[78-L] Why Do I Care About 78's?

[DKing]

Hello Everyone,

It’s my turn to tell (or repeat?) how I came to be fascinated
with 78’s.

I knew very little about 78’s except for dim memories of having
seen the old records my grandmother had, back in the 1950’s.

So I went from barely having seen a swimming pool to jumping
Into the deep end of the pool.

A few years ago a local couple wanted to find someone to take
boxes of old records off their hands, as they found them all in
old house they’d purchased here in California.

Hoping to prevent them from being thrown out, I “rescued” them
and the load filled up the back of my Subaru Forester, even with
the back seats folded down.  Boxes of records, loose records!,
a few 12”, but mostly 10”.

Eventually I found the time & energy to try and make sense of
them and find online websites to help me put them all into an
Excel spreadsheet.

I don’t have a turntable that will play 78’s, but found that some
online resources (incl. the Library of Congress) have good
recordings of many records so listened to some of them there.

Liked some of what I heard, actually more than I expected to.
And, I’m amazed at how much old music is out there on
YouTube, even from some of the very old recordings - and
they sometimes include helpful notes about them.

This record hooked me:  a one-sided Victrola recording of
Alma Gluck singing “Nightingale Song”, issued in 1919:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CylnxObdNd4 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CylnxObdNd4>

For the record, I’m not crazy about the bird sound on that
recording, which thankfully isn’t heard all the time.

Alma Gluck has an amazing voice to my untrained ear,
and I’d never even heard of her. So I had to find out what
other gems might be among all those records.

I’m still not done slogging my way through to what will
probably be almost 1,000 records - although I know that
some of the most recent ones aren’t shellac, but appear
to be early plastic / vinyl records from the 1940’s & 1950’s.

So, thank you Ms. Gluck.  I wish I’d been able to hear you
perform in person.

Dave King
New Member

NOTE:  Alma Gluck was married to Efrem Zimbalist Sr.,
and their son was the actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr.