Eight Track Flashback

Gearhead post: As part of Earth day for 2009 (as we have done in the past) we broadcast live from downtown Durham during breaks in 8 Track Flashback. Thanks (or no thanks) to a wireless Internet carrier who shall remain nameless, we were unable to use our regular remote Internet equipment because a change in their policy made our current system useless. Found this out during testing on Friday, so we had to fall back to two cell phones and conferencing to allow our News and Public Affairs Director Kimberley Pierce-Cartwright to interview various folks. After some fiddling we got it to work reasonably well and got her program on the air.

Boos and hisses to Internet providers who do not support Network Neutrality and the concept that if a customer pays for service they should be able to use it however they want if it does not hurt the network.

On the music side, in hour #2 I had occasion to play some early sixties group sides, and it got me thinking to how much things have improved over the last 15 years or so from what it was like when I first started doing this music on the radio back in the 70s’. The advent of the CD and the willingness of record companies to license material for re-release has made high quality versions of early material available for the first time in many cases. Many late fifties and early  sixties recordings were done in stereo or with three or four track masters, and so stereo mixes are now available. This particular set had Sherry by the Four Seasons in stereo (produced by Bob Crewe and leased to VJ records), I really love you by the Stereos (certainly the Stereos in stereo would have been unusual in 1961) and the classic Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop. It sounds like the original recording for Shimmy Smimmy Ko Ko Bop was at least three track, the group in stereo and Little Anthony on a separate track. I have three version of this song, a mono mix (I think from the Doo Wop Box I) , the standard stereo mix from the Rhino Little Anthony and the Imperials single CD release, and an alternate mix from a Canadian compilation that has Little Anthony swirling from speaker to speaker in the final crescendo.

All for now…Jim Davis

Good fundraiser in spite of th economy! If you missed the fundraiser and would like to make a contribution to 8 Track Flashback and WNCU, you can go to the WNCU website, www.wncu.org.

According to the front office, we raised $4140.  Last October, the total was $3400.70. Thanks to all the folk who pledged. Please remember to honor your pledge, while the support from your phone calls is important, the money is what pays the bills. Let me know about any problems with your premiums, and I will do my best to fix any problems. Once again, thanks, and if you missed the show, go to the WNCU website, and have them credit your donation to 8tfb.

See you on the radio….Jim Davis

I hope you will be with us this coming Saturday and help us with funding the station for another six months. Our goal for the day as a whole is $12,000 and I hope to raise $5000 during the four hours for 8 Track Flashback.

Fundrasing is going on at the station tomorrow starting in the morning, you can call at…

919-560-9628 and request your donation be credited to 8 Track Flashback.

You can also visit the station’s website www.wncu.org to make a contribution.

Thanks, Jim Davis

Well, our new website is actually launched and on line. Thanks to Chuck Reisinger for all his help with this. We have some old playlists up, which I will be adding to next week.

Speaking of next week, the WNCU spring fund raiser begins this Monday the 13th and continues through next Sunday. We will be on the air this coming Saturday raising money for WNCU and 8 Track Flashback. These are tough times, but we need your support, and it has always been the case that there are a few folk (less than 100 generally) who call in and support the show.

If you enjoy the show, I encourage you to call in and make some sort of contribution. It is not just the amount of money contributed that is important but a showing that there is a group of folk out there who enjoy the show enough to step up. So even ten dollars is important, we know from the radio ratings services that over the course of a Saturday show over 3000 folk will tune in. So even if only ten percent called in, it would more than triple participation in our fund drive.

This week’s show featured our monthly countdown of 18 R&B chart hits from 50 years ago, in this case April 1959. This was an intersting countdown, with a number of the big hits from 1958 (Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price and Lonely Teardrops by Jackie Wilson) dropping off and being replaced by new records by these artists. Often followup records to big hits are not as strong, but “That’s Why” for Jackie Wilson and “Where were you” for Lloyd Price are certainly very good records, if tending to be more pop than the earier tunes. This was a continuing trend on the chart as the labels sought to capitalize on the cross-over appeal of R&B artists and try and broaden their appeal and boost the market.

Still operating behind the scene, Berry Gordy has continuing success with Jackie Wilson, and debued his Detroit Tamla label with a first release by Marv Johnson, “Come to me” though the record charted on the United Artist label which picked up the master for national distribution. More big hits from Marv Johnson were in the offing, though to my knowledge he never charted on any of the Motown group labels.

—all for now, Jim Davis