Blowout Post # 5

Greetings! 

Last month proved very busy, to the point that, for the first time in over 18 months, I only posted once that month. I'm still catching up on a lot of things, so I'm going to feature another of my "Blowout Posts", with a dozen offerings and, for the most part, very little in the way of explanation. 

But first, I want to review a few comments. Someone named E. Schad has very helpfully put names to two different tapes I featured in two different posts. It seems that they were both from a Capitol series of production music called the Hi-"Q" stock music library. The posts are here and here, and you can find the names of the tracks in the comments of each post. 

In other helpful comments, "Snoopy" has figured out that the second Jesse Coopwood tape heard here is from September 9th, 1951, an anonymous commenter has identified that the audio letter I shared in that same post was recorded about 19 years later, on September 24th, 1970  (see those comments, as well, for more information), and my Star Ads loving pal, Larry, caught something I missed, which is that Kenny Biggs, in this post, gave the date of the recording, at least for part one of the tape, as being yet another September date, in this case, September 16th, 1965. 

Finally, frequent participant "OldRadios90" wrote in to say that he'd acquired one of what he says were  "The first battery operated Solid State Recorders", the Steelman Transitape, which you can see here. Additionally, OldRadios90 shared that he has added more recordings to his archive.org page, which is an extremely worthwhile visit. You can find it here, and also in the links, to the right. 

Thanks to each of you THIS MUCH!!

And now, back to the countdown. 

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Let's start with the recording I think maybe will hold the most interest for the largest number of readers/listeners. For here we have the legendary Los Angeles area Disc Jockey, "Humble" Harve Miller. In this clip, it's June 26th, 1965, he is fairly newly landed at KBLA, Burbank, and he's not only spinning the hits, but a few b-sides, a few oldies, and tracks from Capitol's then-latest butchery of a Beatles album, "Beatles VI", which had been released 12 days earlier. There is a very brief gap in this tape at around the 48 minute point - a little bit of a PSA is missed. That's where the small amount of recording from the second side of the tape begins. The entire recording is just over an hour long. 

Download: Humble Harve Miller on KBLA, Los Angeles, 6-26-65

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Almost as popular as airchecks are vintage commercials, and here I have a tape - or rather two tapes - containing a total of five ads for Great Bear Spring Water, from the Rumrill-Hoyt company. Why some of these ads (the first three, all of which were on the same tape) have brief announcer copy before and instrumental music afterwards, I have absolutely no idea. The Great Bear Spring Company was founded in 1888, and surely had a jump of decades on most of those companies who sell bottled water. 

Download: Rumrill-Hoyt, Inc - Five Great Bear Spring Water Ads

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Here is a combo scan of the front of one of the boxes containing these ads and the back of the other one: 

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Okay, so those were my two big shares for the post, I suppose. As noted at the top, the rest of today's offering fall into the category of "Things I Think Might Be Worth Sharing, And Which Some People Might Find Interesting, But Which I Don't Have a Whole Lot to Say About"

First up, some speeches that were made at a large Bell Telephone gathering, presumably a convention, followed by some music heard at that same same event, performed by - of all things - a full mixed chorus (80 members) made up of nothing but various Telephone company employees. Those were certainly different days, corporate-wise, eh? 

Download: Speeches and Music at a Telephone Company Convention

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Speaking of corporations which produced products that many Americans used every single day, The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company produced, for almost exactly 10 years, a series called "The Greatest Story Ever Told", built around the life of Christ - at least to the degree that Jesus, when he spoke in the series, only said those things captured in the Bible. On the other hand, as you'll hear in this episode, there were at least some weeks when Jesus didn't appear at all. 

Download: The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Presents - The Greatest Story Every Told

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On March 2, 1959, Bing Crosby hosted a television special. The recording heard here is not the complete show, but it's nice anyway. Elements of this show are available on YouTube and other video sites, but I believe the portions heard here contain material not available elsewhere. 

Download: The Bing Crosby Show - 3-2-59

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Now here's a real endurance test. A car full of friends drives from northwest Indiana to Ohio and they  record 90 plus minutes of their conversation for posterity, while en route. For those of you who choose to share their journey, you will be rewarded with a sound clip for the ages, one to use in all of your sound manipulations, when the driver exclaims "Save your farts for Ohio". The man who speaks that line - and who probably recorded this tape - was the same person behind the nudist camp which I've featured in the past, here and here. 

Download: The Schmidt's and Friends Drive to Ohio Via Highway 30, 1964

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Now here's a recording I've labeled "KNPT, Newport, Oregon - Ann and Len Nash at the Hi-Tide Supper Club - Two Episodes, June 25th and June 28th, 1955". And I think that probably sums up everything you need to know about it. 

Download: KNPT, Newport, Oregon - Ann and Len Nash at the Hi-Tide Supper Club - Two Episodes, June 25th and June 28th, 1955

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Here's something just a bit "different". It's an audio letter, but one made up mostly of music. The sender, in Vicksburg, is using music to connect to his recipient, Darlene, in California, with only a few comments thrown in between the songs, indicating some of them have memories attached to them, and others perhaps have lyrics which are meaningful to their relationship.  

Download: A Musical Audio Letter to Darlene

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Back to the Home Recordings we go. Here we have a gentleman who sings in an extremely old-timey style a style I associate with Irish tenors (not that I'd call him an Irish tenor) - and who offers up song after song, along with a bit of conversation with those who he is with, for some 40 minutes or so. 

Download: Unknown - Some Old Fashioned Singing and a Few Conversations

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Now let's travel to Valley Forge, PA, home to an organization of American Baptist Churches, and enjoy a short radio program that group produced at some point, titled "Audio Mosaic"

Download: Audio Mosaic (From the American Baptist Churches, Valley Vorge, PA)

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Only the tiniest of indications of the contents made it onto this box: 

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And as always, we'll finish up with the "Very Short Reels" segment, in this case, since I'm plowing through so much stuff, I'll offer up two. 

First is what I find to be an utterly charming little tape of a small child introducing her father, who then plays a solo on trombone, and then the two of them do a trombone/vocal duet on another standard. He's not very good, and she can't sing at all, but it's still mighty cute, and her little laugh at the end is worth the price of admission. This actually showed up at the very end of a lengthy tape filled with bland recordings of 1950's and 1960's big band jazz, jazz with all of the life sucked out of it, so it was a nice dessert after a bland meal. 

Download: Daddy Plays "All of Me", Daddy and Daughter Sing "Red Roses for a Blue Lady"

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And here is the simply titled, "Two Girls Sing Three Short Songs", to which I'll only add that the second song is actually sung by only one of the girls: 

Download: Two Girls Sing Three Short Songs

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Biggest Post Ever? Over Three Hours of Sound!!

Good day! 

I can't be sure without checking every previous post, but I think this is the most material (in terms of duration of the various offerings) that I've ever put into one post. The items are widely varied and largely esoteric in nature, so I suspect that most will find only some of this interesting, but it is a nice cross section of the sort of things I might come across if I grab a pile of tapes at random. 

First up, and certainly the piece among all of them here which has some historical interest. What you're about to hear is the full contents of a Ten Inch Reel of tape, all of which seems to have been recorded with TV shows (and perhaps a bit of radio), primarily in November of 1950, based both on the contents and on the label on the tape. 

First up is some sort of talent show or other program featuring performers of various ages. I am particularly enamored of the small child who sings the second song. Two versions of the St. Louis Blues follow, perhaps from the same show. 

Some instrumental music follows, including a band-backed performance by a man playing tuned drums - which is unfortunately interrupted by some far less interesting orchestral music. This in turn is followed by a barbershop quartet and then something called "The United States Overture". That number is again interrupted, this time by some more faceless orchestral stuff. This goes on far too long - and I almost cut it out, but decided to leave the tape intact - and suddenly the channel is changed and we get to hear some delicate violin music. 

Everything prior to the violin music may fall under the general heading of "Band", which is what is written first on the tape (see below), and if so, it's from earlier in 1950, September to be exact. The rest is labeled as being from November 12th of that year. However, what has come so far doesn't all sound like "band". 

Anyway, this violin music turns out to be a performance from The Ed Sullivan Show, and this is when the tape gets interesting for me. If you want to skip to this point, it's around the 32 minute mark. This episode aired shortly after a song called "Our Lady of Fatima" by Phil Spitalny took the nation - or some part of it - by storm. The song is performed live by that Phil's organization, and Ed's comments follow, with an interview of the song's composer and some comments that seem to indicate that Ed assumes the rest of the country was Catholic, too. A special arrangement of "The National Emblem March" follows, then Ed's final credits. 

The next thing on the tape is a recording of a complete performance of an musical arrangement of "The Emperor's New Clothes", put together and conducted by Harry Simeone, later to become well known for his record of "The Little Drummer Boy". This appears to be a TV broadcast of the short musical, and it lasts about 17 minutes. While I've been able to find an album release of this material, I can find no reference to it ever having been a TV show, or part of one. My guess is that both this, and the Ed Sullivan segment are extremely rare, and may not exist as recordings other than on this tape.  

The tape finishes with some Negro Spirituals, done by various members of a African-American vocal group, with condescending comments by the (presumably white) host in between. 

Download: Various Artists - November, 1950, TV Variety on a Ten Inch Reel

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And here is the listing from the reel itself: 

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Next up, and by far the longest tape shared here, features an odd moment in which a mixed choral group was rehearsing their repertoire. This tape is part of the batch that I found when I came across the wonderful Marigail Moreland tapes. The link between those tapes and this one is that the composer of the song "Why" which recurs on those tapes (sung at various times by Merigail Moreland, Don Moreland and others) is part of that repertoire. Not only that, the presence of that song, during the rehearsal, is highlighted on the tape box (which is also where I got the date), a clear indication that it came from the same person who was the original owner of the Moreland tapes. The segment is nearly 96 minutes long

This is truly a moment in time - if there are still people singing music in this style today, I'm certainly unaware of it. It's a genre that I believe has at least nearly (if not completely) ceased to exist. There are some interesting moments here, in terms of the arrangements, song choices and brief conversations between songs, but admittedly, listening to the whole thing is a slog. But rather than edit it down to my favorite moments, I thought I'd let you find whatever you might like in it. 

Download: A Mixed Choral Group Rehearses, 1963

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A few months ago, I mentioned a type of tape I come across sometimes, one which features short bits of a large variety of unrelated segments, and offered up an example, calling it a Hodgepodge. 

Today, I have another example. This one starts with a truly horrid version of "A Hard Day's Night" which is quickly cut off for a recording of a large number of very loud birds, who sound only slightly less like The Beatles as the group at the start of the tape. 

After nearly four minutes of that, we have some small children, interacting with a few adults and singing a few songs, mostly religious. But I particularly like the misheard/misremembered words sung during the brief rendition of "America the Beautiful". But this enjoy this whole segment - the kids sound very sweet. 

This is suddenly interrupted by an off-the-radio recording of "Master Jack" by Four Jacks and a Jill, one of the more peculiar hits of its era, before a return to the children for one more song, then some polka music off the radio, before the tape ends with a bit of microphone testing. 

Download: A Hodgepodge - Fake Beatles, Birds, Children Talking and Singing, and a Few Records

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Next, here is a fragment of a sales presentation. I have no idea how long the original presentation was - this was at the start of the second side of a tape which was otherwise taken up by 1940's era dance music (some of which can be heard bleeding through at a lower speed). 

Download: Unknown - ABC Newspapers' Business Model

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Finally, our very short reel. I thought I'd shared this before, but I can't find it. If I did, apologies for redundancy. First, here's what's on the box: 

Well, that bit of writing didn't prepare me for the downright oddness encountered on the tape. This is barely 95 seconds long, and as the box says, it contains two takes, but I'd love to hear what it was used for: 

Download: Star Spangled Cable

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