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Where can you buy long out of print records?

B

BlueHen

Can anyone recommend a source for obtaining some of the music which used to be heard on the old beautiful music stations of the past?

I heard an instrumental version of the Christmas song “Ding Dong Merrily On High” on a beautiful music station back in the ‘80s. After years of trying to find out who the artist was, I finally learned it was Geoff Love, and that he had a Christmas album in the early ‘70s entitled “Christmas With Love.” It’s been absolutely impossible to find.

I realize there isn’t much demand for this type of music anymore, but what happened to it all? Surely, some of those B/EZ stations must have unloaded their inventory somewhere. Any suggestions?
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> Can anyone recommend a source for obtaining some of the
> music which used to be heard on the old beautiful music
> stations of the past?
>
> I heard an instrumental version of the Christmas song “Ding
> Dong Merrily On High” on a beautiful music station back in
> the ‘80s. After years of trying to find out who the artist
> was, I finally learned it was Geoff Love, and that he had a
> Christmas album in the early ‘70s entitled “Christmas With
> Love.” It’s been absolutely impossible to find.
>
> I realize there isn’t much demand for this type of music
> anymore, but what happened to it all? Surely, some of those
> B/EZ stations must have unloaded their inventory somewhere.
> Any suggestions?

Aside from checking used record stores in your area or region,
I've always had good luck obtaining hard to find records through
GEMM (Global Electronic Music Marketplace). Their website is at
WWW.GEMM.COM . They have dealers and individuals literally around
the world with all sorts of media (45/LP/CD/Cassette)for sale.
You can search by song title or artist or LP/CD title. You'll be
amazed at what you can find. Happy hunting.

Mai T. Kwinn
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

eBay is a good place to check as well.

> Aside from checking used record stores in your area or
> region,
> I've always had good luck obtaining hard to find records
> through
> GEMM (Global Electronic Music Marketplace). Their website is
> at
> WWW.GEMM.COM . They have dealers and individuals literally
> around
> the world with all sorts of media (45/LP/CD/Cassette)for
> sale.
> You can search by song title or artist or LP/CD title.
> You'll be
> amazed at what you can find. Happy hunting.
>
> Mai T. Kwinn
<P ID="signature">______________

Member of the Los Angeles, Phoenix Radio, and California TV moderation team</P>
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

Unfortunately, many artists like Lex De Azevedo, Pat Valentino, etc. were custom-recorded cuts made specifically for and licensed only to beautiful music stations. Most of the stuff is impossible to find. The best spot to find some of those rare recordings are through the enthusiasts who have recorded airchecks of old B/EZ stations. Then, not only do you get the music, but you get to hear hokey commericials from 1980 for the big sale at JC Penny on top-loading VCR's. :)<P ID="signature">______________

http://weatherwindow.blogspot.com</P>
 
> Can anyone recommend a source for obtaining some of the
> music which used to be heard on the old beautiful music
> stations of the past?
>
> I realize there isn’t much demand for this type of music
> anymore, but what happened to it all? Surely, some of those
> B/EZ stations must have unloaded their inventory somewhere.
> Any suggestions?
>

A lot of the B/EZ stations subscribed to a music service & received reels for their automation systems. As someone else noted, a lot of the material was custom-recorded and was never commercially available. Usually these tapes remained the property of the syndicator and (theoretically) had to be returned.

You might have had some luck hitting yard sales back in the 80s for some of this music, but I'd guess most of the generation who would have bought this music are either deceased or in nursing homes & their record collections were dumpstered long ago.

Keep looking though...especially yard sales/flea markets...you never know what you'll find.
 
> Can anyone recommend a source for obtaining some of the
> music which used to be heard on the old beautiful music
> stations of the past?
>
> I heard an instrumental version of the Christmas song “Ding
> Dong Merrily On High” on a beautiful music station back in
> the ‘80s. After years of trying to find out who the artist
> was, I finally learned it was Geoff Love, and that he had a
> Christmas album in the early ‘70s entitled “Christmas With
> Love.” It’s been absolutely impossible to find.
>
> I realize there isn’t much demand for this type of music
> anymore, but what happened to it all? Surely, some of those
> B/EZ stations must have unloaded their inventory somewhere.
> Any suggestions?
>

I usually am looking for classic country, but you might try:

http://www.platterpus.com<P ID="signature">______________
WJJD The Country Giant Revisited streams at
http://www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by radioboy on 03/17/06 02:18 AM.</FONT></P>
 
One good place I like to go is to dig around in thrift stores like those run by Goodwill, Salvation Army or the local stewpot. Most of these stores sell the records for around a dollar. Flea Markets and garage sales are also good bets. You see a lot of old easy listening records, but it seems like there are a lot of old 101 strings, Mantavoni, and Ray Conniff records out there. There is a store near my town that sells used records but they check the prices so you won't expect to find that rare "butcher cover" Beatles record for a dollar
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> Unfortunately, many artists like Lex De Azevedo, Pat
> Valentino, etc. were custom-recorded cuts made specifically
> for and licensed only to beautiful music stations. Most of
> the stuff is impossible to find. The best spot to find some
> of those rare recordings are through the enthusiasts who
> have recorded airchecks of old B/EZ stations. Then, not only
> do you get the music, but you get to hear hokey commericials
> from 1980 for the big sale at JC Penny on top-loading VCR's.
> :)
>
Used to be nothing but Cadilac commercials on our old elevator station. And what was the deal with all those old elevator cover versions? When I was a kid my mom used to torture us kids with that stuff on long trips. Sometimes I would be in the back seat laughing hysterically at some weird cover version of a current hit. Lynard Skynard played by strings and a choir. A total laugh riot. My mom never figured out what was so funny since she didn't know the original version. she thought it was "beautiful music" Its a good thing those stations were on auto pilot because the jocks would have gone insane.
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> My mom
> never figured out what was so funny since she didn't know
> the original version. she thought it was "beautiful music"

If, to her ear, it was beautiful then who are we to argue? If stations
hadn't picked up on the orchestrations of pop stuff their librarier would
have been limited, dated, stale.

> Its a good thing those stations were on auto pilot because
> the jocks would have gone insane.

Wrong!

At the peak of the Beautiful Music format (and it topped the ratings in
many markets during that brief period) automation was most imperfect and the voices were live. In many cases, picking their own music according to a formula that ran something like this:

Big Instrumental (Boston Pops, Philadelphia orchestra, brighter Mantovani)
Vocal (group at first quarter hour, Male at second, Female at third, announcer choice at fourth)

Two to three "lesser instrumentals" to fill to the quarter hour and stop set.
These typically featured one instrument as dominant (Ronnie Aldrich piano,
Laurindo Almeida guitar, etc.)

Then the stopset

Then resume as above.

Lemmee tell you, it was a b**ch pulling the music to make it all sound right. Some stations actually had a professional arranger pulling music but that was rare (WEZE, Boston was one example). Generally I spent 2-3 hours pulling and auditioning music for a 4-hour shift at the original WLKW in Providence. It was several years later that manual cartridge rotation came in and a little later pre-taped interspersec reels.
<P ID="signature">______________
When you're done impeaching the prez, keep on going; recall every member of congress and lock 'em up! Let's try NO govt. for a while.</P>
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> > Its a good thing those stations were on auto pilot because
>
> > the jocks would have gone insane.

I must respectfully disagree. I am 29 and nothing warms my heart more than listening to KLUX or KHOY on-line and hearing a violin version of Whitney Houston. As loud and forthright as some of the songs original vocal versions were, when instrumentalized by elevator orchestras, they actually turned into very beautiful melodies. Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love For You" was never one of my big favorites being I think Whitney screams the song ... but I heard an elevator version of it the other day on KHOY and burst into tears of beauty. (No I am not trying to be over the top). :)<P ID="signature">______________

http://weatherwindow.blogspot.com</P>
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> Aside from checking used record stores in your area or
> region,
> I've always had good luck obtaining hard to find records
> through
> GEMM (Global Electronic Music Marketplace). Their website is
> at
> WWW.GEMM.COM . They have dealers and individuals literally
> around
> the world with all sorts of media (45/LP/CD/Cassette)for
> sale.
> You can search by song title or artist or LP/CD title.
> You'll be
> amazed at what you can find. Happy hunting.

Would you believe I checked this out and actually found a couple of listings for that Geoff Love Christmas album? Now all I have to do is figure out how their system works since the sources were in the U.K.
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> I must respectfully disagree. I am 29 and nothing warms my
> heart more than listening to KLUX or KHOY on-line and
> hearing a violin version of Whitney Houston. As loud and
> forthright as some of the songs original vocal versions
> were, when instrumentalized by elevator orchestras, they
> actually turned into very beautiful melodies.

That's amazing how someone 29 actually likes instrumentals. There probably weren't many beautiful music stations around when you were growing up, as they were being phased out in the '80s.
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned getting the music online as mp3 files. I've downloaded some old favorites I now listen to on my computer. I haven't gotten an mp3 player yet but I am thinking about it. I know some people say they can hear a difference between analog disks and digital recording (and even between tubes and transistors) but I can't, except mp3 files have no scratches and don't skip.


> eBay is a good place to check as well.
>
> > Aside from checking used record stores in your area or
> > region,
> > I've always had good luck obtaining hard to find records
> > through
> > GEMM (Global Electronic Music Marketplace). Their website
> is
> > at
> > WWW.GEMM.COM . They have dealers and individuals literally
>
> > around
> > the world with all sorts of media (45/LP/CD/Cassette)for
> > sale.
> > You can search by song title or artist or LP/CD title.
> > You'll be
> > amazed at what you can find. Happy hunting.
> >
> > Mai T. Kwinn
>
 
Re: Where can you buy long out-of-print records?

> I'm suprised nobody has mentioned getting the music online
> as mp3 files. I've downloaded some old favorites I now
> listen to on my computer. I haven't gotten an mp3 player
> yet but I am thinking about it. I know some people say they
> can hear a difference between analog disks and digital
> recording (and even between tubes and transistors) but I
> can't, except mp3 files have no scratches and don't skip.
>

I guess they're OK for people who can't hear the difference, or only want to play them on computer speakers or some other lo-fi device. To me they sound awful.
 
Your best bet, particularly for British artists is: http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/ which is working its way through a ton of 1960s and 1970s beautiful music back catalog. They have even managed to license some of the material that was custom-recorded by British orchestras for format syndicators like Bonneville and SRP (SRP commissioned BBC orchestras and also licensed some of the "test card" music). They are working on an MP3 download service which might be more cost-effective than purchasing and having CD's shipped, especially because a lot of the original source material was never recorded for longevity in the first place (excepting London's Phase Four and other 'audiophile'-type recordings).As far as that particular track goes, I don't have access to it myself right now but I'll keep an eye out. I have managed to re-assemble about 75% of the Bonneville format library so far circa 1985. It's amazing just how degraded a lot of that format's source material has allowed to become over the years. It has been virtually ditched into closets and back rooms. A lot of the reel-to-reel tapes never made it to format syndicator CD's during the format's waning years (especially some of the older stuff) and many that did were half-hearted transfers. You can hear the result on XM's own beautiful music services - Sunny & Escape which are programmed off precisely the same format library. Obviously the whole thing was transferred to hard disk and runs on "shuffle mode," complete with all of the original tape hiss (which is god awful on a lot of tracks) and, unacceptably IMHO, with the endings cut off of several songs. There are even a few tracks that start in mid-note. Obviously nobody cared to do it right.I suspect Jones may be the source of the Sunny/Escape library, which is now assembled with the music from all of the old syndicators, but most especially Bonneville.What is amazing to me is that the entire Bonneville library for this format could comfortably fit, as reasonably high quality MP3 files, on less than a 20 gigabyte hard drive, which would cost less than $50 today, and the whole format could be run from a Dell budget $400 PC - an entire format delivery system for far less than the cost of one analog reel-to-reel player.What is missing from today's remnants of easy listening (excepting Music Choice) is the notion that you need to do anything more than hitting shuffle play and that is good enough. When you hear the same Beatles song done by two artists in the space of 15 minutes, you know that's what is going on.
 
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