Atlantic Records History

[ironbut]

Riding on the coattails of the Rudy Van Gelder interview thread and my mention of Tom Dowd, I stumbled across a nice concise history of Atlantic records.
I picked up a autographed copy of Mose Allison's lp "Don't Worry About a Thing" and I wanted to know if it was an original pressing or if it had first been released in mono so Google to the rescue.
Without any conscious effort, I've obtained a good bit of early Atlantic stuff which includes several of the binaural tapes of "The Atlantic Tape Library" (both staggered and inline 1/2 track stereo which are some of the earliest stereo recordings in general release) and some of their early mono records  such as Chris Connors Atlantic 1228.
Hmm, could be the seeds of a collection. I guess I'd better start looking for some of those mono Coltranes and develop a taste for Bobby Short!
Well, enough of my shameless bragging;

http://www.bsnpubs.com/atlantic/atlanticstory.html

[steveidosound]

Sounds as if you also now need an early VM  (or Magnecord !) for those staggered format tapes. No fair converting it  to digital and re-syncing it.

[ironbut]

Hey Steve,
IIRC, a post I read a few years back mentioned that the distance between the heads on an Otari 5050 series will play staggered tracks correctly. If I remember correctly, you have to switch the record head to playback for one channel or something like that. I guess I need to do a search in the ARSC archives or just ask on their list.

If I can figure it out, I'll post back here for other folks with old staggered track tapes.