fall 1943 of Fletcher
> Henderson's Band, Number B 10246.  It is in such pristine condition, (it
> came from the CBC library and the surface shines like a new record), that
> I'm sure it hasn't been played more than half a dozen times if at all, (well
> it's been played once because I just played it).  What is particularly
> attractive about it is that even though it's a reissue, from April 27, 1927,
> unusual for Bluebird, they obviously used the original 1927 stampers.  There
> is no distortion and the surface is so clean that switching CEDAR on and off
> resulted in no audible chan  ge in surface noise whatsoever.
> <snip>>As for rarity...two hard-to-come-by Bluebirds that spring to mind
> (and only recently acquired by me after decades-long searching) are Bluebird
> B-5014-B "Hold Me" by Little Jack Little and B-5131-B "Heartaches" by Ted
> Weems and his Orchestra. Both were reissued in the 1940s on RCA Victor, to
> be sure, but the reissues were dubbed. The original Bluebirds are scarce.
> Fletcher Henderson's only other original-issue Bluebird (B-5682 "Hocus
> Pocus"/"Tidal Wave") might also qualify, but I don't think it's as rare.
> Blues, country and gospel on Bluebird from the 1930s has got to be quite
> collectible. What you might be thinking about as not rare enough to be a
> collectors' item would be the plethora of big-band stuff 1937-45, which
> would largely be true. A master-pressed copy of Bluebird B-10352-A "Sold
> American" by Glenn Miller may qualify as collectible, though; most copies
> were dubbed (-1R master).
>
> As most people on this list are aware, scarcity of a particular record does
> not necessarily have a direct relationship to market price.
> Perhaps the rarest of the issued Bluebirds are many of the 4500 and 4900
> calypso series.  They were made for export only and many were confiscated by
> the British.
> Does anyone other on this list, other than Steve Shapiro, have any.
> Art
>
>