Herb (and the sounds of A&M) heard on American Airlines in-flight P.A. system in the '60s

S.J. Hoover

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I would say, probably(?), this would qualify as being: the earliest "mega compilation" of what you'd have to call an A&M "greatest hits" release from the vintage era (1969) and, certainly, the most oddball (next to the mono Dee-Jay Sampler).
In the '60s: the in-flight musical entertainment aboard airlines was all made commercially available for consumers (sort-of "prerecorded mixtapes") on reel to reel. The program was called "Astrovision Stereo". There were compilations assembled by all the major labels -in all categories...*except* the Rock of the day:baah:; though you'd expect that- which would be given their own, dedicated tape album lasting three hours each.
On this, particular one: the selections range all the way from Liza Minnelli's first album to Brass Are Comin'. Unfortunately, for me, there aren't any Phil Ochs or Boyce & Hart cuts:mad: included (but, again, I couldn't imagine the "Mad Men" crowd of the times wanting to hear THEM while trapped in a plane!); however, the obscure Nick DeCaro stuff as well as the Make It Easy On Yourself-Bacharach stuff (which I enjoy) are well represented.
 
As you shall see below, W-60 is actually the fourth in the A&M AA series, however, the first was A&M and two other labels. It seems to me that the selections were the pop hits of the day and some jazz titles as well. Apparently folk (Ochs) and poppy/rock (Boyce & Hart) were not for the intended audience. Also, open reel was for the audiophiles of the day and I'm inclined to think that many of them had jazz leanings. Obviously you can determine the year of the tape by the latest album in the collection. It has taken me years to find them all and I didn't duplicate the above posting.

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Some time ago, Steve posted the track list of that 64-selection Cruise Along that starts with "In A Little Spanish Town". At that time, I looked through my collection and realized that I had every one of those tracks in one form or another and I decided to make a "jukebox" CD of WMA files for the car with these selections, in order.

The first time I played it, I was driving from Orlando area to the Tampa area which is somewhere around an hour, and I was flabbergasted as to just how well-programmed this tape, now my CD-r, was. Bacharach songs flowed into Bacharach songs, Brazilian stuff into other Brazilian stuff, soundtrack selections into soundtrack selections, Beatles songs into Beatles songs. I recommend at least that program highly.

Knowing how well that turned out, I shall be digging into these other ones too. Thanks guys for posting the artwork and track lists.
 
Apples and oranges. A&M licensed to American Airlines for in-flight entertainment and Ampex happened to be their tape supplier/duplicator. I'm not sure how or where these compilation tapes were sold, as I did not collect open reel tapes back in the day. Regular A&M album releases would stand by themselves. There were several changes over the years, with 4-track, 8-track, open reel and cassette.
 
Facts, the American Airlines/Ampex Astro Stereo tapes were decent on better machines. A client/customer of mine (ex American Airlines pilot had 20 of these tapes). I transferred these on my slow speed Otari reproducer. These tapes sounded better than most 3 3/4 IPS tapes did. Amazing when in nice condition. These tapes the ex pilot for AA gave me to work with were very low noise, stable and low wow/flutter, and no dropouts (his copies had no cupping of tape or sloppy wind issues). I like them enough to buy a few for myself. LPJim and Rudy, know my ear, and the equipment I own, and my standards for sound quality.
 
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