1960: The 7th Game, Armed Forces Edition, News and a Ball, Alan King, Two Very Different Types of Singing

Before getting to this week's offering, I wanted to ask if anyone is having trouble downloading files. Two people that read my other blog have reported that when they try to download the files they get an error message saying "od.lk". I am unable to reproduce this downloading from any of my pages, and I am about as far from a computer expert as one can get, so I don't know the solution. This is apparently a problem with the site I use (Opendrive), but I can't find a solution, or even reproduce the issue. Is anyone having this issue, and does anyone know how to fix it? 

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Okay, well last time I asked if the baseball reel I found contained a broadcast that wasn't out there anywhere. It turns out that it is in fact a recording that is not available anywhere but in my basement. There were a lot of comments on this, both in response to the post and in my email. Rather than post them all or summarize them here, I'm going to refer you back to the comments at the bottom of that post, where you can read all about this recording (you'll have to scroll up a bit). Thanks for all of the information and feedback and encouragement to share this tape. 

You will also find comments on other parts of that post, including one from Snoopy, in response to the very short reel I featured, a comment that made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that!

Okay, so this is in fact a recording of the storied final game of the 1960 world series, but rather than the broadcast feed with commercials, it is the Armed Forces Radio feed, with Red Barber and Gordon Bridge doing analysis in place of those commercials. 

I'm going to assume that the recordist noticed that the tape was running out around the sixth inning, and chose to stop recording until the end of the game. I could be wrong about that, but for whatever reason, some pivotal action in the late innings is not heard here, and a whole lot of eighth inning scoring is missed. The sound quality improves and worsens at various points, but overall, it's pretty well recorded. 

Enjoy!!!

Download: The 1960 World Series, Game Seven - 9-13-60 - The Armed Forces Broadcast Version

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Someone asked if I have other games from this series, and unfortunately, I don't know - this tape is one of the many that got soaked in my pipe burst a few years ago, and while that didn't really damage any tapes, it did result in tapes which were originally all with their "brethren" so to speak - tapes I got from the same source - getting all messed up and placed at random in piles. And since about two hundred tapes got wet, it would be quite the chore to figure out if there were other baseball tapes among them. 

One of these days I will post pictures of the as-yet unlistened-to tapes in my basement. You might be astonished by their volume. There is no way I have enough days left on this planet to listen to them all. 

Oh, and a point of interest for some of you comes from someone named Jimmy, who emailed me a link to his archive.org posting of what he describes as "a very rare 1886 baseball game re-creation by Gordon McLendon on the Liberty Broadcasting System, circa 1950". That can be found here. Thanks!

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That baseball blast was the big item for the week, and I'm going to keep the rest of this brief, with several short or relatively short items that don't need a lot of introduction. 

On a falling-apart reel of Scotch Brand tape (I literally had to glue the reel back together to play it and find out what it contained), I found a recording of the 1957 inauguration of Eisenhower and Nixon, followed by the inaugural address. That event seems to be well documented, aurally and visually, elsewhere, so I just kept the part after that, which features a brief newscast and the beginning of the coverage of one of that year's inaugural balls. The station is KOIN, Portland, which has subsequently gone through a whole lot of name changes and which currently spews hateful messaging to the local population. At the time, it was a CBS station.  

Download: KOIN, Portland, 1-20-57 - CBS News and The Inaugural Ball

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Here is an endlessly entertaining little tape. A group of children - siblings? friends? relatives? who knows - spent some time singing a remarkable variety of songs, in a variety of styles, often trying to recreate the sound of the singers who made the songs popular. These range from Broadway hits to Jefferson Airplane (!). In the midst of all of this is a typical 1960's insult flung by one participant at another, for no apparent reason. The sound quality and volume both vary quite a bit - there are moments when the machine clearly was not working correctly - and I have edited out a few sections which were either not recorded on at all or were so quiet that trying to boost them into something listenable was impossible - in all, I streamlined this by about five minutes. Even if you don't (or don't particularly) like children singing for their own amusement, I encourage you to listen to this and see if you don't smile, or laugh, or both.  

Download: Some Children Singing a Variety of Popular Songs

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This one is called "Alan King on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', 6-2-68", and that nearly covers it. But it's worth noting that King (whose popularity I will never understand) mentions the tribute to Irving Berlin the previous week, and Ed's 20th anniversary show the following week. In truth, the Berlin show was several weeks earlier, and this show was actually the first of two planned 20th anniversary shows, according to this comprehensive website. The second half of the anniversary tribute never happened, due to the assassination, that following week, of Robert Kennedy. 

Incidentally, the show had pre-empted by a special for the Sunday following April 4, so there was no show following the assassination of Dr. King. I wonder what they would have done that week. Actually, I kind of shudder to think that maybe nothing special would have been done at all. 

Download: Alan King on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', 6-2-68

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Here's a little more than fifteen minutes of a few female singers with piano accompaniment. Based on the quality of the performances, I'm going to guess (or at least hope) that these singers, who seem to have been shooting for mastery of classical, or at least stage styles of singing, were very early in their training here. 

Download: Female Singers with Piano Accompaniment 

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Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". This is a short disc featuring someone who decided to continue to record (only on one side of the disc), despite the fact that a child was crying for most of its duration. Eventually a different child starts singing "Mockingbird Hill", meaning that this disc is probably from 1951 or 1952. And then the recording space runs out. 

Download: Audiodisc 6 inch Acetate - Home Recording - Child Crying, Mockingbird Hill

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Very short reels will return next time. 

PAMS, PAMS, PAMS! Plus an Audio Letter, A Few Rehearsals, Old Time Religion, Frito-Lays, and More!

Right off the bat, I want to ask the sports broadcast fans out there if I have something special, and if so, I will feature it soon. I will share a short excerpt here. The recording is of a national broadcast of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, which is considered one of the greatest games in history. It is not the entire game - a couple of the late innings were not recorded and then we pick up again in the ninth. But I'm assuming this material is not rare. 

What may be rare is that this is the armed service radio broadcast, and in place of the commercials, there is commentary and analysis by two other announcers, one of whom I think might be Red Barber. They act as if they are giving these observations live, in place of the commercials, but I suspect that the program was prepared, after the fact, for broadcast to the troops. If this is worth sharing, I'll do so soon. Let me know! Here's the excerpt: 

Download: Baseball Excerpt

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And now for a lengthy side trip into the land of comments. 

I thought when I got caught up on comments not long ago that it would be quite awhile before I would need to do the same again. But there have been a LOT of interesting comments since then, so I'm going to compile them once again. If you don't want to wade through them just look for the squiggle ~~ which is where the offerings will start. 

First, I will address a request from Kyle, who let me know about which networks' JFK assassination/follow-up/funeral coverage is not already widely circulated and asked if I had any of this material. The short answer is "I don't know". When I'm done listening to something I don't plan to share, it typically goes in a big box downstairs, and I don't really recall what I may have heard or not heard.  I'm literally talking about hundreds of tapes, not all of which are even marked. Going forward, I will definitely keep an ear out for those networks, when I invariably come across more JFK material. 

Radio posts seem to be among the most (if not the most) popular. Certainly, my lack of research results in a lot of responses. The recent post "Radio, Radio and More Radio" got all sorts of feedback, some of which I will repost here, but if you want to see all of it, just go back to that post. All of the following refer to elements of that post.   

ACE contributed the following: 

Very interesting London Mirror recording for the following reason: I think it's an end of year review because mention is made of Moon River being 'high in the hit parade'. Well in the UK that entered the charts week ending 18 November 1961 and was the Christmas Number 1 that year. However the La Vallerossa song puts the timeframe back to early March 1961 as the presenter references their opening week, but from what I find out March 61 was when the did dates in the UK, maybe longer, can't say but that went so well they mined an album from it.

Snoopy adds the following: 

On the 1970s Ads and Music Beds tape, shazam tells me 1:03-1:56 and 1:57-3:13 are pieces from an album "Six Moons of Jupiter" by a John Hill, evidently originally released in 1971, re-released 2008. I like the jazzy solo sax piece at 1:57, "Ganymede"; it sounds so out of place from all the cheeseball ads.

Chad also narrowed down information on yet another item from that post: 

The notes about Grace Lutheran Church of Somers Point, NJ building a new parish hall narrows this down to 1955 as backed up by the church's history as listed on their website: http://mobile.gracelutheranspnj.comcastbiz.net/history. The news about protests in Mississippi following Emmett Till's murder and comments from newly crowned Miss America Sharon Ritchie further narrow this down to September 1955. The news story about five preteens who extensively vandalized the New Carondelet Baptist Church in St. Louis and, quote, "made page one news" is probably the best way to pinpoint the date. The congregation still exists but their website is off line.

Eric offered a wealth of information about various aspects of that post. I have edited this comment here - if you want to read more about the case missing girls, go back to the post. It is sad and maddening: 

The WOR broadcast is from June 27, 1963 as the sports report refers to the White Sox beating the Yankees 6-0. Before that, there is also a commercial for TV Guide mentioning Donna Reed and Carl Betz on the cover which was the June 29 issue.

The Mutual Newscast is from the week of July 19-23, 1965. The story about the missing Texas University co-eds refers to Susan Rigsby and Shirley Ann Stark who disappeared Sunday, July 18th and the newscast says they disappeared "Sunday" meaning this is still the week following the Sunday it happened. 

There were also two comments identifying the date of the tape containing news reports on the riots in Greece, each of which identifies a different date. Apparently there was more than one riot. Have a look at the original post for those offerings. 

That's all for that post - like I said, quite a bit. On to others...

Someone called "The Rabbit" made a comment - which is worth reading in its entirety on the post - about the instrumental version of theme song to the Top Cat TV series and the fact that this series was and is wildly popular in Venezuela. 

Eric also had something to say about the Magna-Tronics Sales pitch in this post: 

To give you an idea of what went into a Magna-Tronics setup, the April 8, 1963 edition of Broadcasting magazine lists Tape-Athon's "new automatic program system" designed to work with what Magna-Tronics was selling, a four tape deck system with built in timers and a switcher for 32 hours of continuous programming with no repeats.I'm sure the hardware paid for itself...at least it better, at $2,489 in JFK bucks.

A brief segment of radio station WGN in this post, resulted the following, from Frenchyak: 

The Freddy Martin song on WGN is Penny Whistle Blues from 1952, a cover of a South African song by Willard Cele from 1951. Very cool!

Andrew offered up this comment on a segment featured on this post from almost four years ago: 

The real name of KMUN's Polly "Columbo" was Polly Smullin. Her husband William was a pioneer broadcast operator in the Pacific North West.

Andrew (perhaps the same Andrew as above) went back to a post from more than six years ago, and in addition to wishing me the best (thank you), he shared this: 

The second of your "Can I Help You" programmes was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on Sun 25th Mar 1962, at 1:40pm.The programme strand, which offered information and advice on legal, social, and financial problems, first aired in 1947 and, as far as I can tell, came to an end in 1970. 

In my most recent previous post, I got the date on some beautiful music programming wrong, and if I'd been paying attention, would have gotten it right, as an anonymous poster let me know: 

At about the 22:45 mark of the WVNJ recording there's an ad for the "Chevrolet 68 Savings Explo" (a savings explosion!!) which suggests the year is actually 1968.

But my favorite comment - and I really didn't know folks cared so much - came after that most recent post, which I put up after an unusually long break of 26 26 days, due to having been really busy during July. I was deeply touched by this anonymous comment. It said: 

Good to see you back - glad all is well. The closer the end of the month came the more concerned I was.

Thank you for all the comments, but especially for that one. 

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A good percentage of those reading this site will be familiar with PAMS, the Dallas area radio jingle factory which was the Gold Standard in radio jingles, promotion music and other aspects of radio - particularly, but not limited to, top 40 radio, especially in the 1960's. 

What I have here is a compilation tape I found that has five of the sales promotions for five different PAMS packets of jingles on a theme. Perhaps these are all available out there in their entirety, in which case sorry to be redundant, but I have haven't been able to find that these are all out there - I haven't even found any one of them intact as heard here. Perhaps I'm just not good at searching. But in case I'm right that these are already floating around, I thought I'd share them here. 

Download: A Set of Five PAMS Sales Packages

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Next up, for those who like audio letters, here is a fun one, or at least I think so. A visitor from England, Mrs. Phillips, records a conversation with her American hosts, who seem to have visited her a few years earlier (if I hear it correctly, perhaps during Queen Elizabeth's coronation, in 1953). This was meant to go right away to a couple named George and Virginia, but Lou (who is heard of the tape) forgot to send it, so he recorded a lengthy apology as well as additional bits of news and gossip on side two of the tape, and included a note saying so: 

I've labeled it May, because that's when it was sent, but the main part of it was recorded in March. Here's the tape: 

Download: Audio Letter, May, 1956 - 'Lou's Tape #7 - Talk With Mrs. Philipps

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This next one could have been a "Very Short Reel" feature, but since I have an even shorter one this week, I thought I'd put it up here. It's just an unidentified radio station in 1957, on which a few hits of the day are played and the recordist captured enough DJ patter to make it worth offering it up here, despite the distortion heard pretty much throughout. 

Download: Brief Excerpt from an Indianapolis Rock and Roll Station, 1957

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I know I have at least a couple of reader/listeners out there who enjoy hearing vintage religious related tapes, including services (and if you have something you are partial to, feel free to share, and if I have it, I'll keep it in mind to feature it). So here is an hour or so of what I believe is a 1950's pentecostal revival type service, featuring a certain Brother Green. 

Download: A Pentecostal Revival Meeting, Featuring Brother Green

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Next we have a tape from the Cinema Recording Corporation, the raw tapes featuring the sounds for (presumably) a television ad for a product that the company bought in 1961 and discontinued in 1973: Red Dot Potato Chips. I've never heard of them before. If anyone can figure out exactly what was going on visually in this commercial (or these commercials) feel free to comment. 

Download: Cinema Recording Corp - Frito-Lays Red Dot Ads Raw Tapes

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The next two offerings feature rehearsals, but other than that fact, they really have very little in common. Part of the back cover looks like this: 

So presumably the child heard warbling off-key, for the first 160 seconds here, in a few different songs,  is Johnny. I think it's cute - in fact, I'd rather listen to this 50 times than hear a batch of children who have had every natural bit of their singing ability trained out of them sing something like "Tomorrow". You, however, may well find it amazingly annoying. 

Speaking of child choirs, Johnny gives way to the "Jr Choir Hughes", whoever they may have been, for the last eight or so minutes of this tape. These kids are definitely rehearsed, but thankfully, they are not "trained" and they sing with their natural, exuberant voices. They sing a few songs, including the gorgeous "Brahms Lullaby" a few times. And despite the organ being a bit too loud and distortion creeping in here and there, I love those natural voices. Not as much as on the second best album ever made ("Through Children's Eyes") or on the astonishing, otherworldly and beautiful track heard at the 25:40 point in this video (okay, now I'm teary, and I probably will be for the rest of the night - happens every time I hear that). But still, it's very much in my wheelhouse. 

Download: A Young Child Sings, Then a Youth Choir Rehearses

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Recently, I came across a batch of tapes, many of them recorded at the professional speed of 15 inches per second, and all of which contain recordings of a pianist accompanying, and often teaching/offering suggestions to, a few singers. I thought I'd sample one of them here, one which primarily features a baritone but in which there is also a soprano present, who also sings a bit. If there is any interest in hearing more of these, let me know. There were about a half dozen, of varying lengths. 

Download: A Baritone and a Soprano Rehearse with Piano

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And here's a "Very Short Reel", perhaps one of the more pointless ones I've shared. This was the only thing recorded on a seven inch, 1800 foot reel (i.e. 90 minutes of recording time available at the least, at standard speeds, and as much as six hours of recording time at the lowest common speed). What's more, this was recorded at the start of the second side of the reel, as it came to me, which is extra weird. As it says, it's just a couple of guys checking the microphone and then talking about.... .something. 

Download: Two Men Checking the Microphone and Then Discussing Something

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