Century Custom Recording Service - My Record Find (please educate or explain)

I was at a local garage type sale this weekend and came across the record listed far below. (The actual title wasn't really my point of curiosity). On the back of the cover, there was elaborate detail of the equipment and process used for the recording. I picked it up just so I could have it for reference on this post. I will try to quote it. (please also see attached picture for a scan of the back side).

"This high fidelity recording was prepared on an Ampex professional tape recorder (354P, PR-10, or 602-2P) using Neuman (U67-a), Telefunken (M-251), and Sony (C-37a) microphones. The tape to disc mastering was done on a Scully variable pitch lathe using the 250 watt Haeco driver amplifier, driving the Westrex 2B cutter. (RIAA equalization). The disc was then pressed from pure virgin vinyl using our exclusive anti-static. These techniques are undertaken with painstaking care in order to provide the best poissible recording available today. At all steps of the preparation of this recording, every attempt has been made to have the disc recording represent the sound of the actual performance. To this end, the full frequency response, natural balance and dynamic range has been maintained with the highest possible fidelity. To obtain the fullest enjoyment of this recording, it should be played on the very finest high fidelity equipment.

WARNING: This is a subscription, limited edition recording prepared solely for the listening enjoyment of the participants and their friends. It is prohibited by law to use this recording for any commercial purpose without the express written consent of the performing group and Century Custom Recording Service."

I do not have a large record collection as I primarily collect on cd. However it seemed odd that this, I'm guessing, specialty "subscription" label had such an elaborate description back in 1966. It was written in a way I would expect to see at later point in time (and on the inside or in product literature). I just didn't realize what the "HiFi" market was at that point. Again, some ignorance may be showing here. A reminder that this probably unknown title was made nearly a decade before I was born. I just haven't seen enough records to know if these descriptions (and clubs) were a highly practiced thing for 1966. Please let me know what I came across. I've heard of clubs, but this one just seemed different for its time.

The title is as follows (which can be seen in the other attached picture):

"Gates-Chili Central Schools presents highlights from New York State Sectional All-State
Concert 1966."

Donald Shetler, Chorus
Robert A. Rosevear, Band
Anthony Pezzano, Orchestra

 

This disc runs along the lines of what Shelly/Golden Crest Records used to do out of Huntington Station, NY. Schools, for example, would tape their concert performances, and have the tapes transferred to vinyl (NOT acetates) for the members of the group, family, and friends, and anyone else to buy. I have a few that came from Shelly, and they all seem to use generic front slicks with the pertinent info pressed into the front--kinda like the way Atlantic/Atco used to press the STEREO logo onto their early stereo covers. The back slicks were simple B&W affairs with the recording info.

$$$-wise, they're pretty much worthless, although sometimes whats in the grooves can be good for a camp-factor.

 

A number of these from the seventies, particularly those from predominantly Black high schools, are in high demand by DJs and hip-hop producers for their funky riffs and beats. If it's standard high school band music, it's of no value in the used record market.

 

There is a similar label in the Midwest called Delta, which is still around. I've got hundreds of high school choirs singing Christmas carols on this label...

Companies like this make custom CDs (records or tapes in the past), usually for schools to sell as vanity projects or fund-raisers. In the 1970s, Delta had about five or six different gatefold covers that a school could use. The outsides of these LPs were always the same; they had titles such as The Christmas Album, O Holy Night, Caroling Caroling, Silent Night ... all the information about the group was inside the gatefold. This, of course, makes it impossible to know what you are getting if you find one that is sealed!

There is at least one highly collectible Century Custom LP that fits in the "garage" or "psych" category, but I can't think of it right now.

Century Custom also was the label for the original edition of the Northern California State Youth Choir's Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord, from which San Francisco DJ Tom Donahue pulled "Oh Happy Day"; when there was demand for a single, the group became the Edwin Hawkins Singers, a single was issued on Pavilion, and the LP was also re-released on Pavilion.

 

I did an interview with a local man who recorded a lot of local high schools in the 60's and 70's. There was one album I had found at a garage sale, really liked it, and discovered that his name was on a number of other school records I had. I too like to look for samples and funky beats, but I like that cheesy factor as well.

He was in his high school band, buy also had a thing for electronics, including recording. One day, a representative from Century Records asked him if he would be interested in recording local schools not only as hobby, but as a job. In other words, he would record these high schools for a fee, he'd send them to Century for pressing, Century would send it back and he would be responsible for distributing them to the high schools. He agreed, and that was his job for about eight years. He said he loved it, because music was a love of his and it was a chance for him to record that and share it to the parents who would be able to have a souvenir.

These souvenirs are what fill up garage, yard sales, and thrift stores.

I showed him the album I liked, and originally my intention was to ask about the drummer who played for a certain high school band. He may not have been Bonham or Bill Ward, but to my ears he sounded like someone who was happy to be recording, and wanted to do the best job possible. I thought "wow, maybe this drummer smoked a bit before joining the band, and wanted to show off". I did not have the heart to ask the guy I was interviewing, for fear he would throw me out of the office. On the album, the band played a cover of a Don Ellis song, and out of the high school records I had ever located, I never found something as complex as that.

I lost touch with the guy, but if he is still here I hope to talk with him again.

 

I.I.N.M., Century Custom later merged with a company called Keysor, and the combined entity later became the disc mastering house K-Disc.

 

John Golden's stomping grounds (or used to be).

I didn't know that (the link between Century and K-Disc).

 

I actually have one of those Shelley pressings of which you speak. It was from c. mid-1967, and was one of the first Shelley-made LP's to be pressed on vinyl, rather than styrene. It was issued on their Golden Crest label, under the banner of the "Honor Award Series" - spotlighting the Ithaca (N.Y.) High School Band; Frank L. Battisti, Conductor (CR 6001, issued in "Compatible Stereo" which was directly printed on the back cover and record label themselves), with text of a letter to the band from then-U.S. Senator from New York, Jacob K. Javits, dated May 16, 1967.

 

I collect anything Shelly/Golden Crest/Silver Crest related, as it was located right smack-dab in my hometown, although sadly I was born too late to knock on the door for a job of any sort. Before I moved away from Long Island, I used to get a double-whammy stroke of luck and find disc that were recorded of my High School Alma Mater (Walt Whitman HS, South Huntington). Usually, these custom LP's turn up at flea markets and junk shops for nothing more than 50 cents a pop, which I gladly pay. Musically, they're usually poop, but there's something nice about a local hometown "section" in my vinyl collection.

 

I know what you mean. I have "In Every Corner Sing", a selection of hymns recorded in a church in my hometown by the local radio station. I never play it, I rarely look at it, and yet owning it kind of quenches the occasional pangs of guilt I might feel from knowing that I was the one that junked the master tape when I worked at that radio station!

 

I think Mark Records was the company that did these here in Detroit. We would get a yearly LP made of our school bands in high school. We'd put our orders in and pay for them like a regular LP--definitely limited editions. We recorded all of our concerts on reel tape, including our appearances at the band festivals and our jazz band gigs, so we had a lot to choose from. (I'd thought of contacting our high school, since we never had one for the 1980-1981 school year, and seeing if they still had the tapes.)

Pretty common, actually. I'm just surprised this would turn up in a used record store.

 

That album I got, I plunked down $3.95 at Footlight Records back when it was at the East Village of Manhattan. (It is now an online-only store.) Given that they usually sold LP's for higher prices than the flea markets you speak of, the price they sold that one for was par for the course. I bought it more for the significance of the pressing itself, than for anything else.

 

You may want to check, or if there was someone in charge of recording, try to find him/her. I would think that a high school would see audio tape and dump them, since it's not of importance.

 

Wow! This is great information about all the releases of this type. Can anyone comment about the gear and practices listed at the top? It just seems like a lot to go through for a recording of this nature. Did this company really use all of this "state of the art" equipment? Were these things somewhat standard and the description just a marketing thing?

I don't have a record player at my place, so I haven't actually listened to this recording. I am getting curious though and may "travel" with it to take a quick listen elsewhere.

 

Link to Century Records Discography:

http://www.gravediggervideo.com/century.html

Lots of intriguing items...

-Bud

 

Mark Records is still around. I E-mailed them a few years ago wondering if they still had any copies of an LP called INTRODUCING THE 1982 HAMILTON (ILLINOIS) HIGH SCHOOL CONCERT BAND, a record I engineered when I was about to graduate from another high school! No dice; all the LPs had been turned into landfill years before. Mark actually subcontracted custom recording services through a number of smaller companies all over the US, but discontinued the practice due to massive quality control problems (some of which buggered my record above, which had a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania address on the labels). Happily, I still have session tapes to the parts of my LP that I'd originally recorded (some titles were dubbed from a tape the band director supplied me, carefully EQd by me). Rudy's album he refers to would have been so subcontracted too. If anyone here is trying to locate tapes to some of these old albums, I'd recommend trying to contact the band or choir directors that participated in the original recordings in addition to whatever local studio or engineer (if known). If the original tapes were recorded in a consumer format (like quarter track stereo, 7 1/2 ips, as I only then had....God knows how many times these folks were sent cassettes from others) they'd have to be transferred to half track stereo, 15 ips by the subcontractor....oftentimes quite poorly (as happened to my LP!). My LP had to be pressed twice. The first go-round (MC 26101 in the dead wax), you could hear what their 15 ips dbx'd tape sounded like with the decoder off for the first three seconds, then a huge level drop when the engineer switched it in, in the middle of a spoken intro....as for the music, all the lows and highs were slashed, the mids around 800 boosted, levels of some pieces were too loud and others too low....a mess. The band director and I were....umm, rather upset. (I had provided the band director a high quality cassette from the finished tape before I handed it over so he knew what the record ought to sound like.) The second time (MC 26101 RE-1), they got the frequency range right as well as the levels on all the pieces, but they just faded up in the middle of the spoken intro....dumb. In the interest of getting the records out ASAP (my master tape completed 3 June 1982, first [bad] pressing delivered 23 August 1982, second [passable] pressing delivered 19 November 1982--and these were runs of only 125 copies! WTF?!) we let that slide. Lesson: supervise the mastering of what you engineer!