Jingles and Stingers, Birthday Singing, The Jazzy Air Force, Some Medical Lectures, Letter to America, WGN and The Not-So-Fabulous FABIAN

 Happy Almost My Birthday!

I have a real hodge-podge of items today, so let's get right to it!

I ended the last post with some radio material.... well, I started it with radio material too, and only had radio material in it.... so how about starting this one with a neat little tape of some radio jingles and stingers? This tape comes from WGLI, an AM station on Long Island which is long defunct.

There is no date on this box to indicate when this is from, but it sure sounds like the '60's to me. I also get a kick out of the fact that these jingles are contained on a reused United Nations tape box. 

Anyway, here is the tape. I particularly enjoy the itemized numbered intros for each song that would have been in a countdown, and also that, on this tape, they count UP. 

Download: WGLI, Long Island, NY, Jingles and Stingers

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Switching gears pretty harshly, and apropos of my own celebration tomorrow, here are a gang of friends celebrating someone's birthday, by gathering around the piano and singing a whole bunch of songs.  

Download: A Sing-Along Birthday Party

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Next up, here is a jazzy program from those jazzy folks at the United States Air Force Recruiting Service. It's an odd sort of propaganda, that's for sure, and is titled '"Serenade in Blue". On it, we hear a variety of acts playing a variety of jazzy material, and interspersed with informational bits about such things as ways the Air Force is helping to prevent animal species from becoming extinct, and ways the Air Force is addressing the need to conserve energy (this must be from the 1970s...)

Download: The United States Air Force Recruiting Service - Serenade in Blue

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And now, here's something which is bound to appeal to the largest possible audience. Well, that's not actually true, but I digitized it more than five years ago and haven't yet shared it, so here it is. It is the second tape I've shared (of dozens that I bought somewhere, a LONG time ago), from our friends at the Medical Audio Digest .(Here is the first one.) This one is called "Obstetrics and Gynecology - Hirsutism and Virilism, Management of Endometriosis". I can just see you all getting up to dance now!

Download: Audio Digest, Obstetrics and Gynecology - Hirsutism and Virilism, Management of Endometriosis

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Next up, this is called "Audio Letter from Frank Smith in Australia to Larry in America", and I suspect that's all that needs to be said: 

Download: Audio Letter from Frank Smith in Australia to Larry in America

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Here's an oddity I just came across. Please know in advance that the recording quality here is quite poor. Who remember Fabian? I don't mean who remembers who he was - I was born in 1960 and I know who he was. But who remembers hearing his songs on the radio and seeing his early films when they were new? I sure don't. I have looked to see if this program exists at all online, particularly in better quality, but have not found it. 

Well, this is a somewhat backhanded documentary about Fabian, made after he had moved into movies, but entirely focused on his "singing" career. As alleged in those days and as still clear as day, the man simply couldn't sing. But that didn't stop him from having a half dozen hits, including a few top tens, entirely because he looked the part, which was what his handlers were talking about. 

You'll hear from the man himself, who clearly knew and felt like he was in over his head and didn't want to be there. The recording cuts off suddenly, just as Hollywood (where he did considerably better) was beckoning, so I don't think this is the entire show. But it's mighty interesting, if you can get past the terrible sound quality. 

Download: Documentary on Fabian

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And now a "Very Short Reel". 

What we have here is a Brief Segment of what was then a Chicago and midwestern powerhouse station (and now an insufferable embarrassment), WGN Radio, from July, 1953. The end of one song (a vocal) is heard, then a Freddy Martin Orchestra instrumental, which is back-announced as being the last song on a 20 minute program of music. This is followed by about 90 seconds of news, the contents of which date the recording nicely, reporting, as it does, on the imminent truce in the Korean War.

Download: Brief Segment of WGN Radio, July, 1953

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Some Great Vintage PSA's, Letter from Akron, 1961 TV, Working on Songs, a Short Interview, Christmas in May and More Comments

Greetings!

Before I get to these week's offerings, I'm going to finish getting caught up with some of the great comments I've received lately. If I didn't get to yours, I apologize. And if you're not interested in these comments, just skip down to the squiggle. 

After my posting of multiple recordings of Antony Bilbow (all of which you can hear by scrolling through this link), an anonymous commenter shared this brief interview with the great Rowan Atkinson, conducted by Mr. Bilbow, so now you can see him and hear him. 

Another anonymous poster, responding to my offer to repost anything from the WFMU site, asked for a baseball broadcast from 1954. But that broadcast was actually listed at this site and is still available, in a posting from the earliest days of this site - in fact, it was my fifth post here.  

From one of those posts containing Mr. Bilbow's work, I also included an instrumental version of the "Top Cat" theme. Matt offered up this comment: 

This Top Cat bed was the real deal as my friends father worked at Taft which controlled Hanna Barbera at the time.

I posted a brief excerpt of the end of the broadcast date at WHFS in this post. about a year ago, and another anonymous poster shares that: 

The music played while the WHFS announcer closes his programme, and looks ahead to the next one, is called 'Hey Professor!' written and performed by Otto Cesana & his Orchestra, with soloist Bernie Leighton.

In response to a post which included some jingles sung by Joan Wile, I received this comment: 

Joan Wile is/was a notable composer of off-boadway musicals, jingles, a cabaret performer & social-justice warrior grandmother. https://joanwile.blogspot.com/

A year ago, in this post, I featured a tape labeled "Mood Music for Motion Pix", and got this quite interesting comment (slightly edited here) in response: 

The insert notation for the Music For Motion Pix are recorded from a then commercially available (1959/60) disc of Portuguese music which appears on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/1064705086?ev=bp_img The rest of the tracks have been recorded from various 10" LPs issued by the London-based KPM Music Library. These LPs are known as the KPM Brownsleeves. The composers are well-known library music (aka mood music) composers and the music is still available 65 years later , albeit digitally. 

In the midst of this long post, I included some radio from Kingsport, TN. My online pal Sammy (who I usually see over at my other blog), offered up the following information: 

I heard a couple of commercials with a young George DeVault, who later became president of the Holston Valley Broadcasting Corporation - which has WKPT radio & TV, as well as several area radio stations it has acquired over the decades - until his retirement in 2017.

Frequent contributor Eric chimed in for a second time on an older post (one which featured our sweet, beautiful and much missed kitty cat), with some interesting thoughts about who may have recorded "Your Hit Parade": 

The aircheck for this appears to be WTEN-Albany, based on the "Channel 10" declaration and the plug for a showing of the movie "Yolanda And The Thief". This likely indicates that the original recorder of this was Pat Rispole, who recorded tons of radio and TV from the Albany area on his reel to reel machine (primarily baseball broadcasts) from 1957 to his death in 1979.

Another frequent commenter, Chad, has offered up information on the two tapes of Steelers football that I have shared recently (here and here). Regarding the long post of a full game, with bits of other games afterwards, he wrote: 

The games on the other tape are not what's indicated on the box. The first portion is the end of the first half of the season opener Steelers vs. NY Giants from September 15, 1968. At about 10:20 it switches to Steelers vs. St. Louis Cardinals from November 13, 1966. Then at around 11:55 it switches to postgame coverage of the season opener Steelers vs Browns from September 26, 1959. All three of these games were Steelers home games, by the way.

And then regarding the end of the game I posted last time, he wrote: 

This is an absolutely incredible find! The announcer is Joe Tucker, who was the first Steelers radio broadcaster and continued up through 1965. He also called Pirates baseball and college football as well. I can only find two circulating clips of Tucker calling Steelers games: another partial game from 1955 and his visit to the broadcasting booth in 1981 where he joins Fleming and Cope. Despite a 30 year career with the team he's not well known and not in the team's Ring of Honor likely because there's so little preserved from his long tenure. So this is another absolutely incredible find!

Interestingly, after the game ends and the catchy Duquesne Beer commercial (another great find!) - there's a few seconds of coverage of *another* game: Coach Buddy Parker arguing with the officials after a 28-24 loss to the Eagles. This very brief snippet has to be from October 11, 1959. So whoever was taping these broadcasts was reusing the tapes regularly.

Incidentally, I have been in contact with the host of the McMillen and Wife website, which is dedicated to Steelers football, and he has synched up my recording of the Immaculate Reception game with the video from that game, which you can view here.  I don't recall who referred me to this gentleman, but whoever did, I thank you. 

And thanks to everyone who stops by and comments, as well as everyone who stops by and doesn't comment. I get a real joy out of sharing these sounds and I hope you get the same joy in experiencing them. 

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I have a great little item to start the show today. This is a tape I found that was chock full of PSA's from the 1960's. They start off seemingly at random, but eventually some themes show up, including multiple PSA's about seat belt use (a rather new thing at the time), some other ones about littering,  and even more about fire prevention. Be on the lookout (or the hear-out, I guess) for a couple of PSA's featuring the second best folk group in history (second only to the Weavers), The Limeliters with two different versions of a Smokey Bear number. But even beyond them, the famous voices, named and unnamed, crop up over and over again, in this most enjoyable string of radio blurbs. 

Download: Various Artists - A Series of PSAs on Various Subjects

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The tape box was extremely descriptive, by the way: 

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Now, here is a lengthy but rewarding audio letter from a man to someone named Crystal. Their relationship is not clear to me (maybe someone out there will pick up on something I missed), but it's a very thoughtful outreach - he's offering feedback, advice and insights from his life to someone younger than him, someone he cares about very much. If you're into such things, this is a really good audio letter to listen to. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Man in Akron to Crystal - Reflections on Several Subjects

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A tape I recently listened to had some very fragmentary bits of an Ed Sullivan show, including his yearly introduction of the All American college football team for 1961, which includes one name which would become very famous in the coming years. 

Download: Fragments of an Ed Sullivan Show. 12-3-61

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The Ed Sullivan segments were followed by a longer, and not nearly as choppy, recording of part of Red Skelton's show from a few weeks later. I have heard, over the years, about how beloved this performer, and his show, was, and also, how he became angry and frustrated when his show was cancelled and how this affected his later years and the release (or lack thereof) of his material on home video. 

Given the affection people have for the man and the show, I hope this excerpt is an aberration, because it is simply God-awful, the worst of old-timey sit-com and variety show tropes and stereotypes. Your mileage may, of course, vary. 

Download: Segments of The Red Skelton Show, 12-26-61

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This tape box was even more expressive of its contents: 

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I return now to the David Hollister tapes. If this is of interest, please click the David Hollister link below this post and you will find every Hollister post I have shared so far. 

In this episode, he is working with what is described on the tape box as a "Client (Girl) on a few songs. What makes this tape a bit livelier is that partway through, the muffled sound of a thunderstorm can be heard raging outside. But the rehearsal itself has enough interesting moments, I'm sure, to entertain those who are entertained by such things. 

Download: David Hollister and Client (Girl) Working on Three Songs During a Storm

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And here's part of that tape box: 

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Here's a tape I labeled "Interview with German Chancellor", when I listened to it a year or two ago. And that's all I know about it and all I have to say. 

Download: Interview with German Chancellor

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And now, for a Very Short Reel. "Christmas in July" is a cliche, a common trope used by many, but how about "Christmas in Mid-May"? Here is a short recording of some children, clearly made at some sort of Christmas gathering

Download; Some Kids at a Christmas Gathering

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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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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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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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The Return of Lance Shepard, A Soldier in Germany, 1951 Up and Down the Dial, Rehearsing Some Songs and 1981 MOR Radio

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!

I have a media-heavy posting this time around, with three of the six items containing material that was on the radio airwaves at some point, and nothing remotely connected to ghosts or goblins.  

Deejay demo tapes seem to be pretty popular, so I'll start with one of those. I seem to have picked up multiple tapes from the collection of the well traveled Lance Shepard (AKA Bill Brown), at some point, and have shared one of his reels before. Here is another one, from that bicentennial summer (and at least for some of it, if not all of it, from that bicentennial day) of 1976, from a town that already existed in 1776, Waterbury, Connecticut, "Supermusic C-O", otherwise known as WWCO. Here's about twelve minutes of nearly 40 year old, "scoped" Lance Shepard.

Download: Lance Shepard Demo Reel from 1240 Supeemusic C-O, Waterbury, Connecticut, July, 1976

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For those who like audio letters, here's one that I found particularly interesting. It's from a soldier stationed in Germany (with his family), recorded off and on for three months. At the start, the tape is nicely dated to March of 1970, as the soldier mentions that year's NIT and NCAA basketball finals having occurred that day. Later, his son joins him. By the end of the tape, he has learned that he is being sent to Vietnam, but has a lengthy break in between, during which he will be returning to the states, during which time he will be finding and buying a house for his family, as they will not be going with him. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Soldier in Germany, Recorded from March to June, 1970

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Here's part of the tape box: 

I have at least one other tape of this soldier - let me know if you are interested in hearing that one. 

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I've labeled the next one "Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951". It begins with a couple of Country & Western numbers. These are "Rainbow in My Heart", and, after a moment of a commercial (which is then cut), an upbeat, accordion driven version of (of all things) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Then we get a bit of an ad for Royal Pudding, before the recording switches to "The Camel Caravan" starring Vaughn Monroe. The songs chosen for this program include a thoroughly awful of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise". (As an aside, I will never, ever, understand the appeal of Vaughn Monroe's voice.)

At just after the ten minute point, the real hodgepodge begins. We hear the end of a spoken word ad then a sung good morning jingle, then the station is changed repeatedly. We repeatedly hear moments of the masterful - perfect - version of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" by Les Paul and Mary Ford, a weather forecast (it's October 17th), what seem to be part of two different newscasts and a community events calendar fading in and out (as well as, briefly, yet another song). A Freddy Martin record is introduced and we momentarily hear two songs at once, before the final section, featuring a man with the moralistic fervor of the typical anti-communists of the day. When he all the terrible things that always occur whenever forms of socialism are in place, I have to wonder if he had any idea about the ways that many of the Native American tribes lived before the Europeans arrived. But maybe that's just me. 

Download: Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951

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For those of you who enjoy men rehearsing arias and songs, here is a man rehearsing arias and songs. It's called "A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs". I hope that makes things clear enough. 

Download: A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs

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And now, the good news is I have a nice, long musical aircheck from an American radio station. The bad news is that's from 1981 - not the best year for rock and roll, if you ask me, and what's worse, it's not from a rock and roll station. It's from an Adult Contemporary station. BORING!!! But it's a complete recording of over two hours, with commercials and newscasts and DJ patter intact. The station was in South Bend, Indiana and was called WTHQ (it's now WNSN). The ongoing discussion of whether the space shuttle would launch, as mentioned throughout these two-plus hours, very definitely dates this tape to November 4th of that year, as does the segment about how Guy Fawkes Day is coming up the following day. That's almost exactly 44 years ago! Here's that tape. 

Download: WTHQ, South Bend, IN, 11-4-81

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And as (almost) always, here's a very short reel. This is all that was on this particular 1200 foot reel, one which came housed in a VERY early Scotch design box - the type sold around 1951-52, but the recording cannot be from before 1956 or so, as that's when the latter of the two songs heard premiered.  The songs are sung by a woman, a cappella. That slightly "newer" song is "Around the World" from the film of a similar title, and is heard first, after which are some warblings of "Many a New Day" from "Oklahoma". All in just under four minutes. 

Download: A Couple of A Cappella Show Tunes

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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. 

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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A Tragic Industry, Some Funny Recipes, Children at Home, The Summer of '64 and More

First off, I'd like to than Eric Patton - yet again - for identifying details that I didn't have the resources (or, in this case, didn't take the time) to dig up. The baseball recording from my last post is from a game played on July 3, 1962. 

To Eric and anyone else who is interested: This particular collection of reels contains two more tapes of baseball broadcasts from roughly the same era (very late 1950's or very early 1960's). However, the recording quality is as bad as I've ever heard on a tape, and worse than anything I've ever heard here short of shortwave - they sound like they are coming over shortwave, and broadcasts simply start and stop at random. At one point, I realized I was listening to a broadcast of a collage baseball game. If there is interest, I will post these. But... they are lengthy (one is two hours, twelve minutes and the other is 55 minutes) and REALLY hard to listen to. Let me know!

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I'd like to start with something pretty awful, but awfully fascinating, too. It's an interview, very likely from the 1950's, with someone named Captain Hill (along with "Jimmy") on a show which I think might be called "The Pepperell Forum" - but that's just a guess, as the name of the show is said very quickly. The host is Major Barren (and again, I'm guessing at the spelling of his name). 

The subject of this abomination is "The Sealing Industry", aka the killing of seals, including baby seals, for their pelts and other materials. While I understand that this is basic necessity for people such as the Inuit, that's not what's under discussion here, and in any event, the killing of seal pups - discussed here - has long since been outlawed. 

I guess I'm both horrified and mesmerized - in the way one might be at looking at a terrible car crash - at the tone of this interview, which is very much clinical and informational. At one, point the interviewer does make mention of something terrible or awful happening, and I thought maybe he was going to acknowledge that they were talking about something incredibly cruel. But no, he was talking about an outing for hunting that ended in the deaths of multiple hunters. Oh, that. 

And to the contrary of any thoughts of awfulness contained in the practice itself, at the end of the show, we are told that the we've been hearing about "The Fabulous Sealing Industry". 

Download: The Pepperell Forum - The Fabulous Sealing Industry

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How about a palate cleanser. I was requested some time ago to share more tapes from my own childhood, and I was absolutely delighted to find the following short tape not too long ago, on a tape I had not listened to since I was a teenager (at which point I had catalogued what was on said tape), and which I have no recollection of EVER hearing before. 

I believe I've about eight years old here (putting this in 1968 or 1969), recording on what may have been the first tape given to me to be my very own - a three inch reel, recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS, in quarter track mono (different recordings on all four tracks) so as to get the most recording time out of it. Most of it was nearly unlistenable goofing off, save for some very nice interactions with my older brother. But in one segment, heard below, I read a series of recipes. I would love to say that I was this creative or deliberately funny to have written all of these fake recipes tongue-in-cheek at age eight, but that's absolutely not the case.

No, I'm reading from some source. I don't know where I got these from, but I'm guessing it was a book. And listening to the tape, I'm fairly certain this was a book - or perhaps an article - featuring a series of recipes dictated by kids my own age or younger. They are silly, funny, ridiculous and delightful. I love this tape. 

Download: Bobby Reads Kid Recipes

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Now it's time for some other children, perhaps a decade before the above - at least, I'm guessing it's the late 1950's), being silly, being fun... being kids. It's apparently both the week between Christmas and New Years (or thereabouts) AND around the time for one of the children's birthdays, judging from the various conversations heard here. 

This tape was in the same stack of tapes as was the one from which came the "very short reel" in my last post - the segment with the section about the cow going moo - and it could well be that both tapes came from the same family. 

Download: Kathy, Jackie, Michael and Others - Home Recordings, Christmas and Birthday Talk and More

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Here's something common to this blog but just a little bit different. It's a tape made from New York Top 40 powerhouse WINS in the summer of 1964. Normally, I'd be drooling over this, as would a certain percentage of my readers/listeners. However, this is one of those frustrating tapes where the taper made every effort - very effectively - to cut out all DJ voice overs, patter and commercials, and just get the songs. 

The reason I'm sharing it anyway (since it only contains the songs, many of which are extremely commonly available) is that I was sort of taken aback by the sheer variety of music heard on such a leading Top 40 station that summer. I am a huge record collector and have been studying the charts, and pop music in general, for more than 45 years. Yet there were close to a dozen songs within this two hours of recording that I'd never heard before. 

And were it not for the lists of songs included in the box, I'd have had to do a lyric search to find out what they were, and I'm quite certain some of them would not have been found online by that search. I was also sort of dumbfounded that The Beatles didn't show up until about 90 minutes into the recording, and even then, they appeared first in a version of one of their songs by The Boston Pops. Really? On WINS? The actual Beatles don't show up - during a tape made while they were dominating radio and the world - until eight songs from the end of the tape. 

I know that at that time there was a plethora of local and regional hits heard on many regional stations, but I guess I didn't expect that to be the case so much for what was perhaps the most powerful Top 40 station of its day. The tape box says something about "Tip Top Talent Hunt" - perhaps that's the explanation - that portions of this tape were recorded during was some sort of "potential future hits" programming. But on the other hand, the more obscure records heard here are played throughout the length of the tape...

Here's that portion of the box: 

One final note: I was sort of stunned by the out and out theft of others' material heard early on in this tape. The third song on the tape is identified as "Rules of Love", and even the compiler here didn't know who the artist is (an online search finds a single hit for the lyrics, and attributes them to The Orlons, which makes sense given the weird bass singer heard on this track). This record is literally "What'd I Say" rewritten with new lyrics. Note for note, section for section and nearly chord for chord. Astonishing. Three songs later comes "Moon Maid", a deeply unlikely tribute to a side character from the Dick Tracy comic strip which owes its existence to "Alley Oop". A little less ridiculous in terms of plagiarism, but only by degrees. (Youtube proves this one to be by "Billy Dee & The Debonaires", by the way.)

Download: WINS, New York, Summer, 1964

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And here are the lists - I believe you can open/save these and make them bigger. I made them small to save space: 

      

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And now, a little Ed and Frank. I have, in my collection, a small group of tapes featuring said duo, performing live at who-knows-where, each of them with little stickers on the reel with their names, the date, the speed of the tape and, on this tape, at least, the words "electric piano". And that's all I know. 

Actually, I find this stuff pretty damn unlistenable - it is electric piano... and brushed drums, with the very occasional vocal thrown in. Now, when I write what I'm about to write, I'm not talking about billed duos who actually have a full band behind them, or folk singing duos who don't need anything more than a acoustic instruments and voices: 

But with those exceptions, two person "groups" are, in my experience, pretty ridiculous, painfully limited and generally awful - looking at you, The White Stripes - and Ed and Frank are no exception. 

Download: Ed And Frank, 7-4-57

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For my "Acetate of the Month", I've selected a record featuring a presentation of William E. Fitzpatrick, being honored as the "Rochester Citizen of the Day" on some unnamed radio station and by an unnamed announcer. The date is August 1st, 1951, and the record looks like this. 

And it sounds like this: 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51

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The flip side simply says "NG" for No Good (see below), but contains the same material, told in three seconds longer than on the usable side. For whatever reason, this version was not considered suitable for airplay. 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51 (NG Side)

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And now for the "Very Short Reels" entry for this week's post. And technically, this is part of a slightly longer reel (15 minutes or so), as this section comes after a short period of some dull recordings of commonly available music off of full albums played on the radio. A young woman gives the date and is excited about the upcoming Perry Como Kraft Music Hall show with Eddy Arnold - this allowed me to identify the year as 1967. Here is that show. Then there's time for a bit of talk about the music she'd just shared and just a little bit of family news and personal goings-on, and talks just a bit about some situation familiar to both her and the recipient of her outreach. 

Download: A Short Audio Letter - 1-25-67

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