Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo mass market tapes

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Breneman wrote:

> --- Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > The set I speak of is "Jack Benny's
> > Golden Age of Radio," which included a lot of good snips of shows
> > and Benny's sometimes funny commentary.
>
> That was a great set.  I've got it somewhere.  It
> really started the old-radio-on-LP craze, didn't it?
> Although at about the same time a Seattle radio
> station (KVI I think) broadcast a weekend-long
> marathon called "The Audioboigraphy of Radio."
> It was an awfully ambition undertaking - it may
> have been syndicated. But the old radio's rennaisance
> seemed to have started about that time.

It was certainly the only gathering of old time radio on record at a time when
there was nothing but the lousy chopped-up version of War of the Worlds on
Audio Rarities, and then Longines followed it up with the first good-sounding
issue of WotW (the same master that subsequently appeared on Evolution and
other labels and is still available from Radio Spirits and still has the same
overlap where sides 1 & 2 were cross-faded in the transfer). But "Cat Wife" on
that set was a disaster, sorry..over-acted and badly produced. The original
from 1938 was infinitely better, although I don't know if it's ever appeared in
good sound. Longines also put out a Golden Age of Comedy box that isn't as
common as the radio set but was well produced.

> My dad was a big Longines subscriber, but he mostly bought
> the compilations.  Big boxed sets of best of Dean Martin,
> best of Lawrence Welk, etc.  Also some individual albums
> of compilations of pop songs from certain years.  I
> saved a lot of those because they're very well made
> although I've played practically none of them.  He had
> a few of the elevator music sets like "Ebb Tide" which
> I've never listened to.  I don't know if those are
> original recordings or compilations.

There's a Harry James set that comes mostly from Capitols..otherwise I never
bother with Longines sets.

dl