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Club "99"

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Club 99, New York, USA, was started in 1960 by Ben Lebow as a private label for vocal collectors. His idea was simple: take rare old 78 recordings by the great singers of the past and transfer them to long-playing albums in limited editions of 99 copies. Yet the records proved such a success that in 1965 the Lebows started issuing them to the general public. When Mr. Lebow died in 1968, he left his wife, Ellen Lebow, what was rapidly becoming a successful (and widely respected) record industry. If anyone had any doubts about the future of Club 99 after 1968, Mrs. Lebow soon relieved them, from a house in Queens. Far from floundering under her guidance, Club 99 grew bigger and, if possible, even better. She modernized the record jackets and beganiwriting extensive and intelligent notes to accompany all the albums. She repressed certain records that needed repressing badly. Today, with opera enjoying an unprecedented upsweep in popularity, Club 99 is being discovered by a new generation of listeners