WJJD: The Music of the Stars, Can You Hear My Heartbeat, Some Private Humor and a Bit of Stroh's

For the second post in a row, I'm sharing the contents of only a small group of tapes, but as with the last post, those contents are quite lengthy - nearly five hours in total. This was not by design - it just so happens that some of the more interesting tapes I've grabbed recently had really long segments on them, which I thought would hold some appeal. Based on what I've been listening to this week, the next post may very well be the same again. 

The lions share of this post's content comes from a ten inch reel of tape which was recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 Inches Per Second. Even with the recording being only on one side, which it was, that still worked out to just under 4 1/2 hours of recording. 

And every moment of those four hours plus turned out to be recordings of the Chicago radio station WJJD, during its "Music of the Stars" format. Specifically, these recordings were made on the last two days of March, 1985. I know this is not quite the "Beautiful Music" format that some of my reader-listeners crave, but I hope it's close enough to make these recordings worthwhile. One benefit here is that these recordings go straight through, without edit, and therefore contain all the commercials and all of the newscasts that were broadcast during those timeframes. 

WJJD existed with those call letters for nearly 75 years. It was the first rock and roll station in Chicago, flipping to Top 40 four years before the eventual winner in the format, WLS. After a few more format changes, they had settled on the "Music of the Stars" format. For most of its existence, the station could only broadcast during daylight hours, but this changed in 1982. However, as soon as sundown hit, the station's output wattage was dropped precipitously, to avoid conflict with a larger station at the same frequency, out west. As you will hear at the end of the first segment featured here, the sound quality as evening approached took a sudden and decisive turn for the worse, and after about a minute of that, the recording stopped, and picked up again the next day, with the second segment below.

I knew a lot of this stuff already, having grown up in the Chicago area, but if you want the information in a more thorough fashion, the Wikipedia page for the current station at that frequency has it. 

"The Music of the Stars" presented a sort of interesting mélange of performers, everything from Big Band stars to Perry Como to The Chordettes, to Dionne Warwick and Petula Clark. All of it certainly Middle of the Road from today's perspective, but by the same token, not all of it enjoyed by the same audiences during each of those performers' heydays. My guess is, for example, that in 1967, people listening to Harry James were not also listening to Petula Clark. But maybe I'm wrong. 

The first, and longer segment features Gene Janson, with whom I am unfamiliar. The other segment features Bernie Allen, who I fondly remember from my childhood as one of the key voices at WLS, AM 890. 

Download: WJJD, 'The Music of the Stars' With Gene Janson, 3-30-85

Play: 

Download: WJJD, 'The Music of the Stars' With Bernie Allen, 3-31-85

Play: 

~~

Switching gears pretty forcefully and hoping not to damage the transmission too severely, I will now ask a question: If you were one of the first owners of a brand new reel to reel machine at the dawn of the format, what would you record? On this page, I've posted organ music, radio recordings, light conversations, and even a mix tape (click on this link: "Paper Reels", and you will get a line up of all the posts that featured such early recordings, including this one).

Here is yet another very early recording. This is found on a tape manufactured by Soundmirror, a product of The Brush Development Company, and this particular brand (and this design) is said to be the first commercially available reel tape in America. So this recording probably dates from around 1947. Only a little over one-third of the reel is used (the initial machines could only record on one side of the tape), so this is likely the only recording ever made on this tape. 

And what did those present do? Well, they talked, a little, and that can be heard here. But for much of this tape, one man present - probably the owner of the machine - had his friends and/or family members put the microphone inside their clothing and recorded their heartbeats. Perhaps he was a doctor.....

Not the most scintillating thing I've ever shared, but it holds some fascination for me. You have this new toy, which cost A LOT of money - the blank tapes themselves each cost in the neighborhood of $50 or more in today's money, and your method of demonstrating it - and using that $50 worth of recordable material - is to let people hear their hearts beating. Hmm. 

Download: Very Early Recordings, Circa 1947 - Light Conversations and the Recording of Heart Beats

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". And this acetate is from just a short 83 years ago, and features recordings from some radio show that apparently ran on Tuesdays, as the recordings are from June 17th and June 24th of 1941. Both feature a sad-sack-in-the-army type comedian named Lynn Borden. Please know that I am not sure of the spelling of this comedian's name. It's spelled two different ways on the two sides of this acetate, and I've looked for him under Lynn, Lyn, Lin and Linn, to no avail. He seems to have disappeared into the ether. 

And that's no surprised because he is painfully unfunny. I have the feeling the audience reaction was being goosed, perhaps quite a bit, by recorded laughter: note the woman laughing herself into hysterics while the audience is still applauding and before he's said anything. What would cause that response from an actual audience member? 

Anyway, here are both sides of the acetate, capturing two of his appearances. I have a couple of other acetate recordings featuring this same guy, if anyone is interested. Just let me know!

Download: Presto Acetate - Private Lynn Borden - 6-17-41

Play:

Download: Presto Acetate - Private Lynn Borden - 6-24-41

Play: 

~~

And we'll close with yet another "Very Short Reel". Here's a vintage ad (not dated) for Stroh's beer, an ad titled "Craftsman" from the advertising firm of Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, Inc. 

Download: Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, Inc - Stroh's 'Craftsman' Ad

Play:  

Stan Freberg Gives a Speech, Miss Newark of 1956, Lucky Beer in Hawaii, More Australian Shortwave, A Latin Acetate and Rudy Vallee

Hello again!

I have another wide variety of recorded tape to share with you today, lovingly digitized and shared with whatever little part of the world comes to visit. 

My first offering is quite the find, I think. I wish the sound quality was better, but even as it is, it's pretty damn special, and as far as I can tell, one of a kind. I consider Stan Freberg to be among the greatest humorists of the 20th Century, and he is one of my favorite recording artists, even though his recorded output is rather small. And Freberg, of course, became a force in advertising after he (mostly) left the comedy record field, pioneering a humorous tone in advertising that pushed aside the hard sell for at least a time. 

This recording is a speech that Freberg gave at the San Francisco Ad Club. I don't have a date for this, or, literally, any other information. And again, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. But still, other than those who were in the audience that night, and anyone who owned or played the tape before I owned it, this is a recording of Stan Freberg that has gone unheard, up until now. 

Download: Stan Freberg at the San Francisco Ad Club

Play:

~~

Okay, now let's spend some time with Barbara Reisman. Who, you might ask is Barbara Reisman? Well, she was only MISS NEWARK OF 1956!!!! I found the following two little segments of tape involving Miss Reisman at the end of a reel of tape which otherwise had nothing of interest on it. There is a local -and I mean really local - newspaper which mentions here here (it's in the middle right on page three).  I also found a link to an obituary, but that page wouldn't load. Boo. 

Anyway, in the first segment, she is heard talking with a few men and then singing a song, and in the second, she's heard on a radio show, "Club Tel Aviv", after the opening chat from the host and a performance by another person. She plays her cello. Whoever recorded this tape somehow managed to record over the big finish of her piece, so the last few notes are interrupted before you get to hear the very end of her performance. Oh, and is it just me, but does the audience at "Club Tel Aviv" sound like tapes of audiences applauding? 

Download: Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956, Chats with a Few Men and Sings a Song

Play:

Download: "Club Tel Aviv", Featuring Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956

Play:

~~

Well, after that, perhaps you'd like a drink. Here a tape of a promotions man from Lucky Genuine Draft Beer, who went all the way to Hawaii to promote his product, early in 1966. Maybe that was the best way for him to get to spend a few days in paradise. 

Download: Hawaiian Promotional Interview for Lucky Genuine Draft Beer - February 1966

Play:

~~

For those of you who like it, here are two more entries in the series of Australian Shortwave, which I've been parceling out from time to time since not long after this blog began. I'm fairly certain the person who recorded these programs lived somewhere in North America, because all of the shows (up until this posting) were from episodes directed at that continent. But additionally, I wonder now if the person lived on the west coast of North America, because he or she made an effort (on the same tape as a show from 9/5/74), to capture Australia Shortwave during a program broadcast towards Asia and the South Pacific. The quality of the connection during that portion is, as you'll hear, quite poor, but it did come in, at a level and quality that I would guess it wouldn't have been received in the eastern half of the continent. 

Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, 9-5-74 (and another date) for North America

Play:

Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, Undated, for Asia and the South Pacific

Play:

~~

For my "Acetate of the Month", this time around, I picked one which features an unknown Latin band, (they are not named on the label) and a song I have very much enjoyed since the first time I played it, "El Telfonito", along with its flipside, a rather haphazard performance of something called "Zombie": 

Download: Unknown Latin Band - El Telefonito

Play:

Download: Unknown Latin Band - Zombie

Play:

At the end of "Zombie", you can hear an announcer, indicating that these were recorded off the air. Here's the record: 

~~

And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the week. Technically, this isn't a "short reel", as it is excerpted from a tape which was about ten minutes long. "Very Short Segment" is more like it. But this is a real period piece, a moment in time and too good to not share. Anyway, remember Zayre? If you're under 40 years old, the answer is probably "no", and if you're under 35, the answer is definitely "no", since they went out of business 33 years ago. But they were as big as K Mart for awhile (for those of you who remember K Mart, or who live near one of the three remaining K Marts that still exist in the US). 

Anyway, remember Rudy Vallee? You're older than 40 if you do. He went out of business a few years before Zayre, but in his time, made some brilliant records, and was as big a star as there has ever been, for a time, that time being 100 years or more ago. 

This brief segment brought Zayre and Rudy Vallee together, from what I am guessing was the only time, joined as well by The Ray Charles Singers, a conglomeration formed by a white man named Ray Charles a year or two before that other Ray Charles made his first record. 

Download: Rudy Vallee and the Ray Charles Singers - Zayre Commercial

Play:

Blowout Post # 4

Greetings!

Every month, I make a point of trying to put up two posts. This, I think, goes back to my posting schedule back at WFMU, and it's hardwired into me at this point. In fact, I've only missed that target eleven times in the years of posting, and in some of those periods, I made three posts in surrounding months. 

Anyway, February is short. And I want to have a post up within the next four hours. So it's time for another BLOWOUT POST! That's where I just shove a bunch of stuff - much more than usual - that doesn't need much comment, and let you have a ball with it. I know there are at least a few out there that actually prefer this mode. I will have very little to say, except for a rant about one of the segments. By chance, this is a very media-heavy offering. Let's begin, shall we?: 

~~

First up, and what I suspect will be the most popular share for this post, here are 14 great ads promoting Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, all on the theme of "Give That Man a Blue Ribbon". There is no date on the box (see the scan and photo, below) - maybe someone out there knows when these are from: 

Download:  McCann-Erickson, Inc - Pabst Blue Ribbon, 14 "Give That Man a Blue Ribbon' Radio Ads

Play:

~~

Next, I was very excited to find the following slip of paper inside a tape box:

... and I looked forward to a tape full of vintage top 40 Television. Sadly, much of the tape has been erased by all manner of oddness, some of which is below, and some of which I'll be sharing at a later date, but a small portion of Clark Race's TV show, clearly from 1960, remained on the tape, and that's what I'll offer up here: 

Download: Clark Race Record Hop on KDKA TV, 1960

Play:

~~

The title of this one should tell you everything you need to know, and the tape itself will say the rest:

Download: A Phone Call - Ken Wants to See You

Play:

~~

Okay, here's my rant. Why, exactly, would one spend the clearly excessive time it would take to learn Bob Newhart's comedy act, word for word, pause for pause and idiosyncrasy for idiosyncrasy. I simply cannot fathom it. The material worked because it was Bob Newhart, and because it sounded like Bob Newhart and because there was an audience!

And yet, here we have a sample - and I'm only providing a sample - of a tape lasting TWENTY FIVE MINUTES, in which some bozo mimics Bob Newhart into the microphone. Without an audience, either. I get garage bands covering Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1966. I do not get "covering" Bob Newhart in 1960 or 1961, alone with a tape recorder. It seems borderline psychotic to me. 

Oh, and this is part of what erased that promising looking Clark Race TV Record Hop, by the way. 

Download; Bob Newhart Impressions (excerpt)

Play:

~~

On a short reel of tape, I found two interesting recordings. The first few seconds of the tape had this rather endearing little moment between (I'm guessing) a father and his two sons: 

Download: A Short Interview with Eric and His Brother

Play:

~~

The rest of that same tape - recorded on both sides - was this interview with a New York Policeman, first about a police-sponsored carnival, and then about what I've called "Youth Today". There is a gap in the conversation where the first side ends and the second side picks up. 

Download: Conversation with New York Policeman - Upcoming Circus and Issues with Youth Today

Play:

~~

And here is an example of a show called "Continental Classroom", which aired on Public Television stations in the years before there was a PBS. If this intrigues anyone, I can offer more - I have several recordings of this show on a collection of tapes I acquired at least 20 years ago. 

Download: Continental Classroom - 1-11-63 - The Legislative Process, with Stephan K Bailey

Play:

~~

And if you want to enjoy some music, here's an episode of "The Bell Telephone Hour" from the late winter of 1961: 

Download: The Bell Telephone Hour, 3-17-61 - Much Ado About Music

Play:

~~

One of my favorite childhood Saturday morning TV shows ever was a short lived program based on the nonsense writings and drawings of Edward Lear. I've mentioned it here before, when another of my tapes captured a short segment of the show. Here is a longer segment of "Tomfoolery", from one of my own tapes, complete with little 10-year-old Bobby Purse providing an introduction (and a big ol' sniff along the way):  

Download: Tomfoolery - Saturday Morning Cartoon Show, January, 1971

Play:

~~

Paper reels, as I've mentioned before, were the earliest format of reel to reel tape, before they found that plastic backing worked much better. Any paper reel will be, by definition, more than 70 years old at this point, as they were phased out in 1951 or so. That doesn't mean the recordings on them are all 70+ years old, but most of such tapes do contain recordings of that vintage.

I don't actually have a date for this short reel of paper-backed reel to reel tape. It contains a Sermon delivered at the Diocese of Buffalo. 

Download: A Paper Reel - Sermon at the Diocese of Buffalo

Play:

~~

And now, for our "Acetate of the Month". Here is a recording made just weeks after V-E Day, near the end of World War II, featuring personnel from an American radio station interviewing American Soldiers in Britain, on June 22, 1945. 

Download: 6-22-45 Interview with American Soldiers in Britain

Play:  

~~

And now for our "Very Short Reel". Today, I'm offering up three short promos for Evangelist David Nunn, who can read about in dozens of websites. In the case of these promos, we are being urged to listen to "The Healing Messenger Broadcast", which was heard no doubt around the country on various religious radio stations: 

Download: Evangelist David Nunn - Three Promos for "The Healing Messenger Broadcast"

Play:

"The Sportsman's Friend", The Hits of 1954, A Bit of Art Linkletter, More Shortwave, "Sing Baby Sing", and More!

Howdy, Y'all, 

I have another motley batch of seven slabs of vintage reel to reel recordings for you. I'm delayed this time around by a minor eye injury which made looking at a computer screen (which I have to do for work all day) increasingly uncomfortable, meaning I did little online outside of work for about a week. It seems to be all better now. 

But enough about me. Let's hear even more about Lucky Lager. Somewhere along the road of life I managed to take possession of a whole batch of Lucky Lager related reels, and if this group of sixteen ads on the them of "Sportsman's Friend" is not the best of the lot, it's close. 

Download: Lucky Lager - 16 'Sportsman's Friend' Ads - 1969

Play:

~~

Next up, yet another in my now-diminishing batch of previously unshared Shortwave recordings, this one - as most of them have been - is a recording of Australian programming directed at the American market. 

Download: Australian Scene - August, 1974 (Via Shortwave)

Play:

~~

And now here's a tape which, under most circumstances, would have been my showcase share, right at the top of the post. It's a broadcast of some station's rendering of the top hits of the week, done in very much the style of "Your Hit Parade" in which the songs are played at random, with the ranking number given, rather than being a strict countdown. 

Two things resulted in my burying this down a few spots in this post. First, it's programming from about June of 1954, which was certainly one of the less scintillating moments for pop music in North America. But even more so, the sound quality is wretched. I mean, the shortwave recording above, is also in terrible quality, but that's expected in such a recording. This seems to have been recorded during a thunderstorm or something, and the station doesn't seem that well tuned in, either. If it wasn't for the nature of the tape - a genre I just love (the hits of the week) - I might have passed on sharing it at all. Hope you find it worth listening to, despite the quality. 

Download: The Week's Top Hits, Circa June, 1954

Play:

Here's the relevant bit of the tape box, even if the sticker on it is inaccurate - everything here is from 1954: 

~~

Switching gears pretty aggressively now - and that's a good way to put it, as I'm sure this man switched a few gears in his time - here's a brief excerpt from an episode of "Art Linkletter's House Party", a wildly popular television show which ran for almost two decades. In this segment, he interviews "The Fastest Man in the World", Lt Col John Stapp. The segment does a good job of explaining that title, and if you want to read more about Stapp, you can do so here. 

Download: Lt Col John Stapp on Art Linkletter's House Party

Play:

~~

Are you, by chance in the mood for a bit of supper club style music? Well, if so, I have just what you've been waiting for - about 18 minutes of a guy named Jack Wells, performing in front of what seems to be about eight people at most - dropping the name of blind balladeer Al Hibbler at one point - with a handful of songs. 

Download: Jack Wells Plays a Few Songs

Play:

~~~

Here's one sort of thing that I just love, and that I sometimes hear from others that they enjoy, as well, It's the family home recording, in this case, a bit of a hodgepodge. Adults are heard discussing the recording process itself, and having other innocuous conversations. Children sing songs and are interviewed by the parents. In between the segments are moments of older recordings. An article about a speech by Vice President Nixon is read. A statement about being unable to stop smoking follows, although it veers off into other subjects, after a while. Finally, a brief audio letter finishes the tape - although it seems odd that such a letter would be on a tape filled with family material, and that it would not be recorded on the length of tape actually needed for what the guy wanted to say (it runs out, mid-thought). 

Download: Recordings Around the House

Play:

And finally, our "Very Short Reel" today comes from the Mountain Home Schools of Arkansas, where, at some point, there was a production of a show called "Sing Baby Sing", and here we have three promos for that show. 

Download: Three Promos for the Mountain Home Schools' Production of "Sing Baby Sing"

Play:

An Anti-Medicare Screed, Another Japanese Missive, A Lovely Hodgepodge, Mrs. Isono, and More Mitch Miller Than Anyone Can Stand

Howdy, Y'all. 

Oh and BOOOO!

Last time around, I asked if anyone knew the link between Frank Zappa and "Pipeline" by the Chantays. Well, I had a couple of questions about that, and here is the obscure answer. It comes from an interview I have on tape, I believe it's with Dr. Demento, but I could be wrong. I don't have an exact quote, but in the interview, Zappa says more or less: 

"It was one of the first time I was in a 'real' recording studio with booked time and a song to record." He goes on with something along these lines: "we had to wait for awhile - the producer needed to finish working on a record he KNEW was going to be hit - Pipeline, by the Chantays - before we could record..."

~~

Also, I heard from frequent commenter "Snoopy", who said he'd really like to hear the entire Bob Binderman car race segment, which I edited in order to remove what I thought was about three minutes of mouth-made car noises, with no narration in between. It turns out it's actually 2 1/2 minutes, but for Snoopy, and anyone else who is interested, I have re-posted that bit, unedited this time, at the bottom of this post. 

And now.....

~~

With politics in the news all day, every day here is America this week, we'll start with a flashback to an earlier day, and the hot button issue of 1962 - whether to offer government insurance to certain portions of the population. The bill at the time was the King-Anderson Bill, and the Medical establishment was dead set against it, as heard in this presentation from the head of the AMA -  a response to a much flashier presentation the Kennedy administration had given a short time earlier, as you'll hear. This particular bill was defeated, but a similar bill was more successful a few years later. I've labeled this a screed, and find it to be full of scaremongering - your mileage may vary, but it's worth noting that the successful tweaking of this bill, a few years later, called Medicaid, is quite popular, nearly 60 years after its passage. 

Download: The American Medical Association (Dr Leonard W Larson) -  Presentation Against the King-Anderson Bill - 1962

Play:

~~

Well, after that hyperbole, maybe a nice palette cleanser is in order. Here, ahead of the usual arrangement, is our "Very Short Reel" for the day, a sweet home recording I've labeled "A Few Minutes at the Schafer Home". I don't know the actual spelling of the family's last name, as there are several versions of that moniker, so I guessed. Mostly, this is a series of piano solos rendered by a little girl, but near the end is a bit of stilted conversation which I thought was interesting.  

Download: A Few Minutes at the Schafer Home

Play:

~~

It's been awhile since we checked in with our young man in Japan. As I've explained before, I'm unable to ascertain exactly what he was doing there, although I've identified him as a student-soldier in previous posts and in the names of files. If someone else has figured out what he was doing in Japan from these tapes, I'd love to hear it. Search for "Japan" in the labels, and all of the previous posts from this series of audio letters will show up (along with a few other Japan-related items)

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, January 19th

Play:

~~

I always enjoy it when I come across what I call a hodgepodge - a (usually shortish) tape which contains a series of things completely unrelated, or at best, barely related to each other. That's about all I'll say about this item - its title explains its contents pretty well. 

Download: A Hodgepodge - Born Free, Narration, Heavy Breathing and Mario Andretti

Play:

~~

Last week, I listened to a tape containing two complete New York Yankees baseball broadcasts, one from from 1960 and one from 1961. That was enjoyable enough, but my favorite moment was actually a little ad for Ballantine Beer which popped up in the middle of the 1961 game. This doesn't really qualify as a "very short reel" since it's 40-some seconds out of a tape lasting more than six hours, but I wanted to share it here. 

Download: Ballantine Beer Ad, 1961

Play:

~~

And now, the moment that perhaps NO ONE was waiting for. But.... I had this tape, and it's probably a fairly rare piece, so I thought I'd share it. Contained on the tape are four near-complete episodes of "Sing Along with Mitch" - the four episodes broadcast in May of 1963. This is a really long share, and its certainly from another time and place, but perhaps it's your thang, and if so, do what you wanna do: 

Download: Sing Along With Mitch - Four Full Episodes from May, 1963

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I know very, very little about this record. It looks like this on one side: 

And like this on the other side: 

Perhaps someone out there who can read Japanese can tell us all what it means. Regardless, it seems to feature a Mrs. Isono, if the label is to be believed, and why shouldn't it be. Here are the two sides: 

Download: Mrs. Isono - Side One

Play:

Download: Mrs. Isono - Side Two

Play:

~~

And finally, as mentioned in the blurb at the top of this page, here, for those who want it, and Snoopy in particular, is the full, unedited Bob Binderman Auto Race performance, complete with another 150 seconds or so of mouth-as-car-engine performances at the end: 

Download: Bob Binderman - Calling an Auto Race in Reims, France (unedited)

Play:

1953 Radio, Some Jingles, More from Japan, The Age of Jetomation, and Some Swiss Shortwave

Hello, 

This won't be news if you read my other blog, but... 

 Last time I posted, I mentioned being short of time, and that I'd be brief in my comments. Little did I know how much time I would have starting the very next afternoon. For it was the next day that I learned that due to COVID's effect on my agency's finances, my position was being eliminated, effective immediately. After 29 years with my agency, I am out of a job, and this is the first time in about 40 years that I've neither been employed or in school. Hopefully, it will be just a hiccup in time, but who knows. 

~~

Before I get to today's features, I wanted to share a link sent in by a reader. Back in January, one of my offerings was a "very short reel" featuring Judy Codlin's demo reel. Well, sadly, an anonymous poster recently sent a link to Judy's obituary. which is here. 

~~

Today, I have another typically varied set of recordings for you, which I hope you'll enjoy. And I'm starting with one from 1953, not because I think it's the most interesting, but because it allows me to continue a series I thought I'd completed, the Scotch Tape Box series. 

I do think this tape's contents are interesting enough, but I especially wanted to share this box, which is of a style I'd never seen before, and which I therefore overlooked in my series. At this point, Scotch was still differentiating between paper and plastic backing, meaning that this is probably style # 3, and from no later than 1951, as all styles from after that point did not specify the type of backing, since they had all been switched to plastic. Here it is: 

And what is on that five inch reel of tape, I hear you ask through the ether. Well, it's a recording that appears to date from 1953, a broadcast on station KROK, in Rockford, IL, of a classical concert, primarily featuring the Peer Gynt Suite, with narration, along with a short performance afterwards. Not the most scintillating thing to hear, but recordings from this period are very, very rare. Plus, at the end, there is some other material, including commercials and the start of a newscast. The mention of the war having ended would seem to place this near or in July of 1953. If nothing else, I encourage you to listen to the last few minutes captured here. 

Download: The Rockford Symphony Orchestra - Peer Gynt Suite and Programming After - WROK, Rockford, circa 1953

Play:

~~

Sticking with the radio theme, here are a whopping 30 Jingles from a station in Southern California which actually broadcasted its format from Catalina Island. The station was/is WBIG, which you can read about here. The sound quality is a bit dicey at the start, but gets better. 

Here are all of those jingles!

Download: KBIG - Radio Catalina - 30 Jingles

Play:

And here is the tape box: 

~~

Next up, it's yet another tape from our young man in Japan, circa late 1960's. I don't have a date on this one, but I know there are people out there who might be able to take some of the comments and narrow down the time frame. 

As with at least one of the other letters I've shared, our man (boy?) in Japan chose to play music in one channel while talking on the other. In this case, the music is actually louder than his letter in several places, playing up the questionable nature of this decision. 

Download: Another Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan

Play:

~~

And now, it's time for Horizons of Science. See?: 

And when I got this tape, a few decades ago, I was very pleased to hear that it was narrated by Lyle Dean. Lyle Dean's voice is familiar to generations of Chicago area radio listeners, as he worked in news and commercial production at multiple radio stations, for what must have been decades. 

This is a fun little diversion of a program. The things discussed here do not necessarily seem to have been the wave of the future that they are presented as being, at least not under the terms used here, but it's an interesting little program, regardless. 

Download: Lyle Dean - Horizons of Science - the Age of Jetomation

Play:

~~

Next up, a lengthy segment for those of you who enjoy vintage shortwave recordings. Most of those I've come across in my collection seem to be from the same collector, or a few people, anyway, and are recordings of Australian broadcasts. This one, however, from the spring of 1968, is a recording of broadcasts from Switzerland. The sound quality goes in and out here - it's never great, which is often the case with these shortwave recordings, but it's almost all listenable. 

Download: Swiss Shortwave, Spring, 1968

Play:

~~

And finally, here's our "Very Short Reel" for the week. It's a pair of ads for Kronenburgh Beer, from the late spring of 1980. Actually, to my ears, this is simply the same ad twice, but maybe there's a subtle difference that is escaping me, as I'm not sure why the same ad would be placed on the tape twice, back to back. Then again, the sticker on the box does say "Spot", while the handwriting indicates "2 cuts".  

Download: Lance and Enid - Two Kronenburgh Beer Ads - 6-5-80

Play:

And here's the very messy looking tape box: 

Boy Scouting in a Canadian Winter, An "American Idol" of the '60's, The Return of Australian Shortwave and Much More!

Hello, Hello, Hello!

Before I get to this week's offerings, I want to share a link which is very much overdue. One of my most frequent commenters goes by "Oldradios90", and three months ago, Oldradios shared, in the comments, that he or she had started a new, similar project to this one, capturing old audio from reel to reel tapes and other sources, on Archive.org. As of today, there are 46 items uploaded, including such things as: 

A Sailor's Message to His Family, 1945

 A Half Hour of Baltimore TV, 1958

A Talk on Cattle Feed and Disease

Football Game and Singing, 1961

As you can see, the items are just as varied and esoteric as those I've been sharing here. I want to take a deeper dive into the site, and encourage you to do the same. This looks like a great collection. 

I have shared the site in the links, to the right, but I'll also link it in this post. The site is found here. 

As a side note, OldRadios90 pointed out that last week's "very short reel" did not contain ads for Kodak cameras, despite what it said on the tape box, but for a competitor's product!

~~

Aside from making sure I left time for that explanation and link, I am, as I expressed on my other site, short of time in August, due to work demands that crop up this time of year, so my comments will be quite short. 

To start, here's a neat tape containing a recording of three boys describing (with the help of an adult) their adventures on a Boy Scout camping trip, during the no-doubt freezing Saskatchewan winter, in some unknown year many decades ago. 

The beginning of this tape was erased by other, less interesting material, so it begins mid thought...: 

Download:  Roy, Kenny, Bob and Ronnie Discuss Their Boy Scout Adventures In Winter in Saskatchewan

Play:

~~

Next up, here's an ancestor of shows like "Star Search" and "American Idol", a 20 minute segment of a program titled "Talent Scouts", from the summer of 1962, possibly August 28th. 

I should add that, unlike the shows mentioned, this was not a competition, and the performers were selected in advance due to having previously been discovered, and were being given, in many cases, their first national exposure. 

Download: Talent Scouts - Jim Backus, Harry Belafonte and Valentine Pringle

Play:

~~

Next up, here's an example of a type of tape that I come across fairly often, but rarely share. This is the genre of amateur musicians making a tape of themselves going through their repertoire. In this case, it's an unlabeled tape featuring an organist and a vocalist - two people or one, I don't know, but I would guess the former. Here's 22 minutes or so of R & B, Pop and Country hits from the mid '50's through the mid '60's. 

This tape starts as you'll hear it here, mid-song. 

Download: Unknown - An Organist and a Vocalist

Play:

~~

And here, for the first time in quite awhile, is another of the many tapes I manage to accrue, featuring mid 1970's shortwave broadcasts of "Australian Mailbag". This one, as becomes clear quickly, was recorded within days or weeks of Gerald Ford becoming president, meaning it's likely from August of 1974, but possibly (although unlikely) as late as September of that year. 

Download: Australian Mailbag - August or September, 1974

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I made this MP3 quite a few years ago, and can't currently find the disc in question, so I'm not sure how I knew the possible station or date, but the file is titled "Possibly WGBW - Political Commentary - Possibly 3-20-40". It's certainly from a station in Louisiana, and, on side one, concerns some troubles the Governor of a nearby state was finding himself in, while on the flip side (which plays with a few skips, and far more surface noise), the speaker comments on a certain bill then being considered in Congress. 

Download: Possibly WGBW - Political Commentary - Possibly 3-20-40

Play:

~~

And finally, for this week's "Very Short Reel", here is an ad for Carling Black Label Beer, dated April, 1971. 

Download: Carling Black Label Beer Ad, April 1971

Play:

Here is the letter that accompanied that tape, when it went to the radio station: 

Watch the Belgian Parade with some Lucky Lager!

I have another batch of interesting and widely varying tapes today!

I've periodically shared slide show narration tapes, and today I have one that is actually a bit of a mystery. Because first, I'm not sure this is a narration for a slide show or for an 8 mm home movie presentation. And second, because the subject matter seems to change without announcing itself partway through the material.

The first section of the narration is clearly for a parade featuring Belgian-Americans (and possibly the King of Belgium - see below), but then at some point we've clearly moved on into a tour of one of the many world's fairs which occurred in the mid-20th Century - I'm guessing the one in New York in the 1960's, but maybe the clues on this reel will steer a listener in another direction.

Narrating a slide show makes much more sense to me - my experience with film is that it is awfully hard to line up such a narration with the film and have it work every time, with a pre-prepared recording. Yes, I've actually done this, back when I was 14, with some of my family's home movies. But some of the announcing certainly sounds like it's related more to moving images than slides. Hear for yourself!

Download: Slide Show or Film Narration for a Parade and World's Fair Visit
Play:

And here, as an little added attraction, is a fragment of recording which was contained on the very next box I opened from this collection. This is the end of a radio interview, with a connection so poor as to possibly be a short wave broadcast, interviewing someone who was at a Belgian Reception, mentioning the presence of the King of Belgium, and wishing that more Belgian-Americans had been present.

Whether this reception is connected to the parade documented on the other tape is unknown. That this reception was in Detroit complicates that idea, since the parade seems to have transitioned into an event that I believe to have been in Detroit.

I do love my listeners/readers, though: you've come through many times with solutions, based on things I missed, or didn't have time to research.

Download: Brief Fragment of Conversation about Belgian Reception
Play:

~~

I'm not a drinking man, but I still usually recognize the name of a beer when I hear it. But Lucky Lager was a mystery to me. It seems to have been far more common in the western states, and I have never lived outside of Illinois, so maybe that's why. But it seems to have been massively popular, wherever it was enjoyed, in the 1950's and early 1960's, at least.

And it was in the early 1960's - late 1962, for use in 1963 - that Lucky Lager sent out the following promotional tape to its dealers, and who knows who else. I find this tape highly entertaining, except for the sections where they literally repeat portions of it again, most notably the upcoming new radio ad promotion featuring future game show stooge Jaye P. Morgan, complete with her introductory comments, twice.

Despite that bit of repetitive weirdness, this is a fun tape. One more thing: there is a moment where they were apparently going to insert some other sort of recording or presentation, and there is a moment of silence
instead. The brand was apparently flying pretty high at this time, but not so much by the end of the decade.

Have a listen!

Download: Lucky Lager - 1963 "Lucky Days" Sales Promotion
Play:

Finally, here's this week's "very short reel", chosen at random from a few large stacks. This is a late 1990's radio ad - two promos for use on one specific day, due to the content being related to that night's TV broadcast, on the local Toledo Fox-owned station, promoting both the news, and that evening's rerun of the never-less-than-aggressively-and-painfully-unfunny Home Improvement. 

Download: Two Fox News and Home Improvement Combo Ads

Play: