The Lettermen (and my dad) at Capitol's Jacksonville, IL, Plant Opening*

I went to the delete sale for at least five years before the plant closed a few years ago. I'd usually drop $150 there -- $3 CDs, including many box sets -- both Beach Boys for $10 each. Man, I miss the delete sale.

 

Yes, it is. Has a snippet of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," (in stereo, for what it's worth) along with the same for the other artists listed.

 

Fantastic story and photos! So cool, thanks for sharing this.

dan c

 

Fantastic story, photos, and history here. Love this thread. Enjoy threads like this.

 

I remember driving back from a canceled Springsteen concert at about 4 a.m. back in the fall of 1992. It was unseasonably warm and I had the windows down and Nat Cole's "Ramblin' Rose" album playing on the CD deck as I sped through the night on old, two-lane Route 104 in Illinois. I hit Jacksonville -- a small town of about 20,000 people -- and slowed down to 35 mph, hitting all the stop lights. The town was deserted at that hour. I looked to my right and saw the huge oval Capitol logo glowing on a nearby building. I had completely forgotten that Capitol - home of Nat, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. - had a plant there. I pulled in the driveway, drove around the darkened loading docks and past the mid-century-modern entrance. Eerie and dark. I couldn't help but think how cool it would have been to have grown up in Jacksonville in the 1960s, maybe even had a summer job in the plant back in 1967, stacking pallets of an as-yet-unreleased "Sgt. Pepper" LP in the warehouse...

I seem to recall the Jacksonville plant had a special place in late-Beatles history. I heard -- and this could be all wrong -- that the Jacksonville plant manufactured all U.S. copies of the "Anthology 1" CD because of the ultra-tight security surrounding that particular release. (Apple had guaranteed ABC-TV that no one would hear "Free As A Bird" before it aired on ABC the night of Nov. 19, 1995, so millions of dollars were at stake.)

Like I said, I'm not sure whether that's true but, dammit, I like to think that it is. The Jacksonville plant was built largely because Capitol couldn't keep up with the demand for Beatles product. It would be nice if 30 years later the plant was called into special service to crank out the "first new Beatles song in 25 years."

 

Clark, I had a combination warm feeling and late night chills from reading your story. You captured the feeling of the plant well. (And you passed within a half mile of our farm on the way to Jacksonville.)

As far as the Anthology sets go, I remember reading the same thing about the Jacksonville plant.

 

Great stuff!! Thanks for posting it!

 

I had the same reaction. I think the first two Anthology releases were the only Midnight sales events I ever attended. It's pretty cool to think back to the first of those two nights and now know that the CD I bought (and had anticipated for half my life) that night down in Texas originated up in the Jacksonville plant.

 

I found the old Associated Press and Reuters articles from 1995 that indicate "Anthology 1" was manufactured exclusively at the Jacksonville plant.

The articles indicate 31,000 boxes of CDs -- each containing 48 double-CD sets -- were loaded into the trucks. The trucks then rolled out of the gates in Jacksonville under tight security on Sunday evening, just after the first installment of the "Anthology" TV special began airing on ABC. They traveled across Illinois, Indiana, and then into Kentucky, in a military-style convoy that was tracked by satellite and by radio. The trucks were then unloaded at the Louisville UPS distribution center for shipment to stores throughout the country.

 

They had 'em in 2013 too, but here are the 2014 listings. The second link is outlet overstock at a nice price. Buttons but close enough? I have two of exactly these and they are nice.

http://www.blair.com/p/irvine-park-banded-bottom-collared-velour-shirt/71489.uts

http://www.blair.com/p/33420.uts

And otherwise, this is a nice thread subject and photo discovery.

 

Stop by and say hello next time.

 

How are they old-fashioned? They were still in the first half of their peak years in 1965, and they're dressed a lot like The Beach Boys might have been at that time.

For a plant opening in the Midwest in the mid-Sixties, they were probably the best artists that Capitol could have chosen.

 

From what I gathered, it wasn't until late 1968 that Jacksonville began pressing 45's. Their 360 interlocking serrations seemed a bit wider than either Scranton's or Los Angeles', at the outset.

I wonder, who were the main printers of center (vinyl) label blanks in the very early years of the Jacksonville plant. I know by 1973 Artco Press of Terre Haute, IN, was a primary printer, and in the early '80's that job fell to another Terre Haute printer, Moore-Langen Printing Co.

For LP's, as of 1968-69 their rainbow labels were identical to what Scranton was using (and I'm talking the "subsidiary" labels there), but they seemed to have the labels printed on the (rather Vellum-ish) uncoated side of 70 lb. Kromekote Cast-Coated 1 Side paper, while Scranton's label paper stock for LP's was 70 lb. C2S (Gloss).

 

The irony being lots of used Capitol vinyl albums available at my local Goodwill Center.

 

Way, way cool.

But...What's Barbra Streisand doing on that album?

 

I think that the Broadway original cast album of Funny Girl was released on Capitol (I remember seeing the cover in the inner sleeves of my sister’s old Beatles albums).

 

Here’s the Discogs listing to back up my prior post:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2082620-Barbra-Streisand-Sydney-Chaplin-Funny-Girl-Original-Broadway-Cast

 

Something else: Gugler Litho placed an ad in a September 1967 Billboard issue commemorating Capitol's 25th anniversary. This was one year before the Milwaukee-based printer supplied jackets for The Beatles' "White Album." I wonder if Gugler handled labels, too, for Capitol's Jacksonville plant in its early years, as well as printing slicks for album jackets.

 

Here’s the September 16, 1967 Billboard issue in question:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard 1967-09-16.pdf

 

$5 bucks. What a deal!