Some Rare Monty Python, More Australian Shortwave, Mr. Handy and a REALLY Long Tape Few Are Likely to Listen To

Hello everyone, 

I hope you've had a wonderful summer, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere (like some of the people featured today), in which case I hope you start to have a swell spring soon.

Today I have something I believe to be quite rare. Although I can find a few dozen places online where this recording is referenced, I have been unable to find anywhere that this actual recording is posted or otherwise available. I may have missed something, in which case perhaps this is not as rare as I thought, but even if so, I'm making it available more readily here, I hope, and for free. 

This comes from one of my own home recorded reels, which I am slowly going through to find out their contents. And I've worked my way up to tapes made in 1976, the year I turned 16, and more to the point, perhaps 18 months after my mother and I became extremely early American converts to Monty Python (as I explained partway through this extremely long post). This is, specifically, a recording of the troupe's appearance on the King Biscuit radio show, in May of 1976. 

This performance is from the same series of shows (and same venue, of course) as was released on the "Live at City Center" album that also came out in 1976, with two significant differences. First, it is a different performance - this probably amounts to the most minor of changes from the released album (I haven't compared them), but it is a different show. And second, and perhaps more importantly, it contains a very humorous and self-depreciating introduction from John Cleese. 

I hope that all Python fans enjoy this recording. 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Live - On King Biscuit Flower Hour - 5-9-76

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The other recording on the same tape is less rare. It's an appearance of some of the troupe on "The Mike Douglas Show" that same week in May of 1976. There is a video of part of this appearance on YouTube. It is not the entire segment heard below, and it is in poor video and audio quality, but it is there. This, on the other hand, is the entire appearance, obviously without video but with much better sound quality (although my mom chimes in at one point to explain what's happening). 

Unfortunately, a good part of the visit is taken up with clips from the show and from the movie they were promoting ("The Holy Grail"), presumably to help the squares who watched Mike Douglas get an idea of what and who the Monty Python trouble was. Doubly unfortunate, John Cleese and Graham Chapman - the heart and soul of the troupe, in my opinion, are not present for the interview (Eric Idle isn't there either, but he was always - by far - the weak link of the troupe, for me, anyway). 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Promote "The Holy Grail" On the Mike Douglas Show, 5-14-76

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Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later. 

The 1968 recording starts off difficult to hear and grows progressively worse - this is not an easy to listen to tape - such are the vagaries of listening to short wave broadcasts. The 1970 tape is considerably clearer in sound quality. 

Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-23-68

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Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-12-70

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Okay, now here's a segment that perhaps only the masochistic among you might listen to. But I listened to all five hours plus of it, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to do something with it. But it is tedious and endless. 

I don't know what exactly was going on here, but what seems to be small group of friends/acquaintances spend nearly four and a half hours (in the first segment), singing songs, some of them multiple times during that length of time, accompanied by a few musicians. A lot of these are old, old songs, some of them probably fairly recent to whenever this was recorded. At one point, there is a lengthy break for what sounds like a meal, and it becomes clear that there are also a few children present. For a good period of time there is no singing and the soft conversations are hard to pick up at time. Then it's back to the singing, which is followed at the end by some goodbyes and final conversations. Enjoy? 

Download: A Group of People Sing a Lot of Songs (and Talk a Lot) for a Really Long Time

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When that segment ends, the tape immediately reverts to what was being erased by that lengthy recording, and that was, MORE recordings seemingly featuring the same people, or at least a similar gang of folks. There seem to be two recordings here, of differing sound quality, and they make up another 40 minutes plus of the same sort of things heard in the other, longer segment, including a lot of the same songs. 

I'm not even going to speculate as to what the event was or who these people are/were. I'm just glad I wasn't there. 

Download: A Few More (Much Shorter) Segments with the Same People

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Well, after that heavy and unappetizing meal, how about some lovely dessert. Our "Very Short Reel" features a radio announcer trying - and most of the time failing - to record a few ads for an apparently legendary and much loved business in Springfield, Ohio, "Mr. Handy", complete with hard-sell backing music. This business just closed five months ago, after 45 years in business

Download: Unknown - Recording Mr. Handy Commercials

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And finally, a mint on your pillow for getting all the way through this post. This doesn't really qualify as a "Very Short Reel", even though it's only 66 seconds long; it was pulled out of a 75 minute tape of (mostly) classical music recorded off of the radio at some point in the 1950's, probably the early 1950's. I faded in and faded out this segment, which was buried deep in the second side of this tape. It is simply a moment that made me laugh, and I decided to excerpt it here and share it with you. What's are the call letters of that station, do you say? And that's all I'll say. 

Download: A Humorous Moment

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Danny Thomas at Tahoe, A Young Family at Home, One More Set from Antony Bilbow, Even More Hollister, Badly Recorded Top 40 and the New Lux Lotion Bar

I hoped to have this up in a more timely fashion, but I was gone for a weekend and then extremely sick for part of the following week. I hope to have yet another post up before the end of the month. But this one was sort of thrown together. I hope you find it worthwhile. 

First up, and perhaps of interest to at least some of the media-sound-collectors out there, is a recording of an episode of "The Danny Thomas Hour", which ran during the 1967-68 season on NBC and was apparently not much of a success. Each week was a different format - drama, variety, comedy - and on 2/28/68, the host presented a hour of his live act, recorded in Lake Tahoe. There does not seem to be any recording of this out there, audio or video - if there is, I didn't come across it. 

Personally, this sort of thing drives me up the wall, and I fail to understand how it was ever popular. But popular it was, and I know there are people who still love this stuff. And objectively, I recognize that this is by far the most "collectable" thing I'm sharing today, and probably recently, so it deserves the lead-off spot. And so, for those who will like it, here is that tape: 

Download: Danny Thomas at Tahoe - NBC-TV, 2-28-68

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I have, on two previous occasions, shared portions of a tape I found which contains four tracks of a man named Antony Bilbow reading stories on the BBC. Click on his name to see the previous two offerings, as well as this one. At least a few people asked to have more of these, and today I am offering up the third of the four channels on that tape. 

Download: Antony Bilbow - Stories on English Radio, Volume 3

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As I often say here, recordings Top 40 Radio from its golden era are considered precious to many folks out there, and I count myself in that number. In my last post, I featured part of a countdown show from WILS, Lansing. Now I have something considerably less wonderful, from the same collection. Both shares were from three inch wonders, tapes which contain far more recording than one might think such a small item could hold. The problem with today's offering is the resolutely awful sound quality, and again, there is only some of the deejay patter, making these recordings less valuable than many others. Oh, and like many of the machines which were designed to record ONLY those three inch reels, the recording speed was extremely variable, depending on how much tape was left on each side of the reels. 

Unlike the previous offering, this is not all from one broadcast, although there are some countdown items here. And not everything here is from WILS, but most of it is, and I can't make out for certain what the other station(s) heard is/are. Oh, and the last few minutes heard here are from yet another three inch reel that came from the same collection, one which only had a few minutes of recording on it. 

Download: WILS, Lansing, Michigan, Circa Late 1964 and Early 1965

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And now it's David Hollister Time again. I don't want to repeat myself each time I bring up his name, but the explanation for these tapes is at the start of this post, and this link will take you to all of the Hollister tapes I've shared so far. 

Today's Hollister tape has two separate sections. The first part seems to be a rehearsal for something called AORN show, from 3/2/76. I don't know what that was. It starts with multiple takes of a brief parody of "Love Will Keep Us Together". The rest is some sort of short play, performed largely straight through, with a few breakdowns. I will let you discover whatever you find to be its highlights/lowlights/charms, depending on your opinion of the material. 

Download: David Hollister and Others - AORN Show, 3-2-76

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The remainder of the tape has a pianist - presumably the composer - and a singer, running through multiple takes of a song called "Footsteps in the Snow". This is a very Broadway-esque number, as some of the other material on these tapes has been, and as such, is just as much not my thing as that Danny Thomas material up there. But your mileage may vary. 

Download: David Hollister and Singer - Rehearsing 'Footsteps in the Snow' - 6-2-76

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Now here's something I absolutely love - worth 1000 Danny Thomas stage shows. I've called this "A Young Family At Home", and it is simply about 34 minutes with a loving family, enjoying being together. The child heard the most during this tape is remarkably well spoken for someone who seems to be extremely young, and the whole thing is just one charming moment after another. The tape ends oddly, with a short, unrelated recording of something that many of us used to interact with from time to time, but which I'm sure no longer exists. 

Download: A Young Family At Home

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Time for a "Very Short Reel". This is simple enough - some folks spending a few minutes making a commercial for Lux Lotion Bar

Download: Making a Lux Lotion Bar Commercial

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A 1963 College Jazz Festival, Interviewing the Family, Top 40 Radio in 1966, Some Odd Rehearsals, A One Man Hodgepodge, The Rotations of Mars and Earth, and Some Pasta!

 Howdy, 

First, I'd like to feature a couple of comments from recent posts. A frequent poster who goes by "Snoopy" made some fun comments on this post, and specifically the echoey Chicago radio segment, and also asked "What the HELL is going on?!" at the 24:24 mark. I actually meant to mention this - there was some a cappella singing at a different speed on the flip side of this tape, which somehow bled through, backwards, for the last 25 seconds or so of that radio segment. 

And as I was sure he would, Eric Paddon helpfully cleared up any confusion about the baseball recording I posted last time around. Silly me, I didn't even check to see if the dominant game heard therein was the same game as any of the previous offerings. It turns out that it was. How this game ended up on two different reels, with the end AND start of this game on one reel and the rest on another, is a real mystery. Here's what he wrote: 

Back on March 18, you had posted the Bottom 6th to beginning of the Top 8th of this same 7/3/62 game and the beginning of this post picks up exactly where the previous one left off with Jim Landis batting in the Top 8th for the first two and a half minutes. Then it gets inaudible for the next few minutes but then around the five minute mark what we're hearing when the announcer mentions Joe Azcue is batting is the Kansas City A's-Detroit Tigers first game of a doubleheader from August 1 ,1962 with George Kell announcing on the Tiger network but the July 3, 1962 game is still bleeding through at intervals during that but it is predominantly the August 1, 1962 A's-Tigers game that dominates what's audible for the next ten minutes (faintly) and then suddenly we're back in July 3, 1962 starting at the end of the Top 2nd and that continues in good quality up to the Bottom 6th when the previous recording began (except for a couple bizarre sequences where someone is doing a test at slow speed over the recording.)

I have stitched together a single file of all material from this game in the right sequence: 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6krt6umaas2hy1vmcq8qq/1962-07-03-White-Sox-vs.-Tigers-WCFL-Partial.mp3?rlkey=21niwfuyrayhhtnq6u0oo7qg0&st=hcv31y46&dl=0

Thanks!

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I'm going to start with a real (reel) winner this time, a lengthy recording of a broadcast of "The 1963 Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival". This was the third such festival, and aside from the announcer talking over a few bits of performances, it's great stuff. The legendary John Hammond even stops by for an interview. I don't think any more needs to be said. 

Download: The Third Annual Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, 1963

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Next, something else very special! A long-time reader/listener name Bram B. offered up a three inch reel of tape which had come with a vintage Westinghouse machine (the type that could only record three inch reels, and which looked, to me, more like a sewing machine!) that he had bought some time earlier. The machine did not work correctly, just enough for him to recognize the recording as a home recording of a man and some children. So he sent the tape to me! 

One side of the tape was country music recorded off of records - most of it sounded (to me) like Jim Reeves, which is always a treat. But the real worthwhile stuff was on the other side. 

As Bram first described to me - and I agree - it sounds like a family patriarch, perhaps a visiting grandfather, interviewing some young children. And it is mostly delightful - a segment in which he works way too hard to get one shy child to talk is the only blemish here. The rest is very enjoyable and I wish there was more of it. The supposition he expresses at one point that one of the children would like Batman and Robin seems to date this to the brief but intense heyday of the ABC TV show of 1966-68, so this likely a dates from around that time. 

THANKS, BRAM!

Download: A Man Interviews Some Young Family Members, circa mid-1960's

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I do not know the source of this next tape, although maybe someone out there can make some sense out of this tape box: 

The tape contains a brief lecture - source unknown - about Earth and Mars, the relative speed of each and, essentially, how a contest between the two of them around the sun might be described. That's about all I think I have to say: 

Download: Unknown - A Short Talk On the Rotations of Earth and Mars

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Tapes from the golden age of Top 40 Radio are always welcomed by many people here and on other sites, so I'm sharing this one despite it's multiple flaws. It is poorly recorded, and the recordist chose to edit out commercials and some of the deejay patter. Given that those two things are often the most valuable parts of such tapes, this is, as I said, a lesser example of such a recording. However, it is a portion of a station's top hits countdown show, and some of what the deejay had to say is still there. 

The station is WILS, Lansing, MI, and, fairly remarkably, I found an online posting of the very survey being counted down here (although it starts with a "flashback" to 1964). The date on the survey is April 6, 1966, and it can be seen here. I was quite taken with the fact that there was a local hit, presented as up-and-coming on this show, by a local group called The Plagues. Perhaps others are familiar with this group - they are well known enough to have their own Wikipedia page - but if you'd asked me if a group named after a deadly disease would have had a hit song in 1966, I'd have said that would be very unlikely. 

Download: WILS, Lansing Michigan - Portions of the Top 20 Countdown for 4-6-66

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I've titled this next segment "A One Man Hodgepodge", and I can think of no better name for it (even though a woman joins the man at the end of the segment). Over the course of these 19 minutes, you'll hear a bit of some sort of reedy instrument, some religious songs and readings (including a bit of Revelation), a bit of a fake newscast, and some guitar accompanying wordless vocalizing. At certain points, one of those categories of recording repeatedly interrupts one or more of the other categories listed. 

Download: A One Man Hodgepodge

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And now, the "Acetate of the Month". This is a pretty early Acetate, dated July of 1939, and while it initially sounds like it contains a quiz show, but after a single question, it turns out to contain ads for Fleet-Wing Gasoline, a company I've never heard of. There are three commercials in all, each containing a tricky question, which then segues into an ad for this product. 

Here's the label: 

Note that already, by 1933, radio stations and others who needed playable material were using the 33 1/3 RPM speed, a decade and a half before it was introduced for commercially available products. 

There are many and varied photos of and comments about Fleet-Wing gas stations and products, and one poster to a Fleet-Wing thread out there says the company existed from 1928 to 1970. I've never heard of them before, myself. 

Download: General Broadcasting System 12 inch Acetate - Three Fleet-Wing Announcements, 7-20-39

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". I am very happy to announce that I recently bought a small box full of three and five inch tapes, most of which contain radio ads created by the Needham Harper Steers agency, and I will be digging into this pile of tapes from time to time in upcoming posts. Here's the tape which was on top of the rest when I opened the box. There's no date on this tape (or on any of them, I don't think). It contains three ads for Mueller's Pasta, another company I've never heard of. This company, however, still exists, and according to their website, the nearest store to me carrying their products is over 60 miles away from my home. 

Download: Needham Harper Steers - Three Mueller's Pasta Ads

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More Baseball For All Star Week, A Few Short Speeches, Songs by Mike and Songs at Home, More Supreme Court and ALVIN!

It's All Star Week. And what better time of year to share yet another tape of early 1960's baseball, including part of an All Star game broadcast. 

Here's what was recorded on the first side of the tape. Most of this is game played between the White Sox and the Tigers in Detroit on July 3rd, 1962, but there are a few interruptions by other recordings, including a few double recordings along the way at another speed. And even more oddly, unless I miss my guess, it sure seems like this side of the tape begins near the end of the game mentioned, and then a short time later, it's early in the same game, and we hear the progress of the game from that point forwards. I'm not sure how that happened, but I didn't mess with this tape in any way, aside from adjusting the sound levels here and there. 

Download: (Mostly) Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers, 7-3-62

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The other side of the tape contains a recording of the national broadcast of that year's second All Star Game (yes, they had two of them for a few years), at Wrigley Field. Again, there are a few (fewer, though) interruptions by other material herein. 

I'm sure this recording is available elsewhere online, and in significantly higher quality, but I've chosen to share this recording because it has a few local ads amidst all of the national ones (many of which feature player endorsements of various products) and because it has a local break-in at one point for a news bulletin about a local, at-that-moment-in-progress criminal act. 

Download: (Mostly) The Second 1962 All-Star Game at Wrigley Field, 7-30-62

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For those of you who are not enamored of baseball (although I can't fathom that such people exist), or of these somewhat hard to listen recordings, I will add that, at the moment, I am not aware of any further baseball recordings in my collection. That said, I may find more tomorrow!

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Three posts ago, I offered up a woozy radio broadcast of speeches made by members of Toastmistresses. Today, I have another tape of speeches, made more informally - and rather randomly - by what seems to be a similar group, this time a group of men. This doesn't seem to be a Toastmasters group - the name of the group is said at one point - I think - but I can't make it out. These speeches - and some of them barely qualify as such - certainly seem more off the cuff and less prepared than other things I've heard from participants in Toastmasters. 

Download: Members of a Toastmasters-Type Group - A Few Short Speeches

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I came across a tape which contained a greeting card with the following documentation inside: 

This therefore appears to be a demo reel by someone named Mike Davidson. The tape opens with a short testimonial (the beginning is missing) from someone clearly trying to sell someone else on this person's talents, and then the songs listed are heard. At some point, this tape of recommendation (or perhaps a copy) found its way back to the artist, and he seems to have sent it on to someone else, with an addition: As indicated by the handwritten note at the bottom of the typed list, there is a second version of one of the songs, arranged and produced later than the original version, which Mike Davidson apparently thought was a considerable improvement on the original. 

I have been unable to find out anything about this songwriter/performer, so maybe he never "made it" to any degree, but if anyone out there knows who he is/was and what happened to him, please share that information in the comments. 

Download: Mike Davidson - Songs by Mike Davidson

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Here is what the outside of the card looks like - the picture is shared upside down so that you can see the writing on the back

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In my last two posts, I featured the first two in a three episode series of "Continental Classroom" episodes, from February of 1963, all about The Supreme Court. Here is the last of the three programs I found on that reel. Actually, the most interesting thing here may be the short segment of the start of The Today Show from that same date, which was captured after the Classroom episode ended. 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-14-63 - The Supreme Court, Part Three - The Court's Work Load (and a bit of The Today Show)

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Now here's something which I just love. I don't know how much those of you out there enjoy it, so I don't force feed it to you, but if this site was just for me, there'd be something like this every single time I came across it. 

Basically, it's people at home, playing instruments and singing, for their own enjoyment. I should clarify that it's people who are capable of playing and singing well, and not things like our pal Pete, from a bit earlier this year. I don't mean to say that these are virtuosos, but this is a lovely little listen for those who enjoy down-home folks making down-home music. 

At various points in this recording, there is ukulele, guitar (sounding like a mandolin at times), simple drumming and a recorder-like instrument (I'm not sure that's what it is), along with the singing.  There are several songs performed during the nearly half hour of music, including "Memories Are Made of This" (one of the greatest songs ever written, and done here simply and very sweetly), "You Tell Me Your Dream", "Chinatown", "Bye Bye Blues" and "Who's Sorry Now", among several others. There is a conversation early on, about some local radio performer and his take off on "The Old Philosopher", as well as a lame joke about Mayor Daley of Chicago, but once that's over, it's music, music, music.

That is, until about the 28th minute. I will say no more, besides to say that the last three minutes and ten seconds are something else entirely - several something else's - and that it's best if I let you listen without telling you what to expect. 

Download: Unknown - Music At Home (and a Bit More)

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For this post's "Very Short Reel".... well, this is more than a bit of a cheat. This came at the end of 35 or 40 minutes worth of someone's recording of the soundtrack to the film "Gigi". The person who recorded the album for later enjoyment (presumably him, anyway), chose to "back-announce" what the listener had just heard by doing a quick, brief "Alvin the Chipmunk" impersonation, and then interacting with "Alvin". Here is that bit of tape: 

Download: Unknown: "Alvin" Back-Announces the Album

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Some Possibly Rare and Definitely Awful Johnny Carson, Beautiful Army Music, More Phone Training

Hellooooo, 

For the first offering today, I'm going to share something I believe to be quite rare. At least, I've been unable to find a trace of this recording online anywhere. In 1969-70, Johnny Carson produced four prime time specials, consisting of big name stars doing skits with Carson, much the same as the skits he would often do during one of the segments of his TV show, except this would be an entire episode of such skits. As I said, I can't find hide nor hair of this work anywhere out there in the internet tubes. Maybe it's there and I missed it.

These shows appear to have gone over like a lead balloon. I've found two reviews of them - one from the New York Times the next day, and one from The Village Voice nearly a month later. Despite the time lag on the latter, they both seem to reflect the writers' thoughts on this particular special, and not one of the other three. For the Times review, this is obvious - the writer takes Carson to task for the adolescent and prurient nature of the material - which is absolutely a reference to this episode. As you'll hear, the skits involved are wholly stupid and about on the level of a 12 year old. For the Voice review, it mentions the same stars being in the episode as are heard here (and also references the sixth grade level of the material, a thought that occurred to me separate from the review). The Times review is here. The Voice review is here. 

Oh, and the sound quality here is abysmal. This was recorded extremely softly, and I boosted it about 500%. There is interference from jazz recorded on the other channel at times, and an astoundingly annoying high pitched whine/whistle at other times. On the other hand, the commercials are preserved, making this a nice time capsule from that aspect. The recording stops suddenly at the 52:38 minute mark, meaning we miss the final commercials and last segment of the show. 

Download: The Johnny Carson Special - 11-12-69

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There has been a lot of good response here to recordings of Beautiful Music programming. This short tape - while it qualifies in that category - is a bit different from other such programming, in that it seems to have come from a radio station or perhaps some sort of closed circuit programming which was housed in and directed at the residents of an army base. Rather than commercials, there are frequent plugs for different events and activities on the base. 

Download: Beautiful Music Programming from an Army Base Radio Station

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I called this next one "Telephone Call Examples for Service Observing People". That's a pretty weird and clumsy name, but that's how the tape is introduced. This is yet another in a large number of 1960's telephone training tapes I bought many years ago. 

Download: Telephone Call Examples for Service Observing People

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Last time around, I shared a fairly lengthy tape of WBBM-FM, Chicago, during its "Young Sound" days. Here is another tape from the same collection, featuring three Chicago stations, from roughly the same time period, marred, in this case, by a significant amount of odd and annoying echo. The stations are WBBM (again), WJJD and WNUS. 

Download: Chicago Radio, Late 1960's (with a lot of Echo) - WBBM, WJJD & WNUS

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This next tape is called "Benny Miller's Birthday Party". This is a small get together of a few friends and relatives, and I think that's pretty much all I'll say about it. No, it isn't. I'll say one thing: this seems to feature a time, place and type of people that have been completely extinguished in 21st Century America. Perhaps I'm totally wrong, and my lack of experience of this sort of gang is an accident of my place of birth, type of upbringing, education or whatever. I just wonder if any get birthday get togethers or other small gatherings sound remotely like this, anymore. 

Download: Benny and His Guests - Benny Miller's Birthday Party

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Also last time around (just like the Chicago Radio material), I shared part one of a three part series on The Supreme Court, as presented in February of 1963 on the TV educations program, "Continental Classroom". Here is part two of that series: 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-13-63 - The Supreme Court, Part Two - Restraints on the Court

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And now, for our "Acetate of the Month". This is one that I've labeled, as you can see, "Dragnet Parody and R. M. Cunningham Narrating An Anniversary Party, Circa 1955. It starts with a parody of "Dragnet", featuring an incident which is described as having occurred at an intersection on the southwest side of Chicago, an incident described as having occurred in 1930. The suspect in the story was returning from a wedding, presumably the wedding for which the anniversary that "Bobby Cunningham" narrates, over the second half of the record. He tells stories of the wedding day and other events from around that time, including some surreptitious alcohol supplying and imbibing from the prohibition era. An odd and entertaining record. I'm guessing the record is from 1955, given the reference to a 25th anniversary and the earlier reference to 1930. 

Download: Dragnet Parody and R. M. Cunningham Narrating an Anniversary Party, Circa 1955

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A piece of paper was taped to the above acetate, as seen below, giving me the latter part of this track's name (and the "R.M." instead of "Bob"). It says 1951, but 1930 plus 25 is 1955, and I'm going with that. 

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And lastly, here is another "Very Short Reel". The title of this one explains this well, too. Some early elementary children sing and say nursery rhymes and/or offer birthday wishes to one of their classmates, Mike. The sounds quality is iffy as the tape was poorly stored and is damaged.

By the way, in the song "Itsy Bitsy Spider", the sun dries up the rain. It doesn't "wash away" the rain - which is what they sing here - that doesn't even make sense! Sheesh. 

Download: Some Elementary School Children - Happy Birthday Mike and Nursery Rhymes

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The Young Sound of '68, Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers, The Supreme Court in 1963, a Combo in 1966, TV School, and THE RETURN OF PETE!

Greetings! 

It's been almost a month since my last posting - again due to stuff here at home - and I may not get another post out this month, so I'm going to share a LOT of stuff here, five and a half hour's worth. 

Just a few quick comments before I get to this week's offerings. Regarding a short tape I included in my last post - the end of a broadcast day at an Indiana station - Chad offered up the following: 

Wow! That's almost certainly the only extant recording of WHFS, which only appears in radio directories from 1956 through 1958. There were a lot of short lived FM radio stations in the early days, the technology being new and slow to catch on. Airchecks of any radio station from this era are rare, FM Radio airchecks of this era are nearly non-existent, to begin with but to find one from such a short lived station is practically a Holy Grail!

In that case, I am extremely glad to have found/shared it. 

Regarding an item in a post three months ago featuring a lot of unknown music as heard on powerhouse Top 40 station WINS, Ken had this suggestion: 

One other thing that occurred to me after my post above. Murray the K was on WINS. He had a nightly feature where he'd play 5 new records and listeners would vote on them. The weekday winners would be in the "finals" on Saturday night. This meant that he was playing 25 new records each week, many of which were never heard again. I'm willing to bet a lot of those unknown tracks are from those shows.

Thanks, guys, and thanks to everyone for such great comments. I appreciate your visits, your reading and your listening. 

~~

Full radio airchecks - of any vintage and any format - seem to be a favorite of many of you out there reading this site, so I will start with a couple of recordings, found on either side of a reel of tape, of a rather esoteric and fairly short lived format, one that I can't believe was ever successful. And it happened right here in Chicago. 

The station was WBBM-FM and it was the late 1960's. You can read about it right here. The powers that be wanted to appeal to young people - I would guess those under 25 - but not play any of that icky rock and roll. So - and I'll paraphrase Wikipedia here - one would hear bland instrumental cover versions of recent hits, pop instrumentals (distinctly on the Herb Alpert end of things), and rock-adjacent-but-not-really-rock vocal hits such as those from Petula Clark.

They called this "The Young Sound". Yeah. "The Young Sound."

I don't have the ratings books from 1966-1970, but "The Young" of Chicago could not possibly have been listening in droves to "The Young Sound" on WBBM in 1968. They weren't MOR-ons. 

The first side of this tape seems to have been made "open air" in someone's home - you can hear all manner of conversation and noises in the background and sometimes close to being in the foreground. Not so on the flip side. The first side is likely from 1968. The second side is definitely from September 18th, 1968, based on some of the news reported therein. The deejay is Bud Kelly. The linked Wikipedia article makes it sound like Bud Kelly was the ONLY deejay there. 

Download: Bud Kelly on WBBM-FM, Chicago, 'The Young Sound", circa 1968 (with background sound)

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Download: Bud Kelly on WBBM-FM, Chicago, 'The Young Sound', 9-18-68

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~~

On to some live show-band stuff. In addition to the comments above, I also heard from frequent poster and friend of both of my blogs, Timmy, who expressed his undying love for bar/lounge acts. I'm not sure this is exactly up his alley, but if not, it is probably close. 

I have recently discovered that I have a treasure trove of tapes featuring the performances of a troupe variously identified on these tapes as "Styles" and as "The Jack Dodd Shaffer Quintet". I may not have that latter name quite right, and the different stage names may have depended on how many members were in the band (it appears to have varied) or perhaps the name changed during their existence as a group. And I don't have a name to attach to this particular performance, as the name of the combo is not on the box and doesn't appear to be spoken during the recording. 

All of the tapes feature the same basic shows, with some variety as to the particular songs played and the sketches and humor included. 

That's right, sketches and humor. The act, on most of these tapes, contains set pieces, some of them rather lengthy, all of them moronic and most of them built around vapid jokes of a sexual nature that barely qualify as adolescent humor. I'm sure it was all a bit risqué for the 1960's, at least in some environs. Perhaps those who thought this stuff was funny and/or cutting edge were the same people who thought 17 year olds in 1968 wanted to hear Petula Clark and instrumental version of the Doors. It all ties together, doesn't it? 

Anyway, there is A LOT MORE where this came from, if anyone is interested, or even if no one is interested. So now, for your dining, dancing and laughing pleasure, here they are, the whatever-their-name-was-band, straight from New Year's Day, 1966 at Dick's Rancho Inn in Millbrook, New York. I can't find the tape box at the moment, which is odd, because I just digitized this tape three weeks ago, but the above information is written on the box, and I'll add a scan, when I find it. 

This is for you, Timmy! And if you, or anyone else wants more, let me know: 

Download: Unknown Combo - Music and Comedy at Dick's Rancho Inn, Millbrook, New York, 1-1-66

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And speaking of music that some people can't get enough of, and others wish there was none of, I now present the second of two features on PETE! In my last post, I shared one tape that Pete made, in which he apparently collected a bunch of his older tapes, onto a five inch reel. 

On this tape, Pete did the same, with some comments here and there. But this time, for whatever reason, Pete frequently chose to sing along with the tapes he was copying, with the original on the left channel and the new, further vocal accompaniments on the right channel. The thing is - and here I will quote what I wrote last month: "These performances are, to use the technical term, awful. And it does not appear that Pete was particularly aware of this."

I wrote a lot more about Pete in that last post, and I won't repeat that or go on about him here. The following are the two sides of this tape. The first side, as indicated by its title, contains some other, non-Pete recordings at the end, including the odd juxtapositioning of a bawdy, double entendre 78 RPM record with a religiously themed record. 

Download: Pete - Pete's Hootenanny, Part One (and a Bit of Potpourri)

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Download: Pete - Pete's Hootenanny, Part Two

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As with the other tape, Pete chose to fill nearly every inch of the outside of the tape box with writings about the tape's contents, as you can see: 

Additionally, he included four scraps of paper and cardboard with further information. Well, three with further information and one with a partial ad for Volkswagen. 

He also wrote on the inside of the box: 

~~

Bishop Fulton Sheen was, during his lifetime, one of the most famous men in the country. Read about him, if you'd like at the link I just shared. So when I found a tape called "Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers", I figured it was probably a recording that was readily available online. But... that doesn't appear to be the case, unless my searching simply failed to turn it up. This recording appears to be from a television broadcast, rather than a record, so maybe that's why it's not out there somewhere (unless it is). This actually goes in a few directions I wasn't expecting, before landing on the same old reciting of expectations that I knew were coming at some point. Here is that tape: 

Download: Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers

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"Continental Classroom" was - to directly quote Wikipedia this time - "a U.S. educational television program that was broadcast on the NBC network five days a week in the early morning from 1958 to 1963, covering physics, chemistry, mathematics, and American government. It was targeted at teachers and college students and many institutions offered college credit for courses of which the broadcasts were the main component." 

I have featured the program here before - at some point, I obtained a LARGE collection of tapes made of a wide range of media recordings, including, in several cases, episodes of this show. 

With the Supreme Court in the news seemingly every three days nowadays, I thought I'd share the recordings of a three part series on the court, which aired in February of 1963. I'll share one segment per post for the next three posts. Here is the first one: 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-12-63 - The Supreme Court, Part One

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~~

And now for an EXTREMELY Short "Very Short Reel". At 43 seconds, it's not the shortest segment featured at the end of a post, but it's close. I've called it "A Brother and Sister and Their Dad". And I'll let you enjoy its pleasures without saying anything else. 

Download: A Brother and Sister and Their Dad

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Toastmistresses, A Fairly Generic Rock Band, Pete and his Musical Limitations, The End of the Broadcast Day, and MR. PERSONALITY

Hi, everyone, 

Well, I said things might slow down here and, as I wrote in my most recent post on my other blog, they sure enough have. I want to explain that an immediate family member has received a serious diagnosis and has had two surgeries since my last post. Since I posted to my other site, things are looking up, and hopefully in June I can get back to two posts a month, or... I might not. I hope you will continue to visit and view, read and listen whenever I do post. 

A few comments, first: 

In my last post here, I offered up, without much comment, a short recording from Armed Forces radio, which I included only for completeness sake, as I was much more interested in the material on the other side of the tape. However, I received the following comment, from Chad S. about that Armed Forces material, which indicates that it is far more interesting than I thought: 

At the very end of the Armed Forces Radio Service tape is a brief ID of "VOUS" that gets cut off by the end of the tape. This would appear to be the actual call letters of the American Forces radio station in St. John's and later moved to Argentia, Newfoundland, Canada. Older Newfie stations can still retain their VO- calls from before the province joined Canada in 1949. The base at Argentia shut down in 1993, but it appears the tiny 250 watt station shut down some time before that.

This tiny clip is an absolutely amazing find and possibly the only extant audio of this station!

https://www.radioheritage.com/llri50-post/

And, as I expected, Eric P. returned with a couple of comments on the baseball recording that I posted, including the following: 

1-We start with the ending of the 9/12/59 CBS Game of the Week TV audio (Tigers-Yankees) with Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner announcing that we heard an earlier portion of on the other tape posted.

2-At the four minute mark, we find ourselves at the end of the Bottom of the 3rd inning on August 20, 1959, again Yankees-Tigers. This is the Tiger radio network and the announcer is George Kell. Action is continuous through the Bottom 6th to the end of the tape. The Tigers pad their lead from 6-2 to 11-2 in a game they ultimately won 14-2. The station ID is WKZO-Kalamazoo.

Thanks to Eric and Chad, and to everyone who comments, and everyone who listens!

(As an aside, I have, just in the last couple of days, found another tape with over three hours of baseball recordings on it - I have not listened to it yet, as I just digitized it yesterday - but will share it here in the future.)

~~

Let's start with a tape which reflects a couple of different things which have not existed for a good many years. It is a tape featuring two speeches by members of the "Toastmistress Club", as heard during what appears to have been a radio broadcast. As it says on the page linked, the Toastmistresses had their own club from 1938 until 1985, so this tape could not be less than 40 years old. It's clearly older than that - my other out-of-date thought is that such speeches being broadcast on the radio places this in the early 1960's at the latest. 

Three other things about this tape. First, much of the recording is marred by being doubly recording - some classical recording can be heard throughout more than the first half of the tape, as well as a bit of announcer talk at one point. And second, the machine on which this broadcast was recorded was not working well at all, and the speed of the recording goes up and down, wreaking havoc on the women's voices. And third, not only is the beginning of the first speech missing, the recording starts and stops a couple of times, causing us to miss bits of each speech. 

The last 50 seconds of this tape feature some children being children, followed by a very brief moment of another radio broadcast. 

Download: Two Short Speeches by Members of Toastmistresses (and a bit more)

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Next up, I know nothing about this tape - or this band - beyond what I think is stated after the first song: that this is Miss Patsy Van Simon singing with a band. I could well have that name wrong - feel free to write in if you think you're hearing it better, or especially if you think you know who this is (beyond the name). Anyway, it's a combo playing just about the sort of repertoire you might have heard from a bar band or a wedding band at some point, especially if you weren't paying too much for them. 

There is no audience here, but they are clearly going through said repertoire, and at the end, in the absence of a crowd, they applaud themselves. So was this a demo? I doubt it. A rehearsal? That seems more likely. 

Download: Miss Patsy Van Simon and Her Band

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And now something extremely esoteric. A fellow named Pete - he says his last name a few times here, but I'm not sure I'm hearing it right (as with the above) - had recorded a set of (apparently small) tapes at some point earlier in the 1960's. He mentions multiple dates on these tapes - the tape box reads 1967 - and I'm guessing there are recordings from multiple year copied here. These are all tapes in which {ete sang (badly) with his guitar (tuned and played badly) on one side and without his guitar on the other. At some point, Pete apparently decided to simplify his collection and made copies of his tapes onto another tape, with minimal comment as to their content. That's what we have here. 

The first side, as this tape came to me, starts off with Pete calling it "Side Two", but that may mean side two of whichever older tape he was copying, since on the other side, he refers to it as "This Side", in comparison with the other side of the tape. I may be overthinking this. 

These performances are, to use the technical term, awful. And it does not appear that Pete was particularly aware of this. In fact, I have another tape (which I'll share later) where Pete consolidates even more of his old tapes onto another reel, copying them onto the left channel, while he sings along with himself, anew, on the right channel. 

These go out to a reader/listener with whom I have been having a delightful email exchange with, about terrible records and performances. Enjoy!

Download:  Pete - Pete Sings With His Guitar, One Part

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Download: Pete - Pete Sings Without His Guitar, Another Part

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Pete wrote all over the tape box and also put stickers on both sides of the reel, to sum up everything captured on this tape. See?: 

 

  

He also included copious notes, four pages of them. Here is one: 

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Here's a neat little reel I found recently. Shortly before her father's death, then-Princess Elizabeth made a trip across Canada, which, based on what I've just read, was supposed to have been made by the king, but he was too ill. This little tape simply captures a variety of reports made before and during that visit, and ends with a speech by the princess just before her departure from the country. The tape ends just as she starts speaking in French, so we unfortunately miss the point at which John Astin rushed the stage and began kissing her up her arm, saying "Princess, You Spoke French!"

Download: Coverage of Princess Elizabeth's Visit to Canada, Fall, 1951

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The next tape is little more than a fragment - under eight minutes of radio recording. But it does feature something rarely heard these days (except from those relatively few remaining AM stations which are licensed for daylight broadcasting only). It's the end of the broadcast day, as heard on WHFS, South Bend, IN, on some long-ago day (or rather, night). You'll hear some classical music, then some station ID backdrop music with an announcer ending his show ("The Wax Museum"), and previewing his next episode (which sounds like an interesting broadcast, actually). Then another announcer does Marine Corps ad, offers up some items of interest about the station and closes up shop for the night with the National Anthem (complete with a moment of un-syncopated rhythm where there usually is syncopation). They were not returning for broadcast again until the next day at 1 PM. What's that about? 

Download: WHFS, South Bend, IN - End of the Broadcast Day

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Nearly every post, I end with a "Very Short Reel", and this week is no exception. But before that, here's a "Very VERY Short Acetate" - all 91 seconds of it - as my "Acetate of the Month". I labeled it as "Man Speaks About 'Protocol M'", and at that time, I did not find anything more about it. I've now searched again, and discovered that the man is reading an editorial from Time Magazine, dated 4/19/48. You can read it here. The acetate space runs out just before the man finishes his reading. 

Download: Unlabeled Black 6 Inch Acetate -Man Speaks About "Protocol M"

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And now for the aforementioned "Very Short Reel". This tape, of just under five minutes, starts with a man introducing himself as "Mr. Personality". He then babbles on for a few minutes, telling some ancient jokes along the way, in a very poorly recorded segment. Then the sound improves, and it's Christmastime - a group of folks test the microphone and levels, and continue this process, and to discuss it, for far longer than seems necessary to me. 

Download: Mr. Personality and Checking the Levels

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