Someone my dad knows is retiring and moving to Florida. This guy was a member of the Kenosha Kingsmen (I've never heard of 'em) and is liquidating his personal belongings readying himself for the move. One of the things this guy "dumped" was his collection of drum corps records. While not a huge collection (maybe 30 records or so), it has some things that raised my interest. My dad loaned the records to me to see if I can rescue them and transfer the recordings to CD's. Most are in really bad shape.

I don't know how rare some of these recordings are. As I write this I'm listening to a very poor recording of the 1957 Norwood Park Imperials (complete with low flying prop planes!) recorded on July 27th of that year at South Milwaukee. It's on a record that is about the size of the old 78's..but it's a played at 33 1/3. The record is fairly beat up, but it looks like I've cleaned it up enough to be able to transfer it over to CD without any of the skips or scratches interrupting play. The "pops" will have to be tolerated. Can anyone give me a history of this recording?

Also in the collection is a two record set that contains the NP Imperials as well as the Royal Airs called "Concourse of Champions". It doesn't have any date markings on it anywhere. Does anyone know what year this would be from?

From what I can tell, it looks like the oldest recording in the collection is a record from 1956. It's yellow jacket says "National Recording System presents Drum Corps Champions 1956" Although the references on the jacket make it appear that the recording are from 1955. It contains recordings of the Skokie Indians and Hawthorne Caballeros.

I think I'll be busy for a few days getting these transfered. This is fun!!

What did you do in the Corps? Sop

What years were you a Corps member? 1979

Yeah, I'm drooling, too. Someday I'm gonna send my LPs for transfer to CD.

The Concourse of Champions has to be from one of those years I was in the Corps. If you want to send it, I'll listen to it and identify it for you. Or maybe if I called you, I could listen over the phone.

Anybody else from the early 60s can probably identify it, too, but it would be more fun if I did it.

What did you do in the Corps? Drumline

What years were you a Corps member? 1960-1965

If my memory serves me correctly, the Concourse of Champions was the name of the Kenosha WI show. Usually they held in around Memorial Day - almost always cold as the stadium was on the lakefront. I remember being there in '63, '64, '65, & '66 &'67. I don't think they had a show in '68. I would bet that the show started sometime in the '50's but RA only started in '58 (I think). If you can identify some of the songs, we can probably guess the year.

What did you do in the Corps? Tenor - Snare

What years were you a Corps member? 1960-1969

Keith,

I believe the Concourse of Champions record is from 1964 (it was the first show of the year in 1964)in Kenosha.

Last February I recollect sending you some tapes I made of Norwood 1961 through 1966 and the Cadets in 1961. The 1964 recording was from Concourse of Champions in 1964).

John

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? Cadets 59-61, Imperials 62-66

I've managed to successfully transfer three shows so far. I'm starting with some of the older stuff first. I've got the 1957 NP and Cavaliers South Milwaukee performances done, as well as the 1956 Hawthorne Caballeros. I'm still working on the 1956 Skokie Indians Marion, OH performance.

Some of these records have nothing left. I tried to do a 1957 Connecticut Yankees and the grooves literally just about vanished in the middle of the record. This must have been one of his favorites in that there isn't any grooves left to track. I have to admit that I've never seen that happen before. I've used the term that "I've worn a record out", but I don't think I've seen it done literally.

Another thing I noticed was the printed price of the 1956 record. It sold for $6.50 for four corps. I would never claim to be an expert on the 50's, but that seems like a fairly steep price tag for a record in 1956. Is that correct?

I'm also tying to figure these old records out. The label has the name Stetson D. Richmond on them along with a New Jersey address. The sleeves they came in have the word "audiodiscs" bannered across the top. A couple of these records have had the Stetson D. Richmond label fall off to reveal another label underneath that says "recording blank". Is it possible that these records were directly transferred from some type of master, one at a time?


Terri - I would have to agree with you. I still don't get why this guy just gave these up like this. You would think he would know that these may be worth something to someone. Maybe he's one of those people who has never heard of eBay.

John - I haven't had the chance yet to listen to the Concourse of Champions album yet. I guess I should have listened to it first. I've listened to your tapes enough to know that it would have sounded familiar. This record also has the Cavaliers, Royal Airs, Mariners, Kilties, Racine Scouts, Vanguard, and Shoreliners. I may have to get to that one next.

What did you do in the Corps? Sop

What years were you a Corps member? 1979

sounds like Keith is entering a new world there..

I have a bunch of old records from the 50's and 60's .. some from Stetson D.Richmond!

He was a man in New Jersey who, like Ken Kobold in Illinois, recorded corps shows, created a master disc and then COPIED them.

The records don't last long and are very scratchy ... but nobody made corps records back then. New records (tapes) and CDs would be better!

What did you do in the Corps? drummer 1958-63, asst. instructor 1964-70; quartermaster

What years were you a Corps member? 1958-63

Earlier this year I bought some CDs of old recordings from 1960s from Digital Audio Resources (http://www.digitalcds.com/). They have recordings of Norwood as far back as 1955, 1956 and 1958.

I purchased a CDs that included 1965 and 1966 Norwood performances (one from 1965 and two from 1966). One 1966 recording is a copy of the Illinois Top 4 phonograph record many people have and the other is from an earlier show--probably Midwest Dream in Milwaukee. The 1965 recording is likely from American Legion State. Digital Audio either has masters or very good tapes of Fleetwood, Ken Kobel or Stetson D Richmond recordings from that time as the recordings are very good (of cousre the better the recording the more mistakes one hears in the performance). The 1966 Illinois Top 4 CD of Norwood is a much better quality that the record ever was (even when it was new) and it is probably the best recording of Norwood from that year. I am still trying to find a high quality recording of the Midwest Dream performance from 1965 (perhaps our best performance in 1965).

When I ordered the 1965 and 1966 Norwood recordings, I also bought CDs of the old Fleetwood album from 1960 called "Bugles Up" (1960 Blessed Sacrament, Cavaliers and Garfield plus 1959 St Kevins) and Volume 1 of the 1963 World Open (Blessed Sacrament, Garfield, St Kevins, and Royal Airs). The CDs of Norwood include 1965 and 1966 recordings of the Cavaliers, Royal Airs, Vanguard, Kilties and Mariners.

Again all of these recordings are the best quality I have heard of corps from that era.

What years were you a Corps member? 1959-66 (Cadets 59-61 Imperials 62-66)

Tonight I just ordered five CD's from Digital Audio
Resources,it seem's to me that they have large selection of recordings to choose from,as far as the
the number of Drum Corps in there catalog and also the
time period.Larry a lot of your records you have,you
could probably get most of the same recordings on CD.
Some of the recordings I have in my collection are on cassette.These I bought from an ex drum corps member not from Norwood but from out east,he lives in Florida now.He has over 3000 recordings and there all
on tape,reel to reel recordings.He just transfers them on to cassette.You name the drum corps and the year and most likely he'll have it.His collection
dates back as far as the early 40's up to around 2002
2003.








period

What did you do in the Corps? French Horn

What years were you a Corps member? 1957 thru 1963

I received an email early this month from Digital Audio Recordings site mentioned above. They have a new CD in their catalog from 1960s VFW Nationals that includes Norwood Park.

Rich,

Do you have an email, website or name and address of the person with the 3000 recordings? I've been trying to get a tape or CD of Norwood 1965 Midwest Dream Performance in Milwaukee. I have a phonograph record of that show but would like a cleaner copy. That show was one of our best performances in 1965 (2nd place 0.5 points behind Cavaliers).

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? 1959-66 (Cadets 59-61 Imperials 62-66)