Al Goodman and His Orchestra – Oklahoma album art
From the back cover:
When “Oklahoma” was first presented to its opening night audience on March 31, 1943 the “curtain” seemed meaningless in its desired effect to indicate the performance had ended. Everyone appeared glued to their seats hoping for more. The wild applause which ensued was an indication of the illustrious success which this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was to enjoy. Five years later it was still playing to capacity audiences. Even today the music from Oklahoma is played and enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world, for the impact of this great musical stretched far and wide to all corners of the earth.
This cover was designed for an undated release (M-81, late 1950s, early 1960s?) by Spin-O-Rama Records, a New York-based budget label, with recordings by Al Goodman’s Orchestra. The typefaces are Filmotype Western and Caslon Rounded.
3 Comments on “Al Goodman and His Orchestra – Oklahoma album art”
Both styles go back to the mid 1800s. Filmotype Western is a 1950s reprise of the wide, horizontally stressed slab serif that was known in the English-speaking world as French Antique Extended or French Clarendon Extended and in German as Breite Italienne.
Caslon Rounded is part of a series of rounded sans-serif all-caps typefaces that “appeared almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1830s, in wood in the USA and in metal from the Caslon foundry” in England — Commercial Type. It was revived by ATF as Old Bowery in 1933 and again in 1949. Both styles are listed in a VGC catalog with faces for the Photo Typositor from 1972, as K-20 (an alias for Fimotype Western) and Old Bowery.
Commercial Type’s digital version of Caslon Rounded will be released soon with Commercial Classics. Alan Jay Prescott is working on a digital interpretation, too.
Filmotype Western was digitally revived by Charles Gibbons in 2014. David Jonathan Ross’s most recent release in his Font of the Month Club, Tortellini, is another interpretation of the Extended French Antiques.
This visual comparison shows the original Filmotype Western (top) from the album cover next to the digital version (middle). In the latter, the O is rounder and the diagonals in A are less steep. The bottom line adds Tortellini, which is distinguished by an even rounder O and much finer hairlines. Who knows, maybe DJR is already working on a spinoff with beefier strokes, dubbed Tortelloni?!
See also this other recording with songs from the Oklahoma musical, featuring Filmotype Wand, a wide slab serif with monolinear strokes.
Photo-Lettering had an identical font of Filmotype Western called Tightrope Wide which appears in their 1971 specimen. Also, you can download Filmotype Western off of FontBros.
Thank you, Javi. I’ve updated the source link for Filmotype Western.
Tightrope Wide is indeed very similar to Filmotype Western, but not quite identical. Both are revivals of French Antique/Clarendon Extended, see for example this 1882 specimen of French Clarendon Extended. I don’t know which came first: Filmotype Western is shown as new addition in a 1955 catalog, and Tightrope Wide was issued sometime between PLINC’s 1950 and 1960 catalogs.
One of the more striking differences can be found in the g’s ear. Some of Tightrope’s serifs are shorter, see y, for example.
1. Tightrope Wide (Photo-Lettering, between 1950 and 1960)
2. Filmotype Western (Filmotype, 1955). Shown here is VGC’s copy, K-20, from a 1969 specimen.
3. Filmotype Western as digitized by Charles Gibbons in 2014
It also looks as if Filmotype Western has horizontal segments on the inner sides of arches in h m etc. These are rounded in Tightrope – but not as round as in the digital Filmotype Western. However, in a c.1958 specimen of Filmotype Western, the horizontal segments are less articulate. So maybe that difference can be blamed on the reproduction? Disclaimer: I used VGC’s copy K-20 for the comparison – my understanding is that their versions were direct copies of Filmotype’s existing 2-inch filmstrips.