Not to mention no birth control or prozac for the women!!! Only god knows the horrors those men have seen!!!
But seriously, its so true!! If you really think about it, there was a lot of cumulative skills from all those people which all makes a big difference. From the pianos tuned by ear, to the hand carved ivory nuts/saddles, and the hand sculpted tortoise shell picks- there was so much more going on there than just the pretty boy upfront(who was amazingly talented in his own right)!!!!! And most importantly, the vast majority of the people in the room did not have some ridiculous celebrity dream, their heads were actually in the game for the sake of the music and a hot meal!!!
You also have musicians who tuned by ear, probably practiced as much as we listen to music today- and knew/maintained thier own instruments. All that human energy adds up to something REALLY nice!!!
The BLEED factor is so true too. You rarely hear a single source picked up on both ribbons and condensers today(except drums). On most of those 50's tracks it seems like every source has to be hitting an RCA and the u47 in front of the singer at some point- it creates a nice haze IMO!!!!
Get that Langevin tube console running Mr. Silvertone- I would love to hear a cut off it!!!
Cheers, Bryan