Just to make sure I have enough things to do, I have been trying to gather
information about recordings of band organ music marketed by Baptist Sound
and Manufacturing Company, once located at 415 South Mauvaisterre Street,
Jacksonville, Ill.

There is a bit of information available about other band and fairground
recordings issued on LP records, cassette tapes, and CDs marketed
for consumers over the years.  But Baptist Sound's recordings were reel-
to-reel or large continuous-loop monaural tapes marketed mainly to
operators of merry-go-rounds, carnivals, or amusement parks and I have
seen no information about these tapes.  The company actually specialized
in sound system installation and components for all types of indoor and
outdoor venues.

In my teenage years working at Whalom Park in Lunenburg, Mass., operating
the Looff carousel whose frame is now stored in my garage, the music was
supplied by two-hour continuous-loop tape cartridges, of which the park
owned five.  Listening to this music, limited though the repertoire was,
sparked my interest in mechanical music and band organs in particular.
Four of the tapes were of a Wurlitzer 153 playing rolls mostly of the six-
tune TRT era.  The other tape featured a variety of instruments.  I had
dubbed copies of each of these tapes back in my days at the park.  I
sought to identify the tunes on those tapes, and have nailed down a
good many of them over the years.  This probably started an obsession with
tune identification that ultimately found me playing "Name That Tune" in
an effort to help Matthew Caulfield identify unknown 165 tunes.

A couple of years ago I discovered a 1976-77 catalog from Baptist Sound
which lists the titles of the tunes on each of their tapes, and thought I
hit the jackpot with respect to the two tapes whose tune identification
was incomplete. As for the one (#609), six of the catalog titles were
erroneous; I have since correctly identified those tunes.  As for the
other, one with a variety of organs playing some very obscure tunes
(#606), the catalog states merely "Variety of marches."

Baptist's band organ tapes were issued on one-hour reels numbered 601
through 607, 609 through 618, 622 and 623, at least as far my catalog
shows.  The two-hour continuous-loop cartridges contained two tapes
spliced together into a single loop like a huge 8-track tape; these were
assigned the dual numbers of the component tapes such as 606-607 or 617-
618.

I have been told that some of Baptist's output consisted of pirated dubs
of recordings of other vendors.  One of the tapes I have does clearly
contain a dub, whether licensed or pirated, of the entire Cuca Records
album "Wurlitzer Band Organ for Carousel."

I've started compiling the data onto an Excel spreadsheet; I have to scan
the catalog pages and put the tune titles in.  For the Wurlitzer music,
I have already identified the roll and tune data.  That was easy; a side-
by-side comparison of the Baptist catalog with Matthew's online 150
catalog revealed that most of the tapes contain several entire rolls, or
several sequential tunes from one roll; only a few are broken up (such as
the dub from the Cuca album).

Does anyone in MMD land own copies of tapes of band organ music by Baptist
Sound and Manufacturing Company?  I would love to find all of the titles
for tape number 606; there are six I have not identified.  Tapes numbers
606 and 607, which I have as a double tape 606-607, contain a miscellany.
One portion is the Wurlitzer 153 from "Wurlitzer Band Organ for Carousel,"
some tunes are from a Wurlitzer 165, some sound like a large Dutch Street
organ, and there are several other instruments I would love to identify.
Any help would be appreciated; after almost thirty years, it is time I end
this quest and move on to other things, like making more headway on my 165
replica.

Best regards,
Mark S. Chester
Phoenixville, PA