Happy 60th
Birthday to the Vinyl 45 RPM single! Two more years and the 45 can
collect Social Security!
What? You thought the vinyl record died years ago? Well, you’re wrong.
Word is it’s off life-support and even making a slight comeback.
It is true
that now days, kids grow up thinking music can only be stored digitally.
People walk around with those nano-sized boxes with wired headphones
holding sixteen bazillion electronic files, each one turned instantly into a
song. But that’s not how to collect music. You can’t hold an mp3 in your
hand and look at the label! Long live vinyl! And we’re not talking
flooring or siding. Here at Classic Urban Harmony, we’re talking “records.”
Even we can’t imagine what it was like during the early days of recorded
music. How we would have loved to crank the handle on the old Victrola,
drop the needle on the Edison disc, stick our ears next to that large brass
horn and catch the latest tunes.
In the beginning there was only wax. And it was used to make wax cylinders,
with grooves in the wax to record your voice. Yes, there were black singing
quartets on wax cylinders about a hundred years ago. We have eight or nine
of them in our Classic Urban Harmony Archives, but there are a couple a dozen more on our want
list!
Wax Cylinder of Polk Miller & Old South Quartette
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archive)
By the early 1900’s, wax was also used to coat cardboard round flat plates,
called discs or records. Many different size discs and speeds were tried in
the early days. Recording inventors found there were three ways to increase
the time of the recording on a disc: use larger discs (this was bulky); use
slower speeds (and lose fidelity); or make the grooves narrower (they wear
out too quickly if you use the wrong material, like wax).
As early as 1901, Victor records tried out a 7" record, but it was abandoned
two years later in favor of the new standard - a 10" 78 RPM, wide groove wax
disc. It was the best combination of good fidelity and size to give a
three-minute record.
Early 1900's Edison Disk. Such 78 RPM records were 1/4"
thick.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
In 1926 Vitaphone needed a method of putting sound to their silent movies.
They wanted to do it by playing the movie sound track on record but didn’t
want to change records every 3 minutes. So, they came out with a 16"
record, recorded at 33-1/3 RPM and made of a new material, shellac. Shellac
was more durable than wax. Shellac came from a tiny scale insect that
infested trees in India. It seems these slimy disgusting bugs were sucking
the juice of the trees and excreting shellac continuously. How someone
thought of turning it into phonograph records is beyond us. The 33-1/3 RPM
speed also gave poor fidelity but for a movie sound track, who cared?
People were used to silent films, so any sound was an improvement. The
grooves were a little bit narrower and the records still wore out quickly,
even with shellac. But shellac worked fine for 78 RPM singles with
their wider grooves.
By the late 1920's, records had become electronically recorded and played
back. Now you could listen in better fidelity through a speaker instead of
acoustically through that big horn. Better sound quality meant more record
sales. Music on two new media, electronically recorded discs and radio, was
a welcomed distraction from the economic woes of the country.
Thus, the media of choice became the 10", 78-RPM shellac single. It
was heavy and very breakable. But it was the best we had at the time.
Shellac 78 RPM Records, this one from 1939.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
In 1931, RCA Victor tried, and failed, to introduce a 12" 33 1/3 RPM, long
playing record, made out of something called Vitrolac. The grooves were
twice as narrow, and the records wore out very quickly. Also, they required
a special new record player which cost hundreds of dollars - nobody could
afford it during the Depression.
Then, in 1933, a Bakelite research chemist named Frazier Groff, made a major
discovery. He found that a class of polymers called vinyl could be used to
make phonograph records. Vinyl records were less breakable and could be
made more flexible and at lighter weight. More important, vinyl didn’t wear
down so fast, even when the grooves were made very narrow!
By the mid 1930's, some radio transcriptions were being made of vinyl.
These were usually 16", 33 1/3 RPM, and contained 6 recordings per side.
Vinyl was still not offered to the public because it was too expensive.
Then something happened that forever changed the face of recorded sound.
It was called World War II. The U.S. War Department created the V-Disc
program to ship records to military personnel overseas. In spite of
careful packing, many of the shellac V-Discs were arriving broken. The
V-Disc program quickly switched to vinyl V-Discs. Within the U.S.,
private record manufacturers were having trouble getting shellac during the
war. What limited supplies of shellac were available had to be
extended with filler which created some mighty noisy recordings. To
survive, record manufacturers had to find new record pressing materials, even if they were
more expensive. Some began making vinyl 78’s.
In 1948, Columbia introduced the 33-1/3 RPM Vinyl LP. It cost more than a
78, but you got 12 songs instead of 2 on one lightweight, unbreakable disc.
The grooves were very narrow (microgrooves) and required a special
diamond-tipped stylus, instead of a metal needle. And you needed a new
record player ... or you could adapt your old player. The first LP's were
10" in diameter to fit on the modified 78 RPM turntables. Later they became
12".
Columbia wanted the entire record industry to standardize on the 33 1/3
speed and format. In April 1948, Columbia president William S. Paley called
a meeting with David Sarnoff, president of Columbia’s chief rival, RCA
Victor. Paley proposed RCA switch to the vinyl 33 1/3 LP format also.
Sarnoff didn’t want to be paying licensing fees to Columbia for pressing
RCA records until RCA could build its own 33 1/3 RPM pressing plants. But
he did realize the future of recorded music was in vinyl. He refused the
deal and asked his engineers to put a rush on a project they’d started and
dropped ten years earlier, the vinyl 45 RPM single.
On March 31, 1949, RCA Victor introduced its answer to Columbia, the 7"
vinyl 45 RPM single. The project had been reactivated only a year before.
RCA’s top secret development project was referred to as Madame X. The “45”
was smaller, also less breakable, and had a large center hole for playing on
RCA’s new record player. The player was a small, inexpensive record changer
that could be plugged into any music console. It allowed 45's to be stacked
and played in succession. 78's stacked like that would break. The great
"War Of The Speeds" was on!
Vintage RCA 45 Changer
From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives
1949 RCA Victor
magazine ad, explaining "Project Madame X".
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Initially RCA issued 7 different series of 45's: Pop, Pop Classics,
Country & Western, Children's, Classical, Foreign, and R&B. Each had a
different color label, different color vinyl, and Gold Print. RCA
advertised that now you could “color code” your record collection. The
Gold Print was impossible to read and was soon changed to Silver Print.
New Popular
Records (47-Series) were on Black Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Children’s
Records (also 47-Series) but were on Yellow Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Country &
Western Records (48-Series) were on Light Green Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Classical
Music Records (49-Series) were on Red Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Rhythm &
Blues Records (50-Series) were on Florescent Orange Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
International Records (51-Series) were on Light (Sky) Blue Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Older
(claasic) popular records (52-Series) were on Dark Blue Vinyl.
(From the Classic Urban Harmony Archives)
Eventually,
RCA dropped the different colors of vinyl in favor of all black vinyl.
In answer to Columbia's
long-playing (LP) album, RCA produced the 45 RPM Box Set. These
included 3-5 records by the same artist, in a hard cardboard box, often with
liner notes.
In answer to RCA’s 7” vinyl singles, Columbia started issuing 7” 33 1/3
vinyl singles with small holes. These didn’t last very long and were soon
discontinued.
Columbia and RCA Victor began actively courting other labels to sign on with
their technologies. Record labels were quick to line up with either RCA or
Columbia or both. Some labels hedged their bets and began producing 45’s,
33’s and 78’s. With the introduction of any new recording format, record
labels go deep into their vaults and reissue older material in the new
form. After all, they can resell old classics to the same people who bought
them the first time, with no additional studio or mastering costs.
By the end of 1951, both RCA and Columbia gave in and began producing both
45's and 33's. It turned out that both formats could coexist. The Great
War of the Speeds was over.
The 45 RPM single was to a large part responsible for the Rhythm & Blues and
Rock & Roll Age of the 1950’s. Teenagers could carry a lightweight stack of
45’s to a party and put them on an automatic changer. Records dropped down
in the desired order and created their own dance party. Older 78’s would
have just broken.
While LP’s and cassette tapes became more popular in the 1970’s, vinyl 45’s
remained popular until replaced by CD’s in the 1980’s. Eventually music
became digital. Yet many people still feel vinyl gives a fuller, warmer
sound. Vinyl records are still being made. And vinyl 45’s will always have
a home in the Classic urban Harmony Archives. Long live the 45!
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