A Whole Lotta Hard-To-Hear Baseball, Some Cello Music and THE LAND OF OZ

First, I want to thank all of the people who wrote in, asking for more baseball, regardless of the sound quality. Your wish is my command. See below. 

Today's post has fewer items in it, but just as much in terms of length of recordings as have other recent posts. There are some things going on in my personal life which may impact just how much time I have to give to sharing and writing here for the next month or more, so the long baseball feature comes in handy. The next post may well be one of those blowout posts where I share a bunch of stuff without having much to say. 

I also want to share a couple of comments. First, with regard to the tape I shared in my last post, featuring a remarkable number of non-hits and near-musical-mysteries heard on (and taped from) powerhouse Top 40 station, WINS, Ken said: 

Here's a theory about the wide variety of music and number of obscurities on that WINS Tape. Back then I would tape songs off AM Radio in the same way, cutting out the DJ patter wherever possible. Not only that but it would get to the point every so often where I'd only "need" the more obscure records and only tape those, i.e I already had all the hits on tape. It's quite possible the taper was doing the same thing.

And then Kyle, who has been doing much the same sort of thing that I do, offered up links to his latest finds: 

I have 2 home recordings one of WLS-FM and a home recordings of Christmas from 1948 shared with permission of one of the family members the links are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vLlh1Dl7kQ and the WLS recording is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qnOlwoHPq8 

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Rather than begin with the baseball, I'm going to start with the tape I listened to this month that I personally found the most interesting. The only writing on the box appears on the side: 

And the contents of this 10" reel tape were consistent with that description. For this tape contains a two-part, one hour dramatization of the second of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, The Marvelous Land of Oz, very clearly made for radio broadcast at some time and in some place. I am not familiar with this book, although this version of it does intrigue me enough that I might consider reading the Oz books. But according to the summary on that Wikipedia page, everything heard in this dramatization does occur in that novel, although some events have been moved around in time, and large chunks of the story have been deleted entirely, a necessity, I'm sure, when working within an hour framework.  

I don't know that I think this is very good, per se - the performances are sort of ham-fisted and even the recording quality is not all that good (the opening few minutes are marred by some worn tape - I'm not talking about that section, just the overall mix). There does seem to have been some money put into this, judging from the quality of the music - although much or all of that that could have been from stock music cues.

One thing that's interesting to me is that there is nothing in this recording, or the box, that explains when or where, or for what station(s) or other purpose, this recording was made. I'd sure like to know. Anyway, it's a fun listen and I hope you enjoy it. 

Download: Unknown Radio Troupe - The Land of Oz, Act One

Play: 

Download: Unknown Radio Troupe - The Land of Oz, Act Two

Play: 

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Now for the tape which a half-dozen of you asked for. Two posts ago, I shared some vintage Artificial League (AL) baseball broadcasting, featuring the White Sox and Tigers, from 1962, and I mentioned that I had a LOT of truly horrific sounding baseball from the same era. I wasn't going to share it, due to the sound quality, but was begged to. Okay, but you were warned!

Here is what I wrote to my closest friend, back in January and February, when I first scanned this tape: 

I have come across a tape which has the endings of a couple of radio broadcasts of Detroit Tigers games from 1961 - 4 20-61 and 4-21-61 so far (haven't listened to all of it yet). Just the final innings of each for some reason. 

However, the recording quality is TERRIBLE. The signal is weak - so weak you can't make out what's being said at times - and during large parts of it, there is interference (or perhaps some sort of double recording) of a different game entirely. As I've listened more to that baseball tape, the "interfering" broadcast has gotten louder than the Tigers broadcast (after the Tigers' game - it seems to be a recording of whatever followed the game), and now I can tell it's Big Ten Baseball - first day of the Big Ten matchups season, Illinois Vs. Indiana. Presumably also 1961, although I could easily be wrong. so that at moments you are listening to two sports broadcasts at the same time at roughly the same volume. 

The above notes were written before I finished listening to the tape - the first paragraph was written after listening to a shorter segment of it, and part of the second paragraph was an addendum after listening to more of it, but I'm pretty sure I was not done with it at that point - it is, after all, nearly two and a quarter hours long. At this point, I don't recall exactly what's on there that isn't captured in those paragraphs - although I do recall that in some later segments it's VERY soft and trying to boost it made no real difference, at least to me (perhaps you'll have more success). I just know that I'm not going to listen again!

But for those of you for whom this is manna from heaven, enjoy!

Download: Badly Recorded Baseball, circa 1961

Play:

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And finally, another entry from the David Hollister Tapes. If you don't know what this is about, please click on that lit-up phrase, which will bring up the first post in this series, and which will explain it. Short version - I have been gifted with a box of many tapes which belonged to - and contained the works of - a late composer named David Hollister. 

In this particular reel, we are treated to what are apparently outtakes from a recording session made for something related to "Bremen Coffee", perhaps a commercial for that company? I really don't know. The cellist's name is shown on the tape box, that portion of which is reproduced here:  

Please note that this is NOT the performance tape!

Download: From the David Hollister Tapes - "Bremen Coffee" Cello Music - Outtakes

Play:

Please let me know if you would continue to want to hear these tapes - or if you would prefer not to, for that matter. I've already listened to the next one I pulled out of the box, and it had some VERY interesting material, so I will at least be sharing that one, but if there is no interest, I don't have to continue this particular series, much as I'd like to....

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The Very Short Reels feature will return in my next post.