Re: [ARSCLIST] How could anybody ever have thought this was acceptable? Rant

[Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Goran Finnberg <mastering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Michael Shoshani:
> 
> 
> > There is a picture in Roland Gelatt's "The Fabulous Phonograph",
> > showing  Lewis James and Elliot Shaw each in front of their own 
> > horn at Victor's Camden studios. The caption explains that during
> > a recording session the singers would be directing their voices 
> > down their own horn; presumably there would be another horn to 
> > pick up the accompaniment.
> 
> By fluke I was looking in my copy of "The Fabulous Phonograph" as I
> caught this email.
> 
> Having gone through the book from start to finish I´ve been unable
> to find the picture mentioned above.
> 
> Where is it?

I have not seen that book for over 30 years, but as best I remember
it had a picture of Lewis beside one horn and Shaw beside another,
next to each other, facing the camera; the caption reads something
like "Record-making of a more homespun nature in Victor's Camden
studio.", and indicates that were they recording, they would be
singing into the horns.

It might have been in the first (1955?) edition, but I would be
surprised if it was in one that it wouldn't have been in the other as
well. There are other pictures that I recall from The Fabulous
Phonograph as well; Ernestine Schumann-Heink posing next to an open
horn 1904 Victor Talking Machine, Caruso grinning and listening to an
L-Door Victrola, and the records section of a major New York
department store in 1904 and 1954. But I don't know where exactly in
the plates section they are, having not seen them for decades...

Michael Shoshani