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WHAT
IS A 78? |
It's more
than just a speed for phono records that's been obsolete in America
for about 40 years. It's a state of mind. It's a 10 or 12 inch diameter
recording, very breakable, usually black or brown, filled with 3
to 5 minutes worth of 3 mil grooving. A 78 feels old; it reminds
you of grandparents and uncles. A 78 smells of wind up phonographs
with heavy springs and the odor lubricating oil, of electric phonographs
with tubes that lit up and hummed and a smell of burning resistors.
A 78 looks old; with Red Seal Victors, green and black label Columbias,
blue Decca, purple Capitols, black Brunswicks, red Vocallons, and
many more. And of course, a 78 sounds old. They range from Gennett
acoustics to London electricals; forrendous surface noise to experimental
microgroove vinyl pressing of the 1950's (at 78rpm!)
A 78 is also a ritual. Flipping through book-like 'Albums' to pick
and program the tunes, stacking an auto change with10 sides to be
sequenced with a soul-satisfying 'thud' between tunes; trying to
read a label spinning around without spraining your neck, cleaning
dust from the grooves with a circular pad of crushed velvet, changing
steel needles from a little paper envelope every few records. All
this and lots more. But of course, a 78 is basically music. Music
from Billy Murray to Elvis Presley. From the Carusos to the Sinatras
from the "Cohen on the Telephone" to Glenn Miller and
the Big Bands. It was an era, a special sound, feel, smell and sight.
It was a time when a singer or an orchestra used only one microphone,
one 'take' and no hanky panky. You either were a musician or you
weren't. The recording engineer's job was the reproduction of your
sound, not the creation of it. |
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