JOHN VC

Ray, and those who have expressed interest in the 78 Project -

Years ago, in Villa Park, Ray and I spent a long evening with our record
collection as it was then, transferring sounds to tape. If memory
serves, I have these tapes, and I made copies for others.

Later on I taped favorites from the dozens of LPs that I have that cover
the same kind of music, and sent copies around as Xmas presents with
titles such as “Don’t Mean a Thing”, “Troubadors”, “The Old Country Juke
Box”, “Teddy Bear’s Picnic: Grownups Look Out”, “When First Unto this
Country”, and so on. Naturally, some of the LPs included transcriptions
from the same 78s in our junk shop collection, and I put A FEW in.

Finally, I have been amassing CD’s of the same kind of old timey prewar
music, from hotsy totsy dance tunes to klezmer. By this third
generation, there are very few repeats on the CD’s of what’s in our 78s,
although my tastes have not deviated a whit. Coincidentally, I have
spent the last 2 weekends ripping some of the best old timey prewar
stuff from these CD’s for 3 personal fave disks, which I have entitled
“Honey Bunch”, “Glad Rag Doll” and “Mean to Me”. These don’t have any
country, and very little folk, but still are very pleasantly (in my
opinion) varied despite the Charleston-era titles. The old time Hawaiian
stuff, for example, is absolutely wonderful, both the slack key and the
falsetto.

What I do know is that our 78’s are really worth preserving. There is a
version of Jolson singing “Home in Pasadena” that completely eclipses
the sappy version he recorded for the Isham Jones band, and great stuff
on off brand labels like Vocalion. So yes, absolutely. Let’s re-record
these. Having them in digital files will allow us to sharpen them up, do
some noise reduction and standardization.

I am also going to move those tapes of mine to CD. And then, when the
technology gets even faster and easier (and it’s not bad now), I am
going to start putting my LP records onto disk as well. Marais and
Miranda, for instance - you cannot get a CD of them anywhere. Oh, it
never ends…