[78-L] Heartaches and Decca 25000s

[David Lennick]

All it took was one copy, squirreled in the station's library. Deejays used to 
make hits once upon a time.

25000 was also a red label 12" classical series, so they would have had to stop 
using those numbers before reassigning them as 10" Personality reissues. They 
may have been recorded before 1942 but probably weren't numbered as such until 
around 1945. I have (or had, somewhere) a Toronto record store supplement from 
about 1942 announcing the deletion of the red 20000s and 25000s.

dl

On 1/11/2015 11:17 PM, Rodger Holtin wrote:
>
> Hmmm...if it was the Bluebird, there must be a hot pocket of those rare
> Bluebirds scattered in the Carolinas.  Looking at Ty's site, looks like
> 25000-25130 were a mix of singles and albums, all 1942 or before.  Starting
> at 25131 is 1945+ stuff.  I have album A-514, 'Cowboy Songs' by Bing, with
> 25000-25003, and the cover says Copyright 1946, which may be a clue or an
> anachronistic red herring (it may be the cover only).
>
> Paging Doc Biel - I think he knows the Heartaches story better than anyone.
> I know he's waxed eloquently about it here before.  Somebody check facebook,
> I'm going to bed.
>
> Rodger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of David Lennick
> Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2015 9:42 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Heartaches and Decca 25000s
>
>
> 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
>>
>>