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A "gold mine" of Opry artist shows being restored


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For years, there have been whispers of a lost treasure-trove of country recordings hidden away somewhere in the Northeast. Tapes of George Jones, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, Charley Pride, and other icons - a veritable all-star spectacular - were among those rumored to be languishing in obscurity.

 

"Everybody had heard about these tapes," says J Franze, a North Shore audio engineer who has worked extensively in Nashville. "But nobody really believed they existed."

 

Last year, the myth became reality. Hundreds of tapes were pulled from a barn in southern Pennsylvania, recordings made at high schools, dances, fairs, festivals, and auditoriums in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere. It was a fantasy collection, more than 1,000 unreleased live recordings by country music royalty. Most were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a few dating to the 1940s, including shows by Acuff and Grandpa Jones captured with wire recordings.

 

Read on...

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That is awesome. I just finished reading "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music" by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg. (Excellent read, btw.)

 

There is a good story about how Hank almost killed June Carter.

 

Anyway, I hope they have some Carter Family material I haven't heard yet.

 

anyway,

dcd

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It's not hard to find reel to reel tape machines. There are still new ones being made, actually. What he is going to run into is tapes that have been killed by humidity and time. Besides the tapes breaking, they will also be shedding. They should be baked. I'm sure that guy knows all of that stuff. To say the tapes were not properly stored would be understatement.

 

And this:

 

Since the rights and royalties involved in releasing the collection to the public could prove prohibitive, it might take a hall of fame or Smithsonian-type institution to sort out the tangle.
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whoa, this is crazy! its like something off of the Twilight Zone. I swear, I have dreams about this type of stuff. imagine if they have a recording of Cash at the Opry when he kicked out the stage lights while loaded. or some old Hank Williams Sr. gigs... I know what I'll be dreaming about again tonight.

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