Complete recording session information

[rxxre eves]

Is there a website that lists details of all Mario's recording sessions?  There was one - I honestly can't remember the website address - but it has recently disappeared.

[Derek McGovern]

Hello: I've created a complete discography here, but it's organized by titles (and divided into different musical genres (opera, Neapolitan songs, etc) and not by dates:

https://www.mariolanzatenor.com/discography.html

[You can hover over many of the listed titles with your cursor to find the optimum CD source.]  

Armando Cesari's biography Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy includes a full discography in chronological order.

Derek

[rxxre eves]

Thank you Derek.  I am, and have been familiar with your discography for a long time and I do find it useful.  But it's recording dates I am after.  It's rather annoying - this information was availble on another site but has recently disappeared.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi: I don't recall ever seeing such a list of Mario's recording sessions online, and even if one exists, I wouldn't automatically assume that it's complete---or accurate. (There's an awful lot of incorrect material out there!) Mario's discography is constantly being updated in any event, as new versions of this and that keep coming to light. 

If you want to know when something was recorded, then you only need to ask here.

Cheers,

Derek

[ver...@gmail.com]

Hi rxxr..., the Jeff Rense site has a discography with dates, is this the one you were thinking of?  http://mariolanza.net/a-mario-lanza-discography.php

[derek.mcgovern]

Thanks for that link. I should caution that there are a number of errors in the dates listed (especially for 1958-59), and that it omits most of Lanza's MGM recordings.

The final entry ("The Lord's Prayer"), marked there as doubtful, definitely does not exist!

[rxxre eves]

No - it's not the Jeff Rense site to which I was referring.  The Rense site seems to be the best available but, as Derek points out, there are omissions.  But to me the main issue with it is it doesn't list the Coca-Cola material recording dates - only the initial broadcast dates.

Very frustrating!  When one can find detailed sessions information about so very many of the big stars from the 50s (and 60s) it seems practically an oversight that no Lanza fan with the knowledge and IT skill hasn't offered something on line.

[rxxre eves]

The web site that included the sessions information which has now vanished was www.gmmy.com/tenors/Lanza

[Verna Aslin]

That vanished website is partly retrievable using the Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20010223234750/http://www.gmmy.com/tenors/lanza/

I think you may mean  The Documented Files Of Mario Lanza Hosted By Bill Ronayne where he summarizes what Mario did year by year. I attach a snapshot of 1952 (as it appeared on the website in 2001). If screenshots are too tedious, Bill is contactable at  in...@mariolanzainstitute.org. If he's able to help you he might appreciate a donation!

       

[rxxre eves]

Hi Verna.  Thanks very much - this is the website I was looking for.  You're a star!

[rxxre eves]

Hi Derek

I've now downloaded a Kindle copy of Armando Cesari's Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy but I can't find the recording session anywhere.

On Thursday, 24 June 2021 at 14:41:23 UTC+1 Derek McGovern wrote:

When I created the discography on Mario Lanza, Tenor, I assumed that most fans would prefer a resource for looking up a particular song, aria, etc, rather than searching by date alone. I was also aware, of course,  that Armando Cesari had already provided chronological lists of all Mario's recording sessions (including the actual recording dates of the Coke Shows) in Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy, so I didn't see the point in duplicating my friend's efforts. 

To be quite honest, it's an almost entirely thankless task creating these web pages. Yes, I have the knowledge and IT expertise to put together a chronological list of recordings, but we're talking about hours of work to satisfy a small number of generally anonymous aficionados (who, let's face it, could easily pick up a copy of Armando's book with the same information at their local library or buy it on Kindle). To give another example, Steff Walzinger and I have been working for years now on the ever-expanding list of all-known Lanza performances----a project requiring an enormous amount of time, but one that we feel is an invaluable resource----and only one person in the last decade has ever so much as even commented on it. Now maybe there are some grateful people out there, but if there are, they've certainly kept quiet about it!

I should hasten to add that we don't do these things out of a desperate desire for appreciation, but rather because we feel that Lanza's legacy deserves these resources to be made freely available. Nevertheless, it's a little irritating to be criticized (no matter how indirectly) for not having gone further and provided such-and-such resource. 

You might be surprised to learn how often both Steff and I have spent hours in response to a request on this forum for, say, an English translation of a Lanza interview in Italian or a series of recordings to be uploaded to mariolanzatenor.com----only to receive not a word of appreciation for our efforts. It does get a bit galling.        

[Derek McGovern]

That's very disappointing to hear! I had no idea the discography wasn't included with the Kindle version; I simply assumed that all the pages of the physical book would be reproduced in it. I'm sorry for misleading you.

Let me see if I can rectify the situation. I'll get back to you soon (privately) via the email address you use for posting here. 

[rxxre eves]

Derek - thanks for your help and kindness.