Katydids, Frogs, & Forest Birds

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1957

Label: Cook Laboratories

Transparent purple vinyl pressing, LP with black labels in a generic White Label Series sleeve: matte cardboard, 'asphalt grey' pattern with a red "check" symbol and printed text. The album's title and cat. № '#004 KATYDIDS, FROGS & FOREST BIRDS' are stamped in blue ink on the front & rear covers. Hand-marked on the inner sleeve: "R 003 PV" (in red permanent marker).

(Front cover, printed text):

WHITE LABEL SERIES
SPECIMEN RECORDINGS OF UNUSUAL RECORDINGS

COOK LABORATORIES — STAMFORD, CONN.

(Back cover):

The White Label Series
SPECIMEN RECORDINGS OF UNUSUAL SUBJECTS

COOK Laboratories, Stamford, Conn.

(Back cover, side panel):

Just one at a time . . .

Even if we never make another one,
the care and craftsmanship which went into
this particular record will have been
justified. The White Label Series is a
drastically new idea in records. Deliberately
designed for the specialist or special-interest
collector, the record in this jacket
is practically "hand made."

Only the few will be interested in
particular subjects selected. But for
those few the White Label record will be
especially valuable since in most cases
the material will have been too specialized
in nature for previous recording. Other
attempts to justify record releases of
"short run" subjects have resulted in
subscription plans to "limited editions,"
with their out-of-print uncertainties.
The Cook White Label Series is comprised
of limited edition subject matter, but by
MICROFUSION just one more can always
be pressed — economically.

No attempt is made to be esoteric.
Instead our microphones will be opened to
catch sound specimens of the familiar as
well as the rare. Selected subjects will
be mostly those which are possible for
the first time now that we can make
records — "just one at a time."

Cook Laboratories' new Microfusion✼
is a completely new way of making
records — by fusing them directly from
powder particles of pure vinyl.
A side-advantage of Microfusion, however,
is that each record is individually
fashioned in its own portable book-mold.
With these we can literally make a
single pressing of a record to order.
This advantage, unique with
Cook Microfusion, makes possible the
present White Label Series and other vital
extensions of the recorded medium into
directions previously impossible.

We welcome your suggestions of
additional subjects which can now be
made available through records.

✼ trademark

(On the labels, glued paper stickers):

#004
KATYDIDS, FROGS
& FOREST BIRDS
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

COOK LABS. — WHITE LABEL SERIES

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(From the promotional release):

#004 KATYDIDS, FROGS and FOREST BIRDS

WHITE LABEL SERIES

This is a record designed for expert Bird, Frog and Katydid lovers . . .
and also for the most casual listener who doesn't care about genera,
species or habitats. The skill of the specialist will be challenged
to identify individual voices within completely natural settings.
Others will probably enjoy just curling up with a good book and letting
the sounds of forest and field weave their own friendly setting.

The simple truth is, each of these sounds was so intriguing in itself
we were moved to record it without thought of how or when it might
end up on a pressing. The frogs (side A, last 2 bands) are a kind
of sound-diary of a very active night spent racing from haunt to
haunt in upper Westchester and Connecticut. The uproar from our own
pond made it clear that this was to be an especially vocal night in
frogdom.

Starting at 2 A.M. (mostly to minimize outside noises and possibly
to keep our identities secret) we toured the local swamps recording
with car-based generator and tape machine. Many of the solo voices
were isolated with the help of a parabola: a large metal shell which,
when aimed like a gun, can pick up the most delicate croaks at in-
credible distances with deadly accuracy. In effect it brings our
ears to within inches of the frog larynx, an intimacy which opens
up new concepts of what a frog really sounds like.

The Katydids (opening side A) and Birds (which fill the complete B
side) were all recorded in the same general locale: Poundridge
and Bedford Village, N.Y., and points east in Connecticut. Circling
crows, larks, warblers, whippoorwills are but a few of the ingredients
. . . almost a half hour of unedited bird sequences which follow a
time pattern of day, dusk and after dark.

COOK LABORATORIES • 101 SECOND STREET • STAMFORD, CONN.

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(Tracklisting and production notes from Emory Cook's Cook Labs records archives, Series 4: Production Files from Smithsonian Institution's Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections):

August 7, 1957
004 content from irate Dr. Franklin H West 111 North Forty-Ninth st. Phila Pa. 39

A 1. Katydid (trucks on highway)
2. Green frogs
Bullfrog (motor noise in background. Music on tape not fully erased or
radio playing behind scene

B 1. Wood thrush
Catbird -- noise of electric motor nearby, dog, people talking
Robin
Goldfinch
Cricket squeal (dogs again, motor sounds)
2. Veery-swamp sparrow
Robin (Roaring hiss in background, highway or RR?)
Wood Thrush
Yellow throat
Song Sparrow
Flicker
3. Robin (intolerable background roar
House wren
Rose breasted grosbeak
Yellow Throat (flies or bumblebees
Crows
Song sparrow
Flicker
Cricket
4. Whippoorwill (intolerable tape hiss, roar & hum)