George Wright, and Magnavox

[William]

Some of you are fans of pipe organ music be it classical or theater and I am sure some of you have heard of Georg Wright. George was the king of theater organ back in the day. He was a legend, known for his style of playing, choice of music, and just plain making the theater organ sing. At one point in his life, he added a room onto his house and had a custom design by him theater organ installed for just his playing and of course the sale of his records. So, the other day I was digging through my CD's and found a George Wright CD titled Red, Hot, and Blue. It was recorded on his studio organ, and it is an excellent recording. I never read the jacket notes, but for some reason I did this time and what I found was fascinating. Here is what I found:

"George Wright has been a hero of the audiophile community since the first of his pops pipe organ LP albums was released in 1955. At that time the Magnavox Company thought enough of Mr. Wright's artistry and the sonic excellence of his recordings to include a George Wright LP with the sale of every Magnavox record player."

I thought that very interesting, and a good way for Magnavox to really sell the quality and sound of their units. I probably have this same CD in a LP, and I should dig it out and give it a spin on the Imperial. I am guessing it will shake the walls as did the CD playing through my component system.

To go on with the rest of the paragraph:

"Since those days, he has gone on to record more that 40 LP albums, some of which sold in the millions - a sales record no other pop player of the pipe organ has equaled. This record stillstands. Even The New York Times has been sufficiently moved to claim, "He makes the organ swing". "

If any of you have any of George Wright's albums or CD's, did them out, take a listen, and enjoy one of the greats and his music. If you do not have any of his recordings keep your eyes peeled and buy at least one and take a listen, you won't be sorry.

Bill

[TC Chris]

You might enjoy last week's Pipedreams episode on movie music.

https://www.pipedreams.org/episode/2024 ... -so-silent

The "Kid Millions" score was well played and lively.

Chris Campbell

[William]

I have been to the Sanfillpo estate several times and it is quite spectacular. Not only is the organ fantastic but so is the rest of the collection of musical instruments and everything else that is there. For some reason Pipe Dreams is not available around here anymore. I guess I could find it some where on the computer but never think to do that. Thanks for the link, Chris.

Bill

[TC Chris]

I don't have a way to listen to online sources over a good sound system at home, and I don't know what kinds of compression or what bitrates they use for the streamed audio. I am usually listening to it on the truck stereo on the highway, and while the Ford radio may not be high-end, it's extremely competent. Somebody on this list's former incarnation pointed out that it's easy to excite solid bass in a small volume like a little truck's cab. Yeah, I think the FM station does have limiters/compressors and sometimes the engineers get heavy-handed with the compression, but bottom line is that it sounds good in the truck. And in the winter when I'm at home it can rattle the windows on the big LR system.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I recently had the opportunity to tinker a bit with Bluetooth and Sirius satellite radio. You can get little adapters to use Bluetooth and feed it to your stereo amp. Sirius satellite uses a receiver, much like an AM-FM setup, but it's really cool as far as content goes. There is a young man at work who had never seen a 45 rpm record, nor had he seen a changer for them. I showed him how my 45's worked and the changers for them. He brought over his party speaker and Bluetooth setup on his phone. I'm not sure I have a use for such things, but it is miraculous how they work.

[TC Chris]

The digital devices offer great convenience but many of the sources are compressed and at low bitrates, so on a good system they would sound less good than a CD or good LP.

Chris Campbell