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Re: [ARSCLIST] Winston Churchill Set
On 25/02/07, Steven Smolian wrote:
> An article by Barry Fox in Studio Sound, Oct, 1991, deals with this
> issue. The actor's name is Norman Shelley. The software used to
> support Shelley's clain to having made the records is Speechstation,
> sold in the US by Ariel Corp. Given the volatility of corporate
> survival, it is probably still available, improved and under a
> different name. Maybe not.
>
There seem to be two different questions at issue.
One is whether Shelley made some of the records used to broadcast
Churchill's speeches during WW II. EMI released a series of eleven
separate LPs in the late 1950s, containing transfers from 78s of the
war time speeches.
The other is whether he was involved in the post-war recording sessions
which were used to make up the Decca LP set.
Decca released a boxed set of 12 LPs in December 1964 containing mainly
readings from the WW II memoirs, with some speeches. They are reviewed
on p.275 of that month's "Gramophone" by Compton Mackenzie, who recalls
seeing Churchill speak at Oxford in 1903. He spoke too fast and his
speech impediment was worse then than in later life, so nobody
understood a word; but they cheered anyway.
Regards
--
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx