A Tragic Industry, Some Funny Recipes, Children at Home, The Summer of '64 and More

First off, I'd like to than Eric Patton - yet again - for identifying details that I didn't have the resources (or, in this case, didn't take the time) to dig up. The baseball recording from my last post is from a game played on July 3, 1962. 

To Eric and anyone else who is interested: This particular collection of reels contains two more tapes of baseball broadcasts from roughly the same era (very late 1950's or very early 1960's). However, the recording quality is as bad as I've ever heard on a tape, and worse than anything I've ever heard here short of shortwave - they sound like they are coming over shortwave, and broadcasts simply start and stop at random. At one point, I realized I was listening to a broadcast of a collage baseball game. If there is interest, I will post these. But... they are lengthy (one is two hours, twelve minutes and the other is 55 minutes) and REALLY hard to listen to. Let me know!

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I'd like to start with something pretty awful, but awfully fascinating, too. It's an interview, very likely from the 1950's, with someone named Captain Hill (along with "Jimmy") on a show which I think might be called "The Pepperell Forum" - but that's just a guess, as the name of the show is said very quickly. The host is Major Barren (and again, I'm guessing at the spelling of his name). 

The subject of this abomination is "The Sealing Industry", aka the killing of seals, including baby seals, for their pelts and other materials. While I understand that this is basic necessity for people such as the Inuit, that's not what's under discussion here, and in any event, the killing of seal pups - discussed here - has long since been outlawed. 

I guess I'm both horrified and mesmerized - in the way one might be at looking at a terrible car crash - at the tone of this interview, which is very much clinical and informational. At one, point the interviewer does make mention of something terrible or awful happening, and I thought maybe he was going to acknowledge that they were talking about something incredibly cruel. But no, he was talking about an outing for hunting that ended in the deaths of multiple hunters. Oh, that. 

And to the contrary of any thoughts of awfulness contained in the practice itself, at the end of the show, we are told that the we've been hearing about "The Fabulous Sealing Industry". 

Download: The Pepperell Forum - The Fabulous Sealing Industry

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How about a palate cleanser. I was requested some time ago to share more tapes from my own childhood, and I was absolutely delighted to find the following short tape not too long ago, on a tape I had not listened to since I was a teenager (at which point I had catalogued what was on said tape), and which I have no recollection of EVER hearing before. 

I believe I've about eight years old here (putting this in 1968 or 1969), recording on what may have been the first tape given to me to be my very own - a three inch reel, recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS, in quarter track mono (different recordings on all four tracks) so as to get the most recording time out of it. Most of it was nearly unlistenable goofing off, save for some very nice interactions with my older brother. But in one segment, heard below, I read a series of recipes. I would love to say that I was this creative or deliberately funny to have written all of these fake recipes tongue-in-cheek at age eight, but that's absolutely not the case.

No, I'm reading from some source. I don't know where I got these from, but I'm guessing it was a book. And listening to the tape, I'm fairly certain this was a book - or perhaps an article - featuring a series of recipes dictated by kids my own age or younger. They are silly, funny, ridiculous and delightful. I love this tape. 

Download: Bobby Reads Kid Recipes

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Now it's time for some other children, perhaps a decade before the above - at least, I'm guessing it's the late 1950's), being silly, being fun... being kids. It's apparently both the week between Christmas and New Years (or thereabouts) AND around the time for one of the children's birthdays, judging from the various conversations heard here. 

This tape was in the same stack of tapes as was the one from which came the "very short reel" in my last post - the segment with the section about the cow going moo - and it could well be that both tapes came from the same family. 

Download: Kathy, Jackie, Michael and Others - Home Recordings, Christmas and Birthday Talk and More

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Here's something common to this blog but just a little bit different. It's a tape made from New York Top 40 powerhouse WINS in the summer of 1964. Normally, I'd be drooling over this, as would a certain percentage of my readers/listeners. However, this is one of those frustrating tapes where the taper made every effort - very effectively - to cut out all DJ voice overs, patter and commercials, and just get the songs. 

The reason I'm sharing it anyway (since it only contains the songs, many of which are extremely commonly available) is that I was sort of taken aback by the sheer variety of music heard on such a leading Top 40 station that summer. I am a huge record collector and have been studying the charts, and pop music in general, for more than 45 years. Yet there were close to a dozen songs within this two hours of recording that I'd never heard before. 

And were it not for the lists of songs included in the box, I'd have had to do a lyric search to find out what they were, and I'm quite certain some of them would not have been found online by that search. I was also sort of dumbfounded that The Beatles didn't show up until about 90 minutes into the recording, and even then, they appeared first in a version of one of their songs by The Boston Pops. Really? On WINS? The actual Beatles don't show up - during a tape made while they were dominating radio and the world - until eight songs from the end of the tape. 

I know that at that time there was a plethora of local and regional hits heard on many regional stations, but I guess I didn't expect that to be the case so much for what was perhaps the most powerful Top 40 station of its day. The tape box says something about "Tip Top Talent Hunt" - perhaps that's the explanation - that portions of this tape were recorded during was some sort of "potential future hits" programming. But on the other hand, the more obscure records heard here are played throughout the length of the tape...

Here's that portion of the box: 

One final note: I was sort of stunned by the out and out theft of others' material heard early on in this tape. The third song on the tape is identified as "Rules of Love", and even the compiler here didn't know who the artist is (an online search finds a single hit for the lyrics, and attributes them to The Orlons, which makes sense given the weird bass singer heard on this track). This record is literally "What'd I Say" rewritten with new lyrics. Note for note, section for section and nearly chord for chord. Astonishing. Three songs later comes "Moon Maid", a deeply unlikely tribute to a side character from the Dick Tracy comic strip which owes its existence to "Alley Oop". A little less ridiculous in terms of plagiarism, but only by degrees. (Youtube proves this one to be by "Billy Dee & The Debonaires", by the way.)

Download: WINS, New York, Summer, 1964

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And here are the lists - I believe you can open/save these and make them bigger. I made them small to save space: 

      

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And now, a little Ed and Frank. I have, in my collection, a small group of tapes featuring said duo, performing live at who-knows-where, each of them with little stickers on the reel with their names, the date, the speed of the tape and, on this tape, at least, the words "electric piano". And that's all I know. 

Actually, I find this stuff pretty damn unlistenable - it is electric piano... and brushed drums, with the very occasional vocal thrown in. Now, when I write what I'm about to write, I'm not talking about billed duos who actually have a full band behind them, or folk singing duos who don't need anything more than a acoustic instruments and voices: 

But with those exceptions, two person "groups" are, in my experience, pretty ridiculous, painfully limited and generally awful - looking at you, The White Stripes - and Ed and Frank are no exception. 

Download: Ed And Frank, 7-4-57

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For my "Acetate of the Month", I've selected a record featuring a presentation of William E. Fitzpatrick, being honored as the "Rochester Citizen of the Day" on some unnamed radio station and by an unnamed announcer. The date is August 1st, 1951, and the record looks like this. 

And it sounds like this: 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51

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The flip side simply says "NG" for No Good (see below), but contains the same material, told in three seconds longer than on the usable side. For whatever reason, this version was not considered suitable for airplay. 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51 (NG Side)

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And now for the "Very Short Reels" entry for this week's post. And technically, this is part of a slightly longer reel (15 minutes or so), as this section comes after a short period of some dull recordings of commonly available music off of full albums played on the radio. A young woman gives the date and is excited about the upcoming Perry Como Kraft Music Hall show with Eddy Arnold - this allowed me to identify the year as 1967. Here is that show. Then there's time for a bit of talk about the music she'd just shared and just a little bit of family news and personal goings-on, and talks just a bit about some situation familiar to both her and the recipient of her outreach. 

Download: A Short Audio Letter - 1-25-67

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BASEBALL for Opening Day, Wife Beating Songs for Children, Life at Home in the Mid 1950's, Jazz from Charlie's Party and Beyond, and the Cow Goes Moo

Hello! 

I forgot to add this when I posted this, but I have tapes for sale. I also forgot to publicize the last two batches, which sold earlier this month. But these are still available. Nothing posted to this site is on any of the tapes listed in that auction. 

And now: Let's jump right into things. Major League Baseball got an early jump again this year, with two teams starting the season today in Japan, while the rest of the teams are still playing Spring Training. My Chicago Cubs - the ONLY team that matters - have a two game series of games that will count against the Los Angeles Dodgers - who have been the Spawn of Satan since at least 1976, maybe 1973 (I'm not sure about earlier) - before both teams go back to Spring Training. 

In honor of the Cubs opening the season, here are their Artificial League (AL) Chicagoland cohorts, the White Sox, heard over very poor reception in a game against the Tigers, perhaps from 1962 

(I'm guessing 1962 because the other side of the tape was a poor recording of part of the second 1962 All Star Game, at Wrigley Field. That broadcast, in full and in better quality, is on YouTube). 

I suppose it's possible that this broadcast is also out there already somewhere, but I have no idea how to find out if it is. I'm sure someone out there will know - much quicker than I would - how to date this recording.

Regardless of the appalling lack of CUBS in this recording, it's still a lot of fun. Plus, it's always amazing and encouraging to me, when I hear old baseball broadcasts, to realize how little has changed about the game, in the (in this case) roughly 62 or 63 ensuing years. That is, except for the damnable Designated Hitter rule, which is no Spawn - it is the direct work of Satan himself.  

Download: White Sox at Tigers, 6th, 7th and 8th Innings

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I was quite pleased and surprised to find a nearly complete episode of a show featuring Alan Mills from CBC radio on an otherwise nondescript reel the other day. With my folk music background and my history of working with children, Mills' voice was very familiar one to me, and this show was called "Folk Songs for Young Folk". 

I mentioned up there how baseball seems to be eternally the same in a lot of ways. Well, here we have the opposite: In what could not be a more clear example of how much times have changed, this show - which I'm guessing is from the late 1950's - is largely focused on songs about marital discord, including every grade school child's favorite subject, wife beating. It's all handled with the most pleasant and avuncular good humor, too. 

Download: Folk Songs for Young Folk with Alan Mills on the CBC

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The next three segments all come from the same tape. And as much as some - perhaps many - of you may find the first part too sickly sweet, I found it deeply endearing and memorable. It is an edited version of a considerably longer tape, a tape which mainly features the cries, gurgles and other sounds made by an infant named Paulie in late November, 1955. 

I have come across many such tapes - in the days before video cameras, I think it was fairly common for parents to audiotape their newborn's utterances. But that's not the focus of the segment heard here. For whatever reason, halfway through the side of the tape, the child's mother, Betty, begins thinking out loud about the baby, about his father and grandfather, about his development so far, etc., and.... well, like I said, I found it extremely touching. I hope you do, too. 

Download: Mommy Betty and Baby Paulie, 11-28-55

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On the other side of the tape are more baby recordings, from February of 1956, then, the following curious little segment, in which Betty complains that someone who borrowed the machine may have damaged it in some way (the recordings sound fine to me) and it order to test it, she will read from the Sears Catalog. Not, mind you, the products and prices, but rather, the advertising copy no doubt on the first few pages, telling the customer how wonderful Sears is. And for someone simply doing a machine test, four minutes seems sort of... excessive? 

Download: Betty Tests the Machine by Reading from the Sears Catalog

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After she's done expounding on the wonders of the Sears company, for the rest of the reel, we get to hear a fairly wonderful example of what local radio sounded like, circa 1955. I'm guessing 1955 as that's when the baby recordings started and this is what those recordings were erasing, at least up to the halfway point or more of side two. In this case, it's the long-lived, but now defunct WMAQ in Chicago, with a bit of midwestern daytime radio, typical of the era. 

Download: A Few Minutes of WMAQ, Chicago, Circa 1955

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The biggest chunk of tape I have for you today is the entire contents of a tape which came in a box that looks like this: 

The back of the box (below) says "Dixieland and Other Jazz From Our Annual Studio Party for Charlie Miller" featuring - I think I'm reading this right - Guy and Lenore Preston. If those names mean anything to anyone out there please leave a comment. Otherwise, I'm just going to let this go without further comment. 

Download: Dixieland and Other Jazz From Our Annual Studio Party for Charlie Miller, 1-7-73

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Now to my ears, where there is a definite break in the recording - at the 62:20 mark - the music returns with what sounds like a different session, even a somewhat different band, so I have broken that part of the tape out as a separate track, indicating that I think it's just a jam session from the same (or more likely, a similar) band. I could be wrong, of course, but that's how I separated out this tape. 

Download: Jamming with the Band from the Charlie Miller Tape

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Here's part of the back of the box: 

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For our very short reel, which is the homiest of home recordings, I have come up with a title which, I think, summarizes the contents nicely, without anything else that needs to be said. 

Here it is!: 

Download: Four Minutes at Home - Two Songs, An Interview, and the Cow Goes Moo

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Five Segments of Music on the Radio, 1965-1973

This is going to be a fairly simple post. I decided to gather together some of the tapes I've listened to lately which contained radio programming which primarily featured music and share them here, one after the other, with my typical sort of comments in between. There is AM and FM reflected here, Country, Top 40, Christian and what later became known as "Music of Your Life". As indicated above, the recordings on the tapes are each from somewhere between 1965 and 1973. And between them, there is just under six hours of radio recordings here. 

I'll start with a tape of just over 20 minutes, as heard on an unidentified station in 1967. I actually think it's a bit odd that the DJ never, in the course of this recording, mentions the station call letters - unless I somehow missed it. That's almost unheard of. I'd say that perhaps this was a syndicated show, but then, at the start of the segment, the DJ mentions that he's on tape today, indicating that he was usually broadcasting live. I do enjoy the small segment where he indicates that his upcoming scheduled live appearance has been cancelled, seemingly because not enough people showed up to the last one!

Download: Country Music Radio - Unidentified Station, 1967

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Staying in roughly the same time period - in this case, it's 1966 - we flip down the dial to WILS, a powerhouse Top 40 station in Lansing, Michigan. This 45 minute blast from that epochal year is not the ideal aircheck - the sound quality is poor, very poor at times, and whoever was recording the songs did not always record the DJ patter. 

This is not the case of a tape which has methodically had the DJ chatter eliminated - I have plenty of those and they are not terribly interesting, aside from hearing what regional hits there were in a given time and place - but it's not a straight-through recording of the station, either. There are lots of edits, more in some sections than others. But I found it highly enjoyable anyway, if not as enjoyable as some other tapes of this sort. And I hope you'll enjoy it, too. 

Download: WILS-AM, Lansing, MI, Spring, 1966

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Now for the longest segment here, nearly two and a half hours, which I believe is actually segments of multiple broadcasts. The station was WYON, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just about 70 miles down the road from WILS in Lansing (above), and this is the station that had the early version of "Music Of Your Life", although I don't think that format ever featured the likes of John McCormack, or some of the other artists heard here. 

As you'll hear, this programming, in this case an evening show called "Afterglow - Music Just For You", featured a pretty wide variety of popular music, even though things such as Rock and Roll and R&B/Soul were completely avoided, and very little Country Music was heard, either. 

That sounds limiting, and yeah, sure it is, in a way. But on the other hand, here we have The Clancy Brothers, Lawrence Welk, Lobo, The Mills Brothers, Jan Garber Andy Stewart (a double play of Andy Stewart!), Perry Como, Harry James, Lenny Dee and Big Tiny Little, among dozens of others. 

This one is also somewhat choppy - ads and newscasts are cut, and plenty of times DJ patter is cut as well, but in other spots, the broadcast is heard for several minutes uninterrupted. Well, we can't have everything. 

Download: WYON, Grand Rapids, MI, Circa 1973 - "Afterglow - Music Just For You"

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Moving Way Out West, two years earlier, and into another type of broadcast altogether, here we have a show which aired on KHOF, Los Angeles, on November 11, 1971. At that time, the station was apparently owned by FBN - "The Faith Based Network", and here we have 35 minutes of their morning programming. Commercials and other things which aired that morning appear to have been edited out - there are short gaps between the segments (which I cut down to the merest of seconds here). It was Veteran's Day, of course, but why would that be mentioned within a religious show, huh? I'm also puzzled by what makes trumpet solos religious (I know, I know, the original song being played is a religious song, but still...). Otherwise, I have nothing else to say. 

Oh, yes I do. This came to me on one o' them big ten inch reels, complete with a sheet indicating what was on the tape. That's reproduced, below. I also have at least two more episodes of this show, from that same time period, if anyone is interested. Actually, I have them even if no one is interested. 

Download: Religious Music Programming from KHOF, Los Angeles (FBN - The Faith Based Network), 11-11-71

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Finally - and perhaps this is the most fun of the five tapes - here are some recordings made in Pittsburgh in 1965. There are two stations reflected here, both featuring the Country Music of the day, and I caught the names of Roy Scott on WPIT (730 AM), and Bobby Hudson on WEEP (1080 AM). Wikipedia tells us that WPIT was, and still is, a Christian radio outlet, but clearly, in 1965, anyway, they offered Country Music for four hours every afternoon, and horse racing coverage (and perhaps other sports) in the evening. WEEP, which is now WNNL, began playing Country Music that very year, 1965, and became a powerhouse in the format. 

These segments are a bit more cohesive than the tapes shared above, but commercials, news and some chatter has still be excised out by whoever recorded this material. There is enough sports reporting that the tape can be narrowed down to September of 1965 (Joe Torre was suspended for bumping an umpire). And there are a couple of magical jingles here. The simple one at 37:30 for the weather report is one of my favorite jingles ever. 

This is right about the point that the trends in Country Music starts losing me - I'm much more a fan of the 1950's sounds than the dominant styles heard here - with the exception of the phenomenal Roger Miller, who is not heard here. Even still, I found this hugely entertaining. Enjoy!

Download: Country Radio, September, 1965 Roy Scott on WPIT and Bobby Hudson on WEEP

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Very short reels will return next time!

Some Great 1950's Jingles, Bobby Helms in Canada, Recording For the Fun of It, A Glee-Free Glee Club and More!

Let's start off with what I'm guessing will be the most popular offering from today's posting. This tape is labeled as being a group of highlights for someone named Joan Wile, who is featured on each of the records on the tape. Happily for all of us, these recordings turn out to be some absolutely wonderful and vintage radio jingles, from stations all around the country. The tape box had a mailing address for Ms. Wile on it (not copied in the scan, below), in a very fancy location in Manhattan, with a zone ("New York 19") rather than a zip code, marking this as being a tape from prior to 1963. Listening to these jingles, I'm guessing the late 1950's is more accurate. 

And they are simply magical. At the end of the tape, as indicated in handwriting on the box (below), and on the other side of the tape, is a single commercial, in this case for a anti-dandruff concoction with the deadly sounding name of "Dandricide". Unfortunately, this commercial is not quite complete AND has a short gap in it, as well, as you will hear. But still pretty marvelous, you-shoulda-been-there sort of stuff. 

Download: Joan Wile - Radio Station Jingle Demo Reel

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The provenance of this next item is a bit hard to discern. It is an interview with country singer and one-time (short lived) pop music star Bobby Helms (along with, briefly, his wife), by someone whose name might be Armel Shaw, which is a guess at the spelling. The interview is from Canada, and was recorded while Helms was performing in a local venue, probably in 1967. 

However, it doesn't seem to be from a single radio station. Rather, it appears to be that Mr. Shaw was a freelancer who perhaps simply recorded interviews with the stars as they passed through town and then sent the tapes out to radio stations - perhaps (again perhaps) with some sort of arrangement in place whereby they would play them, perhaps just in the hopes that they would do so. I dunno. 

After the interview the tape contained much of the contents of a 1967 Helms compilation album, followed by the brief bit you'll hear at the end, asking folks to record their comments on the interview. This seems to indicate that the tape was passed from station to station, rather than individual tapes being sent all at once to all stations (since he asks that comments be recorded only after other commenter's recordings as bypassed). A very peculiar method of getting one's work out to the listening public. 

Download: Armel Shaw - Canadian Interview with Bobby Helms, Circa 1967

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Now here's a fellow who, I'm guessing, had either a brand new console organ for his living room or a new tape recorder, or perhaps both. And, as he says (and I've titled it) he's going to try it out for the fun of it. Things get off the ground swimmingly with the most disjointed version of "Alley Cat" that you've ever heard. Near the end of this performance, he curses his playing and comments that "I started out wrong". He remained wrong, too, but doesn't seem to have noticed. This segues into an equally scattered, equally beat-less version of "Ramblin' Rose" (I do note that there definitely is a beat in the accompaniment, but there is no attempt to follow it in the melody). A short song I don't recognize follows, and then, after a brief discussion, "On Top of Old Smokey" in another tempo-challenged rendition finishes off the set. 

Unknown - Trying Out the Home Console Organ for the Fun of It, Once

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In the box for a 10 inch reel of tape I found the following concert program: 

Yes, the Vanderbilt Glee Club. I often find that Glee Clubs were, in the past at least, engaging in performances of material that have nothing gleeful about them. This would be one such example. There is no date anywhere on this sheet or the box. 

Indeed, on the tape is that exact program. Only it's not from the concert - or if it was, no one attended, or else no one was impressed enough to applaud. More likely this is a recording of the program - either of a rehearsal or a deliberately recorded run through in order to have a good copy of that program. So there is no audience. This tape is in mono in this sound clip because I do not have a machine that plays two track stereo, a fairly short-lived format which existed from about 1957 to 1960 or thereabouts. 

Download: The Vanderbilt Men's Glee Club - Undated Performance with Organ Interludes

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What comes next on that tape might actually be the second most fun item in today's posting. For the rest of the tape, we have the sort of thing I always identify as a "Hodgepodge" - a motley collection of unrelated recordings in a relatively short space of time. This material was on the rest of side one, and then on the start of side two. 

First, as soon as the Glee Club recording ends, there is a small orchestra flourish, the end of some piece. Then we seem to eavesdrop on a moment during a rehearsal of some sort. It's hard to hear, but the conversation includes a reference to a gospel reading. 

Then, at the one minute mark, someone plays scales on the piano, very heavily and loudly, in octaves, before launching into a sedate version of the hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!". And then does the octaves and the hymn again. And again. A total of six times, throwing in a short bouncy version of another hymn (which I can't think of the name of) in the middle. 

Now we're up to minute six and onto the brief recordings on side two of the tape. This section is poorly recorded, with a prominent hum (which I've minimized some). There is some bland background music playing, and a few people have a conversation about the recording they're making and the best way to capture it. After two and a half minutes, the music segues into a classical piece that I'm guessing someone will recognize, and that lasts until the other channel of the Glee Club tape (heard backwards on my machine - which I didn't include) interrupts it, and the Hodgepodge ends. 

Download: Hodgepodge Following the Glee Club Recording

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And now another entry in the David Hollister Tapes. If you don't know what these are about, I explained them in this post, and with today's post, I have now shared four of these tapes. 

This one is dated 6/4/80 and 8/3/80, and as it says of the box, its contents are apparently the practicing of three songs "for <a> contest". The three songs are "One Woman Man" (not the ridiculous Paul Anka song, but an equally ridiculous obscurity), "Travelin' Light (heard in two versions, a shorter version early on the tape, and a version with a lengthy verse at the end of the recording - the later to the two sessions, making me think that the song was expanded on in the meantime), and "Marvelous Massage". 

Personally, I find this material fairly awful - and "Marvelous Massage" to be award-winningly hideous - and I suspect that all three are someone's originals, whether Hollister or someone else. Having heard his other material, my guess is that these songs are the work of the vocalist, who is unidentified on the tape box. I will let the listener make his or her own judgments as to this vocalist's abilities.  

Anyway, I have generally enjoyed the Hollister tapes, and although I didn't enjoy this one, I thought I'd share it as another example of their contents. Please let me know if you do or don't want me to continue to delve into this collection. 

Download: From the David Hollister Tapes - Rehearsals of Three Songs, 6-4-80 and 8-3-80 - "For Contest"

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And now, here's our "Acetate of the Month". This is a ridiculous little record, featuring "The Band of America" conducted by Paul LaValle, playing "The Dwight D. Eisenhower March". Nothing actually too ridiculous about that - he was a war hero and certainly worthy of a march. But as you'll hear, the conceit here is that the man's initials were D-D-E, so the song is based, of course, on a musical phrase using those tones. Yay! Let's march! 

Download: NBC Reference Recording Acetate - Band of America, Conducted by Paul LaValle - The Dwight D. Eisenhower March

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And finally, here's a "Very Short Reel". Here we have someone reading from a book - almost certainly a novel. I haven't done a lot of digging, but with what I did do, I was unable to find what book is being read. Perhaps someone out there knows, or can figure it out: 

Download: Reading from an Unknown Book

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Two Sets of Radio Commercials, A Demonstration in Mono, A Couple of Guitarists, and a Whole Lotta Union Carbide Phone Calls

 Happy New Year, everyone, 

I'm going to start off with a version of what I wrote on my other blog a week or so ago: 

It's been more than three weeks since I've posted, and I suspect that there will be only this one post this month. I'm absolutely Captain ADHD, and thrive on keeping ridiculously busy - I'm pretty nuts when I don't have too much to do - but this last month has just swept my legs out from under me, with a couple of brief but intense illnesses, end of the year madness and work demands. I hope and intend to be back to two posts a month in February. 

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Before I get to this post's features, I want to make reference to a few comments. But first, I want to acknowledge and just generally thank those of you who have written recently with supportive, thankful and/or appreciative comments about the site in general. Those are all deeply appreciated and give me the encouragement to keep up what I do here. Thank you.  

Some specific comments that you may have missed and which shed light on things I've posted. Regarding this post, someone wrote in: 

Re: WEAM. Based on the references to a back-to-school contest and a daytime high of 84, it would appear to be from late August 1963. Specifically the week of August 23, based on the song positions on this survey matching.

http://las-solanas.com/arsa/survey.php?sv=143773

Regarding what is currently my most recent past post, "Snoopy" made the following observation, one which is very similar to something I almost wrote myself, regarding "oldies": 

Back then, 15 year old music was considered Oldies. Maybe I'm just curmudgeonly but if you played 10 songs from 2009 and 10 songs from 2024, I wouldn't be able to tell one from another. 

I would also like to refer you to this post, about which (in the comments) Eric Paddon has added a great deal of information, specifically about the WOR segment, including the specific dates of those recordings. There is too much text to copy and paste here without bogging things down, but it's very much worth reading. Thanks, as always, Eric. 

There have been a lot more, and I am quoting here (and below) from comments that are as much as six months old. That's how far behind I've gotten. I'm gonna try to be more up-to-date, going forward. 

Anyway, and finally, two frequent commenters, each of whom has his own collection of rare recordings, posted about new "old" finds that each of them has shared. 

Kyle writes: I have found a Christmas home recording from the 1950s

And "OldRadios" has uploaded a radio "Laugh-in" type show called "Funny Birds" to his site at archive.org

In the case of both Kyle and OldRadios, clicking on their names will show you further postings, including more old audio. 

Thanks, guys! 

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Okay, I'm going to start with two fairly wonderful (well, with a significant exception) advertising demo reels. The first one is from Chuck Blore and Don Richman Incorporated, a company headed by two men who seem to be considered legendary in the radio advertising field - look each of them up online. 

This tape has fifteen ads, the last of which is that "significant exception" to the wonderfulness that I just mentioned. That last one is more like a hard slap upside the head. Here's the tape box: 

Download: Chuck Blore and Don Richman Incorporated - Advertising Demo Reel

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The second advertising reel - almost exactly the same length as the first - comes from Don Piestrup, who you can also find online but who does not appear to have been nearly the "name" talent that the above two gentlemen were, although there still exists a Big Band which plays his music. 

This tape features 13 ads, and the box also helpfully guides us in what we're going to hear here: 

Download: Don Piestrup - Advertising Demo Reel

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Here's the rather esoteric front cover of the tape box: 

And the side: 

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Here's something a little different. I have shared several Stereo Demonstration tapes here - in the early days of stereo sound - which debuted on reel tape nearly two years before it became a reality on records - tape recorder companies produced demonstration reels to show off their wondrous machines and the spacious sounds they could produce. 

But before that, tape recorder manufactures also wanted to demonstrate the wonders of reel tape. And so there are some (although apparently not as many) monaural demonstration tapes out there. And this is one of them. It's from the Omegatape company. Side one of the tape provides excerpts from some of the pre-recorded tapes the company currently was offering. 

But then, on side two, there is a series of test tones to be used in some way for head alignment, then a timing test to see if your machine is running at exactly the right speed. (Either this recording was itself flawed or my machine runs slightly fast - which I don't think is the case - as the blips go by in about 58 1/2 seconds.) Highlights from more Omegatape offerings finish off the reel. 

Download: Omegatape Monaural Demonstration and Test Tape

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Here is a booklet which came with the tape: 

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Here is about 21 minutes of what I've called "A Couple of Guitarists Fooling Around and Duetting". See if you don't think that title is accurate. And sufficient as an introduction.

Download: A Couple of Guitarists Fooling Around and Duetting

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Robert W. Morgan was a hugely popular radio dj and personality from the late 1960's until shortly before his death in 1998. For a while in the late 1970's, he produced a syndicated program titled "Special of the Week". How the word "Special" was defined in terms of a program which apparently ran in a regular timeslot once a week is a mystery to me, but anyway, I came across a tape containing more than half of his episode about the band Chicago, and I thought I'd share it here. 

For all of his talk about the band's Jazz-Rock roots and status, Morgan plays precious little here of the Chicago material which falls within that genre. Perhaps it was featured in the earlier part of the program, which isn't captured here. But then again, that would have been the point at which to mention it, not while largely playing tripe such as "Saturday in the Park" and "Just You 'N Me". 

This particular broadcast was aired on WRBR, South Bend, IN, during a fundraising event for St. Jude's Hospital for Children, and there are a few cutaways for information about that event, during the broadcast. 

Download: Robert W Morgan's Special of the Week, Featuring Chicago - 11-16-80 - WRBR, South Bend, IN

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Okay, here is a tape most of you might skip over entirely but others may find weirdly fascinating. It comes from a 10 inch reel, one which only had a small amount of tape on it. But that small amount of tape contained over 100 minutes of recordings, because it was recorded at the rarely encountered speed of 15/16th of an inch per second. 

You know when you see those movies or videos in which a reel to reel machine is barely moving in the background, presumably recording the goings-on in that location? Well, those may be going at 15/16ths or even slower. And that's what we have here. 

These are calls made by and received by a couple of men who were manning the phone at some sort of business hub for Union Carbide. As someone mentions well into the recording, the company had recently installed a recording system which engaged every time the phone was picked up, whether it was for call out or a call in. 

And so, we have all manner of calls into and from the field, as well as, at one point, a call to the wife of one of the men manning the phone, as well as a few other contacts. I won't pretend to have ANY idea what it is that is being discussed - a lot of numbers, percentages, levels and such are thrown about, and a good number of people are attempted to be reached, or call back, or whatever. 

It can be sort of mesmerizing. I did not listen to this all in one sitting, and can't imagine doing so, but the entire recording is fascinating in its own way, a slice of life from an extremely specific time and place, and an unusual glimpse of some people doing some very specific jobs, the likes of which most of us know nothing about. 

(By the way, the first few calls are VERY soft, but the volume increases substantially, to a normal listening level, just after the one minute point. There are a few soft moments later in the recording, as well)

Download: Union Carbide Phone Calls

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And finally, the "Very Short Reel" for this post. This three minute segment comes from a tape wherein the rest of the recordings were exceptionally poorly recorded radio broadcasts, and I mean exceptionally poor to the point of being unlistenable (and I'll listen to just about anything on a tape) and unintelligible. 

I've called this "A Short Conversation At Home", and in it, a man records (and talks to) what sounds like a considerably older woman. Extremely innocuous conversations follow (well, except for one statement about a girl who is prettier than Gail). Then, after the machine is stopped and re-started, she is told not to whine, and then talks about what a nice voice she's been told she has, except that "it sure don't sound like it on that". My assumption is that she had just listened to the previous segment. My assumption is that she'd never heard her own voice recorded, prior to that moment. 

Unknown: A Short Conversation At Home

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