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The Last Seat In The House: The Book. Now Available

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Chris Hindle:
My copy arrived on Friday.......
Gonna need some serious down-time......

Chris.

John Roberts {JR}:

--- Quote from: Dan Mortensen on January 30, 2020, 02:17:23 PM ---On the first page of this subform, there's a post by the late Tom Young announcing a documentary by the same name and about the same subject, i.e. a biography of sound pioneer Bill Hanley. I haven't been able to tell that the film was ever released as more than a trailer, but the book is now out and mine came two days ago.

I've read about 30 pages so far, and it's much more than a person's bio; it's more of a bio of our industry centered around one of its major participants. So far, I've learned (among many other things) that the first PA to cover 50,000 people was put together in 1919 (I think, not looking at it now) by the guys who created Magnavox, Peter Jensen and Edwin Pridham.


--- End quote ---
From a 1946 book about sound movies "Okay for Sound" they describe Western Electric stringing 113 loudspeakers along New York's Victory Way (Fifth Ave?) to support a 5 mile long parade celebrating the NY based 27th Division's, return from WWI in 1919. Some 20,000 marched in the parade and 500,000 reportedly turned out for the celebration. I won't speculate about how many heard what.

The same book describes a notable early indoor sound reinforcement system (central overhead cluster) used for both 1920 presidential conventions. President Harding's inauguration (1921) also benefited from active sound reinforcement.

My father worked at WE in the 1930s(?). The  book was a gift from one of his former co-workers (C.G. Stoll, President of WE).

JR

--- Quote ---
That's part of a timeline in the first few pages of significant moments in the development of sound reinforcement, as well listing the early people and companies who did those things. Of course, such a subjective list will leave out people and occurrences that someone else would think important, but it's still a good effort and includes info I've never seen collected in one place.

The author, John Kane, and Bill Hanley were at the last NYC AES in the audiohistory.org booth for the duration, and it was the highlight of my convention experience to talk with both, and especially Bill, for over three hours across two days. Bill was exceptionally generous with his time and seemed to enjoy questions that were outside of the usual, from someone (me) whose career started a few years after Woodstock. As those who were in or getting into the sound business back then are well aware, there were problems that were only solvable through invention, and it was fun hearing how he solved some of them.

I hope John sells a ton of these books, and remind you that if you are in the sound business as a business, looking into the history of your business and having to spend some money on that should be a business expense for you at tax time.

Just saying.

I've been reading a bunch of books about Woodstock since last year and am looking forward to what this one will say about it, and was deeply enriched hearing what Bill had to say directly last October. I'm hoping they will do a book tour and come to Seattle so our AES Section can also hear first-hand. And maybe yours, too.

--- End quote ---

Dan Mortensen:

--- Quote from: John Roberts {JR} on February 24, 2020, 01:50:23 PM ---From a 1946 book about sound movies "Okay for Sound" they describe Western Electric stringing 113 loudspeakers along New York's Victory Way (Fifth Ave?) to support a 5 mile long parade celebrating the NY based 27th Division's, return from WWI in 1919. Some 20,000 marched in the parade and 500,000 reportedly turned out for the celebration. I won't speculate about how many heard what.

The same book describes a notable early indoor sound reinforcement system (central overhead cluster) used for both 1920 presidential conventions. President Harding's inauguration (1921) also benefited from active sound reinforcement.

My father worked at WE in the 1930s(?). The  book was a gift from one of his former co-workers (C.G. Stoll, President of WE).

JR

--- End quote ---

Cool, JR, thanks for mentioning that book. I was able to find one online in great condition for a reasonable price, and started reading it last night. It was fascinating that the first "movie" of any sort was actually a talkie!!!

As you know, according to the book, Edison's assistant William Dickson was tasked when Edison went out of town, to do something with this new film stock that George Eastman has just invented, which was a long skinny strip that could hold multiple pictures. Dickson built himself a studio (on the roof?) and made a film of himself verbally and visually greeting Edison on his return home from the trip, and sync'ing (a cylinder?) to the film and proving that it was sync'd by saying something like "Now I'm going to touch my shoulder" and counting to 10 and stuff like that. According to the book, that was in 1889.

The Wikipedia account tells it different, but I'm inclined to believe the book for reasons below.

The fact that film could talk and convey more information and emotion was lost/forgotten/avoided for 40 years until the Warner brothers (credited in the introduction individually by name) invested in more development and brought out "The Jazz Singer". (This is ahead of where I am in the book but this is my takeaway so far.)

It seems like a really cool book, and thanks for mentioning it. I especially like that the author says that 1946 was a good time to write this book because the pioneers in sound for film were still alive and could tell their stories directly. I like that a lot.

Thanks again for mentioning it.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Victory Way was actually Park Avenue, which runs uptown from Grand Central Terminal. Five miles uptown (the length of the parade with the speakers in 1919) is pretty far up Manhattan! It would be cool if that parade was the same event as the one with the Magnavox guys.

There was a display of German helmets set up at each end of Victory way, also shown in the earlier link. One was at Park and 46th, I haven't yet found where the other end was but can't look more right now.

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