fwiw, 2 days ago on Jan 28, I just realized that my last TBF was 1985. I noticed this because Jan 28, 2011 was the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on Tuesday, January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight. I clearly remember the moment I heard about this disaster 25 years ago: where I was; what I was doing then; and what I had done the previous year.
I mentioned here once or twice that my last TBF was 1986. I was wrong. Now I know it was 1985. Several times during the past couple of years, I had looked into Planet Bluegrass’ Archive for past festival performers over the years at TBF. The 1986 lineup listing was missing John Hartford. I almost challenged the accuracy of the Planet Bluegrass archives. I remember seeing Hartford at my last TBF. Now everything matches up for me.
The 12th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival – June 21-23, 1985
Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band • John Hartford • Seldom Scene • Tony Trischka and Skyline • Hot Rize • Tony Rice • Nashville Bluegrass Band • Chris Daniels and the Kings • New Grass Revival • Doc and Merle Watson • The David Grisman Quintet • Peter Rowan and Crucial Country • Mark O’Connor • Bryan Bowers • Alaska’s Hobo Jim
A guy from Boulder, Colorado put together a TV Production deal for the entire 1985 TBF. Phone calls were made to video production houses in Denver. This Project was seeking free lance staffing for the TV crew, and they needed 2 engineer Free Lancers. Challenger Productions was hired to bring their brand new TV Production Truck to TBF, from Oklahoma. (Challenger was based in either Tulsa or Oklahoma City - I can’t remember which.) Their 18-wheel TV Production truck was a state-of-the-art beauty, costing approx $6 million to build.
Denver’s Telemation Productions was called first. Several of Telemation’s video tape operators and camera operators signed up, went to TBF 1985, and worked free lance for the Boulder TV Production outfit - running cameras and video tape machines there. Computer Image Productions in Denver was called next. Challenger was needing 2 Free Lance video engineers. Glenn Hill and Monte Barry (me) signed on. Glenn and myself traveled together from Denver to Telluride, and back to Denver. We both worked at the TBF in 1985 as free lance video engineers for Challenger Productions. We both worked full time at Computer Image Productions as video engineers during this period. I think several other Computer Image Productions guys also freelanced as video tape operators, cameramen, and production assistants there.
The Challenger Truck came into TBF equipped with 4 cameras, 4 Ampex one-inch video tape recorders (VTRs) with Ampex time base correctors, Ampex ADO special effects systems, character generators, a large Grass Valley 300 switcher, Intercom systems, numerous Frame Synchronizers, and a huge Professional Audio system. Also contracted in were 3 more hand-held cameras. A 4th camera was contracted in, and it was set up on a camera Jib. So we had a very robust 8-camera shoot going. Audio for the TBF’s PA system was run and staffed separately by the TBF sound crew. I believe Challenger was recording a 2-channel Audio feed from the Sound Crew’s sound board. We worked shooting and recording the entire weekend for 1985 TBF. Everything was recorded on one-inch video tape – Broadcast Quality!
WHERE THE HECK ARE THESE TAPES? Please, do not tell me they are “lost”. Please, do not tell me they were “recorded over”.
Bluegrass Alliance - lost video tapes from 1976:
My lost videotapes from 1976 - with Vince Gill and the Bluegrass Alliance. Monte is seeking a copy of this VideoTape - for The Internet Archive. We taped it over two Sunday nights in springtime 1976 at WDRB-TV in Louisville. I was working there as a video tape operator. I was roommates with the band. I was the sound man for Bluegrass Alliance. I received permission from the TV Station to put a Bluegrass Show together. We used a Peavey audio board and some mics that were borrowed from the guy who owned Far-Out Music in New Albany, Indiana. We only had one TV camera in the WDRB studio. On the first pass, we shot the close-ups. Then we set the camera up on a wide shot and played the tape back for the second pass. The band lip-synched to the taped audio during this part. We faded between the tape and the camera’s live-shot on our Grass Valley video switcher.
WAKY disc jockey Tom Dooley was the host of the show. He had really long, full curly hair and a beard. The second week he showed up with short hair. So we had to do the intro at the top, and some dissolves (fade-ins and fade-outs), a second time. We didn’t set up the questions for the interview ahead of time. Every time he asked one of the players a question about the band, they referred him to Lonnie Peerce. The songs were recorded on individual 2" tapes.
I ran audio, and I video taped it. Then I used the remote-control edit package they had installed for 2 of their 3 RCA 2-inch quadruplex video tape recorders. I did some very simple “video-only” insert-edits into the master tape. We ended up with a faked-out 2-camera shoot. This 60-minute program aired on WDRB-TV in Louisville in 1976, probably in May.
I am looking for a copy of this tape. I called WDRB-TV (Fox) over a year ago, and discussed this with them. One guy, who claims to have been there since the late 70s, swears to me that this tape doesn’t exist in their tape library or their archives. It vanished! They probably recorded over it, since a 1-hour reel cost about $200 back then.
Louisville’s WDRB-TV employees Monte Barry, Mike Harpring, and Steve Doss all shared the “producer” credit.
