Don't think this has been mentioned here, but there were a slew of old Stinson metal masters found in a basement, many of which were recordings of Woody Guthrie, and the results are being released by Rounder in a boxed set later this month. The article in the Boston Globe says there were other recordings among the masters: "a host of folk, blues, and jazz artists who recorded for the Stinson label, among them Lead Belly, Art Tatum, Mary Lou Williams, and Burl Ives." The Guthrie recordings were mostly released material but some alt takes and some never heard.
I haven't checked the Leadbelly discography in the Wolfe/Lornell book to see if there is missing Stinson material, but that could be exciting. A number of the metal masters seem to have been intentionally damaged.
Here's a link to the Globe article:
A folk revival.
An excerpt:
Roughly 2,000 metal discs were found in Irene Harris's storage bin. About 150 of those are Woody Guthrie recordings, and the rest are by a host of folk, blues, and jazz artists who recorded for the Stinson label, among them Lead Belly, Art Tatum, Mary Lou Williams, and Burl Ives. Many of the metal discs were in pristine condition when Doug Pomeroy, a renowned sound restoration and mastering engineer, went to work transferring the Guthrie songs to his computer hard drive. Pomeroy points out that while recordings of a similar vintage are typically stored vertically on shelves in temperature- and humidity-controlled vaults, the Stinson collection could have wound up in far worse places than the basement of 78 Eighth Ave.
"Metal parts are nickel-plated and if you don't get them wet or bend them, they don?t deteriorate by themselves," Pomeroy says. "They must have been stored in piles, like pancakes, but most were not damaged - except for the scratched discs. We still don't know who did it or why, but it was absolutely intentional. Every one is scratched exactly the same way."
A third of the Stinson collection, including about a quarter of the Guthrie masters, was deliberately damaged by someone who presumably didn't want the recordings to see the light of day - or their owner to see a penny in profits. Like much of Stinson's history, it's likely to remain a mystery.
