Topic: Liner notes, album sequencing, RIP

[Rivers]

It has been striking me, more and more often lately, that the switch to digital from packaged albums with their accompanying liner notes has resulted in, hopefully temporarily, a loss of important research, informed musical analysis and other benefits.

Starting with the LP vinyl format one could and would read the cover notes while listening to the music. Much time and research went into those notes, and they were an important component of the value of purchasing the albums.

Many, in fact most, reissue compilations on CD reprinted them wholesale. For a new compilation they often commissioned new notes. Document and JSP often did a good job in both respects.

You can see my question coming here but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is all that information going to be lost forever, or preserved in some form for future generations?

I have about 20 big boxes of CDs stashed away with some great liner notes. I'm sure I'm not alone in being concerned about all that stuff being lost to the format wars.

[Prof Scratchy]

I too am nostalgic for the liner note! It was a major part of the enjoyment of getting a new LP. I read and re-read the liner notes over and over, every time the record was played. The ones I liked best were those that gave away some musical information, such as the playing position or chord sequence of a particular tune. But some liner note writers got carried away with themselves and were guilty of perpetrating myths, or of creating them. The advent of the CD with its reduced packaging and small print notes just about coincided with my requirement for bifocals (or longer arms). I got out of the habit of enjoying the liner notes, and was annoyed by the faff of extricating the booklet from the tray, often popping the plastic lugs of the tray cover, sometimes snapping them off altogether. Grrrr! So now, in the download times, what is my source of written information and entertainment in blues music? Weenie Campbell of course. This is such a font of knowledge and surprises that it beats liner notes on quantity and quality hands down. Which is my cue to thank all WC contributors (and especially Johnm) for sharing their knowledge and opinions so freely and selflessly.






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[Rivers]

But some liner note writers got carried away with themselves and were guilty of perpetrating myths, or of creating them.

Good point. The general nerdiness of collecting old recordings tended to mitigate that but you're right. Sometimes the information presented was thought to be correct at the time and has since been superseded as more has come to light.

But there's still much of value out there, including the photographs and graphics. Some are top notch, like many of the Yazoo notes, and Neil Slaven's stuff for JSP (particularly for A Richer Tradition). A tip of the hat to weenie contributors Johnm, Bunker Hill, Gayle Dean Wardlow and others I'm missing for their work in this field.

The advent of the CD with its reduced packaging and small print notes just about coincided with my requirement for bifocals (or longer arms). I got out of the habit of enjoying the liner notes, and was annoyed by the faff of extricating the booklet from the tray, often popping the plastic lugs of the tray cover, sometimes snapping them off altogether. Grrrr!

My feelings exactly Sometimes I would scan the booklets so I could blow them up in Acrobat reader. Wish I'd done it to all of them and kept an archive, but I didn't.

Stefan Wirz's site has a some album notes available. I used them recently while compiling an SOTM post.

[Johnm]

Thanks Prof and Rivers for the good words.  At the risk of some thread creep, I would say that I not only miss liner notes, I also miss the idea of the album or CD program, as opposed to the current trend of listening to everything via downloads in a contextless mishmash.  I know, you can create your own context, blah, blah, blah.

I miss the idea of an album's or CD's program being a cohesive, well thought out (not always) artistic statement.  I liked and still like the process of figuring out a sequence that takes into consideration changes of tempo, mood, different key relationships and the like in the course of deciding a program's sequence that will allow for an arc, or two arcs, if you're looking to preserve the feel of an LP.  In my experience, when I listened or do listen to an entire LP or CD in the order in which the songs were sequenced, over time the songs change, or at least how I experience them and what I hear changes.  If you cherrypick and simply dub off the songs that you liked best the first time you listened to the CD, and never return to the entire program again, I think you're relying way too heavily on your musical first impression. 

One example that is often given of a wonderful job of sequencing is the Harry Smith "Anthology of American Folk Music", on Folkways.  I think the sequencing on that whole set is kind of miraculous, it's like a Swiss watch with each successive track clicking into place seamlessly.

Returning to the original topic, one thing I've noticed is that Classical LPs usually have more content-driven liner notes, and tend to be written by people who know something about music.  Liner notes for vernacular musics are kind of all over the map, from very well-informed and informative to inexplicable drivel.  Really good liner notes, though, can aid in both understanding and appreciation of the music on an album.  They're worth the trouble, as is the idea of a program for an LP or CD.

All best,
Johnm   

[Rivers]

I agree with you about album sequencing. I changed the first post title to include 'album sequencing' so we can hash it around as well.

[Rivers]

Where this is going, it seems to me, is we are stuck with mindless 1-dimensional convenience, traded for a rich, multidimensional view. When I say 'we' and 'traded' I don't mean anyone here reading this traded anything, we have just been stuck with it. I don't have any answers, I'm just pointing it out.

[Stuart]

I agree wholeheartedly. One thing that seems to be missing is passion. This can be the difference behind merely reissuing older records and serving up the genuine article. Another thing that appears to be missing is depth of understanding.

John mentions Harry Smith and the AAFM. The selection, sequencing and notes were acts of "literary criticism" (to use highfalutin terminology) of the highest order, IMHO. Harry Smith understood that the recordings were not just music, but also insights into the human condition. On one level, the notes can be taken as tongue-in-cheek, but the joke is on the person who doesn't read between the lines.

[lindy]

It?s fun to see what each generation of geezers looks back on and says, ?This is how things were when things were better.?

From 1920 to 1939, no one felt a need for liner notes, they just bought the records and listened to them. But only one full generation later, 20 years or so, mid-50s to early 60s, those same records were viewed as historical documents, worthy of collection, analysis, research, calendars, websites, and liner notes. History doesn?t take as long as it used to.

Like y?all, I really benefited from those liner notes that got written for the small labels that first started transferring scratchy old blues records onto 33 rpm vinyl. But they pale in comparison to the Cadillacs of liner notes that Columbia Records published for their jazz box sets in the late 60s and early 70s. Again, they were written because the box sets were put together as collections of ?historical? recordings?New Orleans Jazz from the 20s through 30s, Louis Armstrong, the complete recordings of Bessie Smith and the like. Great photos, elegantly written texts containing interviews with surviving musicians from the period, even bibliographies! Those were the days, grasshopper. Columbia had the resources to do that, Yazoo barely had the budget to throw a few bucks to writers who had the fever, as Stuart points out.

Taking the long view, I think the phenomenon of liner notes is best considered an exception to the norm, and we were simply lucky enough to be around for its golden age. I think the bulk of research has been done, all we can hope for now are small pieces of information here and there. If you have a chance, read the ?liner notes? to John Tefteller?s 2019 calendar, he warns us that we?ll be listening to more post-war treasures on future calendar CDs because the pre-war pot is pretty well tapped out.

Hopefully there will be exceptions that prove me wrong, like the ?discovery? of the Elvie / L.V. Thomas story that emerged a few years ago. If the pearls in Mack McCormick?s trove ever see the light of day, who knows how much new fodder there will be for researchers to read and listen to and use for new liner notes, or better yet, for magazine articles written by aficionados, maybe with an occasional academic journal manuscript thrown in--formats that allow for longer and more detailed analyses than liner notes. Take a peek at this page, we should hope that similar texts are waiting to be written: http://libguides.memphis.edu/c.php?g=94189&p=610505

But in the absence of such discoveries, we should consider ourselves lucky that we were around for the Golden Age of Liner Notes Written By People Concerned With Fact-Checking.

Lindy

[Rivers]

Mack McCormick's trove has turned into a country blues Moby Dick. Hey just send it all to me and I'll scan it and stick it online. How hard does it have to be? I'll pay the freight. Or just send it to the LoC and be done with it. Jeesh!

In case anyone missed it, here's what lindy is referring to re L.V. Thomas. Tantalizing to think what else might be there, to say the least.

[Stuart]

I think that there was more to it than the recordings only being considered "Historical" or "Historical Documents," which, of course, they were by definition. I think the people making decisions at Columbia understood that it was great music then and it's great music now and that if marketed and packaged properly, it would find a new audience. In addition, I think that they gave the potential audience credit for wanting to know about the history, background and context of the music and the people who made it. Thus, they put together the albums they way they did.

A while back somewhere I read an article that mentioned "neophilia." My guess is that the folks at Columbia reasoned there would be a fascination with the "historical," especially if the listener hadn't been aware of it before, in which case it would be "new" to them. Thank Heavens for reissues!

[lindy]

Here's some evidence of certain record companies still making the effort to put together combinations of music and texts -- though these examples go way beyond "liner notes": for $108.98 (that's what it says), you can get 21 CDs and a 300-page book on the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Scroll down past Elvis Presley and Bobbie Gentry and you'll find different combinations of LPs, CDs, booklets and hard-bound books for the likes of John Coltrane and field recordings from a 1955 road trip from Greece to India. Most expensive box set on this short / incomplete list? $299.99 for 20 CDs and a hard-bound book on the music of ... Lefty Frizzell?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/arts/music/best-boxed-sets-hip-hop-books.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Music

Maybe there's hope yet for new country blues boxed sets with new essays or books ...

[Stuart]

Mosaic puts them out as well, albeit in limited runs.

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/departments.asp?dept=5

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/outofprint.asp