A rare (and valuable) Charlie Patton disc has turned up at an estate sale in South Carolina. This is the story behind what might be the biggest "in the wild" find I am ever part of. Keep digging for records. They are still out there!
Charlie Patton wrote a song about my grandfather called the Tom Rushen Blues. He would give him rides to different honks while my grandfather emptied his juke boxes which had 78's. I still have a box of them. They are really fragile. Anyway, good site. Glad I stumbled on it. Just Sam
I still collect 78rpm records after 50 years of buying records. Some of them from the '30s thru the '50s have absolutely sound quality, even better than a vinyl version of the same song. I've always loved records.
The fact that these things still turn up in random places is so great. When Son House's "Clarksdale Moan" was found a few years back my wig was split wide open. Amazing
Lord only knows what I looked over when I started getting into 78's in the early 1980's. I went through many, many thousand piled up in dusty old junk shops. I honestly can say though, even after over 40 years of collecting, that even in more recent years I have occasionally come across garage sales with a few crates of 78's and you just NEVER see the rare one's. Almost always '40's pop and/or early-mid '20's very common acoustical recordings. Lately you lucky to even find those!
I don't care about "rarity". If I see a box of old shellacs, I'm going to take the entire box - and have - for anywhere from $5 - $10. Nobody else will appreciate them. I have my own Philco floor console record player with the rather uncommon "beam of light" tonearm that gives a unique sound to these old records, and they make a great pair together. I have no idea if any of the records I have would be rare or not, I just like listening to these old melodies. I just picked up a binder thats crumbling in my hands of Victor Talking Machine and Zon-o-fone records at Goodwill for $10.
I'm glad it wasn't me that found it because I'd have just sold it (delta blues isn't my favourite but I'd have known what it was) I collect 78s, have tens of thousands of them and so this would be like me finding a Berliner or a rare jazz or operatic record. I can imagine the thrill you got all too well Mark, awesome stuff and I hope you keep it for ever!
I have a 10 inch 78 Charlie Patton on Coronet records I found at the bottom of a Victrola my grandfather disassembled to refinish the cabinet on back in the sixties and have somewhere unknown now in my collection of stuff.
I literally have thousands of 78’s, I buy and just store away. My ultimate plan is to go through them all when I retire in 5 or so years, possibly start an online store.
I just found your channel. I've always wanted to find a Charlie Patton 78. I was an itinerant piano tuner since 1977, mostly in the Deep South and Texas. I would knock on doors in the small black communities asking to buy records. (The white folks would call the cops.) I found three Robert Johnsons, a Tommy Johnson and many more but never a Patton 78. I found a Kid Bailey 78 at a New Mexico piano customer's house but she wouldn't sell it. So I called John Tefteller and the customer refused his $2,000 offer also. It was her grandmother's. (I noticed that his is the next comment here.) I haven't given up about finding that Patton 78. In fact, I'm on the road in the Texas Panhandle right now. Heckhound on my trail.
For "easier to locate" finds, I am still collecting the Jockers Brothers violin-piano pop records which they recorded for Columbia from 1914-1918. These are acoustic records on the A series with either the Black label with the notes, or the regular Blue label for the A-series. Some are 12" 78s (extra playing time) and some are 10". Probably about half are already online but I still seek originals for a reissue project of all their recordings. Also all Al Jockers Dance Orchestra sides on Vocalion. Thanks a lot!!!
Early 78s are definitely still out there. Cheap bulk deals don’t turn up often… but found about 300 in a bulk deal for $10 last spring. Bought a Victor Victrola VV-4-3 Orthophonic for $75 a month ago and the seller threw in about 40 early 78s still in their original sleeves stored in a 78 hard carrying case that’s never been picked over. Included many patriotic WWI records when the US finally entered the war. The stuff still exists.
Wow, what a coincidence! I was researching Patton just the other day, I discovered him (and 78 records in general) fairly recently and in a short time he became one of my favourite artists. Could you upload the whole transfer somewhere like mediafire? I could try getting rid of the noise without using crappy tools like ClickRepair that kill the sound. Envious of your find btw, who knows how many of these near-unexistent records are still in the basement of an old shack in Mississippi.
We pick up 78s every chance we get! Obviously they aren't always awesome, but we've come across some fun ones. We've begun sharing some of them (but only ones we're pretty sure that they are in the public domain, which is getting easier to identify the more we learn). One cool one we found and shared a couple years ago was "Boy Scout Bugle Calls" from 1924. The sound quality isn't great, but it was still unique enough that we put it out there. We've got a huge stack we're still sorting through! Still looking for those ultra rare and early Blues! Glad we stumbled across your channel - good info here!
@@MarkAtnip Hi, yes, it had the "Official Boy Scout Record" label - it's on the channel; we posted it on June 2, 2021. Just wish it were a cleaner sound.
One time I found some 78’s (4 or 5?) which looked like had never been played. They were glossy black with no scratches or gray spots. I didn’t play them to hear if they had any scratches! But that must be fairly rare to find. I think one of the songs is “Manhattan Serenade”.
I found a 1928 78 from Benny Morten called Morten stomp for $3 this past Friday, I almost cannot believe I found such a thing at a local flea market(Central Kentucky).I'm not sure who in Mamie Smith is, is she blues?.
@@SCORPION89199 Yes, indeed! Mamie Smith has some really good Vaudeville blues and jazz stuff. More importantly, the popularity of her early recordings convinced the recording industry that blues records recorded by black musicians could be a viable financial endeavor, which is why they are available to modern collectors today. Her recording of Crazy Blues reportedly sold over a million copies and before long, most major labels were issuing "race" records.
Anything is possible to find no matter how rare when it comes to 78s. Frankly people don't value shellac records as much as vinyl records. Most people would just throw them away or play em to death on a cheap turntable.
''Oh move my pillow, and turn my bed around''- easily rivals Emily Dickenson's ''..horse's heads turned towards Eternity''. In fact, it is an even more concrete and vivid image , IMO. Patton, like Son House, was not ''playing'' (or if he was, he was ''playing for keeps''). No ''hokum'' blues here. I've lived with ''O Death'' since the early 90's, the hisses and pops of the old ''Document'' series don't bother me at all, though I recently heard a much enhanced ''34 Blues'' that makes me think that I should reinvestigate the library before YT become s totally intolerable. One mystery that still remains- the fourth volume of the Document series had a white guy on the ''cover'' of the CD. Does anybody have any idea what the story is on that? Liked and subbed.
I have not, although I am familiar with the IRENE system and its caretakers/operators at Cal Berkley which does something similar to a laser turntable, but with better audio results. I DO have hardware which allows me to play one groove wall or the other, in addition I can record the left and right groove wall separately and then use that data to nullify noise, I just haven't done it. Laziness abounds.
@@MarkAtnip Well I have a good job but not that kind of bread. We were friends for the past 6 years and I even moved out near him and miss him so much. Imagine his daughter may sell them off I guess once they get a handle of what is there and that could take a while. Man he was good times. Most of the time we would spend a whole day just listening to jazz records. He turned me on to such great stuff.
Yes there are, and I generally try and highlight records that are rare, interesting, and fun, but not necessarily well known or valuable. I made an exception in this case. There are thousands of discs out there that are one of a kind, but it helps to know what to look for.
YES!!!! I was wondering how long it would take before someone recognized it! I have been asked many times about what the theme song was but I wanted to see if anyone could identify it before I posted the information. It's a WONDERFUL blues guitar/vocal piece titled Ame No Blues by Awaya Noriko from Japanese Columbia 29761.
@@MarkAtnip A very famous Chinese version recording by Tsai Chin which is the greatest version: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Iwfdait_rQs.html
@@LouisLeeKH @MarkAtnip Thank you everybody for your short deviation. I did not know this before - and now that UNBELIEVABLE 1937 song will for sure be on heavy rotation at my place during the next time. Her voice is so beautiful! Thanks again and all the best from a 78rpm collector from Austria
It's an obscure piece of Japanese Blues music called Ame No Blues by Awaya Noriko which was pressed by Columbia. I have not located the name of the guitar player. I picked it because it sounds like a Western blues tune, but most blues collectors wouldn't recognize it. : )
@@MarkAtnip is this it? I love this m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-f52PKMNwRs0.html I would love it recorded cleanly rather than played on gramophone
Good question, Alex. The answer is complicated, however. There are two versions of "desirable". The first is simply whether or not the person who owns the record or someone else wants a copy because they like the music. The other version is whether or not collectors are looking for it and people are willing to spend money on it. In this case, there are a LOT of people looking for this disc who are willing to spend a lot of cash on it. Knowing which recordings are valuable is simply a by-product of going through thousands of records over the years. Being able to spot rare discs in a pile of common ones is an acquired skill. Usually it's the artists that AREN'T popular that have a better chance of being desirable. Most Sinatra, Crosby, etc... records have little value, but Mary Willis and other seemingly dull boring names are quite valuable. It's a sense you develop by listening to a lot of records.
The short answer is because it was published after 1923 and won't become public domain in the USA until January 1, 2034. (95 years from the date the audio was affixed to the format...aka the record... plus 5 years) The long answer is that while the Music Modernization Act allows for "fair use" of such audio for educational purposes, etc, this disc is so rare (three known copies, including this one) that the youtubes assume that the recording of my copy is actually the re-issue and flags it as a copyright violation of the re-release. I have encountered people in almost identical circumstances who have been unable to pass the youtube process in spite of the fact they have the only copy of a disc and the re-release was made BY THEM from their copy. Oddly there are other uploads of this song that somehow were not flagged nor taken down. Possibly because they were uploaded before the copyright check became as precise as it currently is. In any event, I support the rights of copyright holders to protect their work, and this is just a hiccup in the system that prevents records like this from being fully shared. A (most assuredly unsuccessful) battle with the RU-vids isn't worth the effort.
But clearly, it isn't that precise because it thinks your copy is the re-issue, which it isn't. But it is still very good I guess, despite that. Thanks for sharing this great find story. I collect 78s but live in the UK so unlikely to find any rare blues. Still, I do get to come across UK stuff, which I also like.
I am not so sure about a "battle with the RU-vids" not being worth the effort: IMO when someone is scamming / impersonating a copyright holder or agency; then taking them to court is imperative. Otherwise they'll just continue scamming via false claims, getting good music (which they do not own) taken down, and enriching themselves via deception. Several friends in the ragtime community have had such scams attempted on them, for their own versions of public-domain music such as "Maple Leaf Rag". The big issue is that so much of the YT process is automated, that something can be flagged and maybe removed without a person authorizing it(??!) In this case, some of their videos of themselves and/or friends performing were flagged, and my friends fought back against the flag, contesting the claim. I think generally they won. As a personal example: One of my better performances, of Scott Joplin's "Peacherine Rag", (my own arrangement, definitely NOT the sheet-music version!) was flagged by a bogus "publishing company", and my younger friend who took the vid of me playing in public and put it up, did not realize about the copyfraud epidemic and did not think to challenge it, so the video was yanked and is probably gone forever (I had not saved a copy). He is apologetic but probably learned something. At least I can still play it and could record it again.
I'd imagine that it would be the moral and ethical thing to find the family that owned this record and fairly compensate them. Some of Charlie's better sellers go for $500+. This record is probably worth several thousand dollars or more in horrible condition. I'd pay them what it's actually worth.
I have never been more humiliated in my entire life. Now I am digging through the OED trying to find out where I went wrong. Is Susie Dent a 78rpm listener?
I usually try and find records that are "normal" records at first glance and then explain (using history, background, etc...) why the record is fun. This one, however, is recognized by the collecting community as being a significant disc by a legendary performer, as well as being extremely rare, in high demand, and valuable. Thus, it was determined by the collecting community to be special. Not by me.
Sounds like most other noisy, not that interesting old black blues records. 'Cept Bessie Smith and Mississippi John Hurt. Good luck hunting and dreaming.
Hurt's recordings are among my favorite recordings in any genera. Bessie Smith recorded so many records that some of them begin to run together, but I like those that are novel and stand out from the others.
@@MarkAtnip Bessie's " Nobody knows you when you're down and out" I have enjoyed for years, especially her humming/singing. Too many other blues singers are lost in the noise of records played with turned (sideways) needles, ah, poverty...
Charlie Patton was one of the most influential recording artists of the 20th century. He was a huge influence on Howlin' Wolf, Bukka White, Son House, Muddy Waters, and everyone else in Delta blues. Wolf said Patton was his favorite bluesman, and he visited Charlie's grave whenever he was nearby. Charlie Patton was in many ways the first rock star. Listen to his "Pony Blues" and you'll hear what I mean. He was so successful that for a while, he had a car and driver to take him to gigs. For his time and place, that's like having a private jet. People said you could hear Charlie singing from a half mile away without amplification. The guitar tricks he did -- playing it behind his back and between his legs -- were picked up by people like Guitar Slim and passed on to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. His overwhelming gravel voice and go-for-broke gusto on guitar made him the essential blues star in the Delta.
