By Request! More Jack Eigen! Plus Ridiculous Vocals, My Favorite Poet, Igor Stravinsky, Some Relatives Visit, Steinbeck Pro and Con and a bit of Union Propaganda

Greetings! 

Before I get to this week's offerings, I want to share a very interesting comment I received regarding the last post, specifically, the tape of an adult man interviewing six-year-old Joe Hogan. An anonymous reader listener wrote: 

The man interviewing him seams to be in another room. I think this may have been some sort of studio. The clicking you here is the talkback going on and off. Back then, you had to hold down the button to talk, then release. He kept releasing it to soon. This seams like some sort of low budget production deal I think. I think Joe is listening through a monitor (the room sound when they talk) its not a direct mic feed or anything. I don't think they were related, I think he was just trying to make Joe feel comfortable. Maybe some sort of news thing for the school? Also, if you listening very carefully when he asks Joe, "Can you write?" He accidentally releases the talkback in the middle of his sentence, and you can briefly hear Joe's mic pick him up from the control room

Makes sense to me! Thanks!

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I have received a handful of requests for a further portion of my collection of Jack Eigen broadcasts. And this requires a bit of explanation. First, for those who haven't heard any of the other offerings in this series, my write up on Mr. Eigen can be found in this post. Suffice to say that, for the better part of twenty years, Jack Eigen was an irritant on the late night Chicago radio dial, but one that plenty of people could barely do without. As my mother once told me (and as is mentioned in that earlier post), his irritating manner was, in her view, essentially what drew people into listening to his shows. 

For those of you who have downloaded my previous Eigen offerings, I will share (as I mentioned in my last post) that I actually cheated you out of additional Eigen material when I posted what I identified as "Volume Five", last May. You see, that offering was actually the exact same tape as the one I had posted as "Volume Four", over a year ago. 

So here is the reel "Volume Five", which I will label as "Volume 5" so that your folder won't get confused and tell you that there is already a file by named "Volume Five". This is by far the longest one yet, I think. It is over four and a half hours long. Enjoy!

Download: Jack Eigen - The Jack Eigen Show, Volume 5

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I seem to have left on about ten seconds' silence at the beginning of this file, by accident. So don't be surprised at a bit of silence at first...

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Next up, here is someone named Bob Terry, enjoying his 50th birthday party in 1980. Someone - presumably the birthday boy, plays a lot of piano, including a few parody numbers which presumably were his own creations, and none of them terribly clever. For the last several minutes, the pianist/birthday boy and his guests try to work out a happy birthday dirge based on a familiar melody, although it seems to be a struggle to perfect what they're trying to do. That section goes on, and on, and on, and on.

Download: The Bob Terry 50th Birthday Party

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The next three rather esoteric items all come from the same tape, and all were recorded in 1962 off of television. I am presenting them here in the order they appear on the tape, even though the second one is dated before the first one (presumably, the first segment erased something previously recorded even earlier, on that section of the tape). I cannot locate this tape to show you a scan of the writing on the box (I may have sold it along with a bunch of other tapes, some time ago), but the information on dates was from the box.

First up is a short segment in which two jazz performers, pianist/singer Rose Murphy and bassist Slam Stewart, promote a local appearance in Albany on WRGB, a pioneering television station in Schenectady, New York. I learn from Wikipedia that WRGB was one of the world's first TV stations, way back in 1928 (!) and the fourth commercial station to sign on, in 1942. However, it was also the station that launched the career of Rachael Ray, and that is simply unforgivable. May you rot in hell for what you've done, WRGB. 

Anyway, I was certainly familiar with Slam Stewart and his sing-along bass playing, but had not encountered Rose Murphy before. Her piano playing is fine. But her singing... Oh my God, she was GODAWFUL! I have a hard time believing her performance style wasn't some sort of elaborate dry joke, designed to see how many pretentious jazz-hounds she could make rave over an absurd, terrible  and mannered singing. Your mileage may vary. 

After a pre-recorded track featuring both performers singing and playing, there is a great instrumental featuring Stewart and then a song featuring Murphy, before just a taste of Murphy's signature song and a fade out. 

Download: Rose Murphy and Slam Stewart - WRGB - 6-7-62

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Next on the tape is John Ciardi, giving a lovely presentation - along with the legendary Alan Lomax, on The Sea Islands, This was part of a short lived CBS-TV series called "Accent on an American Summer", and this episode focused on the music of these islands, dating from the slave era and later created by the descendants of slaves.  

Alan Lomax should need no introduction (if for nothing else but helping to mentor Pete Seeger and first bringing him to prominence, but of course, so much more), but John Ciardi? I'm sure he's largely forgotten, if indeed he was ever well known outside of literary and poetry circles. But he was well known and beloved in the home in which I grew up, due to his having written two of our favorite books, books of poetry for children. He actually wrote well over a dozen books of poems for children, it seems. We owned "I Met a Man" and "The Man Who Sang the Sillies", and there were few books in our home that I loved more, for both the wonderful nonsense of his rhymes  (which I'm sure had a deep influence on my own lyric-writing and general sense of humor), and for the marvelous illustrations by Edward Gorey. I found the following image from my favorite of his poems, which had my favorite of the illustrations, as well: 

Genius. Absolute genius. 

Anyway, I was delighted to find this tape, as I had no idea he had done anything else but write those two lovely books. 

Download: John Ciardi on The Sea Islands - 2-14-62

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Then the tape ends with a recording of a program in which Igor Stravinsky conducts one of his own compositions, "The Flood", and which is followed by a documentary about Stravinsky. This is a much longer segment - almost 50 minutes - and it is also from 1962: 

Download: Igor Stravinsky Conducts His "The Flood", and Documentary on Stravinsky, 1962

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I feel like I've done sort of a lot of typing so far, and will be below, as well, so I'm gonna scale it back for this one. This next piece of tape is "called Aunt Edith and Uncle Carl Come to Visit, 7-27-60", and I think that just about describes it. 

Download: Aunt Edith and Uncle Carl Come to Visit, 7-27-60

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Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". Most of the time, these are 78 RPM acetates, and last from three to seven minutes, total, for both sides. But acetates were also cut at 33 1/3 RPM, long before that speed was available commercially, and they were also cut at that speed, by private users, in the 1950's and well into the 1960's (and of course, by professional studios, long after that). And those 33 1/3 acetates could, of course, be far longer than their 78-era brethren. Today's offering is 26 minutes long, and the disc itself looks like this: 

Much of the information you need to know what you're going to hear is right there in that picture. The rest is in the first moments of the sound file. The discussion is between high school students. The school Evanston Township High School (I was able to find a reference to the teacher named on the label having worked there), and the other student, discussing Steinbeck with Dick Mills, is Bill Brower.

This is, as I'm sure you're imagining, scintillating stuff. 

Download: Custom Sound Studios 12 inch Acetate - Bill Brower and Dick Mills - A Discussion of the Style of John Steinbeck, Evanston, IL, September, 1957, Side One 

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Download: Custom Sound Studios 12 inch Acetate - Bill Brower and Dick Mills - A Discussion of the Style of John Steinbeck, Evanston, IL, September, 1957, Side Two

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Here's a photo of the second side of the acetate: 

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Finally, a "Very Short Reel". This is a bit of propaganda - and I don't mean that negatively - from the AFL-CIO. This sounds very much like it was the soundtrack to a short film, and the closing statements further make it sound as if this was one of a series of short films, presumably all from the AFL-CIO, which perhaps were paid for and ran on television stations in five minute timeslots. 

I should explain that I made some of the files that I am sharing today, and in the recent past, and no doubt in the future, as long as six or seven years ago. I have a large collection of "not yet used" items, and this one was digitized at least four years ago. All that is to explain why I can no longer find this tape's box, either (although it's unlikely I sold this one). But the name of the file is almost certainly what was written on the box. 

Download: AFL-CIO - Americans At Work - Building Aircraft

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Some Rare Early Johnny Carson Tonight Show Segments, An Interview with a Six-Year-Old, Two Very Different Tapes of Singing, and "The Children's Hour"

I have something extra special to lead off with today, but first, a bit of housekeeping. 

Eric Paddon fills in the gaps yet again regarding my WOR posting, documenting that the first Long John segment is from October 6th, 1962, and that the second segment late on October 17th and early on October 18th, 1962. His comments can be found at the bottom of that post, and are most informative - I encourage you to read them. 

And an anonymous poster - apparently as much of an obsessive as I am - sent me the following comment regarding one of the items in my last post: 

Just thought you might like to know that the Michigan News tape is the 1000th individual mp3 you have put up on the Inches Per Second blog since you started it back in 2015.

The comment goes on say that the number 1000 does not include anything I posted at WFMU. Wow - 1000 items for folks to download. I'm glad I started doing this. 

Finally, a few people let me know that the last offering I shared from the Jack Eigen collection was actually a repeat (and relabeling) of a tape I'd already shared previously. It's way too late to fix that offering, but I will have more Eigen - for real this time - in my next post. 

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Today, I have something extra special to lead off the post - vintage recordings from the first year of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. My understanding is that the videotapes of 98% of Carson's first decade in the big chair were erased by subsequent programs (leading to a lack of, among other things, any video of the appearance of Lennon and McCartney announcing the start of their Apple Corps). The two segments I have for you here do not appear to exist anywhere online, so these could literally be the only existing copies. 

The first, and probably more interesting one, is a portion of an appearance by Ella Fitzgerald and, briefly, Duke Ellington, on May 13th, 1963. There's about five minutes of music at the start, and the remaining 13 minutes or so are conversation. 

Song-poem enthusiasts (and hopefully any of you out there know about my other blog), might find some fascination in Ella's comments, midway through, about Teri Thornton. Ms. Thornton appeared on The Tonight Show three times during Johnny's first several months on the air, although never after that. Unfortunately, Ms. Thornton did not have the career that Ella and Johnny thought she would attain, but she is known to those of us in the song-poem fan contigent under the names Teri Summers, simply "Teri" and several other names. 

Download: Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, 5-13-63

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On the flip side of the same reel, there is an appearance by Allan Sherman, then-currently riding high with two recent number one albums (and a third about to be released, which would be his biggest). Happily (for those who are fans - and I LOVE his first two albums, the rest.... not so much), he performs a medley of some half-finished ideas in the form of very short songs, most of which I don't believe were ever released commercially, before he goes into a number from that upcoming album, "My Son, the Nut", at the end of the recording. 

Download: Allan Sherman on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, 7-10-63

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Switching gears quite a bit, although staying with television (I think), here's tape that I just love, even though I have absolutely no idea of its source, who was involved, or exactly what's going on here. It is post announced near the end as having been "The Children's Hour", and sure enough, it appears to be a series of skits, songs, etc. performed by a group of children. Some annoying editing was done at the time of the broadcast (and again, I'm assuming this was a TV program, and not a radio show). 

After a short rendition of "School Days", the program segues into some sort of play, described later as a Scottish Fairy Tale, which takes up much of the recording. The last several minutes are taken up with various kids singing various songs, with a bit of accordion thrown in, as well. The high point for me is a single minute, starting at about 16:00, where a child (can't tell if it's a boy or a girl) sings "Hey, Good Lookin'". Pretty much this whole tape is just enchanting, I think, but I am head over heels for that one performance - I just love this kid's voice and enthusiasm. The singing puts me in the mind of the early tapes of Merigail Moreland. I wish I knew who it was.   

Unknown: "The Children's Hour"

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The above tape also contains the following short segment of a few kids singing a few songs. They are not singers on the level of those heard during "The Children's Hour", and in fact, there are some wonderfully off-kilter notes, notes which would be downright embarrassing coming from the adult, but which I find endearing when coming from small children, as well as some deliberately goofy singing. Another sweet tape. The note at 2:53 is one for the ages. 

Unknown: Unknown - Peter Cottontail, Oh Susanna and Jesus Loves Me

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And speaking of children, and of sweetness, here is yet another tape that I heard for the first time recently, which contains a man interviewing a six-year-old. That could be cause for automated avoidance by some of you, and/or concerns about sweetness overload, but that's not what I hear. The man in question seems to be - or at least claims to be - a performer in a traveling circus. His relationship with the child, Joe Hogan, is never explained. The man's name is said once, by the child - maybe it's Patrick? 

I don't know what to make of the clipped sounds at the end of a few of the man's statements - Joe (the child) also seems to have trouble hearing what the man is saying at those moments, too, so perhaps this was not done face to face. Or something. 

I enjoy the fact that the child sometimes makes a long statement (as when he says the alphabet) and breathes in without stopping talking - he says the words while he's breathing. There are tapes of me at this age, and I would do the same thing. 

What I find remarkable here, and endearing, is that this six-year-old is clearly extremely bright, fully sure of himself, and holds up his end of the interaction completely. I'll let you discover the details for yourself, but I wouldn't be surprised if this kid went on to great success in school and elsewhere. 

Download: A Man Interviews Six-Year-Old Joe Hogan

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Here's a sampling from a small stack of tapes that I got somewhere, all featuring a woman and a man rehearsing songs in 1971, per the tape boxes. I really don't now more about them than that. The following offering actually features the contents of a two full five inch reels featuring this duo. For the most part, they are working on songs I'd prefer not to be in the same county as, at the very least. I generally loathe the sort of material that's heard here. Your mileage may vary.

Download: Unknown - Rehearsing a Bunch of Songs

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Here are the relevant parts of both tape boxes in one image: 

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And finally, a "Very Short Reel". The person speaking (undoubtedly to someone on the phone) is relating a story about getting an audio letter from someone that was recorded at a speed that her machine didn't run at, when she discovers that she herself is being recorded. This is more than a bit of a cheat, as this is simply the opening minute or so of a tape which is full of other recordings - almost entirely of some home recorded, and vapid, organ playing, with a few Hawaiian numbers from a record mixed in. But this goofy little recording leads off the tape, and I thought it was worth sharing. 

Download: Unknown - "He's Tapin' What I'm Sayin"

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