I actually think Stevie has a good hold on her vault collection; but moreso, I think her
label has a good idea of exactly what is there. When Stevie talked about selecting Reconsider Me for Enchanted, she mentioned going through the label vaults, and finding all kinds of 'crazy crazy things' on the masters.
Masters are almost always owned by the label, carefully stored, and I really doubt that all of those reel-to-reels circulating the past decade were the only copies. I recall hearing at the time that the master reels first started circulating that they were offered up to Stevie's camp, who weren't interested in having them back, and so they went on eBay.
While a few were auctioned individually, nearly all of them went to a single owner who has spent his own time and money renting a studio and paying a sound engineer to have them all transferred to CD. It is because of his generosity that any of that batch of masters - over 200 reels - is circulating at all. Yes, they were sold to fans (I personally bought probably two-thirds pitching in cash with other fans, and traded to get the rest), but he could have kept them all to himself. It was a very exciting time to be a fan!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Stew
I figured they were mainly looking to see which songs the fans have in their hands (they'd probably be shocked to learn the sheer number!) and to also see which are the most popular on YouTube.
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^^Exactly.