Very FIRST major Muppets Album

[JimmyDeanDog]

Wasn't the very FIRST Muppets recording on the first
Seseme Street LP on Columbia back in 1970..??

.. that LP featured a single charted hit by
Jim Henson: "Rubber Duckie" - never made the top-20.

Wish they'd dig that LP out and put it all on a CD - hard to find
the original (let alone a clean) vinal copy on Columbia - same for Henson's MONO single of "Duckie" (The LP's in stereo)...

It featured the original cast with Bob McGrath, Mr Hooper, Gordon and Susan...with Carol Spinney voicing Oscar AND Big Bird (note the song: "I've Got Two", where he changes BIG BIRD 'into' Oscar)....

We underatnd the Children's Television Workshop owns all
the Seseme Street music now..BEFORE that LP was made.
There seems to be no master tapes saved from that, so find the LP!

-JDD

 

[Barry Lee]

YEP! I HAVE IT!
from
BARRY LEE

 

[sstVideo]

Correcting two misconceptions

There are two kinds of music rights....the "owner" of the song's music (called the publisher) and the performer and musicians rights to perform the song. Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop) has its own publishing company (and used to have its own record label, CTW records, which was distributed by Columbia Records). It "owns" the performance rights to all of the music that appears on SW productions, including Sesame Street. The "owner" of the compositions, be it the estates of Jim Henson, Jeff Moss, or Joe Raposo, own the rights to the music and must be paid for all performances of that music.

(There is a third kind of payment, required by the digital millenium copyright act, regarding payments to the recording companies for internet broadcasting--but Phil assures me that all of these fees are currently being paid by the vast treasuries of Muppet Central Radio--Isn't that right Phil?

Correction number two:

Sesame Workshop recently spent a great deal of money preserving and digitally re-mastering every master tape in its collection. The recordings are not 'lost forever". They were in the Workshop's tape vaults all the time. You can hear many of the old Henson songs on XM Radio's kids channel.

 

[scarecroe]

Re: Correcting two misconceptions

Originally posted by sstVideo
You can hear many of the old Henson songs on XM Radio's kids channel.

Whoah, did I misread you here, or do you mean to say that the kid's station on XM Radio plays Henson songs that haven't been released on CD?

 

[Phillip]

Re: Correcting two misconceptions

Originally posted by sstVideo
(There is a third kind of payment, required by the digital millenium copyright act, regarding payments to the recording companies for internet broadcasting--but Phil assures me that all of these fees are currently being paid by the vast treasuries of Muppet Central Radio--Isn't that right Phil?

Yes, we have to pay a monthly royalty fee in order to stream the songs on Muppet Central Radio. This is in addition to the costs associated with streaming and storage for more than 1000 tracks.

This ruling is something new that was officially decided last June. That's why many on-line stations have gone off the air since then.

 

[sstVideo]

XM Radio

Yes.....Ir's called Sesame Sounds on the kids channel (116)
Its on Weekdays - 12:30 PM ET withEncore Presentations:
Weekdays - 2:30 PM ET

PER THEIR DESCRIPTION ON THE XM WEBSITE:

A mix of original and CLASSIC audio from the Sesame Street archives with some of your favorite friends like Big Bird and Elmo.

But please support PHIL and keep listening to Muppet Central.
Hopefully Sesame Workshop will make a fortune from Phil's .0014 cents per song per listener.

 

[scarecroe]

I listen to MC Radio all the time. By myself and with my daughter. It's nice to know that if I get a unit fo rmy car that's XM Radio ready that there will be something to listen to there as well seeing as how MC Radio doesn't exactly stretch that far.

What kinds of non-CD released songs do you hear in the program and how long does their block last?

 

[JimmyDeanDog]

FIRST Seseme Street Record

Well, I recieved an e-mail by someone at the CTW a few years ago stating that they don't possess the MASTER TAPES to thst album anymore, although SOME of the popular "straight" tunes had been recovered thru sources...

(straight tunes like "People in your Neighborhood", "I've got Five",
"Everybody Wash", etc...(without any cast dialouge parts)

Even the first "Bein' Green" is on that LP and Henson did in fact do
numerous retakes of that tune; there have been
numerous reissues of the remakes thereafter...

My plea to CTW and/or Columbia:

FIND THE MASTER TAPES AND ISSUE THE CD OF THIS
GENUINE CLASSIC LP FOR ALL WHO MISSED IT'S MAGIC THEN..

(even if the last track has Gordon stating: "take the
record off the record player..turn it over...and put the needle
back on the beginning"..)

Thank God I still have my clean vinal copy for
future digital remastering someday...

 

[scarecroe]

I'd like to see some LP reissues on CD too. From 95 to 97 or so, Chris Cerf went crazy producing a bunch of Sesame CDs, but none of them were direct reprints except for maybe the Alphabet and Monster albums which come close. But even those had new booklet art. Actually, Born to Add and Sesame Road might have been direct reissues and used the same cover art too. If I'm right on that, they should take a note from those releases and do more.

 

[JimmyDeanDog]

Agreed

Here! Here!

It should be mentioned that we all must still understand that THIS LP, as well as other early"out-of-print" vinal Muppet recordings, existed before the digital/computer age evolved of course; Even Rowlf the Dog (my fave as you can tell) segments from the Jimmy Dean Show are truly scarce on video tape.

But archives like that should have been better preseved.

Example: NBC didn't (or couldn't) even save the FIRST "Johnny Carson" Tonight Show that aired back in the 60's...and David Letterman had to buy all of NBC's tapes of The TOMORROW shows with Tom Snyder, as the network was going to throw all those master video tapes out to the trash!

I know we should keep praying for those pristine, master tapes of the Muppet classics to appear and then to be released onto CD someday...unless they are truly GONE.

-it's simply a matter of the recording executive "keepers" cleaning out the closets, or opening them up for everyone else.

-JDD