John Ross wrote:
> At  9/7/2008 11:39 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>> Apparently, Bill Gauer, Keepnews' partner at Riverside, was a racing 
>> car nut and was very into making these "environmental audio" recordings.
> 
> This raises a question I've always wondered about: Who bought all those 
> Riverside sports car records? They still show up in secondhand record 
> bins, so SOMEBODY must have bought them new, but did they sell enough to 
> break even, let alone make money, or were they just an excuse for Grauer 
> to talk his way into the pits at races with his microphone?
> 
> I suppose they didn't cost much to produce. No studio time, no royalties 
> or performers' fees. Could they have been a profitable sideline like the 
> Elektra sound effects records?

Further amazing that they had enough of a sense of humor to issue Peter 
Ustinov's hour-long parody of the whole genre, a disc which stayed in print 
long enough to be reprocessed in fake stereo (aaaaaak).
> 
> There's a Riverside comedy record by a standup comic whose name I have 
> forgotten in which the comic muses about a phone call:
>         "Riverside Records, can I help you?"
>         "Yes, Bill Grauer please."
>         "I'm sorry, he's under a Porsche, taking a level."

I can recall about 3 comedy albums on Riverside (aside from Ustinov)..Henry 
Morgan, "George Crater" (Ed Sherman), and Louis Nye (Heigh Ho Madison Avenue). 
Was it one of these?

dl
> 
> John Ross
>