Antony Bilbow Reads His Stories, Mike Starr Reads the News, Great Musicians Vs. Tone Deaf Singing, A Few Soldiers in London, and Not Singing "Let Me Go, Lover"

Howdy, 

I'm back from COVID and ready to share more of my enormous collection! But first, a follow up to my last post. 

For what I'm sure is more than the dozenth time, thanks to Eric Paddon for identifying that the brief clip of Tic Tac Dough that I shared last time comes from February 13th, 1959, and that, while the show had already gone through it's period of being "crooked" by that point, the winner of that show came by his successes honestly. And he won the equivalent of $1.5 million during his run on the show. All of this information is better explained in a couple of comments Eric made on the post linked above. 

Thanks to everyone else who has commented, as well. In answer to a couple of those comments, I will continue to make a priority of listening to and sharing DJ airchecks which are in my collection. 

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To start, something a little different. Many years ago, I bought a batch of tapes which had belongs to a "tape club", a batch of mostly old time radio recordings, which a circle of people who would exchange with each other, each of them labeled - usually with up to six hours of recordings of episodes of one show - Jack Benny, Bob and Ray, Mr. Keen... whatever. I'm sure these tapes became available to me because of the dying out of the reel to reel format and particularly, the growth of the internet - for the most part, nowadays, the contents of most these tapes can be found online, either for free or for sale on multiple websites. I've listened to some of these tapes over the years and some remain unexplored, so far, in my basement. 

But one of these tapes, labeled "Worthington", contains recordings of a BBC program which, as far as I've been able to discover, don't appear to be easily found online - I've found references to them, but nothing else. Technically, the show is not "Worthington", that's just the name of the lead character - a dog - in two out of every five stories. The shows are actually 15 minute stories, read by a man named Antony Bilbow, and written, for the most part, by Mr. Bilbow and his wife. I believe this fellow, 95 years old as I write this, is the same person as you'll hear on this tape. The stories are quite wonderful, in my opinion, and British through and through. They would apparently run in the morning on English radio five days a week, with Monday and Friday's shows featuring stories about Worthington the dog. 

Anyway, the tape is recorded in quarter track mono, six stories to a track, which means I have 24 of them, lasting a total of six hours. Here is the first side, left channel of the tape. If anyone would like to hear more of these, just let me know. 

Download: Antony Bilbow - Stories on English Radio, Volume 1

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Here is the part of the tape box which lists the stories on the first side, left channel, as heard above: 

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Next up, in two segments containing at least three different recordings, we have someone named Mike Starr. He was, if this tape is to be believed, a news man and general voice-over/commercial announcer at a station called WHBM (named after its owner's initials) in Xenia, Ohio. You can read about the station's history and current status here. I say "If this tape is to be believed" because elements of this tape are so amateurish as to make me wonder if this isn't a demo tape submitted to the station. Primarily, I'm referring to the comical level of reverb heard throughout, and the way that reverb gets turned up to a distracting point during the latter parts of this tape. 

Anyway, part one of this offering - by far the longer of the two - features Mike Starr giving a lengthy newscast which, based on a couple of the stories involved, appears to date from January 7, 1967. This is followed, in this same segment by several commercials, the first of which is Christmas related, so cannot be from the same date as the newscast. A couple of the commercials don't even sound like the same announcer to me. And it is during these commercials that the reverb gets cranked up, seemingly at random, a few times. But maybe it's real. What do you think? 

Download: WHBM News and Ads with Mike Starr

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Sorry about the clicking throughout - I digitized this five years ago, and I believe that those noises are on the original tape. If I track down the tape at some point, I will double check and replace these files. 

Anyway, after several unrecorded minutes on that same tape, the following short bit of goofiness featuring a man who I believe is still Mike Starr, interacting with his dog. 

Download: Mike Starr at Home with His Dog

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Looking backwards into the previous decade, and for those of you who enjoy Big Band music, here is half of an hour long program featuring Harry James, fronting his band on something called "Palladium Dance Time" on July 27, 1954 - presumably, these particular performances of these tunes have not been heard since this broadcast. The reel of tape this was recorded on only allowed a little more than 30 minutes to a side, at 7 1/2 IPS, so that's where the recording ends. 

Download: Harry James and His Orchestra - Palladium Dance Time, 7-27-54

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And now for the polar opposite to the above. Instead of a half hour of master musicianship, we have a very different half hour.... Yes, it's another recording of someone who absolutely cannot sing, and who recorded himself singing along with various records by Elvis, and a few others, apparently some time in 1959. If you can stand listening long enough, you will hear the same fellow demonstrating that his talent as a vocalist was roughly equal to his talent as a guitarist. 

I don't know why, but I am absolutely fascinated by these sorts of tapes - I have at least three which I believe feature this same guy, but I have others, as well - and I sit and listen to them with amazement, wondering 1.) why anyone, even an excellent singer, would record him or herself singing along with a series of records, and 2.) if this guy had any insight, at least after listening to these tapes, that he was tone deaf. 

I completely understand if this is not of interest, but as I said, it holds a peculiar hold over me. 

Download: Singing Along Badly (and Playing the Guitar Along Badly) With Elvis and Others, circa 1959

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And now for our "Acetate of the Month". I think this one is fairly self-explanatory: 

A reporter the U.S. Army Radio Service interviewed a few soldiers from Chicago, for playback on a Chicago station (WGES), on June 21st, 1945. Here is that recording: 

Download: US Army Radio Service 12 Inch Acetate - World War II Broadcast - London to Chicago - WGES- 6-21-45

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And finally, yet another "Very Short Reel". In this case, we have a little girl named Debby (or, perhaps, Debbie" who is being encouraged by her parents to sing a song, specifically "Let Me Go, Lover" (which likely dates this tape to very late 1954 or early 1955, when that song was a hit). Debby would rather pound on her toy xylophone. This goes on for precisely 75 seconds, at which point the recording turns into daddy asking mommy to name all the colors found in their couch, a topic which takes up the final 23 seconds. 

Download: Debby Doesn't Want to Sing 'Let Me Go Lover' and How Many Colors

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More LA Radio, More Jack Eigen, Some Wasted Study Time, Some Perry Como Time, and Just a Bit of Tic Tac Dough

Hello, 

First, I want to thank my pal Stu and another, anonymous commenter, who both identified that the Stan Freberg speech I posted two weeks ago is from 1958. The clues were right there in his words, but I didn't pick up on them. Thanks!

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This post is very media-recording oriented. I think those tend to be among the most popular things I share, so perhaps this will be particularly enjoyable for many of you. And then there's Jack Eigen....

I'm starting today with some requests. First, because, when I mentioned to a friend that I have a bunch more tapes of deejay Humble Harve and other vintage west coast radio recordings, I was quickly asked to share another one of those reels. So, without further ado, here is more Humble Harve on KBLA in what was probably April of 1966!: 

Download: Humble Harve Miller on KBLA, Burbank, Circa April, 1966

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The rest of the tape is recorded with a segment of a show hosted by Gene Weed on KFWB. And while the tape box (reproduced below) indicates that this tape is ALSO from 1966, whoever wrote that was wrong. This is clearly from 1962. Not only are none of the songs from after 1962, there is a commercial/promotional contest involving the then-brand new Walt Disney release, "Bon Voyage", which was released in the spring of that year: 

Download: Gene Weed on KFWB, Los Angeles, 1962

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I also have a correspondent who has been asking for more Jack Eigen. You can find all of my Eigen posts by clicking on his name in the Labels at the bottom of this page. Like the other tapes I've shared, this is a compilation of excerpts from Eigen's late night Chicago shows. I have somewhere between 18-22 of these, I think, most of them, like this one, well over two hours long. 

Download: Jack Eigen - The Jack Eigen Show, Volume 4

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Next, for those who might be fans of the late, somewhat lamented TV variety show, here's an episode of Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, from the end of October, 1964, featuring Anne Bancroft, Stanley Holloway and the incomparable Victor Borge: 

Download: Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall - with Victor Borge, Anne Bancroft and Stanley Holloway - 10-29-64

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Now here's an oddity, perhaps only appealing to a few of you, certainly fewer than the offerings above. Somewhere along the line, I managed to get ahold of some recordings of what sounds like a college study group and/or a group of college students working on a specific project or projects. They are pretty dry, and I haven't shared them before. I thought this one was a little more interesting, because it sounds like they are waiting for more people to show up, and discussing how they aren't getting anything done, while also quizzing each other about what they need to study. But as far as I can tell, nothing actually DOES get done. (Also, someone leaves the machine on for several minutes after everyone leaves, and we get to hear a bunch of ambient noise from outside the room for awhile.). 

I've dated this "probably 4/25/79", but "possibly 4/25/79" would have been better. It may also be 2/19/82. The box is sort of confusing - there's actually a third date, crossed out, too. Here's a scan of it. 

And here's that tape: 

Download: A Student Study Session, Probably 4-25-79

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Finally, here's our "Very Short Reel" for this post. Here is a short excerpt that someone captured, of the end of an episode of "Tic-Tac-Dough", one of the shows which was later caught up in the "rigged game shows" scandal. Bill Wendell (best known to people my age as the first announcer on David Letterman's late night shows) was the host for almost exactly one year, from October 1958 to October 1959, so this tape comes from that period. He was not the host when the (known) discredited contestants appeared, but he was the last host of its 1950's iteration, and appeared on the show while it was being investigated and being cancelled. 

Download: Short Fragment of an Episode of Tic-Tac-Dough

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