Some Great Vintage PSA's, Letter from Akron, 1961 TV, Working on Songs, a Short Interview, Christmas in May and More Comments

Greetings!

Before I get to these week's offerings, I'm going to finish getting caught up with some of the great comments I've received lately. If I didn't get to yours, I apologize. And if you're not interested in these comments, just skip down to the squiggle. 

After my posting of multiple recordings of Antony Bilbow (all of which you can hear by scrolling through this link), an anonymous commenter shared this brief interview with the great Rowan Atkinson, conducted by Mr. Bilbow, so now you can see him and hear him. 

Another anonymous poster, responding to my offer to repost anything from the WFMU site, asked for a baseball broadcast from 1954. But that broadcast was actually listed at this site and is still available, in a posting from the earliest days of this site - in fact, it was my fifth post here.  

From one of those posts containing Mr. Bilbow's work, I also included an instrumental version of the "Top Cat" theme. Matt offered up this comment: 

This Top Cat bed was the real deal as my friends father worked at Taft which controlled Hanna Barbera at the time.

I posted a brief excerpt of the end of the broadcast date at WHFS in this post. about a year ago, and another anonymous poster shares that: 

The music played while the WHFS announcer closes his programme, and looks ahead to the next one, is called 'Hey Professor!' written and performed by Otto Cesana & his Orchestra, with soloist Bernie Leighton.

In response to a post which included some jingles sung by Joan Wile, I received this comment: 

Joan Wile is/was a notable composer of off-boadway musicals, jingles, a cabaret performer & social-justice warrior grandmother. https://joanwile.blogspot.com/

A year ago, in this post, I featured a tape labeled "Mood Music for Motion Pix", and got this quite interesting comment (slightly edited here) in response: 

The insert notation for the Music For Motion Pix are recorded from a then commercially available (1959/60) disc of Portuguese music which appears on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/1064705086?ev=bp_img The rest of the tracks have been recorded from various 10" LPs issued by the London-based KPM Music Library. These LPs are known as the KPM Brownsleeves. The composers are well-known library music (aka mood music) composers and the music is still available 65 years later , albeit digitally. 

In the midst of this long post, I included some radio from Kingsport, TN. My online pal Sammy (who I usually see over at my other blog), offered up the following information: 

I heard a couple of commercials with a young George DeVault, who later became president of the Holston Valley Broadcasting Corporation - which has WKPT radio & TV, as well as several area radio stations it has acquired over the decades - until his retirement in 2017.

Frequent contributor Eric chimed in for a second time on an older post (one which featured our sweet, beautiful and much missed kitty cat), with some interesting thoughts about who may have recorded "Your Hit Parade": 

The aircheck for this appears to be WTEN-Albany, based on the "Channel 10" declaration and the plug for a showing of the movie "Yolanda And The Thief". This likely indicates that the original recorder of this was Pat Rispole, who recorded tons of radio and TV from the Albany area on his reel to reel machine (primarily baseball broadcasts) from 1957 to his death in 1979.

Another frequent commenter, Chad, has offered up information on the two tapes of Steelers football that I have shared recently (here and here). Regarding the long post of a full game, with bits of other games afterwards, he wrote: 

The games on the other tape are not what's indicated on the box. The first portion is the end of the first half of the season opener Steelers vs. NY Giants from September 15, 1968. At about 10:20 it switches to Steelers vs. St. Louis Cardinals from November 13, 1966. Then at around 11:55 it switches to postgame coverage of the season opener Steelers vs Browns from September 26, 1959. All three of these games were Steelers home games, by the way.

And then regarding the end of the game I posted last time, he wrote: 

This is an absolutely incredible find! The announcer is Joe Tucker, who was the first Steelers radio broadcaster and continued up through 1965. He also called Pirates baseball and college football as well. I can only find two circulating clips of Tucker calling Steelers games: another partial game from 1955 and his visit to the broadcasting booth in 1981 where he joins Fleming and Cope. Despite a 30 year career with the team he's not well known and not in the team's Ring of Honor likely because there's so little preserved from his long tenure. So this is another absolutely incredible find!

Interestingly, after the game ends and the catchy Duquesne Beer commercial (another great find!) - there's a few seconds of coverage of *another* game: Coach Buddy Parker arguing with the officials after a 28-24 loss to the Eagles. This very brief snippet has to be from October 11, 1959. So whoever was taping these broadcasts was reusing the tapes regularly.

Incidentally, I have been in contact with the host of the McMillen and Wife website, which is dedicated to Steelers football, and he has synched up my recording of the Immaculate Reception game with the video from that game, which you can view here.  I don't recall who referred me to this gentleman, but whoever did, I thank you. 

And thanks to everyone who stops by and comments, as well as everyone who stops by and doesn't comment. I get a real joy out of sharing these sounds and I hope you get the same joy in experiencing them. 

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I have a great little item to start the show today. This is a tape I found that was chock full of PSA's from the 1960's. They start off seemingly at random, but eventually some themes show up, including multiple PSA's about seat belt use (a rather new thing at the time), some other ones about littering,  and even more about fire prevention. Be on the lookout (or the hear-out, I guess) for a couple of PSA's featuring the second best folk group in history (second only to the Weavers), The Limeliters with two different versions of a Smokey Bear number. But even beyond them, the famous voices, named and unnamed, crop up over and over again, in this most enjoyable string of radio blurbs. 

Download: Various Artists - A Series of PSAs on Various Subjects

Play:

The tape box was extremely descriptive, by the way: 

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Now, here is a lengthy but rewarding audio letter from a man to someone named Crystal. Their relationship is not clear to me (maybe someone out there will pick up on something I missed), but it's a very thoughtful outreach - he's offering feedback, advice and insights from his life to someone younger than him, someone he cares about very much. If you're into such things, this is a really good audio letter to listen to. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Man in Akron to Crystal - Reflections on Several Subjects

Play:

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A tape I recently listened to had some very fragmentary bits of an Ed Sullivan show, including his yearly introduction of the All American college football team for 1961, which includes one name which would become very famous in the coming years. 

Download: Fragments of an Ed Sullivan Show. 12-3-61

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The Ed Sullivan segments were followed by a longer, and not nearly as choppy, recording of part of Red Skelton's show from a few weeks later. I have heard, over the years, about how beloved this performer, and his show, was, and also, how he became angry and frustrated when his show was cancelled and how this affected his later years and the release (or lack thereof) of his material on home video. 

Given the affection people have for the man and the show, I hope this excerpt is an aberration, because it is simply God-awful, the worst of old-timey sit-com and variety show tropes and stereotypes. Your mileage may, of course, vary. 

Download: Segments of The Red Skelton Show, 12-26-61

Play:

This tape box was even more expressive of its contents: 

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I return now to the David Hollister tapes. If this is of interest, please click the David Hollister link below this post and you will find every Hollister post I have shared so far. 

In this episode, he is working with what is described on the tape box as a "Client (Girl) on a few songs. What makes this tape a bit livelier is that partway through, the muffled sound of a thunderstorm can be heard raging outside. But the rehearsal itself has enough interesting moments, I'm sure, to entertain those who are entertained by such things. 

Download: David Hollister and Client (Girl) Working on Three Songs During a Storm

Play:

And here's part of that tape box: 

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Here's a tape I labeled "Interview with German Chancellor", when I listened to it a year or two ago. And that's all I know about it and all I have to say. 

Download: Interview with German Chancellor

Play:

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And now, for a Very Short Reel. "Christmas in July" is a cliche, a common trope used by many, but how about "Christmas in Mid-May"? Here is a short recording of some children, clearly made at some sort of Christmas gathering

Download; Some Kids at a Christmas Gathering

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Danny Thomas at Tahoe, A Young Family at Home, One More Set from Antony Bilbow, Even More Hollister, Badly Recorded Top 40 and the New Lux Lotion Bar

I hoped to have this up in a more timely fashion, but I was gone for a weekend and then extremely sick for part of the following week. I hope to have yet another post up before the end of the month. But this one was sort of thrown together. I hope you find it worthwhile. 

First up, and perhaps of interest to at least some of the media-sound-collectors out there, is a recording of an episode of "The Danny Thomas Hour", which ran during the 1967-68 season on NBC and was apparently not much of a success. Each week was a different format - drama, variety, comedy - and on 2/28/68, the host presented a hour of his live act, recorded in Lake Tahoe. There does not seem to be any recording of this out there, audio or video - if there is, I didn't come across it. 

Personally, this sort of thing drives me up the wall, and I fail to understand how it was ever popular. But popular it was, and I know there are people who still love this stuff. And objectively, I recognize that this is by far the most "collectable" thing I'm sharing today, and probably recently, so it deserves the lead-off spot. And so, for those who will like it, here is that tape: 

Download: Danny Thomas at Tahoe - NBC-TV, 2-28-68

Play:

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I have, on two previous occasions, shared portions of a tape I found which contains four tracks of a man named Antony Bilbow reading stories on the BBC. Click on his name to see the previous two offerings, as well as this one. At least a few people asked to have more of these, and today I am offering up the third of the four channels on that tape. 

Download: Antony Bilbow - Stories on English Radio, Volume 3

Play:

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As I often say here, recordings Top 40 Radio from its golden era are considered precious to many folks out there, and I count myself in that number. In my last post, I featured part of a countdown show from WILS, Lansing. Now I have something considerably less wonderful, from the same collection. Both shares were from three inch wonders, tapes which contain far more recording than one might think such a small item could hold. The problem with today's offering is the resolutely awful sound quality, and again, there is only some of the deejay patter, making these recordings less valuable than many others. Oh, and like many of the machines which were designed to record ONLY those three inch reels, the recording speed was extremely variable, depending on how much tape was left on each side of the reels. 

Unlike the previous offering, this is not all from one broadcast, although there are some countdown items here. And not everything here is from WILS, but most of it is, and I can't make out for certain what the other station(s) heard is/are. Oh, and the last few minutes heard here are from yet another three inch reel that came from the same collection, one which only had a few minutes of recording on it. 

Download: WILS, Lansing, Michigan, Circa Late 1964 and Early 1965

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And now it's David Hollister Time again. I don't want to repeat myself each time I bring up his name, but the explanation for these tapes is at the start of this post, and this link will take you to all of the Hollister tapes I've shared so far. 

Today's Hollister tape has two separate sections. The first part seems to be a rehearsal for something called AORN show, from 3/2/76. I don't know what that was. It starts with multiple takes of a brief parody of "Love Will Keep Us Together". The rest is some sort of short play, performed largely straight through, with a few breakdowns. I will let you discover whatever you find to be its highlights/lowlights/charms, depending on your opinion of the material. 

Download: David Hollister and Others - AORN Show, 3-2-76

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The remainder of the tape has a pianist - presumably the composer - and a singer, running through multiple takes of a song called "Footsteps in the Snow". This is a very Broadway-esque number, as some of the other material on these tapes has been, and as such, is just as much not my thing as that Danny Thomas material up there. But your mileage may vary. 

Download: David Hollister and Singer - Rehearsing 'Footsteps in the Snow' - 6-2-76

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Now here's something I absolutely love - worth 1000 Danny Thomas stage shows. I've called this "A Young Family At Home", and it is simply about 34 minutes with a loving family, enjoying being together. The child heard the most during this tape is remarkably well spoken for someone who seems to be extremely young, and the whole thing is just one charming moment after another. The tape ends oddly, with a short, unrelated recording of something that many of us used to interact with from time to time, but which I'm sure no longer exists. 

Download: A Young Family At Home

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Time for a "Very Short Reel". This is simple enough - some folks spending a few minutes making a commercial for Lux Lotion Bar

Download: Making a Lux Lotion Bar Commercial

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A Whole Lotta Hard-To-Hear Baseball, Some Cello Music and THE LAND OF OZ

First, I want to thank all of the people who wrote in, asking for more baseball, regardless of the sound quality. Your wish is my command. See below. 

Today's post has fewer items in it, but just as much in terms of length of recordings as have other recent posts. There are some things going on in my personal life which may impact just how much time I have to give to sharing and writing here for the next month or more, so the long baseball feature comes in handy. The next post may well be one of those blowout posts where I share a bunch of stuff without having much to say. 

I also want to share a couple of comments. First, with regard to the tape I shared in my last post, featuring a remarkable number of non-hits and near-musical-mysteries heard on (and taped from) powerhouse Top 40 station, WINS, Ken said: 

Here's a theory about the wide variety of music and number of obscurities on that WINS Tape. Back then I would tape songs off AM Radio in the same way, cutting out the DJ patter wherever possible. Not only that but it would get to the point every so often where I'd only "need" the more obscure records and only tape those, i.e I already had all the hits on tape. It's quite possible the taper was doing the same thing.

And then Kyle, who has been doing much the same sort of thing that I do, offered up links to his latest finds: 

I have 2 home recordings one of WLS-FM and a home recordings of Christmas from 1948 shared with permission of one of the family members the links are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vLlh1Dl7kQ and the WLS recording is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qnOlwoHPq8 

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Rather than begin with the baseball, I'm going to start with the tape I listened to this month that I personally found the most interesting. The only writing on the box appears on the side: 

And the contents of this 10" reel tape were consistent with that description. For this tape contains a two-part, one hour dramatization of the second of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, The Marvelous Land of Oz, very clearly made for radio broadcast at some time and in some place. I am not familiar with this book, although this version of it does intrigue me enough that I might consider reading the Oz books. But according to the summary on that Wikipedia page, everything heard in this dramatization does occur in that novel, although some events have been moved around in time, and large chunks of the story have been deleted entirely, a necessity, I'm sure, when working within an hour framework.  

I don't know that I think this is very good, per se - the performances are sort of ham-fisted and even the recording quality is not all that good (the opening few minutes are marred by some worn tape - I'm not talking about that section, just the overall mix). There does seem to have been some money put into this, judging from the quality of the music - although much or all of that that could have been from stock music cues.

One thing that's interesting to me is that there is nothing in this recording, or the box, that explains when or where, or for what station(s) or other purpose, this recording was made. I'd sure like to know. Anyway, it's a fun listen and I hope you enjoy it. 

Download: Unknown Radio Troupe - The Land of Oz, Act One

Play: 

Download: Unknown Radio Troupe - The Land of Oz, Act Two

Play: 

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Now for the tape which a half-dozen of you asked for. Two posts ago, I shared some vintage Artificial League (AL) baseball broadcasting, featuring the White Sox and Tigers, from 1962, and I mentioned that I had a LOT of truly horrific sounding baseball from the same era. I wasn't going to share it, due to the sound quality, but was begged to. Okay, but you were warned!

Here is what I wrote to my closest friend, back in January and February, when I first scanned this tape: 

I have come across a tape which has the endings of a couple of radio broadcasts of Detroit Tigers games from 1961 - 4 20-61 and 4-21-61 so far (haven't listened to all of it yet). Just the final innings of each for some reason. 

However, the recording quality is TERRIBLE. The signal is weak - so weak you can't make out what's being said at times - and during large parts of it, there is interference (or perhaps some sort of double recording) of a different game entirely. As I've listened more to that baseball tape, the "interfering" broadcast has gotten louder than the Tigers broadcast (after the Tigers' game - it seems to be a recording of whatever followed the game), and now I can tell it's Big Ten Baseball - first day of the Big Ten matchups season, Illinois Vs. Indiana. Presumably also 1961, although I could easily be wrong. so that at moments you are listening to two sports broadcasts at the same time at roughly the same volume. 

The above notes were written before I finished listening to the tape - the first paragraph was written after listening to a shorter segment of it, and part of the second paragraph was an addendum after listening to more of it, but I'm pretty sure I was not done with it at that point - it is, after all, nearly two and a quarter hours long. At this point, I don't recall exactly what's on there that isn't captured in those paragraphs - although I do recall that in some later segments it's VERY soft and trying to boost it made no real difference, at least to me (perhaps you'll have more success). I just know that I'm not going to listen again!

But for those of you for whom this is manna from heaven, enjoy!

Download: Badly Recorded Baseball, circa 1961

Play:

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And finally, another entry from the David Hollister Tapes. If you don't know what this is about, please click on that lit-up phrase, which will bring up the first post in this series, and which will explain it. Short version - I have been gifted with a box of many tapes which belonged to - and contained the works of - a late composer named David Hollister. 

In this particular reel, we are treated to what are apparently outtakes from a recording session made for something related to "Bremen Coffee", perhaps a commercial for that company? I really don't know. The cellist's name is shown on the tape box, that portion of which is reproduced here:  

Please note that this is NOT the performance tape!

Download: From the David Hollister Tapes - "Bremen Coffee" Cello Music - Outtakes

Play:

Please let me know if you would continue to want to hear these tapes - or if you would prefer not to, for that matter. I've already listened to the next one I pulled out of the box, and it had some VERY interesting material, so I will at least be sharing that one, but if there is no interest, I don't have to continue this particular series, much as I'd like to....

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The Very Short Reels feature will return in my next post. 

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

Play:

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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

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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

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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"

Play:

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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

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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

Play:

Vintage TV Variety with George Gobel, Some Paranormal Material, The Piano Man, A Few Minutes with Sonja, More David Hollister and Cracking Corn

 Greetings!

I like to get two posts out every month, and this being the night of the 31st, I am speedily putting this one together, so I won't have too much to say. 

Vintage television programming seems to be among the more popular things I offer here, so here's something fun: The George Gobel show for the last week of 1958. George Gobel, I suspect, is largely forgotten today by anyone under 60 years old, but he was quite popular in the 1950's and into the early 1970's, had his own variety show, and appeared frequently on the tonight show and other talk and variety shows, including a stint on The Hollywood Squares. 

This episode was a bit of cross promotion, with the entire cast of "Leave It to Beaver" appearing on the show, as well as Eddie Fisher and Maureen O'Hara, among others. This recording is of the entire show, complete with commercials, so enjoy a flashback to nearly 66 years ago. 

Download: The George Gobel Show, 12/30/58

Play: 

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I really don't know anything about this next recording. It is from the same tape from which I took the most recent recordings of Jack Eigen and the recordings I posted last month featuring Arthur Godfrey. meaning that it is from sometime around June of 1969. It is a documentary exploration of the paranormal. 

Download: Paranormal Radio Show, Circa June, 1969

Play: 

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Now here is a fairly lengthy tape which may well put you to sleep, or else perhaps you'll find it interesting, entertaining, soothing, who knows. This is a tape, seemingly from the very early 1980's, in which a man plays the piano and runs through a whole bunch of piano-man type songs. There are standards from way back when, songs I don't recognize, and songs which, at the time, would have been quite recent. 

This comes from the very same tape which featured "The Bob Terry 50th Birthday Party", which I shared one month ago, so it's quite possible that this is also Bob Terry, but I have no proof of that, so I'm not labeling it as such. 

Download: A Piano Man Runs Through His Repertoire

Play: 

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This next tape, all of eight minutes long (exactly) features a little girl named Sonja (or perhaps Sonya) singing some of her favorite songs and telling a few stories. I'm sure this is fingernails-on-a-blackboard for some people, but I love this sort of stuff. I'd listen to this all day before I'd willingly spend time listening to the piano man I shared above. 

Download: Sonja Sings, Tells Stories and Talks

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For this next tape, I refer you back to my first post about David Hollister, the composer whose tapes I have been gifted with. This is the third tape I've shared from that Hollister collection, and the second which has a variety of recordings on it. 

This tape box has stuff written all over it. Here is the back of the box and the two panels from inside the box: 

I am truly rushing this post out, so I have not taken the time to try and match up what's on the tape with what's on the box - some of the writing above seems to contradict what other parts of the box say is on the tape. And it's only a 50 minute tape - I'm not at all sure it lines up with the writing completely, and perhaps not at all. Perhaps someone out there will figure it out for all of us. 

Download: David Hollister Variety Tape # 2

Play: 

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The "Very Short Reel" feature is taking this post off, but I do have an "Acetate of the Month", and it's a "Very Short Acetate of the Month". This is from a "Voice-O-Graph 6 inch acetate, which was typically a record that you could make in a booth at a restaurant or a department store of the like and take home with you. I've written before about how we made one in downtown Chicago with my beloved grandmother and managed to damage it beyond repair before we got home. 

Anyway, here we have some kids singing a song I don't recognize, followed by a few chorus of the "Jimmy Crack Corn" section of the song "The Blue Tail Fly", sung to a melody I also don't recognize. It's all of 63 seconds long. 

Download: Voice-O-Graph 6 Inch Acetate - Unknown Song and The Blue Tail Fly

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Vintage WOR from Fall, 1962: Beautiful Music, Long John, Jean Shephard and News, Plus Bud's Kids and More David Hollister

For the third post in a row, I am largely featuring one very long tape. This one will be quite magical, I think, for a good number of people who come to this site. Because after a short segment of home recorded material (which I quite like), the remainder - over five hours of it - contains vintage recordings of WOR radio in New York, including a bit of Beautiful Music-esque programming, a whole lot of Long John Nebel, and sandwiched between those Long John segments, a vintage newscast and nearly an hour of the much beloved Jean Shepherd. All of this except for the opening segment are from a couple of nights in the fall of 1962. 

Without further ado.....

The tape begins with a short segment, recorded most likely several years after the remainder of the tape. On the box, this is labeled as being "Bud's Kids". It starts with a child singing a few things (including the Nationwide jingle still used today), then segues into another child interviewing people (a younger child and an adult), largely about pollution. This very obviously erased about eleven minutes of what was originally on the tape. 

Download: Bud's Kids - A Bit of Singing, Pollution Talk and More

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As soon as the kids are done, we are transported back to 1962. The talk radio segments make it clear that it was the fall of that year, what with talk of the upcoming mid-term elections and conversations about the 1963 cars, among other things - a few ads for TV presentations which appear to have been from 1961 (including a show starring Leslie Neilson), would have to have simply been reruns. There is no way these conversations are from 1961. 

But before all that, we are treated to a few minutes of Beautiful Music, or something approaching it, at least, on a show called "Music from Studio X". 

Download: WOR, Fall, 1962 - Music From Studio X

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That show goes straight into a long (no pun intended) segment of the Long John show, hosted by Long John Nebel. I have posted Long John material once before, and post, with more text about him, and a link to more information on him, can be found here. In this particular episode, the main guest is a representative of the  B'nai B'rith, as well as several other religious leaders and spokesmen, for a wide ranging discussion centered on religion. 

I enjoyed the fact that no one could call into Long John's show, but instead, had to submit telegrams to him, via a downstairs office, which would then be brought to him. 

But the chintzy commercials here may be my favorite part of this recording, particularly the collection of 50 great melodies from classical music on two LP's - lowbrow music appreciation masquerading as highbrow art. I am reminded of the fantastic parody of this product, which that WFMT, the classical station in Chicago, did in the mid-1960's, called "Great Square Inches in Art", where you got God's finger from the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa's smile. 

Download: Long John on WOR, Fall, 1962 - Religion and Related Subjects

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That recording takes up the remainder of side one, and part of side two. The moment it's over, we are taken to another evening from the same time period, and this time, we hear a newscast and then, the deeply beloved, even revered Jean Shepherd takes over for the rest of the hour. You can read about him here, including how he had few if any advertisers for a time, and almost lost his job. Sure enough, there are no commercials in this more than 45 minutes of radio performance. 

I had never heard Shepherd before this. Honestly, I had avoided him, because I linked him in my mind as the writer of the stories which became "A Christmas Story", a much beloved film which I watched once with my family - all of us found it to be wholly awful. Obviously, your mileage may vary, and taste in movies and and humor is as enormously varied as can be. But despite its reputation for verisimilitude, I didn't find a moment of it believable, endearing or funny. So, as much as I dived into Bob and Ray and other contemporaries of Shepherd, I took a pass. 

That was clearly a mistake. This segment is mesmerizing. He does not seem to know or care exactly where he's going, or how he's going to get there. Stories lead from one into another and the outcome - and when it's going to arrive, is always in doubt. This is pure magic, and just about as entertaining as anything I've ever posted here.  

Download: WOR, Fall, 1962 - Newscast and Jean Shepherd

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The tape ends another 106 minutes of Long John, the episode which immediately followed the above Jean Shepherd segment on some long ago 1962 overnight. In the case, the subject is cars, something I rarely need to hear a group of people talk about (with the exception of Tom and Ray, who worth hearing because they were Tom and Ray, not because they were talking about cars). 

Download: Long John on WOR, Fall, 1962 - Car Talk

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By the way, here's all it says on the box: 

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Okay, so two months ago, I shared the very exciting news that I had been gifted with a box full of tapes that had belonged to a composer named David Hollister. Read all about the gift, the tapes and the composer here. 

Today, I'm offering up the contents of the second tape that I grabbed out of that box. The writing on the back of this box looks like this: 

This tape was pretty much a mess. Recordings start and stop, sometimes in the middle of musical phrases, and the next recording picks up 15 seconds or two minutes later, with backwards material from the other side coming through in the mean time. Segments seem to end haphazardly, there is an introduction of a program of materials written by Mr. Hollister, material which seems to have already been heard on the other side of the tape, none of which follows the introduction! This tape is all over the place. I have edited it down to one continuous segment of what appears on the tape, in the order it appears on both sides, with all of the backwards material edited out. 

There is all sorts of material here. For my money, if you want to hear what's really interesting, jump to the 22:30 point and listen to most of the last ten minutes of this tape, wherein a baritone sings with piano accompaniment. This material starts fairly normal but becomes more and more esoteric, and finally, downright bizarre. By minute 25, the pianist is performing a playful series of rather ugly combinations of keys, and the baritone's singing features fart sounds and nonsense syllables. More odd vocalizing follows, but none of that prepared me (or will prepare you) for the song which ends this segment, and which runs from 30:40 to 32:08. And that is ALL I'll say about it. 

Download: David Hollister and Others - David Hollister Variety Tape # 1

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And finally, today's "Very Short Reel". If you can figure out why this 139 seconds of tape was recorded, you are more observant and clever than I am. Herein, a man narrates an extremely short slide show presentation, featuring someone named The Right Reverend Richardson Reid. Perhaps I am spelling it or hearing it wrong, but I can find no reference to him. 

Download: Very Short Slide Show Narration - The Right Reverend Richardson Reid

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Some Esoteric Short Film Music, A Hopeful Rock DJ, Paris and Munich, George Wallace Campaigns and Wally Cox Sells a Soft Drink

Before I get to this week's multitude of items, I wanted to encourage folks to have another look at my last post, specifically the comments. I will not repeat them here, but reader/listener Kyle, who I mentioned in that post, has again linked to some interesting sounds which have been posted by others, particularly at the site at finnley.audio. There are also two comments shedding a bit more light on singer Malcolm Dodds, who's demo of a song was featured in that point. 

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Okay, so I'm going to start with something perhaps a little esoteric and which comes in four parts, but with this posting, I want to acknowledge a great gift I have been given, as well as offer thanks for a previous, similar (if smaller gift). For there is a dedicated reader/listener out there named Charles, who has now, on two occasions, come across a stash of interesting reels, bought them, and then sent them to me (free of charge!), for my perusal and enjoyment. 

The first batch - which I think was between ten and twenty tapes - came my way over 18 months ago, and had been the property of, as Charles said, "a now deceased sound engineer at WABC-TV". I have featured at least a couple of these tapes here, including that Japanese language material I posted last month. But many of the tapes are still sitting where I put them upon their arrival, waiting to be heard. Such is the volume of tapes that I have. A very belated public THANK YOU to Charles for those. 

Charles has not gone at least one better. Perhaps 15 better, perhaps 100 better. I'll have a better idea after I listen to more of the tapes. Because he has purchased, and sent me, dozens of tapes which belonged to a late composer by the name of David Hollister. You can read about him here. Not only that, he has put me in touch with the relative who inherited and who sold him these tapes. She has more tapes, which she is willing to share with me, as long as I make MP3's of them, and she authorized me to share what I find on the tapes. 

So it is that I grabbed a tape off the top of the batch at random and gave it a spin on the ol' reel to reel spindles. I found its contents absolutely fascinating, and hope you will, as well, although I acknolwege, again, that the word esoteric comes to mind. But hopefully I am wrong about that. 

The tape box made it clear that the tape contained two different potential soundtracks for a film called "Organism" made by Hilary Harris. On the first side was what was apparently an original composition, using a variety of common and uncommon instruments (see the box, below). On the second side was a different conception for the soundtrack, a collage of existing electronic music, composed by a variety of composers. Both were created during the last week of January, 1975, one week apart. Here is the box:  

The finished film, which is just over 19 minutes long (a bit longer than each of these proposed soundtracks, can be found in a few different places online, including this one.

Here are the two soundtracks: 

Download: David Hollister - First Tape for Hilary Harris' Film 'Organism' - 1-24-75

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Download: David Hollister - Second Tape for Hilary Harris' Film 'Organism' - 1-30-75

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After the second of these, there was a brief section of microphone tests and piano playing, which I am assuming - perhaps incorrectly - also feature the composer, David Hollister. I am including this  brief segment, and the one following it, for completion sake. 

Download:  (Presumably) David Hollister - Microphone Tests and Piano Playing

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Following that, and until near the end of the reel, is heard the last several minutes of a live performance of an orchestral work, complete with applause at the end. The rest of it had clearly been erased by the material above. Again, I'm assuming this is a work by the same composer, but I could certainly be wrong. Perhaps if so, someone knows what this very interesting piece of music is. The odd part is that, early on in this fragment, someone cut into one channel to insert a few moments of two very familiar pieces of music, one being about as classic of a pop hit as you can get, and the other being a well-known moment of classical music, heard twice, first at a different speed as the live performance, to boot. After those two interruptions, the live performance is heard without further interference. 

Download:   Fragment of a Performance of an Orchestral Work, Presumably by David Hollister

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Thank you so very much, Charles. This is beyond kind and thoughtful and I am immensely grateful. Tomorrow is my birthday - it'll be "When I'm 64" - and this was a wonderful gift, despite not having been intended as such. 

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Here's the sort of thing that always appeals to a good percentage of readers of this site - a Demo Reel from a DJ. In this case, he's Lance Shepherd, and I've been unable to find out much of anything. He had clearly, around the time of the excerpt shared here, worked in a variety of genres, and as he tells someone named Mike, to whom he directs some comments at the end, he really wanted to "get back into rock". Here's hoping he did. 

Download: Lance Shepherd - Demo Reel

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Here's a real oddity (or, if you prefer, a reel oddity), or at least it strikes me that way. When Canada Dry wanted to introduce their new soda pop, Sports Cola, in 1968, they turned to that well known pitchman.... Wally Cox. Now I grew up loving Wally Cox (Hollywood Squares, Underdog, and, for an earlier generation, Mr. Peepers), but he doesn't strike me as having had the greatest of sales-pitch voices or personality. But perhaps that was the joke. 

I am also amused by the sales pitch connected with this product, which was that it has virtually no caffeine. I somehow doubt that would be a big draw today. 

Anyway, in this 30 plus minute recording, Wally and his cohorts go through an inordinate amount of takes to get the ad just right. Of course, we're only hearing the sound - maybe someone kept doing something wrong visually. But the ad isn't particularly well written. Actually, the ad copy for the first section - which they work on for about ten minutes (!) - is some of the worst I've ever  heard. But again, maybe they were going for comic effect. But the sheer number of takes here is mind-numbing. 

You can find a couple of Wally Cox' Sports Cola ads (not this one), here.

If you'd like to invest 45 seconds in a little more homework, type in Wally Cox Best Friend into Google and see who was Wally's best friend, who was also the person was who considered Wally his best friend (and who, after Wally's death kept Wally's ashes with him for the rest of his life). It is not who you might expect. 

Download: Wally Cox Records a Commercial for Canada Dry Sports Cola

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I've done a whole lot of typing about the items I've shared so far, so I'm going to dial it back for the last three. Here is a couple, living in Europe, who returned from a vacation, and described their experiences for posterity in an audio diary. I have featured this couple before, in other tapes made during their travels across other parts of Europe, but this one seems to have been made upon their return home.

Download: Reflections on Our Trips to Paris and Munich, 1968

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On a three inch reel, recorded at the slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS, I discovered recordings which were largely of a 1968 episode of The Smother's Brother's Comedy Hour. Sandwiched into the middle of these recordings, however, was the polar opposite of that show, politically, entertainment-wise and just about any other way you might want to look at it. It was a promotional piece about George Wallace and his 1968 Presidential Campaign, followed by a segment of one of Wallace's speeches. Then it was back to the Smothers Brothers. Here is that segment. 

Download: George Wallace Promo and Segment of a Speech, Summer, 1968

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And now for the "Very Short Reel" for this post. This reel, at over six minutes, stretches my concept of what "Very Short" is by more than a minute, but I've been wanting to share it, and I don't have anything else as good as this, and under five minutes, ready to go.

Anyway, here is a small group playing a short instrumental Irish piece, and then a woman sings a song identified as "The Spinning Wheel", but I found the lyrics here listed as being "Spinning Song", so that's what I named the file (although I now see that there are other performances and sites where the song is called "Spinning Wheel"). The woman's name might be said, right before the name of the song, but whatever it is that the guy says, I can't make it out. 

Both performances are in front of a small audience who respond enthusiastically at the end of each piece. Their appreciation is quite well earned. 

Download: A Short Instrumental Irish Piece and a Woman Sings '"Spinning Song"

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