Author Topic: Universal Fire Plot Thickens as New York Times Uncovers List of Affected Artists  (Read 576 times)

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Online Elderberry

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Variety By Chris Willman 6/25/2019

Lawsuits have been filed asking the Universal Music Group to come up with a complete accounting of recordings lost in the 2008 fire on the studio lot that destroyed untold thousands of master recordings, and UMG is unlikely to comply with those requests soon, for any number of practical or legal reasons. But the New York Times may have just provided a lot of the affected artists — and their attorneys — with a head start.

In a follow-up to the Times’ original investigative piece of two weeks ago, journalist Jody Rosen has dug deeper and reported a list of more than 700 additional artists whose tapes were destroyed, culled from UMG’s own “Project Phoenix” effort to assess what was lost in the months and years following the devastating blaze.

In an element of the story that veers toward tragicomedy, the Times reports that, at the time, Universal broke down the affected artists into “A” and “B” lists that did not necessarily correspond to Robert Christgau’s famous letter grades or any other artistic assessment. In the late 2000s, fleeting past or present superstars like the Pussycat Dolls, Limp Bizkit, Chuck Mangione and Whitesnake were on the A-list deemed among the company’s greatest losses, along with less historically assailable acts like Muddy Waters, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Joni Mitchell. The B-list included the likes of Merle Haggard, the Roots, Captain Beefheart and the Neville Brothers.

More: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/universal-fire-list-artists-tapes-destroyed-new-york-times-1203253136/

Online Elderberry

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Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/magazine/universal-music-fire-bands-list-umg.html

Quote
Today, The Times is offering a broader look at that heritage, publishing an expanded list of artists who were thought by UMG officials to have lost master recordings in the fire. The list adds 700-plus names to the more than 100 artists cited in “The Day the Music Burned.”

The names were gleaned from UMG’s own lists, assembled during the company’s “Project Phoenix” recovery effort, a global search for replacement copies and duplicates of destroyed masters. One of the artists on those lists is Bryan Adams, who said that he first learned about the fire when he read the Times Magazine piece. During his interactions with UMG staff in 2013, Adams said, “There was no mention that there had been a fire in the archive.”

The list that appears at the end of this article provides a fuller sense of the historical scope of the 2008 disaster. The recording artists whose names The Times is publishing for the first time today represent an extraordinary cross-section of genres and periods: classic pop balladeers (Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee, Pat Boone), jazz greats (Sidney Bechet, Betty Carter, Roland Kirk), show business legends (Groucho Marx, Mae West, Bob Hope), gospel groups (the Dixie Hummingbirds, Five Blind Boys of Alabama, the Soul Stirrers), country icons (the Carter Family, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell), illustrious songwriters (Hoagy Carmichael, Doc Pomus, Lamont Dozier), doo-wop and rhythm & blues favorites (Johnny Ace, the Moonglows, the Del-Vikings), ’50s and ’60s chart toppers (Ricky Nelson, Petula Clark, Brenda Lee), bluesmen (Slim Harpo, Elmore James, Otis Rush), world-music stars (Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Milton Nascimento), classic rockers (The Who, Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night), folkies and folk-rockers (Sandy Denny, Crosby & Nash, Buffy Sainte-Marie), singer-songwriters (Phil Ochs, Terry Callier, Joan Armatrading), ’70s best-sellers (Peter Frampton, Olivia Newton-John, Barry Gibb), soul and disco-era stalwarts (the Dramatics, the Pointer Sisters, George Benson), AM rock-radio staples (Styx, Boston, 38 Special), divas and divos (Cher, Tom Jones), British punks and new wavers (The Damned, Joe Jackson, Squeeze), MTV fixtures (Wang Chung, Patti Smyth, Extreme), hip-hop/R&B hitmakers (Bell Biv Devoe, Jodeci, Blackstreet), ’90s rock acts (Primus, Temple of the Dog, the Wallflowers), rappers (Heavy D. & the Boyz, Busta Rhymes, Common), comedians (Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock), even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose album “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” a recording of a keynote address given at an A.M.E. church convention, was released in 1968 on Excello, a blues label whose masters were stored in the backlot vault.

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