First up: It was earlier last year that I discovered that a podcast had used one of my most ridiculous songs - titled "A Sailing Milk Moustache" - as the introductory music for their year-end show. I reached out to the person behind the podcast, and, after quite a bit of conversation, ended up doing a lengthy interview with him for one of his episodes, all about my history, in terms of my collecting and, particularly, my humorous songs. I was then invited to be a part of this year's New Year's Eve/New Year's Day special.
Interestingly, the show's general theme is (this is from their website): "A podcast and Website dedicated to understanding the world in which we live from a Christian worldview perspective", although nothing remotely in that area came up in the two shows I was part of.
My interview can be found here, and the New Year show - which I am only part of sporadically, can be heard here.
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And second, I am indebted to Tony, who recently posted with regard to my recent 1949/1951 home recording post, that, having discerned a reference to Time for Beany, it was clear that this family resided in the Los Angeles area, as that puppet show was a local phenomenon at the time. Thanks!
As a side note, I would encourage everyone reading to find some early Time for Beany, the episodes with Stan Freberg and Daws Butler basically (I believe) improvising the show. There are episodes available in various formats, including youtube, It's among the funniest stuff I've ever seen.
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So, on with the countdown!
The most interesting of today's four offerings is probably this mish-mash of recordings off of Chicago radio. It lasts just over 37 minutes, and as far as I can tell, it's all from the AM band, with the exception of a few brief moments of home conversation, made over the earlier radio recordings. The dominant station here is broadcasting an appearance by Governor George Wallace, one of his first appearances after his assassination attempt, at the time of the Democratic Convention, which places this recording definitively in July of 1972. Whoever was recording this day flips back to this news coverage multiple times, and it makes up a good portion of the recording. Bernard Shaw, later to become very well known on CNN, is among the reporters heard. Other stations are heard only momentarily, such as the one playing an Eagles record, and still others are heard for too long for my taste, particularly a bit of religious blather which is fairly far outside my own ideas about faith.
All in all, a neat little time capsule.
Download: Chicago AM Radio, July 1972
Play:
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Moving back in time 14 years, here is an 1958 episode of a 15 minute show, produced by the Archdiocese of Chicago, and titled "The Catholic View". This show dates to a point in time when a local Cardinal, Samuel Stritch by name, received a deep honor from the Pope and the Vatican, and departed Chicago with great fanfare, to fulfill his new role, only to encounter unexpected tragedy along the way. I have found at least three tapes (perhaps all from the same collection) recorded at different points in this saga, and this one does not complete the story. If I can find one or both of the others, I will share it next time. The whole thing sounds like something out of a medical drama or even The Twilight Zone, so sudden and severe and unlikely are the highs and lows this man experienced. If you want to get "the rest of the story" a bit faster, you can read a very brief explanation of it at the end of his Wikipedia page, and after that, you can wonder what he might have thought about his niece, Elaine Stritch.
Download: The Catholic View, May 1958 - Pray for Cardinal Stritch
Play:
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Next up, I'll offer a bit of explanation. Quite some time ago, I offered up an ad that I found in the midst of a tape of a "Beautiful Music" station, and mentioned that this is where it came from. Someone asked me to post that full segment, commenting that there is very little record of what "Beautiful Music" stations sounded like. Well, I couldn't find that tape - I may well have sold it. I often bundle together tapes which don't have anything interesting (to me) on them and sell them on eBay. But I've found a segment of another station, WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, complete with drab music and equally drab sponsors.
This segment is about 64 minutes long. I believe it's possible that the last 18 minutes are NOT from a radio broadcast, but rather, are all tracks from the same album. There is a sound (at 45:50) which might be a recorder being switched off or back on at that point, and the next song fades in. The final few tracks sound like they could all be from the same album. But I'm certainly not sure.
If anyone wants to hear more of this sort of material, I can post it as I come across it.
Download: WBNS, Columbus, Ohio - Beautiful Music Programming
Play:
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Finally, as part of the ongoing "Very Short Reels" feature, here's the next one I pulled out of the stack. It's a simple, 30 second ad for a Disney film that I don't remember ever even knowing existed, "Atlantis: The Lost Empire". That's odd, actually, because in 2001, my girls were 10 and 8 that summer, and likely at least on the fringe of the audience for this film. Or maybe I was just that dedicated to not having to hear "Come Sail Away".
Download: Walt Disney's "Atlantis" - Radio Ad
Play:
It's worth noting that this commercial has to date to the very last point in time that ads were still being provided to radio stations on reel to reel tape. I'm amazed that this was still a thing in 2001.
