Re: [ARSCLIST] TO DAVID LEWIS: Re: Tradition/Everest/Vanguard Classics/Bernie Solomon

[David Lewis <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Point well taken. However I just wanted to say that even though the price is
high, I'm very glad that there is access to the material - we are still in
the infancy stage of digital distribution across the board, and it is much
easier to work from a track based economy than dealing with whole albums,
notes and artwork. Smithsonian/Folkways have shown a real pro-active
attitude and have attacked this problem from a variety of angles. 
Back in "the day," ordering Folkways albums, if you were outside NYC, was
always difficult depending on what you wanted. I ordered them through the
Makris Foreign Records store and the "new wave-y" Another Record Store in
Cincinnati; neither had 100 per cent success. I was able to get, for example
"The Piano Music of Henry Cowell" but not "Six Boys in Trouble." That was
circa 1980; today I already have the S/F CD of the Cowell and if I needed
"Six Boys" I know I could order it and it would come.

David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide

Maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man.
Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language
in the most extravagant sense. ~ Charles Ives


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Garr Norick
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 5:22 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] TO DAVID LEWIS: Re: Tradition/Everest/Vanguard
Classics/Bernie Solomon

"Tradition would be an excellent candidate for inclusion in the
Smithsonian/Folkways family of labels, n'est ce pas?"
   
  "Dear Lord, I hope not... they charge $15-$20 per CD, and all you get is a
CD-R that may or may not play on your machine, with photocopied artwork on
plain paper!"
   
  I feel I should add the following to what I just posted, which is quoted
above... while I admire what Smithsonian/Folkways is doing, if I pay $15-$20
for a compact disc, I expect it to have the original cover art, to be an
actual manufactured CD rather than a burned one, to have extensive liner
notes (complete with a "where are they now" about the artist), and to be
painstakingly restored and remastered from the original source...
Smithsonian could charge $5 or $10 for their custom CD-Rs (which are just
straight transfers from a master tape onto a CD-R with no restoration, and
photocopied inserts on plain paper) and still make a profit.

       
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