Session Discographies - Session Order

[Dan Gould]

Probably a silly question but just to verify, label discographies organize sessions by recording order, right?

So if "Honky Tonk" is listed first in Ruppli, it was first song laid down.

And I guess, similarly, the log for what became The Sidewinder would show the title track as the last tune since Lee composed it at the very end to get an LP-worth of music done.

(Actually looking at the Lee Morgan Discography project page, Gary's Notebook was the last tune recorded. Is my assumption wrong or is the story of how Lee composed it not really true and actually easily controverted by the session log?)

[andybleaden]

I think sometimes that as new info comes out then occasionally the session order gets corrected however I thought that this was related to new titles/mix ups since addressed by those present etc....why...what you found that makes you doubt this?

[Dan Gould]

13 minutes ago, andybleaden said:

I think sometimes that as new info comes out then occasionally the session order gets corrected however I thought that this was related to new titles/mix ups since addressed by those present etc....why...what you found that makes you doubt this?

Hi Andy.

Not sure what you mean by "this" but ... as far as the Sidewinder session goes, the title track is listed next to last, not the last recorded released take.

To the general question, I am looking into how Bill Doggett's Honky Tonk came to be and drummer Shep Shepherd completely contradicts Doggett's story about a sort of immaculate musical conception on a gig in Lima, Ohio, he says it started during a rehearsal and that some time later the band needed to record another song and Doggett asked the band about that "honky tonk type thing you were playing before" and they recorded it and to Shepherd's surprise, it was a sudden, surprise hit a few weeks later.

Ruppli shows Honky Tonk Parts 1 and 2 as the first tunes recorded at their June 16, 1956 recording session which contradicts Shepherd's memory.

[andybleaden]

I see now what you mean. Well:

A records are never 100% readable or written down correctly

B My stories have got slightly embellished over the years and changed somewhat - dont think I am alone.

C May have been the info from the transfer tape changed to the records when mixed

[Big Beat Steve]

What about the matrix numbers? What do they definitely indicate after all?
Session discographies usually list the tunes in the matrix number order. But how did producers or session engineers (or whoever specified them for a given session) use and assign these matrix numbers and did all of them always proceed along the same lines?

[JSngry]

Lima, Ohio? Maybe Joe Henderson was around?