Mike Slauenwhite CD Release Party

One of Canada’s best fiddlers over the past fifty years is the talented and versatile Mike Slauenwhite. Whether performing on the CBC TV Country Hoedown, The CKNX Barndance, The Ice Capades or the KW Symphony, Mike’s professionalism and great talent shines through.

The front cover art I designed was actually a composite of three different photographs of Mike, since the speed of his fiddling tends to leave one part or another out of focus. Just telling you that is bad enough, I’m certainly not going to show you how I did it.

What I will do is show you the zoom portrait I made of Mike for the interior bio panel of the CD. This is the original 8″ x 10″ photograph of the Silver Bar Ranch Gang probably taken in the 1950’s.

Circa 1950's TV Broadcast, The Silver Bar Ranch Gang

Taking the thumbnail sized image of Mike out of the print I was able to blow it up large enough to make a nice 8″ x 10″ individual portrait of Mike. Should I mention that removing Bill Brady’s hand from Mike’s shoulder improved the individual portrait enormously?

Mike’s excellent CD “Mixing It Up” is being launched at a Southern Ontario CD Release Party at the Commercial Tavern in Maryhill Sunday April 11th, 2010 between 2-5pm. Mike will of course be performing many of his great fiddle tunes and I have no doubt that he will be joined by many other exceedingly talented entertainers. Hope to see you there.

Jack Kingston, The Canadian Playboy

The British Archive of Country Music has added Jack Kingston to their roster: JACK KINGSTON The Canadian Playboy CD D 296. One of the cool design features of B.A.C.M. CD releases is their graphic CD imprint which simulates a 45.

An earlier article I showed you a little bit about restoring screened images with one of the images I restored for this B.A.C.M. CD. As it turned out, they selected this image I restored for the cover of their CD release of Jack’s music.   (I’m not surprised because this is clearly a better portrait.)  Click on it to see the original.

It is great to see B.A.C.M.’s commitment to preserving and restoring this music that was originally recorded on 78’s. During the golden age of Canadian Country music, Jack Kingston was a very successful Canadian recording artist. A talent contest led to his launch as a CKNX Barndance Headliner, and he had a long and successful career appearing on CHML’s Mainstreet Jamboree radio show, appearances on television and many recordings.

Unfortunately, Jack Kingston is not very well known today. Although he was an important Canadian star, my guess is that Jack’s music remained locked behind copyright until fairly recently, yet the copyright holders never saw fit to release his music on CD. You’ll find very little about him on the Internet; most references to Jack Kingston refer to the other Jack Kingston, the politician of the same name. Unfortunately I fear that a lot of great music is lost because by the time the music comes into the public domain, nobody remembers the artist. Fortunately this deficiency has now been rectified by B.A.C.M. who have given Jack’s work a new lease on life.

But Jack Kingston was lucky to be Canadian recording artist since copyright terms run much longer in some other countries. The danger of very long copyright terms is that if no one is left alive who remembers the art or music, there is no one to keep the flame burning. By the time the work reaches the public domain there may be no one left alive who cares to publish it. That’s bad for society, bad for our culture, but most especially it’s bad for the artist. More than anything, most artists want their art to live on.

You can order the B.A.C.M. recording here. In the meantime, if you’ve never heard Jack Kingston’s music you might want to check out this nicely done music video I found on YouTube:

It’s good to that the work of this important contributor to Canadian Culture is not going to be lost forever anytime soon. Thanks B.A.C.M.

Restoring Printed Screened Images

“The Canadian Playboy” Jack Kingston was an extremely successful recording artist who got his start during the Golden Age of Canadian Country Music.

I was asked to clean up some old printed images that might be used for cover art in an upcoming British Archive of Country Music (B.A.C.M.) CD reissue of some of Jack Kingston’s music.   Because both colour photography and color printing were prohibitively expensive in the early twentieth century,  publicity material was often printed with a primary colour replacing black ink in an effort to make it more eye-catching. For myself I think red ink was one of the more unfortunate colors to choose.

Before: Eye Detail

After: Eye Detail

Digital restoration of screened images from old printed matter can be extremely difficult to restore because of the screen pattern of dots. When employing digital imaging techniques it is crucial to stay within the pattern, like staying within the lines of a colouring book. When cutting and pasting portions of the image from one part of the picture to another not only is it essential that the portions match, they have to line up exactly or it can create an eye catching error worse than the ones you’re attempting to restore.

When doing a digital restoration like this one it’s good to repair “hickeys” or imperfections that were often added to images from the original print run back in the day.   Along with the fading and discoloration caused by age, there is generally wear and tear to be corrected on old print materials like this.

BEFORE: Original scan:

Original Scan: Canadian Recording Artist Jack Kingston

In doing the restoration my choice was to go back to black and white. Although black and white images can now be colorized with a great deal of success, my personal preference is for black and white images to remain black and white. After all, black and white is the more expensive print process these days.

AFTER: The Restoration

Restoration: Canadian Recording Artist Jack Kingston

To allow the end user flexibility I also photosynthesized the signature out of this version of the image.

I’ll let you know when I know the release date.