Question

[Blair N. Cummings]

Who first decided to fade out a recorded song instead of allowing it to conclude?
BtoB? (I`m guessing that you`re a sound-booth guy).

[BachtoBacharach]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fade_(audio_engineering).

[Blair N. Cummings]

Thanks!
Interesting that the concept dates back to Haydn and Holst, but I`m awarding pride of place to Bill Haley since it was modern (sic) recordings I had in mind.

[BachtoBacharach]

Many times, tunes did have a cold ending but particularly in the 50s through the 80s when radio programmers favored tunes with three minutes or less run time, the tune was faded in the mix. Sometimes tunes were faded because they had no end. Bacharach used cold endings on several recordings as opposed to fades...two of my favorite "cold-ending" recordings are Dionne Warwick's Let Me Go to Him and Loneliness Remembers (What Happiness Forgets), A & B sides released on the Scepter label in March 1970. Bacharach was also fond of playing around with the end of a tune...he used codas in many of this recordings and sometimes those faded, sometimes not. On several tunes there was no cold ending and Bacharach had his sound engineer ride the faders and then cued the singers and orchestra to stop. Bacharach knew the sound he wanted and it's true that he could really figure out the mix in his head while he was recording; he was a brilliant sound man himself. He often composed tunes, particularly for Dionne, with an ear for the final mix after a few run-throughs. Phil Spector didn't have anything on Bacharach. Ed Smith was a remarkable sound engineer as was Phil Ramone and both brought unique qualities to Bacharach's recordings for Dionne. It was Ed Smith, by the way, not Phil Ramone who engineered Do You Know the Way to San Jose, and Smith who allowed Gary Chester to tape a wallet to the head of the bass drum to get that unique sound for the incredible and iconic opening to San Jose...this is one case where the intro was actually figured out during the session...the tune was written and the first take was done starting off with the background singers doing their "whoa, whoa, whoas as the intro...and Bacharach decided in the session that he wanted something unique and punchy to start the tune before the background singers came in...that bit of improvised brilliance in the studio created as an evocative an opening to me as the opening to Marvin Gaye's Heard It Through the Grapevine. Do You Know the Way to San Jose remains my all-time favorite Bacharach/Warwick recording...and I agree with Dave Marsh here...in that one tune, Bacharach and David crafted and Dionne Warwick sang perhaps the most perfect and perfectly gorgeous pop recording ever. The original mono mix for the single sounded absolutely incredible on AM radio back in May 1968. It's no wonder to me why the tune became a world-wide hit.