Capitol Q8 Press releases, from 38 years ago!

[JonUrban]

One was from November 3rd, so I figured I'd post these for old times sake.

These letters were listed on eBay a few years ago. I bid on them but lost, however, I did keep the jpg's from the auction, and included them here. They're pretty small and hard to read, so I re-typed them below. Still waiting on the RINGO Q8!

PS - Did someone here get these in the auction? I forgot who the winner was.

============================================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 1974

HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 28 -- Capitol Records is rush-releasing three 8-track Quad tapes in November, announces Don Zimmerman, CRI Senior Vice President, Marketing.

Included in the Quad release are John Lennon's Walls and Bridges (on the Apple label distributed by Capitol); Glen Campbell's Reunion; and the Righteous Bros. Give It To the People (on the Haven label distributed by Capitol)

Capitol entered the Quad Market in August with the release of 11 tapes, including many of the label's best-selling releases which were re-mixed from the original 16-track tapes by, in most cases, the original producers. As with the previous release, the new QUad packages will be dark purple with beige slip cases. List price for the Q8W-numbered tapes is $7.98

=======================================


CAPITOL RELEASES NINE QUAD
TAPES IN MARCH (1975)

HOLLYWOOD, March 4 - Capitol Records will release nine 8-Track Quadraphonic Tapes in March, announced Don Zimmerman, Senior Vice President, Capitol Records, Inc.

Among the nine releases are Ringo Starr's phenomonally succesful Apple LP's (disctributed by Capitol), Ringo and Goodnight Vienna.

Helen Reddy's Free And Easy, Grand funk's All The Girls in the World Beware, and the Letterman's There is No Greater Love will also appear in the Quad tape cartridge configuration in March, along with Eric Burdon's Sun Secrets, Jimmy Witherspoon's Love Is A Five Letter Word, Superman plays Bird with Sax, and Babe Ruth's third album on Harvest (distributed by Capitol) titled, Babe Ruth.

With the nine new releases, Capitol's Quad tape catalogue will feature twenty-three titles, including many of the label's best-sellers, often by the original producers. List price for the Q8W-numbered packages is $7.98

 

[Q-Eight]

Such a shame about the one unreleased Ringo title. I wonder why it never appeared?

 

[JonUrban]

Such a shame about the one unreleased Ringo title. I wonder why it never appeared?

I have a theory, but I could be totally wrong. The tape version of this album had an extended version of the Paul McCartney penned tune "Six O'Clock" that was, I think, 6 minutes long. That would have made a VERY long Q8, because remember, the tape only had 2 directions. Maybe the tape was a problem in testing because there was too much tape in the cart, so they abandoned the release. Kinda like why there were no Columbia Q8's of the longer-timed titles like Dylan's Desire.

 

[EMB]

It certainly wasn't cancelled due to sales concerns, right? Not sure about timing restrictions, either, although because of the quad-8 setup--which by necessity had twice as much tape on the spool as a stereo counterpart--there certainly had to be a reasonable limit in how much could be safely used without risking jamming or whatever. And we know from experience with 8-tracks and cassettes, that labels would go out of their way to jigger tracks around so as to use the minimal amount of tape necessary. Not just for regular stereo but as we know, for quad too. The joke was that, at times, the resequencing may have evened things out more per program side, but this sometimes meant maybe less than thirty seconds of time/tape savings, which even factoring in mass production, seems to me more trouble than it was worth. And in some cases--the Moody Blues, for instance--due to the segues and the thematic nature of their albums, nothing could be resequenced anyway (and wasn't, AFAIK). Interestingly, I'd swear that at least two tracks on DOFP were lengthened to even the sides out and not have a long passage of silence (er, I mean hiss, of course). But generally, if labels could save manufacturing costs by using less tape, they went out of their way to do that.

ED

 

[winopener]

Well, it was a 37-min album, with the extended version it would had clocked at 39. Not a big concern, it was same as Grand Funk Railroad ATGITWB.

 

[Q-Eight]

I have a theory, but I could be totally wrong. The tape version of this album had an extended version of the Paul McCartney penned tune "Six O'Clock" that was, I think, 6 minutes long. That would have made a VERY long Q8, because remember, the tape only had 2 directions. Maybe the tape was a problem in testing because there was too much tape in the cart, so they abandoned the release. Kinda like why there were no Columbia Q8's of the longer-timed titles like Dylan's Desire.

Plausible, but I doubt it. Wikipedia lists the album at being 37m07s long, which is well within the bounds of time limits. (A 45-minute Quad cart = 90-minutes in Stereo) I have many blank 8-tracks that are 80 and 90 minutes long, so they could have easily done it.

Wiki also lists "Six O'Clock" at being 4:06 in length. And, it got as far as slickers being made for the tapes!

It couldn't have been legal reasons or else the album never would have existed in other formats. The only reason I could come up with is that maybe there was a problem in the duplication stage that resulted in a lot of the finished tapes being NFG or the master tape got fouled up, no safety copy was made and therefore the album would've needed to be remixed from scratch (or at least 1 side of it would have).

The other odd bit, even in the March, 1975 letter, they mention only 23 available titles. Ok, on my spreadsheet, I have 27 Capitol tapes. Say we subtract the two Angel titles, and the two EMI (Mandingo and Hits in Hi-Fi), that leaves us with 23. Still no accounting for the Ringo title, which would have made an even 24 Capitol/Harvest/Haven tapes.

(BOLD indicates announced but unreleased)

Q8L-6734 Assorted Artists Great Songs of Bacharach & David
Q8L-6735 Assorted Artists Great Songs of The Beatles
Q8L-6736 Assorted Artists The New Country-Pop Favorites
Q8L-6774 Sounds of the 70's Orchestra Songs of the Seventies
Q8L-6789 San Fernando Brass The New Brass Sound of the Hits
Q8L-6790 Hollywood Pops Orchestra Great Hit Songs from Fiddler on the Roof
Q8L-6836 John Morell Instrumental Hit Sounds
Q8L-6873 Sampler Tape 4 Channel Sound Demonstration Tape
Q8L-6876 Sounds of the 70's Orchestra New Songs of the 70's
Q8W-382 Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother
Q8W-3379 John Lennon Imagine
Q8W-3380 Yoko Ono Fly
Q8W-3413 Ringo Starr Ringo
Q8W-3414 John Lennon Mind Games
Q8W-3415 Paul McCartney & Wings Band on the Run
Q8W-3416 John Lennon Walls & Bridges
Q8W-3417 Ringo Starr Goodnight Vienna
Q8W-6420 Mandingo Mandingo III
Q8W-6421 John Keating Incorporated Hits in Hi-Fi
Q8W-9201 The Righteous Brothers Give it to the People
Q8W-11068 Helen Reddy I Am Woman
Q8W-11163 Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
Q8W-11207 Grand Funk Railroad We're an American Band
Q8W-11213 Helen Reddy Long Hard Climb
Q8W-11235 Steve Miller The Joker
Q8W-11278 Grand Funk Railroad Shinin' On
Q8W-11284 Helen Reddy Love Song for Jeffrey
Q8W-11286 Blue Swede Hooked on a Feeling
Q8W-11336 Glen Campbell Reunion
Q8W-11348 Helen Reddy Free & Easy
Q8W-11356 Grand Funk Railroad All the Girls in the World Beware!
Q8W-11359 Eric Burdon Sun Secrets
Q8W-11360 Jimmy Witherspoon Love is a Five Letter Word
Q8W-11364 The Lettermen There is no Greater Love
Q8W-11365 Merle Haggard Keep Movin' On
Q8W-11367 Babe Ruth Babe Ruth
Q8W-11371 Supersax Plays Bird with Strings
Q8W-11419 Paul McCartney & Wings Venus & Mars
Q8W-11497 Steve Miller Fly Like an Eagle
Q8S-30606 Scott Joplin & The New England Conservatory The Red Back Book
Q8S-36074 Scott Joplin & The Southland Singers Palm Leaf Rag

 

[Bob Romano]

Q8W-3380 Yoko Ono Fly

OOOOOOh... This would have been awesome!! John and Yoko squeaking and grunting around me. This was a double album too. 90 minutes in length.

 

[Quadzilla]

OOOOOOh... This would have been awesome!! John and Yoko squeaking and grunting around me. This was a double album too. 90 minutes in length.

I am pretty sure that the nations of the world gathered together a few decades ago to sign a treaty forbidding the release of ANY Yoko Ono "music" in surround sound.

 

[krkier]

I am pretty sure that the nations of the world gathered together a few decades ago to sign a treaty forbidding the release of ANY Yoko Ono "music" in surround sound.

One can always pull a bag over the speakers.... makes a scumbag out of it.

-Kristian

 

[Q8]

One can always pull a bag over the speakers.... makes a scumbag out of it.

-Kristian

The speakers may float away from all that hot air.

 

[fredblue]

The speakers may float away from all that hot air.

"who has seen the wind.. neither you nor I.."

 

[dr8track]

Unfortunate the we got something as obscure as Babe Ruth-Babe Ruth, but Ringo, Lennon-Mind Games, Blue Swede and Merle never saw the light of day. Would have enjoyed hearing all of those. I wonder if they all exist or existed as quad masters at some point?

 

[Quad Linda]

Babe Ruth may be obscure, but it's one of those albums I never would have bought otherwise. I was seduced by that purple cartridge and I've been diggin' it ever since. It's great!! I bought the rest of their albums and IMHO, they're nothing special.

 

[Q8]

Unfortunate the we got something as obscure as Babe Ruth-Babe Ruth, but Ringo, Lennon-Mind Games, Blue Swede and Merle never saw the light of day. Would have enjoyed hearing all of those. I wonder if they all exist or existed as quad masters at some point?

Just be glad it was Babe Ruth and not the Yoko release.

 

[EMB]

If a title had actually been announced--but never saw light of day--odds are that the quad mix was made and ready to go. I would have bought the Blue Swede just for the hit, which I still think's a lot of fun (even if Jonathan King did come up with the conception first). And any Q8 by an ex-Beatle would've been money in the bank, so it doesn't make a lot of sense that MIND GAMES or RINGO didn't get issued. On the other hand, Capitol, far as I can make out, didn't take quad all that seriously, and certainly did nothing to mine its back catalog.

ED

 

[EMB]

OOOOOOh... This would have been awesome!! John and Yoko squeaking and grunting around me. This was a double album too. 90 minutes in length.

No, you're thinking of the WEDDING ALBUM Q8 that never saw light of day... Or did they grunt a lot here too? God, glad I can't remember that far back...

ED

 

[dr8track]

Babe Ruth may be obscure, but it's one of those albums I never would have bought otherwise. I was seduced by that purple cartridge and I've been diggin' it ever since. It's great!! I bought the rest of their albums and IMHO, they're nothing special.
View attachment 8175

Oh I agree. There are plenty of titles I would never have touched if they had not been released in surround. It's been quite awhile since I've dug out my Q8 copy of Babe Ruth, but I seem to recall that it wasn't too bad.

 

[JonUrban]

No, you're thinking of the WEDDING ALBUM Q8 that never saw light of day... Or did they grunt a lot here too? God, glad I can't remember that far back...

ED

It was FLY!

(From the QQ Beatles Page)

 

[zabble]

I've had bad luck with the Babe Ruth Q8. The first copy I got off eBay about seven years ago was too tightly wound to play. The second one I got a few months ago and dug the first few songs until for some reason , it got eaten by my HK. I've got a BBC recording of them that is really good. One day I'll get the iron and splicing block out and attempt a repair job and finally hear the Q8 in its entirety.

 

[Quad Linda]

There were some obscure albums released in Quad because the label recognized they were great musically. What the hell, let's see if we can generate some interest. Stardrive and Babe Ruth come to mind.