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Archive for August, 2024

RCA (HMV)

Posted in Uncategorized on 31/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

More at Around and Around. RCA (HMV) – follow the link.
Until 1957, RCA Victor records were released on HMV in the UK and elsewhere. This period covers nearly two years of early Elvis Presley releases.

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RCA Victor

Posted in Uncategorized on 29/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

At AROUND AND AROUND, the latest record label article is RCA Victor (follow link). This is the history of the US company up to and including the format wars of 1948 to 1950, after Columbia / CBS introduced the LP record at 331/3 rpm and RCA introduced the 45 rpm single. It’s as usual heavily illustrated.

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Verve

Posted in Uncategorized on 24/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

At Around and Around:
Verve (follow this link) started as a jazz label. MGM took it over in 1961, but after 1966 Verve started to identify with rock, and started the Verve Folkways and then Verve Forecast brands. Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie to Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto. Then Jimmy Smith, The Righteous Brothers, Velvet Underground, Mothers of Invention, Blues Project, Janis Ian, Laura Nyro … then MGM just let it go.

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Music Factory

Posted in Uncategorized on 19/08/2024| 1 Comment »

MGM’s short-lived1968 label Music Factory (linked) added to Around and Around.

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MGM post 1967

Posted in Uncategorized on 19/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

At AROUND AND AROUND. MGM post 1967 (linked) picks up the story when MGM became independent of EMI in the UK in 1967. They started out with a surprise shift for a staid soundtrack label, with Eric Burdon & The Animals, The Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention. Just a few years later they were best known for The Osmonds. Follow the trail.

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The Birthday Party – 2024, Bath Ustinov, review

Posted in Uncategorized on 18/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

Review of the 2024 production of THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Harold Pinter (follow link to review) at Bath’s Ustinov Studio. The Ustinov Studio continues with top directors and casts in a tiny studio theatre, the end result normally being a transfer intact to London and a bigger stage. I think this will follow the pattern.

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As You Like It – RSC 2024 review

Posted in Uncategorized on 15/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

AS YOU LIKE IT at the open air garden theatre at the RSC (follow link to review). We thought it marvellous. It’s edited to 80 minutes. It’s sharpened, focussed and very funny. It’s not just a “popular” version, it’s one of the best in its own right. It’s full of energy and we saw it in the rain. It’s budget price too. Try and get to Stratford! You can get in. Read my review for rain protection too.

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Pericles – RSC 2024

Posted in Uncategorized on 15/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

Review of PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE (follow link to review). This is the first Royal Shakespeare Company production by co-artistic director, Tamara Harvey. It’s also a rarely performed play, and often avoided because Shakespeare only wrote Acts III to V. It’s a stylish production. Well worth seeing, though the intrinsic faults of the material are impossible to hide.

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The Grapes of Wrath – review

Posted in Uncategorized on 12/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

Review of THE GRAPES OF WRATH at The National Theatre added. This is a mighty and epic production. trucks move, the Colorado River gets swum in, the creek tries to flood the place. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, with a cast of 24. The original New York adaptation by Frank Galati had 36, but it has been cut well for the National. As so often with plays and films of novels the reviewers get snotty. Not us. Extra marks too for a truly incredible last five minutes.

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The Hot Wing King – review

Posted in Uncategorized on 11/08/2024| Leave a Comment »

Review of THE HOT WING KING by Katori Hall at The National Theatre. A Pulitzer Prize winner in America, it went down extraordinarily well in London. I guess ticking both the Global Majority and LGBT+ boxes helped. We had some doubts though. Read the review.

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