Happy Anniversary... I Think...

This weekend I've been pretty much in the house on my own as Miss Franny has joined our daughter Gill in the Winter Gardens on their craft stall. So I've been doing lots of chores and cleaning of course, but did find some time to play a few 78s I acquired recently... In fact there was a stall with some at the craft fair so I picked up another half dozen whilst the girls were setting up!

One of my favourite of all the British Dance Bands is Jack Hylton and His Orchestra. Jack, between 1921 and 1940 recorded over 2,000 tracks, many of them instantly recogniseable even now. He went on to become an impressario, staging variety shows up and down the country and nurturing new and young talent including a certain Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise...

This title caught my eye. My Prayer is probably much better known these days for the version recorded by the American singing group, The Platters. This is a very nice version of it though - I was well pleased at this purchase.

On the B side (yes kiddies, these records just had one tune on and then you took it off the player, turned it over and played the other side which had a different tune) is another well known tune. Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye was one of Gracie Fields' great hits. The female singer here does a reasonable job but I did notice at least one note that she took down that Gracie would have taken up with her incredible high range - she was her generation's Mariah Carey for her ability to sing notes so high that most of us can only whistle them with difficulty! Both these tracks were recorded on 24 July 1939 in London.

Quite often you find the record details written on the sleeve of records. Artist, title, a code that told you which box to put it in after playing it etc. This one has a far more romantic message. It says simply: "Anniversary, 1957".

I hope it was bought for the lovely message in the lyrics of My Prayer rather than, what would be in the circumstances, the rather stark message of the other side...!

Eight Inch Record

Yesterday we had a run up to Lancaster to GB Antiques and I came across a couple of 78 rpm records to add to the collection.

These were a little unique to my collection as they were not the usual 10 inch record. Nor were they the longer-playing 12 inch record used for most classical music and some dance music.

They were eight inches in diameter. Labelled "Long Playing" because the centre label on the disc is much smaller than usual allowing the playing track to go closer to the middle of the record, the example pictured is on the Edison Bell record label and is a 1930 recording of The Plaza Band playing the popular tune The Cuckoo Waltz with the B side being Come On, Baby. And what a bonus! It had its original brown paper sleeve!

78 rpm Shop Record Covers

A second look at 78 rpm record sleeves provided (sold!) by record shops. (If you missed the first one then it can be viewed here: Record Shops to 1960)

I have 78s from all over the place. Although I started out with a fair collection inherited from my parents, a few of which were bought with me and/or my brother in mind, I have bought quite a lot from collectors and antiques shops and warehouses and a very few by mail order. I have also been given some collections by people who knew they would be going to a good home.

So there's quite a few shops and towns represented on the sleeves of some of the records in my collection which is currently heading towards 700 in number. The above sleeve is an early thick cardboard sleeve, stitched on both sides and on the base. This method provided a very robust sleeve and although these tend to be quite early - 1930s-40s mainly - there are as many of these still surviving as the thinner card that was folded and then glued to form a sleeve. Many of these latter bear signs of wear and repair. This example was bought originally from Kenneth Gardner's shop on Penny Street, Lancaster.

In those early days records were sold by musical instruments shops, who diversified into selling gramophones. Specialist records shops would not come along until later. Even so most towns had a choice of establishments who sold records and in Lancaster, over on Rosemary Lane, Albert Shaw was in competition with Mr Gardner's business. This is another stitched thick cardboard sleeve which has survived well. A little bit of staining but no rips or tears as that is exactly what the stitching technique was designed to prevent.

We'll digress a little bit here, because it's interesting to look at some of the record label names listed down the left hand side. There's no way to prove that the record that the sleeve now contains is the one bought with it and it is probably very unlikely that it was anyway. The record is After The Ball Is Over with a B side on the reverse of Two Little Girls In Blue by Gerald Adams and The Variety Singers and it was released in 1930. Both songs are quite well remembered songs even today, especially the former. They are, in fact, so similar that you could be forgiven for thinking that they were written by the same person, but no - though both composers were named Charles, being Charles K. Harris and Charles Graham respectively.

Regal merged with Zonophone to become er... Regal Zonophone... Odeon must have merged with Parlophone and became Parlophone Odeon with the same design label as before.

Winner was an early label, appearing in 1911. It was owned by a syndicate and that may have inspired the name and label illustration perhaps. It lasted until 1933. No one wanted to buy it and most of the properties were taken over by Decca. The record illustrated - Old Tennessee and Me coupled with Palm Tree Island by The Elliotts - was released in 1919 and we can see from the stamp pasted onto the label that the proud new owner paid three farthings tax on it!

Carlisles shop on Darwen Street, Blackburn, sold a rather vivid colour don't you think? Most card sleeves were a plain brown colour - the colour of the card in fact, as to colour them would only cost money. So coloured sleeves are not as common as brown card, though there are a few to be found. The card here has started to fray and come apart where repeated insertions of the record have snagged it top centre. It is made of two pieces of card bound together by tape which must have at some point split and the repair is a somewhat rare technique - I'm glad to say... It's been sewn by hand by someone unused to wielding needle and thread by the looks of things!

It's probably fair to say that Crane's of Deansgate in Manchester were probably not first and foremost a record shop! Their head offices in Liverpool is described as having a concert hall attached and branches existed in Bangor, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Seacombe, Sheffield and Wrexham. A well-established firm, they started in 1850 and the record sleeve does not mention all their branches! There's a nice 46-page catalogue dating from 1910 available to read for free from The Internet Archive which has many photos of their piano and organ models. They are of superb quality with even the upright pianos having little hinged candelabra sconces that swing out to illuminate the player's music score!

Incidentally, the record is from 1916 by the comedian and Music Hall artist Tom Foy. I listened to it for the first time last night - a sort of stage patter tale of the style adopted by many of today's self-proclaimed comedians. It's a bit like listening to George Formby telling an anecdote but right at the end it turns into what today can only be thought of as a racist joke which spoils it completely for anything other than a historical interest.

Now here's a sleeve dear to my heart. We used to live in Rochdale, I was born there and I well remember Shorrock and Shorrock's huge shop filled with pianos on Drake Street, just up from the Odeon cinema. My Dad used to go there to buy records and I have quite a number of these distinctive green sleeves containing both 10" and 12" 78 rpm records. I remember they used to display records in the window, hung on wires inserted into the holes in a hardboard stand.

Dad would ask which one we wanted and - not knowing one from the other at age 3 or 4 - I would point in the general direction and Dad would say "Good choice!" and go in to buy something he knew we would enjoy. Where's the joy in downloading something off the Internet and not having the bus ride home to anticipate listening to it? Music has become wallpaper. I find that incredibly sad. Go to a concert now and people stand watching their tiny phone screen that is busy turning the exciting performance into pap.

My final sleeve for this time is from the legendary Mazel's in Manchester. "Legendary" may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I have such memories of this shop that is certainly legendary in my mind. A quick search online will convince you lots of other people think the same. It wasn't just a record shop. Certainly by the 1970s when I was a teenage rocker in a local band, trying to get sophisticated sounds out of 6 and 12-string acoustic guitars and a basic electric guitar without the aid of FX pedals, Mazel's was the place to spend Saturday mornings. They sold second hand everything connected to the music business. Records, musical instruments, amps and microphones...

I remember drooling over a dirty great 15" speaker labelled "Victor" that my Dad owned the match to. Dad always used to say it had come out of a cinema from the sound system there... We had a very imbalanced stereo system during my early teens. The left channel came out of the afore-mentioned cinema speaker from a mono Stevns amp (there was no second 'e' before you write in to complain) and the right channel came out of Mum and Dad's 1950s wireless set...

Single-Sided 78 rpm Record

Over the Christmas break we got out of the house for a bit and visited one of the local antiques warehouses, G.B. Antiques in Lancaster. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but I always have an eye out for old records (which usually means 78s) or old books, or really anything from my past which can give me a nice nostalgic kick.

Finding records in places like this is easy, Finding records in good condition and particularly finding 78s that are not just old collections of classical music is not always easy.

So I was pleasantly surprised to come across three different stalls that had something I could bring away with me. I even bought some 45s, though generally they are in much worse condition than the 78s. 45s didn't break - but they scratched much more easily!

The 10" record pictured dates from 1909. Unbelievable almost that it should be in its original sleeve and that the sleeve was in excellent condition. It was a bit faded and the colour was turning brownish at the edges - I've edited it in the scan to restore the colour.

It is Peter Dawson's rendition of Queen of The Earth and on the B side is... nothing. Many of the very early records were single sided. On the back of the record is an engraving of the Zonophone record company logo.

Altogether I spent £20.80 and came away with 24x 78 rpm records and 5x 45 rpm singles. Not too bad considering they were from antiques stalls, which tend to overprice stuff. The other trouble with antiques stalls is that they tend to think of records as "tat" and plonk sticky labels over them where they will ruin the record label or original sleeve.

I was lucky enough to get the sticky price label off this 1959 Marty Wilde record, but the damage over the record company's name is clear and permanent and caused by the desire to label it at 50p! It has J Mills written on it in pencil, which is harder to spot but in any case only serves to show that the record was loved and valued by a former owner.

I liked the look of these old bottles with the light shining through them, but records were the only things we bought on this visit. So to finish with, here's just a few of the rest of the day's findings.

The 45 rpm singles were in absolute mint condition, though most were in wrong or very tatty sleeves. Buying second hand vinyl is an extremely risky business and I never buy stuff that looks as though it has been given to a dog to play with!

Crafting Record Sleeves

Task for today... Miss Franny is a bit of a dab hand when it comes to crafting. Cards, shopping bags, gift bags and all that. Today though I have taken over the mantle of master crafter...

I keep going through all these 78 rpm records and finding ones that either have no cover at all or that once had a cover that is now two or more pieces of decidedly limp and tatty paper...

I had a look on t'Internet and found that with the amount I'm likely to need I can't afford the snazzy reproduction sleeves with some of the old designs on. What? Yes I know I said I'd feature some and I will. Just don't hold your breath ok? And if you were holding your breath I suggest you release and take a few fresh ones... I'll get round to it. There's a few more shop advertising sleeves that I've come across too.

Anyway I decided to have a go myself so with a roll of brown paper and a roll of double sided tape, I'm off and running. I started out trying with a glue stick. They are just as blooming useless now as they were when they first came out in the 60s... They are ok if you want to stick something on a firm surface for no more than 30 seconds. For anything longer than that, forget them. Plus they are incredibly messy anyway. Still, in 30 seconds or so the pencil should just come off the table...

My first two efforts! Just another couple of hundred should do it...

The Janet Carling 78 rpm Collection

I'm still wading up to my knees in old records! I haven't even had chance to look through the Easthope Collection - the ones I brought back from the Midlands last weekend yet. At the moment I'm working my way through a collection given to me several years ago by a work colleague who knew I loved 78 rpm records and who turned up with a Christmas Hamper box full.

The collection was mostly, though not exclusively, of jazz records from around 1940. There are some great names on the records and the condition of them is excellent. Some of them sound brand new, the quality being not far short of a "straight from the master" quality. You expect a bit of background noise from 78s - they would lose their "flavour" without it, but pops and snicks from scratches are almost totally absent.

There are several bound albums in the collection. These are fibre-backed board covers into which several records can be bound together in their original sleeves.

With 78s quite often you can find records easily enough, but getting the original cover and in pristine condition is extremely hard. Here they are all with their original covers. Some examples are absolutely mint. But... all glued together at the bottom where they fit into the album cover. So scanning them is impossible!

Paper covers are flimsy. Sometimes, as with this 1940s Parlophone sleeve, they are complete if not untouched. I've managed to stick over the tears to make it look ok. Sellotape yellows with age and shrinks so using it is not ideal and when I'm forced to use it I only ever stick it on the inside so that it won't be visible. But repairing many covers is hard because so many tears are along an edge, making internal joins a bit difficult!

As I've been playing them I've been recording them onto my computer. The free Audacity software allows me to remove any clicks and to reduce most of the background noise and the quality even from a 1930s record can be almost unbelievable.

I've just gone through one of the albums containing Duke Ellington records. He recorded for several labels during the 1930s and 40s and with several different bands and orchestras. As his fame grew he made the most of it, recording as Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra!

The sticker with the T.T markings is a tax sticker. Whilst VAT has not been with us for 50 years yet, there was Purchase Tax on most goods including records and sometimes it was as high as 100%!

And amongst some of the little surprises in the Janet Carling Collection is this disc by Beryl Davis in which she sings one of Shakespeare's soliloquies which has been set to music which at times reminds one of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelly's Hot Club de France sound!

Hallelujah

Last night I went out to look at some 78 rpm records that someone had told me about. They were a little different from my usual style of music but after looking at them I thought, "well I've come out on a cold wet windy night..." so I parted with a bit of cash and came home with them.

What I came home with was an (almost) boxed set of classical music - Handel's Messiah. In 38 parts, and therefore on 19 discs, this was in half a box - there was no lid on it.

I have quite a large collection of 78 rpm records. They were the original discs, replacing the old cylinder phonographs in the very early 1900s. They lasted for around 60 years in the UK, before 7 inch 45 rpm singles and albums - LPs or Long Play records - which played at 33 1/3 rpm came out in the 1950s.

This set came out in 1946, recorded by Columbia records with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent with the Huddersfield Choral Society and soloists: Isobel Baillie (soprano), Gladys Ripley (contralto), James Johnston (tenor) and Norman Walker (bass). Part 32 of the 38-part set is the famous Hallelujah Chorus. Altogether there's around 2 hours and 20 minutes worth of music.

...minus a couple of minutes! The vast majority of 78 rpm records were made with shellac. This is a substance secreted by lac bugs and deposited onto the bark of trees. It is as close to a natural plastic as you can get. Whilst 78 rpm records were usually played with a steel needle in a pick up arm weighing so much that record grooves quickly wore down, finding ones that have not been played so much makes you realise just how high a quality could be achieved. And whilst vinyl 45s were sold on the basis that they were "almost unbreakable", I always think that 78s from the 1950s era when both formats were made are likely to be in better condition than the vinyl. Vinyl scratches easily but does not break easily. Shellac was the opposite. Sitting on one by mistake was the end of a 78 rpm record. But the scratches they have are down to the weight of old gramophone pickups. Played on modern machines they can sound wonderful.

I have records from all eras, from early music hall acts as above...

...through the thirties, forties and fifties...

...to some rock 'n' roll greats. For quite a long time now, I've been playing and digitising them onto my hard drive and i-pod. Some of the older stuff you can't get on CD at all. As I've been recording the music I've been scanning the labels, so we'll have a look at some every now and then as I dig out some of the stories and personalities behind some well remembered and some long forgotten songs and tunes. Don't say I didn't warn you...

A few hours in Cumbria

It was Fran's birthday yesterday so we had a trip out today. It's been a bit of a dark dismal day but sometimes I quite like that anyway.

So we motored up the A6, ignoring the new satnav which wanted to go on the motorway, passing through Lancaster, Carnforth, Milnthorpe etc. I stopped off at Beetham to take a couple of photos of the River Bela.

Once the weather gets a bit more sunny I must have another trip up here to see the Fairy Steps (see this page for explanation) which I've only ever photographed in black and white.

Anyway, we carried on up to Keswick, ate fish and chips in an upstairs cafe and had a look in a couple of antiques shops. I'm afraid I bought another handful of old 78rpm records. Haven't played them yet, though some looked a bit worse for wear anyway... Fran was on the lookout for another Liliput Lane cottage - her collection is growing close to city status... Unfortunately (phew! ha ha!) she didn't find any...

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