This is a 5-inch, paper-core, home recording acetate. The blank is an obscure brand called phonocord.It's the second side of a disc I digitized a few weeks back. I want to say for the record I really dislike center-start records and I can see why it was less popular then outer-edge start. center start records contrary to the name do not start at the center. they start at some random point away from the center. Dropping the needle on, at or near this point is really hit-or-miss.
"These darn little records..."
The recording is another letter from that young man to some unknown young blonde woman. He says he's going to take her shopping. But there is one great sample on the record "These darn little records are swell." But he runs out of things to say and mumbles a bit until the groove runs out. Like the others there are no dates or names so the mystery remains.
This is a 5-Inch paper-core Phonocord. It's a small and unusual home recording acetate. The little disc has a center start and a playing time of about 1:30.The disc is unlabeled which is no surprise whatsoever. It is however, marked on each side on one with a "3" and the other with a "4" both in black oil crayon. This indicates to me there is at least one more 2-sided disc.
Now Here I Am Again
Actually on the recording the male narrator specifically mentions that he already recorded one disc. Now that I think about it.. I may have that in a box somewhere in the office closet.The dialog is clearly a love letter. He opens with "Now here I am again" indicating it's in a series of recordings. Then he closes with "I miss you and I love you." It sounds sweet and romantic, but he could also have been a menacing stalker. Without the context he lose the story entirely.
This is a Packard Bell Phonocord. It has a metal core and is about 8-inches in diameter. This is another Grinnell's acetate. They were a music store based in Michigan. This disc is unlabeled but is clearly a radio recording.
Peggy Mambo ****AUDIO EXPIRED****
It begins with a woman singing with a small mambo group. Despite the record hiss you can hear the clave clicks. I'm no mambo expert but at about the 2 minute mark the DJ comes in and tells us that the singer is Peggy something. That pretty much has to be Peggy Lee or Peggy King and both of them cut mambo songs in the 1950s.
He doesn't give the call signs but he does tell us that the time and temperature. He they reads an ad for a local card company but then the audio cuts out just as he's abotu to give the street address. Damn. The ad is for the RP Lewis company... and there is one of those in Ann Arbor which lines up with the make of acetate. That's my only clue.
Center start discs always catch me off guard. The upshot to center start is that most damage tends to be to the outer edge of the dist so the beginning of the recording is more likely to be in good condition. I ripped both sides of this for continuity and you can hear the degradation toward the end of each side. In the first cut mother and child sing in harmony, on the second cut the kid makes a go at it solo. I've edited them together for ease of listening. Excluding that tidbit this is just another completely unlabeled Packard Bell Phonocord.
How Much is that Doggie in the Window?
The song is clearly "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" The song was written in 1952, and made famous by Patti Page in January of 1953. It sold over 2 million copies and I'd guess that this recording dates to within a couple years of it's debut.
This post should really be mystery discs, plural... I found this in sorry shape. A paper core Phonocord acetate sandwiched between two Wilcox-Gay acetates, all bonded together like they were glued. On the outside were no markings. I ripped the two exposed sides, then took a gamble and peeled one off and ripped that side. Two chunks from the Phonocord were still moored to it but I got a decent rip anyway.
They were bonded slightly askew so I had to cut a new center hole with an X-acto knife. After that was finished, I tore apart the two bonded discs to read the interior faces.
Phonocord Sandwitch
The Phonocord read "Mother" in crooked letters scratched into the lacquer and filled with black oil crayon and wiped clean. The Wilcox-Gay was labeled in messy illegible cursive yellow oil crayon lettering. It bore a single line of fine pencil "Red sails in the Sunset." All that survived was one side of each of the first two discs. "Red sails in the Sunset" was s song written in 1935 by Will Grosz, and recorded by Ray Noble that year. But this disc is newer than that. It's probably closer to the time that Nat King Cole covered it in 1951. That side was unplayable, but it'd probably around the time these were recorded.
I have edited them to the same file. The Phonocord is first. An adult woman singing "I'm in the mood for love." The other disc is a recording of two women speaking a mix of Spanish and English. I had to edit out the damaged center area but I doubt it woudl have revealed anything new. A man is heard briefly, it's clear he's just recording them. One repeatedly says "Como esta' Zeke... calling Mrs. Brown..." Perhaps a TV reference or an inside joke. They go on to recall a recent fishing trip then sign off. It may or may not have any connection to the other disc.
This is an unusual little instantaneous recording. It's a 5-Inch fiber-core Packard-Bell Phonocord.I've never seen a Phonocord of this design nor one of this size. Actually it's the smallest home recording acetate I've ever seen. It has the recognizable crest in Baby Blue on one side, and the red image above on the other. It's only marking is the numerals "1" and "2" in black oil crayon indicating sides. The disc also bears the two Packard-Bell branding statements For Record-Making Fun and Put Life's Big Moments On Record.
Phonocord #2
Despite the obvious fragility it is a two-sided recording. It has an inner edge start which is necessitated by the groove running out almost flush with the outer edge. An outter edge needle trip with no gap would be a logistical problem. Despite maximizing the limited space on a 5-inch record, there is still only total a playing time of 1 minute 30 seconds per side. Because it's so short I digitized both and edited them into one track.
The recording is a letter from a man to a woman whom he only refers to as "darling." It starts off as a love letter but degenerates into advice on finances and a story about a cat crapping in a sink and an unexplained request for a pair of tights. In the recording he even happens to give the time of day as 4:20, but not the date. At the end of side A he says "oops I better quit this side" realizing that the time has about run out, but before he lifts the record needle, you can briefly hear music. I've left this in in case anyone happens to recognize the fragment. I somewhat suspect the disc may have been used previously and that it was from that prior use.
This is a Packard Bell Phonocord. It is relatively thick and has a metal core. The year is listed on this disc as 1956, and the audio is truly excellent. You'd never know it was over half a century old.Both sides bear names, but no places. The recording has a reference to visiting California, but it's unclear if that's a current visit, future visit, or which party resides there if either.
Browns and Grahams - Side A
It appears to be a group of people vacationing and/or visiting. They list off each others names in mixed greetings: Buzz, Helen, Beverly, and Ben of the Brown family, and Paul Joan, Debbie and Hal of the Graham family. Debbie sings a short, unidentified song at the end if the A side.
I didn't include the audio for the B side, It's a recording of Paul singing "Band of Gold" quite competently with organ accompaniment. He goes flat a couple times, but the tracking speed might be a tad off too. Anyway the song was a hit for Mel Carter in 1955 and Kit Carson in 1956 leaving it possible that Paul was covering either version.
This is a make of home recording blank I'd never seen before. It's 8 inches in diameter, and while branded for Grinnell's Music store, it's a metal core Packard-Bell PhonOcord record underneath. It has an outer-edge start and spins at 78 rpm. The disc is labeled unusually well It's a jazz recording of the Tommy Harris Band from 02-09-1950. It looked like Tommy Harris on the label but an Emcee cuts in at the end of the first song and clearly says "Haines." The live cuts tell me that this is probably a dub of a live recording and not the original. I dubbed it with a Grado 78 cartridge because I had to. The groove was wide enough that a traditional needle just scraped the bottom of the groove.
The Tommy Haines Band
Grinnell's Music was founded in Ann Arbor in 1879 by Ira L. Grinnell. It grew into the world’s largest piano distributor by the mid-1950s. Jack Wainger of WKC inc bought the company in 1955 and opened up Grinnell's stores elsewhere. It went chapter 11 in 1968 and again in 1977. It was liquidated in 1981 and it's original store is now an apartment building. You can read more about Grinnell's here.
Since this disc dates to 11950 we know this disc originated at the original Grinnell's Music at 1515 Woodward Avenue in Detroit. It's possible it was even recorded there. There is a contemporary Tommy Haines band that plays rock music, clearly not the same group. I wish it were. It's possible that there is some connection but nothing I'm aware of.
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