Re: [ARSCLIST] Is there a good history of EMI out there ?

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 13/11/07, Steven C. Barr(x) wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bob Olhsson" <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> I've been helping gather oral histories from recording engineers,
>> musicians and producers for the past ten years. Hopefully the story
>> of post WW2 popular music can be documented while the folks from the
>> '50s and '60s are still alive to tell the real stories.
>> 
> Except...that doesn't really solve the problem...! When one collects
> "oral histories" of past events, one actually collects what those
> parties THINK they remember (and/or what they want to tell other
> historians they "remember"...?!). In both cases, what the recipient
> gets is the story... carefully re-arranged (often NOT consciously,
> BTW...?!) so as to make the testifying party (and his "side") come out
> as the "good guys" in the scenario.
> 
The idea is not that you take each oral history as Gospel but that you
can put them together to get a kind of stereoscopic view of events.

Events leave tracks in the minds of those who were there, like dinosaur
footprints in mud. You still have to measure and interpret the tracks.

This is why it is important to preserve the actual sound recording of an
oral history, with all its pauses, ums and errs, and not just a text
transcript.

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx