"Stereo" Music Enters My Life

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

As I stated a couple of weeks ago, the gift of a stereo record player to my family first introduced me to the modern sound technology. For my early encounter, I thought the addition of an additional speaker to the system was what made music stereo. In my mind monoral sound had one speaker and stereo had two from which the sound emerged. I really did not fully understand exactly what "stereo" really was. 

In researching the topic on the internet, I found out a little more. In November 1957, the small Audio Fidelity Records label released the first mass-produced stereophonic disc. When Audio Fidelity released its stereophonic demonstration disc, there was no affordable magnetic cartridge on the market capable of playing it. A spur to the popularity of stereo discs was the reduction in price of a stereo cartridge, for playing the discs–from $250 to $29.95 in June 1958. The first mass-produced stereophonic discs available to the buying public were released in March 1958. Although both monaural as well as stereo LP records were manufactured for the first ten years of stereo on disc, the major record labels issued their last monaural albums in 1968, relegating the format to 45 RPM singles.

It was not until we joined the Record of the Month club that I was finally able to understand what stereo music was truly about. One of the first albums of our selection was a collection of TV theme songs name "Impact" by the Buddy Morrow Orchestra. It was released by RCA Victor in 1959.  The first cut on the album features "The Theme From The Naked City" and begins with the sound of a police siren. It was this tract that opened my eyes (and ears) to how true stereo sounded. The siren begins on the left speaker and travels across to the right one, and when I closed my eyes I could mentally see the vehicle moving from one side of the room to the other. It was not just the same sound coming out of both speakers, but independent tracks for each speaker. I sat in front of the stereo record player amazed. I bet I listened to it a dozen times when I first discovered the effect. To get the true stereo effect today, try listening with earphones to the first track of the album featured below.

"Impact" quickly became my favorite "listen to" album, as opposed to my favorite "dance to" album. The photo above was taken today and the picture is of me holding the original record album I first obtained back in 1959. The fact it has survived all the years and the moves I made during those days should prove its value to me. 

The Wayback Machine

"The Impact LP" - Buddy Morrow's Orchestra

Buddy Morrow and a jazz orchestra cut this LP in the wake of Henry Mancini's huge success with the soundtrack to Peter Gunn, the idea being to do the same thing with similar source material. The dozen tracks (including the Peter Gunn main title theme) are all derived from the title music to popular television shows of the day and are given what can be called a light jazz treatment. Some of the material, such as George Duning and Ned Washington's theme from The Naked City and, even more so, "Riff Blues," the main title music to the Mike Hammer series starring Darren McGavin, lends itself to this treatment; whereas the Dimitri Tiomkin/Ned Washington theme from Rawhide does not (and the overdubbed cattle mooing doesn't help. There are also some genuinely peculiar and enjoyable oddities here, such as Morrow's interpretation of "Parade of the Chessmen," the theme from Racket Squad, authored by Joseph Mullendore. It's a pop instrumental that comes to life in its middle section when the winds take over for a few bars, followed by the saxes. Count Basie's title theme from M-Squad becomes the basis for a great sax and trumpet showcase. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the Sea Hunt theme by Ray Llewelyn, which, despite some silly wave noises at its opening, becomes a hot, moody sax workout as well as showing off some dense string passages that anticipate the music of John Barry for the James Bond movies.

The clip above in the original album in stereo on youtube. The television sountracks included on the album are:

This Is the Naked City

Rawhide

Riff Blues (Mike Hammer)

Richard Diamond

Perry Mason

Parade of the Chessmen (Racket Squad)

M Squad

Sea Hunt

Black Saddle

Waterfront

Highway Patrol

Peter Gunn

We continue on with the stories about our early introduction to music aided by the popularity of the Record of the Month clubs. Since these became popular before the use of credit cards, the companies relied on the customers to mail in checks to cover the cost of the albums supplied. Looking back I don't think I ever heard of anyone facing legal problems for failure to pay for the albums sent. The threat of repeated overdue letters seemed to be the extent of their power. Did anyone you know ever get in trouble for failure to pay for albums they received?

Last Week's Questions, Answers, 

And Comments

Jim Ballard, LHS ‘67, ""Our Winter Love"...a stunning instrumental by Bill Pursell. (1963) died in 2020.

Jim Bannister, LHS ‘66, "Did anyone ever try to cancel a Columbia Record Club membership? It was almost as difficult as getting customer service from Spectrum Cable."