Even More Baseball, The "Do You Remember" Dance, The Country Music Story, and "Don't Sit On My Mother's Violin"

As I alluded to in my last post, I don't have a lot of time to write as much as I often do, or to get an acetate of the month ready, either. 

I do, however, want to make sure I refer people back to the comments about my last post. There are multiple posts explaining the details of the baseball offering in that post, and expressing a good deal of excitement over those contents. I'm glad to have shared them. There is also a shorter note expressing an equal amount of excitement over the posting I linked to, in that post, from Kyle - a post of Easy Listening Programming from the 1960's. 

There is lot of text in those comments, so I'm not going to repost them here, but I encourage you to have a look at them if that sort of thing is of interest to you. 

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I'll start with the segment that I know some people are waiting for - the remaining "Badly Recorded Baseball". This tape is considerably shorter than the one I shared last time, and at its worst, is nowhere near as bad as the worst parts of the last reel, but through much of it, there is a ton of static as well as interference from another station. But I look forward to the feedback on this one, which I'm sure is coming, and which will no doubt contain details about just what game(s) are heard here. 

Download: More (Largely Badly Recorded) Baseball, circa 1959

Play:

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Next up, both sides of a smallish reel of tape. The tape itself was a standard five inch reel, enough for recording perhaps a half-hour of material at 3 3/4 IPS, but it was two smaller reels spliced together, and the (shorter) one at the start of side one (and end of side two) was unrecorded. Side two was the more interesting of the two sides, but first.... on the recorded part of side one was the modestly (at best) interesting excerpt from The United States Armed Forces Radio Services, featuring some classical performances. 

Download: Brief Excerpt from The United States Armed Forces Radio Service

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The real (and reel) fun from this tape is on the second side, though, where some kids recorded themselves being kids. There is a brief performance of the hit song "Short Shorts", a longer segment of the song "Chances Are" - both of which likely date this tape to early 1958 - and then some general silliness. 

Download: Unknown - Short Shorts, Chances Are and Don't Sit On My Mother's Violin

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My longest offering this time around is one of those live performances I share from time to time. I don't know the name of this band, but it was undoubtedly a local dance band which played at various events, in whatever area Troy High School was/is in. I have a handful of tapes from this outfit, each one saying how many "men" worked the gig - in this case, as you can see below, it was "eight men". This is from Thanksgiving, 1956, and a dance apparently titled "Do You Remember?", if the writing on the tape box is to be believed. Travel back with me to a very different era and enjoy this anonymous dance band: 

Download: Unknown Band - Performance at Troy High, Thanksgiving, 1956 ('Do You Remember')

Play:

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In January, 1971, a series called "The Country Music Story", hosted by Johnny Cash, ran on American television. Someone recorded large portions of one episode, and here is that recording.

Download: Segments of 'The Country Music Story' With Johnny Cash, January 1971

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For my "Very Short Reel" this time around, I have a tape labeled "Interacting with a Bit of the 'Sgt Pepper' Album", and I think that sums it up fairly well. Here are a few folks, presumably at home, and presumably enjoying what was, at that moment, a still recently-new album.

Download: Unknown - Interacting with a Bit of the "Sgt Pepper" Album

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Some Great 1950's Jingles, Bobby Helms in Canada, Recording For the Fun of It, A Glee-Free Glee Club and More!

Let's start off with what I'm guessing will be the most popular offering from today's posting. This tape is labeled as being a group of highlights for someone named Joan Wile, who is featured on each of the records on the tape. Happily for all of us, these recordings turn out to be some absolutely wonderful and vintage radio jingles, from stations all around the country. The tape box had a mailing address for Ms. Wile on it (not copied in the scan, below), in a very fancy location in Manhattan, with a zone ("New York 19") rather than a zip code, marking this as being a tape from prior to 1963. Listening to these jingles, I'm guessing the late 1950's is more accurate. 

And they are simply magical. At the end of the tape, as indicated in handwriting on the box (below), and on the other side of the tape, is a single commercial, in this case for a anti-dandruff concoction with the deadly sounding name of "Dandricide". Unfortunately, this commercial is not quite complete AND has a short gap in it, as well, as you will hear. But still pretty marvelous, you-shoulda-been-there sort of stuff. 

Download: Joan Wile - Radio Station Jingle Demo Reel

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The provenance of this next item is a bit hard to discern. It is an interview with country singer and one-time (short lived) pop music star Bobby Helms (along with, briefly, his wife), by someone whose name might be Armel Shaw, which is a guess at the spelling. The interview is from Canada, and was recorded while Helms was performing in a local venue, probably in 1967. 

However, it doesn't seem to be from a single radio station. Rather, it appears to be that Mr. Shaw was a freelancer who perhaps simply recorded interviews with the stars as they passed through town and then sent the tapes out to radio stations - perhaps (again perhaps) with some sort of arrangement in place whereby they would play them, perhaps just in the hopes that they would do so. I dunno. 

After the interview the tape contained much of the contents of a 1967 Helms compilation album, followed by the brief bit you'll hear at the end, asking folks to record their comments on the interview. This seems to indicate that the tape was passed from station to station, rather than individual tapes being sent all at once to all stations (since he asks that comments be recorded only after other commenter's recordings as bypassed). A very peculiar method of getting one's work out to the listening public. 

Download: Armel Shaw - Canadian Interview with Bobby Helms, Circa 1967

Play:

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Now here's a fellow who, I'm guessing, had either a brand new console organ for his living room or a new tape recorder, or perhaps both. And, as he says (and I've titled it) he's going to try it out for the fun of it. Things get off the ground swimmingly with the most disjointed version of "Alley Cat" that you've ever heard. Near the end of this performance, he curses his playing and comments that "I started out wrong". He remained wrong, too, but doesn't seem to have noticed. This segues into an equally scattered, equally beat-less version of "Ramblin' Rose" (I do note that there definitely is a beat in the accompaniment, but there is no attempt to follow it in the melody). A short song I don't recognize follows, and then, after a brief discussion, "On Top of Old Smokey" in another tempo-challenged rendition finishes off the set. 

Unknown - Trying Out the Home Console Organ for the Fun of It, Once

Play:

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In the box for a 10 inch reel of tape I found the following concert program: 

Yes, the Vanderbilt Glee Club. I often find that Glee Clubs were, in the past at least, engaging in performances of material that have nothing gleeful about them. This would be one such example. There is no date anywhere on this sheet or the box. 

Indeed, on the tape is that exact program. Only it's not from the concert - or if it was, no one attended, or else no one was impressed enough to applaud. More likely this is a recording of the program - either of a rehearsal or a deliberately recorded run through in order to have a good copy of that program. So there is no audience. This tape is in mono in this sound clip because I do not have a machine that plays two track stereo, a fairly short-lived format which existed from about 1957 to 1960 or thereabouts. 

Download: The Vanderbilt Men's Glee Club - Undated Performance with Organ Interludes

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What comes next on that tape might actually be the second most fun item in today's posting. For the rest of the tape, we have the sort of thing I always identify as a "Hodgepodge" - a motley collection of unrelated recordings in a relatively short space of time. This material was on the rest of side one, and then on the start of side two. 

First, as soon as the Glee Club recording ends, there is a small orchestra flourish, the end of some piece. Then we seem to eavesdrop on a moment during a rehearsal of some sort. It's hard to hear, but the conversation includes a reference to a gospel reading. 

Then, at the one minute mark, someone plays scales on the piano, very heavily and loudly, in octaves, before launching into a sedate version of the hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!". And then does the octaves and the hymn again. And again. A total of six times, throwing in a short bouncy version of another hymn (which I can't think of the name of) in the middle. 

Now we're up to minute six and onto the brief recordings on side two of the tape. This section is poorly recorded, with a prominent hum (which I've minimized some). There is some bland background music playing, and a few people have a conversation about the recording they're making and the best way to capture it. After two and a half minutes, the music segues into a classical piece that I'm guessing someone will recognize, and that lasts until the other channel of the Glee Club tape (heard backwards on my machine - which I didn't include) interrupts it, and the Hodgepodge ends. 

Download: Hodgepodge Following the Glee Club Recording

Play:

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And now another entry in the David Hollister Tapes. If you don't know what these are about, I explained them in this post, and with today's post, I have now shared four of these tapes. 

This one is dated 6/4/80 and 8/3/80, and as it says of the box, its contents are apparently the practicing of three songs "for <a> contest". The three songs are "One Woman Man" (not the ridiculous Paul Anka song, but an equally ridiculous obscurity), "Travelin' Light (heard in two versions, a shorter version early on the tape, and a version with a lengthy verse at the end of the recording - the later to the two sessions, making me think that the song was expanded on in the meantime), and "Marvelous Massage". 

Personally, I find this material fairly awful - and "Marvelous Massage" to be award-winningly hideous - and I suspect that all three are someone's originals, whether Hollister or someone else. Having heard his other material, my guess is that these songs are the work of the vocalist, who is unidentified on the tape box. I will let the listener make his or her own judgments as to this vocalist's abilities.  

Anyway, I have generally enjoyed the Hollister tapes, and although I didn't enjoy this one, I thought I'd share it as another example of their contents. Please let me know if you do or don't want me to continue to delve into this collection. 

Download: From the David Hollister Tapes - Rehearsals of Three Songs, 6-4-80 and 8-3-80 - "For Contest"

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And now, here's our "Acetate of the Month". This is a ridiculous little record, featuring "The Band of America" conducted by Paul LaValle, playing "The Dwight D. Eisenhower March". Nothing actually too ridiculous about that - he was a war hero and certainly worthy of a march. But as you'll hear, the conceit here is that the man's initials were D-D-E, so the song is based, of course, on a musical phrase using those tones. Yay! Let's march! 

Download: NBC Reference Recording Acetate - Band of America, Conducted by Paul LaValle - The Dwight D. Eisenhower March

Play:

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And finally, here's a "Very Short Reel". Here we have someone reading from a book - almost certainly a novel. I haven't done a lot of digging, but with what I did do, I was unable to find what book is being read. Perhaps someone out there knows, or can figure it out: 

Download: Reading from an Unknown Book

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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"

Play:

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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

Play:

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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

Play:

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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!!!

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"): 

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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

Play:

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

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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:

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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:

Two Vastly Different Radio Shows, Film Narration, and More!

 Howdy, folks, 

I'll start with two lengthy radio recordings, representing vastly different eras and programing. The first, and by far the more interesting of the two, is a nearly complete recording of an episode of The Grand Ole Opry Radio Show. There are some huge stars of the day (and some huge country stars of all time) represented here: Marty Robbins (the "star" of this episode), Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, and Lonzo and Oscar, among others. 

Best of all - to me at least - are the commercials for Lava Soap, specifically the jingle. But I'm a sucker for jingles. 

Perhaps someone out there can date this better than me. It's certainly from late in the year, what with the repeated mentions of Christmas, and can't be from earlier than 1965, as that's when the religious album that Loretta Lynn mentions was released. I've dated it as being from December, 1965, but wouldn't mind being corrected. Also, I can't tell if this is from a broadcast on WSM in Nashville, or if that's simply where the broadcast originated. Regardless, this seems to be a line-in recording, perhaps from the station itself. The quality is excellent.

The tape concludes with a Christmas tree safety PSA, followed by the opening 90 seconds or so of "The Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree", with an indication that maybe these actually ran on Christmas Eve. 

Download: The Grand Ole Opry Radio Show, December, Possibly 1965 

Play:

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Switching genres, eras and towns, here's nearly 45 minutes from the waning days of the Chicago Top 40 / Album Oriented Rock station WDAI. More than half of this recording is the final segment of the station's "Top 20 Album Rock Countdown" 

I find a couple of things interesting here. First, one of the promos mentions that they don't play too many commercials, yet the segment captured here is positively larded with commercials. Also - presumably because one of the hit albums of the day was the "Sgt. Pepper" film soundtrack - a track from the original "Sgt. Pepper" was played, and the choice was: "She's Leaving Home". Imagine an AOR station making that choice today. 

The countdown ends at about the 30 minute point, so for the rest of the segment, you get to hear the regular programming on WDAI. For me, the commercials are by far the most interesting part. A real time capsule. 

By the way, this is from my own collection - this is a tape I made, probably in August of 1978, but possibly September. My mother later erased the earlier portions of the countdown. 

WDAI was in it's last days as a rock station. On 1/1/79, they switched to an all disco format, leading directly to the later decision, by Steve Dahl (who lost his job due to the format switch) to host "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park. 

Download: WDAI, Chicago, Album Rock Countdown, circa August, 1978

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Now, here's a peculiar tape which has been in my collection for over 30 years. It contains six pieces of music, all but the first instrumental (and that first track contains no lyrics - just a mixed group doing a variation of the sort of horrid scatting that "The Swingle Singers" polluted the airwaves with in the sixties).  

The tape is labeled "Octet II" on the side of the box. The back of the box looks like this: 

This is not my sort of music, but I'm guessing there are those out there who will find this interesting. So I'm sharing it. 

Download: Octet II - Six Songs

Play:

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Next up, yet another tape featuring narration of a presentation. But unlike the previous items I've shared of this type, this is not a slide show narration, but rather, narration of film - movies, filmed in 1963 - as can be seen in the sticker affixed to the tape: 

 

The "JWG" is the narrator, who is John W...... something. I cannot make out the last name. It sounds like this gentleman took his son and another boy, likely a close friend of his son, on a trip from Chicago to the American southwest. The label leaves no doubt anyway, but it's clear that this summer trip could have taken place no later than 1963. The story begins with a reference to the Northwest Expressway - which would be the Kennedy Expressway by the following summer.  

I'll let this play out for you, and won't spoil the story, but I will say that this is the most professional home recorded narration that I've ever heard, and this guy clearly worked to make it just about perfect. Oh, and there is one experience recounted here, in fairly gory detail, that I wouldn't wish on anyone, particularly not a teenager or pre-teen on vacation with his father or friend's father. 

I will say no more. 

Download: Slide Show Narration - Jack, Floyd and John Tour the American Southwest

Play:

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And finally, our very short reel. This five inch reel contains three 1968 commercials for "The Thunderbird Lounge", an "After midnight groovy place to go" in Las Vegas  - it was open all night! 

There is still a business by that name, but I have no idea if it's the same business that existed in 1968, or if it is, if their activities and offerings are still the same. 

These are all interesting, and definitely give up a vibe that there was something very interesting that went on at the Thunderbird Lounge, but it is the third ad, with great voice performances by Gary Owens and Stan Freberg, among others, that stands out. 

Download: Geyer-Oswald, Inc - Three Thunderbird Lounge Ads - 4-23-68

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"Acetate of the Month" will return next time. 

"Shut Up and Listen", a Few Country Tunes, the Newest in Cameras and More!

This is an intensely busy moment in my work life, but I really wanted to get a post up this weekend, so I am doing so, but my comments will be uncharacteristically brief. And as an aside, the Acetate of the Month will return in the next post. I'm just out of time....

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The big feature here - at least from my viewpoint - is a favorite tape of mine which someone made during the great Chicago snowstorm of January, 1979. 

Here we have just over an hour and a half of a radio talk show/call in show, as heard on WNUR Radio, which was and is the radio station for Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. 

I was 18 when this show aired, and if I'd known there was a show that sounded like this - free form, incredibly loose hosts, silliness and everything else you'll hear here, I would have made a point to tune in as often as possible. There should be more radio - a lot more - like this. I find this endlessly entertaining, almost intoxicatingly so. 

By the way, in the final minutes of this tape, the dreaded tape squeal comes in, at times with a vengeance. Nothing I did - including baking the tape twice, cured this reel of that issue. The last several minutes are rather hard to listen to, as a result.  

Download - "Shut Up and Listen" - WNUR, Evanston, January, 1979

Play:

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Next, here's a tape featuring just a few minutes from a Country Music station. There's some dreamy guitar, then an odd Spade Cooley offering. There's some DJ patter, followed by Skeeter Davis with the # 10 hit of the week (nicely dating this to 1961), more DJ, and finally, a country singer named Johnny Mathis (not that other one), with a song I've always enjoyed (although this version was new to me.

Download: Brief Excerpt from a Country Music Station, 1961

Play: 

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Next, here's the sort of tape which will ALWAYS resonate with me. It's a few kids, just having fun with the tape recorder. In the first segment, they try to sing a religious song without cracking up, without success, Then there is a lengthy segment in which one of the kids pretends to be a reporter at Grand Central Station, interviewing kids (played by the others who are present) who are going to ride on the trains. After a very young child sings a few songs, we have an NBC news parody, with "Chet Winkley", complete with commercial parody, as well. 

Download: Various Kids - Media Parodies, Songs, Etc., Early 1960's

Play:

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And finally, here is our "Very Short Reel" for the week. Here we have the recording of the voice-over for two television ads for new Kodak Instamatic Cameras, complete with recording studio intro and noises. It's amazing what one can do with cameras these days!

Download: Two Kodak Ads

Play:

Boy, That's a Hunk of the Ozark Jubilee!

Before getting today's two recordings, I wanted to share a question/request from a reader, which I received a few weeks ago. The writer found a stack of cassette tapes a few years ago, and mixed among recordings of lectures and of music off the radio, there were several family recordings. Nearly all of these, however, are in Japanese. The man who wrote me sounds like something of a kindred spirit to me, and he is very interested in learning about the conversations on these tapes. If anyone out there both speaks Japanese and is interested in helping out, please write me with an e-mail address in the comment sections, or contact me directly with the e-mail address which is found at the end of this WFMU post, and I will put you in touch with my correspondent.

~~

I have two completely unrelated items for everyone, today.

The first is a rare recording of what Wikipedia describes as the first successful Country Music show on network television. It's The Ozark Jubilee, hosted by Red Foley. I'm not knowledgeable enough in this era/style of music to be able to nail down a date for this episode - and sadly, whoever recorded it cut out the commercials and nearly all between-song banter, so there are no clues in that area, either. That doesn't take away from the enjoyment of hearing the sounds of music and television from a very different time and place, however.

The sound in the opening few minutes is fairly ragged. And while the overall sound never approaches excellent, or even very good, after a bit of that poor sound, it settles down into a listenable quality.

Download: Various Artists - The Ozark Jubilee
Play:

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Today's second feature is from the large pile of tapes in my basement (frequently featured here and at WFMU) which contain raw takes of various TV programs and commercials, In this case, it's 15 minutes worth, mostly made up of several repetitions of a small section of a Studebaker advertisement, apparently from the mid 1960's, near the end of that company's existence.

For most of the tape - ten minutes or so - we hear work on a single section of the ad, in which a young boy is supposed to excitedly state, "Boy, That's a Hunk o' Sumpin'!", followed by some voice over about the happy family and their new car. The reason why these two things had to be done as a single piece is a mystery to me, but that's not a surprise, as I know nothing about advertising. In the last three minutes, the voice-over man works on a short segment from elsewhere in the ad, including the Studebaker slogan, "Different By Design", a slogan which appears to date this ad from 1964.

Download: Unknown - Boy, That's a Hunk o' Sumpin'!
Play:

The Big Midwestern Hayride! PLUS, A Special Request

Here's a wonderful recording made in the early days of home-use reel to reel recording, taped directly off someone's TV some time during .

The show in question is something called "The Big Midwestern Hayride", which you can read about in a few different sites, and see short clips of on Youtube. This sounds like a pretty wonderful slice of down-home entertainment from a time and place very different from today.

But this is an entire half-hour episode, featuring a remarkable number of groups and performances for a 30 minute show. I don't recognize any of these artists' names, but perhaps someone more familiar with the country, square dance and related sounds of the era might know some of them.

It's unclear to me when exactly this would have been recorded. The show ran on both ABC and NBC at various points during the '50's, but the show which comes on afterwards (heard for about two minutes) is "Topper", which ran on CBS. So I'm guessing the airing of "Topper" was a rerun, showing on another network, at some point after its 1953-55 run. But who can be sure.

Oh, and one more thing - fans of Negativland - and in my view, everyone should be a fan of Negativland - are sure to get a kick out of the sponsor of "The Big Midwestern Hayride".

Download: Various Artists - The Big Midwestern Hayride
Play:

Okay, now here's the bonus (sic). After I posted a single excerpt from a tape of a somewhat tone-deaf  someone singing along with a country song (at the bottom of this post from one month ago), I had a request to provide the entire tape.

So... here it is! I hope you enjoy it a LOT more than I do!

Download: Unknown - Singing Along with the Country Hits
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"How About My Manufacturers Hanover Master Charge?"

Ah, what absolute tedium there is in shooting a movie or a TV show. I can't say I gave this a lot of thought for most of my life, actually. But that was before I delved into a stack of tapes I bought several years ago, most of which featured source tapes for a variety of TV and movie recordings, many of which involved the CBS TV network. I've shared a few of these before, including a sound effects reel and a Howard K. Smith interview.

Those, at least, had some sort of indication of what they were, and the sounds on those tapes were continually interesting throughout.

This tape, however, sort of amazes me. Those involved are clearly filming a TV show or movie (my guess is the former), but I can't believe the amount of sheer repetition the performers are made to go through here. Much of the tape is made up of multiple takes of an excited couple trying to get a marriage license, a scene which seemingly ends with the prospective groom running away. This is performed over and over and over again, with minimal differences between the takes - I can't believe that one of, say, the first ten attempts weren't good enough. We then move onto another scene which is repeated excessively, before returning to retakes of moments from within the first scene.

That scene does not appear to have been more than 40 seconds long, and I can't fathom how long it took to make a 30 minute show, let alone a 90 minute movie, if they spent that much time (including whatever time was not recorded, between takes) on a single conversation. Wow.

Maybe some sleuth out there can figure out what movie/show this recording was for, and perhaps we can all enjoy seeing the final cut of this masterwork.

Download: Unknown - Repeatedly Filming a Few Scenes
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Now, if THAT wasn't enough torture, here is a glimpse into a very different life indeed. Here are my thoughts: if you're feeling inspired to record your phonograph record of Johnny Cash and June Carter singing "Jackson", while you are singing along with the record - DON'T. And if don't know all the words that well - REALLY, DON'T. And if you can't sing - SERIOUSLY, DON'T.

I have no idea what the purpose of this recording would have been. This is an excerpt from a much longer tape - the person involved recorded himself singing extremely badly along with about a half hour of country hits. Was he going to enjoy this later? Send it to someone as torture?

If you want to hear the entire tape, let me know, and I'll post it, otherwise, just enjoy this lovely sample.

Download: Unknown - Singing Along with "Jackson"
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Just a Guy and His Guitar

As I alluded to in my other blog, time for doing non-required things has been very short for the last couple of weeks. I finally made time to put together a very big post at that site, using up any time I might have had here. The next time I aim for a big post, I'll probably try to make it here. But anyway, that's why it's been a bit quiet here.

And.... I hope all of you who are in the part of the world that celebrates Thanksgiving had a very nice one. I am very thankful for the wonderful feedback I've been getting to the posts on this new site so far.

Today, a sweet, simple tape which seems to date to the mid 1960's, featuring just what I said up there, "A Guy and His Guitar" (as well as a brief interruption for a recording of a hit record off the radio). The songs are all country flavored, including a number of 1950's and 1960's hits.

The "guy" in question has fairly rudimentary guitar skills, and plays songs which cover the bare minimum of chords. I don't say that in criticism - I love finding/hearing tapes of people who are giving honest, guileless performances, for their own benefit or those of a few lucky close family and friends. And in addition to that, I'll take every one of these songs and performances over any song/record which has been a "country" hit during the last 30 years. I better not get myself started on that...

I can't find any reference online to songs with the precise lyrics of the first four songs, and for all I know, they may be the singer's original songs.

Following these, we hear just the tail end of the singer's performance of Wynn Stewart's "Wishful Thinking". This is followed by Wynn Stewart's own recording of the same song, which came out in 1959, taped off the radio. The beginning of Connie Smith's "I Can't Remember", from 1965, follows, giving us the earliest possible date for this tape (Although technically, this radio recording seems to have erased some earlier recordings, and none of the other songs our singer performs are from later than 1963, so perhaps that's closer to the date of the "guy and guitar" part of the tape.)

The rest of the tape features our singer/guitarist again. When Connie Smith's song cuts off after a few seconds, we hear him singing the second half (the first half having been erased) of the Faron Young song "Country Girl", which is from 1959.

Seven songs follow, all but the last are complete. These include the traditional "Columbus Stockade Blues", Marty Robbins' "Cigarettes and Coffee Blues" (from 1963) abd "Poor Man's Riches" (a 1956 hit).

The tape finishes with versions of four huge hits. First up are two Johnny Cash hits, "Folsom Prison Blues" (complete with a bit of a Cash-styled vocal styling) and "Hey Porter". Next is Hank William's "I Can't Help It", and finally, a version of "Singing the Blues", which was first a hit for Marty Robbins in 1956, but is best known today for the pop cover the same year by Guy Mitchell (the latter, for my money, is one of the best records ever made). This performance is definitely based on the Robbins version, and unfortunately, the tape runs out before our mystery singer finishes his performance.

As I said, I love this sort of thing. I hope you do, too!

Download: A Guy with a Guitar - Country Songs
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