Stan Freberg Gives a Speech, Miss Newark of 1956, Lucky Beer in Hawaii, More Australian Shortwave, A Latin Acetate and Rudy Vallee

Hello again!

I have another wide variety of recorded tape to share with you today, lovingly digitized and shared with whatever little part of the world comes to visit. 

My first offering is quite the find, I think. I wish the sound quality was better, but even as it is, it's pretty damn special, and as far as I can tell, one of a kind. I consider Stan Freberg to be among the greatest humorists of the 20th Century, and he is one of my favorite recording artists, even though his recorded output is rather small. And Freberg, of course, became a force in advertising after he (mostly) left the comedy record field, pioneering a humorous tone in advertising that pushed aside the hard sell for at least a time. 

This recording is a speech that Freberg gave at the San Francisco Ad Club. I don't have a date for this, or, literally, any other information. And again, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. But still, other than those who were in the audience that night, and anyone who owned or played the tape before I owned it, this is a recording of Stan Freberg that has gone unheard, up until now. 

Download: Stan Freberg at the San Francisco Ad Club

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Okay, now let's spend some time with Barbara Reisman. Who, you might ask is Barbara Reisman? Well, she was only MISS NEWARK OF 1956!!!! I found the following two little segments of tape involving Miss Reisman at the end of a reel of tape which otherwise had nothing of interest on it. There is a local -and I mean really local - newspaper which mentions here here (it's in the middle right on page three).  I also found a link to an obituary, but that page wouldn't load. Boo. 

Anyway, in the first segment, she is heard talking with a few men and then singing a song, and in the second, she's heard on a radio show, "Club Tel Aviv", after the opening chat from the host and a performance by another person. She plays her cello. Whoever recorded this tape somehow managed to record over the big finish of her piece, so the last few notes are interrupted before you get to hear the very end of her performance. Oh, and is it just me, but does the audience at "Club Tel Aviv" sound like tapes of audiences applauding? 

Download: Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956, Chats with a Few Men and Sings a Song

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Download: "Club Tel Aviv", Featuring Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956

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Well, after that, perhaps you'd like a drink. Here a tape of a promotions man from Lucky Genuine Draft Beer, who went all the way to Hawaii to promote his product, early in 1966. Maybe that was the best way for him to get to spend a few days in paradise. 

Download: Hawaiian Promotional Interview for Lucky Genuine Draft Beer - February 1966

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For those of you who like it, here are two more entries in the series of Australian Shortwave, which I've been parceling out from time to time since not long after this blog began. I'm fairly certain the person who recorded these programs lived somewhere in North America, because all of the shows (up until this posting) were from episodes directed at that continent. But additionally, I wonder now if the person lived on the west coast of North America, because he or she made an effort (on the same tape as a show from 9/5/74), to capture Australia Shortwave during a program broadcast towards Asia and the South Pacific. The quality of the connection during that portion is, as you'll hear, quite poor, but it did come in, at a level and quality that I would guess it wouldn't have been received in the eastern half of the continent. 

Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, 9-5-74 (and another date) for North America

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Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, Undated, for Asia and the South Pacific

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For my "Acetate of the Month", this time around, I picked one which features an unknown Latin band, (they are not named on the label) and a song I have very much enjoyed since the first time I played it, "El Telfonito", along with its flipside, a rather haphazard performance of something called "Zombie": 

Download: Unknown Latin Band - El Telefonito

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Download: Unknown Latin Band - Zombie

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At the end of "Zombie", you can hear an announcer, indicating that these were recorded off the air. Here's the record: 

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the week. Technically, this isn't a "short reel", as it is excerpted from a tape which was about ten minutes long. "Very Short Segment" is more like it. But this is a real period piece, a moment in time and too good to not share. Anyway, remember Zayre? If you're under 40 years old, the answer is probably "no", and if you're under 35, the answer is definitely "no", since they went out of business 33 years ago. But they were as big as K Mart for awhile (for those of you who remember K Mart, or who live near one of the three remaining K Marts that still exist in the US). 

Anyway, remember Rudy Vallee? You're older than 40 if you do. He went out of business a few years before Zayre, but in his time, made some brilliant records, and was as big a star as there has ever been, for a time, that time being 100 years or more ago. 

This brief segment brought Zayre and Rudy Vallee together, from what I am guessing was the only time, joined as well by The Ray Charles Singers, a conglomeration formed by a white man named Ray Charles a year or two before that other Ray Charles made his first record. 

Download: Rudy Vallee and the Ray Charles Singers - Zayre Commercial

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Blowout Post # 5

Greetings! 

Last month proved very busy, to the point that, for the first time in over 18 months, I only posted once that month. I'm still catching up on a lot of things, so I'm going to feature another of my "Blowout Posts", with a dozen offerings and, for the most part, very little in the way of explanation. 

But first, I want to review a few comments. Someone named E. Schad has very helpfully put names to two different tapes I featured in two different posts. It seems that they were both from a Capitol series of production music called the Hi-"Q" stock music library. The posts are here and here, and you can find the names of the tracks in the comments of each post. 

In other helpful comments, "Snoopy" has figured out that the second Jesse Coopwood tape heard here is from September 9th, 1951, an anonymous commenter has identified that the audio letter I shared in that same post was recorded about 19 years later, on September 24th, 1970  (see those comments, as well, for more information), and my Star Ads loving pal, Larry, caught something I missed, which is that Kenny Biggs, in this post, gave the date of the recording, at least for part one of the tape, as being yet another September date, in this case, September 16th, 1965. 

Finally, frequent participant "OldRadios90" wrote in to say that he'd acquired one of what he says were  "The first battery operated Solid State Recorders", the Steelman Transitape, which you can see here. Additionally, OldRadios90 shared that he has added more recordings to his archive.org page, which is an extremely worthwhile visit. You can find it here, and also in the links, to the right. 

Thanks to each of you THIS MUCH!!

And now, back to the countdown. 

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Let's start with the recording I think maybe will hold the most interest for the largest number of readers/listeners. For here we have the legendary Los Angeles area Disc Jockey, "Humble" Harve Miller. In this clip, it's June 26th, 1965, he is fairly newly landed at KBLA, Burbank, and he's not only spinning the hits, but a few b-sides, a few oldies, and tracks from Capitol's then-latest butchery of a Beatles album, "Beatles VI", which had been released 12 days earlier. There is a very brief gap in this tape at around the 48 minute point - a little bit of a PSA is missed. That's where the small amount of recording from the second side of the tape begins. The entire recording is just over an hour long. 

Download: Humble Harve Miller on KBLA, Los Angeles, 6-26-65

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Almost as popular as airchecks are vintage commercials, and here I have a tape - or rather two tapes - containing a total of five ads for Great Bear Spring Water, from the Rumrill-Hoyt company. Why some of these ads (the first three, all of which were on the same tape) have brief announcer copy before and instrumental music afterwards, I have absolutely no idea. The Great Bear Spring Company was founded in 1888, and surely had a jump of decades on most of those companies who sell bottled water. 

Download: Rumrill-Hoyt, Inc - Five Great Bear Spring Water Ads

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Here is a combo scan of the front of one of the boxes containing these ads and the back of the other one: 

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Okay, so those were my two big shares for the post, I suppose. As noted at the top, the rest of today's offering fall into the category of "Things I Think Might Be Worth Sharing, And Which Some People Might Find Interesting, But Which I Don't Have a Whole Lot to Say About"

First up, some speeches that were made at a large Bell Telephone gathering, presumably a convention, followed by some music heard at that same same event, performed by - of all things - a full mixed chorus (80 members) made up of nothing but various Telephone company employees. Those were certainly different days, corporate-wise, eh? 

Download: Speeches and Music at a Telephone Company Convention

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Speaking of corporations which produced products that many Americans used every single day, The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company produced, for almost exactly 10 years, a series called "The Greatest Story Ever Told", built around the life of Christ - at least to the degree that Jesus, when he spoke in the series, only said those things captured in the Bible. On the other hand, as you'll hear in this episode, there were at least some weeks when Jesus didn't appear at all. 

Download: The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Presents - The Greatest Story Every Told

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On March 2, 1959, Bing Crosby hosted a television special. The recording heard here is not the complete show, but it's nice anyway. Elements of this show are available on YouTube and other video sites, but I believe the portions heard here contain material not available elsewhere. 

Download: The Bing Crosby Show - 3-2-59

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Now here's a real endurance test. A car full of friends drives from northwest Indiana to Ohio and they  record 90 plus minutes of their conversation for posterity, while en route. For those of you who choose to share their journey, you will be rewarded with a sound clip for the ages, one to use in all of your sound manipulations, when the driver exclaims "Save your farts for Ohio". The man who speaks that line - and who probably recorded this tape - was the same person behind the nudist camp which I've featured in the past, here and here. 

Download: The Schmidt's and Friends Drive to Ohio Via Highway 30, 1964

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Now here's a recording I've labeled "KNPT, Newport, Oregon - Ann and Len Nash at the Hi-Tide Supper Club - Two Episodes, June 25th and June 28th, 1955". And I think that probably sums up everything you need to know about it. 

Download: KNPT, Newport, Oregon - Ann and Len Nash at the Hi-Tide Supper Club - Two Episodes, June 25th and June 28th, 1955

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Here's something just a bit "different". It's an audio letter, but one made up mostly of music. The sender, in Vicksburg, is using music to connect to his recipient, Darlene, in California, with only a few comments thrown in between the songs, indicating some of them have memories attached to them, and others perhaps have lyrics which are meaningful to their relationship.  

Download: A Musical Audio Letter to Darlene

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Back to the Home Recordings we go. Here we have a gentleman who sings in an extremely old-timey style a style I associate with Irish tenors (not that I'd call him an Irish tenor) - and who offers up song after song, along with a bit of conversation with those who he is with, for some 40 minutes or so. 

Download: Unknown - Some Old Fashioned Singing and a Few Conversations

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Now let's travel to Valley Forge, PA, home to an organization of American Baptist Churches, and enjoy a short radio program that group produced at some point, titled "Audio Mosaic"

Download: Audio Mosaic (From the American Baptist Churches, Valley Vorge, PA)

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Only the tiniest of indications of the contents made it onto this box: 

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And as always, we'll finish up with the "Very Short Reels" segment, in this case, since I'm plowing through so much stuff, I'll offer up two. 

First is what I find to be an utterly charming little tape of a small child introducing her father, who then plays a solo on trombone, and then the two of them do a trombone/vocal duet on another standard. He's not very good, and she can't sing at all, but it's still mighty cute, and her little laugh at the end is worth the price of admission. This actually showed up at the very end of a lengthy tape filled with bland recordings of 1950's and 1960's big band jazz, jazz with all of the life sucked out of it, so it was a nice dessert after a bland meal. 

Download: Daddy Plays "All of Me", Daddy and Daughter Sing "Red Roses for a Blue Lady"

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And here is the simply titled, "Two Girls Sing Three Short Songs", to which I'll only add that the second song is actually sung by only one of the girls: 

Download: Two Girls Sing Three Short Songs

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