Update - More Music by Freil Thrift

     It's been a few days.  Real life has been pretty time-consuming.  I wanted to pop in with a bit of news.  A few posts ago, I mentioned a Hi-8 video, and an audio cassette tape, that might be out in the shed, and that might have Freil playing music on them.  That's an exciting possibility.  Today I went to see my folks, and Mom found TWO audio tapes that have Freil recorded on them.  Plus ONE cd that definitely has him playing, one that MIGHT have him, and another one that probably doesn't, but going to check out just in case.  These are all home recordings/burnt CDs.  Nothing professionally generated.  But still, there's a potential treasure trove of music I've never heard him play, or music I haven't heard in many years.

    So, tomorrow I'll root around the house for a tape player with headphone out (or RCA jack, either is fine).  Don't know offhand where one is, but we have a LOT of old stuff.  There ought to be at least one player around here that will work.  I don't know what kind of quality to expect from the CDs, but the tapes were probably recorded on the ubiquitous radio-shack type of player/recorder that we used in the 70's.  It won't be high-quality, so my goal is to rescue the song as best as possible.  As long as it's recognizable as his piano playing, that'll have to be good enough.  Really excited to hear them!! 

    On a side note, I've been getting a lot of use out of Audacity recently.  Maybe it'll have some feature that will clean up low-quality recordings on old tapes?  Soon enough to tell when I find the hardware to play them on.  

  I jumped the gun just a bit.  Searched the house, found several tape players.  One was busted.  One only played high squeaky sounds.  One played, but only though a built-in amp, and only output to RCA jacks.  From all I've read, plugging that into my mic input jack would have likely burned out my computer's audio board.  At the moment, uploading the audio tape is at a standstill.  Got feelers out with some friends, and family.  If that doesn't work out, the next step is to buy a new one.  Bottom line, it's going to take longer than expected.  Still excited, just have to let all the options play out before spending any money.  

In the meantime, practicing a new song to record for YouTube.  Still have most of the Singing Chapmans "Redeemed" album to write about.  And still have all the songs from their "Introducing" album.  Plus rebuilding something like a decade of blogs from my original Grace Notes, including midi files and sheet music.  We're talking years worth of projects.  At least I won't be bored.

Introducing The Chapman Family ... Singing The Gospel

     I made mention that Freil Thrift was in two record albums with the Chapman family.  The one Monique found on ebay, "Redeemed By The Crucified One"... I've been posting about for several days now.  It came with 12 songs, 6 to a side.  All of those have been digitized by now, and uploaded to Youtube.  

    The seller listed it as being in "Very Good Plus".  At first, I questioned that.  There was a long shallow smudge that seemed likely to cause playback problems.  It took a day or so to gather the necessary equipment (record player, cables and converters) and re-familiarize myself with Audacity.  Recording went perfectly.  That smudge had no effect on playback.  The songs digitized perfectly - audio levels great, no clicks worth worrying about.   It went smoothly and took about an hour.  I was thrilled with it.

    The other album wasn't anywhere online to be found.  I had resigned myself to a long patient wait, when my sister told me she had one.  She called it "the green cover", and told me the one I have is the second one, while the green one is the first record Freil was ever in.  She also allowed that I might be able to borrow it.  So long as I returned it, because "it's as important as my Elvis gospel album!"
    (If you know Karen, you'll know that is the highest level of praise.)

    We were originally planning on her bringing it to Mom and Dad's for me.  I was already planning to visit this weekend.  At some point she realized she couldn't make it to the river (home is very close to the Satilla), so offered to meet up in Nahunta on my way home.  I spent yesterday "at the river."  On the way home, Karen and I met at the Gold House.  It's Nahunta's historic diner, a wonderful place to go.  Both for the memories, and the food.  They make wonderful southern food.  I love their fried chicken.  They also make about the best liver around.  And a great, thick burger and home-style fries.

    This time around, we just had coffee, and sat and talked for a bit.  Got home too tired to start digitizing the record right away.  Got up early this morning, pulled the record out.  Remember a few paragraphs ago, when I mentioned the "Very Good Plus" rating on the other album?  How I questioned it, because of the almost-scratch?  I take it back.  It deserves that rating.  When I looked at Karen's record, the rating would have been "Very Loved Plus."  This is what happens to an album when it's a family favorite, and gets played over and over... for about 50 years.

    As expected, playback wasn't perfect.  It was surprisingly good, though.  Only one spot completely skipped a word.  And that was near the end of a song, so not as high-impact as it could have been.  However.  I like that word.  It's dramatic, with a strong foreshadowing of bad news.  
    However, the album was full of clicks, and the volume was a lot lower than the other record.  To be fair, that's probably due to the way the album was created.  Audacity has a very versatile click remover.  And for the most part, it did a great job.  One or two spots I used custom settings, but most of the time default settings were fine.  Audacity also has a pretty cool amplify effect.  It calculates the highest safe level to raise volume to 0 db.  

    Click removal and the amplify effect fixed everything that could be fixed.  Did a bit of manual cutting and silence generation at the start and end of the songs.  Overall it went very well, but wound up taking three hours to get the best versions of all the songs.

    Best of all, it ended (literally) on a great note - the final song on side 2 was an instrumental, and Freil got a couple of excellent segments featuring his piano playing.  I'm thrilled at how well everything turned out.  It's going to take some time to get them turned into video clips so they can be uploaded to YouTube.  But it'll be absolutely worth it.  All those songs will be permanently available at any time, without having to add more wear to our treasured records.  And so many people who don't know the Singing Chapmans, and Freil's playing, will be able to hear and appreciate them.

The Singing Chapmans Redeemed: When I Wake Up

 

    When I Wake Up To Sleep No More is the 3rd song on Side One of The Singing Chapmans "Redeemed By The Crucified One" album.  I'm not sure how they handled copyrights back in the 60's and early 70's.  The album doesn't mention copyrights, or have author credits.  Years later, my uncle Freil mentioned that he had to pay an amazing amount to record certain songs, so I'm working on the premise that they had to obtain permissions, but not necessarily print it as such on the cover.

    For what it's worth, the song is written by Marion W. Easterling, and copyrighted in 1944.  Easterling was a pretty prolific writer, composing over 300 southern gospel songs.  One of his mentors, Dad Speer, is sometimes credited with writing at least one of the songs on this album (He's Mine and I'm His).  Easterling also has the distinction of a Guiness Book of World Records listing, for his 39 years of programming the gospel radio show, "America's Favorites."  You can find a bit more about him, and his music, at Hymnary.org.  

    I had hoped to post this yesterday, in keeping with trying to post once a day until all the songs from the Chapmans record albums have been acknowledged.  The plan was to write it after spending the day with my parents (and great-nieces).  It's a one-hour drive each way, and driving is not something I'm comfortable with.  By the time I got back, my mind and body were both worn out... wound up giving up early, reading a bit, then calling it a night.  

    Monique and I usually sit outside for a while, by the front door.  We gather up the dogs, sit in our rocking chairs, and talk about our day.  It's a good time to share our thoughts, and the dogs love it.  We Piper and Luna have 15-foot leashes, so they can freely wander the yard, or just sit in our laps.  They smell the night air, watch as the occasional car or person goes by.  If they're lucky, sometimes one of the neighborhood cats saunter by.  A good time is had by all.  :^)

    We both had pretty big days.  Monique made a batch of Macarons for an event a friend is attending.  She rarely makes them, but this is her second time recently.  I believe she plans on making them at least one more time, with a friend.  And I told her all about my day with family, what everybody did and said.  Sometimes we'll sit quietly for a while.  We didn't stay outside long.  It was a lot colder than we expected.