Interesting Radio Recordings from Two Paper Reels, Birthday Time, An Odd Promo, Music in a Bar and at Home, A Little German, and the use of Cactus and Wood Needles

Howdy, 

I'm starting off today with something I find absolutely fascinating. I recently was lucky enough to purchase two paper reels - that is, reels without plastic backing, just paper. Both were Soundmirror reels, from the company I believe was first in producing reel tape for home buyers. Since that company was out of the reel tape business by 1952, and paper reels were gone by 1953, it's always possible that there could be recordings as much as 80 years old on such a tape. 

That's not quite the case here - these recordings are more like 73 years old - but they are fascinating nonetheless. The first one I listened to had an episode of a radio program called "Answers for Americans", which was heard on the Mutual radio network. A panel of experts answered political questions from listeners, with prizes to the listeners whose questions were used. 

Multiple online sites indicate this was a right wing show particularly focused on anti-communism, but this particular episode really just sounds like the questioners, and the experts, getting their bearings at a very scary moment - the weeks after Stalin died - when a lot of questions about any resetting of US/Soviet relations were unsettled. While I'm sure a left-wing show would have sounded much different, I doubt that a mainstream right-down-the-middle show would have been much different at that particular moment. 

Again, your mileage may vary, but boy did I enjoy listening to this. 

Download: "Answers For Americans" On Mutual Radio, Spring, 1953

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The show ended before the tape did, and at the end of it, there is this fragment of some sort of variety program. The man speaking and singing throughout mentions having starred in "Million Dollar Legs", meaning he could conceivably be one of three male stars of that movie. I certainly am not an expert in any of them, but I'm guessing it's Donald O'Connor

Download: Fragment of a Variety Show circa 1953

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The other paper reel was interesting for a different reason. The person who recorded "Answers for Americans" seemingly recorded another episode of that show or something similar, for the conversation (actually it's more like a series of short speeches) is about how a "One-World Government" would be possible, but only if it were to be a "FREE One-World Government", and I'm sure we all know whose definition of "Free" they were using. 

I believe our recordist must have left the machine alone to record, because powerhouse clear channel station WCKY, and its Country and Western format, begins showing up, interfering with the speechifying. Each station struggles to be heard over the other for a time, but eventually, the Cincinnati C & W format wins out, and the speeches are not heard at all for the last few minutes. What is heard is some down-home entertainment, also likely from right around 1953, complete with ads for worthless patent medicines, which are claimed to be able to cure oh so many ills. 

It's hard to listen to at times, but man oh man, is it rewarding in the end. And the far better radio format wins in the end, too. Well, that's what I think, anyway. 

Download: Competing Stations - "One Free World Government" Discussion Vs. Country and Western on WCKY, Cincinnati

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There is nothing written on either of these tapes' boxes, by the way. One last comment - our recordist clearly intended to record the speeches. Why on earth, after listening to the tape and determining that they had not been recorded correctly, didn't he or she use the tape again? Did the recordist enjoy this mish-mash of sounds?!?!?

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And now, for all you "Ed and Frank" fans, here is more from Ed and Frank: an hour of their drummer and electric piano noodling, as recorded at some facility where I'm guessing a lot of beer was consumed, almost exactly 69 years ago. 

Download: Ed and Frank, 7-4-57
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Or perhaps children's birthdays are more to your liking. This tape is from the 1960's, most likely 1968 based on other material on the reel, some of which I will share at a later date. It's short and (mostly) sweet.

In it, Kay's father tries to get her to talk more than she wants to, we hear some other children and then the requisite singing of "MacArthur Park". No, wait, that's wrong. It's "Happy Birthday". 

Download: Kay's Birthday

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Maybe you can make out the words "Kay's Birthday" on the back of the box: 

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A company called "Magna-Tronics", also probably sometime in the 1960's, promoted a Muzak-like product, which, rather than being for stores, was for radio stations (!) which wanted to simply program someone else's pre-recorded series of bland musical performers for AM or FM broadcast. 

I have no idea how successful this was - it seems like a fool's errand to me - but here is the promotional tape used to sell the program managers on this product. I have one other tape from this company, an actual example of the product that they sent to stations, which I will feature later. 

Download: Magna-Tronics Radio Station Easy Listening Promo Tape

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Quite some time ago - and I can't seem to find the post at the moment - I shared some home recordings of old-timey type music and more recent standards, recorded by some folks who clearly got together frequently and made music... and sometimes recorded it. I have a handful of tapes from these folks, and today I have a second recording by them, about 40 minutes this time, and in this case with all of their names identified on the tape box, and if I can find that box, I will add it to this post. I do have their names in the file name. 

Download: More Music at Home - Bill, Vernene, Dianne, Helen and Flavian, 3/23/62

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Well, this is not the box that goes along with that reel, but it is a box from a tape with some of the same people. They all look more or less like this: 

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And for the last reel today.... I wasn't sure what to do with this but I decided to share it. Maybe someone out there can let all of us know what is being said. As it is titled "A woman speaking "mostly" in German". And that's really and truly all I know about it. 

Download: A Woman Speaking (Mostly) in German

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And finally, here's an Acetate of the Month. It looks like this: 

As you can see. it features what is mostly a blank label from the Acetate company / recording studio, with what might be a family name written in the corner. Note the encouragement to use a "cactus or wood" needle to play this record. WHAT???? Well, a bit of internet sleuthing shows both of these are for real. That's a new one on me!

One side features a bunch of conversations - which definitely sounds like "around the house" type conversations than those that would have taken place in a studio, then a short rendition of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". Here 'tis: 

Download: Cathedral Latin Acetate - Family Conversations and Let Me Call You Sweetheart

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The flip side is considerably longer, and I've labeled it "Some Sort of Family Skit". That's the best I can do. Maybe someone with better ears than me can make out all of what goes on here. Despite my cluelessness, I still sort of enjoy it. 

Download: Cathedral Latin Acetate - Some Sort of Family Skit

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Very Short Reels will return next time!

Radio, Radio and More Radio

When I went to select things to post this time around, I sort of found that I had a LOT of various radio-related items - an abundance of them it seemed. So I decided to nothing but RADIO in today's post. 

All of the tapes featured here are recordings made of actual radio broadcasts, except the first one. And this first one is probably my favorite of the batch - just ten minutes or so of what I've called "1970's Ads and Music Beds". Presumably these all came from the same company, but I do not know who was behind this tape, or why it has completed ads paired with background music for ads. It just is. Enjoy!

Download: A Short Compilation of 1970's Ads and Music Beds

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Here's one I've labeled "Religion News, Circa 1956". Perhaps someone out there can narrow it down further: 

Download: Religion News, Circa 1956 

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And now, from more than a decade later, and from a far more Earthly realm, here is The Old Redhead, also  no doubt known to many in his orbit as "The Old Jackass", Arthur Godfrey. I have shared other Godfrey segments before - just click on the Arthur Godfrey tab below or put his name in the search at upper left. Like those previous segments, this comes from the waning days of Godfrey's radio show, in this case June 4 of 1969. Let's listen in: 

Download: The Arthur Godfrey Show, 6-4-69

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Just over two years ago, in this post, I wrote about a tape of a program called "London Mirror", saying: 

Now here is a bit of programming, from the BBC, that I find absolutely fascinating. It is an edition of what was apparently a weekly show, one which captured as much as possible of what was going on in world of entertainment and theatre in London. Again, this was captured on a weekly basis, with new material every week, some of it from records, but mostly recorded specifically from this program.

I later shared another episode from the same tape. While both of those tapes were dated well (by newspaper clippings in the box), the third episode on the box was not identified in any way. But as the other two were from the second half of November, 1961, I'm guessing this is from the following week, or shortly thereafter. I continue to find these tapes fascinating. 

Download: London Mirror - Unknown Date, Probably Late 1961

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Now here's an odd one, and I wish I had this entire program - some of it was erased by something far less interesting. It's a radio drama presentation of the story of "Rumpelstiltskin". And I really don't know anything more about it. I do think it's very worth hearing. 

Download: Radio Production of 'Rumpelstiltskin' (Incomplete)

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This next tape is labeled "Brief Excerpt from WOR, June, 1963", and indeed is what it is. But I should also mention that the sound quality starts out absolutely abysmal and gets steadily better throughout, but never approaches "good" quality. The segment starts with a mention of a 1964 gift catalog, but either that was extremely pre-mature or this is actually from two different recordings (which I doubt) because the sports report is definitely from late June of '63. 

Download: Brief Excerpt from WOR, June, 1963

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Now, what compilation of radio would be complete without a lengthy (perhaps over-long) AM radio tribute to musicians from the Big Band era. Well, I run a full service site here, so I have just what you were looking for. A radio station called WHEL, at 1570 AM, in New Albany, IN, ran a tribute the Dorsey Brothers and their various bands. That station's is now known as WLRS, and was only WHEL for 13 years, ending in 1978. My guess is that this tape comes from closer to the end of that period. Here is a 77 minutes excerpt of that Dorsey presentation: 

Download: Tribute to the Dorsey Brothers on WHEL, 1570 AM, New Albany, IN

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And now for our Acetate of the Month. This one is a short, vintage recording from radio station WJJD in Chicago. This AM station existed for some 63 years in Chicago, before rapidly switching call letters three times in four years. It is now WYLL. It is possible, or even likely, that the last 68 seconds here actually comes from another station, as WJJD had a country format at the time (it was later Chicago's first Top 40 station). This segment is, admittedly, very badly recorded and hard to listen to, but it does keep with this post's theme of radio material. 

Download: Audiodisc 6 inch Acetate - WJJD, Cowboy Song, Piano Instrumental

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And finally, a Very Short Reel. I have previously shared segments of country music programming from WEEP in Pittsburgh, and here is just a bit more of that station, However, this is a brief segment of the nationally syndicated Mutual News (including a commercial) as heard over WEEP from some time between 1966 and 1968, based on the news heard. Perhaps someone else can narrow it down closer based on the news reported. I have been unsuccessful in trying to do the same. 

Download: Brief Fragment of Mutual News on WEEP, Pittsburgh

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Even More Pittsburgh Football, The College Bowl, What Schools Need, A Preacher at Work and at Home, and the Man On the Farm

I did a bit more digging into the pile of tapes that had that near-complete classic playoff game and found the following reel - most of this game had been erased by a recording of the broadcast of John Kennedy's funeral (and I assure you, I've run across at least a dozen recordings of that, in my collection), but when it was over and the machine was shut off, the end of a game from almost exactly two months earlier was there, between Pittsburgh and the St. Louis Cardinals, and here is that broadcast recording: 

Download: St Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Steelers - 9-29-63 - Most of Fourth Quarter

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And while we're on the subject of "entertainment options that sometimes have the word 'Bowl' attached to them", here is a neat tape I found containing two complete episodes and one partial one (minus commercials) of the show "College Bowl". The reference to the "Bay of Pigs" incident having happened exactly three years earlier nicely dates the first of these shows to April of 1964, and the remaining two shows are clearly the next two in sequence. 

I sincerely doubt you would find a team of college kids today that could answer as many of these specific questions, as are answered correctly here. If nothing else, it certainly plays up the change in focus of a typical college education between then and now. 

Download: College Bowl, April & May, 1964, Two and a Half Episodes

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Now let me ask you something. Are you, like so many of us are, concerned about the future of the Sherman Schools? That's the sort of thing that keeps me up at night. Here's a man whose doing something about it - he's presenting his thoughts on the needs and future expectations of the Sherman Schools. Thank goodness. 

Actually, I was pleased to hear that this wasn't some sort of reactionary screed, but that this guy actually sounds pretty progressive. 

I will also note that, for whatever reason, he taped some segments at full volume and other segments at an extremely low level. I have attempted to bring the softer segments up in volume to something close to the average of the louder segments, but there is a lot of white noise or hiss in there, as a result. 

Download: Comments on the Needs and Future Expectations of Sherman Schools

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I find a LOT of tapes with religious services (almost always Christian services) on them - typically, if they are full services, they are either of the Catholic/Episcopal/Lutheran structure (all very similar in content) or of the Baptist and/or Fundamentalist structure. Usually, the only thing that varies, and which might be interesting (to me at least, and with the exception of special services such as baptisms) are the sermons. 

The tape below (after a bit of harmonizing) captures parts of three speeches. I'm not sure I'd call them all sermons. The first one is a sort of homily made up of a parable. And I will say it's one of the least convincing parables I can imagine, as the "punchline" is a major letdown - I thought to myself "THAT's what you were leading up to? Really?" The rest is more typical sermonizing.

This tape is dated April 10, 1971 and the sticker on it also indicates it was recorded in Hinsdale, IL (see below). But I'm fairly certain that there are at least three separate services excerpted here.

Download: Segments of Various Sermon and Church Services

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On the other side of this tape is a unique documenting of a three-way phone call, complete with the operator assistance at the start. Presumably at least one of the participants is from the family that included the preacher heard above, but whoever this is, they were making a call that involved the Chicago suburbs, the Phoenix area and perhaps some third location. 

I found this tape delightful. The conversations are interesting (I wonder what was being shipped to Arizona, and why it had to be picked up so far from Phoenix), and the best part, the kids - most likely cousins - talking with each other. 

The tape ends with a brief bit of religious singing. This is probably my favorite tape in today's offerings. 

Download: A Three Way Phone Call to Arizona and a Some Religious Singing (plus)

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And now it's time for an Acetate of the Month.

Nearly five years ago, I posted "The Porter Heaps Collection", of a bunch of 1940's and 1950's radio shows that the former organist at my church had given me upon his retirement. One of those - probably my favorite, was "Man on the Farm". And in my collection, I was lucky enough to acquire an acetate version of a 1952 episode of "Man on the Farm", half of the show on one side of the disc and half on the other. 

If I'd been around, and old enough, to enjoy radio in the early 1950's, I suspect I'd have been a big fan of "Man on the Farm". 

Download: Columbia Reference Recording 12 inch Acetate - Man on the Farm, 10-4-52, Part One

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Download: Columbia Reference Recording 12 inch Acetate - Man on the Farm, 10-4-52, Part Two

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Very Short Reels will return next time around. 

Happy May, everyone. 

Some 75 Year Old College Baseball, The Return of Dr. Bill, Ronnie Hall Sings, An Excitable Audience, Goofing Around and Some Scrap Metal

Hello everyone, 

There are a LOT of comments I've received lately which are fully worth sharing here - more information about things I've posted, clarifications and corrections. But I've again waited until the end of the month and I like to get to posts out each month, so that will have to wait. Maybe I need to start building the next post tomorrow. 

But I do want to ask a question for anyone who might know: I have found in my collection a nearly complete recording of the radio broadcast coverage of the legendary "Immaculate Reception" football game from 12/23/72. This is the Pittsburgh radio call, and while commercials (and half time) were not recorded, and the person recording also began editing the time in between plays at the end to save tape, the entire call from start to finish is on the tape with the exception of a few moments between those plays near the end.  

My question is: Is this available already? Does it circulate or is it posted somewhere online? I've been unable to find it, but would only like to share it if it truly isn't already out there. Again, those who know - let me know!

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Speaking of SPORTS - I have something sort of amazing here. It comes from a paper reel - the sort of tape produced only between the mid 1940's and about 1951, with paper, rather than plastic backing. And while a professional baseball broadcast from that era would be great, something even more esoteric was on this tape: a local college baseball broadcast between two teams from Portland, Oregon! Sadly, there is only about 20 minutes of it here, comprised of portions of two innings, but talk about obscure! Presumably, this is from at least 70, if not 75 years ago, probably closer to the latter, given it being on a paper reel. What are the chances of this existing at all? I thought this was beyond cool. 

Download: A College Baseball Broadcast - University of Portland Vs Lewis and Clark College

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Now, I should mention that the recordings of the two inning segments heard here are not heard back to back on this tape. For whatever reason, the person recording the game ran the tape forward several minutes before starting to record the second segment. I have joined them. 

For the sake of completeness, if nothing else, here is what was otherwise being erased by the baseball segments. This short recording is heard between those two baseball segments. The recording quality is nothing short of abysmal and if someone with a better handle on sound editing wants to work on this, please do. But what you will sort of hear are two men speaking before an audience. Because I was born in 1960, I grew up with the voice of Richard Nixon frequently resonating in my ears for many years, and I'm fairly certain the second speaker is Nixon, presumably near the beginning of his career, just before or after he was Vice President. See what you think. 

Download: Very Poorly Recorded Segments of Speeches

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During the years I was posting on WFMU's Beware of the Blog I featured a series of tapes made by an army doctor in Korea following the end of the war, audio letters sent to his wife. I even included one which captured the highlights of a vacation the two of them took after he retired. Unfortunately, those offerings are no longer available, as Beware of the Blog has gone dark. But for those of you who might have liked them, and for those who didn't know about them but are intrigued, here is yet another of those tapes, one I never shared on WFMU. It's one of the longer ones from the collection.   

If anyone lets me know that there is interest, I will be happy to repost any of the previous WFMU offerings here, not just of these audio letters, but anything which was once available at that site and now is gone. 

Download: Audio Letter from an Army Doctor in Korea - 4-20-54

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More than four months ago, in this post, I features some recordings from a TV show called "The Children's Hour". I now know a bit more about where those recordings came from, or at least why. Since then, I have discovered that I have, in my collection, at least two tapes made of television appearances, local and national, by someone named Ronnie Hall, who was a graduate of that program. Here, from 1957, are some recordings that someone - mostly likely a family member - captured of young Ronnie Hall on some local TV shows and also on the Lawrence Welk show, which would have been a huge deal around 1957. 

Download: Ronnie Hall - Various Television Performances, Circa 1957

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Several years ago, I posted photos of what happened to over 100 of my as yet unlistened-to tapes when a pipe broke and spewed water on them. The box for this tape was unfortunately among those reels. However, you can still make out some of the writing on this box (which is not true for all of the boxes that went through that experience: 

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In my last post, I featured a pop-hits-heavy performance by a high school concert band. Now, here is a tape (labeled "Jazz Band") which was clearly from the same source - the tapes were together, on the same brand of tape, in my collection. Here, again, there are a few pop songs, more than we ever played in my high school jazz band (where our repertoire had exactly zero current pop hits). I don't think all the pieces they play here pop hits, in this case, but I also don't recognize all of the tunes. 

But even more interesting here is the level of engagement of the audience, particularly in their response to the various elements of the Theme from "Shaft" and their explosion of applause at the end of that and other numbers.

Download: A Mid '70's High School Band Concert with a Very Receptive Audience

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Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". This one is VERY short and almost as hard to listen to as those speech segments near the top of this post. I've named it "Three Guys Goofing Around" and it comes from a small unlabeled acetate. The contents are barely a minute long, but are rewarding enough for inclusion here, if you can bear with/get past the sound quality. 

Download: Tru-Tune 6 Inch Acetate - Three Guys Goofing Around

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And now, here's a Very Short Reel. This is, honestly, excerpted from a much longer tape, but I wanted to share it by itself. The tape was in horrible condition - plastic was flaking off of it as I copied it digitally and there were multiple breaks - I ended up throwing it away after listening to the digitized version. Most of it was instrumental classical music from "The US Steel Hour" (the radio version of that show), with sound cutting in and out, muddy at best for the most part. You'll hear some of that here, too. But I thought this Public Service Announcement about scrap metal was worth preserving. 

The show's Wikipedia page is largely about the television series which started in 1953, but it states that both shows only featured plays, which is interesting as this recording was most definitely a presentation of music. 

Download: Scrap Metal Plea from US Steel, from the US Steel Hour, circa 1951

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A 1971 Radio Announcer Demo, One Last Visit from Antony Bilbow, Talking to Roy, Music at Home, It's Daddy's Birthday and He's the Most Tip Top Top Cat!

Happy Valentine's Day Weekend - I love my reader/listeners, and I love this hobby. 

Dee-Jay Announcer Demo Tapes always seem to be pretty popular around here, so I will start with a vintage 1971 tape compiled by Chuck Martin. I featured him in part of my "Very Short Reel" in my very last post, but here he is again in a somewhat lengthier tape. He was reading ads in that previous tape, but here he is doing the full DJ thang. However, I've just noticed that, while that previous tape had jingles from KHJ, the Chuck Martin section was apparently from WNHC, New Haven, as is this aircheck. This station is now a public radio station, is part of Yale University and is now known as WYBC.

Download: Chuck Martin - Announcer Demo Reel on WNHC, October, 1971

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The three sets of stories by Antony Bilbow that I've shared have been quite popular, at least with some reader/listeners. You will find the other three posts, and this one, at this link. Sadly, this is the last of the four sets of stories I will be able to offer, as their ain't no more. Last summer I received two comments, on anonymous, one from Sunnymanchester, both containing information about the shows. I have combined those comments here:

The Antony Bilbow recordings seem to have been regularly featured in the "Morning Story" slot on the BBC's Light Programme throughout the 1960s. Many thanks for making them available! Going by the listings for "Morning Story" on https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/ many of which include the story titles - it looks like it's a compilation of these recorded over several years, not necessarily in chronological order. The series was originally called "Worthington" when it started in 1954, but by the mid 60s it included other stories, including Bilbow reading a few by other authors.

Thanks for that information! 

Here for his swan song, Antony Bilbow.

Download: Antony Bilbow - Stories on English Radio, Volume 4

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Now, for those who enjoy audio letters, I have something I think is very special. For those who don't, feel free to move on. 

More than seven years ago, I made the top feature of one of my posts a tape from a man named Roy, living in Alaska, circa 1957 or 1958. That post is here, and here is what I wrote at that time. 

I will let the delights and idiosyncrasies of this tape reveal themselves to you, but I do want to add that I'm pretty sure that I own the tape he was responding to!!! That'd be a first, I think, and if I can find it, it'd be a wonderful bookend with this tape. Everything he mentions from "your tape" (i.e. the one he previously received) sounds familiar to me, so I just need to track it down. 

Well, it took longer than I might have expected, but here is that tape. Listening to this one and then going back and listening to Roy's tape is sort of like hearing a conversation that took place over many miles, nearly 70 years ago. 

Download: Audio Letter to Roy

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For those down-home folks, here are a couple of fellows playing together, on accordion and guitar. SO I've called it "Accordion and Guitar. I spent most of the day yesterday working on that file name. 

Download: Unknown - Accordion and Guitar

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And now it's time for an "Acetate of the Month". This is a wisp of a record, at 66 seconds it is almost as short as the extremely short "Very Short Reel" below it. This is a Voice-O-Graph record, no doubt made it a both in some sort of store (perhaps a department store or 5- and 10-cent store - something like that). As I've written before, such machines were still around when my grandmother visited us, and we made such a record, circa 1967. 

I suspect this is from several years before that, but really have no way of knowing anything but the date - May 29th - the singer/speaker - "Billy" - and the recipient - "Dad". The sound quality is atrocious, as is Billy's sense of pitch while singing "Happy Birthday". I actually can't make out much of what he says and sings after that song - perhaps some listener will be able to decipher it. 

Download: Voice-O-Graph 6 Inch Acetate - Billy Sings Happy Birthday to Daddy, May 29

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And finally, a VERY short, "Very Short Reel". It would appear that this tape either had its genesis in the Hanna-Barbera studios, or at the very least passed through there. It contains the music bed for the theme to the relatively unsuccessful H-B cartoon "Top Cat" (which only lasted one season), followed by what I assume is "tag" music to be used to introduced or come out of an episode, or perhaps to be heard over the final credits. Any guesses as to who the "T.T." listed on the box (below) is/was would be welcome. 

If anyone has is any doubt that this is the actual arrangement and performance of that theme's backing track, a comparison with the show's opening should convince you. 

Download: Unknown - 'Top Cat' Main Title Music and Tag

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Post 250: Country Radio in 1965, Some Fun Home Recordings, Pete Returns Yet Again, Right Wing Commentary and The Moritz Family!

Good Day!

This is, to my amazement and pleasure, my 250th post to this site. I had hoped to share something extremely precious to me for this post, but I did not have enough time to do as I wanted, and it will have to wait for another day. Hopefully, another post loaded with a variety of goodies will suffice. 

Before getting to those, I want to thank a few people who stopped by to comment. In particular, thanks to Josh, who has commented on several postings, ever since getting wind of this site a month or more ago. He is particularly interested in religious recordings, primarily sermons I think, and has left several comments about the various Christian-related tapes I've posted recently. There are too many comments to repost here, but if you look in my recent postings, you'll find at least five comments from him. He also provided links to his own site where he shares sermon recordings, and his own podcast, for those who might like to dive deeper into such things, Thanks, Josh! I will continue to keep you in mind with regard to featuring those sorts of tapes when I find them. 

And quickly - quite appropriately for my 250th post, an anonymous poster let me know that, over a year ago, in this post, I shared my 1000th downloadable file for y'all. Cool! And in answer to a question about the touch tone tape, from JimmyLee, I will share that that particular tape was included in two full boxes of tapes I bought many years ago, all of which were for internal use by Bell Telephone, so I assume it was for some sort of training purposes. I have shared many of those tapes here, over the years. 

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I'll start today with a favorite sort of tape among readers and listeners, the vintage music radio station recording. In this case, it's 50 minutes or so of radio from Canton, Ohio. Most of this recording is from WHOF, which was a country station at the time. I didn't included it in the name of the file, but this is almost certainly from the fall of 1965, as the then-future # 1 (and resolutely awful) country hit "Giddyup Go" is the pick of the week. 

The station is changed a few times, including at least once, briefly, to a top 40 station, and then there is a twirling of the dial in the last few minutes. And then, at the very, very end, we get a piece of what all this radio station recording was erasing - the last few moment of some sort of band rehearsal. 

Download: WHOF, Canton, OH (Mostly)

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Here's a set of home recordings (with some radio and other music thrown in) that I think is pretty interesting and almost stunningly weird in one aspect. It's also REALLY random and so I've labeled it as a "Hodgepodge". I'm going to describe this one in detail, because I think it's worth it. Leaving out a few very short moments in between the longer segments, here's a rundown of what you'll hear: 

A few microphone tests, then a young girl reading some text about tapes and tape recorders. 

A man reading a very bawdy poem, a slightly off color limerick and a shaggy dog story about the old west.

A different man claiming to be broadcasting on radio station S-H-I-T and who tells a lame joke, and another man, identified as being from Shit University, who tells another lame joke, both of them about men having a lack of sexual prowess. 

After several very short things, a stage band plays three songs.

Some radio recordings, including KQV in Pittsburgh (one of the oldest radio stations in the world), including a pop song I don't recognize, a devilish "drive safely" PSA, some DJ patter and the start of a Brenda Lee record. 

A pianist fumbles her way (she speaks at one point, making clear it's a girl who is playing) through "Exodus", fumbles even more so through a piece I don't recognize, then falls back on a little piano piece that nearly everyone knew how to play in the 1960's, and which was popularized as "Down at Papa Joe's" at one point, before playing part of Moonlight Sonata", then cycles through various other pieces, returning to the "Papa Joe's" music after more struggles.

Then it's the REAL high point of this tape. If it was ever your dream to hear a flute player and a trombone play "Danny Boy" together (and at first, not lining up the tune together), particularly with the trombonist trying, and not always succeeding, to play in the upper register of his instrument, this is your moment. 

Back to the pianist, whose work was partially erased by the flute/trombone duo. She's onto the "Heart and Soul" chords (another piece every kid knew how to play on piano in the 1960's). 

Then, a man tells the story of John F. Kennedy from a clear position of clear distaste for the man and his politics, identifying Kennedy as Italian for some reason (using a national origin slur), and ending with a tasteless joke. 

Finally, a man recites a little piece of nonsense doggerel. We're now at Fink university, but before any further silliness can be captured, the tape ends. 

Quite a little compendium, there. It astonishes me that the people who decided to record some off color material chose to do so on a tape that a teenage girl was also clearly using and probably listening to. 

Download: Early to Mid 1960's Hodgepodge of Home Recordings

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Next, remember Pete? I featured two tapes of Pete, featuring his off key warbling, badly tuned guitar and generally odd ways, here... and here.

Well, glory be, I have found another tape of Pete. This one features a different side of the man, and yet the same absurdities - and some other ones - shine through. Just as on the previous shared tapes, in this case, Pete set out to re-record some of his other tapes onto the four separate monaural channels of a five inch reel. 

My big question here is.... WHO was he doing this for? The impression I get is that he was just trying to consolidate some shorter tapes (or perhaps his favorite parts of some other tapes) onto one reel. But then, he more or less ruins the majority of the recordings by plugging in his microphone and erasing part of the song being heard, in order to comment on the song being heard, or to make mention of what song it is. At one point, during a re-recording of a Lawrence Welk segment, he comes back in to comment that the performer being heard later died in a car crash. And every now and then, when some backwards material (from what he is erasing) pops through, he comments on that, too.

Again, these seem to have been for his own purposes/enjoyment. Did he want to hear interrupted songs, with his own comments (which he presumably would also be familiar with at a later hearing. Also, songs start and stop in the middle of the recording a lot of the time. The recording is amazingly choppy, even without taking into account his interruptions. 

This is a long tape, and surely won't be for everyone, but the sheer peculiarity of it caused me to choose to share it. 

Download: Pete Records His Old Tapes and Comments On Them

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Here are portions of the front and back of the tape box, for anyone who would like to play "Peteologist" and try to make more sense of this: 

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I recently found in my possession a tape which contained, back to back, a series of episodes of a short radio show which aired on the Mutual Radio Network for nearly three decades, a program of commentary by Fulton Lewis, Jr. I read up on him, and it sounds like he was somewhat akin to Rush Limbaugh, if Limbaugh had presented his program as news and had limited it to a few short minutes a day. I strongly suspect that Mr. Lewis' show would not be something I would dial into, were he still in business. Be that as it may, it's an interesting tape and worth a listen for its historical value, if nothing else. 

Download: Several Episodes of Fulton Lewis, Jr's Radio Commentary Program

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And now for an "Acetate of the Month". And this is an interesting little relic, which looks like this: 

The label is the same on both sides, and the recording is the same on both sides, too. The presence of a zone, rather than a zip code, means this recording is from no later than 1963. The song being parodied, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" was written by my musical, social and political hero, Pete Seeger, in 1955, but didn't enter the national consciousness until 1961, which helps date this little record to somewhere within an 18-20 month period. 

The performers are The Moritz Family, or at least two of them, singing to friends (I'm guessing) prior to their departure from the neighborhood to parts not named. There are two references Kenilworth, IL, a tiny burg (never more than 3000 residents, covering just over a half-mile square) which is very near the town I grew up in, and which was, in the 1960's, sometimes ranked as the richest town in America. 

Presumably this recording was given to The Moritz' friends upon their departure. I no doubt found it in a sale in the same North Shore area where it was recorded, many years later. 

Download: Sound Studios, Inc - The Moritzs - Where Have All the Moritzs Gone?

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And finally, this 250th post's "Very Short Reel". This is a bit of a cheat, but in another way, not. I have very little doubt that this tiny piece of tape, which I found on its own on a reel, was chopped off of another, no doubt longer reel. Why that would be, I couldn't tell you, but the resulting sound of the material that I somehow acquired made me laugh. 

What it contains is a couple of people setting up an interview, testing the microphones, messing with volume, etc., and then making sure everyone's on the same page, and beginning an interview. 150 seconds into the tape, the actual interview begins, but after 20 seconds, containing one question and an "uh" (presumably leading to the next question), the tape ends. 

Maybe they started again for some reason and chopped off the unwanted stuff. I don't know. But the contents heard as this length of tape plays did make me laugh, as if, as I titled it, they set everything up, then didn't actually record the interview. Maybe you'll find it funny, too. 

Download: Setting Up an Interview, Then Not Recording It

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Christmas Through and Through, Volume Three

It's that time of year again! Today's post is Christmastime, all the time. 

I'm going to start with my very favorite type of Christmas tape to find - the home recording of a family members enjoying Christmas and/or Christmas music. In this case, it's The Van Sickle Family, singing their way through about a half hour of Christmas songs and a variety of other songs. Along the way, a very small child recites "A Visit From St. Nicholas", with some help. Technically, only about half of this tape is Christamassy, but "Christmas Nearly Through and Through" doesn't have the same ring to it. 

The family members heard here are not the greatest home recorded singers you'll hear on this site (in fact, in comparison, I have some wonderful, if ragged, harmony singing cued up for an upcoming post) from a different family - but the love and fondness and good feelings come through in every moment of this tape. (And despite what it says at the very beginning, this is not Jeannie's birthday party.) 

I can't find the tape box for this one right now, but it did indicate that these recordings were made, for the most part, in 1951. 

Download: The Van Sickle Family - Christmas Songs and Other Old Favorites, Recorded Mostly in 1951

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This next recording would, under other circumstances, be my lead offering for certain. However, this material - including its video - has been made available commercially in the past. BUT, I'm including it here because this recording contains the original commercials, and that's always interesting to hear. 

Anyway, it is the sound, recorded off of TV, of Bing Crosby's very first Television Christmas Special, from December 11, 1961. Crosby, of course, continued to host these shows, off and on, for the next 16 years, even managing to host such a show in 1977 several weeks after he had died. 

Anyway, the commercials here are few and far between, but hopefully their presence leads you to agree that this recording was worth sharing. 

Download: Bing Crosby TV Christmas Special - 12-11-61, on ABC

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This one is labeled "A Christmastime Audio Letter to Larry from Charles", and I will let it's charms soothe you without further comment.

Download: A Christmastime Audio Letter to Larry from Charles

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This next one is pretty dang esoteric, and also only partly qualifies as a Christmas-related recording. I've named it "Presentation On Behalf of a Fluxgate Compass Manufacturer, and Recordings Made at That Company's 1951 Christmas Party". The two segments of this 19 minute tape are each almost exactly half of the recording. I am not sure who the man giving the presentation was presenting to, but he hems and haws quite a bit and seems to be speaking off the top of his head. It's a fairly difficult listen. After nine minutes - and the man doesn't appear to be done speaking - we move onto the party, which is considerably more entertaining, with a series of employees doing whatever the term is for the audio version of "mugging for the camera".

Download: Presentation On Behalf of a Fluxgate Compass Manufacturer, and Recordings Made at That Company's 1951 Christmas Party

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Next up, featuring vintage excerpts I found - about 11 minutes worth - of a Lawrence Well Christmas episode. 

Download: Excerpts from a Lawrence Welk Christmas Episode

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And now for an "Acetate of the Month". This brief, unlabeled acetate contains a female lead singer, with chorus, singing "White Christmas on one side, clearly recorded off of the radio. Here it is: 

Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Female Vocal with Chorus - White Christmas

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The flip side of this record will not play all the way through. But for completeness sake (even though it's also not Christmassy, here is that 42 second segment: 

Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Flip Side of "White Christmas" - Only Partially Playable

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And I'm going to finish this post with a slightly expanded "Very Short Reel" They are usually under five minutes, but I wanted to include one for Christmas, and this one is about seven minutes. It's just a few conversations recorded in someone's home on Christmas. 

Enjoy!

Download: Unknown - Conversations on Christmas

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Being a Woman Through the Years, Late '70's Top 40, "The Children's Hour, Some Woozy Sound, Joerg Rothweiler's Greatest Hits and Dick Clark Gets It Wrong

I have a handful of comments to catch up with from the last few months. I got a few thanks for the beautiful music posting - you're quite welcome! Please pay attention, everyone, I really do try to honor requests. And regarding my observation in that post, that a Beautiful Music station I sampled seemed to have no actual commercials in an hour of broadcasting, Chad offered up the possibility of the tape having been edited, but then also added this interesting observation:

I also think most beautiful music on FM stations in the 1950s through 1970s never made much money in terms of advertising. The technology was new and took decades to reach full acceptance and availability especially in cars which were still being sent from the factory equipped with AM-only radios well into the 1980s. I suspect that most were holding a spot on the FM dial until the technology matured, which seemingly took 25 to 30 years from its introduction post WWII! Since AM-FM simulcasting was prohibited at the time, it made sense to put orchestral music on the FM dial for the mature hi-fi audience and left the pop music formats for the transistor radio set.

Eric wrote in to let me know that the WFMU blog, which is where this feature got its start, and which I've linked to own my home page and within many posts, has been taken down, as the host site has gone out of business. Posts are available at the Wayback Machine, but whether the downloads will work from there is a different story. If there's anything at that site that I posted that you'd like to have a copy of, let me know and I'll include it here. 

"Snoopy" and Eric (maybe the same Eric as above, I'm not sure), offered up thoughts on the Kingsport Radio tape, as well as the Death of Eisenhower programming included in this post. I'm going to combine their comments into one comment here. I hope that's okay: 

The Kingsport station is WKPT which as the newscasts show was an NBC affiliate in this era (it switched to ABC affiliation in the 70s). The morning program host we hear after the initial newscast is Charlie Deming who was known as the "Gloom Chaser". He started at WKPT in 1945 and was with them continuously until his death in 1974. If you can get past the first 5 minutes of church choir music on the Kingsport TN radio tape, there's quite a bit of interesting news and commercials from Friday, March 6, 1964; at 27:45 a comedy bit by prolific voice actor Paul Frees. 36:16 changes into something, not the radio broadcast - some comedic theatre, I can't tell what. Really interesting lost media. The NBC specials on President Eisenhower's death are clearly TV audio recordings from March 28, 1969. First, coverage after the news broke and then an 11:30 PM special. Edwin Newman anchors both of them.

Regarding the damaged player piano rolls, from a post one month ago, I wanted to make sure I linked everyone to this insane music that reader/listener Kit linked me to. I absolutely encourage everyone to read about and listen to what was shared in the following comment. 

Gosh, what a spectacular ending to the player piano piece and to your October postings. As if Conlon Noncarrow had a commoner sense of humor.

Finally, I'd like to deeply thank the anonymous writer who confirmed for me that Vaughn Monroe was an exceptionally bad singer. I like your term, "Baritone Sludge". 

And now, on with the countdown!

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I'm going to kick of this post's offerings with a remarkable tape of an episode of "The Columbia School of the Air". In a quick web search, I have found scattered references to this CBS radio show, but nothing in detail. One magazine article from 1946 indicates the show was in its 13th year at that time. 

This episode, as the dialogue makes clear, is from 1948, and this program was transcribed - that is, it went out to stations on a disc, perhaps an acetate. This tape is a recording of that disc - the tape itself is not from 1948, otherwise it would have, by definition, been on a paper reel, but from some time at least a bit later. It came to me in a metal can with the following written on the edge:

This is a radio drama, portraying woman seeking civil and other rights from 1848 to 1948. What I find remarkable about this program is that 1948 was hardly a good time for progressive thought and action, and this program is nothing if not progressive in many ways, not the least of which is in its matter-of-fact portrayal of a Black woman, Sojourner Truth, as simply another participant in the search for equal rights, and an equal to the other women in the room during that scene. But there are several other elements to this programming that pleasantly surprised me, as well. 

Download: The Columbia School of the Air - Being a Woman - Circa 1948

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(This is, by the way, the second tape I've featured from a large stack of metal-canned tapes with that writing on the side. I'm trying to recall what the first one was - something about school, I think - but it's fuzzy, and I'm pretty sure it was not from "The Columbia School of the Air". If I figure it out, I'll update in a future post.)

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I have a lot less to say about the next tape. This is for all of you - and that includes me - who enjoy recordings of any era of Top 40 radio. This nearly 90 minute example is from WRBR in South Bend Indiana, from the early fall of 1979. It's got many of the hits you might imagine from that time period, plus a goodly number of oldies. 

Download: WRBR, Top 40 Radio, 9-16-79

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"The Children's Hour" was a radio program sponsored by Horn and Hardart (the pioneer company in terms of fast food) which ran on radio for more than 20 years, before starting up on TV for at least a few years, in 1948. The Wikipedia page for the program indicates it was only seen in Philadelphia and New York City, and it lasted until 1959. As with "The Columbia School of the Air", I've been unable to find out much of anything else about the show. The show featured juvenile performers, some of whom went on to stardom and/or long careers, in a variety of skits and plays.

What I have here is a tape of just under an hour, containing segments, some short, and some long, from this show. The recording is frustratingly haphazard - songs are cut off, scenes are excerpted without relevance to the larger plot, and one of the lengthier segments seems to be building towards.... something... when the recording is stopped and picked up at a later point, possibly even a later episode. But still, I found it a fascinating listen. 

Then there is this, from the Wikipedia page: "Fred Rogers worked as a stage manager on the show, which he later described as 'terrible' for forcing children to perform."

(Note: I have included a few moments of a performance of "My Funny Valentine" which leads off this tape, just prior to the "Children's Hour" recordings.)

Download: Segments of Episodes of "The Children's Hour"

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Okay, the following my be the very opposite of appealing to the broadest audience possible. Call it "Narrowcasting". I know I have at least one reader/listener (the aforementioned "Snoopy" who loves anything I share that has a woozy or deeply imperfect sound quality to it. And so perhaps I have targeting this solely at one person, but I hope others will find something to enjoy here, too. 

Anyway, every now and then I come across a tape where one set of recordings didn't completely erase a previous set of recordings, so that two completely different things are heard, often at roughly the same volume, at the same time. In this case, we have some classical music which is recorded on the same piece of tape which also contains a variety of spoken word segments from radio station KFAB in Omaha. This 30 minute slice of sound is not precisely what is heard on the tape - I have edited out segments from what was a longer tape, during which the sound of two recordings is not present. That helps explain the difference between this segment and the one just below it. 

Download: Doubly Recorded Segments

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On the flip side of this tape, I found that one spoken word segment - partially heard in the first half of the above recording - was heard backwards, without the classical music interfering. I have turned that segment around and present it here. This segment was preceded and followed by more classical music, which I have removed, leaving the following twelve minutes. There are a few announcements and some commercials and such, but most of this segment features an interview with operatic soprano Helen Traubel, and, as mentioned, much of this interview can be made out amongst the double recordings in the previous segment. 

Download: More from the Tape with the Doubly Recorded Segments - Interview, Etc. - KFAB, Omaha

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month", which looks like this: 

I don't know anything about this besides what you can see above. It features a combo, presumably led by Joerg Rothweiler - perhaps they are the Black Derby's or perhaps they worked at a place called The Black Derby's (either way, that apostrophe seems misplaced, and possibly Derbies would be a better spelling). There are performances of three disparate songs, all done Dixieland style. Maybe someone else knows more about this record and can shine some light on its provenance. 

Download: Midwestern Recording Studios, Inc 10 inch Acetate - Joerg Rothweiler - Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey, Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Dark Town Strutter's Ball

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". In a few recent posts, I have shared tapes from a relatively new acquisition - a box of tapes of commercials, some of which (including all that I have shared so far) from the Needham Harper Steers company. In this case, we have four ads for the same group of products that I featured in the first Needham set I shared, Mueller's Pasta.

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

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And now, for a little something extra. This is the mint on your pillow, the free handful of candies at the cashier's stand, the flowers from the audience after a great performance. It's only "Waffer Thin". It's not really a "Very Short Reel", even though it is extremely brief, as its source is a tape lasting well over an hour.

It's just a moment in time from an episode of a syndicated weekly Dick Clark oldies program, containing a factual error so blindingly wrong and idiotic I'm amazed no one picked up on it before it got out onto the program. You'll hear Dick Clark, being smarmy and know-it-all-y and talking down to his audience as usual, reading his copy and clearly not even noticing that he's just said something astonishingly stupid. That he makes this particularly error (and level of error) while simultaneously regaling the audience about all the names that they should know, but don't, well, that's just icing on the cake.

Download: Dick Clark Fact Check

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A Steve Allen Awards Show Recording, An Audition Tape, More Beautiful Music, Guitar at Home

Hello, hello, hello!

Before I get to this post's features, I want to thank a few people for writing in. Well, thanks to EVERYONE who writes in (except the spammers) - I appreciate it more than I can say. 

But two commenters mentioned the Anthony Bilbow stories, the most recent of which I posted last month. They both let me know that these stories were aired as part of a show called  "Morning Story",  part of the BBC's Light Programme in the 1960's, and that it can be researched at this BBC site. It started as "Worthington" in 1954 and ran through the '60's, eventually as "Morning Story".

Also, Chad let me know that the radio portion of the "Humorous Moment" I shared in my last post is from KFOR AM 1240 in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Again, thanks!

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First up, I have something I think is pretty special, and which I don't think is available anywhere else. This is a recording of an episode of The Steve Allen Show from the day after Christmas, 1959. On that date, the entire show was turned over to Steve announcing the nominees and winners of "The 10th Annual Look Magazine Awards", in several categories, and the comments of the winners,  as well as brief comedy bits with his regular troupe (Don Knotts, Tom Poston, etc.), and a few musical numbers. 

This appears to be the entire show. The sound quality ranges from fairly good to fairly iffy - the last few minutes have very poor sound quality, and there are a few other spots of poor quality, as well. But hopefully, if this is your thing, you can stand the less than pristine sound. I think this is a real find. 

Download: The Steve Allen Show - The 10th Annual Look Magazine Awards - 12-26-59

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KTUR, Turlock, CA, 1390 on your dial, existed at that frequency from 1949 to 1962. Relatively near the end of that period, someone whose name might be Jack Hield (I've probably got that wrong - let me know what you think he's saying) seems to have sent in an audition tape, using some then-recent news stories to demonstrate his skills. Those stories are all from October of 1958, so I'm guessing that's when this tape was made. 

Download: Jack Hield - Audition Tape for KTUR, Turlock, CA, circa October, 1958

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Oh, and how do I know it was an audition tape and not an actual aircheck? Well, I have the tape box, dear reader/listener. And here is the part of that box that has writing on it: 

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And now, here's a treat (?). The following 45 minutes or so contain the remainder of what was on that audition tape reel. And what does that consist of? Someone playing electric guitar - everything from noodling to chord progressions to recognizable songs, at times loudly, at times softly, at times in tune, at other times out of tune. Then, at certain moments, the guitarist sings with his guitar playing. And then, at a couple of points, we are treated to some 1969 Top 40 radio. Best of all (?), some of this material was recorded on the right channel at 3 3/4 IPS, while the above audition is on the same spot on the tape on the left channel, at 7 1/2 IPS, and the audition tape bleeds through, at the wrong speed, making for a delightful listen during that segment. 

Download: Unknown - Some Solo Guitar, Some Singing with Guitar, A Bit of Top 40 Radio

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Here's something multiple people have asked for - I'm not big on the so-called "Beautiful Music" stations which existed way back when, but plenty of folks love this stuff, and when I find it, I always share it. Here's an hour from WTVN in Columbus. This seems to be from around 1961. I am mystified as to how this station made money - there are very few breaks of any sort for the announcer and nothing I would consider a "commercial" during this hour long excerpt - only a promo for their own programming and a PSA for Radio Free Europe. And even those sound canned, as if the entire broadcast was just a tape someone made earlier, or perhaps even a subscription service. Anybody have an idea? 

Download: WTVN, Columbus - Beautiful Music Programming Circa 1961

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I think the titles here are completely self-explanatory.: it's a bunch of people singing at home, doing more than a half dozen songs on two sides of an unlabeled acetate. SING IT, GANG!

Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Singing Together At Home - Leela Leela, By the Light, My Happiness, Too Fat Polka

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Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Singing Together At Home - You Are My Sunshine, Down On the Levee, Working on the Railroad

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". In this case, this is really a "Very Short Excerpt", because it's really just the first few minutes of a tape that I've been exploring this week. It has a bit of an audio letter (maybe almost the whole thing, but it doesn't seem like it), which is then - partially - interrupted by a recording of an orchestral piece. But the original recording continues on for a bit longer, and we hear both recordings more or less at equal volume. Sort of like part of that guitar player tape up there earlier in the post.

As I said, I've continued to listen to this tape after finding this little segment, and there are several more segments where it is doubly recorded, with both music and talking. I know of at least one reader who enjoys such things, so I may share more of this tape, the next time around!

Download: Brief Fragment of an Audio Letter (with Orchestral Interference)

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