From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/phil-cook-mikes-his-whole-show-at-once/
>from-the-day description of the multi-voiced Phil Cook's radio show.
> Is that NBC microphone shown a WECO condenser mic? -- Tom Fine
Yes it is. This story is interesting, because none of the recordings
I've heard of Phil Cook show any of this multi-voice versatility. He
just sings and strums a ukulele. He did also perform in duo comedy
routines but I don't remember them as being outstanding. But the
description of his use of the mic was nothing new, Gosden and Correll
were described in much the same way in the 20 or 30 voices they used in
Sam 'n' Henry and Amos 'n' Andy. It is why they never allowed an
audience during the serial program days when they played all the parts.
There was another radio program, The Johnson Family, that also was
created by just one person, Jimmy Scribner, and there is a film of him
from the early 50s TV program You Asked For It. There he is shown using
two microphones, but that seems to only be for the TV cameras, I don't
think that either of those mics were live.
Earlier in the 1920s there were a series of acoustical recordings made
of perhaps the most versatile of the multi-voice performers, Walter C.
Kelly, The Virginian Judge. Kelly was a noted bigot in real life, and
these records are among the most offensive ever made, but it shows that
this type of things were possible even before the development of the
microphone. There is one electrical recording by Kelly in the first
year of electrical recording, showing that it wasn't too hard to master
the microphone.
Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
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