“Damn Tooting,” said Lucy, and that was the inspiration for The Best Damn Dance Band in the Land.

As I reflect back on it all now (“it all” meaning the formation of our orchestra: Ira Ironstrings, The Best Damn Dance Band in the Land), it must have been divinely blessed. Things Good like that just don’t happen every day in North Crumble. Not by a long shot.

I think it’s important that the world-at-large know about the day our orchestra was formed…for posterity’s sake, and also because we all get fed up with visiting anthropologists messing up the Good Life here in Macon County with their deep, probing questions. So here goes:

Actually, it was a non-Ironstrings but a fast-friend — Lucy N. Fairweather, our percussionist and Moral Beacon — who inspired us to form our orchestra. that sweet, grey-haired old lady had been passed out in our setting-room rocker for eleven days, just a-rocking and eyeing the bougainvillaea. Came the fateful evening, April 11, 1930. A typical Ironstrings family scene at dusk: the sun falling behind the Ice House, scented breezes wafting in from Kissing Bog, and the whole Ironstrings clan gathered underneath the creeping veranda. Lucy looked up at us Ironstrings, rubbed her antimacassars (which had been ailing of late), smiled benignly, and said, “You Clydes oughta do something about Dance Music. It’s damn well going to the dogs, and tha’s a fact.”

Well sir, we Ironstrings galvanized into action. After flooring the old lady with a feint to the mid-section and a mean right hook, I asked here just what more we could do. Already we had founded a fund to preserve used Andy Kirk 78’s. “Nothing more can be done!” we said, almost to a man. (“Almost,” because Armando Lauderdale had carried the maid, Thelma N. (for Nothing) Edison, off to Kissing Bog and couldn’t be contacted nohow.)

To tell the truth, Lucy was fit to be tied. (In fact, we had to forcibly restrain Polly Paradiddle, who was coming at her with a hunk of hemp and a mean glint in her good eye.) Lucy spoke up just in time. Saluting the colors, she said, “True grey Southerners! Be creative as all get out about the Dance Music Problem!” Taking it as her personal mission, she hailed a passing Red Cross van, clambered up on the hood, and stamped her right foot for attention. “Ira Ironstrings, Friends, and you Crumbums in the ally there,” she spake, still stamping her right foot for attention and also because the sole of her sneaker was flapping some. “I has come up with something, and in sheer reverence to this old grey head and also because I holds the notes on all your instruments, I think that mayhap we oughta form an orchestra! Horray!”

“Horray,” we answered, to a man. (Armando was back now, picking nettles out of his spats.)

“Damn tooting,” said sweet good grey-haired motherly affectionate Lucy.

That did it!

“Tooting!” I cried out. “That’s our answer!”

“The child’s been tetched since the day of the borning,” said Lucy, “and that’s a fact o’ nature.”

“Fellow Red Necks,” addressed I (never dreaming that this was the birth of what would serve in years yet unborn as a true elocutionary gift). “Tooting! Dwell on that word a mo’. Today in music everyone is ‘blowing!’ Every Man Jack of you has been faced with music that’s been blown! Bring back the Toot, say I.”

As if to emphasize my stand, Gutbucket Avakian, the Armenian Red Cross driver, gave his truck horn a whomp with his elbow. Toot, it went. Toot it kept on wenting. Stuck, it was.

“Crazy, pops,” said Thurston, my Portuguese step-sister, running toward the stuck horn, “G Sharp.” Pulling her trusty tuba out of her satchel, she ran off a wicked vamp. Lucy stomped her foot faster. “You fat heads are swingin’ now,” she wheezed.

Frenzy set in.

Maxwell Suggins (tenor washboard and temple bells) had tooted up a heavy four-beat rhythm on his “board.” Tanya Blackberry tooted a joyous cadenza on her three-string Woolworth guaranteed banjo, c. 1907. Reminding us all of a young Teschemacher, Hot Lips Skorstad tooted variations of “A Train” on kazoo, enough to make strong men weep.

I whooped, “Now we’re Tooting, bless our cute little hearts. Now we sound like The Best Bamn Bance Dand in the Land!” (I never could say it fast.)

Hearts full and feet a-flap, our 12 Hot Licks o’ Rhythm kept it up far into the night. As luck would have it, little Samuel F. B. Marconi, boy inventor, warmed up his cactus-needle recorder, the better to preserve all this on wax (as they say in Show Biz). Good thing, too, for you can now hear, at a ridiculously low price, The Best Damn Bance Dand In the Land.

Recorded April 11 and a hunk of April 12, 1930, in North Crumble, Macon County, Georgia, without benefit of clergy.

For your further dancing pleasure, may we suggest:

SORTA-MAY by Billy May, Capitol 562
HAWAIIAN WAR CHANT by Tommy Dorsey, RCA Victor 1234
CHARLESTONS by Ira Ironstrings, Warner Bros. 1297
GLENN MILLER, Epic 3236

Side One:

1. Across the Alley From the Alamo (2:12)
2. The Blacksmith Blues (2:10)
3. The Surrey With the Fringe On Top (2:21)
4. Down By the Station (2:05)
5. Christopher Columbus (2:48)
6. Mountain Greenery (2:43)

Side Two:

1. Jingle Jangle Jingle (2:33)
2. Little Brown Jug (2:26)
3. Jambalaya (2:00)
4. The Huckle-Buck (3:01)
5. I’d’ve Baked A Cake (2:22)
6. Last Night On the Back Porch (2:05)

PRODUCED BY LOU BUSCH

VITAPHONIC HIGH FIDELITY
WARNER BROS. HIGH FIDELITY

MONOPHONIC W 1380

ARTUR BALSAM, Pianist
Winterthur Symphony Orchestra
WALTER GOEHR, Conductor

Side 1
33-1/3 RPM
Micro-groove

Concert Hall
LIMITED EDITION

PIANO CONCERTO IN B-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 19
LUDWIG VAN BETHOVEN

1st Movement: Allegro con brio (12:09)

CH-SPEC-51-BC

LICENSED BY CONCERT HALL SOCIETY INC. NY, USA ONLY FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE FOR PHONOGRAPHS IN HOMES

LONG PLAYING

ARTUR BALSAM, Pianist
Winterthur Symphony Orchestra
WALTER GOEHR, Conductor

Side 2
33-1/3 RPM
Micro-groove

Concert Hall
LIMITED EDITION

PIANO CONCERTO IN B-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 19
LUDWIG VAN BETHOVEN

2nd Movement: Adagio (9:08)
3rd Movement: Rondo: Allegro (6:03)

CH-SPEC-51-BC

LICENSED BY CONCERT HALL SOCIETY INC. NY, USA ONLY FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE FOR PHONOGRAPHS IN HOMES

(This was found in the same package as many of the 78s I’ve posted, and was the same physical size, but was obviously a more modern disc: thinner, flexible vinyl, and with a 33 1/3 playback speed rather than 78. I believe this is mid- to late-50’s, but I’m not at all positive.)

TEMPO
Custom Made Records

UR-104582

WHEN DAY IS DONE (2:46)
(De-Sylva-Katcher)
Opposite Side: Cocktails For Two
Featuring The Lightning Fingers Of
BEN LIGHT At The STEINWAY
HERB KERN At The HAMMOND
Lloyd Sloop At The Novachord
And
Gail Laughton’s Harp

TR-608-A

RECORDED BY DIRECT ELECTRONIC PROCESS

TEMPO
Custom Made Records

UR-104581

COCKTAILS FOR TWO (2:47)
(Coslow-Johnston)
Opposite Side: When Day Is Done
Featuring The Lightning Fingers Of
BEN LIGHT At The STEINWAY
HERB KERN At The HAMMOND
Lloyd Sloop At The Novachord
And
Gail Laughton’s Harp

TR-608-B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

“HIS MASTER’S VOICE”
RCA VICTOR

For best results use RCA Victor Needles
10-3300-A
(49-3300-A)

Aaronson
THE LOVELIEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR (3:16)
(From the MGM film “The Great Caruso”)
(Words by Paul Francis Webster)
MARIO LANZA, Tenor
RCA Victor Orchestra
Constantine Callinicos,
Conductor

RED SEAL RECORD

“HIS MASTER’S VOICE”
RCA VICTOR

For best results use RCA Victor Needles
10-3300-B
(49-3300-B)

Verdi
Rigoletto: Act IV
LA DONNA E MOBILE (1:40)
(Woman Is Fickle)

MARIO LANZA, Tenor
RCA Victor Orchestra
Constantine Callinicos,
Conductor

(This record has a chunk taken out of it, so each of these selections is missing a few seconds from the beginning of the track.)

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

“HIS MASTER’S VOICE”
RCA VICTOR

For best results use RCA Victor Needles
10-1561-A
(49-1353-A)

Nicholas Broadszky
BE MY LOVE (3:31)
(from the M-G-M film, “Toast of New Orleans”)
(Words by Sammy Cahn)

MARIO LANZA, Tenor
with Orchestra, Jeff Alexander Choir
Ray Sinatra, Conductor

RED SEAL RECORD

“HIS MASTER’S VOICE”
RCA VICTOR

For best results use RCA Victor Needles
10-1561-B
(49-1353-B)

Nicholas Broadszky
I’LL NEVER LOVE YOU (3:31)
(from the M-G-M film, “Toast of New Orleans”)
(Words by Sammy Cahn)

MARIO LANZA, Tenor
with Orchestra
Ray Sinatra, Conductor

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(M 1)
Harmonica Duet With Guitar And Bass

SPRINGTIME POLKA (2:21)

PLEHAL BROTHERS

45008 A

DECCA

(91746)
Harmonica Duet with Guitar and Bass

CUCKOO WALTZ (2:38)

PLEHAL BROTHERS

45008 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

SIDE ONE:

1. Heartaches (1:44)
2. Sweet Georgia Brown (2:31)
3. Sugar Blues (3:00)
4. Ivory Rag (2:26)
5. Oh! (2:47)
6. Alabamy Bound (2:08)

SIDE TWO:

1. Twelfth Street Rag (2:45)
2. Johnson Rag (2:40)
3. Guitar Boogie (2:13)
4. Sam’s Song (2:16)
5. Third Man Theme (2:33)
6. I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover (2:10)

“Unmask the rogue,” they demanded…”throw down the cloak of anonymity”…tell us, “who is Ira Ironstrings?”

That Ira Ironstrings is a delivish fellow is a foregone conclusion. Elusive too. And as mean a rogue as any black-hearted villain that sailed with Capt. Kidd. But Ironstrings (Lord love his playful spirit) has somehow managed to elude us, too. he’s made his second album and vanished stealthily into the black of night.

We almost had him at the recording session, to be frank. Of course it’s common knowledge that Ira records in a soundproof isolation booth (Isolation booths — courtesy the $65,000 Question”), wearing a complete suit of armor, and guarded by a cordon of Pinkertons. Ira’s been known to swing his mace upon anybody just so much as approaching his castle at radio Recorder’s, (a very Bohemian atmosphere for a Recording Studio). Well, to get on with it, we had somehow managed to sneak Ira’s cigarettes away from him prior to the recording session. He’s an inveterate smoker, you know, and just can’t stand to be without tobacco. matter of fact, he once fractured his wrist crushing a package of crush-proof cigarettes. We left him with his matches, though, and that heaven help us, was a fright. We didn’t plan it that way, but blithe spirit Ira turned the tables on us. He was irritated no end; he fussed with his helmet (which made a horrible noise while recording), he cursed at us in Swahili, and clobbered a Pinkerton with his mace. All to no avail, however. Left to his own devices, Ira had no other choice but to get whatever pleasure there was, in of all things, his matches.

Which brings us to the name of this sortie in contemporary music, “Ira Ironstrings Plays: With Matches.”

You all know by now that friend Ira is most assuredly a non-conformist. In planning this album (it was difficult to understand him talking through that ridiculous steel helmet he insists upon wearing), Ira decried the maelstrom of cacophony attendant to high-fidelity sound. Fidelity-shmidelity he sez, “I wanna hear something from the good old days. How about recording some ‘music’ for people with 78 rpm hand wound phonographs,” he queried.

This collection of songs more than satisfies such a glaring gap in modern disc repertoire. At long last, here are the sounds of song hits made when playing a phonograph was an event. Ira was inspired by those songs, and for historical purposes, (there may be those among you who plan on doing Ira’s biography) we note the source of his inspiration.

“Heartaches” was originally made famous by Ted Weems; “Sweet Georgia Brown” by Brother Goon Bones (who playd a pair of hand polished mahogany sticks); “Sugar Blues” by Clyde McCoy (He’s in oil now, you know); “Ivory Rag” by Joe “Fingers” Carr; “Oh” by Pee Wee Hunt; and “Alabamy Bound” by Eddie Cantor.

Ira fell in love to “12th Street Rag,” recorded by Pee Wee Hunt; “Johnson Rag” which soared to popularity as a result of the recording by __________; (we’ve hunted high and low, and can’t find who made this song popular. If somebody knows, please write and help us.) “Guitar Boogie” by Arthur “Guitar” Smith; “Sam’s Song” by Bing Crosby; “Third Man Theme” by Anton Karas, who it is reputed devised the haunting melody simply because he was fearful of James Mason; and last but not least, “Four Leaf Clover” of which there are a multitude of “discoverers,” among them the Firko String Band, Art Mooney and Alvino Rey.

In any event, you’ll agree they’re all hot selections. We had hoped to include a book of matches with each album to sort of put you in the mood, but unfortunately the Fire Department (they’re square) forbid us to do so.

Have fun.

For Your Listening Pleasure, May We Suggest:

A PRACTICAL COURSE IN HYPNOSIS, University 1265
CHINESE & MANDARIN SELF TAUGHT, Folkways FQ-8002 ($37.50)
STETHOSCOPIC HEART RECORDS, GEORGE GECKLER, M.D., Columbia KL4976
RADIO SIGNALS OF MAN’S FIRST SATELLITES, Taben 1
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING’S REDUCING PLAN, Harmony 7143

Warner Bros. Records, Inc.
THE FIRST NAME IN SOUND

VITAPHONIC HIGH FIDELITY, THE FIRST NAME IN SOUND, is the optimum in modern sound recording technique, conforming to the fine tradition of sound reproduction that has been the standard of warner Bros. for more than thirty years. Only the finest materials and equipment are used in these recordings, from actual studio recording session to final pressing.

TECHNICAL DATA: Recorded range, 20-25,000 cycles. Three channel Ampex 300 tape recorders, latest condenser microphones in conjunction with Vitaphonic FNV optimum frequency range control. Mastering on specially designed, electronically controlled variable pitch Scully lathes, and Westrex feedback cutters. RIAA playback curve. Rolloff, 13.75 DB at 10 KC.

CAUTION: Be sure your playback stylus is in good condition. A worn needle will not reproduce the full fidelity of this recording, and will shorten its life.

W 1248
WARNER BROS. RECORDS
Vitaphonic
High Fidelity

Stereo Action is a new concept of music in motion; a new dimension in recorded sound. Stereo Action brings you unmatched fidelity through the full sound spectrum, plus the exciting new illusion of sound in motion. Soloists and entire sections of the orchestra appear to move thrillingly back and forth across the room. Stereo Action is musical movement so real, your eyes will follow the sound.

STORY OF STEREO ACTION

The advent of stereophonic recordings for the home and the equipment on which to play them brought in its wake a whole specialized repertoire of “sound demonstration” discs—recording which when played on stereo phonographs would provide the hearer with spectacular sonic illusions of motion, directionality and depth (RCA Victor’s BOB AND RAY THROW A STEREO SPECTACULAR, LSP-1773, is a prize example). The snarl of racing cars whizzing past the starting line, the New York City subway, a ping-pong game, the bowling alley, the zing of a rifle bullet toward its target, the soft-shoe dance across the stage—these and a host of other novel effects became showpieces for the home stereo listener.

Wonderful as these stereo sound effects may be as aural novelties, they cannot hold the listener’s attention for long or over many hearings. The substance of almost all recordings worth living with is, after all—MUSIC.

Stereophonic recordings of symphony, opera, Broadway musicals, jazz and popular music literally added a new dimension to home phonograph listening. Such sound is enhanced not only through being spread across a broad frontal arc covered by the loudspeakers—as against being “squeezed” through a single enclosure; but more especially it is enhanced through the sense of localization and depth perspective. A soloist or instrumental choir, recorded in stereo, can be heard in the living room in the same relative placement as it would be in the concert hall, on the opera stage, or in the night club. The sound of instruments and singers emerges from the speakers in genuine aural perspective. In stereo recordings of opera, Broadway musicals or drama, movement across or from front to back of the stage is immediately discernible as such to the listener. These elements of directionality, depth illusion and motion are not to be found on monaural recordings; they are properties unique to stereo. This holds especially true for motion.

Though the great classics of the concert hall and opera remain of necessity inviolate, beyond a certain point, when it comes to exploitation of stereo recording techniques, popular entertainment music is something else again. Such music, after all, is meant to entertain—to delight and even surprise the hearer. So it is that record producers of the stereo era have been industriously devising ways and means of bringing the special properties of stereo to bear on entertainment music, and in a manner that would add something genuinely new and exciting to this type of listening fare. What RCA Victor has chosen to call STEREO ACTION is its special response to the fascinating challenge posted by the new techniques made available through the development of stereophony for the home. This has involved much more than merely exploiting motion and directionality in terms of shifting instrumental choirs and soloists from one side of the listening room to the other. For meaningful results, it has demanded new concepts in the art of orchestral arranging and a large measure of truly imaginative and creative collaboration between musicians and recording engineers.

The art of “pop” recording has become today, more than ever before, an art of dramatic enhancement through every device of microphone placement, reverberation technique, ping-pong stereo, and the like; but little had been done to develop a whole repertoire of pop musical arrangements that would take full advantage of the complete armory of enhancement techniques now available to the record producer. RCA Victor’s Stereo Action series marks a serious and carefully thought-out step in that direction. The facts of recording history show that musical enhancement by way of microphone and other audio techniques dates back a surprising number of years.

RCA Victor began experimenting with multi-track recording of soloists well before magnetic tape came into general use—notably with Jascha Heifets playing both solo parts of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra (c. 1947) and with the late, great Jazz musician, Sidney Bechet, playing all six instruments of a New Orleans combo in Blues of Bechet and Sheik of Araby (c. 1940).

After the war came the magnetic tape revolution in recording technology, and with it came a greater flexibility than ever before in using various enhancement devices in the field of popular music recording.

With the coming of stereo and the development by RCA Victor and others of doing master recordings on 3-channel stereo tapes (“triple-tracking”), special new techniques became and everyday part of phonograph record studio production. Every 3-track original has, of course, to be blended to a 2-track working master tape for producing the disc or pre-recorded tape for use on home 2-channel stereo phonographs or tape machines. So, in the process of “blending down,” many things that may not have come off in the recording session can be set right in the re-recording. Even before stereo, “post-equalization” and “post-reverberation” were commonly applied in instances where a master tape from a recording session may have left something to be desired. Of course tape editing techniques play a great part in this, too, so that the combination of all of these devices and techniques adds up to a product created as much by the studio engineers as by the performing musicians. With this wealth of knowledge and dramatic device at their beck and call, it seems only natural that the art of “musical-dramatic” enhancement, applied so successfully over the past decade to monaural entertainment recording, should begin to turn to stereo, no longer as just a novelty gimmick, but as a medium to be used with genuine creative imagination. It is with this in mind that RCA Victor has embarked on its Stereo Action series of recordings that highlight the special listening dimension provided by motion-in-stereo. Some of the “stereo highlighting” on these recordings will be apparent at once to the listener—wherein plectral, percussive or solo legato elements in an arrangement are manipulated in motion and/or in apparent perspective against a tonal background that shows them and the stereo medium to the most striking possible advantage; but this is merely a first step in the development of a new dimension in the art of orchestral arrangement and entertainment presentation on records, one that should over the years establish a dimension in home musical listening that is truly a la unto itself—to be experienced, as on these RCA Victor recordsings, only in stereo and only through the art of recording as developed for he 1960s and beyond.

— DAVID HALL
Music Editor, HiFi/Stereo Review

This album is comprised of outstanding selections from the widely acclaimed Stereo Action catalog developed by RCA Victor artists and engineers. In the event you wish to explore further in this exciting field, the complete album source for each composition is illustrated and numbered for your convenience.

Side One:

1. Ray Martin and His Orchestra: The Flight of the Bumble Bee (2:02) …Flutist Julius Baker is the “bee” in a honey of an arrangement. Listen as he flits furiously back and forth between speakers, with the string action following in hot pursuit.

2. Marty Gold and His Orchestra: Did You Ever See A Dream Walking? (2:38) opens, naturally enough, with the dream walking…from right to left, and back again. The chorus moves across from the left, and the trumpet solo moves across from the right. note how the voices move from left to right toward the end.

3. Dick Schory’s Percussion and Brass Ensemble: Runnin’ Wild (2:33) — Five shifty trumpets keynote this — rhythm drummer using brushes is centered — three xylophones, split right and left, hammer out the intro — the auto-brake drum (left) challenges the wood blocks (right) — more trumpets from everywhere — a drumstick solo on string bass plus bongos (left) and claves (right) — finally trumpets in high register, left-to-right and then parking in the middle.

4. Vic Schoen and His Orchestra: And the Band Played On (1:44) was approached with a swinging sense of humor. Trombones, cellos and horns on the left provide the depth for the Dixie-like feeling of trumpets and clarinets on the right. In the second chorus, the trombones move to the right to accompany the drumstick solo (played on the rim of the drum).

5. Leo Addeo and His Orchestra: Dancing Tambourine (3:15) starts off with the orchestra galloping from left to right, then back again and over to right once more. The harmonica is heard moving in the same pattern, as if following the orchestra. that’s the bass accordion making three turns, left to right. And there’s an amusing touch at the end when the accordion bellows down from left to right.

6. The Chorus and Percussion of Keith Textor: Lonesome Road (2:38) has one pedestrian, at least, snapping his fingers and whistling as he moves from right to left. The accompaniment begins on the left and the whistler goes right. The voices begin on the left, and at the end the whistler returns, this time moving from left to right.

7. The Guitars Unlimited Plus 7: Expresso (2:04) could give you coffee nerves, just in the sheer speed of its switching of speakers. The guitars move left as the tambourine moves right, and continue to alternate with each other. The solo guitar goes left to right.

Side Two:

1. Bernie Green and His Orchestra: Kiss of Fire (2:27) — In this first example available to the public of a new process called “Animated Tape,” our phantom trumpet soloist bounces back and forth from speaker to speaker at the start, then proceeds to float, somewhat jaggedly, between the speakers as he moves from side to side. The bass guitar and piano in deep registers set off the work of the soloist. Listen for a couple of flashes of the world’s weirdest piano about halfway through.

2. Marty Gold and His Orchestra: The 3rd Man Theme (2:44) — The harpsichord begins as it slides from left to right and back — then solo guitar (left) and accordion (right) slowly exchange positions punctuated by the piccolo. The full brass states the melody with harpsichord and xylophone accents. These instrumental combinations are heard again during the course of the performance.

3. Dick Schory’s Percussion and Brass Ensemble: Hernando’s Hideaway (3:35) — After the opening sound-effect tableau, trombones slide from left to right, then tiptoe back and forth with tambourine, castanets and snare drum in hot pursuit. Trumpets, vibes, organ, French horns and xylophone pick up the hunt for Hernando — another tableau depicts the end of our hero. Then a Latin beat and full orchestra criss-cross - a guitar floating from right to left then hands the melody back to the trombones — a harp gliss, left to right, precedes the final door slam.

4. Henri René and His Orchestra: Swanee River (1:51) — The big band builds sound volume across the speakers. The guitar solos around a circle from left to right and back again. The chimes swing their circle from right to left and back. Note how the arrangement ends with the sections of the band spread in layers across your speakers.

5. Leo Addeo and His Orchestra: Every Little Movement (2:32) — The bass accordion clumps around from side to side, swaying with elephantine ecstasy, first with a scratcher for company, then with thumps from the kettle drum, and finally falls into the background, losing none of its joyous force. When the flutes pick up the melody line, they are given added propulsion in their action movements by the kettle drums which send them sliding from left to right with a rumbling wallop. At the very end, the scratcher sweeps across the spectrum from left to right.

6. Ray Martin and His Orchestra: Jericho (2:48) — The voices get the rhythm going, swinging from side to side. Then the girls change to hand clapping to emphasize the beat and to back up the stentorian trombones on the right when they begin to dig into the melody. Finally, when the brilliantly brassy trumpet solo circles the ramparts of Jericho and winds up with a chilling blast to the heavens — by golly, the walls come a-tumbling down, vividly and on all sides.

7. Manny Albam and His Orchestra: Stompin’ At the Savoy/Johnson Rag (2:30) — These two fine standards are played simultaneously in Maestro Albam’s unique arrangement. Savoy begins on the right, moving, as do the trombones, playing the same song, to the left. That’s the general trombone pattern, from right to left speaker before the release. Suddenly, the reeds begin to play Johnson Rag on the left, moving to the right and back again. Later on, the trombone solo begins left and moves right; the trumpet solo starts left and moves back and forth, concluding with the original combinations in their original positions.

MIRACLE SURFACE This record contains the revolutionary new antistatic ingredient, 317X, which helps keep the record dust free, helps prevent surface noise, helps insure faithful sound reproduction.

IMPORTANT NOTICE — This is TRUE STEREOPHONIC RECORD specifically designed to be played only on phonographs equipped for stereophonic reproduction. This record will also give outstanding monaural performance on many conventional high fidelity phonographs by a replacement of the cartridge. See your local dealer or serviceman.

RCA Victor LSA-2489

(72804)
Vocal with Guitar

DON’T BE A BABY, BABY (3:06)
(Howard Steiner-Buddy Kaye)

MILLS BROTHERS

18753 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(72804)
Vocal with Guitar

NEVER MAKE A PROMISE IN VAIN (2:50)
(Sammy Mysels-Nelson Cogane)

MILLS BROTHERS

18753 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(71610)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

I’LL GET BY (2:55)
(As Long As I Have You)
Featured in M-G-M Picture “A Guy Named Joe”
(Fred E. Ahlert-Roy Turk)

INK SPOTS

18579 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(71620)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

SOMEDAY I’LL MEET YOU AGAIN (3:12)
From Warner Bros. Picture “Passage To Marseilles”
(Max Steiner-Ned Washington)

INK SPOTS

18579 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)