Friday, June 07, 2019

Rare drum and bugle corps recordings!



Rare drum and bugle corps recordings!

There have been thousands of drum and bugle corps performances committed to reel-to-reel tapes over the decades.  Stetson D.Richmond concentrated on shows up and down the Eastern Seaboard and shows inland, reaching from Maine on the North to the District of Columbia and the Virginias on the South.  He also was a mainstay at just about every American Legion Nationals held in such diverse locations as the Los Angeles Coliseum, Las Vegas, Miami, Cleveland, Minneapolis and many points in between.

One of the true pioneers of “live” recordings came from the prolific sideline presence of Stetson D. Richmond.  A Boonton, NJ, resident, he spent countless time between 1950 and 1980 capturing memorable programs for posterity.

During the latter part of his career, Stet Richmond also recorded and traded tapes with Pittsburgh, PA, native Alf Wateska who concentrated on Western Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.  Many of his recordings are also part of the recordings.

Both collections are available on six-corps compact discs in this collection.  There are 220 titles, featuring 464 different junior and senior corps at 1,320 competitions in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

The original material has been meticulously re-mastered by recording engineer Ken Mason, enhancing the bottom bass sound and clarifying the upper registers of the “bright” soprano bugle sound, as well as editing out tape hiss.

Full line-ups are available in this extensive “The Beat Goes On” archive at www.drumcorpsworld.com — click on “Store” in the menu bar.  Check out the recordings, arranged by era (1950s, 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s), along with date and location.  No doubt you’ll find rare performances by your own corps or corps you competed with during your youth.  These recordings can bring back treasured memories of an era when there were thousands of corps across North America.
Steve Vickers
Publisher
Drum Corps World