Lots of Beautiful Music, Alcoholism Stories, An Odd Rehearsal Tape, Orchids on the Radio and Testing, Testing

Today's lead feature is something of a sort that multiple readers have asked me to please share whenever I come across it. And that is: Beautiful Music Programming. I admit to being wholly and deeply mystified by this, but I'm certainly not trying to be here solely to share what I like, and, if anything, the requests for this sort of programming have been the second or third most common thing I've been asked for more of!

So when I recently found two entire tape sides full of this stuff - nearly 130 minutes of programming from a Los Angeles station some time in the early 1970's - I  knew how I was going to lead off my next post. And that's what I'm doing! 

Download: KEZM, Los Angeles, Beautiful Music Programming, Early 1970's, Side One

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Download: KEZM, Los Angeles, Beautiful Music Programming, Early 1970's, Side Two

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Taking a hard turn into something completely different, here's another tape I unearthed in the last month which contains an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting from November of 1957. This meeting featured the testimony of two recovering alcoholics, both of whom present their histories. Near the end of the tape, the meeting ends and the recorder was turned off. At that point, we hear a short segment of a previous meeting, which was being erased by the November meeting. 

Download: An Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting, 11-23-57

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Okay, speaking of things which mystify me.... Here's a tape I obtained decades ago. I'm going to try not to overexplain this, but what I will say is that it contains singing by a few women - sometimes singing solo, often in duos and at times in trios. This appears to be a rehearsal tape, and several of the songs are from a musical production called "Israel Oh Israel". A professional presentation of that show can be found for sale here. But not all of the songs here are from this store. 

I actually sold this tape some time ago, but saved the MP3 to share here, eventually. Personally, I find the singing here, when the singers go into their upper ranges, to be aggressively hideous - shrill and ugly in tone - and moderately hideous the rest of the time (my mother would likely have begged me to turn it off) - but I do think it is... interesting, interested enough to share. So here it is. 

Download: A Female Trio Rehearses

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Here's an undated piece of AM radio talk which I find sort of befuddling, and humorous in that capacity. It just seems to me that doing a radio segment on flowers - a category of objects (in this case, Orchids) which would seem to only be able to be enjoyed by the senses of smell, sight and touch - is unintentionally ridiculous. 

This comes from radio station WDLC, AM 1490, which was (and is) in Port Jervis, New York. The show is "The Pike County Hour". Port Jervis is not actually in Pike County (which is in Pennsylvania), but it borders that county. 

Download: Pike County Hour, WDLC, 1490 - Show About Orchids

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And now, our "Very Short Reel" for this post. I've named this "Testing the Microphone" and I suspect that's self-explanatory. 

Download: Testing the Microphone

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Vintage R & B Radio, Some Religiosity, Savings Bonds, A Letter to Carole, A REALLY Short Reel, and The Oldest Tape I've Ever Owned

  Hello out there!!!

Let's get right to it. I have here something pretty special, I think, although I wish it was longer....

Anyway...

Remember Gary, Indiana? It was once a fairly flourishing working class town, just outside of Chicago, based around the steel industry. More recently, it has been named "the most miserable city in the US". But back when it was more or less thriving, Gary had a popular R & B Radio Station, WWCA, and WWCA had a popular DJ, Jesse Coopwood (although Wikipedia deems him to have been a jazz DJ).

Regardless, I have been lucky enough to come across, in my collection, two short recordings of Jesse Coopwood doing his thing. One is clearly from Fall of 1951, based on his comments about songs by Sylvia Robinson and by The Dominoes, among others, being recent or new. The other one does not have a date which is immediately apparent to me, but maybe someone else can figure it out. 

Anyway, these are precious and rare, and very much worth sharing. Enjoy!

Download: Jesse Coopwood on WWCA, Gary, Indiana, Fall, 1951

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Download: Jesse Coopwood on WWCA, Gary, Indiana

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Now, from roughly the same time period, in this case, from November 30, 1952, and the place is the tiny town of Clever, Missouri. Here is a recording, mostly likely made in/at a church, of a man who is saying some fairly ridiculous and quickly disproven things about the wonders of the Christian Church and specifically its supposed role in causing virtually everything that is good and forward moving in the world.  

I am a lifelong, active Christian, as you might have gathered from the piece about my mom a month ago, but I don't recognize that faith in what I hear from this guy. The number of "facts" that he spews here which are offensive and prejudicial in nature is staggering.

Download: A Man Extols the Wonders and Benefits of Christianity - Clever, Missouri, 11-30-52

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The flip side of this tape contains a home recording - it's not terribly scintillating, I suppose, but it is a bit peculiar and may hold some entertainment value. It's a family, having a fairly loose discussion, while going about their day, regarding Savings Bonds, and particularly one which was bought on behalf of what sounds like a young adult son, some years back. This seems to come from roughly the same timeframe as the religious speech above. 

Download: A Savings Bond Discussion, Circa 1952

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Perhaps you need a palate cleanser after that church speech up there. If so, here is a nice audio letter from a father to his daughter Carole. And I think that's all that needs to be said!

Download: Audio Letter from a Dad to His Daughter Carole

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And now, a real piece of history. On its surface, this may be among the least exiting sounds I've ever shared with all of you. But on the other hand.... I think this is now the oldest piece of playable tape in my collection. 

I recently was fortunate enough to obtain six reels of Soundmirror Recording Tape, produced by the Brush Development Company. This was, I believe, the first commercially available reel to reel tape in this country, appearing not long after the introduction of the format in the US, which I also believe was from the same company. That was in 1946. All of these are paper reels, by the way.

I have not listened to all of the tapes yet, so there may well be something even older on one or more of them. But this is a recording from May of 1948, 75 years ago this month, and perhaps 18 months after the first reel to reel machines came onto the market in this country. So I felt like I ought to share its contents, even if they are more than a bit bland. 

What the tape contains is an organist at a church in Florida playing a series of hymns and other music. The tape is just over 30 minutes long and the sound starts to fade in and out during the last five minutes. But this is the sort of thing that just excites me no end - not the contents so much as its very existence in my collection. 

Download: Mrs. Gibbs Plays the Organ at the Rader Memorial Methodist Church, Little River, Florida, 5-6-48

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And what does a Soundmirror tape box look like? Here is the box, front and back: 

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Now, let's move even a little further into the past, to nearly 80 years ago, and our Acetate of the Month. This is a little eight inch acetate, and while the voices are quite lighthearted, I'm sure it was made and was received with considerably more emotion than is given away by those voices. That's because this is almost certainly a mother sending her birthday wishes to her son who is in the armed forces, during a time of war. 

Download:  Birthday Greetings to Ensign Richard Nash from Mother, 10-6-43, Side One

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Download:  Birthday Greetings to Ensign Richard Nash from Mother, 10-6-43, Side Two

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And now it's time for our Very Short Reel of the post. In fact, I have two, because the first is a ridiculously very, VERY short reel. 

Here, for your dining and dancing pleasure is everything that was recorded on a standard, Seven inch, 1800 foot reel of tape that I scanned a few weeks ago: 

Download: Hello, George

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Since that was so ridiculously short, here's a more typical length "very short reel", this one being the remnants of what was probably once a longer recording. This was at the end of a tape on which was recorded some less than interesting records from the previous owner's collection. 

Download: Testing the Machine and Asking Bobby to Come Here

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