Before I get to this week's posting, I wanted to share with everyone that, as a result of the collecting passion reflected every time I post here - the collecting and sharing of interesting recordings found on reel to reel tapes - I have now been featured on a major podcast called Ephemeral. The story in question is about Merigail Moreland, who I featured at WFMU many years ago. The show is about 40 minutes long, and can be heard here. Please give it a listen when you have the time. I think you'll find it worthwhile.
~~
And I also thought I would use this last day of June, 2019, to share a few tapes which demonstrate some of the extreme variety I come across when I grab a bunch of tapes for review. These are four fairly distinct recordings, all interesting in their own ways, although perhaps not the most pleasant to listen to at times.
Let's start with the one which is, perhaps, less pleasant to listen to, shall we. I've simply labeled this "Some truly idiosyncratic singing", although you may choose to define it somewhat differently. This segment - less than ten minutes - was virtually the only thing recorded on full length tape (1200 ft - 60 minutes recording time at 7 1/2 IPS) in question. No extra points for getting through the whole segment.
Download: Unknown - Some Truly Idiosyncratic Singing
Play:
Next up, a true moment in time, a moment unlike any we're likely to experience in 21st Century America, or that any of us are likely to have experienced in the last 30 years, I'd venture to say. You see, it's the 1950's, and a new Nestle factory is going to be built in White Plains, New York. A Nestle representative is there from Europe, and the local Catholic Priest is going to offer up a prayer for the event, which is the laying of the cornerstone for the factory. AND: It's being covered, live, on the radio. Those were the days, huh?
Download: Coverage of the Laying of the Cornerstone at a Nestle Factory
Play:
The third tape I've served up for you is another in a series of tapes I acquired some time ago from various local Bell Telephone companies. In this case, it's the Ohio Bell Telephone company, taking us back to the 1960's (I would guess, anyway), when we all had landlines, and they were all from the same company. Here's an internal training tape demonstrating the many ways that phone service could be... less than adequate:
Download: Ohio Bell Telephone Company - Transmission Impairments
Play:
And finally, for all of you who need a heat pump this week, here is an indication of who you should call. At least, if you're in Arkansas.
Download: Three Arkansas Heat Pump Association Ads
Play:
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
WCHB, Detroit - Live from the Michigan State Fair, August, 1963
Hello!
First, I'd like to acknowledge that a helpful commenter or two (not sure if it was one person or two), has/have provided more information about the rock and roll TV show I shared last time around. That updated post can be found here.
Today, I have something just as keen, or maybe even more so. I've had this tape in one of my stacks for ages, but just discovered its contents in the last two weeks. Most of this tape is filled up with an amazing aircheck from a station called WCHB in Detroit.
Wikipedia reports that the station was briefly a top 40 station in 1963, before going to all country, and this tape, which can only be from August of 1963, certainly would predate that sort of switch. But this is NOT a top 40 station, so Wikipedia seems to be a it off.
This is clearly an R & B station, hosted by an African-American dee-jay, whose name I can't quite grasp, and who is broadcasting from the Michigan State Fair in Detroit. He uses an amazing, and absolutely wonderful amount of reverb (I love reverb), talks over records, comments on things, interviews fair-goers, and does commercials.
Unfortunately, there are points at which the dee-jay material is cut off and we slide right into the next song, but there is a LOT of prime AM radio from 1963 here. And I'm fairly certain that, among my tapes this is the first one of an R & B station that I've come across. There are a lot of songs here that I've never heard before, or even heard of, and this is among my favorite eras for music.
(It's worth recalling that it was around this time that Billboard decided to discontinue R & B charts, feeling at least in part - and I know there were other reasons - that R & B was so well integrated into top 40 that having two charts was redundant. Just this 70 minutes or so proves how inaccurate that was).
Anyway, enjoy this for all it's worth. It's one of my favorite new finds of the last few years.
Download: WCHB, Detroit - Live from the Michigan State Fair, August, 1963
Play:
The remainder of the tape is made up of the same person's recording of multiple stations, presumably in the Detroit area, and from very much the same general time period. If one ever needed to hear the distinction between the stuff that really had it going on, and the more whitebread aspects of top 40 radio, in the summer of 1963, one could hardly do better than to contrast the above tape with the start of the remaining material, which features "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton.
Download: Various Detroit Stations, Late Summer, 1963
Play:
~~
And now, because this is my 59th birthday, I'm going to indulge a bit, and share with you a 150 second blast of my own family's tape collection, recorded by and with my mother, in January of 1964, just 4-5 months after the above, and featuring two brief renditions of a song most small children would have known in those days, "I Love Little Pussy", and a somewhat longer version of another song most children of any age would not have known in those days, "There is a Tavern in the Town".
I am, in the case of "Tavern", doing my 3 1/2 year old best to yodel in the style of a record that was, and is, a great family favorite, Wally Cox' rendition of the song, which you can hear here. Seriously, listen to that first - it will help make my version make more sense. Sort of.
I enjoy how I stop to make mention - in the middle of saying a stream of incorrect and non-existent words - of how I've just said the wrong words. You'll also hear me excitedly talk about how daddy sings the song.
I hope you find some enjoyment in this.
Download: Bobby Purse - I Love Little Pussy & Tavern in the Town
Play:
By the way, that Wally Cox record is a contender for my favorite 100 records ever, and even so, it's outranked by the Rudy Vallee version, which may be my favorite comic recording ever.
First, I'd like to acknowledge that a helpful commenter or two (not sure if it was one person or two), has/have provided more information about the rock and roll TV show I shared last time around. That updated post can be found here.
Today, I have something just as keen, or maybe even more so. I've had this tape in one of my stacks for ages, but just discovered its contents in the last two weeks. Most of this tape is filled up with an amazing aircheck from a station called WCHB in Detroit.
Wikipedia reports that the station was briefly a top 40 station in 1963, before going to all country, and this tape, which can only be from August of 1963, certainly would predate that sort of switch. But this is NOT a top 40 station, so Wikipedia seems to be a it off.
This is clearly an R & B station, hosted by an African-American dee-jay, whose name I can't quite grasp, and who is broadcasting from the Michigan State Fair in Detroit. He uses an amazing, and absolutely wonderful amount of reverb (I love reverb), talks over records, comments on things, interviews fair-goers, and does commercials.
Unfortunately, there are points at which the dee-jay material is cut off and we slide right into the next song, but there is a LOT of prime AM radio from 1963 here. And I'm fairly certain that, among my tapes this is the first one of an R & B station that I've come across. There are a lot of songs here that I've never heard before, or even heard of, and this is among my favorite eras for music.
(It's worth recalling that it was around this time that Billboard decided to discontinue R & B charts, feeling at least in part - and I know there were other reasons - that R & B was so well integrated into top 40 that having two charts was redundant. Just this 70 minutes or so proves how inaccurate that was).
Anyway, enjoy this for all it's worth. It's one of my favorite new finds of the last few years.
Download: WCHB, Detroit - Live from the Michigan State Fair, August, 1963
Play:
The remainder of the tape is made up of the same person's recording of multiple stations, presumably in the Detroit area, and from very much the same general time period. If one ever needed to hear the distinction between the stuff that really had it going on, and the more whitebread aspects of top 40 radio, in the summer of 1963, one could hardly do better than to contrast the above tape with the start of the remaining material, which features "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton.
Download: Various Detroit Stations, Late Summer, 1963
Play:
~~
And now, because this is my 59th birthday, I'm going to indulge a bit, and share with you a 150 second blast of my own family's tape collection, recorded by and with my mother, in January of 1964, just 4-5 months after the above, and featuring two brief renditions of a song most small children would have known in those days, "I Love Little Pussy", and a somewhat longer version of another song most children of any age would not have known in those days, "There is a Tavern in the Town".
I am, in the case of "Tavern", doing my 3 1/2 year old best to yodel in the style of a record that was, and is, a great family favorite, Wally Cox' rendition of the song, which you can hear here. Seriously, listen to that first - it will help make my version make more sense. Sort of.
I enjoy how I stop to make mention - in the middle of saying a stream of incorrect and non-existent words - of how I've just said the wrong words. You'll also hear me excitedly talk about how daddy sings the song.
I hope you find some enjoyment in this.
Download: Bobby Purse - I Love Little Pussy & Tavern in the Town
Play:
By the way, that Wally Cox record is a contender for my favorite 100 records ever, and even so, it's outranked by the Rudy Vallee version, which may be my favorite comic recording ever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)