Record Labels' Questionable Quad Release Program

[Q-Eight]

Which Walter Murphy?

A Fifth of Beethoven.

 

[gvl_guy]

A Fifth of Beethoven.

Wow. That album came out in 1976. Late for quad. I'm going to try to find it and listen.

 

[Q-Eight]

Wow. That album came out in 1976. Late for quad. I'm going to try to find it and listen.

It was never available commercially. It was initially available on Private Stock Records, which had it's tape duplication done by GRT. What's curious is that
even in '76, GRT was still doing Quad duplication! Several of the Arista Q8's are dated 1976. So, why this never appeared on a blue GRT cart in '76 is anybody's guess.

It was offered through the Ford Quad program in 1979! Ed Bishop years back figured it must've been a case where, when Mr. Murphy changed over to RCA records in 1979, it must've just been a case of a Quad Master transferring ownership and RCA figured.... what the hell???

 

[gvl_guy]

It was never available commercially. It was initially available on Private Stock Records, which had it's tape duplication done by GRT. What's curious is that
even in '76, GRT was still doing Quad duplication! Several of the Arista Q8's are dated 1976. So, why this never appeared on a blue GRT cart in '76 is anybody's guess.

It was offered through the Ford Quad program in 1979! Ed Bishop years back figured it must've been a case where, when Mr. Murphy changed over to RCA records in 1979, it must've just been a case of a Quad Master transferring ownership and RCA figured.... what the hell???


View attachment 67356

Wow. That's cool. Might be one of the final produced Q8's in existence! But I wonder if they encoded the LP.

 

[gvl_guy]

Wow. That's cool. Might be one of the final produced Q8's in existence! But I wonder if they encoded the LP.

Upon further reflection, I highly doubt the LP is matrix encoded. Murphy was on RCA, and while it seems there is an 8track quad, RCA was absolutely in the CD-4 corner. So it's unlikely it was matrix encoded. It's possible it just happens to sound great in a decoder mode, but not likely on purpose.

 

[Q-Eight]

But it really does make one curious as to what happened behind the scenes. Was the Walter Murphy title mixed to Quad back in '76 when it was fresh or was in mixed in 1979?
I honestly can't believe RCA would do that only to print a small run of 100 tapes. It had to come to them already mixed. (that's my guess, anyway!) The mix also doesn't jive with anything RCA was doing at the time as there's a lot of "side" information going on.

I don't have the original "Private Stock Records" pressing so I'm no help there.

 

[Q-Eight]

Returning to the topic of this thread....

We have discussed in the past how it seems that there are far too many instances in the Quad world where the record labels either kept unreleased or simply did not issue album (A) which had a hit; and then would go on to issue album (B) which contained no hit material. The albums off the top of my head that I can think of (and I believe there's a whole thread dedicated to this somewhere...)

Johnny Nash:
"I can see clearly now" - containing two hit singles *UNISSUED in Quad*
"My Merry-go-Round" - Issued in Quad. Never entered the Hot 100.

Redbone:
"Message from a Drum" - issued in Quad. Minor hits.
"Wovoka" - contained TWO of their biggest hits ("Wovoka, Come and get your love) UNISSUED in Quad
"Beaded Dreams, etc...." - issued in Quad. No Hits. Never entered the Hot 100.

The O'Jays:
"Backstabbers" - UNISSUED IN QUAD. Two Monster Hits. Multi-platinum Album.
and then virtually every album following issued in Quad either discrete or SQ.

The Raiders:
"Hard und Heavy mit Marshmallow" - at least, prepared for Quad release. Strange choice. Limited amount of tracks. Curious Quad Mix.
"Collage" - in my mind with the heavy instrumentation, the pseudo-experimental nature of the album and a couple of REALLY hot songs would've seemed a natural.... Unissued.
"Indian Reservation" - 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters will eventually get something right.

Over in the Atlantic Camp, had I been in control, I'd have been pushing their heavy hitters. Ray Charles always sold. I would have loved some AC/DC in Quad but they weren't very big in America in '73/'74. So that might've been pushing rope. I was just perusing a list of their artists and.... damn.... maybe they were trying. Atlantic really did not have a whole lot of "Big" name artists on their roster and what they did, did get a Quad release. J. Geils, Bette Midler, Spinners, James Gang, Average White Band.... beyond that there really wasn't a whole lot there for them to push.