Two Sets of Radio Commercials, A Demonstration in Mono, A Couple of Guitarists, and a Whole Lotta Union Carbide Phone Calls

 Happy New Year, everyone, 

I'm going to start off with a version of what I wrote on my other blog a week or so ago: 

It's been more than three weeks since I've posted, and I suspect that there will be only this one post this month. I'm absolutely Captain ADHD, and thrive on keeping ridiculously busy - I'm pretty nuts when I don't have too much to do - but this last month has just swept my legs out from under me, with a couple of brief but intense illnesses, end of the year madness and work demands. I hope and intend to be back to two posts a month in February. 

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Before I get to this post's features, I want to make reference to a few comments. But first, I want to acknowledge and just generally thank those of you who have written recently with supportive, thankful and/or appreciative comments about the site in general. Those are all deeply appreciated and give me the encouragement to keep up what I do here. Thank you.  

Some specific comments that you may have missed and which shed light on things I've posted. Regarding this post, someone wrote in: 

Re: WEAM. Based on the references to a back-to-school contest and a daytime high of 84, it would appear to be from late August 1963. Specifically the week of August 23, based on the song positions on this survey matching.

http://las-solanas.com/arsa/survey.php?sv=143773

Regarding what is currently my most recent past post, "Snoopy" made the following observation, one which is very similar to something I almost wrote myself, regarding "oldies": 

Back then, 15 year old music was considered Oldies. Maybe I'm just curmudgeonly but if you played 10 songs from 2009 and 10 songs from 2024, I wouldn't be able to tell one from another. 

I would also like to refer you to this post, about which (in the comments) Eric Paddon has added a great deal of information, specifically about the WOR segment, including the specific dates of those recordings. There is too much text to copy and paste here without bogging things down, but it's very much worth reading. Thanks, as always, Eric. 

There have been a lot more, and I am quoting here (and below) from comments that are as much as six months old. That's how far behind I've gotten. I'm gonna try to be more up-to-date, going forward. 

Anyway, and finally, two frequent commenters, each of whom has his own collection of rare recordings, posted about new "old" finds that each of them has shared. 

Kyle writes: I have found a Christmas home recording from the 1950s

And "OldRadios" has uploaded a radio "Laugh-in" type show called "Funny Birds" to his site at archive.org

In the case of both Kyle and OldRadios, clicking on their names will show you further postings, including more old audio. 

Thanks, guys! 

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Okay, I'm going to start with two fairly wonderful (well, with a significant exception) advertising demo reels. The first one is from Chuck Blore and Don Richman Incorporated, a company headed by two men who seem to be considered legendary in the radio advertising field - look each of them up online. 

This tape has fifteen ads, the last of which is that "significant exception" to the wonderfulness that I just mentioned. That last one is more like a hard slap upside the head. Here's the tape box: 

Download: Chuck Blore and Don Richman Incorporated - Advertising Demo Reel

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The second advertising reel - almost exactly the same length as the first - comes from Don Piestrup, who you can also find online but who does not appear to have been nearly the "name" talent that the above two gentlemen were, although there still exists a Big Band which plays his music. 

This tape features 13 ads, and the box also helpfully guides us in what we're going to hear here: 

Download: Don Piestrup - Advertising Demo Reel

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Here's the rather esoteric front cover of the tape box: 

And the side: 

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Here's something a little different. I have shared several Stereo Demonstration tapes here - in the early days of stereo sound - which debuted on reel tape nearly two years before it became a reality on records - tape recorder companies produced demonstration reels to show off their wondrous machines and the spacious sounds they could produce. 

But before that, tape recorder manufactures also wanted to demonstrate the wonders of reel tape. And so there are some (although apparently not as many) monaural demonstration tapes out there. And this is one of them. It's from the Omegatape company. Side one of the tape provides excerpts from some of the pre-recorded tapes the company currently was offering. 

But then, on side two, there is a series of test tones to be used in some way for head alignment, then a timing test to see if your machine is running at exactly the right speed. (Either this recording was itself flawed or my machine runs slightly fast - which I don't think is the case - as the blips go by in about 58 1/2 seconds.) Highlights from more Omegatape offerings finish off the reel. 

Download: Omegatape Monaural Demonstration and Test Tape

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Here is a booklet which came with the tape: 

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Here is about 21 minutes of what I've called "A Couple of Guitarists Fooling Around and Duetting". See if you don't think that title is accurate. And sufficient as an introduction.

Download: A Couple of Guitarists Fooling Around and Duetting

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Robert W. Morgan was a hugely popular radio dj and personality from the late 1960's until shortly before his death in 1998. For a while in the late 1970's, he produced a syndicated program titled "Special of the Week". How the word "Special" was defined in terms of a program which apparently ran in a regular timeslot once a week is a mystery to me, but anyway, I came across a tape containing more than half of his episode about the band Chicago, and I thought I'd share it here. 

For all of his talk about the band's Jazz-Rock roots and status, Morgan plays precious little here of the Chicago material which falls within that genre. Perhaps it was featured in the earlier part of the program, which isn't captured here. But then again, that would have been the point at which to mention it, not while largely playing tripe such as "Saturday in the Park" and "Just You 'N Me". 

This particular broadcast was aired on WRBR, South Bend, IN, during a fundraising event for St. Jude's Hospital for Children, and there are a few cutaways for information about that event, during the broadcast. 

Download: Robert W Morgan's Special of the Week, Featuring Chicago - 11-16-80 - WRBR, South Bend, IN

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Okay, here is a tape most of you might skip over entirely but others may find weirdly fascinating. It comes from a 10 inch reel, one which only had a small amount of tape on it. But that small amount of tape contained over 100 minutes of recordings, because it was recorded at the rarely encountered speed of 15/16th of an inch per second. 

You know when you see those movies or videos in which a reel to reel machine is barely moving in the background, presumably recording the goings-on in that location? Well, those may be going at 15/16ths or even slower. And that's what we have here. 

These are calls made by and received by a couple of men who were manning the phone at some sort of business hub for Union Carbide. As someone mentions well into the recording, the company had recently installed a recording system which engaged every time the phone was picked up, whether it was for call out or a call in. 

And so, we have all manner of calls into and from the field, as well as, at one point, a call to the wife of one of the men manning the phone, as well as a few other contacts. I won't pretend to have ANY idea what it is that is being discussed - a lot of numbers, percentages, levels and such are thrown about, and a good number of people are attempted to be reached, or call back, or whatever. 

It can be sort of mesmerizing. I did not listen to this all in one sitting, and can't imagine doing so, but the entire recording is fascinating in its own way, a slice of life from an extremely specific time and place, and an unusual glimpse of some people doing some very specific jobs, the likes of which most of us know nothing about. 

(By the way, the first few calls are VERY soft, but the volume increases substantially, to a normal listening level, just after the one minute point. There are a few soft moments later in the recording, as well)

Download: Union Carbide Phone Calls

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And finally, the "Very Short Reel" for this post. This three minute segment comes from a tape wherein the rest of the recordings were exceptionally poorly recorded radio broadcasts, and I mean exceptionally poor to the point of being unlistenable (and I'll listen to just about anything on a tape) and unintelligible. 

I've called this "A Short Conversation At Home", and in it, a man records (and talks to) what sounds like a considerably older woman. Extremely innocuous conversations follow (well, except for one statement about a girl who is prettier than Gail). Then, after the machine is stopped and re-started, she is told not to whine, and then talks about what a nice voice she's been told she has, except that "it sure don't sound like it on that". My assumption is that she had just listened to the previous segment. My assumption is that she'd never heard her own voice recorded, prior to that moment. 

Unknown: A Short Conversation At Home

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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

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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!!!

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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More L.A. Radio, Jazz on Shortwave, Two Very Different Sales Presentations and The Edge of Night

First up, a quick shout out to commenter "Snoopy" for identifying that the "Reviewing Stand" episode I posted a few weeks ago is from March 23, 1964, based on the report on the death of Peter Lorre. He also made some funny observations about the WIND Top 1000 programming from a month ago. Oh, and Snoopy, that noise at 82:37 is just me being exactly who I was, much of the time, at that age. 

And thanks to both a commenter George and another, anonymous person for expressing their enjoying of my own pièce de résistance, the "Stop Playing the Tape" segment at the end of that same post. 

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I have made a decided effort, after receiving a few requests, to push to the head of the "listening" line the remaining few tapes I acquired featuring Los Angeles (well, technically in this case, Hollywood)  DJ's. This is not my typically practice, as I try my best to grab things at random to scan and see what's on them, but these are special tapes. The box for this tape claims that both of these (unfortunately brief) segments are from 1967, but one of them is clearly from 1968, given that the date is mentioned at one point - actually, I sort of took a stunned breath when I heard that date, given that it came shortly after a round-up of Robert Kennedy's political progress. May 8, 1968 - not quite a month before his death. 

Anyway, I find it interesting to note how much of these two segments are NOT made up of Top 40 music. I haven't used a stop watch or anything, but the duration of the ads and news reports seems at least to be equal to the amount of music hear here. I also got a kick out of the jingle at the very end of the Frank Terry segment, a clear ripoff of the Doublemint Gum jingle. How did they get away with THAT? 

Anyway, here are Frank Terry (on one side of the tape) and the legendary Robert W. Morgan (on the other), perhaps five months apart from each other, heard on KHJ. 

Download: Frank Terry on 93-KHJ, December, 1967

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Download: Robert W Morgan on 93-KHJ, May 8, 1968

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Due to my postings of Shortwave broadcasts, most of which have been from Australian stations, I've been in occasional contact with Thomas Witherspoon of The Shortwave Radio Audio Archive, and he has reposted several, if not all of my Shortwave postings. 

Here are two more, which I recently came across. These are both segments of episodes of "The Voice of America Jazz Hour", circa 1980, each of which features live recordings of Jazz performers in concert in Europe. I suspect that the recordings shared within this programming might be quite rare, if in fact these tapes were made for VOA and not generally broadcast or released elsewhere. However, it could also be that these performances are actually from released albums, or at least that these performances were later released. By some weird coincidence, these two segments are both 35-36 minutes, even though the show original ran an hour. 

The styles of jazz performance heard here are not at all similar the styles within jazz that 1I prefer, and I therefore know nothing about these performers nor have I tried to research them or these performances. But perhaps some of you out there have a taste for this, and I don't ever want to limit this site to things that I want to hear. If anyone has information to share about these recordings, by all means, do, and I'll pass it along. 

Download: The Voice of America Jazz Hour (over Shortwave), One Episode

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Download: The Voice of America Jazz Hour (over Shortwave), Another Episode

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The next two items both fit the definition of "Sales Pitches", but beyond that, they have absolutely nothing in common. The first is a slick piece of advertising, no doubt the soundtrack to a film, selling (the history of and) the purchase of a weapon of war as nothing less than the cost of maintaining freedom in that modern world (whenever that was - I'm guessing the late 1950's).

The weapon is the Lockheed F-104, and to hear the narrator tell it, it doesn't belong to Lockheed, it belongs to the free world, and to any free country who wants it. Price seems to be no object - somehow I doubt that. The sales pitch actually ends with several minutes extolling freedom - I don't think the product is mentioned in at least the last two minutes of this thing. A rather remarkable document. 

The opening minutes of this tape are in very poor sound quality, but this improves after about 90 seconds. 

Download: Unknown - "Wings of Freedom" - A Short Presentation on the Lockheed F-104

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From the other end of the "Sales" spectrum, here is a low-fi and low-energy presentation about all things file cabinet. 

Download: A Presentation on File Cabinet Sales, 1959

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And now, the "Very Short Reel" for this post. Here we have a couple who have apparently been enjoying (or at least watching) an episode of the seminal soap opera "The Edge of Night", catching, in this recording, the last few moments of the episode, then chatting (with the commercials turned low) about what to have for dinner (eggs, it would seem), then recording the closing credits of the show. Since the announcer mentions a change in scheduling for the following Monday, July 1st, it would seem that (based on the Wikipedia page for this show), that this recording was made on June 28th, 1963. 

Download: Meal Talk and 'The Edge of Night', June 28, 1963

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More Vintage Baseball, The 1961 Oscars, Marge and Her Songs, More from Japan and the Trip to Vegas

Howdy Doody, everyone,

Last time around, I finally provided the New York Yankees tapes which had been a subject of discussion for a month or more. And that got me to thinking about how I have my own vintage baseball recordings. 

These are not nearly as historical (or complete, for that matter) as the Yankees/Red Sox games shared last time around, but they are a piece of my own history. 

I have no memory of falling in love with baseball, but it must have been a very sudden thing. I turned nine during the much-discussed CUBS season of 1969, and have no memory of it, or the excitement it caused. 1970 must have been my pivotal year. Because by opening day of 1971, I was enough of a fan that I feigned being sick on that opening day, in order to see the entire first game of the season. I'm sure my mom knew I wasn't actually unwell, but she seems to have gone along with it. 

And what's more, I taped parts of the game - essentially, all of the innings when the CUBS were up to bat. During the recording, especially in the early innings, you will hear me chiming in with comments and outbursts, as well as very soft conversations with my mother. 

Interestingly, play-by-play man Jack Brickhouse left the game in the later innings, in order to catch a plane to Los Angeles, in order to call a game for the then-fairly-new Chicago Bulls. I had no idea that they had a very good team in what was then their fifth season, but they were in the latter stages of the playoffs, and indeed, would lose the series with the Lakers, three games to two, that very night. So Brickhouse called two games in two different sports, half a country apart, in one day. 

Here is the tape.  

Download: Chicago Cubs Vs St Louis Cardinals - Opening Day, 1971 - 4-6-71 (Excerpts)

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The next day, I raced back to the TV to capture the end of the second game of the season, which decidedly did not go the way the first game had gone. As you'll hear, Brickhouse was back to Chicago by that following afternoon, to call another Cubs game. 

Download: Chicago Cubs Vs St Louis Cardinals - Second Game, 1971 - 4-7-71 (Final Innings)

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The latest nominations for Academy Awards, for films released on 2022, were just named a few days ago. And so what better time than now to share with you this lengthy recording of what I believe to be the entire 1961 Academy Awards telecast. I can't find that this is generally available anywhere, so this may be a particularly interesting recording for some of you.

Download: The 1961 Oscar Telecast

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Here is a tape which is one of a seemingly endless group of tapes which came from the collection of someone named Marge Magenheimer. Ms. Magenheimer (I'm going to type "Marge" from now on) seems to have written a couple of songs, and the tapes in question contain endless versions of those two songs in various settings and tempos, and with various singers.

This particular tape starts with Marge introducing an exciting moment in her life, when one of these songs, "Take Me In Your Arms" (copyright June, 1954) was to be performed on the radio by a pianist, followed by that radio broadcast. Then Marge sings the song with the piano. The radio performer then plays another of Marge's songs "You're a Lucky So-and-So", and she again sings over the broadcast. I can't tell for sure if she was part of the recorded broadcast, or singing over instrumental renditions of her song. I think it's the latter - that she was singing along with either a radio broadcast or a dub of that broadcast. 

There follows an instrumental version of Marge's third song, which might be called "So Long, Baby". 

The recording than appears to switch to a live recording by Marge, accompanied by perhaps another pianist, this time everyone performing live, in another rendition of "So Long, Baby". Or maybe this is still over a tape recorded backing. Anyway, this performance (really two shots at it, back to back) goes on for approximately three days. Or seems like it. 

Download: Marge Magenheimer and Friends Sing a Set of Songs - Circa January, 1955

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Returning to a project I've been working on for several months now, probably over a year, here is yet another audio letter from our young man in Japan, circa 1967. I'm still unclear as to exactly what he was doing there - certainly a student, not so certainly a soldier, but I'll keep the identification as a "student-soldier" consistent with the previous postings. 

Download: Another Student-Soldier Tape from Japan, 9-16-67

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And now, here's a tape I just listened to this week. The tape actually has about five short conversations on it, but all but one of them are recorded so poorly (low volume) and with enough low hum that no amount of fiddling on my part seemed to be able to make them decipherable. The one section that can be heard features a few folks, one of whom is a woman named Bill (not Billie, "Bill" - that's a new one on me), discussing a trip to Las Vegas, as well as the drive home, at some earlier time in their lives. 

Download: Bill and Friends - The Trip to Vegas, etc

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Our "Acetate of the Month" could not look more bland: 

But contained on that plain black disc with its plain black label, is heard a men's singing group, performing six songs all about the Sigma Chi fraternity. Here's the entire record: 

Download: Men's College Singing Group - 6 Sigma Chi Songs - One Side

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Download: Men's College Singing Group - 6 Sigma Chi Songs - Other Side

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for this posting. The tape label promises to only provide us with a 60 second, Post-Christmas-Sale (from 1998) for "Car Stereo One" somewhere in or near Toledo, and that ad is heard, but the tape was previously used for two ads for Fritz Gifts & Collectibles Inc., of  Monroe, MI, just 20 short miles from Toledo. So left on the tape is the clunky introduction to those ads, 47 seconds of the first of the two ads, and two seconds of the second ad, so you'll hear those in sequence after the Car Stereo ad: 

Download: Car Stereo One & Fritz Gifts and Collectibles - December, 1998

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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"

~~

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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Blowout Post # 2!!!

Welcome to the final hours of September!

One month ago, I wrote a post explaining that I have an overabundance of material, some of which I don't have a lot of things to say/write about, and a periodic dearth of time to put together the sort of post I normally would like to. I proposed that at least sometimes, I would burn off ten or more items at once, with a minimum of text. The responses were fairly varied, but no one was really opposed to what I did in that post, and a few were quite enthusiastic. 

While I don't actually plan to make this a monthly thing, I am doing another of these blowout posts today, for the second month in a row. 

And heeeeeeere we go!!!

Let's start the ball rolling with my favorite of this post's offerings, a batch of commercials for Owens Community College, in Ohio: 

Download: Seven Ads for Owens Community College

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Next up, a sample of something I come across remarkably frequently - a tape that simply captures people sitting around chatting. Sometimes, it's clear that the recording was made for posterity, maybe a particularly interesting conversation, or a visit from old friends, and every voice (or nearly every one) is close to the microphone and it's clear they all wanted to be recorded. Other times, it sounds almost as if the machine was left on by accident, or that perhaps no one by the recordist knows the machine was on. Here is an example of the latter of those two types - a few minutes with some people sitting around talking:

Download: A Few People Sitting Around Talking

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And now, let's talk Milagros. I had never heard of Milagros before I came across this short audio documentary. You can read about them here. Or you can just listen to Marsha Bol and her compatriots: 

Download: Marsha Bol and Others - Life Sized Milagros

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The last time (well, the first time) I did one of these mega-posts, I wrote the following, about an audio diary: 

   I have in my collection several tapes recorded by an American couple living, I believe, in Germany, who made several trips to other parts of Europe during the late 1960's and early 1970's, and made recordings each night, while on those trips, summarizing their experiences from that day.In most cases, they used more than one reel - always three inch reels, with the thinnest, lengthiest tape available, and recorded at 1 7/8 IPS.

Here is another of these tapes, capturing elements of a tour of Norway and Sweden in the summer of 1968. This is the second tape this couple made on their tour of Scandinavia, and once I find and digitize part one, I can share that, too, if there is interest. Unlike the other tape I shared of them, last time, for this vacation, the couple's children accompanied them, and are heard on the tape: 

Download: Audio Diary - Tour of Norway and Sweden, 6-22-68

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Here's that three inch tape box!

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And now it's time for the "homely music hour". I have tons of reels like this one, featuring people who love to play and sing, even if they are not truly good at it. In this case, it's someone named Alma playing the piano, in a style I find wonderfully nostalgic, and in certain ways not unlike some of the music I play, while another someone named Gus sings in a style which might have been fashionable in the early days of acoustic recording, circa 1895-1910. It seems to me that the days when anyone would create something sounding like this are long since past. 

Download: Alma and Gus - Alma Playing Piano and Gus Singing

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Oh, and now here's something. You know that old saying about how someone or something can be "more boring than listening to a file cabinet salesman"? Wait, I guess that's not an old saying. But it should be. Exhibit A follows: 

Download: File Cabinet Salesman

Play:

(By the way, in the above segment, just past the 41 minute mark, there is two minutes of a song, followed by a short "Thank You and Farewell - I'm Moving to Houston" speech by a different person than the salesman who had been speaking earlier. That segment gets softer and softer as it continues on through the end of the tape.)

~~

And yet another genre of tape which recurs over and over again is the amateur musical performance (or rehearsal). In this case, rather oddly, the recording of a small combo, led by Bari Sax player (accompanied only by guitar and drums), is interrupted just past the halfway point by a recording (off of the radio) of a Dave "Baby" Cortez track, before it returns to the combo. They're not very good, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. 

Download: A Baritone Sax Led Combo Recital (and a bit of Dave 'Baby' Cortez)

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This next tape may not be to scintillating - unless it is being compared to listening to a file cabinet salesman - but it does have a soft spot in my heart, as it was one of the first tapes I ever bought, when I got serious about looking for this sort of ephemera. I was sort of fascinated by it, too, as it was recorded at 15 inches-per-second, a speed I wouldn't necessarily think one would choose to use to record a sign-making lecture, given how quickly one uses up the available tape at that speed. Yes, I know how geeky this paragraph makes me sound. But no doubt you already knew that, if you've spent any time here.

Download: A Sign-Making Class Lecture, 2-17-61

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The oldest recording in this week's offerings is this short series of excerpts from a Major Bowes Amateur Hour. Since Major Bowes died in 1946, this is definitely older than the other items here. 

Incidentally, I once played Major Bowes' successor, Ted Mack, in an 8th Grade review near the end of my elementary school career. I introduced "The Andrews Sisters" portrayed by the three smallest boys in our class, all of whom were in drag, and they lip synched to an Andrews Sisters' record. (I played trombone in the band for the rest of the show.)

Download: Segments of a Major Bowes Amateur Hour Episode

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~~

Okay....

Last time around, I left the longest offering - a church related segment - as the final one of my Blowout post features. This time, I'm doing it again, with a reel that was recorded, somewhere, in the early 1950's. It's a faith healing session, complete with the faith healer giving a sermon, some music, some more sermonizing and then performing his miracles. If you're up for this sort of thing, it's a pretty amazing recording. If not, well, we still have our monthly and bi-monthly features yet to come, below: 

Download: A Faith Healer Talks and Faith Heals

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". This is a sweet audio letter from two family members to two other family members. One side is addressed to Bea, and the other side to Momma. It's from November of 1940. I have combined both sides into one single track. The "Momma" side is poorly recorded, or at least has not weathered as well as its flip side, over the years. It is rather difficult listening.

Download: Bob and Ginny - Audio Letters to Bea and to Momma, 11-15-40

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Here's what that record looks like: 

~~

And finally, the "Very Short Reel" for this posting. I find it rather remarkable that I have this specific little advertisement for the Sunday Chicago Tribune. And that's because the issue being advertised contained a profile of a then-completely-unknown woman in an obscure city job, a woman named Jane Byrne. Byrne, of course, would be, by the end of that same decade, Chicago's first woman mayor. The main story advertised here suggests what might be collectable in 2015, without much accuracy. 

Download: Sunday Chicago Tribune Ad, Circa Early 1970's

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Some Rare Country Music Television, A 40th Anniversary, Walkie Talkies and THE ROCK RHYTHM SOUND!

 Hello!

My descriptions will be brief this time around. I really want to get a post out, but I usually have time on weekends to do most of my writing. But not this weekend - first Beatlefest in three years! Were you there, too? Maybe I saw you!

Anyway, I'm going to start off with what I found on either side of an ancient reel, which contains some exceptionally rare country music TV recordings. 

First up, I believe, based on the date on the tape, and on what's said during the actual broadcast, that this is literally the first television broadcast of The Grand Ole Opry. The date on the reel is June 11, 1955. Multiple online sources indicate that this show did not become a regular weekly broadcast until the fall of 1955, but that it aired once a month, prior to that, starting the previous summer. So this is the very first episode aired on television. Here it is: 

Download: The Grand Ole Opry Television Show - First Broadcast, June 11, 1955

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The flip side of the tape appears to be something far more obscure, from five days later than the recording above. It is a broadcast, clearly local rather than natural, of something called "The Hillbilly Bob Newman Show". I say "clearly local" as the host of the show actually thanks the local advertiser in his opening comments. Also, and perhaps more importantly, I can find NO reference to the existence of this show online. There are plenty of sites which feature Bob Newman, and even "Hillbilly Bob Newman", but no hits for the name of his show. Unfortunately, nearly all host and/or guest chatter has been edited out of this recording, leaving just the performances, some of them incomplete. But still, this is real time capsule and contains some mighty fine music. 

Download: The Hillbilly Bob Newman Show, June 16, 1955

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Here's a section of the tape box with the relevant information (note that it says "Grand Ole Opera"): 

~~~

And now, a completely different sort of programming. I have a tape which was used to capture several short episodes of a feature which ran on radio station WRC, in Washington, DC, during August of 1963. As it happened, that month was the 40th anniversary of that particular radio station, and, as radio stations are wont to do, WRC memorialized this event with multiple short retrospectives, during that month. My intrepid recorder, whoever he or she was, captured just over 90 minutes of that programming, on a reel of tape. 

It would appear that WRC was, for most of that 40 year period, an affiliate of the NBC network, so these highlights are decidedly LESS locally focused than I would have liked, and less than any other retrospective I think I've heard, being made up largely of "hey, do you remember this network broadcast/broadcaster". Still, it's a neat little bundle of nostalgic flashbacks, and it's worth noting that the there has now been a station in that town on that frequency (it's now WTEM) for 99 years, as of two weeks ago.

Download: WRC, Washington, DC, 40th Anniversary Features, August, 1963

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Here's a really nice insert which was inside that tape box: 

~~~

Switching gears again, for those who are just wild for those walkie-talkie conversations, here is about eleven and a half minutes of walkie-talking conversations. 

Download: A Walkie-Talkie Conversation

Play:

~~

And now to a "Very Short Reel". This is, admittedly, more than a bit of a cheat. This comes from a full length, fully recorded reel of tape, but a two minute segment of it made me smile. The second side of the tape had a recording of a full presentation, on local Chicago television, of a Mae West movie, complete with the commercials. And this Longines advertisement was heard as one of the commercial breaks. A real time capsule, and, incidentally, not at ALL what I remember Longines promoting and selling, way back when: 

Download: TV Ad for 'The Rock Rhythm Sound' From Longines

Play:

A Nice Little Variety Tape from 1953

Good day, everyone,

Before I do anything else - I truly want to thank all of you who commented about my recent computer issue and near loss of a huge amount of sound files. Thanks for the thoughts, support, stories, etc. I really appreciate it.

~~

And second - for those of you who don't peruse my other blog where I already posted this - I want to share with you a video that I made. Early in the shutdown, my church asked for happy videos - anything under two minutes - to send out to the congregation while we were alomst all spending lots of time at home.

My thought was to perform one of my favorite Ragtime pieces, a song I learned, by rote, off of an album when I was perhaps 16 or 17. As I say in the clip, I'm a sloppy pianist, but I make up for that in enthusiasm. And I've been forgetting to link to this client for two months now, so here it is. An added bonus (?) you get to see my charming visage and the rest of me, too. Click the link for the video!

A Ragtime Nightmare

~~

Today, I have something interesting and a bit different. Early on in this blog, I tended to just include the contents of one tape, or maybe two, before branching out and trying to give a varied picture of my collection, especially as I was only posting every 2-3 weeks.

Today, I'm returning to the original format, in a sense, but still offering a variety of types of recordings. Because today, I have the entire contents of a five inch reel, all of which was recorded between March of 1953 and May of 1953, in total, well over two hours worth of material - about 68 minutes per side. And there is a significant amount of variety - a school presentation, two birthday recordings, three recordings of visits with friends, and portions of three different television programs.

Now, I initially was only going to share the second side of this tape, because, you see, I previously shared the first side over four years ago, on this same site. But in reading that post, I found that I made several mistakes (I must not have had the tape box at hand at that moment), particular in mis-identifying the year of the recordings, but my editing of it was suspect, too.

Plus, I thought it would be nice to share the entire tape as it plays off the reel. So I hope you don't mind a few reruns. If you've already heard the first side, in that earlier post, you can jump down to the little squiggle, which is where the second side starts.

I will share the segments in the order in which they appear on the tape, and be briefer than usual in my introductions.

First off, and the longest segment on the tape, is a presentation given at a school. I suspect the teacher's name was Miss Olson, or Miss Olsen, but the tape box (see bottom of post) says Miss Ohlson, so that's what I've named the track. This was a sixth grade presentation on China, in May of 1953, a very interesting time indeed to be studying and presenting on China, although much of this is about history, not current events. The woman introduced at the start of this segment is almost certainly part of the family which recorded this entire tape.

Download: Miss Ohlson's Sixth Graders' Presentation on China, March, 1953
Play:

Next, we segue into a recording of a birthday gathering. If you've ever wanted to know what 13 and 14 year olds talked about (at least, with an adult present) in 1953, here's your chance to find out. Because here is Wayne's 14th birthday luncheon, a spaghetti meal on March 21, 1953.

Download: Wayne's 14th Birthday Spaghetti Luncheon, March 21, 1953
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It seems that Wayne had a younger brother, Peter, who also had a birthday in March, as the tape then moves directly to Peter's 12th birthday party. It seems extremely likely that, having been 11 and 12 that school year, he was part of Miss Ohlson's class, and likely the reason their presentation was recorded. Here's the relatively brief recording from Peter's birthday.

Download: Peter's 12th Birthday, March 1953
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The first side ends with a recording of about ten minutes featuring a recording of a visit from what presumably were some friends, identified on the label as "The Pettit's and The Blair's". Here is that segment.

Download: Visit with the Pettit's and the Blair's - March, 1953
Play:

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The second side starts with the second longest segment, labeled on the tape as "At the Epley's". This segment starts with a somewhat harder to make out conversation which I believe is about, and in response to, a slide show that everyone is watching. The tape box seems to also say "Talent Bridge" or "Jalent Bridge", so maybe they are viewing slides that tie into that writing, which I may be reading incorrectly.

This segues into some general conversation, and then there is some piano playing. Here is the segment:

Download: At the Epley's - Watching Slides, Chatting and Playing the Piano
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Next up is something completely different and I'm guessing fairly rare. It's about 15 minutes of excerpts from an episode of Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" - a quick web search identified this as being from March 29, 1953. I will let you discover its contents and charms.

Download: Toast of the Town - March 29, 1953 - Excerpts
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This is followed immediately by what I'm guessing is an even rarer segment (although much less interesting to me), ten minutes from "The Fred Waring Show" - according to the box, this is from April of 1953, meaning they erased some other material from March 29th, as that date pops back up at the end of the tape. Here is the Waring segment, which contains several songs - however, it's labeled as "The Palms" on the box:

Download: Short Excerpt from "The Fred Waring Show", April, 1953
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As we near the end of the tape, there is this brief segment identified on the box as "The Aishton's", in May of 1953, and which the tape itself makes clear is a recording of a visit with the Arthur Aishton and his family. Much is made of the accent of a child present, which is repeatedly described as a "Chicago accent". I have lived in the immediate vicinity of Chicago my entire life, and worked in the city for the last 27 years, and have never heard anything remotely like the speech pattern identified here spoken by a native....

Download: A Visit with the Arthur Aishton Family
Play:

Finally, we have the remnants of what was originally after that Ed Sullivan recording - a nightly newscast, or at least just over seven minutes thereof. Several news stories here date this broadcast to 3/29/53, so this must have been recorded on that date, then erased with the 13 minutes of Fred Waring and the Aishton's.
Here's how the tape ends:

Download: Portion of a 3/29/53 Newscast
Play:

~~

I hope you enjoyed this little trip through two months or so of 1953 in the life of one family, their friends, their classmates and their television set.

The very short reels and the Scotch Tape Box series will return next month. Before that, the third weekend in June marks something very special for me, so next weekend, I will be sharing a post unlike anything I've shared here before, the likes of which is unlikely to be repeated.

Oh, and here's the tape box for the reel that you just listened to: