Beautiful Music Format On Alternative Media

[John1]

It was about 15 years ago that most of the last beautiful music/easy listening format commercial stations disappeared, and the only way to hear this music then was if you had it on record, tape or CD. As technology has advanced in the past few years, it has actually become easier to find this music again – just not on terrestrial radio. First came some non-commercial public radio stations that picked up the format, then with the advent of internet streaming, these stations became available around the world – if you were at your computer. Then satellite radio came along, and xm offered easy listening – and with the Sirius-xm merger last year, the Escape beautiful music channel became available to anyone with satellite radio. Then, gearing toward the era of all digital tv, people adding upgraded digital packages found they had a beautiful music channel on Music Choice. And there are many selections of easy listening music that can be downloaded from iTunes.

So while commercial, terrestrial radio has pretty much abandoned the format (with a few exceptions like Wave 101 in Naples, Florida), I can hear it pretty much get a ‘fix’ of the format anywhere in the car or at home again. I hadn’t expected a ‘revival’ of this format but it has made a comeback!

 

[elchupacabras]

Re: Beautiful Music Format On Alternative Media Radio Raices

One of the greatest gifts the Dominican Republic has ever offered is Radio Raices from Santo Domingo. It is pretty much a B/EZ station in the traditional sense with a gifted announcing staff. Most of the music is Anglophone in nature and really deserves a lot of credit. The mix has a few standards to give variety and a huge playlist to boot. I don't know how commercially viable the signal might be, but it is a well-programmed feed that deserves attention.

http://www.centroleon.org.do/esp/r_raices.asp
http://66.98.64.211/102.9fm

 

[sssphilly]

Thanks for the alternative media plug. Readers who enjoyed the genre may get a kick out of knowing that beautiful music stations in the Delaware Valley WDVR, WJBR & WWSH programmer Dave Shayer is big on LIVE365.com
One of their hot Beautiful Music streams is http://www.live365.com/stations/bofbm
http://www.BeautifulInstrumentals.com has links to bios and news of the musicians of the genre too!

 

[Bongwater]

Much of the vinyl B/EZ instrumental albums of the '50s and '60s have fallen into public domain and are collected by fans and distributed via blogs like this one:

http://wwwebbrazil-eb-brazil.blogspot.com/

Some, like the Nat "King" Cole compilation here, I imagine are still under copyright. But I don't think it's going to pursued as viciously as, say, a more recent Britney Spears album.

And for alternative media, let's not forget:

http://www.airstreamfm.com/

Remaining terrestrial B/EZs:

KAHM 102.1 Prescott, AZ (B/EZ powerhouse with a virtually unchanged playlist since 1981. Often heard on tropo skip as far as Seattle.)

http://www.kahm.info/kahm.php

WAVV 101.1 Naples, FL

http://wavv101.com/ (no longer streaming online )

WKTZ 90.9 Jacksonville, FL

http://wktz.jones.edu/

 

[elchupacabras]

KAHM 102.1 Prescott, AZ (B/EZ powerhouse with a virtually unchanged playlist since 1981. Often heard on tropo skip as far as Seattle.)

http://www.kahm.info/kahm.php

KAHM! What a trip back in time. I was listening to it this past October and it sounded just like a small market B/EZ station did (processing, music and announcing) some 30 years ago. It was like going back in time, until I heard the EAS go off and was reminded I was in the 21st century.

Speaking of the format, anybody have access to the old Bonneville or the Century 21 Evergreen reels? Make a great webstream.

 

[Bongwater]

KAHM 102.1 Prescott, AZ (B/EZ powerhouse with a virtually unchanged playlist since 1981. Often heard on tropo skip as far as Seattle.)

http://www.kahm.info/kahm.php

KAHM! What a trip back in time. I was listening to it this past October and it sounded just like a small market B/EZ station did (processing, music and announcing) some 30 years ago. It was like going back in time, until I heard the EAS go off and was reminded I was in the 21st century.

Speaking of the format, anybody have access to the old Bonneville or the Century 21 Evergreen reels? Make a great webstream.

Checked out Radio Raices, reminds me of the old KBRD FM 104 in Seattle

I've seen a few old Bonneville reels on eBay. Just never picked them up (shame on me.), but somebody got them for $100 (I think there were three of them) I hope the buyer mastered them to CD. Would be sad to see them lost to time......

 

[davideduardo]

[I've seen a few old Bonneville reels on eBay. Just never picked them up (shame on me.), but somebody got them for $100 (I think there were three of them) I hope the buyer mastered them to CD. Would be sad to see them lost to time......

The demo for Miami based Beautiful Music syndicator "Música en Flor" is at http://www.davidgleason.com/1981-1985-E.htm with side one a sales pitch with music and side two a sample scoped hour. This was the only syndicated product in the format for Latin America.

Música en Flor was part of the Independent Good Music group that produced custom music. We called all that stuff "Orquesta Música en Flor."

 

[elchupacabras]

[I've seen a few old Bonneville reels on eBay. Just never picked them up (shame on me.), but somebody got them for $100 (I think there were three of them) I hope the buyer mastered them to CD. Would be sad to see them lost to time......

The demo for Miami based Beautiful Music syndicator "Música en Flor" is at http://www.davidgleason.com/1981-1985-E.htm with side one a sales pitch with music and side two a sample scoped hour. This was the only syndicated product in the format for Latin America.

Música en Flor was part of the Independent Good Music group that produced custom music. We called all that stuff "Orquesta Música en Flor."

Thanks for sharing the demo. It was interesting to read the story of "Música en Flor," and hear the demo. I was intrigued to see that you shipped your tracks on chrome cassette, but not at all surprised. I spent some time working in Argentina in the late 80's, and even large operations in Buenos Aires and Rosario used metal and chrome cassette for just about everything. It was a pain to cue up. I still don't understand what the aversion to carts were, perhaps the cost, but they didn't sound too bad, as long as the heads were replaced on a regular basis!

It would be fun to come up with a stream similar to Música en Flor on the net. There is a limitless amount of material still being produced by the Latin market that could be used to keep the format fresh, (although probably not viable commercially). (I also wonder if there is some type of similar B/EZ Bossa Nova/Samba format in Brazil?)

Your supervision of KLVE was incredible under Heftel. Did you consult Cadena Radio Centro, the syndicated effort under Heftel?

 

[davideduardo]

Thanks for sharing the demo. It was interesting to read the story of "Música en Flor," and hear the demo. I was intrigued to see that you shipped your tracks on chrome cassette, but not at all surprised. I spent some time working in Argentina in the late 80's, and even large operations in Buenos Aires and Rosario used metal and chrome cassette for just about everything.

The reason for not using reel to reel tape was both the cost of the tape and the international shipping, as well as the customs duties. A half-dozen cassettes, which is how many "hours" of the library we updated each fortnight, would sail through customs. Reel tapes would be held up, and duties charged.

Since some markets like Cochabamba and Puerto Montt and Cuenca only paid a few hundred a month, there was no way to do the service on expensive media.

We even had a cassette deck sequencer designed and built, which we sold to stations to sequence with the cue tones (EOM) so the music flowed by itself. All they had to do was buy cassette decks that could be remote controlled by contact closures.

We recorded at about -7 to -10 db to avoid distortion. The stuff sounded pretty good, and I could not tell the difference in markets like Lima where we had direct competitors playing off vinyl and our cassette duplicated music.

Masters, of course, were on the best tape we could buy.

It was a pain to cue up. I still don't understand what the aversion to carts were, perhaps the cost, but they didn't sound too bad, as long as the heads were replaced on a regular basis!

Cost. In most places, MiniDisks replaced cassettes.

On the other hand, I had full cart operation in Quito in 1964.

Your supervision of KLVE was incredible under Heftel. Did you consult Cadena Radio Centro, the syndicated effort under Heftel?

KLVE has always been a team effort... then and now. We've had some really good people to our good fortune. And I stayed as far from CRC as I could.

 

[klutch00]

If a traditional style EZ format were to return to the airwaves, I could consider supporting it UNDER THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:

First, LIMIT THE REMAKES! There is NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER why over half of a station's playlist should consist of cover tunes! In Trad-EZ's case, the figure was about 90%, if not higher at one point. This shows that the musicians have little or no talent! There were orchestras like those arranged by Ron Goodwin and Henry Mancini who took the trouble to compose their own material. Unfortunately, too much of their music was overlooked by trad-EZ's who chose instead to cheapen the music by making grossly expensive recordings that were nothing more than covers of others material and in most cases NOT DOING JUSTICE TO THE ORIGINAL WHATSOEVER! That is inexcusable and in my not-so humble opinion, degrades the integrity of the music! Mind you, I'm not against ALL remakes, it's just that when it's done to excess and there's no justice done, the music is cheapened!

Second, DIVERSIFY THE PLAYLIST and DON'T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT! While I was not a big fan of the station, WOEZ Knoxville did a better job than most other EZs of playing more diverse material. There is no reason why some of the tracks from certain albums shouldn't be played. For example both Dan Fogelberg/Tim Weisberg albums contain material that would be appropriate for an Easy format. Other artists could include Acoustic Alchemy or Louise Tucker. Sure, include some modern and Brazilian-style jazz; as well as the more modern 'crooners' like Harry Connick, Jr. et.al.

 

[Carmine5]

Much of the vinyl B/EZ instrumental albums of the '50s and '60s have fallen into public domain and are collected by fans and distributed via blogs like this one:

Just a correction here: The Sonny Bono Act of 1998 extended all copyright protection an additional 20 years. Therefore, the earliest that copyright protection will expire for any sounding recording in the USA is 2067.

http://www.pdinfo.com/record.php

So albums from the 50's & 60's are still under copyright protection.

C5

 

[Bongwater]

Much of the vinyl B/EZ instrumental albums of the '50s and '60s have fallen into public domain and are collected by fans and distributed via blogs like this one:

Just a correction here: The Sonny Bono Act of 1998 extended all copyright protection an additional 20 years. Therefore, the earliest that copyright protection will expire for any sounding recording in the USA is 2067.

http://www.pdinfo.com/record.php

So albums from the 50's & 60's are still under copyright protection.

C5

There ARE recordings in the public domain. LOTS of them. The 1972 act isn't ENTIRELY retroactive and doesn't cover EVERYTHING. There are SOME recordings like the ones you used to get in dime stores on "budget" labels like Tops, Diplomat, Spin-O-Rama, Hurrah, Crown, Pickwick, etc (aka "junk records") where the recordings themselves were never copyrighted. However, Pickwick DID release some budget compilations from leased masters of major labels and those aren't in public domain. But most of the no-name fodder is. No copyright, no crime.

And a lot of that is cheap instrumentals.

There are no uniform worldwide copyright laws. In Europe, '50s and some '60s pop recordings have fallen into public domain. And if there's no US copyright on those recordings there, they're public domain here also.

 

[Otto Maddock]

There ARE recordings in the public domain. LOTS of them. The 1972 act isn't ENTIRELY retroactive and doesn't cover EVERYTHING.

You know, I've often wondered if there was something significant about 1972 and old recordings, and you just answered it. I don't know what that 1972 act is, but it does explain something. I have a lot of compilation CDs (mostly Christmas music) and I've noticed that so many of the older songs simply list "Recorded prior to 1972" in place of the writer and publisher. I always thought it was a little unusual how 1972 kept popping up as some kind of mystical year in the world of recording.

 

[Bongwater]

There ARE recordings in the public domain. LOTS of them. The 1972 act isn't ENTIRELY retroactive and doesn't cover EVERYTHING.

You know, I've often wondered if there was something significant about 1972 and old recordings, and you just answered it. I don't know what that 1972 act is, but it does explain something. I have a lot of compilation CDs (mostly Christmas music) and I've noticed that so many of the older songs simply list "Recorded prior to 1972" in place of the writer and publisher. I always thought it was a little unusual how 1972 kept popping up as some kind of mystical year in the world of recording.

Fact is (and it comes down to basic economics), the older a recording is, the harder it is to sell. We've reached the audible fidelity zenith with the CD. That was the LAST big hurdle we had to face. And now anyone can do that.

Most earlier recordings (even before 1990) aren't actively pursued by the RIAA because they know this too. It's someone downloading gobs and gobs of NEW music off Limewire and sharing them online with everybody they REALLY have a problem with.

As for 1972:

"Any rights or remedies under state law for sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are not annulled or limited by the 1976 Copyright Act until February 15, 2067. On that date, all sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, will go into the public domain in the United States.

For sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, the earliest year that any will go out of copyright and into the public domain in the U.S. will be 2043, and not in any substantial number until 2048. Sound recordings fixed and published on or after February 15, 1972, and before 1978, which did not carry a proper copyright notice on the recording or its cover entered the public domain on publication. From 1978 to March 1, 1989 the owners of the copyrights had up to five years to remedy this omission without losing the copyright. Since March 1, 1989, no copyright notice has been required......."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

Like I said before, several cheap instrumental recordings are available as public domain material. And worldwide copyright law varies........

 

[Otto Maddock]

And worldwide copyright law varies........

...which probably explains why so much good material is only available as an import.

 

[Chuck]

Does anybody want to venture an opinion about what they mean by "fixed?"

 

[Bongwater]

Does anybody want to venture an opinion about what they mean by "fixed?"

I believe that means "copyrighted". Or "mastered" Who knows?

 

[Otto Maddock]

Does anybody want to venture an opinion about what they mean by "fixed?"

I believe that means "copyrighted". Or "mastered" Who knows?

Yeah, I think I would go along more with "mastered," which would automatically eliminate any later digitally remastered mixes from that same law (or, at least move them to a later copyright window). The way that's written, I have a hard time deciphering what exactly is supposed to happen in 2043 vs 2067. But just as you stated earlier, the real problem will be online sharing of new material, so who will really care about what will then be hundred year old recordings anyway?

 

[Bongwater]

"The way that's written, I have a hard time deciphering what exactly is supposed to happen in 2043 vs 2067"

By that time, who the hell is going to care?

New music will be controllable, old music will fall by the wayside. This new music you hear today will be the stuff they only break out only on geeky college radio shows in 2043. By this time, Gangsta polka will have taken over and there'll be nothing you can do about it.........

 

[Otto Maddock]

This new music you hear today will be the stuff they only break out only on geeky college radio shows in 2043.

True, while Amy Winehouse might be fodder for those geeky college radio shows, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" will be a hundred years old by then, yet, probably still in the mainstream.