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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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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Christmas (Almost) Through and Through

As I've done just about every year, I am again offering up a Christmas post. The only difference is that one of today's tapes also contained significant (and interesting) non-Christmas related material, so I've tacked that on at the end. 

First, and perhaps most interesting culturally, is this tape I came across somewhere, featuring former first lady (and so much more) Eleanor Roosevelt reading from "A Christmas Carol" to a group of children, as well as some chatter afterwards. This came to me on two tapes, but I've joined them here.  Curiously, this tape is dated 1/25/56, but I have to think that's actually 12/25/56 or something - why would she have been reading a Christmas story in late January. 

Anyway, this recording does not seem to have been shared anywhere, outside of this offering, and I can find no reference to her having read this book on 1/25/56 or on any other date in such a setting, among her published diaries, which can be found online. Perhaps I missed it. Anyway, it's a pretty neat, rare recording. 

Download: Eleanor Roosevelt Reads "A Christmas Carol"

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Next up, a recording I've labeled "Christmas and Winter Songs and Poems with a Young Child", and that pretty much sums it up. Starting with "A Visit From St. Nicholas and progressing through some songs and some conversation, this is, as far as I'm concerned, an adorable recording. 

Download: Christmas and Winter Songs and Poems, etc, with a Young Child

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Now, let's drop in for nearly an hour of Music and Conversation at Senator Smith's house. It's 1951. I think I once tried to figure out exactly who this "Senator Smith" was - I think he was a state senator - but attempts just now to remind myself were unsuccessful. I suspect someone will chime in. 

Download: Music and Conversation, Christmas Night, 1951, at Senator Smith's House

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This one is nothing more than a short excerpt from a radio presentation of some Christmas hymns and songs, complete with a bit of historical information from an announcer. 

Download: A Short Radio Christmas Program

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On one of those tiny, three inch reels, I found this brief compendium of holiday programming, including some moments from the Glen Campbell show, among others. I've been unable to determine the year for these recordings - again, maybe someone else can figure it out. 

Download: The Glen Campbell Show and Other TV Recordings, Christmastime

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And finally, the entire contacts of a tape which starts with a chorus rehearsing some Christmas songs and goes on to include some interesting country music recordings. 

The choir rehearsal is most interesting to me for the presence of a lilting melody which I found belongs to a Mexican hymn, here translated into English. It's quite beautiful and the words are very effective. I only found one website which features the lyrics to this song in English, and that is here. It's called "Pedida de la Posada" or "The Search for Lodging".

Download: A Choral Group Rehearses Christmas Songs

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When that rehearsal is over, most of the rest of side one of the tape contains a short recording of Kenny Biggs playing country music on WEEP. I featured another tape featuring the same singer/deejay about 18 months ago. My tapes have been moved so many times that it's hard for me to know for sure, but perhaps these were from the same collection. 

Download: Kenny Biggs on WEEP, Pittsburgh

Play:

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On the other side of the tape are several recordings by a country and western band. There appear to be at least a few different sessions recorded here, but I'm guessing they are all from the same band. Perhaps someone out there will disagree. There was also music from a band on the last few seconds of side one, and I've tacked those onto the end of this section. 

Download: A Few Songs from a Country Band

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Finally, the band music heard above is followed by some VERY poorly recorded material, also from WEEP, and also apparently involving Kenny Biggs. This is music which was broadcast live over that station from The New Aurora Hotel, which was located in the extraordinarily chunkily named "The McKees Rocks Bottoms" area of Pittsburgh. Despite the poor recording - which I've attempted to improve, to little effect - I thought this was worth hearing. 

Download: Country Music from The New Aurora Hotel in The McKees Rocks Bottoms, on WEEP

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I wanted to get this out a week before Christmas, and have failed to do that already, so the Acetate of the month and the Very Short Reels feature will not be featured in this post. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Christmas Through and Through, Volume Two

Happy December, everyone, 

As I've done nearly every year since I started this project, the first post of December will be entirely Christmas related. I have four personal recordings from families or family members, and four recordings of professional presentations of Christmas material, and will go back and forth between the two. 

First up is a tape that just about defines family Christmastime. It is simply 42 minutes or so of "Fly-On-The-Wall" recording of a family enjoying the opening of presents and the joy of being together, recorded on Christmas in 1956, according to the tape box. 

(The last few seconds contain a musical performance which the Christmas recording had been erasing.)

Download: Unknown Family - Christmas, 1956

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A very different celebration of Christmas now, a professional and downright staid presentation, from the oh-so-serious and classical music oriented "Voice of Firestone", which started in the early days of radio, moved to television as one of the first regularly scheduled network shows (a very small network of stations) in 1943 (!) and lasted, in one form or another, into the 1960's. This is a recording of a TV broadcast from 1958. 

Download: Voice of Firestone, Christmas Special, December, 1958

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Next, here's an audio letter from an entire family, made at Christmastime. It last just over an hour, and a whole bunch of folks get to be chatty, sing if they want, and pass along everything you could imagine to the recipient of this tape. Imagine in the days before Zoom, even in the days before cheap long distance phone calls, getting this 62 minute tape from your loved ones far away, and getting to spend an unexpected hour with them. That's one of the (many) magical things about reel to reel tape. 

The opening moments are poorly recorded, but that gets fixed after 30 seconds. 

Download: A Christmastime Audio Letter from the Family

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Back to the professional musicians! And I thought this was pretty durn keen. "Sing It Again" was a BBC Radio show which, as far as I can tell, ran at least from some time in the early 1950's into the 1970's. There's no date on this Christmas episode, but it features some very effectively arranged songs, close to half of which I'd never heard before. The Cockney-flavored song that starts at about 5:25 is particularly fun. 

Download: "Sing It Again" - A BBC Christmas Presentation

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Here's another audio letter, in this case made on Christmas and on December 26th, from a family in Canada who was recording the tape for Lenore (or maybe it's Lenora - I hear her addressed both ways here) and her family (The Abbots) in Bermuda. The tape seems to have slowed to a stop a couple of times while it was being recorded. This is just another very sweet recording from another era.  

Download: A Post-Christmas Tape From Canada to Lenore and Her Family in Bermuda

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Here's just under 20 minutes of Chicago Radio programming, from an unknown date and station, which I thought was sort of cool. The music is just from records - although for the most part ones you don't hear much these days - but between the records there are a couple of local stories, a detailed one about the delivery of Christmas trees, and a brief one about roasted chestnuts

Download: Unknown Chicago Radio Station - Christmas Programming

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And this may be an all-Christmas post, but that doesn't mean we won't have an "Acetate of the Month". This one is Christmas related. Or at least, I assume it is, as it is labeled "Xmas, 1940", as you can see below. Its contents are downright disjointed, and I cannot make out any part of it which clearly has anything to do with Christmas. It does start with someone discussing what a dad might like - which could mean Christmas - but then it goes through a man praising for a child, that child speaking about a sporting event, then a mom speaks haltingly about stars (and then some organ music drowns him out). This is a pretty weird one. 

Download: Xmas, 1940 - Universal Acetate

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for this post. I'm stretching the concept a bit, as I usually define "very short" as being under five minutes. But I wanted to make this post "all Christmas", and the shortest Christmas related segment I currently have is just over seven minutes. This is a tape from The Simpsons of Springfield (!) to Larry and (I think) Paul. I actually find this tape more than a bit odd. 

After a personal greeting, almost the entire remainder of the tape seems to be a copy of a recording that the sender made off of a radio broadcast - some music, Christmas thoughts from two What follows the introduction seems to be a recording of a bit of a broadcast of some music, followed by some Christmas thoughts from two different people, then some music box music. Then the sender comes back in for a moment with Christmas wishes. 

For all the time it took this person to make and send a Christmas tape to his friends, the actual contents he chose to include seem oddly impersonal. Sort of like sending a Birthday card to someone and inserting into it a bunch of pictures of other people celebrating their birthdays, instead of inscribing it with your own personal thoughts, 

Download: Brief Tape of Christmas Greetings From the Simpsons

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Vintage BBC Documentaries, The Return of Joe Gerossi, Unusual Sounds, Some Wild Piano, and Christmastime Is Here Again

Two posts in six days!!! Christmas must have come early! (And that's actually foreshadowing for this post....) 

I'll start with something off the beaten path. Here is everything that's contained on a reel of tape made by someone in England, featuring three programs, two documentaries and a show about policy. 

The first show, taking up about the first 27 minutes of the tape, is a documentary about the story of sound coming to the movies. The second was labeled on the tape as a review of Queen Elizabeth's 1961 visit to Africa, although the program expands into a more general review of many aspects of the Queen and her reign. This program mentions her tenth anniversary on the throne, so must actually have been broadcast in 1962. Most likely, all three shows are from 1962 (I can't seem to find the tape box at the moment, as I digitized this one some four years ago.) Finally, starting about an hour and 14 minutes into the tape, a program called "Conference", which in the episode heard  here was concerned with British Defence Policy (given that the show and the person recording it were English, that's how it was spelled on the box). The tape runs out before this show ends. 

Download: British Radio Potpourri - History of Sound Film, Queen's Visit, British Defence Policy

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Next, do you remember Joe Gerossi? The gregarious barber who I have featured three other times, here, here and here? Well, here I have a bunch more from Ol' Joe. And although this is the fourth such posting, it's labeled "Volume 2". Why? Because this one features Joe and his friends and perhaps family, and is thus more of a sequel to the first posting than to the other two (both of which largely or entirely featured Joe on his own).

Let me just say: This Tape Is A Mess. The sound goes in and out, there are problems with the speed of the machine recording it in spots, and there are other spots where newly recorded material did not fully erase older material (which was a problem on another one of Joe's tapes, too - he must have had a lousy tape recorder!). There are some truly winning moments here, and some others which go on too long, or should never have been kept in the first place. But I think Joe has some fans, so I thought I'd share another batch of recordings that he made. 

Download: Joe Gerossi and Friends - Various Recordings, Volume 2

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Incidentally, this reel came with THREE different slips of paper claiming to contain descriptions of what was on the tape and in what order. I present them here in case you'd like to see if you can tell who is who, and what is where: 

 

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This next segment is a five minute oddity I've labeled "Unusual Montage of Late 1970's Media Sounds". I have no idea for what purpose this might have been created, and aside from that, I think the title suffices as an introduction to this interesting compilation of sounds: 

Download: Unusual Montage of Late 1970's Media Sounds

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AND NOW - with the exception of a short reel at the end - IT'S TIME TO MOVE INTO CHRISTMAS MODE!!

I have so many Christmas related items that I won't possibly be able to squeeze them all into one post in the middle of December. So with Advent beginning in three days, I'm going to get ahead of things and share four Christmassy items with you.

I'll start with the one which, to my ears and in terms of what I prefer, is by far the most interesting of the next four tapes. In it, a man, perhaps a patriarch, for lack of a better term (or perhaps not), spends some time "Interviewing the Family on Christmas Night". I find this fascinating and endearing, and I hope you will enjoy it, too. 

Download: Interviewing the Family on Christmas Night

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For those of you who enjoy manly men singing Christmas music with Mitch Miller's idiosyncratic echoey production - with a few female vocals thrown in - here is a Christmastime episode of "Sing Along with Mitch!: 

Download: Sing Along with Mitch - A Christmas Episode

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And here's a tape of three songs - none of which are related to Christmas - but which were offered up as an sort of musical Christmas Card by some unknown folks, folks who very likely were living in Indiana (on 52nd Street), from the sound of things. At first I thought this was a musical audio letter to someone ("Honey") who was far away, but upon a closer listen, I'm pretty sure that the male singer present IS honey, and that the woman who speaks first is addressing him following a return from.... somewhere. The sound quality is more than a bit rough, but the homey qualities and the clear affection in the voices of all involved make this a sweet, short offering.

Download: Merry Christmas to Honey - Three Songs

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And finally, a neat little tape (well, I think it is, anyway) of a rehearsal of Christmas Songs by a high school choir. I picked up several tapes of this group some time ago, in a batch of tapes purchased from God knows where, and this was the first one I listened to. 

Download: A High School Choir Rehearses Christmas Songs

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This is all it says on the box: 

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Finally, it's time for our "Very Short Reel". This one is sort of intriguing. This is a small reel of tape, containing a recording of two piano pieces, recorded at the professional speed of 15 Inches-Per-Second. Only the second piece is identified (on the side of the box), listed as "Down Yonder", but the first, shorter piece is clearly "Who's Sorry Now". The pianist on the first piece is listed as Tom Slade, and the second piece is listed as a duet between Tom Slade and Milton Jackson. The performance of "Down Yonder" is upbeat, and jazzy, rollicking, features elements of other familiar tunes, and is just a whole lotta...... 

Wait, Milton Jackson? Surely not the legendary jazz musician? I doubt it, but I can't figure any way to determine this one way or the other. The date certainly makes it possible, but that's hardly an unusual name.

Here are two images from the box. This was, unfortunately, one of the tapes whose boxes got damaged in a pipe leak in my basement several years ago. For the most part, the tapes were undamaged, as is true for this reel (reel to reel tape tends to be pretty hardy), but the box is a mess. 

Here is the side of the tape box, which is admittedly hard to read in this scan. It reads Tom Slade (Down Yonder) 10-13-54

And a portion of the back. Again, hard to read. It says: 

Reel # 3, 10/13/54, 15 IPS

1. Tom Slade, Piano

2. Tom Slade and Milton Jackson, Piano

And here's what it sounds like!

Download: Tom Slade and Milton Jackson - Who's Sorry Now and Down Yonder - 10-13-54

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A Passel of Jazz Stars, A Turkey Give Away, The Biggest Hit Shows of 1963, Some Chatty Girls, Beer and Cars, and the Approach of Christmas

 Greetings! A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers/listeners, and a giant THANK YOU to everyone who stops by to read and listen, on this date and any other. 

I'm going to start with something I think is pretty special, and which I don't think is readily available elsewhere (although I admit I could be wrong about that, but I have looked). Short clips are available on YoutTube and elsewhere, but this is nearly the entire dang thing. 

It's the third of at least four "Timex All Star Jazz Shows", which aired on CBS in the late 1950's, and featuring a roster of some of the biggest names in Jazz from the '30's, '40's and '50's. The first and second of these shows seem to be more well represented online than this one, the second one actually came out on vinyl, and at least elements of the first and second one were available at one time on CD. But this third one seems much rarer. 

Anyway, if you're a fan of jazz, this is undoubtedly right up your alley. While the more progressive movements in jazz present in 1958 are not represented here (and I wish Dizzy Gillespie, for example, had been invited), it's still, as I said, pretty special stuff. 

Download: The Third Timex All Star Jazz Show - 11-10-58

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As long as we just celebrated Thanksgiving, I thought the time was perfect to share this short segment, in which we hear a radio station in Fairmont, West Virginia, doing a rather goofy Thanksgiving Turkey Give-Away. These are from an actual broadcast. Rather, this is a work tape in which the calls are edited together with ads, and prepared for airing at the times indicated in the introductions to each call. The gimmick behind this giveaway is worth the price of admission. I do not have a date for this recording.

Download: Fairmont, West Virginia, Thanksgiving Turkey Give-Away Phone Calls

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Those of us of a certain age - and I'm not sure what that age is - will remember when the fall network TV season was not only announced with a flurry of ads and promos, but also led off with each network previewing their fall shows with an hour long special in which each show was highlighted. I previously shared an ABC production of this type from 1964, and here, now, is a similar type program from CBS, presented in late September, 1963. CBS had enormous success that year, as nine of the top ten programs of the year aired on that network. 

Download: CBS Opening Night - Preview of the Coming Season - 9-23-63

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For those of you who enjoy fly-on-the-wall recordings, I have the self-explanatory "A Few Girls Talking, Circa 1960". The recording quality here is far from the best - you really have to turn up the sound and listen closely to make out what's being said at times, and the last two minutes or so of this 15 minute segment is sort of a hodge-podge of silence, near silence and fragments of conversation. But.... this sort of thing is gold for me. 

Download: A Few Girls Talking, Circa 1960

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And now for our Acetate of the Month. Here's a two sided record from radio station WNEB, in Worcester, Mass. On one side, a folky-type guitar strummer sings about Harr Ford, and his vocalizing is heard on either side of the sales pitches on three different ads, dated for April 29th, 1961. 

On the flip side are two fun, fun ads for Schaefer Beer, ads which not only promote the beverage in question, but also for an upcoming Jimmy Durante television show, a program which aired on August 9th, 1961. 

Download: WNEB (Worchester, Mass) Acetate -Three Harr Ford Ads, 4-29-61

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Download: WNEB (Worchester, Mass) Acetate -Two Schaefer Beer Ads

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With Thanksgiving over, it's getting to be that time. What better way to ring in the Pre-Christmas madness than with a "Very Short Reel" featuring the Kings of Radio Jingles, PAMS, with two different collections of Christmas Jingles for two different radios stations on the same reel. First, there are 50 seconds worth of jingles for WWDC (in Washington D.C.,  of course), and then more than two minutes of jingles for KLIF (in Dallas), ending with several jingles that countdown to the big day. 

Download: PAMS - Christmas Reel for WWDC and KLIF

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Christmas Through and Through

 Did you hear? Christmas is tomorrow! It was in all the papers! Well, most of them, anyway! I hope the news reached your corner of the globe! 

With that in mind, today's post will be entirely Christmas and End-of-the-Year related. If that's not your thing, please come back after the first of the year (after checking out the first two shares, I would suggest), but for those who revel in such things, we're going all Christmas, all the time. 

I have a lot of Christmas related things on my plate, so I will be brief in most of my comments:  

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I think the most interesting recording here, by far, and the one which will likely have the broadest appeal, is this first offering, which I suspect is exceptionally rare. Not rare in the sense that some of the other items here are - home recordings which literally only exist in one copy - but rare in the sense of it being a recording made at a radio station in 1938. The station is WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut, a station which still exists, with those same call letters, and which will soon celebrate its 100th birthday

Not only are recordings of local stations (as opposed to network programming) of that vintage fairly rare, I don't think this isn't even a broadcast. From what I can tell It's a jokey program created by and for the staff of the radio station, for Christmas that year, poking fun at themselves. . 

At least, that's what I think it is. (It's also not clear to me if this is the entire program, or if some is missing.) Please let me know if you have other impressions, in the comments. 

And oh, yes, this could also qualify as our "Acetate of the Month", as it clearly comes from a recording of multiple acetate sides. But this recording came to me on a reel of tape, where someone had recorded those acetate sides. 

Download: WTIC - A Self-Parody for a Christmas Party - 12-22-38

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What's more, the same tape contained a later, joking recording, created at the same station for some Christmas in the 1940's, a shorter piece of humor titled "The Announcer's Nightmare": 

Download: WTIC - A 1940's Self-Parody for a Christmas Party - The Announcer's Nightmare

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For an entirely more homey feel, here is a tape of an unknown family singing Christmas Carols at home around 1950 or so. This comes from one of those early paper reels that only were in production until about 1951. Please enjoy these voices from over 70 years ago, sounding (for the most part, anyway) like they could have been recorded last week - such is the magic of reel to reel tape.  

Download: Christmas Carols at Home, Circa 1950

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But mayhap you prefer your Christmas entertainment to be provided by the more... professional of performers. If that's the case, I present to you: Perry Como's 1964 Christmas Episode of the Kraft Music Hall, from December 17th of that year: 

Download: Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall - Christmas Show - 12-17-64

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Getting back into the domestic life, in 1960, Hope and Franklin decided to record about 42 minutes of their Christmas gathering, including, among other things, what sounds very much like some conversation around the dining room table, and some caroling. And in 2022, I am sharing that recording with you. As one participant suggests, "listen to it while you're having dessert".

Download: Christmas, 1960, at Hope and Franklin's House

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Now that dessert is over, it's time for a few reflections. Here is a gentlemen and his family, living in Sioux Falls, looking back at the events of Christmas that year (1978), as well as the events of the year. The recording was made on Christmas night of that year -  it would appear that this was one of a series, and that this family made such a recording every year, for some number of years, at least. Sort of an end-of-the-year family diary. As far as I've found thus far, I do not have any of their other Christmas recordings. Names of several family members are given, during the reporting, but I'll let you hear those. Something about this tape resonates with me very deeply - I find it extremely sweet and very affecting. 

Download: Christmas Evening, 1978, and Review of the Year

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Our "Very Short Reel" feature for today is also Christmas themed, although it was recorded nearly a month after Christmas of 1951, on January 20, 1952. In this recording, a very small child plays some of his or her (presumably) favorite records, and makes a very small child's attempt to sing along. Note that I don't hold this child to the same standard as the tone-deaf singer who apparently wanted to hear himself singing along to hit records, which I featured last time. It's not this tiny person's fault that the ability to carry a tune has not made itself known yet, nor that the parent decided to record the singing. 

What's more, this kid is in tune at least as often than our would-be singer from last time around. And your mileage may vary a great deal, but I find this recording endearing, something I couldn't say about the aforementioned recording. Perhaps that has something to do with just how long its been since I had a toddler in my life...

After we hear part of a Spike Jones record of nursery rhymes (our only non-Christmas content this week), we go straight into the classic Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters versions of "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (with another record overlapping the first song, for a moment, for some reason)

Download: Small Child Sings with Christmas Records - 1-20-52

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And finally, our "Acetate of the Month". And here's a surprise - it's Christmas related! And it's a "very short acetate", lasting barely two minutes. The "Duodisc"-brand acetate was a souvenir of a visit to see Santa at a store - Toyland within "Lord's, in Evanston" (Illinois, of course), you can read about the store here, and see a picture of it - what a fantastic building - here. Santa introduces himself, interviews a child about his life and his wishes for Christmas, then sings a few songs with him. My guess is that each of Santa's visitors got such a record. 

Download: Duodisc Acetate - A Visit with Santa at Lord's in Evanston, IL

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Mayor Daley, Christmas Night, Another Loungey Tape, Some Truly Annoying Recordings, and Some BIG NEWS!

 Hello again!

First, I need to acknowledge my most important news of the year. This past Saturday, my wonderful daughter Molly got married to the equally wonderful Sean. Here they are, stepping out into a swarm of bubbles, just after the ceremony: 

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And now, I'd like to do a little housekeeping, or, more specifically, make a few comments and give some belated Thanksgiving thanks to readers and commenters. 

First, to Eric P., who wrote about the fact that I have two near-complete Yankees game radio broadcasts. Eric, the games in question are 9-25-60 and 5-31-61. The former seems to be available, complete, in what I think is the radio broadcast, on YouTube. I cannot find the latter anywhere, so let me know if it circulates in the collection that you mentioned. Basically, let me know if I'd be adding to the available canon by posting either or both of these. Thanks!

Second, to Diane, who admittedly, probably won't see this - I always appreciate hearing from someone related to a person featured on one of my postings. Thank you. For the rest of you, one of my early favorites here were the tapes of Bob Hoppe, one of which can be heard here. That post also links back to an earlier posting of similar material. Well, his granddaughter just commented on that post, and that really made my day. 

And then, finally, thanks! Thanks to Lee D., Vinushka, Larry Z, Snoopy, Timmy and Anonymous, for general encouragement, love notes, additional information and/or specific feedback about what is most enjoyable.

Please know that I read and appreciate every comment. And if I missed anyone, I apologize!

Okay...

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I'll start with something that seems to get a lot of positive reaction around here, Commercials. In this case, a tape that starts with part of a commercial promotion that I found severely irritating at the time, the "Noid" commercials put out by Dominoes in the late 1980's. If this tape solely contained "Noid" ads, I doubt I would be sharing it, but the tape then also contains several minutes of Dominoes production music, which I think is interesting: 

Download: Dominos Pizza - 'Noid' Commercials and Production Music - 11-7-88

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Switching gears roughly enough to perhaps end up needing a new transmission, I note that we are coming up on, one week from tomorrow, the 46th anniversary of the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago. As I have never lived more than ten miles outside of the Chicago city limits, this was a man whose name and exploits dominated what little I knew about politics as I was growing up. And his birthday, just days before Christmas, 1976, was a shock to most of us who lived in and near the city. The following day, the hosts and producers of a local TV show called AM Chicago, understandably threw out everything which had been planned for the day, and produced a show entirely about the life and death of Mayor Daley. Here is that show: 

Download: AM Chicago - The Day After Mayor Daley Died

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Let's have some happier Christmas memories now. Here's someone's audio letter, recorded on Christmas night, to mom and dad. This seems to be from either 1961 or 1962: 

Download: A Christmas Night Audio Letter to Mom and Dad, from San Diego, circa 1961 or 1962

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And now, something that you may well find annoying, and which I find annoying as well, but which also holds a strange fascination for me. I've shared a few of these before, and here's another one. 

Okay, first: I do not understand the practice of recording oneself playing records, and singing along with them. Do people who do this actually go back and fondly listen to themselves singing along with record that they presumably still own, and could listen to, and sing along with, right now, rather than listening to a tape of the same thing? 

And what to make of this practice when the person doing the singing and recording CAN'T SING?!?!?! Here is a fellow enjoying his collection of circa 1956-61 pop records, and doing an astonishingly bad job of accompanying them with something closer to atonality than to tunefulness. 

I remain thoroughly befuddled by this exercise, but, as I said, it sort of fascinates me, too. 

Download: Singing Along Badly with the Hits, circa 1961 (and a few odds and ends)

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Here's a fairly short bit of tape, featuring someone testing his microphone and recorder, then recording a few minutes of a station called KAJO in Grant's Pass, Oregon. The Kate Smith record featured at the end of this segment was released in 1965, and the reference to the LBJ administration during the microphone test indicates it has to be from no later than 1968, so that's a fairly good snapshot of the era in which this was recorded. 

Download: Testing and KAJO Redio, Grants Pass, Oregon
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I've gotten a bit of positive feedback from posting loungy acts in concert, and so, for those folks, here is a male acoustic duo with about 24 minutes of performance. They do not appear to have much of an audience. I know nothing else about these performers, the venue or the date: 

Download: Unknown - An Male Duo with Acoustic Guitars, Live

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Finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the post. Here is a gentleman singing a song which certainly sounds like a show tune, but I have been unable to find any reference to these lyrics online. I've dubbed it "Except When We Tangle With Dames"

Download: Unknown - Unknown Song ("Except When We Tangle With Dames") 

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Blowout Post # 3!!!

Well, it's time for me to have no time to blather on again, so today, we'll have episode three of the "Blowout Post" series, which I started under similar circumstances a few months ago. In summary, I'm going to unload ten files about which I have relatively little to say, some of them quite lengthy and fairly esoteric (107 minutes of discussions of how to entertain a visiting honoree, anyone???), and others perhaps more generally entertaining. About none of them, except the first one, do I have very much to say. 

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We'll start off with an sample from a bunch of tapes I listened to over the last several weeks, all from various members of the same group of amateur musicians. Across the tapes, variously, are heard accordion, guitar, ukulele, drums, piano and probably a few other instruments, as well as vocals at times. Not all of them at the same time, or even on the same tape, but clearly, people who enjoyed playing pop hits, folk tunes and dance music together. This particular tape starts with a few seconds of music off of TV or radio, and ends with one of the participants reading the names of some of the songs that were played. 

If this is appealing to you, let me know - there's a bunch more, including some with more variety of song styles and instruments. And, intriguingly, these tapes seem to feature at least some family members who were heard on the "Gaggle of Giggling 12 Year Olds" / "Noisy Birdy" tape which was the very first reel I shared on this blog. Clearly, I obtained far more tapes from that family than I previously knew I had. 

Download: Music at Home - Marlene, Bill and Vernene, 1-17-58

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By the way, some of these tapes come with extensive notations. Here is what was in this tape's box. As you can see, the file shared above is actually from two different recordings, one on 1/17/58 and one on 1/21/58: 

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From a considerably more accomplished musician, and certainly a more celebrated (and ridiculed) showman, here is a tape of an episode of Liberace's 1950's television show: 

Download: An Episode of the Liberace Television Show

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Next up, here's a guy who is giving a speech - to whom, when and where I do not know - that I find more and more disagreeable as it goes on. But I'm a lefty if there ever was one. I'm sure he'd find my ideas just as cockamamie as I do some of his. 

Download: Unknown - A Chamber-of-Commerce Type Speech

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And now, the aforementioned 107 minute tape of preparations. Someone named Richard Holden (presumably not the Richard Holden I knew at my church in the 1970's, who was a dwarf) was to be honored (along with his family), during the last few days of 1955 at the first days of 1956, in the Los Angeles area. He was to be "The Airman of the Year". The gentlemen heard here go over the minutia buried within the minutia of this visit. And believe it or not, the start of this conversation was actually erased - it originally went on even longer than this!

Download: Making Plans for the Visit of Airman of the Year Richard T Holden, Late 1955

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Christmas is coming. Did you know? Is this too soon? 

Here is my first Christmas offering. I don't know anything about this little performance, but I called it "A Rather Homely Christmas Carol Concert", not "homely" in the way it's mostly been used in the last several decades (meaning plain, or unattractive), but rather - as I found in one online dictionary - "free from affectation, unaffectedly natural, simple". I rather enjoy it in its guilelessness. I hope you will, too. 

Download: Unknown - A Rather Homely Christmas Carol Concert

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Somewhere between the limited skills of our accordion band and Liberace, you might find the sort of band or duo who played at small meeting houses, supper clubs, Holiday Inns and the like. It would appear, from the paper taped to the box for this reel, that two fellows named Heinz and Parker teamed up and, calling themselves "Padded Cell", appeared locally (wherever "locally" was, for as many as, oh, four people, if the applause here is any indication. There are only the two names on the box, but there are obviously at least three people here, four if the vocalist was not playing an instrument. Anyway, here they are on the first of April, 1961. 

Download: Padded Cell (Heinz and Parker) - Live, 4-1-61

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Here's that paper from the tape box cover: 

Or - and I just thought of this - maybe the name of the nearly empty club was "Padded Cell"

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Here's another of those lovely hodgepodge tapes I enjoy so much. This one is particularly varied, even though it very strongly appears to have been recorded by the same family at various points within a relatively short period of years. The title provides all the explanation I hope you'll need. 

Download: Hodgepodge - WLS Polka Show, Conversations Around the House, Choral Song, Audio Letter - Late 1950's

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And here's a short excerpt from a syndicated Album Rock Countdown from May of 1978, as heard on the late, great, WMET, Chicago. This was all there was of the show, on the tape in question. If this had been simply the songs from the countdown, I doubt it would have been very interesting or worth sharing, although God, do I love "Still the Same" - one of my favorite 50 hit singles ever, I'd say, and from an artist I otherwise have almost no interest in, save for that one and "Fire Lake". 

But.... one third of this tape a commercial break, and it provides a nice little pair of radio ads from that moment. And as much as I hate McDonald's, the moment with the little child at the 2:00 mark cracks me up - very effective.

Download: Album Rock Countdown, May, 1978, Short Segment

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And here is the "Very Short Reel" for this post. Not a lot of explanation needed here, just someone reading a bit of a classic novel, "Great Expectations": 

Download: A Brief Reading from "Great Expectations"

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And we'll finish with our "Acetate of the Month". I will let you discover the nature of this little audio letter from the 1940's by listening to it. I will only say that 1.) I included both sides of a small acetate in one file, 2.) I cannot find this record to share a scan of it (I may have sold it...), and 3.) it is as utterly charming as anything I've shared on this site all year. 

Download: Merry Xmas to Willie - 12-12-48 (Knight Acetate)

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Christmastime Is Here

 Seasoned Gratings!!!!

For this last post of the year, I'm going to focus almost entirely on Christmas and New Years, with only an exception for my weekly "very short reel" - and a bizarre one of those, at that. 

First, as I've done every year on this blog, I have a recording of a family celebrating Christmas at home. In this case, it is among the earliest, if not the earliest, Christmas recording I have featured, as the box makes it clear that we are hearing "Christmas, 1954", at a house on "River Road, Chatham, New Jersey". See?: 

There is some wonderfully charming stuff here, mixed in amidst the general conversations, package opening, and (unfortunately, in this case) moments of poor recording quality. I particularly enjoy the music, although the final segment of singing in marred by someone who decided to add a vocal version of stand-up double bass accompaniment, and did so as loudly as the piano and singer, essentially ruining the entire segment. 

Travel back in time almost exactly 67 years, and enjoy a family Christmas celebration. 

Download: Christmas, 1954, at River Road, Chatham, New Jersey

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In a moment, I will have my usual "Acetate of the Month", but first, I have something of a mix between my usual posts and that feature - here is a reel of tape I found, in which someone made a tape of an acetate that he found.

The man who is speaking (Rex, in St. Louis) was almost certainly part of a "tape exchange" club of some sort, probably the type (which I've learned was quite a thing, in the '70's and '80's), in which members exchanged tapes of old time radio. What the speaker has found, as you'll hear, is an acetate someone made on Christmas of 1953, in the Philadelphia area. The person spun the radio dial and picked up nearly 20 minutes of Christmas programming on that day. An enjoyable little diversion from nearly 68 years ago. 

Download: Scanning the Radio Dial on Christmas, 1953

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And now here's that Acetate of the Month. And in this case, it's a lengthy one, recorded at 33 1/3 RPM on both sides of a ten inch acetate. And this one is from a Christmas party. Specifically, a Christmas party held by the employees of a local post office, in December of 1960: 

Aside from saying that there are moments here which are quite affecting, I believe I will let this recording, which is about 25 minutes long, total, speak for itself: 

Download: Post Office Party, December, 1960, Side One

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Download: Post Office Party, December, 1960, Side Two

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Moving on from Christmas to New Year's Eve, what I have here are a few fragments from a top 40 radio New Year's Eve countdown, as 1964 became 1965. I deeply wish I could share the entire countdown with you, but our intrepid tape operator, whoever he or she was, was one of those people who desperately wanted to avoid getting the DJ's voice, so although the entire top 25 of the year (for this station), the DJ patter (and that of a supremely annoying sidekick named Bruno) is only audible before the # 1 song. The rest of the songs literally cut on after they start, and cut off before they end. 

It's an unusual top 25, too, at least when compared to where some of these songs charted nationally that year. # 25 is a version of "Shenandoah" that, as far as my chart books indicate, never hit the charts nationally at all. Other songs which seem to have been MUCH bigger locally than nationally were. The numbers in parenthesis are the songs' national peak - not year end, but just regular run - on the Billboard Hot 100: 

# 20 - No Particular Place to Go (10)

# 16 - In the Misty Moonlight (19)

# 13 - Haunted House (11)

# 12 - Chug-a-Lug (9)

and

# 3 - Nadine (Is It You?) (23)

Only two of the above made Billboard's Top 100 of the year ("Haunted House" and "Chug-a-Lug", and neither of those made the top 60. 

And I love Chuck Berry, and wish his comeback in 1964 had been big enough that he'd had two of the 20 biggest hits of the year nationally, but that was not close to being the case!

Anyway, the station is KXOK, in St. Louis (which helps explain the Chuck Berry songs placing so high). All I have here is the # 1 song (which should surprise no one), with part of its introduction, then a recap of then-recent presidential election. Then there is some talk about the new year ringing in around the world (and an atomic clock counting the seconds), followed by the final seconds of 1964, counting down to 1965 for St. Louis. This is followed by the first song played in the new year, a bit of DJ patter and the start of the next song - "Shake a Tail Feather" by the Du-Tones - a top 60 hit nationally in 1963, but probably a bigger hit on KXOK, as the group was from.... St. Louis. 

Download: 1964 Becomes 1965 on KXOK, St Louis

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And now it's time for that very bizarre, and "very short" reel. What you're about to hear is contained on perhaps 30 or 40 feet of tape - if that - which I found spliced to the end of a large reel of leader tape. 

The first half of its 82 seconds is mostly some sort of white noise. There is something going on faintly beneath the noise, but not much. But precisely halfway through, there is a great bit of vocal noise,  followed by a young person speaking in a foreign language. I believe it's French, but I don't speak that language, and with the white noise persisting throughout, so I'm not even sure I'm right about the language. Maybe someone out there can assist in identifying what's being said. 

Anyway, this little hunk of tape sure fascinates me. 

Download: A Remarkably Odd Piece of Tape

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And finally, those of you who have been reading my posts for the last few years know that my family uses the Christmas Card tradition to engage in a bit of performance art each year. Previous end-of-the-year posts have other examples, and now, here is the latest in the series: 

From the left, that's me, my wife with the marshmallow in her face, then our two adult kids, and on the right, the fellow who will soon be, variously, husband, son-in-law and brother-in-law to the rest of the individuals in the photo.