A 1963 College Jazz Festival, Interviewing the Family, Top 40 Radio in 1966, Some Odd Rehearsals, A One Man Hodgepodge, The Rotations of Mars and Earth, and Some Pasta!

 Howdy, 

First, I'd like to feature a couple of comments from recent posts. A frequent poster who goes by "Snoopy" made some fun comments on this post, and specifically the echoey Chicago radio segment, and also asked "What the HELL is going on?!" at the 24:24 mark. I actually meant to mention this - there was some a cappella singing at a different speed on the flip side of this tape, which somehow bled through, backwards, for the last 25 seconds or so of that radio segment. 

And as I was sure he would, Eric Paddon helpfully cleared up any confusion about the baseball recording I posted last time around. Silly me, I didn't even check to see if the dominant game heard therein was the same game as any of the previous offerings. It turns out that it was. How this game ended up on two different reels, with the end AND start of this game on one reel and the rest on another, is a real mystery. Here's what he wrote: 

Back on March 18, you had posted the Bottom 6th to beginning of the Top 8th of this same 7/3/62 game and the beginning of this post picks up exactly where the previous one left off with Jim Landis batting in the Top 8th for the first two and a half minutes. Then it gets inaudible for the next few minutes but then around the five minute mark what we're hearing when the announcer mentions Joe Azcue is batting is the Kansas City A's-Detroit Tigers first game of a doubleheader from August 1 ,1962 with George Kell announcing on the Tiger network but the July 3, 1962 game is still bleeding through at intervals during that but it is predominantly the August 1, 1962 A's-Tigers game that dominates what's audible for the next ten minutes (faintly) and then suddenly we're back in July 3, 1962 starting at the end of the Top 2nd and that continues in good quality up to the Bottom 6th when the previous recording began (except for a couple bizarre sequences where someone is doing a test at slow speed over the recording.)

I have stitched together a single file of all material from this game in the right sequence: 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6krt6umaas2hy1vmcq8qq/1962-07-03-White-Sox-vs.-Tigers-WCFL-Partial.mp3?rlkey=21niwfuyrayhhtnq6u0oo7qg0&st=hcv31y46&dl=0

Thanks!

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I'm going to start with a real (reel) winner this time, a lengthy recording of a broadcast of "The 1963 Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival". This was the third such festival, and aside from the announcer talking over a few bits of performances, it's great stuff. The legendary John Hammond even stops by for an interview. I don't think any more needs to be said. 

Download: The Third Annual Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, 1963

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Next, something else very special! A long-time reader/listener name Bram B. offered up a three inch reel of tape which had come with a vintage Westinghouse machine (the type that could only record three inch reels, and which looked, to me, more like a sewing machine!) that he had bought some time earlier. The machine did not work correctly, just enough for him to recognize the recording as a home recording of a man and some children. So he sent the tape to me! 

One side of the tape was country music recorded off of records - most of it sounded (to me) like Jim Reeves, which is always a treat. But the real worthwhile stuff was on the other side. 

As Bram first described to me - and I agree - it sounds like a family patriarch, perhaps a visiting grandfather, interviewing some young children. And it is mostly delightful - a segment in which he works way too hard to get one shy child to talk is the only blemish here. The rest is very enjoyable and I wish there was more of it. The supposition he expresses at one point that one of the children would like Batman and Robin seems to date this to the brief but intense heyday of the ABC TV show of 1966-68, so this likely a dates from around that time. 

THANKS, BRAM!

Download: A Man Interviews Some Young Family Members, circa mid-1960's

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I do not know the source of this next tape, although maybe someone out there can make some sense out of this tape box: 

The tape contains a brief lecture - source unknown - about Earth and Mars, the relative speed of each and, essentially, how a contest between the two of them around the sun might be described. That's about all I think I have to say: 

Download: Unknown - A Short Talk On the Rotations of Earth and Mars

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Tapes from the golden age of Top 40 Radio are always welcomed by many people here and on other sites, so I'm sharing this one despite it's multiple flaws. It is poorly recorded, and the recordist chose to edit out commercials and some of the deejay patter. Given that those two things are often the most valuable parts of such tapes, this is, as I said, a lesser example of such a recording. However, it is a portion of a station's top hits countdown show, and some of what the deejay had to say is still there. 

The station is WILS, Lansing, MI, and, fairly remarkably, I found an online posting of the very survey being counted down here (although it starts with a "flashback" to 1964). The date on the survey is April 6, 1966, and it can be seen here. I was quite taken with the fact that there was a local hit, presented as up-and-coming on this show, by a local group called The Plagues. Perhaps others are familiar with this group - they are well known enough to have their own Wikipedia page - but if you'd asked me if a group named after a deadly disease would have had a hit song in 1966, I'd have said that would be very unlikely. 

Download: WILS, Lansing Michigan - Portions of the Top 20 Countdown for 4-6-66

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I've titled this next segment "A One Man Hodgepodge", and I can think of no better name for it (even though a woman joins the man at the end of the segment). Over the course of these 19 minutes, you'll hear a bit of some sort of reedy instrument, some religious songs and readings (including a bit of Revelation), a bit of a fake newscast, and some guitar accompanying wordless vocalizing. At certain points, one of those categories of recording repeatedly interrupts one or more of the other categories listed. 

Download: A One Man Hodgepodge

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And now, the "Acetate of the Month". This is a pretty early Acetate, dated July of 1939, and while it initially sounds like it contains a quiz show, but after a single question, it turns out to contain ads for Fleet-Wing Gasoline, a company I've never heard of. There are three commercials in all, each containing a tricky question, which then segues into an ad for this product. 

Here's the label: 

Note that already, by 1933, radio stations and others who needed playable material were using the 33 1/3 RPM speed, a decade and a half before it was introduced for commercially available products. 

There are many and varied photos of and comments about Fleet-Wing gas stations and products, and one poster to a Fleet-Wing thread out there says the company existed from 1928 to 1970. I've never heard of them before, myself. 

Download: General Broadcasting System 12 inch Acetate - Three Fleet-Wing Announcements, 7-20-39

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". I am very happy to announce that I recently bought a small box full of three and five inch tapes, most of which contain radio ads created by the Needham Harper Steers agency, and I will be digging into this pile of tapes from time to time in upcoming posts. Here's the tape which was on top of the rest when I opened the box. There's no date on this tape (or on any of them, I don't think). It contains three ads for Mueller's Pasta, another company I've never heard of. This company, however, still exists, and according to their website, the nearest store to me carrying their products is over 60 miles away from my home. 

Download: Needham Harper Steers - Three Mueller's Pasta Ads

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