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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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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The Immaculate Reception, A NASA Flashback, Lloyd Nolan Sells, Partying Like It's 1959, and a Whole Lotta Comments

 Boy, Howdy! Do I have a lot of comments, clarifications, corrections and great thoughts from readers/listeners to get to. It's been ages since I got caught up on these. I like to catch folks up on these, because readers may have looked at an individual page and missed the comments, or, equally likely, may have looked at a page before the comments were made. If you left a comment you really think I should feature here - and I don't do so - apologies in advance. 

<and yes, the promised football tape is here today - thanks for all the feedback on that.>

If this rehashing of comments is not of interest to you, by all means skip down to the first media player/download down there and have at it. 

I think I'll do this post by post. 

Here are some things that were said in response to this January 20th post (which was actually not, as I thought it was, my 250th post - it was # 247):

In response I heard from Snoopy, who let me know that the piano piece I didn't recognize is The Theme from "The Apartment". 

Chad offered up that the brief segment of Pittsburgh radio station KQV (heard on the same tape as the piano player) is from the spring of 1963, probably just before Easter weekend, which was in the middle of April that year. He adds that the two guys pretending to run their own obscene radio station have Pittsburgh accents.

An anonymous poster says that the interview that wasn't (from the end of the post) has to be from 1970, without explaining why, but I have no reason to doubt this. 

Finally, Josh offered up a link to a vintage religious broadcast, also digitized from a reel, which is found here. 

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Then, 11 days later, on January 31st, I posted again, and heard from Mike that the KHJ promo tape I offered up as a "very short reel" are bogus. He suggested comparing them with the real (reel?) deal at this page and at this YouTube posting. 

Also, if you follow the link to that post and scroll down to the comments, Eric wrote a bunch, too much for me to share here, about the dates and other minutiae regarding some elements of the featured tape. 

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My March 19th post got a lot of comments: 

Eric was as helpful as ever with dates, and confirmed that I was one year off on the Steve Allen/Ella Fitzgerald tape. It was from 4/25/56, almost exactly 70 years ago. He also noted that Gene Rayburn, who would later become much more well known, can also be heard on that clip. 

Multiple readers chimed in on the KNX segment. The finally named commenter "Easy Bake Oven" reports that I digitized the reel sides in reverse order, and that the second part was recorded before the first part, as I shared them. Chad points out that the deejay and the date are right there for the taking on the tape itself: Steve Marshall, and 7/26/74. Mike identifies the format as "Mellow Rock" and further identifies that linked to the wrong Wikipedia page. A station later known as KNX was playing country at that time, but this is not that KNX - this one is now KCBS. Spiritof76 contradicts my statement that no one in Chicago had this format by identifying two that did - WBBM-FM and WSDM. (I do remember WSDM - it called itself both "Wisdom" and "Smack Dab in the Middle" (of the dial) at different points and had all female deejays for a while, including Linda Ellerbee, although I don't recall their format at all - my main memory of the station is that it was the first Chicago home of Dr. Demento.)

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My most recent post, from March 31st, also drew a lot of comments. Most of them consisted of confirmations that people would like to have the football game I asked about, and that will be forthcoming, but there was also a request for an older clip that was formerly available on WFMU (and I will look for that, and there was this from Eric: 

The University of Portland and Lewis and Clark baseball game was played Tuesday, May 1, 1956. Portland led 8-2 after three innings and won 14-5. Pete Ward who played nine seasons in the major leagues mostly with the White Sox was on the Lewis and Clark team.

So it is 70 year old baseball, not 75 year old. Thank you for the additional information. 

There are some other, one-shot comments on older posts, but I'm going to save those for next time. Thanks to everyone who has written in - I'd be doing this anyway, I think, but reading the comments and knowing that there are people who care about this stuff makes my day. And my week. And my year. 

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Okay, so here it is. What I wrote at the end of last month should serve as an adequate introduction to this very historical and apparently rare piece. At the time, I was asking if this was indeed rare, and I got a lot of feedback that it is. Thanks to those who wrote to encourage me to post this. Here's what I wrote: 

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.  

That description covers it well. Here is that tape. 

Download: Jack Fleming and Myron Cope: Oakland Raiders at Pittsburgh Steelers on WTAE, Pittsburgh, 12-23-72

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At the end of side one - and just a little bit at the end of side two - there were fragments of other, previously recorded games, as our recordist had clearly been recording games for some time, and erasing those which were no longer of interest. Here is a composite of the ends of the two sides - what is heard after the 12-23-72 recording on each side ends: 

Download: Odds and Ends from Other Football Broadcasts

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Here is the tape box, indicating that person's history of recording games on that particular reel of tape: 

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Switching gears pretty hard, here's a fun little tape, in which Lloyd Nolan records a few ads for Depositor's Trust. This was clearly recorded (since he mentions it) during the run of the groundbreaking show "Julia" (1968-71), which I call as the first sitcom I went out of my way to watch every week, and that I loved. That the title character's son  - a major part of the show - was a year or so younger than me was probably part of the appeal. Just a little side comment from your trusty curator. 

Download: Lloyd Nolan - Ads for Depositor's Trust

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Here is a composite of the parts of the front and back covers that had writing: 

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With the recent successful NASA mission, I thought it might be nice to share the following tape. Following John Glenn's successful flight, he and his family were welcomed to a reception with President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and many others, three days after that flight. There are extensive recordings /videos of that event available. But this is something just a bit different - this is in depth coverage of the various participants moving from Cape Canaveral, to the site of that event. Narrating the action (and at one point getting humorously confused by what he's seeing), well, I believe that's Walter Cronkite (and "the action" is used loosely here), but someone out there is sure to correct me if I'm wrong. 

Download: John Glenn Goes to Meet President Kennedy Following His Flight, 2-23-62

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Now, lemme ask you somethin'. Do you like parties? Do you like the 1950's? Do you like friends? Do you like recordings of friends at a 1950's party? Then this tape is for YOU!

Download: A Friendly Party Gathering, 1959

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Note: Based on the tape box below), this would appear to be some of the same people who were heard on the 1960 "Johnson-Mort" wedding anniversary tape that I shared in this post. 

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And now, a "Very Short Reel". I have named this "A Bit of Singing and a Bit of Counting", and that pretty much sums it up. 

Download: A Bit of Singing and a Bit of Counting

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A Very British Set of Recordings from 1961 and Radio Shows from the Folk Revival Era

It's been a really hectic month and as I always strive to get two posts up every month, I'm going to do so here by being very brief with my comments, here on the last day of such a short month. I do have some people to thank and comments to copy but that will have to wait until at least next time. 

And aside from this post's "Very Short Reel", today's post comes entirely from two rather wonderful tapes. And everything in this post was aired on the radio, albeit in (for the two primary tapes) two very different parts of the world. 

The first of these tapes is one of a large number of recordings of the BBC that I acquired many years ago, all of them recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS on five inch reels, usually with one or more handwritten inserts and or items cut from newspapers. In this case, these are recordings from 1961, and here's what was in the box: 

And here are the very segments on that tape (there are actually three - one didn't make it onto the slip of paper). 

First up is a very detailed reporting on what was essentially a parade, but one with some extremely complex and traditional portions, broadcast live during the Queen's Birthday celebration (always held on the second Saturday in June, as I understand it, although that was not the Queen's Birthday). The even is actually titled "Trooping The Color", and you will hear the details of that activity during the recording.

This seems to have been a very visual event, as parades tend to be, so a radio broadcast of it is a bit odd. But there does not seem to be video of this full event - I can find only a handful of stills and some brief film of a few specific moments. So this may be the only full documentation of the event. Presumably, those who took part in this rigmarole did so every year. Wow. 

Your narrator is Robert Hudson. 

Download: "Trooping the Color" at the Queen's Birthday Parade, 6-10-61, Narrated by Robert Hudson, on the BBC

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Next up on this tape is a large sampling from the Royal Variety Performance in November of that same year. This was the annual event that the Beatles would appear at, two years later, during which John Lennon told the royals to "rattle your jewelry" to the next song. 

This is not the entire event - unlike the parade recording, visual-only acts were cut out, as were some of the other performances. I'm guessing quite a bit was cut out, as the show apparently ran quite long. Sammy Davis, Jr., for example, is mentioned, but not heard. There actually IS video of some of these performances, which aired on a US special hosted by Jack Benny, and which is available on YouTube (and which does include Sammy Davis, Jr.), but not everything on this tape is in that video. 

Download: Various Artists - BBC Broadcast of Highlights of the Royal Variety Show, 11-6-61

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Not listed on the sheet inside the box, and perhaps the most charming and historically interesting thing here, is a 1961 rebroadcast of a 1957 program put together and hosted by Fritz Spiegl, on Mechanical Musical Instruments - those created many many years before the harnessing of electricity. 

Download: Fritz Spiegl Presents a Program on Mechanical Musical Instruments on the BBC (From 1957, Rebroadcast in 1961)

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The other lengthy tape I am featuring today was made in Chicago in 1960, and featuring two shows - one unidentified, from an unidentified station - and one legendary and from a legendary station. They are both shows primarily featuring folk music, although both of them branched out into comedy, satire,  Broadway and other areas at times. 

The first, short segment of the tape is the segment I know nothing about. It is presumably a Chicago station and presumably from around the date of the larger segment shared below. It ends suddenly after a few minutes. If anyone knows what the source is of the last record played - the horrendously annoying proto-rap number between husband and wife - please let me know. I hate it, but I'm also fascinated to know what it is. 

Download: Fragment of Folk Music and Variety Show on Chicago Radio, circa summer, 1960

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The rest of this lengthy tape is taken up with a recording, in its entirety, of a broadcast of WFMT's "The Midnight Special", dated, according to the box, as being from July 23, 1960. This is, as I mentioned, a legendary program, started by Mike Nichols (yes, THAT Mike Nichols) in the early 1950's, and continuing to this day, although like the true folky that I am, I have to add that it's been a shadow of its former self since at least the late 1980's, and especially since the passing on of it's two long-time hosts, Norm Pelligrini and Ray Nordstrand, some years after that. I'll just say this: just because a singer-songwriter plays acoustically, doesn't make that singer-songwriter a folk singer, or make the resulting songs into folk songs. Just as an example: Steve Goodman, no matter how great you might think he was (and I admittedly don't think he was great), was not a folk singer. The subsequent hosts of the show don't seem to understand that. Anyway, I wrote a much longer piece on The Midnight Special, making the same point there, when I featured another episode of the show, in 2022. 

This is a special episode of the special, because in the studio and performing several songs live were local folk legends George and Gerry Armstrong. I'm actually not much of a fan of the sort of English balladry and Appalachian folk music they specialized in, but I know a lot of folk fans eat this stuff up, so hopefully those of you who enjoy folk music programming will find this episode extra wonderful. Plus, they played an extended bit from Shelley Berman (who was also not, by his own admission, a folk singer), and how that be bad? (Answer: It can't.)

Download: WFMT, Chicago - The Midnight Special, with Special Guests George and Gerry Armstrong, 7-23-60

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And here's a Very Short Reel. This advertisement for Dairy Queen is not dated (aside from the four day window it was to run), and the station isn't identified but it was selling the "Chicken Strips Country Basket", so if anyone knows when that was a thing, feel free to write in. 

Download: Campbell-Mithun-Esty - Chicken Strip Country Basket (Dairy Queen)

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A Remarkable Document of Radio, Television (and a Home Visit and a Church Service, Too) in 1970! Plus, KHJ!

Greetings!

I have something extra special today - at least I find it to be extra special, and I think a good portion of the audience for this site will, as well. I only have one reel (plus the almost mandatory "very short reel") today, but it is just over four hours long and is both a treasure and amazing example of something I might be willing and able to share more of if there is interest. 

For those who don't dig this, I will have a more varied program of taped wonderment next time around. Although this is pretty damn varied. 

The story behind this offering goes back well over 30 years ago, and involves the Mammoth Music Mart. I have mentioned this wondrous sale at least a dozen times in various posts and on the multiple blogs I've written for or current write. The explanation I've given for it is here. 

The short version is that this an immense tent sale, which ran for 25 years on the North Shore of Chicago, with literally all formats of recorded sound for sale, in support of ALS research. And whoo boy did they have reel tapes. I would go there for the whole day with my best pal Stu and both of us would pore over the tapes. 

One of those years - I'm guessing around 1990 - we found that someone had donated a remarkable set of tapes. Perhaps the recordist had died and the family had donated all of his tapes (I'm absolutely going to assume this recordist was a man - precious few women would have been this obsessed with collecting sound). 

And what amazing tapes they were. This person had recorded virtually anything that appealed to him or interested him, off the radio, off of TV, from personal conversations, from in-the-field (i.e. lectures given at national parks while on vacation), and more. He was Chicago-area based, but recorded things when he was in other cities and towns, too. 

He seemed to be particularly interested in advertisements, which crop up repeated between other recordings, often not bothering to record whatever show was being sponsored by those ads. And he also seems to have been more than a little ADHD - recordings of certain things go on and on and then are interrupted by something else, mid thought. Just as you think you're going to hear the whole program - whatever it was - you don't. Other times, he might record something at length - in today's offering, he does this with a Frank Sinatra movie - and then would erase part of it with something else, resulting in a segment of tape that has xx number of minutes of movie, then x minutes of something else, then xx minutes more of the movie. It's REALLY scattered. 

And he also appears to have recorded things on other tapes - perhaps cassettes - and transferred them to his reels, so that the order of things recorded is not always chronological.

He decorated nearly all of the boxes with pictures of albums and performers. Here is the box cover for the tape I'm sharing today: 

 And he kept METICULOUS notes about what was on the tapes, almost to the point of obsession, but not always in the most helpful manner - a page of notes might have the first section of the tape listed on the right hand side, then the second part on the left hand side, the a bit more of the contents listed on the back of the same paper. He also sometimes listed the number (of the tape recorders odometer) where something starts, but other times just wrote in sections ("1" "2", etc.), often, as with this offering, regarding the same side of the same tape. 

Here's the big news - I have hours and hours and hours of this stuff. Between Stu and I, we bought well over two dozen of this man's tapes (this one is labeled "#53", but the ones we own start in the single digits and go well into the hundreds - sadly we were not able to get the full collection). And what I'm sharing today is only one channel (of four) on one tape. The left channels are almost always recorded at 3 3/4 IPS, which on this tape means nearly two hours to a side. The right channels were recorded later, presumably after he got another machine, and they are almost always recorded at 1 7/8 IPS, meaning, in this case, nearly four hours to a side. This tape alone has nearly 10 hours of material on it, and my friend and I have more than 25 of these tapes!

So, if anyone is interested, let me know, and I will do my best to digitize more of these and share them again. Understand, though, that it takes hours to go through these, first. And not all of them are as interesting or as varied as this one, although many are. 

This particular tape comes from the tapes my friend Stu bought (we each bought about half of them). I have had Stu's tapes in my house for about ten years, having promised to listen to them and give them back and, well, I still haven't done that. I listened to all of mine 25-30 years ago, long before digitizing was a choice. Thanks to Stu for allowing me to have these tapes all this time, and for agreeing to let me share this tape. 

In the case of this tape, I have scanned all of the content notes, and they are below. I think I have posted them here in order. Most of what is on this tape is from 1970, but the first material in this offering is from 1969. Some of the highlights, in order (there are myriad commercials listed, during and in between these segments): 

A program featuring the work of young Black poets

Recordings made during visits to Jacksonville and Miami, including some music and other things from local radio, including news of Moratorium day the day before (this was actually in 1969 - the date on the sheet is wrong)

The Frank Sinatra Movie I mentioned

Recordings from a Christmas Eve Church Service

Kukla, Fran and Ollie on Chicago Public Television (this is extraordinarily wonderful - I love KFO)

Al Capp being the A$$hole that he was., or at least had become, by 1969-70.  

Coverage of portions of the 1970 Super Bowl and Post-Game

Part of a Tonight Show Episode

A local Chicago newscast from 1/20/70

Segments of a few sitcoms

A home recording of a visit from a family member

More news, specifically about the end of the Chicago Seven trial

A few more shows, including a documentary on beavers narrated by Henry Fonda. I have not been able to identify that show called "Change" in the notes. 

Recordings of part of an Ecology forum which took place at Northwestern University. 

Here you go - let me know if you'd like me to delve further into this collection. 

Download: 1969-1970 Media Variety

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Well, that was a heavy meal. How about a light dessert? This little tape is pretty wonderful in its own right. It comes from Los Angeles Top 40 powerhouse KHJ. The tape starts with a few internal promos, for special programming and for a contest they were running at the time (this tape is dated 10/18/75), presumably read by Chuck Martin, whose name is on the box (see below). The rest of the tape contains KHJ production music - backing music for sports reports and for news breaks, and then typewriter noises, presumably also for news reports. The tape ends with two PAMS style KHJ "stingers". 

Download: KHJ - Ads, Jingles, Sports Themes and News Backing, 10-18-75

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A Year End (and Decade End) Countdown, Some Great Old Ads, More From the Muir Family, An Audio Letter, A Brief Recital, and Touch Tones!

Happy almost New Year's Eve! 2026 can't get here quickly enough. Let's hope it's a damn sight better than 2025. As John Lennon once sang, "Can't Get No Worse".

As I like to do, when I have one available at the end of a year, I am leading off with a countdown the major offering for this week's post. More than four hours of a show called "The Dynamite Decade", hosted by the small man with the large pipes, Charlie Van Dyke, as heard on the last day of the '70's, on WRBR, South Bend, IN. 

This is a unique end-of-the-year countdown, in that, as its title indicates, it's also a summary of the decade of the 1970's,. with various comments from, and songs by, the hitmakers from throughout those years, in the midst of also counting down the 100 biggest hits of 1979. 

This is not the entire show, which I'm guessing was at least six hours long, but it does capture from the 80s into the high teens of the countdown. Unfortunately, whoever taped this edited out most of the commercials. 

Enjoy this flashback to another, more enjoyable end-of-the-year. 

Download: OPUS 1979 - The Dynamite Decade - with Charlie Van Dyke - WRBR, South Bend, 12-31-79

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Ads are always popular around here, and the older, the better (well, that's what I think, anyway). Here are eleven ads for a store called "Oliver Wright's Appliance Company" in Knoxville, Tennessee, from May of 1966. 

If you look up the address, you'll see that this is now an industrial area, and that this particular address is virtually underneath a short highway - "Hall of Fame Drive" - one that was built pretty recently, according to a bit of research I did. But if you look at page three of this little high school newspaper, you'll find that Ol' Oliver was doing right by the high school, and advertising in their paper. 

Download: Eleven Ads for Oliver Wright's Appliance Company, Knoxville, TN, May, 1966

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Apparently this tape was originally used for a broadcast by someone named Dr. Howard Kershner, and then later was an audition tape. A shame we'll never hear either of those. 

Then again, Dr. Kershner seems to have been affiliated with Liberty University. So.... maybe not. 

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And now, something I alluded to in my last post, when I shared some not terribly good family singing, and said I had something much better, in the same vein, in the pipeling. 

This is a return to the Muir family. Back when this blog was new, just over ten years ago, I shared a set of recordings by the Muir family which I just loved. This is a family in which clearly, all of the members knew how to play instruments, and knew how sing in good old-timey, ragged-but-gorgeous harmony. That post came when I was typically just sharing one tape per post, and I separated out all of the individual songs, something I've not done in quite some time. You can find it here. That wholly amateur guitar/piano/trumpet version of "You Tell Me Your Dreams", in that offering, complete with lots of bum notes, still just hits me straight in the heart, and makes me wish I'd known these people. 

Anyway, I have just recently discovered that I have another tape by the Muir family (along with at least one non-Muir family member or friend). In this case, there aren't a lot of different instruments heard. Instrumentally, it's all piano, including a couple of piano solos and a bunch of songs sung by the family choir, the vast majority of them Christian in nature. A man sings baritone alone on a few of the tracks, and a soprano sings another. Those don't really resonate with me, but when the children sing - I'm a sucker for children singing naturally (i.e. not stage-trained), it's pretty wonderful. And when everyone sings together, it's magical. 

At times, it's clear that everyone knows their parts and that they have no doubt sung these songs countless times. The harmonies in the first song sung together, particularly from the five minute to six minute mark are sweetly gorgeous. And the song at about 15:30, "Years I Spent" (which I know from a thoroughly magical recording by someone named Joan Creary), is sung in a thick, and complicated harmony that gives me chills. It's identified here as being called "At Calvary".

I recognize that this isn't for everyone, and plenty of people love stuff that I just can't stand, but this is the sort of thing I listen to when I want to get all those technically perfect but utterly soulless Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston records out of my brain. 

Download: A Selection of (Mostly) Christian Songs, Sung and Played by the Muir Family

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Here's the back of the tape box: 

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Not a lot to say about this next one. I've labeled it "Audio Letter to Larry" and although the speaker does identify himself, I'm not sure I've made out his name correctly, so I'm not even going to try. The sound quality isn't awful, but it's not very good either. I tried to improve it a couple of different ways, without success. 

Download: Audio Letter to Larry

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Here's a tape which features a piano player and violin player in recital. For some of this short performance, there seems to be two violists and at other points, only one. I mostly included this because of the final piece, a rendition of "Jamaican Rhumba", a tune I've known since infancy, as my family had two, very different renditions of it that we would listen to a lot - a story which is far longer than I'm going to share here. I know nothing else about this recording. 

Download: A Short Piano and Violins Recital

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And finally, a "Very Short Reel". Here's an itty-bitty bit of tape explaining in detail - with auditory examples - exactly which tones - at what two combined hertz - make up the ten numbered spots on a touch tone phone. This tape is missing its beginning and runs out as the "Zero" tone is being heard. It is labeled "Touch Tones by J.I.S.", as seen below. 

Download: A Telephone Company Tape - Touch Tones By J. I. S.

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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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Blowout Post # 8! - I Don't Even Remember These Files!

I'm going to try something a little different today, even a bit different from the other "Blowout Posts" I've shared. 

You see, I have well over 300 sound files in my "Not Yet Used" file for this blog, including material I digitized over a decade ago. So today, I'm going to share some of the oldest previously unshared sound files from that "Not Yet Used" file. Everything in today's post, except the last entry, was digitized eight to twelve years ago. 

So for most of these, well, I simply don't recall them well enough to comment without listening again. And I'm not going to listen again, which means I'm just throwing them up, and you, dear reader and listener, can determine which you want to hear, and once you decide to hear them, you can decide if they were worth hearing. I'm sharing 12 files, some of them quite long, plus the traditional "Very Short Reel". My comments will be extremely brief. Perhaps some of you will prefer that. 

I also may have scannable tape boxes with information for some of these tapes, but those are probably packed away or at least filed on a shelf somewhere. If I come across any of them in the future, I'll add them to the post. 

This first one I actually know pretty well what it is, as it's titled "A Conversation with Van Cliburn" - obviously a chat with the internationally renowned pianist. Other than that, you're on your own. 

Download: A Conversation with Van Cliburn

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Here's what some of the radio programming sounded like in Kingsport, TN, in early 1964: 

Download: Kingsport, TN Radio, Early 1964

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For those of you who cannot wait to listen to almost 90 minutes of municipal meetings, especially if they are from Massachusetts and deal with a road upgrade, this next offering IS FOR YOU!

Download: Two Hearings About a Road Upgrade in Massachusetts

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Or Mayhap some down-homey singing, strumming and blowing is more your speed. If so, here is a short, home recorded tape of Vocals, Guitar and Harmonica from a few anonymous guys, with a bit of big band music at the end. 

Download: Vocals, Guitar and Harmonica

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Or perhaps a 20 minute show on a cure for arthritis is more up your alley. Presumably, the original tape ended suddenly, as heard here: 

Download: Dr. Bernard A Bellew - The Cure For Arthritis

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This one is labeled, "Robyn Hurt - Three Faces of Eve" - I assume this was written on the tape box, but given that I digitized this in 2015 or so, it's not surprising that I can no longer find that box: 

Download: Robyn Hurt - Three Faces of Eve

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This one says: "Two NBC Programs After the Death of Eisenhower". Yep, that's what it says. I bet that's what it is: 

Download: Two NBC Programs After the Death of Eisenhower

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This might be interesting - it's an audio letter from Florida to Colorado. I don't recall anything about it, though. If I was in Florida, I would absolutely move to Colorado. Well, I'd move somewhere else, somewhere cooler and saner. 

Download: Audio Letter from Florida to Colorado

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"The Bell Telephone Hour" was a mainstay on television for many years. Here is an episode from 1961 titled "A Galaxy of Music": 

Download: The Bell Telephone Hour, 3-3-61 - A Galaxy of Music

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Here is the endlessly pompous and completely insufferable Earl Nightingale, with a recording called "The Executive Market" which does not seem to be anywhere else online. If anyone ever deserved to be punched in the face, this guy would qualify.

Download: Earl Nightingale - The Executive Market

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Some additional cretinous material from Earl Nightingale is in this post. 

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Are you still with me? Because this is the one I'm sure most of you have been waiting for. It's the famous (perhaps infamous) "Chat Around the House & Fireplace Talk". I'm sure this one will be notorious enough to be discussed next week on "The View":

Download: Chat Around the House & Fireplace Talk

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And just before my "Very Short Reel", I will offer this "Very Long Reel", over two hours of Medical Hypnosis Training from Dave Elman. Sorry, I only have lesson two. You are getting very sleepy at this point. 

Download: Dave Elman - Medical Hypnosis, Lesson 2

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And now, for the only newly digitized item here. It's my "Very Short Reel" for the post. And this is from the same new-to-me box of tapes that I received in late July, which I also featured at the end of this post. It is another group of three ads, just as in that post, this time for Delta Airlines. Presumably, this is from the same company - Needham Harper Steers - as are many of the tapes in that box, but this one was unlabeled, so I can't be certain. But I'm guessing they are, hence the labeling here. 

Download: Needham Harper Steers - Three Delta Airlines Ads

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That's eight hours and 17 minutes of sound files. I hope you found something to enjoy today. 

Some Rare Monty Python, More Australian Shortwave, Mr. Handy and a REALLY Long Tape Few Are Likely to Listen To

Hello everyone, 

I hope you've had a wonderful summer, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere (like some of the people featured today), in which case I hope you start to have a swell spring soon.

Today I have something I believe to be quite rare. Although I can find a few dozen places online where this recording is referenced, I have been unable to find anywhere that this actual recording is posted or otherwise available. I may have missed something, in which case perhaps this is not as rare as I thought, but even if so, I'm making it available more readily here, I hope, and for free. 

This comes from one of my own home recorded reels, which I am slowly going through to find out their contents. And I've worked my way up to tapes made in 1976, the year I turned 16, and more to the point, perhaps 18 months after my mother and I became extremely early American converts to Monty Python (as I explained partway through this extremely long post). This is, specifically, a recording of the troupe's appearance on the King Biscuit radio show, in May of 1976. 

This performance is from the same series of shows (and same venue, of course) as was released on the "Live at City Center" album that also came out in 1976, with two significant differences. First, it is a different performance - this probably amounts to the most minor of changes from the released album (I haven't compared them), but it is a different show. And second, and perhaps more importantly, it contains a very humorous and self-depreciating introduction from John Cleese. 

I hope that all Python fans enjoy this recording. 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Live - On King Biscuit Flower Hour - 5-9-76

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The other recording on the same tape is less rare. It's an appearance of some of the troupe on "The Mike Douglas Show" that same week in May of 1976. There is a video of part of this appearance on YouTube. It is not the entire segment heard below, and it is in poor video and audio quality, but it is there. This, on the other hand, is the entire appearance, obviously without video but with much better sound quality (although my mom chimes in at one point to explain what's happening). 

Unfortunately, a good part of the visit is taken up with clips from the show and from the movie they were promoting ("The Holy Grail"), presumably to help the squares who watched Mike Douglas get an idea of what and who the Monty Python trouble was. Doubly unfortunate, John Cleese and Graham Chapman - the heart and soul of the troupe, in my opinion, are not present for the interview (Eric Idle isn't there either, but he was always - by far - the weak link of the troupe, for me, anyway). 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Promote "The Holy Grail" On the Mike Douglas Show, 5-14-76

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Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later. 

The 1968 recording starts off difficult to hear and grows progressively worse - this is not an easy to listen to tape - such are the vagaries of listening to short wave broadcasts. The 1970 tape is considerably clearer in sound quality. 

Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-23-68

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Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-12-70

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Okay, now here's a segment that perhaps only the masochistic among you might listen to. But I listened to all five hours plus of it, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to do something with it. But it is tedious and endless. 

I don't know what exactly was going on here, but what seems to be small group of friends/acquaintances spend nearly four and a half hours (in the first segment), singing songs, some of them multiple times during that length of time, accompanied by a few musicians. A lot of these are old, old songs, some of them probably fairly recent to whenever this was recorded. At one point, there is a lengthy break for what sounds like a meal, and it becomes clear that there are also a few children present. For a good period of time there is no singing and the soft conversations are hard to pick up at time. Then it's back to the singing, which is followed at the end by some goodbyes and final conversations. Enjoy? 

Download: A Group of People Sing a Lot of Songs (and Talk a Lot) for a Really Long Time

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When that segment ends, the tape immediately reverts to what was being erased by that lengthy recording, and that was, MORE recordings seemingly featuring the same people, or at least a similar gang of folks. There seem to be two recordings here, of differing sound quality, and they make up another 40 minutes plus of the same sort of things heard in the other, longer segment, including a lot of the same songs. 

I'm not even going to speculate as to what the event was or who these people are/were. I'm just glad I wasn't there. 

Download: A Few More (Much Shorter) Segments with the Same People

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Well, after that heavy and unappetizing meal, how about some lovely dessert. Our "Very Short Reel" features a radio announcer trying - and most of the time failing - to record a few ads for an apparently legendary and much loved business in Springfield, Ohio, "Mr. Handy", complete with hard-sell backing music. This business just closed five months ago, after 45 years in business

Download: Unknown - Recording Mr. Handy Commercials

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And finally, a mint on your pillow for getting all the way through this post. This doesn't really qualify as a "Very Short Reel", even though it's only 66 seconds long; it was pulled out of a 75 minute tape of (mostly) classical music recorded off of the radio at some point in the 1950's, probably the early 1950's. I faded in and faded out this segment, which was buried deep in the second side of this tape. It is simply a moment that made me laugh, and I decided to excerpt it here and share it with you. What's are the call letters of that station, do you say? And that's all I'll say. 

Download: A Humorous Moment

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