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[David Schober]

I've been wondering about this for some time.  The trivia question is:

What or who mixed the first song that faded instead of a hard ending?

I'm guessing here, but from listening to old albums and thinking it through, I'd imagine that early recordings all had hard endings, as a live performance would.  At some point, someone decided to fade the ending of the song while it repeated, most likely the chorus.  I've wondered who that was and how it came about.  Also, I'd imagine the first time it was heard it was quite shocking.  While we take it for granted, back in those days it would have been something entirely new.

Any ideas?

[gtoledo3]

I have no answers, only speculation.

It would be my thought that the concept of "fading" audio probably developed in the film industry... it makes natural sense to fade audio as you do a dissolve from one scene to another.

[Bill Park]

My guess would be that it came from the days of 78s and symphonic (or just longer) recordings, where you faded out, flipped the disk, and faded back in.  78s were only a few minutes per side, after all.

It might also come from radio.

 Bill

[pontuso]

I think fading is an art by itself. A good fade should be felt as if the song is waving goodbye to you and you sit there wishing it will come back soon. Because of my age(55) my favourite fades are from my teen-years in the early 60´s e.g. "Travellin´ man" (Ricky Nelson) and "He´s a Rebel" ( The Chrystals). I´m not particularly
impressed by long fades like "Hey Jude" (Beatles).