An Anti-Medicare Screed, Another Japanese Missive, A Lovely Hodgepodge, Mrs. Isono, and More Mitch Miller Than Anyone Can Stand

Howdy, Y'all. 

Oh and BOOOO!

Last time around, I asked if anyone knew the link between Frank Zappa and "Pipeline" by the Chantays. Well, I had a couple of questions about that, and here is the obscure answer. It comes from an interview I have on tape, I believe it's with Dr. Demento, but I could be wrong. I don't have an exact quote, but in the interview, Zappa says more or less: 

"It was one of the first time I was in a 'real' recording studio with booked time and a song to record." He goes on with something along these lines: "we had to wait for awhile - the producer needed to finish working on a record he KNEW was going to be hit - Pipeline, by the Chantays - before we could record..."

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Also, I heard from frequent commenter "Snoopy", who said he'd really like to hear the entire Bob Binderman car race segment, which I edited in order to remove what I thought was about three minutes of mouth-made car noises, with no narration in between. It turns out it's actually 2 1/2 minutes, but for Snoopy, and anyone else who is interested, I have re-posted that bit, unedited this time, at the bottom of this post. 

And now.....

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With politics in the news all day, every day here is America this week, we'll start with a flashback to an earlier day, and the hot button issue of 1962 - whether to offer government insurance to certain portions of the population. The bill at the time was the King-Anderson Bill, and the Medical establishment was dead set against it, as heard in this presentation from the head of the AMA -  a response to a much flashier presentation the Kennedy administration had given a short time earlier, as you'll hear. This particular bill was defeated, but a similar bill was more successful a few years later. I've labeled this a screed, and find it to be full of scaremongering - your mileage may vary, but it's worth noting that the successful tweaking of this bill, a few years later, called Medicaid, is quite popular, nearly 60 years after its passage. 

Download: The American Medical Association (Dr Leonard W Larson) -  Presentation Against the King-Anderson Bill - 1962

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Well, after that hyperbole, maybe a nice palette cleanser is in order. Here, ahead of the usual arrangement, is our "Very Short Reel" for the day, a sweet home recording I've labeled "A Few Minutes at the Schafer Home". I don't know the actual spelling of the family's last name, as there are several versions of that moniker, so I guessed. Mostly, this is a series of piano solos rendered by a little girl, but near the end is a bit of stilted conversation which I thought was interesting.  

Download: A Few Minutes at the Schafer Home

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It's been awhile since we checked in with our young man in Japan. As I've explained before, I'm unable to ascertain exactly what he was doing there, although I've identified him as a student-soldier in previous posts and in the names of files. If someone else has figured out what he was doing in Japan from these tapes, I'd love to hear it. Search for "Japan" in the labels, and all of the previous posts from this series of audio letters will show up (along with a few other Japan-related items)

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, January 19th

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I always enjoy it when I come across what I call a hodgepodge - a (usually shortish) tape which contains a series of things completely unrelated, or at best, barely related to each other. That's about all I'll say about this item - its title explains its contents pretty well. 

Download: A Hodgepodge - Born Free, Narration, Heavy Breathing and Mario Andretti

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Last week, I listened to a tape containing two complete New York Yankees baseball broadcasts, one from from 1960 and one from 1961. That was enjoyable enough, but my favorite moment was actually a little ad for Ballantine Beer which popped up in the middle of the 1961 game. This doesn't really qualify as a "very short reel" since it's 40-some seconds out of a tape lasting more than six hours, but I wanted to share it here. 

Download: Ballantine Beer Ad, 1961

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And now, the moment that perhaps NO ONE was waiting for. But.... I had this tape, and it's probably a fairly rare piece, so I thought I'd share it. Contained on the tape are four near-complete episodes of "Sing Along with Mitch" - the four episodes broadcast in May of 1963. This is a really long share, and its certainly from another time and place, but perhaps it's your thang, and if so, do what you wanna do: 

Download: Sing Along With Mitch - Four Full Episodes from May, 1963

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I know very, very little about this record. It looks like this on one side: 

And like this on the other side: 

Perhaps someone out there who can read Japanese can tell us all what it means. Regardless, it seems to feature a Mrs. Isono, if the label is to be believed, and why shouldn't it be. Here are the two sides: 

Download: Mrs. Isono - Side One

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Download: Mrs. Isono - Side Two

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And finally, as mentioned in the blurb at the top of this page, here, for those who want it, and Snoopy in particular, is the full, unedited Bob Binderman Auto Race performance, complete with another 150 seconds or so of mouth-as-car-engine performances at the end: 

Download: Bob Binderman - Calling an Auto Race in Reims, France (unedited)

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Some Great Radio Jingles, The Binderman's At Home, and a Bit of Beatles Plagiarism

Happy October 18th! Hmmm. October 18th. Someone I once loved dearly was born on October 18th. It took me all day before I connected today's date to that person. Didn't used to be that way....

Wow - that flashed me back about 46 years. Man - it was great to be 16. And... Man - it was awful to be 16. 

What... Ah, well, that's not why you called....oh, yeah, the post.....

I have something fairly fun to start off with, followed by something magnificent. Then I have a whole batch of recordings from the same tape, and stick around for some astonishing plagiarism., 

That fun segment and the magnificent segment I mentioned come from the very same tape, one that has a spine that looks like this: 

What we have here are two sets of Jingles, spliced together, from two different companies, for two different radio stations. 

The first, and longer segment, is a batch of jingles for WLBQ in Kentucky. These are from the Gwinsound company, a firm I had not heard of before I got this tape, but which seems to be fairly well known among those who collect jingles and such. These are fine, but they start to sound pretty "samey" after awhile, and they certainly don't have that extra OOMPH that need to hear in order for jingles to really resonate with me. Still, they're fun to hear and have.

Download: Gwinsound - A Collection of WLBQ Jingles

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But then we come to the other set, which is from PAMS, and which were created for W-100 (WIOO) in Pennsylvania. Immediately, the magic of PAMS is in the air, and I find these jingles irresistible - they have that certain magic sauce which always seems to exude from the work of the folks at PAMS. This is masterful stuff, engaging, fun and memorable. 

Download: PAMS - A Collection of WIOO (W-100) Jingles

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Most of the rest of this post, all but the very short reels segment, is taken from a single reel that I've owned for decades, and that I enjoy very much. It's for those of you who like home recordings, particularly people trying to be creative in their home recordings (whether successful or not). It seems to have originate in the home of someone named Bob Binderman, and his name is the only thing written on the box. He doesn't appear to be the only adult heard on the tape, but there is no evidence as to who the others might be. 

The tape starts with Mr. Binderman trying to do his best Doodles Weaver impression, in this fictional calling of an automobile race from France. The zooming car sounds at the end actually went on at least another three minutes, but I edited that part down, as it become tedious.  

Download: Bob Binderman - Calling an Auto Race in Reims, France

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Next, Mr. Binderman uses a variety of records from his collection to tell what he most assuredly meant to be a humorous story about being lost and captured in the jungle. Parts of this work better than other parts, but it strikes me as an interesting attempt all the way through. 

Download: Bob Binderman - Jungle Story

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The next short segment features a young boy telling a deliberately messed up sports report. My guess is this is Mr. Binderman's son, and that the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. 

Download: Kid Does Mixed-Up Sports Report

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The rest of side one of the tape consisted of recordings of female pop vocalists and instrumental pieces copied from records, so let's flip the tape over!

The start of the other side could not be more different than the jokey material on the first side. For here we have a bit of poetry, in tribute to some members of the Air Force. It's introduced as the "Ode to the 309th" and ends with a song for "Bentley's Air Force", and I've attached both names to it here. 

The mention of listening to Rock and Roll would indicate this band of brothers worked together during peacetime. This does not sound like Bob Binderman, but there's no indication of who it is. Any guesses about the source of this material would be welcome. 

Download: Unknown - Ode to the 309th (Bentley's Air Force)

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The tape ends with about 20 minutes of slice-of-life recordings made in someone's home. The stories heard on the radio make it clear that we're now in 1965 (I believe that is likely at least a few years after the other material here), and we're spending those minutes with a little girl named Chrissie and her parents. 

Download: Chrissie and Her Parents - 1965

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And now, very short reels. I realized with some embarrassment that last time, I shared a Very Short Reel that I'd already offered up more than a year earlier. Somehow, I'd neglected to move it into my "already shared" folders.

So to make up for it, I'll offer up two such very short reels today. 

For the first... I've mentioned a few times that I have a whole batch of tapes which came from a radio station in Astoria, Oregon. Many of those tapes featured a "story time" show called "A Story Told with Aunt Polly", and the voice of that host also shows up on many of the PSA's and local ads that are in that batch of tapes. 

Well, here is the owner of that voice, Polly Columbo, no doubt wearing a raincoat, searching for clues as to whodunnit, and gathering together some of her work into a demo reel. I get a great kick out of the fact that she does voice over introductions for both "Pipeline" by the Chantays and "Baby Snakes" by Frank Zappa during this segment, and not only that, but back to back

Extra points for anyone who knows another link between The Chantays' "Pipeline" and Frank Zappa. 

Download: Polly Columbo's Demo Reel

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But I've saved the best - or at least the oddest - for last. 

This comes from a longer tape of AM, Top 40 radio that I myself recorded in the fall of 1970. The tape is very choppy and not worth sharing as a whole - bits and pieces of songs, etc. But at one point, I did capture a Certs ad which is astonishing in that those who created it simply took a Beatles hit - from about 18 months earlier - and rewrote it to be about Certs. It's got the same melody, it's got essentially the same instrumentation, and even the music bed under the voice over is the same SOLO from that Beatles' hit. 

I wonder at what point this sort of blatant plagiarism stopped being something advertisers could get away with. 

Download: 1970 Certs Ad

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