I am eating up all this research into early JG. There were several Kiddie 78s in my home by the time I came around and Puss ‘N Boots remains in the mind’s ear from infancy. Like all m’bros’ baseball cards, wish Ma hadn’t thrown the 78s away. Yikes I may have discarded some when the old homestead was sold.
I was able to find a phone number for the music dept. at LACC which led to the voicemail for the Chair of the dept. I left a message and will be curious to see if I get a response. Basically asked if the department had an archive or records about students who earned awards for compositions and if they would have any photos or records in hand. I am sure they are aware of JG. Curious to see if they have anything.
I did also see today they that there was also an Orchestra called the LACC Orchestra and that they did record a ‘78 in 1953 on Capitol Records but could not find any other record that had mention of that orchestra. Also saw is referred to as the Los Angeles City College Concert Orchestra.
Following those links into the Internet archive leads you to some massive digitized collections of 78s. Thousands of them have been preserved and I am just exploring the filter options, you can sort collections by genre and some collections have hundreds of children’s albums and you can filter by year. If it was a 78 that our man JG did it is probably digitized amongst these collections. I had no idea these were here until you asked to see the photo Yavar. I will do some browsing tomorrow to see if anything stands out. Feel free to do the same!
So check out the text in this video on youtube related to this recording.
What do you think the odds are that this same orchestra was used to record the kid's album - and maybe tracking down or looking at anything else Bob (Robert) McDonald did around that time - maybe it would point to a kids album?
Correction - I just followed up with the music department by phone and spoke to Caroline. She said their semester just finished and she actually is in charge of the archives - she is intrigued and is going to dig through the archives to see what they have. I specifically expressed interest in those early Goldsmith compositions that he won awards for - was curious if an award was 'won' if the college would keep any record. So there may still be something coming from LACC in the coming weeks. I expressed that there was no set deadline - but regardless it will be interesting to see what turns up.
I haven't given up on trying to find this kids record. Still thinking of ways to try and track it down - not sure if anyone has any contacts with the family - they might recall it being mentioned at some point.
I checked with Lukas who reviewed that unpublished biography ages ago - there was no mention in it, not surprising.
