Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Transcription Mystery Disc #40

This disc The label is straight, but it's pasted over an AFRTS label whose underlined text gives the impression otherwise. This Olmsted disc spins at 33.3 rpm and is stuck to a standard 12-Inch vinyl platter. I can just barely read part of one side of the the AFRTS label. It's RL-22-4, SP-1752, SSL-15734. It features the Living Strings. The recording is certainly still within copyright so I won't sample it here. Plus it's the Living Strings... nobody wants to hear that.

This matches the hand-written Olmsted label exactly which is boggling, even the times match. I have no idea why someone would hand write out a label that's already on the transcription. I did find that through RCA Camden it had a separate commercial release.[source here]  But my copy is definitely an AFRTS disc, it was even in a AFRTS sleeve when I acquired it. I started by researching Olmsted.

It's probably Olmsted Sound Studios which was located on 54th street in New York City. It was started by Richard Olmsted.It was started in the early 1950s and closed around 1975.  A huge number of commercial recordings were made there including work by Sinatra, Janis Ian, Tony Williams, Gerry Mulligan, The Four Seasons and The Tokens. But despite my research I can find no AFRTS recordings made at Olmsted Studios. The paste-over seems random, and maybe it is.

2 comments:

  1. The matrix numbers indicate a standard library disk (for DJ shows)sent to the stations in mid 1964. The disk would have been half of the tracks of a commercial album. Pasteover may have been because of the scary "other use iis prohibited" message.

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  2. it's entirely possible, but I cant imagine why Olmsted Sound Studios would have it in house in the first place... reference level record?

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