What's "In the Bag"?, Greetings from Germany, A Few Moments on WLS and More

Helloooo.....

What a cornucopia of sounds I have for you today, all of them seemingly from about 1958 to about 1969. 

First up, another of my "old favorites", the reels I filed away, in some cases decades ago, before I started sharing things online, but which I believe to be very much worth sharing. 

In this case, it's an impossibly rare recording of (most of) a local Chicago TV attempt at a game show along the lines of "What's My Line?" and "I've Got a Secret". I've owned this tape for about 30 years, I think. 

As far as I can tell, "In the Bag", only existed as a pilot episode, and a video of it exists in at least one library of such ephemera. The sites I read didn't seem to indicate that the show ever aired, but it clearly did, as you can hear a promo for another June, 1958, show at the end. 

Anyway, if you want to hear the results of someone taking the genius of "What's My Line" and making it stupider, especially when you throw in the always ridiculous Irv Kupcinet for flavoring, you are bound to get a great deal of enjoyment out of "In the Bag". 

The start of this tape is a bit confusing - we hear the tail end of "In the Bag", followed by a bit of a promo for "What's My Line", another promo and part of a commercial. Then we miss the start of the actual episode, and jump into the episode which is already under way, with celebrity guest Jimmy Durante, who's secret is guessed right away - probably not what they'd hoped for when they involved so great a star....

Download: "In the Bag" - CBS, Chicago, June, 1958

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Next, as a bit of a sequel to last week's lengthier WLS excerpts, here is a sort of medley of two bits of the same WLS, about seven years later. This comes from a longer tape which unfortunately - and like a lot of radio tapes - features only the songs, with the DJ banter, commercials and other items heard on the station edited out. Undoubtedly, our (teen?) recordist only wanted the song, which is usually the case. As everyone out there has probably heard (or doesn't want to hear) the songs of 1969 as the sounded over AM radio, minus all the "fun" stuff, I didn't share the entire reel.

But two segments on the tape have a bit of the whole story. The first part is from early 1969, and features, primarily, a newscast, while the second segment, after the fade, is from later that same year: 

Download: WLS, Chicago, 1969, News and Top 40

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Now... at some point, I seem to have purchased the audio letter holdings of someone named Larry - you can catch his last name on the tape, I think. I have at least six or seven audio letters that he received, from multiple people, during the 1960's, and I may have already featured one before. 

At least three of them are from an audio correspondent in Germany, and it's at least somewhat likely that they never actually met. I should explain that, starting in the 1950's, a mailing list (perhaps even a magazine) was developed that contained the names and addresses of people all over the world who wanted to be "reel pals", a la the pen pals of the old days. I don't know exactly how this worked, but perhaps each person's interests were listed - and languages - so that you could pick an appropriate person to send your three inch audio letter to. 

I'm pretty sure Larry was one of those recipients. And so, from late August of 1963, here's an audio letter - which also features some appropriate music - from Germany to Larry. 

(Incidentally, I believe the microphone test at the start of the tape was recorded later, perhaps by Larry himself, but I left it on, because it was there.) 

Download: Audio Letter from Germany to Larry - 8/31/63

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Another recent addition to this site, by request, is the "Acetate of the Month". And today I have one that can only come from a point at which recording acetates were on the way out. 

I would put money on it that this brief, unlabeled recording, which almost certainly comes from 1964 or so, was made at a booth at a store, or an event such as The World's Fair, because home acetate machines were simply no longer a thing in the mid 1960's. And I personally have memories of those "store acetate booths", which remained a thing into at least the late 1960's. 

Anyway, this is a charming, if quite short, performance (appropriately, it's 64 seconds long) of "I Saw Her Standing There", by a group of kids who are clearly having a good time. 

Download: Kids Sing "I Saw Her Standing There"

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And finally, as part of yet another series, here is our "Very Short Reel" for today. As you can see, it's labeled "Guided Missile Effects" on the three inch box: 

As I didn't actually have the box in front of me when I saved the digital version of this tape's contents, I attached a simpler title: "A Series of Explosions". And here it is!

Download: A Series of Explosions

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The 1953 Indianapolis 500, A Bit of Runner-Up Football, and Early WLS Top 40 Radio

Greetings and Happy 61st Birthday To Me!

After I posted what turns out to be a very rare recording of part of the radio broadcast from the 1954 Indianapolis 500, about three weeks ago, I was beseeched by a handful of readers/listeners to also share the record I had mentioned, of the 1953 Indianapolis race, which I'd picked up at the same sale, some time in the mid 1980's. 

Like the 1954 race recording, this is an incomplete capture of the 1953 broadcast, at 103 minutes, just a little bit less of the race than the '54 recording. It starts with a very short recording of a presentation of "The Band of America", but after 85 seconds, it's the race all the way. 

The only other comment I'll make is that I was astonished at the sort of dismissive, or at least minimalized way the announcer mentions that one of the racers had almost literally baked to death in his car, on what was apparently an exceedingly hot day. 

Here's the tape!

Download: The 1953 Indianapolis 500

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Aside from our "very short reel", the rest of what I have to offer today comes from another favorite reel, one I plucked from a shelf of my "favorite reels" just for you this week. 

The entire second side of this tape is wonderful, and the three recordings on it go in reverse chronological order. This happens quite a bit, actually. What happens is that someone used the entire of the tape to record... something. In this case, that happened in the early winter of 1961-62. Then, at some later point, that same someone - or someone else - starts at the beginning of the tape, again, and records something else, using most, but not all of the tape, and leaving the last few minutes of the original recording. In this case, that happened in the first week of 1962. And finally, someone starts the side yet again, and records a third thing, using, in this case, just about half of the side, and leaving the last part of the second recording, along with that already existing tail end of the first recording. In this case, this final recording took place in May of 1962. 

I will link them here in the order heard, which, again, is the opposite order from which they were recorded. 

The first, and by far the most fun for me, is a recording made of WLS, the Top 40 Powerhouse of Chicago, during its earliest heyday - in fact, it's from their second anniversary as a Top 40 station, which was on May 2, 1962. And best of all, it's an uninterrupted recording of the end of their countdown show for the week, containing the top seven hits in Chicagoland for that week. 

The countdown contains a couple of songs I consider to be among the most wonderful of the era ("Old Rivers" & "Stranger On the Shore", along with four that range from okay to pretty awful, and, in a miscarriage of musical taste for the ages, a Number One Record for the week which is surely one of the worst records to ever grace the hit parade - so awful I will not deign to type out its name here. What were the teens of 1962 thinking?

That atrocity aside, this is one of my favorite finds, one I've owned for at least as long as the Indianapolis 500 tapes. 

Download: WLS, Chicago, 5/2/62 - The Top Seven Songs

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When the countdown ended, the recorder was turned off, and we get to hear that recording from January of the same year, specifically, from 1/6/62 - the end of a true oddity, "The Playoff Bowl", essentially "The Third Place" bowl, which was held for several years before the NFL merge, between the second place teams in each division of the NFL, in this case, Detroit Vs Philadelphia. This was held a week after the championship, and must have been just as unexciting as the pro bowl is today. 

What a weird concept. Anyway, here are the 23 minutes or so of The Playoff Bowl, 1962, which survived after the Top 40 Countdown recording. 

Download: End of "The Playoff Bowl - Detroit Vs. Philadelphia, 1/6/62

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Finally, the game ends, and the recording is stopped, leaving us with more WLS - the recording that was initially on the tape. In this case, it's someone - whose name I can't quite make out - filling in for the Legend to Be: Dick Biondi. There's only about five minutes here, but it does contain a local hit by someone named Johnny Cooper - a song which only charted locally, and then only for one week, in January of 1962 on the WLS chart, meaning this recording probably was made in the week or so before "The Playoff Bowl". 

Download: WLS, Chicago, Very Late 1961 or Very Early 1962

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And now, here's our "Very Short Reel" for the week. In this case, it's three minutes as heard on a three inch reel of tape, containing two different men speaking through what sound like Walkie-Talkies - one sided conversations in both cases. 

First, for about 45 seconds, we hear what I'm guessing to be a military man complaining about the performance and behavior of someone under his command. Then, for the last two minutes plus, a different man talks about some sort of water rescue where at least two boats (or something) collided. As he says "A miserable night to be flouting around out in the water..." He also veers off topic a couple of times to wonder about why someone named John doesn't keep in touch with him. 

Download: Brief Walkie Talkie Recording - Water Rescue

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