I received a request for this apparently rare single, recorded in 1958 on the Ft. Wayne, Indiana label Emerald, which has four entire singles listed here. 45 RPM Records is a wonderful resource--one I turn to often, especially with all the indie gospel labels I feature. (It has LP info, too.)
I had posted this in 2017, but I must have taken it down after the Zippylink had expired. Zippylink was convenient and not convenient, all at the same time. Anyway, I'd forgotten that my copy has some distortion--either the pressing wasn't good, or a bad needle made contact with the grooves (I suspect the latter). Years of experience have taught me that increasing the VTF is the solution for a worn record (my wider needle didn't work), and so I increased the tracking force--and everything sounded worse. Then I used my best stylus at 1.5 grams, and I got more than acceptable results. The files have some mild spots of distortion, but sound pretty good. Apparently, having the needle ride higher in the grooves was the trick. Above the damage, in other words.
The person requesting the file said he heard it in a Netflix movie, and I hope to find out which one. (UPDATE: 2014's Christmas, Again. Thanks, Ernie. I don't know how I missed that in my Google search.) There's always the possibility my own file was "borrowed," as happens routinely. But I can't assume this is the case, even as often as my stuff is swiped anymore. Copies other than mine do exist, and I don't have a right to accuse without cause.
Enjoy this very obscure side. My area of musical blindness, so to speak, is identifying vocal ranges. I have relative pitch, I can map chord progressions by ear, I'm an excellent sight-reader, but I sometimes can't tell tenor from baritone. Anyway, Fran--a very good singer--sounds like a contralto slightly out of her comfortable range. And some of the key changes in Christmas Everywhere sound like wobbly, badly spliced repitchings, but who knows? In several spots, the melody of this song anticipates the 1963 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, which is cool.* This is an ambitious no-budget production, and I really like it. And the flip, One Star, is the type of thing that's nearly always corny and overdone, but, surprise--it's a nice, fairly touching Advent ditty. I have no idea who composer "Leblanc" is--he or she wrote both sides. (NOTE: See Bob's comment about the label and the possible i.d. of "Leblanc.")
I have a Shell Wonderful World of Music holiday LP (Longines Symphonette) ready to go. Anyone want to hear it? Maybe someone can identify the Johnny Mann Singers-sounding group featured on it.
*By which I mean the melody and chord changes. The two songs have different meters (duple vs. triple).
DOWNLOAD: Christmas Everywhere (Leblanc)--Fran Alexandre, 1958
Christmas Everywhere (Leblanc)--Fran Alexandre, 1958
One Star (Leblanc)--Same.
Lee
29 comments:
Looking forward to hearing this. I've gotten requests for this one as well. I have a couple of rips downloaded somewhere. One of which is most likely yours. I remember them sounding scratchy and/or distorted. Hoping for a noticable improvement. Thanks.
Hopefully, this rip sounds better. In any previous rip, I probably used my cheaper cartridge, figuring higher VTF was called for. I was very surprised that lighter tracking did the trick.
Thanks, Lee! For the pitch adjustment back then, would they have just adjusted the tape speed? I'm sure today it's all digital, but it would have needed to be tape manipulation back in the day, I think. That would have been crazy tedious to do differently on different parts of the tape!
Some days I wonder if my stuff isn't appearing in weird places like Netflix movies, but then, like you, I stop and realize it's unlikely I have the only copy of something. But stranger things have happened! :)
My thoughts, exactly, re tape. The splicing part would be a piece of cake compared to altering the speed, because speed on reel to reel machines is all a function of capstan width--I don't know that controlling the current flow would do it (i.e., with the equivalent of a dimmer switch for a lamp). On the other hand, the unstable sound could be a result of wonky electronic manipulation. OR... it could simply be a bad edit. I don't know. I hear a pitch dip, which is very strange. If it was a bad edit--one which started with the machine not fully fired up--it would have been a rise in pitch, not a drop. Someone was there. Someone knows!
It's always impossible to say with ripped-off files, unless it's the outfit that took my Smith's Sacred Singers sides and released them in the same order I posted them--that's pretty blatant. I suppose that, if anyone had a right to complain about our stolen files, it would be Google. No, wait--I'm wrong. As a hosting site, they don't own the rights to our blogs. Just read up on that. This works out well for them, because then they're not accountable for our actions while at Blogger. Or on it--whatever.
Christmas Again is my favorite holiday movie so I'm really thrilled that you posted this. The song plays during the closing credits and it has a weirdly otherworldly quality that is both totally out of sync with what the movie's about and totally right. FYI the film was released in 2015 so they couldn't have used your file posted in 2017.
I don't remember this one from its previous incarnation and I am intrigued. Thanks!
Oh, there are, or at least were, tape recorders with a variable speed control. I used to own one.
Buster--
Thanks for clarifying! I figured there were, but I never encountered one. It occurred to me that speed could be controlled with current flow, that messing with the capstan wasn't the only option. And I'm betting you'll hear the weird section I mention, where there's a speed dip. And, if the engineer was controlling the speed in "live" fashion (or during the mastering process), that would solve the mystery.
Jimble--
Only too happy to please! Actually (and I should have mentioned this), I'm sure I did earlier postings of the track. It's one of my earlier offerings. Unfortunately, I did away with my earlier posts, because their links were no longer working, and I was getting a ton of re-up requests. So I can't confirm this. If I could locate it on one of 100s of CD-Rs, I could establish a year. I saved the early part of my blog to disc (using Blogger's instructions), but so far I have no idea how to retrieve the data!
On one of my 100s of CD-Rs, I meant to type! I hunted for it, as I'm sure I saved it, but it hasn't shown up. I can't even find my CDs of mp3s from past posts. The CD cases grew legs and walked away--I'm sure of it.
Lee - Back in the day, that variable pitch control was one way to correct off-pitch recordings. I remember doing it with a Beethoven 9 that was mastered at least a half-step sharp, which presumably had been done to get it on one LP. I think the tape recorder's speed control was done via moderating the voltage, as you suggest.
Lee,
Is it me, or are there actually two pitch demodulations (even though Firefox says that's not a word)? What I mean, the keys go up, 'til the last two verses. In fact, even though the first verse and the last are in the same key (which I'd say is G), it does sound like her voice is lower than on the first. HMMM, dunno, just a thought. BTW, the keys go up 'til A, then back down a half-step each time, on the last two verses. Interesting, thanks, love and prayin' for ya!
Romans 11:33-36 KJB
Josh
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Oh, on the melody, I find it catchy and it reminds me of, Billy Boy LOL!
Buster--
Thanks for clearing up something I've been wondering about for a while now! And here's the pathetic part--I HAD pitch control on a Pioneer cassette deck way back, so I should have known the option existed. I had totally forgotten. D'oh!
Josh,
Thanks for the harmonic analysis. I didn't take the time to test things on my keyboard! You've saved me the work. I'll have to listen to "Billy Boy." I'm sure it's implied in the melody--you're too astute an observer to be wrong about that. And what I can't decide is whether the repitching effect is simply Fran singing a bit too far out of her comfortable range or if actually tape manipulation was involved. I suspect tape manipulation.
Lee,
I'd say tape manipulation, because the key changes are throughout, not just her voice. Maybe, the latter is on her voice only, now that I think of it, just the piano played normally, dunno. Thanks for the compliments, too, love and prayin' for ya!
Romans 11:33-36 KJB
Josh
Podcast: http://www.jeremiah616.sermon.net
Callcast: (563) 999-3967
Blog: http://www.brojoshowens.wordpress.com
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Just FYI, I actually had a cassette deck at one point with pitch control. I don't know why I bought it, but I thought it was neat. Never did much with it. And a CD player, as well, you could pitch it up and down just like a record player. It was fun to play with, but I don't think I ever used it for anything. At one point I'd spend a lot of money on stupid toys like that... :)
I didn't know that pitch-control CD players existed--cool. And, in answering Buster, I remembered my Pioneer cassette deck of old (1981 or so) that had a pitch control dial. I think it would go up or down, pitch-wise, a full tone. Or at least a semitone.
My favorite gadget was the reverb knob on my parents' stereo console. I liked making Frank Sinatra sound like he was at the bottom of a well.
Pardon my interrupting this, to me, arcane technical discussion, but you asked if anyone was up for a Longines Symphonette recording with Johnny Mann-ish sounding vocals. Just the idea of trying to sound like him makes this record intriguing. Please post.
Buster--
That would have been cool! Speaking of reverb, I believe I had a stand-alone Pioneer reverb unit at one time. Why I bought it, I'll never know...
David--
Will do! It's very nice choral stuff.
I've been doing some research yesterday and I think Leblanc, the composer, is Jean Leblanc. Most of his copyrights are c/o New York City publishing companies. Leblanc has songs registered with SOCAN (Canada) and SACEM (France) but also with BMI (USA). Based on several of his works containging such words as merengue, limbo, calypso, Martinique..., he came possibly from the French West Indies.
Cliff Ayers, the owner of Emerald, started his musical career in New-York and bu the way The first releases on Emerald in the early fifties had a New York address.
I wonder if this wasn't a field recording done on a battery-powered tape recorder?
Bob,
Thanks for the information! And a battery-operated tape recorder might explain all the "wow" in the sound, especially at the edits, or what sound like edits.
I didn't take the time to look up the label at Discogs--I should have. I stopped searching at Discogs when I didn't find Fran Alexandre. Interesting composer info. Where did you locate the info on Jean Leblanc? The LOC?
Thanks again!
I'm not so sure those changes aren't simply the piano player modulating and the voices following. Except at the 1:41 point. There seems a strange slur there. There isn't a hugely notable change in tempo at those points, but a digital analysis of the BPM at different points in the song might highlight changes in tape speed.
Part of me doubts that would be a tape effect. It would seem to me that in 1958 that would be a counter-intuitive and potentially expensive way to do a key change. Then again, there are some relatively advanced studio techniques on the recording. Alexandre does some vocal doubling and I even think that some of the female choir harmonies really sound like her voice multitracked.
I had a brief career editing tape (mostly speech, interviews and such...) for NPR and I like to think I have a good ear for splices. I don't hear any obvious splices, but that's on just a few headphone listens...
Thanks. That's something I forgot to consider--a change in speed would mean a change in tempo, and there would have been no way to sidestep that. Digitally, it can be done, but...
I definitely hear a slight pitch drop on one of the modulations, and it may be at the point you mention--I don't have the track ready to play at the moment. My guess is that they spliced in the section and that the tape machine wasn't quite up to speed when the engineer gave the signal. Except that would logically create a brief speeding-up effect, not a pitch dip. I don't know how far overdubbing technology had evolved by 1958, but maybe the seeming pitch instability resulted from that process? And do you mean that Fran is double-tracked, singing in unison with herself (a la Brian Wilson)? I thought I was hearing some kind of reverb.
Thanks for these interesting comments and observations, Lee and company. On overdubbing, I mentioned Home Sweet Home, as recorded by Don Reno, in a comment on The Grace Gospel Aires, here's some more specific info thereon.
• In a hurry to cover another version on the market in 1955, Don recorded “Home Sweet Home” by himself – overdubbing three vocal parts, guitar, banjo, bass and snare drum.
https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/reno-smiley/don-reno/
Again, thanks, love and praying for y'all!
Romans 11:33-36 KJB
Josh
Podcast: http://www.jeremiah616.sermon.net
Callcast: (563) 999-3967
Blog: http://www.brojoshowens.wordpress.com
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/preacher-friends
I'm late but...
Mr Lee: thanks for Christmas Everywhere. I like it very much ! It's fun and ful of many other songs «cameo» if I can say so.
There is almost no defects is your transfer. Us collectors have heard worse ? !
Mr Ravel, from Montreal, Quebec.
Josh,
Thanks for the link. And I can definitely hear "Billy Boy" in the melody! It's standing out like a sore thumb. Good catch!
Ravel,
Thank you. Glad you like the transfer, and great to hear from you again!
When you're talking about splicing the section in and the tape player not being up to speed, it sounds like you mean "punching in", which is having the tape player playing while the musicians perform and then hitting record at a certain point to record a new part over another. If they were splicing tape, that would be done without machines running. You'd just get two sections of tape from different takes and literally cut and tape them together. (I spent A LOT of time doing that.)
And I do believe that as well as reverb that she is double tracked (ala Mr. Wilson as you note). At the 47 second mark listen as she holds a note. You can hear one voice cut the note off before the other one. And the timbre of some of the femal choral stuff totally sounds like they multiplied that and multitracked her (probably bouncing the track down multiple times).
I wasn't thinking in terms of a track overly, but rather a separate take in which they picked things up at a certain measure, to be spliced in later. I figured maybe the engineer gave the signal to go before the machine was fully powered up, which might explain what sounds like a brief dip in pitch at about 1:43. Oh, and I can definitely hear the double-tracking now.
As for bouncing the track down, wouldn't there be generational loss over time (recordings of recordings)? I once had a sound-on-sound reel to reel, and that was how it worked--to my disappointment.
Yes, there is a generational loss when you bounce tracks. But it can be managed. I'm not sure it was done in this case, but the density of the harmonies suggests voices of very similar timbre. You get that when the same person sings all the parts (or people with similar structures in the voice box--like siblings). And it was being done around this time. I'm thinking specifically of the Les Paul/Mary Ford stuff. I'm not sure it's done here, but the fact that there is some double tracked vocals tells me they knew how to do it...
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