Happy Birthday, Sweet 16, The Ups and Downs of Radio Work, Some Live Music, and Other Wonders

Welcome back to my archives!!!

I have very little time this week, so I will be far less verbose than usual. 

First up is a tape I've owned, and loved, for decades. It comes from Lake Forest, IL, and features two different recordings from the 1957-58 school year of a bunch of girls who were, apparently, mostly High School Juniors that year. Nearly the entirety of both tapes is made up of the girls singing, which I enjoy mightily. 

Here is the relevant (i.e. the marked-up) part of the tape box: 

First up, with have Joan's 16th birthday party, wherein the girls sing a number of fight songs, including some lyrics to the Notre Dame song - about drinking - that I've never heard anywhere but on this tape. They also sing the songs of a couple of nearby high schools, including ones that no one in Lake Forest would have attended, which seems a little weird. Throw in some current pop songs, including the utterly wonderful "Just Between You and Me", originally by the Chordettes, and you have an irresistible little segment. 

Download: Joan's 16th Birthday Party, 9/19/57

Play:  

Immediately after this is what's listed as the "Junior Luncheon", which does feature, as the box indicates, an unfortunate hum. I've tried to minimize this hum, but have been unable to do so without also impacting the sound of the recording. Here, again, there is a bunch of singing, although it sure sounds to me as if they are wishing the Senior Class well as they leave the school - why that would be the subject of a Junior Luncheon I'm not sure. But I'm guessing - hence the date - that this happened later in the school year, probably the Spring of 1958. 

But the kicker for me here is that all the songs sung have new lyrics, each of them about a specific girl to whom they are singing. I just think this is a great deal of fun. 

Download: Joan's Junior Luncheon, Lake Forest, IL, Likely 1958

Play:

~~

Let's switch gears here pretty radically and listen to six and a half minutes of production material recorded for radio station WEEP in Pittsburgh, in January of 1976. 

The box has this sticker on it: 

These short little segments are all over the map, and nearly all of them are pretty entertaining, especially if you ignore the John Denver concert promo. Another fun little tape. 

Download: WEEP, Pittsburgh - Radio Productions -January 1976

Play:  

~~

So that last sampling was a lot of fun. From about as far away as you can get and still be (I think) in radio, here we have someone I think is practicing being a DJ, or perhaps trying to make a demo tape, or... well, I just don't know. 

It seems pretty half-assed, or perhaps even quarter-assed, but it is incompetent in a fairly interesting way, so I'll just share it here and see if anyone out there has a better idea what's going on. 

Download: Unknown - Possibly DJ Practice

Play: 

~~

And in case you wanted to hear some early Randy Travis, guess what I.....

Oops, sorry, this isn't Randy Travis. It's Travis and Randy. See: 

And if you'd been one of the what sounds like no more than five people who were at the Ramada Inn in Tucson, on 10/29/71, you could have heard this little set of music (and probably a lot more, but this is all that was on the tape). 

Download: Travis and Randy at the Ramada Inn, Tucson, Arizona, 10-29-71

Play:  

~~

Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". In this case, someone named E. Frederick recorded four songs on the accordion - two on each side of a ten inch acetate, way back on November 27th, 1940. The two sides of the record look like this: 

And they sound like this: 

Download: E Frederick - Dizzy Fingers & Two Guitars - 11--27- 40 (Presto Acetate)

Play:

Download: E Frederick - Nola & Beautiful Days - 11-27- 40 (Presto Acetate)

Play:

~~

And finally, a VERY short example of a "Very Short Reel", and an enigmatic one at that. I'll let the track I've titled "Can You Hear That There?" speak for itself. 

Download: "Can You Hear That There?"

Play:

"Pantywaist!", A Nostalgic Grandpa, More From Japan, A Short Reunion and... SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!!

 Happy Post Valentine Day!

I have five disparate tapes for you today, as the title of the post may indicate. 

First up is what strikes me as a fairly low-rent superhero parody, called "Pantywaist!". It's somewhat along the lines of "Chickenman", which some of you may be familiar with, but with none of the wit or style of that creation. (Based on the opening lines, this may actually be a parody of that parody.) Plus, it makes frequent use of Stan Freberg's yell from the start of "The Yellow Rose of Texas", without permission, I'm sure, but even more so, without any apparent reason. 

These particular episodes ran on college radio station WNUR, out of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It's not clear to me if someone at WNUR created these, or if they were syndicated. I've been unable to find out anything about this program online. 

This is offered up mostly as a curiosity piece - interesting, and certainly unimaginably rare, and with a few fun moments, but... not very good. 

Download: "Pantywaist!" - Three Episodes from WNUR, Evanston

Play: 

~~~

From a different world entirely comes an almost painfully sweet tape, utterly guileless, in which a grandfather records a series of nursery rhymes and stories for his granddaughter, Jean Ellen, to be sent to her on her first birthday. Grandpa's choices are rather esoteric at times, to say the least, starting with a version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" that I've certainly never heard - in fact, aside from the tune of that song, I've never heard ANY of this material before. 

There follows a very darling audio letter from Grandpa to the baby. His light accent (not sure where it marks him as being from) adds to the sweetness of the entire tape. 

The second half of this 16 minute tape is actually a fairly standard audio letter from Grandpa (and a bit from Grandma) to the adults in Jean Ellen's home, a section which, for whatever reason, becomes steadily softer and softer until the tape runs out, just before Grandpa appears to have been ready to wrap things up. 

This is one of my favorite recent discoveries.

Download: A Tape for Jean Ellen, on Her First Birthday, From Grandpa

Play:

~~~

And now, here is yet another audio letter from our friend in Japan, in this case from late October of 1968. I remain unclear if this person was just a student, or was in some way also a soldier, and if not, what he was doing in Japan. If anyone has any guesses or insights, I'd love to hear them. 

By this point, our young man in Japan had been taking to recording music in the right channel while talking on the left channel. I find this quite distracting, especially on a couple of the tapes where the music is louder than his voice (which is not the case here), but mostly, it's distracting to me because it tends to be fairly horrid 1960's MOR drivel. I mean, for God's sake, when he made this tape, "Hey Jude" was the number one record around the world, and he's treating us to the likes of The Lettermen. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, 10/20/68

Play:

For what it's worth, here is the tape box for this tape. Most of the writing is worn away, but you can see the postmark: 

~~~

And now, let's drop in on the Miller Clan, at some unknown time, date and place, who are enjoying their third reunion. The audio record of this shindig is mighty short, almost short enough to be a "very short reel", because, as you will hear, after a few voices are recorded, no one really wants to talk much. 

Download: The Third Reunion of the Miller Clan

Play:

~~~

And here's something that will be familiar to anyone who grew up being able to hear the clear channel of WLS, Chicago, the Big 89, across the 40-some states where their signal could be heard, back when they were a rock and roll powerhouse. And if you haven't heard it, you've heard it referenced and parodied. 

I present to you today's "Very Short Reel". Here, in all its glory, is an original SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY ad for US 30 Drag Strip!

Download: US 30 Drag Strip Ad

Play: