A 1950's Rock Session, TV Variety from 1962, Some Odd Interviews, a Truly Bewildering Acetate, and 1980's Radio Jingles

What a wondrous cornucopia of sounds I have for you, this last night of  January, 2002. Let's get right to it. 

First up, a tape which is probably the most fascinating (to me, at least) that I've shared in some time. The box states that it contains excerpts from "The Brazilian Suite", but rather than that, this seven minutes of tape features a small combo, making an attempt to record a song, sometime very likely in the late 1950's, judging from the style of the song and the design of that Scotch tape box that housed it.

I can find no indication that this is a "known" song, and I've labeled it "Blue Tears". And a lovely little number it is, bathed in echo, with a soft backing of a few instruments and a female trio adding some "oohs" and such, and fronted by a lead singer who sounds frozen in 1957-58 or so. There is one complete take, followed by a few breakdowns, and another take is starting just as the tape runs out. 

What a lovely, mysterious little wonder. 

Unknown - Blue Tears (multiple takes)

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Okay, that's the tape that I was most excited about. Here's one that many other readers may find even more fascinating. It's from a collection of tapes that I bought a few decades ago, and am still going through (!), by someone who recorded television shows and performances which were of interested to him or her fairly incessantly in the 1960's. There is a photo of the inside of the tape box, below, but here is a rundown of what you'll hear, during the nearly 90 minutes contained in this recording: 

1.) Mort Sahl hosting the Tonight Show - the last show of a week of hosting duties, while NBC was waiting for Johnny Carson to be available. The date is June 15, 1962, and lengthy excerpts of the show are heard, including an interview with the secretary for the Gemini astronauts, and conversations with someone who appears to be a professor, about some fairly weighty subjects. The recording of this show takes up more than half of the tape. 

2.) The Dave Brubeck combo performing on The Ed Sullivan Show on June 17, 1962

3.) The next subsequent episode of the Tonight Show - from the following Monday, June 18th (hey, that was my brother's eighth birthday!), featuring Steve Lawrence hosting, Steve Allen and songwriter Billy Rose as guests (Allen sings) and, believe it or not, Mort Sahl returning, as another guest.

4.) Oscar Peterson performing on The Today Show (undated)

5.) And my favorite segment, at the end, the wonderful, incomparable Limeliters, performing a few songs on what appears to also be The Today Show (also undated) 

Download: TV Recordings, 1962 - Mort Sahl, Dave Brubeck, Steve Allen, Oscar Peterson, tThe Limeliters

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And here's the inside of the tape box, with The Limeliters' name spelled incorrectly!: 

 

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Here's a tape which is more than a bit of a mystery to me. It sounds like a series of interviews for various positions, but the variety of positions makes me think that this was something else, perhaps even a rehearsal or practice at either interviewing people or being interviewed. 

There are a few references to the Indianapolis Hilton, so I suspect that's where this was being recorded, and most of the jobs being interviewed for involve hotel work of some sort. But not all of them, and not a single one seems to be for the same specific job as any of the other interviews. So it's sort of strange. Strange enough that I thought I'd share it with you. See what you think!

Download: A Series of Interviews at the Indianapolis Hilton

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". Now if you thought the purpose of the interview tape was inscrutable, or if you thought the "Blue Tears" tape was mysterious, that all may be true, but neither is as inscrutable or mysterious as today's Acetate. 

Imagine my surprise and bewilderment when I heard the following sounds - clearly and entirely backwards - coming out of an unlabeled acetate. 

Download: Bizarre Backwards Acetate

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My guess is that this was made for use as some sort of effect on some radio program. 

Now I'm sure a lot of you have the ability to turn this around, using one type of software or another, but I've done it for you, and the results are just as bewildering - here we have an old woman singing a sort of nonsensical folk song - one I am unfamiliar with, in which one of the key words is "pumpernickel" - with her performance chopped up so as to make the rendition all the more incomprehensible. Then, of course, they flipped it backwards for the acetate recording. Wow. 

Download: Bizarre Backwards Acetate (reversed)

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Finally, our very short reel, and a return to normalcy. What we have here is the production of a company called Continental Recordings, with a little more than three minutes of jingles and production music for WGAN, AM 560 in southern Maine

Download: Continental Recordings - WGAN Jingles and Production Music, 1982

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And here's that tape box: 

Comments are welcome and encouraged!

See you next time....

Bloopers in Iowa, Vacation in Germany, Natives in New Mexico, Women in Market Research & More

 Greetings!

The files for this week, and my overlong text (I'm sure) that will go with them will follow in a moment, just a few jumps down the post.. 

But first...I'm using the start of the new year to get caught up on some replies to comments that many of you have been kind enough to leave. First, please know that I don't usually respond in the comments, not knowing who might or might not see them, but if you use your actual e-mail address when you comment, I often will respond by e-mail. But I understand why many don't want to do this.

Anyway, here are a few of things that I thought were worth sharing (more will be shared with future posts). 

I want to start by thanking everyone who wrote (either in comments or via e-mail) about the post I wrote for my father's 100th birthday.  It was very rewarding, touching and at times overwhelming to read these comments, and I deeply appreciate it. 

Okay, on to other things. From the "Small World" file, I heard from two people with personal connections to the Christmas Day family recording I posted a few weeks ago. The first was from Eric, who reported that he grew up in the same town in which that tape was recorded, and knows the street the family lives on quite well. Not long after that, I heard from "Old Guy" who reported that he was born two days before that recording was made. Some coincidences! Thank you both for writing. 

Then there is a comment from Jeremy, which can be found at the end of this post. Jeremy figured out that the tape from the young man in Japan was recorded in November of 1967, and he explains how he determined that in the comment. Thanks, Jeremy!

For this post, from Halloween of last year, I got a couple of comments worth mentioning. One anonymous poster suggested that the Octet music sounds a lot like music that was used in certain NFL films of an earlier age, and wondered if anyone had those films on VHS (or otherwise) and might compare.  And Brother Herbert wrote, regarding the same post, suggesting that the last name of the narrator of the vacation tape (and also the narrator's son) is Glossnick, or something similar. Thanks to both of you!

"Oldradios90" is a reader who comments quite often, which I really appreciate. A couple of months ago, OldRadios left this comment: 

II recently digitized this tape of a 1960s comedian to archive.org can you possibly make out who it is? https://archive.org/details/01.-1960s-comic-monomix 

I do not recognize the comic. Anyone out there have any guesses, or even a definite answer? 

The same poster asked if I had any "blue" Friar's club material, and I direct that reader to this post, from nearly five years ago. 

And I shouldn't leave the top of poster "OldRadios" before quoting something I was asked in a comment several months ago: 

"Hello Bob! I was wondering if you ever kinda get this sad feeling when a tape ends? Especially on recordings of family and friends because you feel like you get to know these people for a short time and you wonder what happened to them and if they are still alive?"

What a wonderful and insightful question! Yes, this absolutely happens, in exactly the situation you describe. I don't know that I feel like I get to know them (with the exception of a few cases), but I often wish there was more, wish I knew more about them, and frequently wonder whatever happened to them. On occasion, I even get to find out, when they (or their relatives) write to me. Sometimes, the internet can be amazing and wonderful. 

Finally, before getting to today's tape-a-palooza, a big shout out to Timmy, who nearly always comments, often saying something about every last thing I share, at this blog and at the song-poem site. I appreciate your involvement in this little project of mine more than you could know. 

Okay, now I'll share some stuff. 

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Here's an interesting compilation. I suppose it's possible this reel circulates out there, but this particular collection may have been unique to its previous owner, who was a family member of mine who was also a working actor in Iowa for many, many years. It's a compilation of radio bloopers, mistakes and other outtakes, which largely appear to have their origin in various spots in Iowa. 

I find this sort of thing very entertaining, and hope you do, too. 

Download: A Collection of Bloopers From Iowa Radio

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Next up, one of several tapes I bought, somewhere along the way, featuring an American family who lived in Germany, and who took frequent vacations into other parts of Europe. Sometimes it was just the couple on the vacations, and sometimes their two young daughters went with. 

What makes these tapes interesting, and often fascinating, to me, is that this couple recorded updates to their trips in real time, with an audio diary of each day's events recorded every evening. I've found four or five of these in my collection - all recorded on three inch reels at 1 7/8 inches per second - and it's possible there are a couple more. Today's entry is the shortest of those I've found thus far, and it sounds like this might have been the first of at least two tapes (many of these vacations seem to have had two or three tapes made) - if so, I don't have the other tape. It also sounds like this was the first vacation made after the family moved to Germany, based on the main speaker's introduction to the reel. 

The trip was to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, and I only knew how to spell that, because it was written on the tape box, a box which I'd scan and share here, except I can't find it now. The starting date for the trip was June, 1967. Here's the tape:

Download: Our Trip to Berchtesgaden, June 4-10, 1967

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On a wholly different subject, here is a documentary, produced around 1970, but something called "The Children's Foundation", titled "In Occupied Territory", and dealing with the problems and challenges faced by Native Americans and Chicanos in New Mexico at the time. I think this is pretty interesting stuff. 

Download: The Children's Foundation - In Occupied Territory (Radio Documentary)

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Here's the tape box: 

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Here's a tape I wish I had in complete form. I've come across a few of these over the years, and I think I shared at least one here before. It's market research session. They get a bunch of people together with the goal of finding out more about how their product - or perhaps a product yet to be introduced - is thought of, and related issues. 

This recording exists on an otherwise erased tape - the material erasing it was far less interesting. So this is only the first 16 minutes or so. In it, we learn that the focus will be on the low-cost Steak Houses which used to be far more common than they are now - Ponderosa, Bonanza and the like. 

Of course, the company paying for this group session isn't mentioned to the participants, as that would surely skew the results. What we have here is the opening introductions - each participant is a housewife or an older woman whose kids have grown. We get a little bit into the actual conversion. As it continues, a baby begins having a fit in another room, as the conversation continues. One of the participants identifies that it's her child who is upset, after several minutes of wailing. They are just starting to discuss what to do about this when the available tape stops. 

Download: Market Research Session - Low Price Steakhouses (beginning only)

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At the end of October, I posted a tape labeled "Octet II", which a couple of commentators really enjoyed and found interesting. What I didn't recall, at all, at the time, was that I had another tape, labeled "Octet", featuring four more songs from the same group. I came across it during the holidays, while looking for something else. Here is it!

Download: Octet I - Four Songs

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And here's that tape box: 

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And finally, here's our "Very Short Reel". Today, it's another voice actor demo reel, in this case for Julie Codlin - just over two minutes of her various commercial performances. 

Download: Julie Codlin - Voice Actor Demo Reel

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