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 Posted By: Jim Liddane on: 06/27/2010 20:31:45 EDTSubject: RE: Paul Anka - Tonight My Love, Tonight - 1961 |
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That is a very interesting snippet. Oddly enough the very first stereo album I bought was in 1958 and it was on ABC - namely "George Hamilton IV On Campus". Great album - still have it and it plays perfectly. Of course, I did not have a stereo player at the time but convinced everybody that they were hearing the songs in "stereo" because I had a special stylus! It worked - everybody swore blind they could hear the "stereo" and all thought what a great improvement it was on mono! I should have gone into politics immedately. It was not the first stereo LP produced by ABC - I have a feeling that was by Eydie Gorme, but I could be mistaken. Oddly enough, a few months later, ABC released a Paul Anka LP (sorry I forget the title) which was only in mono! In fact, his next few albums were also in mono or re-channelled stereo, whereas Lloyd Price's earlier albums on ABC had all been in stereo. I don't think ABC much liked rock and roll - their staff seemed to be all ex-Paramount Theatre executives, and it was only when they lost Paul Anka that they seemed to get their act together and started signing people who could produce hits. Cliff Richard's first album was only in mono in the UK, but was released in stereo on ABC in the USA so some people tried to import this from the American military bases in Europe. It was always a strange label- you could have Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, Paul Anka and Teddy Randazzo and Johnny Nash alongside weird compilations such as "The Best Hymns Of The Catholic Church" (not the exact title, but close to it) and "Polka Hits - Twist Style" and other oddities! At the time, ABC had the worst "hit" rate of any major label - I think it was slightly under 2% which was dire. How they survived as long as they did prior to 1962, I cannot work out but they did. Then around the time Paul left in 1962, they got lucky and had charting albums by Tommy Roe, Brian Hyland, Fats Domino, Barry Mann and Ray Charles, and for a while, looked as though they were going to be a major pop-rock force. But it slipped back - still they were still there in the late 70's, so either they did not mind losing money, or other interests subsidised the label. |
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