A Bit of Beautiful Music and a WHOLE LOT of Long John Nebel

I've been so busy this month and despite my best efforts, I am only going to get one post up in July. And it only has three tracks offered. However, one of those tracks is over four hours long. And for those of you who love vintage talk radio, this is the post for you. 

The tape didn't give me ANY idea of the magic it held inside. What it did say was not even accurate: 

In reality, the tape does have music on the first side and talk on the second. But it has talk on both sides, as well, as well as some music on both. Side one does start with all music, which I'll get to in a second, but then it veers into programming that was both talk (for the most part) and music (specifically, what strikes me as a weird interruption of the talk). 

Side one starts (after thirty seconds of a few random short recordings, some of which may be from WOR) with programming from WVNJ, in Newark, New Jersey, apparently from some point in 1963. This is what was later known (if not at that point) as beautiful music programming, and I know that there are those of you out there that just eat this stuff up. Well, here's more than 35 minutes of it. 

Download: "Music for Metropolitans" on WVNJ, Newark, New Jersey, circa 1963

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I've identified the above as likely being from 1963, in part, because the recording of this segment clearly erased the first 35 minutes or so of something that was already recorded on the tape, and which fills up the remainder of both sides of the tape. And since that recording is from the end of 1962, the beautiful music recording comes from at least some later point. 

And that "something" may be a cause for rejoicing among certain of my readership/listenership, because it is the long remembered and much beloved Long John Nebel show, from what appears to be two consecutive overnight broadcasts - if I'm hearing my references right, they are from 11/30/62 and 12/1/62, although if someone cares to correct me, I'm certainly open to that. 

Nebel appears to have needed to have periodic breaks, perhaps to get through what was a LONG airshift for talk radio, five or more hours a night, six nights a week, and perhaps that explains the sort of odd set of "25 minutes of music" that occurs a few times here. Those interludes also seem to have been cut off by the person recording these WOR broadcasts, shortly before the 25 minute mark, and we return to Long John, not always in the middle of the same conversation as before the break, so I'm not sure what happened there. 

And that's all I have to say, I will let you enjoy these four-and-a-quarter hours as they unspool and let you listen to Long John in an approximation of what one might have done while fading in and out of sleep in the middle of the night. Enjoy!

Download: The Long John Nebel Show on WOR, Probably November 30 and December 1, 1962

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And now, after taking a post off, here is a "very short reel", in this case a June, 1998 ad (it's listed as such on the side of the box) for a sandwich chain called "Fazoli's", specifically, the Toledo area Fazoli's stores. I don't know how much later after 1998 commercials were still provided to radio stations on reel tape, but I'm guessing it wasn't long after that at all. This might be from the very tail end of a genre that existed for close to half a century. 

It does not appear that any of the locations advertised here are still in business, by the way, although Fazoli's does have 15 locations in Ohio.

Download: Digital Generation Systems - Fazoli's "Order in the Court" Ad

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