Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1543098
Spring 2026 – LOCAL695.COM 7 by Ric Teller Ric Rambles The famous newspaper, the iconic microphone, and the man who was President when I was born Try having 'em sing into a 58 Show of hands. How many of you played in a band when you were young? No, not the school concert band or the marching band, although I am a big supporter of school music. In my younger days, I enjoyed time in the Hastings Junior High Band, under the direction of the terrific Jack Minshall, followed by the Hastings High School Marching Tigers Band. And in the fall of 1970, I passed the audition for the University of Nebraska Cornhusker Marching Band, 188 marching men under the direction of the great Jack Snider. That's right, from its roots as an offshoot of ROTC, no girls participated in the band. That changed in 1972 with the passage of Title IX. My sister, Beth, joined the band a couple of years later, one of the pioneers. Okay, thanks for indulging my marching band reminiscence; now, back to the original question. Did you play in a band? One that had microphones and a PA. I believe many of us were introduced to sound gear while playing in someone's garage or basement. Often those stories, including mine, begin with, "When I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show..." A few years later, The Fabulous Flippers, a terrific band from Lawrence, Kansas, featuring an excellent horn section, played at The Hastings City Auditorium. There was the lead vocalist, Denny Loewen, singing into what was probably a Shure mic. Maybe a 565, but more likely an SM58. Who can remember that far back? The first band I joined had high-impedance microphones. Our Sound Mixer, Don Robertson, sat right in front of the seven-piece band in order to keep the length of mic cables under twenty feet. In the high-impedance world, longer cables have higher capacitance, creating a low-pass filter, cutting the high frequencies, resulting in lower output and a duller sound. Each night, Don would jump up from his mixing position, hop onto the stage, and sing "Jumpin' Jack Flash." It was the best thing about having him set up so close to the band. A couple of years later, I was asked to play in the Chancellors. Not the Minneapolis Chancellors who covered Bill Medley's "Little Latin Lupe Lu." Personal note: The best version was recorded by Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. I played in the Chancellors from Lincoln, Nebraska. We were a popular regional band that had a PA from Stanal Sound, and a bunch of Shure SM58's. Our PA Tech/ Mixer was Monte Krabiel, who worked for Stan Miller at Stanal for a long time. This year, the Shure SM58 turned sixty years old. Every band I played in had them or wanted to get them. The Shure corporation recently celebrated a century in business. They have had a remarkable series of products with longevity not often seen in the professional audio world. Among other things, they are known for making the most visually recognizable microphone, the Shure 55. In 1939, when it was released, the 55 offered performance superior to its competitors and an iconic design. Through various versions in its eighy-seven years, the 55 is still in use and can be found in many logos and photos, including the famous picture of Harry Truman holding the front page of the Chicago Tribune with the banner headline, DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. Spoiler alert. He didn't. When the SM58 was released in 1966, it wasn't a big hit. Same story is true for the SM57 that entered the market a year earlier. The SM, which stands for studio microphone, had a lot of competition. In recording studios, the Neumann U87 was released about the same year. RCA had the very popular 77DX on the market about a decade earlier, and the reliable and rugged 635A from Electro Voice became popular for TV, radio, and carpentry applications. According to Michael Petterson, Director of Corporate History at Shure: "Sales were sluggish, and plans were afoot to discontinue the SM58 and the SM57. As a last-ditch effort, the Shure national sales manager suggested introducing the mics to live sound engineers in Las Vegas. The mics were a hit in Vegas, and entertainers began to embrace these models