Jim Copp and Ed Brown
Encyclopedia
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording
Reel-to-reel, open reel tape recording is the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than being securely contained within a cassette....
and were among the first to devise and use multi-track recording and electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
for children's records. Copp and Brown's work has been compared to that of Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
, Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
, and Pee Wee Herman.
Jim Copp's early career
Jim Copp was born in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and spent time in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and Washington D.C. before attending Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and then Harvard. He had a career as a cabaret piano comic in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
under the name "James Copp the III and His Things", and shared stages with Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
and others. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Copp commanded an intelligence unit in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
before returning to his career in New York. He soon moved back to Los Angeles where he wrote and illustrated a society column for the L.A. Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
.
During the 1950s Copp reworked some of his nightclub routines and recorded them on a wire recorder. He sent sample recordings to Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
. Capitol's executives liked the material, but wanted them to be performed by Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
because he was a celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
and would therefore sell more records. Copp agreed to let them have one story called '"The Noisy Eater", which Capitol had Lewis record and the company issued it on 78 and 45 rpm records. Despite the record's moderate success, Jim Copp was paid very little and so decided to have a go at producing his own material.
Copp & Brown
Jim Copp met the artist Ed Brown at a society party in Los Angeles and the two men began a lifelong friendship. Copp had an idea for a children's album, one that would incorporate his own numerous musical talents with Brown's genius for design. For this first record, Copp played all of the instruments and performed all of the voices, while Brown handled the album's artwork and marketing. The album Jim Copp Tales featured a picture wheel that spun and illustrated each story. Though Copp used the nickname "Jim" instead of his cabaret name, in case the project fell flat, the record received a lot of exposure on radio and TV, as well as bids for exclusive distribution by a chain of West Coast department storeDepartment store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s. Copp and Brown soon traveled the U.S., touring to retail outlets with their luggage stuffed with records.
After the success of Jim Copp Tales, Copp and Brown engaged in a laborious routine of annually self-producing albums and releasing them on their own label Playhouse Records
Playhouse Records
Playhouse Records is the record label founded by Jim Copp and Ed Brown in 1958 to release albums of children's music. Over the course of 13 years, Copp and Brown wrote, recorded, designed, produced and promoted nine LPs of their own material and continued to run the label until 1978 when Ed Brown...
. A record's creation began with Copp sitting at home writing songs and stories, while Ed Brown worked on the jacket design at his own house. Copp and Brown would record all of the sound effects, speeches, songs, and stories in segments, often in multiple takes until satisfied with the results. Copp recorded instruments in different rooms at his parents' house: voices were taped in the kitchen, the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
in the living room, the celeste
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
in a bedroom, the pump organ in the bathroom, and sound effects in the bathtub. The entire recording was done with one microphone and three monaural
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
Ampex
Ampex
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence...
tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
s, with which Copp devised his own overdubbing technique by ping-ponging between the tape decks to build up layers of sound. This recording method allowed the duo to create whole classrooms and housefuls of different voices—as many as 90 on a single track.
Many of the records featured innovative layouts that encouraged the participation of young listeners: Schoolmates had shifting pictures on its back cover; Gumdrop Follies popped out into a toy theater
Toy theater
Toy theater, also called paper theater and model theater, is a form of miniature theater dating back to the early 19th century in Europe. Toy theaters were often printed on paperboard sheets and sold as kits at the concession stand of an opera house, playhouse, or vaudeville theater...
play set involving the characters from the various albums; the pair of Glup Family LPs unfolded into boardgames that followed the records' narratives. Copp and Brown's records usually came out in October with the two men supporting the release with a national tour that lasted through the holiday season. Their tours took them to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
and their record sales earned them enough to buy property there.
Decline and revival
Copp and Brown stopped making new records in 1971 when Copp's father died and his sister decided to sell the family house. Copp moved in with Ed Brown, whose home was carpeted and deemed unfit for recording. Jim Copp lost interest in making records and sold his recording equipment. Playhouse Records closed its doors when Ed Brown fell ill with pancreatic cancer and died in 1978. It wasn't until Jim Copp was contacted in the early 1990s by videographer/fan Ted Leyhe, that he considered re-releasing the albums. Leyhe and Copp repackaged each of the albums on cassette in 1993 and issued two CDs of some of Copp and Brown's most popular songs and skits. These CDs also contain previously unreleased material and liner notes by Henry KaiserHenry Kaiser (musician)
Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...
. Leyhe also produced a documentary video about Jim Copp's life.
Jim Copp died in 1999 at the age of 85. Ted Leyhe continues to run Playhouse Records
Playhouse Records
Playhouse Records is the record label founded by Jim Copp and Ed Brown in 1958 to release albums of children's music. Over the course of 13 years, Copp and Brown wrote, recorded, designed, produced and promoted nine LPs of their own material and continued to run the label until 1978 when Ed Brown...
with his wife Laura.
The Original LPs
- Jim Copp Tales (1958)
- Fable Forest (1959)
- Thimble Corner (1960)
- East Of Flumdiddle (1961)
- A Fidgetty Frolic (1962)
- A Journey To San Francisco With The Glups (1963)
- Gumdrop Follies (1965)
- Schoolmates (1968)
- The Sea Of Glup (1971)
All nine of the original LPs were rereleased on cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
. Jim Copp Tales, Thimble Corner, East Of Flumdiddle, A Fidgetty Frolic, A Journey To San Francisco With The Glups and Schoolmates have been released in their entirety on CD.