Quality of Modern Rolls
By Bill Jelen
Regarding new QRS rolls -- Keep in mind that the Richard Dolan's QRS is not the same regime that reworked all those tunes during the 40's and 50's. I think they are slowly working to correct the situation.
In the Billings Rollography, QRS writes this explanation: "If a song comes back into popularity, it is often because a new singer has revived it, or it has been featured in a new movie or television show. Then it makes good sense to return the song to the catalog, often in a new updated version that satisfies the renewed demand. Over the years, many (but not all) updated versions were issued under the original catalog number -- there are instances of several different versions of the same song being issued under the same number." It then goes on to say that this is certainly confusing for the historian or collector.
In 1983, I purchased a copy of #2272 "Yes, We Have No Bananas" from QRS. When I discovered that it had been shortened from the 1920's version that I had heard elsewhere, I wrote to QRS to ask why. I received a nice letter from Bob Berkman saying that sometime during the 50's, the roll had been shortened to save paper. They had recently restored the roll to the original 1920's version, and he sent me a free copy of the new roll, which matched the original that I remembered.
I have since heard Bob mention other times that they had resurrected the original master to replace some interim version that was introduced. Resurrection, by the way, probably involves re-cutting the original lyric stencil, converting the "found" master to computer, etc. I would imagine there isn't time to devote to the historical projects when you have to produce new releases to keep the revenue coming in.
Bill Jelen
Akron, Ohio |
(Message sent Wed 5 Feb 1997, 08:25:33 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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