Can You Believe Your Ears?
I found this neat-o 7" EP last week, and I've been wanting to share it ever since. This is Hearing Is Believing (RCA Victor SRA-7-1, 1954). I saw a full size LP with this cover once, but it was in terrible shape so I passed. Now I have the 7", which to me is a little cooler than the full size record, even if it is shorter. I won't bore you by sharing out the audio on this record, it's mostly classical stuff, as recorded back in the 78 RPM days and the "New Orthophonic" recordings, albeit in mono. The date on this is 1954, so stereo as we know if was still three or four years away. Anyhow, I just love that little guy with the big ear. Maybe his other ear grew to similar proportions after the advent of stereo. I threw in an image of the flip side below, in case you want to read up on how High Fidelity is your friend.
That is one excellent cover. Thanks for sharing that!
ReplyDeleteThere's one stereo showoff record we used to have when I was a kid, but I haven't been able to remember what it was called. It had music, but also skits like the submarine with the hatch still open, the elevator that goes to different floors of a department store, the Russian roulette skit, and some ping-pong action. Does that sound familiar to you?
You know, that rings a bell, but I can't for the life of me remember the LP. I can remember the Russian roulette skit the best, the gun sliding across the bar from one speaker to the other, then the cylinder spinning. I'll have to look for that. I've got a whoel stack of stereo demonstration records somewhere...
ReplyDeleteThere was a radio station out of Toronto, CJRT that had a fascinating program on recorded oddities. (This must have been some ten years ago) It was discovered that when Paul Whiteman recorded Grofee's "Grand Caynon Suite" in the early 1930's it was done with two microphones. One mike was for recordings pressed here in the US. The other pick up was for foreign distribution. Sychronizing these two different pressings gave a wonderful stereo effect..
ReplyDeleteI've heard stories of jazz albums where they had two tapes that they could put together into stereo, but neve something that early. Why did they run a different mic for the overseas people? Don't they deserve the same sound? Perhaps the overseas distribution was handled by a different record company that didn't get along so well with the domestic label. Maybe, maybe not...
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