Recording Dates
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:36 am
When Bernie discovered the acetates for "Come Into My Heart" and "Jimmy Unknown", neither had been released, and there was no indication of recording dates. So, some of you will remember, we invited guesses for likely recording dates (on the old Message Board) so as to slot them into the correct places in the chronological sequence that I had prepared. (You will find this list stored in the Library, under the Lyrics Section). We agreed on late 1954/early 1955 for "Come Into My Heart" and early 1956 for "Jimmy Unknown".
We had hoped that EMI might have confirmed the dates on the new CD release, but this did not happen, and at my suggestion the new songs were put at the end of the last CD. So, unless anyone has a better idea, I am proposing to be a bit more specific and suggest:
December 1954 "Come Into My Heart"
March 1956 "Jimmy Unknown"
Now we are lucky enough to have another two to think about, which also went at the end of the fourth CD. After hearing them for the first time, my guess was that "If I Were A Blackbird" and "Isle Of Innisfree" were recorded at the same time, and I wondered if they were recorded around the time of the "Endearing Young Charms" LP. When I mentioned this to Brian Henson, he tended to agree, and suggested to me that perhaps a couple of additional tracks were recorded to turn the LP into a 12" one for the American Market.
I have just found another clue. After Bernie's first visit to EMI last year, he gave me a copy of a document from EMI listing all the songs which they had in their catalogue, and on which Albums and CDs they have already been released. Unfortunately it does not have any recording dates, but for "If I Were A Blackbird" and "Isle of Innisfree" in the notes column it says the following:
COORTIN' IN THE KITCHEN/DOONEREE/ETC (the spelling is EMI's not mine!) together with the words CUT FOR MASTER
So that more or less convinces me that we should assign the same dates as for the other songs on "Endearing Young Charms", that is December 1958.
I welcome your comments on this.
Finally, the inlay brochure to the 4 CD set contains a copyright date for all the other songs, but this is not always in agreement with the dates we have agreed for the original release of a song. I will be having a look at this in greater detail some time in the future.
We had hoped that EMI might have confirmed the dates on the new CD release, but this did not happen, and at my suggestion the new songs were put at the end of the last CD. So, unless anyone has a better idea, I am proposing to be a bit more specific and suggest:
December 1954 "Come Into My Heart"
March 1956 "Jimmy Unknown"
Now we are lucky enough to have another two to think about, which also went at the end of the fourth CD. After hearing them for the first time, my guess was that "If I Were A Blackbird" and "Isle Of Innisfree" were recorded at the same time, and I wondered if they were recorded around the time of the "Endearing Young Charms" LP. When I mentioned this to Brian Henson, he tended to agree, and suggested to me that perhaps a couple of additional tracks were recorded to turn the LP into a 12" one for the American Market.
I have just found another clue. After Bernie's first visit to EMI last year, he gave me a copy of a document from EMI listing all the songs which they had in their catalogue, and on which Albums and CDs they have already been released. Unfortunately it does not have any recording dates, but for "If I Were A Blackbird" and "Isle of Innisfree" in the notes column it says the following:
COORTIN' IN THE KITCHEN/DOONEREE/ETC (the spelling is EMI's not mine!) together with the words CUT FOR MASTER
So that more or less convinces me that we should assign the same dates as for the other songs on "Endearing Young Charms", that is December 1958.
I welcome your comments on this.
Finally, the inlay brochure to the 4 CD set contains a copyright date for all the other songs, but this is not always in agreement with the dates we have agreed for the original release of a song. I will be having a look at this in greater detail some time in the future.