[JPL] UPDATE: Uni Blaze Burns Musical History

[Jazz Promo Services]

Fwd From Bob Davis http://www.soul-patrol.com

I guess by now everyone has heard about the big fire at Universal in Los
Angeles.

This is an email I got tonight concerning some of the recording masters
that may have been lost in the fire.


It looks like more was damaged or destroyed in today's Universal Studios
fire than anyone previously thought. I've learned that Universal Music,
which is a completely separate company and owned by Vivendi (which owns
20% of NBC Universal), rents space in the huge video vault housed on the
studio lot. But one source tells me that, as a consequence, inside the
video vault that was billowing thick black smoke were 1000's of original

Decca, MCA, ABC recording masters from the last century including a wide
range of music from Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters to Judy Garland
and The Carpenters. "This is a tremendous loss in music history. A very
sad day indeed. It's too bad they saved the videos that they have
backups on instead of the master recordings in which they do not,
although they may not have had a choice since the fire had already
engulfed much of the music side of the vault," a source just told me.
Universal Studios can't confirm what has been damaged or destroyed
music-wise at this point because it doesn't yet know what exactly was
housed in the storage rented to Universal Music.