Digression No. 25

I was very pleased that this blog was named one of the best sites for classical music downloads by Nick Morgan of the magazine Classical Recordings Quarterly (previously Classic Record Collector). In fact, Big 10-Inch was the only blog named that isn't exclusively devoted to classics. Most of the other sites named have been cited here before - including Vinyl Fatigue, Serenata in Vano, The Music Parlor, Neal's Historical Recordings, Quartier des Archives, Bill Anderson's posts at RMCR, Sacqueboutier's at symphonyshare, and Bryan Bishop's shares, now available at his new blog, The Shellackophile. If it had been me, I would have added Fred's Random Classics, Satyr's 78 Toeren en LP's, and Pablo's El baul del coleccionista. (Hope I am not forgetting anyone.)

Speaking of Satyr's and Pablo's blogs, I want to mention that they continue to post wonderful Cor de Groot recordings for everyone to enjoy. Pablo has offered a Chopin recital and Satyr has presented Beethoven's second and third piano concertos (with the VSO and Otterloo). Highly recommended.

1917 record cover

Switching subjects - longtime readers may remember a 2008 discussion of the supposed "first record cover design" - a 78 album of music by Richard Rodgers with a cover by Alex Steinweiss. At that time, both your host and a reader named Jeff expressed extreme skepticism about the claim that this was indeed the first such cover, citing items in our own collections that predate the Columbia cover. It turns out we were quite right. The 2010 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) conference presented a long and profusely illustrated talk by Mike Biel that explodes the claim that Steinweiss was first. Designed covers go back to 1917 (above right), and there were literally hundreds of them issued before the first Steinweiss cover - several of them in my own basement. My friend Mel mentioned a Pinocchio album that he had as a child that included an integrated design not just of the cover but of the end papers, record pockets and labels. This is one of Biel's exhibits. You can find both the recording of his fascinating talk and a slide show with hundreds of images on the ARSC site. I urge anyone interested in the topic to seek it out.

The ARSC presentations for the past few years are on line, and many of them are fascinating. I listened to Peter Muir's discussion of the early blues industry, including a convincing demonstration of how a good bit of the musical content of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues of 1913 was borrowed from a 1908 ragtime song. There are many other worthwhile subjects - just the thing for a record nut!