Great article Ben!  Much thanks for that.  It was all so simple but yet complecated when the end product had to sound good after so many bounces!  

Yep, probably by the '60's the sound was wrecked in a way, with more infatuation with tampering by then popular groups -Beatles, Kinks, Yardbirds, others.
 
Don't forget the  Ricky Nelson website, where you can hear a song when getting browsing to it.
http://www.rickynelson.com/
(click on link)
Now, it is just mediocre home consumer equipment anyone can buy, not the simple type recordings of yesteryear.

 

Thanks, Ben, that was a great read. Leon Russell played on everything back then!
 
Interesting that much of that information came from album liner notes, which includes tidbits such as the make and model of the disk cutter and the tape speed. I miss liner notes.
 
 

Glad my superfluous research skills have assisted lol
 
Ben

And all those old Rwicky's songs were wradio wready like other songs from that era.
 

quantumeffect
There were a number photos from other Ed Sullivan Show performances that showed an overheard mic.  This was the only one I found that (I think) was associated with the performance that Rimshot was asking about and showed any sort of mic placement.

Overhead mics were and still are standard TV studio practice. Occasionally you saw floor mics when filming music but overhead booms were used so people on stage could move around unhampered, the view wasn't cluttered and more sound could be picked up with fewer mics. Some recording studios used them too. Johnny Carson's desk mic was just for show ya know.
 
And the reason they sounded so good might have something to do with using one or two mics that, by today's prices, run in the $15,000 and up category. Also, anything you are hearing today is almost assuredly a digital remake/remaster of the original. To hear the true sound quality of the original record, get it out and play it on a real record player.