Lo-fi 78's v. hi-fi CD's

[Page Stephens]

Wilson's remarks remind me of the furor over The Kingsmen's version of
Louie Louie which the FBI investigated for obscenity only to discover that
no one could discover what the hell they were singing.

Parents across the US, however, were convinced that it was awful.

Having over the years attempted to decipher words on hundreds of 78s and
lps I can tell you it can be damned near impossible. I am still trying to
figure out all of the words to Blind Blake's Jones Oh Jones with little
more success than I had 40 years ago. I've even gotten to the place where I
have simply rewritten them in the version I sing.

If you look online for texts of songs you will discover that many other
people have the same problem because there are many obvious errors in
transcription which thus get inscribed in stone.

On the other hand you can quite often trace the evolution of songs by the
mistakes singers and transcribers make.

One of most famous of these mistakes was made by Vernon Dalhart whose
recording of The Wreck of the Old 97 included the line, " it was on this
grade that he lost his average, see what a jump he made" which makes little
sense while in Henry Whitter's version the word which apparently Dalhart
misheard which given Whitter's pronunciation is not surprising,  is
airbrakes so if you hear the word average you know that the singer is
relying on the Dalhart rather than the earlier Whitter version.

Some years ago the late Stephen Jay Gould as I recall wrote an article on
this subject in terms of textbooks suggesting that you could discover their
origin by looking at the mistakes which were continued from one to the
other. Given the nature of the publishing industry, however, there are
limitations to this method since quite often you cannot determine the
authorship. Some thirty or so years ago I helped my late friend Julian
Steward work on a chapter for an introductory anthropology textbook, but by
the time it got into print I couldn't even figure out which chapter it was
that we had worked on due to massive rewriting even though Julian's name
was on the list of authors.

At least we got paid and some of his ideas got through but otherwise it was
a massive waste of time.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 3/9/2006 10:50:56 PM
> Subject: Lo-fi 78's v. hi-fi CD's
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Lo-fi 78's v. hi-fi CD's
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>
> To the best of my knowledge, I became fully
> cognizant of "fly" as a slang term behind the
> "Fly Girls" of _In Living Color_.
>
> But, a couple of days ago, as I was listening to a CD of
> '50's oldies by The Spaniels, I heard the verse:
>
> "I met a little girl walking down the street.
> She was _fly_ as she could be."
>
> On the original 1955 78, I'd always heard that second
> line as:
>
> "She was _fine_ as she could be."
>
> The date fits right in with HDAS's note of a resurgence
> of the term during 1954-1960. The Spaniels' home base
> was Chicago, from the point of view of St. Louisans, The
> City, and we normally got the latest sounds and slang usages
> from there. But, thanks to the lo-fi of 78's, we Louietowners
> missed out on "fly." Sigh!
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org