I’ve been trying to get back to Dave Dexter, Jr. and the Beatles, but I got distracted by a renewed interest in the fascinating history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme. This is Delia Derbyshire’s stunning, shimmering production, which includes the famous sound effects for the show.
Snippets of sounds and music by Derbyshire and the workshop have been collected by the BBC into a Flash player that you’ll find at this link. It’s all too easy to make the sounds overlap, so be quick with the stop button, and watch out for the clips that loop. Here is Murray Gold’s fantastic, powerful arrangement and orchestration for the new Doctor series in 2005.
If this subject is of any interest I’ll let you find the same sites I’ve been looking at, but one favor I should do for you is assemble the pieces of a 2003 BBC documentary on the Radiophonic Workshop, called The Alchemists of Sound.
More trouble in Boston radioland. Barnes Newberry has left “Highway 61 Revisited” on WUMB (UMass Boston), a Folk-Rock program that he created. I added a comment to the post at the link below:
WUMB reception is marginal where I live, so I was listening to “Highway 61 Revisited” on an Internet Wifi radio.
Feeling that I should pay for the privilege of listening to Barnes online every Saturday morning, I sent $100 to WUMB. Two weeks later he was gone. I won’t try to get my money back, but I won’t be giving any more money to WUMB.
Listening to Barnes was part of my Saturday morning routine, and I had wondered for a couple of weeks why former WBCN jock Albert O. was at the helm. I don’t know what led to Barnes Newberry leaving WUMB, but the show was his baby, I enjoyed it, and I miss him.
Follow-up: Lia Pamina comes through again! Thanks to Lia, I am a Facebook friend of Margo Guryan and, as it turns out, so is Barnes Newberry. I’ve written to Barnes and I’m hoping to find out what the heck happened.
Last weekend, I caught a few minutes of Beatles outtakes and studio chatter that was playing on one of the best Beatles radio stations on the Internet, Beatles-A-Rama.
There are several Beatles stations on the Net that I have set on the Logitech Squeezebox Radio in the bedroom. You’ll find a comprehensive list by clicking this link to SHOUTcast.
I’m very pleased that Logitech’s Squeezeplay software version 7.5.1 is working well on both my Dell Inspiron 530 desktop and Acer Aspire One netbook, with minor quirks that are easy to get around. Previous versions had definite problems, but now I can access my Squeezebox server in places besides the Logitech Squeezebox Radio in the bedroom.
Magnetic recording tape. Perfected by the Nazis, it is one of the most important innovations in the history of audio, along with Edwin Armstrong’s invention of frequency modulation. These two technologies changed everything.
Magnetic recording in studios, and vinyl microgroove records for homes, first appeared at about the same time — 1947-1948. The transistor was also created in 1947, but it wouldn’t be established in high fidelity audio for another 20 years.
The first tape recorders were brought to America from Germany after World War II by a man named Jack Mullin, who modified one of the units and demonstrated it for Bing Crosby’s technical producer. The tale is told at the end of this link, with the fascinating story of the development of videotape.
Jack Mullin, Frank Healey, Wayne Johnson, Bing Crosby
On October 1, 1947, two takes of Philco Radio Time with Bing Crosby were recorded magnetically by Mullin, and edited into a single, seamless show. The audio player has a minute of that historic program, preceded by a minute of how Bing sounded on January 29 of that year, using disc recording technology. You may recognize the name of Bing’s guitar player, whose son had a successful career as a record producer and musician, and be sure to catch the name of Bing’s arranger-conductor, who would later have a connection to the Peanuts TV specials.
With Crosby’s financial backing, Ampex began manufacturing tape recorders. One of the first production units was given to Les Paul, who had played guitar for Bing. It’s impossible to overstate the influence of what Les Paul did with his tape recorders.
Here are a couple of captivating videos of Les with Mary Ford, performing two of their best known numbers, taken from films of TV shows. Ironically, Ampex wouldn’t perfect magnetic videotape recording until Les and Mary were off of TV. In the second clip, Les kids around before getting to the real demonstration of how he and Mary did what they did so beautifully. These are worth watching twice — first, for Les, and then for Mary. I eat up this stuff like ice cream.
These clips are being streamed from Oobleckboy on YouTube. The comments are his.
The push to allow casino gambling is a hot topic here in Massachusetts. Gambling is economically regressive. Much of the money comes from those who can least afford to spend it — day laborers, people on Social Security, etc. The only valid argument that I see favoring Massachusetts casinos is keeping the state’s gamblers from spending their money at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. WGBH radio in Boston, which recently retooled to compete with FM news leader WBUR, has been doing a series on casino gambling.
I was surprised to hear that Mohegan Sun wants to develop a casino in Massachusetts.Their chosen site is Palmer, which is one of the many failed mill towns in the region. Apparently Mohegan Sun executives feel Palmer is far enough away from Uncasville, Connecticut that they won’t be competing with themselves.
The decline of communities like Palmer has been going on for a very long time. Over 30 years ago, I spent a day with Nixon-Watergate attorney John Dean, who was speaking at my college, and while we were driving through Western Massachusetts we talked about how many of the once-thriving textile mill towns were in trouble. Is casino gambling a way out of financial desperation? I don’t think so. I think it causes more desperation than it prevents, but if it happens my feeling is very simple: NIMBY.
