'Sweet Be Bop' What was that supposed to be?

[Big Beat Steve]

They say there is a resurgence for everything in due course ...

 

Well, and sometimes they even go one better!

 

 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Decca sold a lot of records, and you yourself should have more than one Earl Grant, surely?

Bert Kaemfert, Pete Fountain for the easy-listeners, people bought those records.Brenda Lee and a lot of others in Country. Loretta Lynn for cryin' out loud!

These were in any record store that had a good jazz selection. Brunswick/Vocalion originally.

Look at these Decca Original Cast albums: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=decca%20records%20original%20cast%20&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&pq=decca%20records%20original%20cast%20&sc=0-28&sk=&cvid=825FFF7D05DF4BD3B2A156B9918154D5

OSTs, not so much. Although in the 1950s they had both the Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman OSTs.

More Duke on Decca (real Decca this time)

 Brubeck on Decca!

Decca sold plenty of records and still had hits, more than enough. However, the one thing that struck me about them as being, not just lagging, but actually perverse, was the their "art" department. Even if the front covers looked "ok", the back covers would so many times be, uh....under-developed.

Oh, yeah, Lenny Dee, they had buttloads of Lenny Dee records!

That's very interesting - I never saw any of those orig cast albums over here. And I never saw any of those Duke Ellington LPs.

Yeah, Lenny Dee!!!!

MG

PS - I've a lot of Earl Grant, but I prefer to get downloads so I don't run out of room. I only have one actual Decca LP, of anyone, and that's him. I have another of his on a Decca subsidiary called Colortune (deep groove yet!). It has a Decca number DL8672.

 

[JSngry]

Colortune? Never heard of it!

Over here, Vocallion became the "budget" label for all things Decca-related.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Another way to look at Decca is that they didn't really get aggressive about post-British Invasion music. That was when they really began to get out of sync.

Although - they had the American Who albums (although in the UK, the Rolling Stones were on Decca, but in the US they were on London, still not sure how that all fir together), the Jesus Christ Superstar album, which was HUGE, and Loretta Lynn, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, female country act of the day. So they had their big players in some pretty big markets, they just didn't go deep into any of them except Country. And they always had their easy-listeners to ride to the end. Plus the back catalogue.

I think Milt Gabler held some ongoing position at the company, so maybe that explains the lack of interest in post-1964 rock. But I he got this one over the transom:

 of Al

Sometime in the thirties, as a result of some New Deal legislation on foreign ownership of firms operating in the USA, UK Decca had to get rid of US Decca. I think that was 1937. As a result, UK Decca couldn't use the Decca trademark in the USA. So when Decca decided it COULD have a US subsidiary, in about 1947, it chose the name London. And mostly, London was issuing UK recordings from UK Decca. Some US recordings were made by London, and one hit the R&B chart!

UK Decca used the name London in the UK to release records on US London's own subsidiary or London-distributed companies like Felsted and Hi, but this was after they'd closed the UK Felsted label. Mostly, they released records from US indie companies - Atlantic, Dot, Specialty, Cameo, Imperial, Chess, ABC Paramount, Liberty, Sun, Bigtop, Savoy, Starday, Tamla, Anna, Jubilee - you name it, it came out here on London - but also on London throughout Europe and the whole of the British Commonwealth. The genius behind this was a lady called Mimi Trepel.

Now the Who didn't actually record for Decca. Their early records ('I can't explain', 'My generation') were produced by Shel Talmy, an American producer working in England in the mid-sixties. Talmy got Decca to issue it on the Brunswick label (which it used for US Decca releases, because it wouldn't let US Decca use the trademark outside the US). And he got US Decca to issue them.

It's all bloody silly, isn't it? But fascinating.

MG

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Colortune? Never heard of it!

Over here, Vocallion became the "budget" label for all things Decca-related.

The Colortune trade mark has been stuck on over the Decca one on the front. But the label says Colortune. Underneath it are the words 'Original recording and licensed by Decca Records Inc, New York, USA. But the edge says Colortune DL 8672.

I don't think this was quite as expensive as a budget label  I suspect it was made for racks.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

I just checked the few period U.S. Decca originals with vocals that I have and wonder by what criteria they did or didn't include that "Vocal with instrumental accompaniment" statement on the cover.

DL 74045 and DL 74046 have nothing, whereas the more recent (if the numbers mean anything) DL 74640 does include that statement on the back cover.

And among the even older 10'" LP releases DL 5564 has nothing on the cover either (nor on the label) whereas DL 5567 (from the same series of LPs) says "Singing with instrumental accompaniment".

It cannot be a matter of whether the LP includes vocals THROUGHOUT either.
DL 74046 is all vocal, whereas all 8 tracks on DL 5567 in fact are instrumentals!

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

27 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I just checked the few period U.S. Decca originals with vocals that I have and wonder by what criteria they did or didn't include that "Vocal with instrumental accompaniment" statement on the cover.

DL 74045 and DL 74046 have nothing, whereas the more recent (if the numbers mean anything) DL 74640 does include that statement on the back cover.

And among the even older 10'" LP releases DL 5564 has nothing on the cover either (nor on the label) whereas DL 5567 (from the same series of LPs) says "Singing with instrumental accompaniment".

It cannot be a matter of whether the LP includes vocals THROUGHOUT either.
DL 74046 is all vocal, whereas all 8 tracks on DL 5567 in fact are instrumentals!

 

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

Decca sold a lot of records, and you yourself should have more than one Earl Grant, surely?

Bert Kaemfert, Pete Fountain for the easy-listeners, people bought those records.Brenda Lee and a lot of others in Country. Loretta Lynn for cryin' out loud!

 

Running through the Decca congolomerate including its subsidiaries already mentioned here, the above quote reminded me I have the below one a.o. (which the AAJ guide saw fit to give 3 stars - that much for its all-out "easy-listening" character ):

 

Checking the shelves further, there's this, taking buyer information one step further ....

 

But then ... pulling out the one next to it I am beginning to wonder if they were that serious about that "accompaniment" thing after all: 

Piano by Dick Marx, bass by John  Frigo, who'da thunk it?

 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Yeah, it was either an unhealthy obsession or an inside joke, that practice. Hard to imagine it being anything other, right?

Oh, fwiw, Pete Fountain's real "easy listening" records were done alongside with something that could at least resemble "real jazz". Fountain could play, although his records usually betray to one extent or another his first broad exposure as a Lawrence Welk featured attraction.

I got Pete Fountain's New Orleans for a Christmas present one year, and liked it well enough. Jack Sperling on drums iirc, and a nifty intro on "The Saints". But the only reason I have it still is because I'm superstitious about disposing of gifts from family.

 

[mikeweil]

There probably is some odd regulation how the pieces must be categorized for calculation of royalties - at least GEMA in Germany used to have such categories, which were not necessarily defined for musical reasones.

[JSngry]

All Fox Trots All The Time!

uh oh, somebody missed a deadline...