Mayor Daley, Christmas Night, Another Loungey Tape, Some Truly Annoying Recordings, and Some BIG NEWS!

 Hello again!

First, I need to acknowledge my most important news of the year. This past Saturday, my wonderful daughter Molly got married to the equally wonderful Sean. Here they are, stepping out into a swarm of bubbles, just after the ceremony: 

~~

And now, I'd like to do a little housekeeping, or, more specifically, make a few comments and give some belated Thanksgiving thanks to readers and commenters. 

First, to Eric P., who wrote about the fact that I have two near-complete Yankees game radio broadcasts. Eric, the games in question are 9-25-60 and 5-31-61. The former seems to be available, complete, in what I think is the radio broadcast, on YouTube. I cannot find the latter anywhere, so let me know if it circulates in the collection that you mentioned. Basically, let me know if I'd be adding to the available canon by posting either or both of these. Thanks!

Second, to Diane, who admittedly, probably won't see this - I always appreciate hearing from someone related to a person featured on one of my postings. Thank you. For the rest of you, one of my early favorites here were the tapes of Bob Hoppe, one of which can be heard here. That post also links back to an earlier posting of similar material. Well, his granddaughter just commented on that post, and that really made my day. 

And then, finally, thanks! Thanks to Lee D., Vinushka, Larry Z, Snoopy, Timmy and Anonymous, for general encouragement, love notes, additional information and/or specific feedback about what is most enjoyable.

Please know that I read and appreciate every comment. And if I missed anyone, I apologize!

Okay...

~~

I'll start with something that seems to get a lot of positive reaction around here, Commercials. In this case, a tape that starts with part of a commercial promotion that I found severely irritating at the time, the "Noid" commercials put out by Dominoes in the late 1980's. If this tape solely contained "Noid" ads, I doubt I would be sharing it, but the tape then also contains several minutes of Dominoes production music, which I think is interesting: 

Download: Dominos Pizza - 'Noid' Commercials and Production Music - 11-7-88

Play: 

~~

Switching gears roughly enough to perhaps end up needing a new transmission, I note that we are coming up on, one week from tomorrow, the 46th anniversary of the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago. As I have never lived more than ten miles outside of the Chicago city limits, this was a man whose name and exploits dominated what little I knew about politics as I was growing up. And his birthday, just days before Christmas, 1976, was a shock to most of us who lived in and near the city. The following day, the hosts and producers of a local TV show called AM Chicago, understandably threw out everything which had been planned for the day, and produced a show entirely about the life and death of Mayor Daley. Here is that show: 

Download: AM Chicago - The Day After Mayor Daley Died

Play: 

~~

Let's have some happier Christmas memories now. Here's someone's audio letter, recorded on Christmas night, to mom and dad. This seems to be from either 1961 or 1962: 

Download: A Christmas Night Audio Letter to Mom and Dad, from San Diego, circa 1961 or 1962

Play: 

~~

And now, something that you may well find annoying, and which I find annoying as well, but which also holds a strange fascination for me. I've shared a few of these before, and here's another one. 

Okay, first: I do not understand the practice of recording oneself playing records, and singing along with them. Do people who do this actually go back and fondly listen to themselves singing along with record that they presumably still own, and could listen to, and sing along with, right now, rather than listening to a tape of the same thing? 

And what to make of this practice when the person doing the singing and recording CAN'T SING?!?!?! Here is a fellow enjoying his collection of circa 1956-61 pop records, and doing an astonishingly bad job of accompanying them with something closer to atonality than to tunefulness. 

I remain thoroughly befuddled by this exercise, but, as I said, it sort of fascinates me, too. 

Download: Singing Along Badly with the Hits, circa 1961 (and a few odds and ends)

Play: 

~~

Here's a fairly short bit of tape, featuring someone testing his microphone and recorder, then recording a few minutes of a station called KAJO in Grant's Pass, Oregon. The Kate Smith record featured at the end of this segment was released in 1965, and the reference to the LBJ administration during the microphone test indicates it has to be from no later than 1968, so that's a fairly good snapshot of the era in which this was recorded. 

Download: Testing and KAJO Redio, Grants Pass, Oregon
Play: 

~~

I've gotten a bit of positive feedback from posting loungy acts in concert, and so, for those folks, here is a male acoustic duo with about 24 minutes of performance. They do not appear to have much of an audience. I know nothing else about these performers, the venue or the date: 

Download: Unknown - An Male Duo with Acoustic Guitars, Live

Play:

~~

Finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the post. Here is a gentleman singing a song which certainly sounds like a show tune, but I have been unable to find any reference to these lyrics online. I've dubbed it "Except When We Tangle With Dames"

Download: Unknown - Unknown Song ("Except When We Tangle With Dames") 

Play:

~~