A bit of local music history. In 1978 a vault fire destroyed nearly all of the unreleased masters and other source material from the Atlantic Records roster. You can Google it, and here is some info from one site: One of the most devastating vault losses in modern industry history occurred in February, 1978 in a fire in a non-air-conditioned Atlantic Records storage facility in Long Branch, N.J. The warehouse fire destroyed virtually all of Atlantics unreleased masters, alternate takes and sessions tapes by artists who had recorded for the label and its offshoots throughout its classic 1948-1969 first golden era. Thousands of performances by nearly a hundred of Americas most acclaimed r&b, soul, pop and jazz artists were lost in the fire. According to several sources, between 5,000 to 6,000 reels of tape were destroyed or damaged. Just a handful of the artists names reads like a short-form Whos Who in Mid-Century American Music. To compound the dimension of the losses, most of the material--all but the first few years--had been recorded in stereo. Atlantic was an industry leader in recording in the new mode as early as 1952. Several former senior executives and staffers at Atlantic told Billboard that news of the fire was kept quiet. It was very hush-hush; Id ask for tapes and theyd just say theyre not there, remembered one producer. I didnt find out until a year later.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 01:33:53 +0000
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