78s -- Why Do I Do It?

Image provided courtesy of Mike Thomas of Encyclopedia of British Dance Bands.

So how does someone like you get interested in music like that? Wow, that’s an original question! Never had that before in twenty-five years of collecting jazz and hot dance records. And it’s a question I can’t really answer because it’s all a matter of taste, like why do I like bacon but hate beetroot? I don’t know why, I just do. “You weren’t even alive in the war!” someone once exclaimed in an attempt, so it seemed, to convince me not to enjoy my 78s. I’ve got news for you, I thought but didn’t say, most of my records were well out of date by the time the war started. Out loud, I didn’t bother to argue. “That music is older than your parents!” was another gem hurled my way. Well, gosh darn, so was Mozart, matey!

I’m not quite sure why some people considered it their mission to convince me not to enjoy the music I do, but some were really adamant. None succeeded, of course. It isn’t as though I don’t like any other music. I worship at he shrine of The Beatles, and I enjoy the music of the 1960s in general, and 1967 in particular, for nostalgia as much as anything else. Also, I know that the 1970s are supposed to be the decade that taste forgot but I like hearing again the music from that period because the 70s were a very exciting bunch of years for me. Mind you, I probably couldn’t name you more than half a dozen songs that came out in the 80s or 90s.

I can hardly claim, though, that I listen to Ambrose or Nat Shilkret out of nostalgia. Most of the people I listen to were dead long before I even became aware of them. Simply a matter of taste. I once heard it best explained by George Harrison, bless him, who said that if you like recorded music from another period, it’s not just the music you like but also the way it went through the microphone and the way it comes back at you out of the record. The whole package. And he was right! A modern day recording of Feelin’ No Pain would not sound the same, or as good, as, say, Miff Mole’s version, even if the band had the same instrumentation and followed the same arrangement note for note.

So, when I played a 78 for the very first time (Charlie Barnet’s Skyliner from 1944: a bit out of the period I came to like best, but a wonderful record all the same) it was that combination of sounds and the way they were reproduced that started an addiction. Quite harmless, perfectly inoffensive, and I refuse to try to justify it. So there!