Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Blowout Post # 4

Greetings!

Every month, I make a point of trying to put up two posts. This, I think, goes back to my posting schedule back at WFMU, and it's hardwired into me at this point. In fact, I've only missed that target eleven times in the years of posting, and in some of those periods, I made three posts in surrounding months. 

Anyway, February is short. And I want to have a post up within the next four hours. So it's time for another BLOWOUT POST! That's where I just shove a bunch of stuff - much more than usual - that doesn't need much comment, and let you have a ball with it. I know there are at least a few out there that actually prefer this mode. I will have very little to say, except for a rant about one of the segments. By chance, this is a very media-heavy offering. Let's begin, shall we?: 

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First up, and what I suspect will be the most popular share for this post, here are 14 great ads promoting Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, all on the theme of "Give That Man a Blue Ribbon". There is no date on the box (see the scan and photo, below) - maybe someone out there knows when these are from: 



Download:  McCann-Erickson, Inc - Pabst Blue Ribbon, 14 "Give That Man a Blue Ribbon' Radio Ads

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Next, I was very excited to find the following slip of paper inside a tape box:

... and I looked forward to a tape full of vintage top 40 Television. Sadly, much of the tape has been erased by all manner of oddness, some of which is below, and some of which I'll be sharing at a later date, but a small portion of Clark Race's TV show, clearly from 1960, remained on the tape, and that's what I'll offer up here: 

Download: Clark Race Record Hop on KDKA TV, 1960

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The title of this one should tell you everything you need to know, and the tape itself will say the rest:

Download: A Phone Call - Ken Wants to See You

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Okay, here's my rant. Why, exactly, would one spend the clearly excessive time it would take to learn Bob Newhart's comedy act, word for word, pause for pause and idiosyncrasy for idiosyncrasy. I simply cannot fathom it. The material worked because it was Bob Newhart, and because it sounded like Bob Newhart and because there was an audience!

And yet, here we have a sample - and I'm only providing a sample - of a tape lasting TWENTY FIVE MINUTES, in which some bozo mimics Bob Newhart into the microphone. Without an audience, either. I get garage bands covering Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1966. I do not get "covering" Bob Newhart in 1960 or 1961, alone with a tape recorder. It seems borderline psychotic to me. 

Oh, and this is part of what erased that promising looking Clark Race TV Record Hop, by the way. 

Download; Bob Newhart Impressions (excerpt)

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On a short reel of tape, I found two interesting recordings. The first few seconds of the tape had this rather endearing little moment between (I'm guessing) a father and his two sons: 

Download: A Short Interview with Eric and His Brother

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The rest of that same tape - recorded on both sides - was this interview with a New York Policeman, first about a police-sponsored carnival, and then about what I've called "Youth Today". There is a gap in the conversation where the first side ends and the second side picks up. 

Download: Conversation with New York Policeman - Upcoming Circus and Issues with Youth Today

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And here is an example of a show called "Continental Classroom", which aired on Public Television stations in the years before there was a PBS. If this intrigues anyone, I can offer more - I have several recordings of this show on a collection of tapes I acquired at least 20 years ago. 

Download: Continental Classroom - 1-11-63 - The Legislative Process, with Stephan K Bailey

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And if you want to enjoy some music, here's an episode of "The Bell Telephone Hour" from the late winter of 1961: 

Download: The Bell Telephone Hour, 3-17-61 - Much Ado About Music

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One of my favorite childhood Saturday morning TV shows ever was a short lived program based on the nonsense writings and drawings of Edward Lear. I've mentioned it here before, when another of my tapes captured a short segment of the show. Here is a longer segment of "Tomfoolery", from one of my own tapes, complete with little 10-year-old Bobby Purse providing an introduction (and a big ol' sniff along the way):  

Download: Tomfoolery - Saturday Morning Cartoon Show, January, 1971

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Paper reels, as I've mentioned before, were the earliest format of reel to reel tape, before they found that plastic backing worked much better. Any paper reel will be, by definition, more than 70 years old at this point, as they were phased out in 1951 or so. That doesn't mean the recordings on them are all 70+ years old, but most of such tapes do contain recordings of that vintage.

I don't actually have a date for this short reel of paper-backed reel to reel tape. It contains a Sermon delivered at the Diocese of Buffalo. 

Download: A Paper Reel - Sermon at the Diocese of Buffalo

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And now, for our "Acetate of the Month". Here is a recording made just weeks after V-E Day, near the end of World War II, featuring personnel from an American radio station interviewing American Soldiers in Britain, on June 22, 1945. 

Download: 6-22-45 Interview with American Soldiers in Britain

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And now for our "Very Short Reel". Today, I'm offering up three short promos for Evangelist David Nunn, who can read about in dozens of websites. In the case of these promos, we are being urged to listen to "The Healing Messenger Broadcast", which was heard no doubt around the country on various religious radio stations: 

Download: Evangelist David Nunn - Three Promos for "The Healing Messenger Broadcast"

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Saturday, February 18, 2023

Vintage Demo Reels, A 1950's Comeback, Super Bowl Predictions, Shutting Down, and the EBS Gets Musical

 First, let's get this said: 

HAPPY YOKO ONO'S 90th BIRTHDAY!!!

I hope your Yoko Birthday Eve family gatherings went well last night, that they continue apace today, and that your holiday meals this evening will be festive. Remember, for good luck in the rest of the year, be sure to eat some chocolate cake in a bag. 

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Before continuing, I wanted to comment on a segment of my last post. In the middle of that post, I offered up some music from Marge Magenheimer. What I didn't realize until later, is that I'd shared ol' Marge and her music before. But at the time of the earlier sharing, I had no idea who she was, and likely had only heard the one tape (I have at least eight that I've heard since then). So I thought I'd direct anyone who is interested to this post, where I featured a segment of what I called a unknown singers rehearsing a few songs over and over. That's Marge and her friends, featuring some of the same songs as heard in my last post, among others. 

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I have another interesting and varied batch of reel highlights for you today, and I'll start with the set which I suspect will be the most popular of this post. It's a set of airchecks from a deejay with the intoxicating name of Jack Daniels. 

If you research this fellow, you will mostly find a North Carolina deejay named Jack Daniel. This is not the same person. The NC fellow does not appear to be old enough to have been on the air in the early 1970's. In fact, I can find very little about this Jack Daniels, aside from a few mentions deep within radio tribute sites and archived pages of old newspapers. 

Regardless of all that, somewhere along the way I became the owner of two of his demo reels, one dated April 26, 1971, at which point he was at WEEL in Fairfax, Virginia, and a much shorter demo reel from his time (around March of 1970, it would appear) at WINX in nearby Washington, DC. The latter one, as you can see below, was described as a "Humor Show" on the side of the box: 

I do wish that today's top 40 stations (or what passes as top 40 today) would play this much of a mix of old and new, rather than entirely new. 

Download: Jack Daniels' Demo Reel, WEEL, April 1971

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The most interesting thing to me about this WINX tape is that the station had put an absolute flop of a Bee Gees single, "If Only I Had My Mind on Something Else" (from their brief Barry and Maurice only period), into rotation. Daniels even comments on the relative weakness of the song! Oh, and that B.J. Thomas song doesn't sound like anything that would ever have been a hit - that it reached # 26 can only be attributed to it being the follow-up to a massive # 1 record, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head":

Download: Jack Daniels' Demo Reel, WINX

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Jumping back in time nearly 20 years, here is an ultra rare recording of a completely forgotten television show, "The Comeback Story", hosted by George Jessel. This show told the story, each week, of someone who was once popular in his or her field, who hit a losing streak, but who was now, "BACK". You can read about the show, and its 19 episodes, here. This particular episode, from October 30th of 1953, centers on violinist and bandleader Harry Horlick. The first 15 seconds here appear to be from a recording of a different show. 

Download: The Comeback Story - Harry Horlick - 10-23-53

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Here's a tape I don't recall anything about. It looks like I digitized it close to a decade ago - where the original box is, I haven't a clue. But something on the box, I assume, let me know the family involved was from Georgia. And beyond that, it is self-explanatory - a group of folks singing The Beach Boys' hit "Shut Down". 

Download: Unknown Georgia Family - Shut Down

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I had hoped to have this post up one week ago, but in reality, that was never going to happen. So here, a week late, and in terrible sound quality, is a little three inch reel of tape containing a 1973 recording of Joe Namath discussing the then-upcoming Super Bowl VII, and predicting the outcome: 

Download: Joe Namath - Joe Namath Previews Superbowl VII

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And finally, our Very Short Reel of the post. This is one I just heard for the first time earlier this month, but I knew immediately that I had to share it right away, as it literally made me laugh out loud. Here's a station (or a production team) who took the required introductory text to the Emergency Broadcast System tests, and set them to music, and goofily catchy, silly music at that. Two bits that sound exactly like ads or promos if you aren't listening closely. They are absolutely great, particularly the second, longer one: 

Download: Two Emergency Broadcast System Test Jingles

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