Nolan Truth wrote:Stereo.jpg
Just to set the record straight - no pun intended.
Sam Phillips stayed at 706 Union Avenue all through the 50s, up to late 1959. During that time, his equipment was mono, and whenever he had to overdub stuff to a recording, which was not very often, it was at the expense of the sound quality of the final master - he ran a copy of the take he had chosen for release and overdubbed the, say, backing vocals to it. That happened mainly, and rarely, from 1957 onwards. "You Win Again" by Jerry Lee Lewis may be the most well-known example of this procedure.
Of course, many record labels, not just the majors, but also some independent ones, were working with binaural and stereo in the 50s, but it was still a novelty, a tool rather than a format, and it wouldn't become a generalised practice until the early 60s, especially within pop music.
But Sam Phillips was obviously not interested in stereo. He spent 10 years working with mono, and he helped create tons of musical masterpieces in that format.
By the time he moved to 639 Madison Avenue, he acquired new equipment, but still multi-track was used for overdubs and pre-mixing purposes.
All the final Sun and Phillips International masters were mixed and released in mono. Nowadays, we can listen to authentic stereo recordings done at 639 Madison by the likes of Jerry Lee and Charlie Rich, but this is because the original multitracks still exist, and they have been processed for stereo today, not by Phillips.
There is very telling studio dialogue from early 1960 where Phillips hurries Jerry Lee between takes because of "
all this expensive tape running through the machines". At that particular point, he was using 4-track tapes - he recorded the main vocals in one track, the band in another, backing vocals, if any, in another, and left the fourth track empty. The final result, of course, was a worse sound quality than the mono he had used at 706 Union.
Anyway, just to round-off the picture, I have contacted my friend
John Boija, from Sweden, who is one of the leading Sun experts worldwide. His website is really exemplary, with tons of accurate information on Sam Phillips' labels, and with images of labels and sleeves of every record ever released by him. Here's what John had to say about this matter :
Yes, the 639 Madison studio was equipped from the beginning with 2-track and later on multi-track equipment. However, Sam Phillips was very conservative and believed that the primary way to market his music, was through radio broadcasts. These were almost into modern day mainly broadcast over the AM band in mono and with rather limited dynamics. No true stereo recordings were released on his own labels during that period. However, the studio did jobs for countless of external clients and some of those recordings were released already back then. One example is the John Hester LP which I display on my Phillips International section of my web site.
Other than that, as you suggest, the extra tracks were used for overdubs, repairs etc.
So, to say that Sam Phillips "
would certainly have used stereo had it been available to him back in the 1950s" is not just misguided but inaccurate. It's just a quick statement made to suit the marketing purposes of the booklet accompanying this CD. Pure and simple.
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Finally, here's a link to John Boija's website, and one to the specific page he references above :
http://www.boija.com/skivor/sun_index.htm
http://www.boija.com/skivor/phil_int/pi_lp.htm -
bottom of pageMany thanks, John, for sharing your knowledge with us once again. We are indebted to you.
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