May 11, 2010  

From the Archive #2: Miss Lena Horne (1917-2010) Takes on Radio

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/58wmm-qtr79

In a Chicago Defender interview from the late 1940s, badass even then:

“‘Almost every day, I hear someone on the radio hailing America as the home of democracy. Yet almost every network is guilty of discrimination against the Negro performer. There are a few isolated cases of Negroes in broadcasting, but the lily-white policy is seldom violated. When I was on the Ed (Gardner) show, the script had to be revised so that I wouldn’t address the star as “Archie.” They wanted me to call him “Mr. Gardner.” It wasn’t considered proper for a Negro girl to speak a white man’s name.

‘But I refused to consent to the change. So the earth-shattering problem was finally solved by deleting the name from the script. It is encouraging to know that Actor’s Equity is fighting against racial discrimination in the theatre. I hope there will also be a crusade of this type in radio in the near future.'”

JS

From the Archive #2: Miss Lena Horne (1917-2010) Takes on Radio_Stoever_2010Download
May 7, 2010  

From the Archive #1: It is art?

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/zw6gx-rm645

So it looks like concerns about truthiness and tape been with us a lot longer than all the press about Ke$ha’s recent beef with Britney’s lip-synching and Jay-Z’s self-declared (and apparently one-man) war against autotune. Here’s a tidbit from a 1955 Hi-Fi booklet. . .

Overediting of Tape

“As we have already noted, tape recording allows for considerable latitude in corrective re-recording and sound editing. This fact has been a godsend to many recording artists who cannot or will not present a competent beginning-to-end performance of a work of music for recording. Thus performances are often made in bits and pieces, and the artist decides which parts he wishes used.

It is interesting to note that the record companies are not usually to blame for this practice, except for the fact that they readily accede to the demands of their artists [ed:!?!?]. But one must wonder who is the real artist here, performer or tape editor?

The editor may receive instructions to use various passages from a number of different takes, to alter the pitch on this passage, to correct the dynamics on that, even to change the timbre overall. This results in a record which is possible better than any single public performance given by the artist. And it really is a synthetic performance. It may sound fine, but is it music? Is it art? Is it high fidelity?”

JS

From the Archive #1: It is art? _Stoever_2010Download
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »