Belefonte did have singles, but he was mainly an album seller. The
Belefonte singles were often very different from the album versions.
The singles rarely charted, and then not very high. When Dylan's albums
came out, kids were not buying them, and his singles production was also
not producing "hits". Kingston Trio and PP&M were the folk singles
sellers to kids, and those who graduated to folk albums in 58 to 62
bought those plus Baez and Belefonte, not Bob Dylan. Dylan only started
to become known in 64. This brings in Steve's question if this was
about the British or American market. Actually both because they kept
on citing Billboard charts, not Melody Maker. And I know that Dylan's
albums weren't released in Britain till late 63/64. But there is one
other problem with their description of record buyers, and our useof the
term kids. If they want to make Dylan such an influence, they have got
to discuss COLLEGE kids, and they WERE buying albums in the 50s. Do you
really think that adult buyers put three Baez albums in the top twenty
in Oct 1962?

Mike Biel [log in to unmask]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Perspective. was 90 minutes of concentrated love
for grooved vinyl, by the BBC.
From: Donald Clarke <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, July 30, 2013 2:06 pm
To: [log in to unmask]

I was going to say Keef, then decided it was Brian. I should have looked
it up. And they had known each other when they were in primary school,
then met again on the train when they were teenagers.

DC

On Jul 30, 2013, at 1:33 PM, Barton, Matthew wrote:

Actually, it was Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who hooked up that way.
They didn't meet Brian Jones until much later.

Matthew Barton
Library of Congress

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Donald Clarke
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 1:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Perspective. was 90 minutes of concentrated love
for grooved vinyl, by the BBC.

I'm sure it is mainly Britain, where after all Mick Jaggar and Brian
Jones met on a train when they were kids, both carrying American blues
records under their arms, but the demography, economics, social
attitudes were much the same. Look at what I listen to and you will know
who I am. The differences were mainly of scale; there were more and
bigger markets in the USA: music from New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville,
Chicago, swept the world; Britain had Liverpool.

DC

On Jul 30, 2013, at 11:08 AM, Steven Smolian wrote:

Was this show about the U.S. market or that in England and environs?

Steve Smolian

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dave Burnham
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 9:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] 90 minutes of concentrated love for grooved
vinyl, by the BBC

Belafonte not a singles producer? Unless my grey cells are getting
greyer, I remember getting Belafonte 78s - Jamaica Farewell, Mama look
at Bubu, (or whatever it was called), Day-O, Matilda and if I remember
correctly, Man Smart, and others. I think HB had his share of singles.

db

Sent from my iPhone

On 2013-07-30, at 9:34 AM, Donald Clarke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There's no way to know now, but I would dispute that kids were buying e.g.
Belafonte's big hit albums. 1956 was the year I was 16 and went to work
in a record shop, and kids didn't have enough money for albums then. But
grownups were buying albums, not singles, and that's increasingly where
the money was for the record companies, long before popcrock pushed
evertyhing else off the Billboard chart.
>
> Donald Clarke
>
> On Jul 30, 2013, at 8:44 AM, Michael Biel wrote:
>
>
>> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv6xCUEBrDM
>
> WOW! The Brits really get their license fee's worth with Channel 4 --
> and this was a BBC Scotland production!
>
> I started watching this thinking that it would be crap and that I
> would find loads of factual errors, but on the whole it makes many
> good points. It makes a good argument about the transition of the
> rock and pop scene from being singles oriented to album oriented that
> I had not fully considered despite the fact that I lived it and was a
> part
of it.
>
>
> Perhaps their excuse would be that they had discussed the 50's as
> being when adults bought albums and kids bought singles, but I would
> go beyond their narrow view of performers that teenagers would know
> of. Kids did not buy Bob Dylan albums in 1962 or 63. They DID buy
> Elvis albums, Kingston Trio, but not Dylan.
> Although I was there in the folk scene, I had gotten my introduction
> to Dylan in 63 when my British pen-pal asked me to send him
> Freewheeling which had not been released there. The delay in releasing
> his first 2 albums in England is not noted despite crediting Dylan
> with part of the thrust to albums with his first albums, especially
> Freewheeling, but this was not noticed at the tie -- only later. They
> did have an aside about the growth of the American Folk Music scene
> being an influence in the album, but then jump back to Dylan. If you
> want to note album artists that did not have hit singles, it started
> before Dylan. Harry Belefonte was not a singles seller, but with
> "Mark Twain" and especially "Calypso", his albums were very
> influential. I discovered recently when doing my "First Family"/"My
> Son the folk Singer" research that Joan Baez had THREE albums in the
> top 15 that month and that Peter Paul and Mary's first album was the
> No 1
album that these two comedy albums bumped off.
> Dylan's own albums were not making a wave yet -- PP&M MADE Dylan.
> Later on the doc discusses the live album and credits Peter Frampton
> with starting that phase of albums, they forgot "The Weavers At
> Carnegie Hall" and then Belafonte's three GIGANTIC HIT Carnegie Hall
> and Greek Theatre albums as being influential sellers for performers
> who still were not singles sellers. Kids were buying these albums
> before they bought Dylan's albums. Plus I would say that Belafonte's
> albums were more "concept" than Dylan's early albums and that they
> were hits whereas Dylan's weren't.
>
> But it is a thought provoking doc.
>
> Mike Biel [log in to unmask]