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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 >