Late Night Gossip Radio, New York City, 1959-1960

Before I get to another quartet of tapes, I wanted to continue with the "Scotch Tape Box" series, which you can follow by clicking the link for "Scotch Tape box History" at the bottom of this post. I'm going to do my best to share these in chronological order, although I'm not sure on a couple of styles, but this post is the exception. 

Because while the 3 inch, 5 inch and 7 inch boxes produced by scotch each went through myriad changes during the '50's, they seemed to have largely stayed with one style, throughout, for their 10 inch product. Maybe they were setting it apart because it was even more likely than the other products to be used by professionals in the recording studio (and indeed, this was a sales point, right on the box). Regardless, every ten inch Scotch reel I've found from the early days (and admittedly, I haven't seen that many) has looked like this: 

Similarly, every Scotch box I've ever seen with this design has been a ten inch reel. I don't think they ever housed smaller reels in boxes that looked like this.

That box has considerable wear. This particular tape is one of six 10 inch reels my family owned and used, all of them filled before I was born in 1960, and this is the only Scotch brand one of the six. The others were all Audiotape brand. Unlike almost all our family's early tapes, there are no personal family recordings on this tape - it contains a performance of a Paganini violin piece and a collection of live Benny Goodman performances.

~~

Not so very long ago, I obtained a couple of five inch audiotape reels, labeled professionally with a "TV Time Recordings" logo, and featuring segments of "The Bea Kalmus Show" on WMGM radio, New York, dated exactly two months apart, and both of them featuring a local New York starlet named Fairfield Mason. I'm certain these came from Mason's collection or that of her family, as each tape is clearly excerpted from a much longer radio show.

And what a show it must have been. I'm not particularly a fan of this "gossip column on the air" style of radio, which Irv Kupcinent did for years here in Chicago. In fact, I find it aggressive in its vapidity. On the other hand, its certainly a snap-shot in time, and a time where this version of show-biz might have felt quite strong and steady, even though it was nearing the end of the line.

Bea Kalmus is written up in a few places as the first female DJ in the country, and I have no idea if that's true. She also made albums, appeared in a forgotten film titled "Disk Jockey" (which I would love to see, as it also features an appearance by the Weavers - but no one seems to have it) and would sometimes sing along with the records that she played. In between, on her late night show, which came from a local restaurant (as did Kupcinent's), she would interview the stage, screen and music stars who were in town.

If Bea Kalmus' star has faded to almost nothing - and significant mentions of her on the web are minimal - Fairfax Mason, the guest heard here, does not appear to have been much of a star even in 1959 or 1960. The potential Broadway show she mentions in each broadcast does not appear to have ever come to fruition, and she has only one Broadway credit to her name, a small part in "How to Succeed", a few years later. A deeper search in Google Books finds that she was still working as a singer/entertainer in 1992, at what appears to have been a small New York club. But Bea treats her as if she was Ethel Merman.

I, for one, cannot stand Fairfax Mason's laugh.

Here are both tapes, from November 26th, 1959 and January 26, 1960, dates which nicely book-ended Mason's trip to Newfoundland, where I'm sure it's quite lovely at the start of winter. The second interview is nearly twice as long as the first.

Download: The Bea Kalmus Show, with Fairfax Mason - 11/26/59
Play:


Download: The Bea Kalmus Show, with Fairfax Mason - 1/26/60
Play:

~~

Going in about as random a different direction as I could, here is a bit of virulently right wing propaganda - John Birch Society style - railing against the United Nations. I only have tape four of the series, and if I had more, I'd annoy you with those, too. By the way, the crackling sound is on the original tape. A quick search shows that Mary Davison wrote multiple books on this and related subjects, and was called a "whistleblower about the United Nations" at least once.

Download: Mary Davison - The United Nations, Tape Four
Play:

~~

And finally, something very nice randomly selected by my towering stack of Very Short Tapes (this series can also be linked, at the bottom of this post). This one turned out to be a Demo Reel for legendary voice-over talent Hal Douglas, who was particularly well known for his narration of movie trailers. Here he is heard in a series of commercials and segments of commercials, in a demo reel for potential customers.

Download: Hal Douglas - Voice Talent Demo Reel
Play: