Despite its political troubles, The ARS was in pretty good shape in the fall of 1966. We had nearly 3,000 members and 53 chapters. In July of 1966 Time Magazine had printed a two-column article—“Pipe with a Pedigree”—on recorders and recorder playing in the U.S. The writer claimed the existence of some 750,000 players in the United States and gave some free publicity to the ARS. Back issues of the AR were now being sent to University Microfilms in Ann Arbor so they could be put on microfilm and preserved for eternity. There were 86 “starred” names in the ARS Directory, meaning that the members listed had either passed the ARS Teachers Exam or been approved as a teacher by fiat. Eighteen of these were examiners as well. The examiners had all been approved by fiat, except for Daniel Waitzman, who paid $25 to apply for and pass the “examiners’ exam.” Bernie Krainis, who never approved of the appointments by fiat, had applied to take the exam as well, but the Board refused to take him seriously, leaving him willynilly with his position as an honorary examiner. There were some difficulties at The American Recorder. Questions arose as to how scholarly a magazine it should be. Erich Katz, always a maverick when it came to scholarship, started complaining in letters to Joel Newman about the abundance of footnotes in the magazine. Worse, there were problems with production. Minutes of the California Board meeting show members worrying over the fact that the ad for a recorder weekend at the UCLA conference center did not appear in the AR until after the weekend. Complaints began appearing from the general membership about the lateness of AR, particularly for westerners, the tardiness of the editor in answering letters, and articles that were either too scholarly or not scholarly enough. Correspondence between Erich Katz and Joel Newman in 1967 reflects Erich’s dissatisfactions with the magazine and Joel’s dissatisfactions with the various presidents: Cook Glassgold (non-musician), LaNoue Davenport (didn’t work hard enough), and Howard Mayer Brown (a non-member until he was elected).
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