MP3:
1 The Triumph of Man - Side 1 (5:42)
2 The Triumph of Man - Side 2 (5:48)
The future ain't what it used to be. Remember when humankind had a bright future amongst the stars? Now we just hope to avoid a new theocratic Dark Age when the Gulf Stream stops and sets off the next Ice Age. That or unchecked Global Warming, it'll be a perfect time for the oil to run out.
The past ain't what it used to be either, come to think of it. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was controversial. It was conceived by local businessmen and not approved by the Bureau of International Expositions. Thus many countries did not participate, and the focus of the Fair became American business. That focus can be heard on this record.
At the end of the 1964 season it was discovered that the Fair was borrowing money when the accounting had made it look like it had plenty. Accusations of financial mismanagement followed, but the Fair managed to avoid bankruptcy through its second season. Attendance was significantly below what had been planned. By its close, the Fair, which was envisioned as a moneymaker for the city, was in debt. An almost commentarial coincidence, this record is pressed on red, rather than black, vinyl.
Nonetheless, in addition to this record, the Fair provided the U.S. with several structures (pavilions that weren't demolished were moved and re-used), at least one painting (Lichtenstein's "New York World's Fair"), and Disney's audio-animatronics!
More info:
ExpoMuseum entry (lots of links)
Wikipedia entry (where I got most of the above info)
1964 New York World's Fair Report and New York World's Fair, 1964/03/02 at the Internet Archive
- Contributed by: Andrew Lander
Images: Front Cover, Inside Jacket, Fold Out Page 1, Fold Out Page 2, Fold Out Page 3, Fold Out Page 4, Side 1 Label, Side 2 Label
Media: 7" Single
Album: The Triumph of Man
Label: RCA Custom Records
Catalog: R4LM-4348
Credits: Script by Robert P. Davis. Narration by Peter Thomas. Original Score by Frank Ledlie Moore. Performed by The Hartford Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Fritz Mahler.
Date: 1964
Ahh, the '64 Worlds Fair. The last hurrah for Googie....
http://www.spaceagecity.com/googie/tempgallery/fair.htm
Posted by: Richard | March 01, 2007 at 08:23 AM
New York? pfft, we all know Expo 67 was the real deal!
Posted by: protogenes | March 01, 2007 at 09:28 AM
Thanks for posting this! We had this around the house when I was a kid (my older sibs went to the Fair). I played it hundreds of times, never got enough of it, even though -- or because -- I never saw it in person.
Posted by: Skip Rooney | March 01, 2007 at 10:52 AM
YES!!! I grew up in Hartford CT. (lord have mercy on my soul), home of Travelers, and my dad worked for them for many years, so naturally we had this red vinyl 7" around the house. I played it until it was practically dust on the crappy library cast-off turntable (designed for the blind, so it had 16 RPM). Far more entertaining than the other storytelling records we had, or the Folkways/Pete Seeger songs for children LP.
I saw it in a pile of 45s at an auction a few years ago, got outbid because of all the Beatles 45s in the pile, approached the winning bidder to ask about it, she immediately barked "NO" assuming I wanted her precious Beatles 45s. Once I explained I wanted the Travelers 7" and offered her some money she calmed down and said "Oh, you can just have it!"
Posted by: illlich | March 01, 2007 at 11:47 AM
". . . and you thought they sold insurance."
Posted by: Kenneth Earl Youngblood | March 01, 2007 at 01:26 PM
My mom grew up in Flushing and purchased this 7" at the 1964 fair. It was given to me in a few years ago in a box full of my mom and my aunt's old records. I will treasure it forever.
Posted by: Bethany | March 01, 2007 at 03:50 PM
My 9th birthday was at the World's Fair, and sure we visited this Pavilion with free tickets or some kind of VIP status - yes, I'm from Hartford too.
This record is a good "short subject" to play before putting on the Firesign Theatre's We're All Bozos On This Bus, a segue I played repeatedly in the early 70s in the privacy of my basement room.
Posted by: Webhamster Henry | March 03, 2007 at 02:40 PM
Hey, finally the first record to show up in either 365 Days Project that I own! Cool!
Posted by: Chris R. | March 04, 2007 at 10:41 PM
Great fun! Thank you!
Posted by: Katya Oddio | March 06, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Love it love it love it!
My folks went to the 65 Fair and we had this record lying around the house. I would play it over and over again on the fold-up portable phonograph along with my Oscar the Grouch "I Love Trash" single and "Basketball Jones" by Cheech and Chong, which I didn't get at all.
Anyway, the Triumph of Man is a fantastic space-age/cold war artifact, probably my favorite industrial/music/narration record after Attilio Mineo's "Man In Space," also a World's Fair artifact (Seattle 1962). But I didn't discover that thing until I was 30. So Triumph of Man has a lot of childhood memories for me.
Since I did go Disney World at age 6 and Disneyland at age 12, I did relate this record to the similar Worlds Fair type expereinces there, such as It's a Small World (hey! which premeired at the 64 world's fair!), Mission to Mars and Journey to Inner Space.
HEY! Why don't they have World's Fairs anymore!? Dang it!
Posted by: Scott Mercer | March 14, 2007 at 12:25 AM
i saw this at a yardsale & picked it up immediately because it was used on DJ Spookys album Celestial Mechanix & had wanted to hear the full version... sure 'nuff!
Posted by: ithink ithink | June 09, 2007 at 02:23 AM