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Happy 70th birthday LP: June 21, 1948

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Has anyone realized the Long Play (LP) 12" microgroove record (what most call vinyl) is due to be 70 years old on June 21, 2018? The exact date and issue is somewhat debatable, but who cares. Let's celebrate! RCA had an earlier contender but, that seemed to fail.

"According to the 1949 Columbia catalog, issued September 1948, the first twelve-inch LP was Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor by Nathan Milstein on the violin with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Bruno Walter (ML 4001)." [1]

"June 21, 1948: Photo: The first microgroove LP pressing released was Columbia ML4001, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor with soloist Nathan Milstein, and Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York. Courtesy 33audio.com" [2], [3]

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record
[2] https://www.wired.com/2010/06/0621first-lp-released/
[3] https://gizmodo.com/5569231/june-21-1948-the-first-lp-is-released
 
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The original RCA attempt failed because it happened during the Depression. The cost of the equipment necessary to play their LPs, at a time when there was no spare money around, killed the RCA LP.

RCA decided that they were not going to embrace the new tech, and would stick to 45 rpm records issued in albums, similar to the 78 amp predecessors. A revolt by their signed conductors, who threatened to defect to Columbia, put paid to that, and the LP became the universal carrier for music.

By the way, the reason we use the term "album" is because prior to the 33 rpm LP, longer pieces of music were issued in albums. Nowadays, it's normal to have an hour or more of music on a single disk. This was not true prior to 1948.
 
KevinJS said:
The original RCA attempt failed because it happened during the Depression. The cost of the equipment necessary to play their LPs, at a time when there was no spare money around, killed the RCA LP.

RCA decided that they were not going to embrace the new tech, and would stick to 45 rpm records issued in albums, similar to the 78 amp predecessors. A revolt by their signed conductors, who threatened to defect to Columbia, put paid to that, and the LP became the universal carrier for music.

By the way, the reason we use the term "album" is because prior to the 33 rpm LP, longer pieces of music were issued in albums. Nowadays, it's normal to have an hour or more of music on a single disk. This was not true prior to 1948.
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It might be worth noting that "LP" was actually copyrighted by Columbia so RCA and others couldn't use it to describe that type of record. Also, jazz was only available on 10" LP's until sometime in the mid-1950's. My "Brubeck Time" (Dave Brubeck's 3rd album) is from 1955 and is 12" so it must have been before that when labels started switching away from 10". The last 10's were made in 1956 (until the mini-LP craze in the late 1970's).
 
Classic Records did an interesting reissue of ML 4001 in 1999.

I cannot say why Mike Hobson did this, as it was unlikely to see much demand, but most of the originals are quite beat-up because of the flimsy paper sleeves Columbia used at the time - and there was no inner sleeve. Also, I took a while for customers to learn how to handle the new records, and not treat them like 78s. So this is quite a useful reissue to have if you want to hear the very first LP.
 
KevinJS said:
The original RCA attempt failed because it happened during the Depression. The cost of the equipment necessary to play their LPs, at a time when there was no spare money around, killed the RCA LP.

RCA decided that they were not going to embrace the new tech, and would stick to 45 rpm records issued in albums, similar to the 78 amp predecessors. A revolt by their signed conductors, who threatened to defect to Columbia, put paid to that, and the LP became the universal carrier for music.

By the way, the reason we use the term "album" is because prior to the 33 rpm LP, longer pieces of music were issued in albums. Nowadays, it's normal to have an hour or more of music on a single disk. This was not true prior to 1948.
Click to expand...
I believe RCA's original 1931 attempt at a 33RPM record was not the same as the LP format which Columbia introduced 17 years later. According to this page, the first "Victor Program Transcription Records" used the same size groove as the 78RPM records of the day, so only held around 15 minutes of music per side compared to the 22+ minutes possible with Columbia's microgroove LPs. Said page also lists some pre-1931 attempts at 33RPM discs which weren't meant for the consumer market.
-Adam
 
Listening to the reissue of Masterpieces by Ellington makes you realize the excellence of recording equipment in 1950.
 
I had no idea! I'm going to pull out a stack to listen to tomorrow. By happenstance the GF is out of town until the weekend so I can keep'em spinning all night.
 
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