Post 250: Country Radio in 1965, Some Fun Home Recordings, Pete Returns Yet Again, Right Wing Commentary and The Moritz Family!

Good Day!

This is, to my amazement and pleasure, my 250th post to this site. I had hoped to share something extremely precious to me for this post, but I did not have enough time to do as I wanted, and it will have to wait for another day. Hopefully, another post loaded with a variety of goodies will suffice. 

Before getting to those, I want to thank a few people who stopped by to comment. In particular, thanks to Josh, who has commented on several postings, ever since getting wind of this site a month or more ago. He is particularly interested in religious recordings, primarily sermons I think, and has left several comments about the various Christian-related tapes I've posted recently. There are too many comments to repost here, but if you look in my recent postings, you'll find at least five comments from him. He also provided links to his own site where he shares sermon recordings, and his own podcast, for those who might like to dive deeper into such things, Thanks, Josh! I will continue to keep you in mind with regard to featuring those sorts of tapes when I find them. 

And quickly - quite appropriately for my 250th post, an anonymous poster let me know that, over a year ago, in this post, I shared my 1000th downloadable file for y'all. Cool! And in answer to a question about the touch tone tape, from JimmyLee, I will share that that particular tape was included in two full boxes of tapes I bought many years ago, all of which were for internal use by Bell Telephone, so I assume it was for some sort of training purposes. I have shared many of those tapes here, over the years. 

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I'll start today with a favorite sort of tape among readers and listeners, the vintage music radio station recording. In this case, it's 50 minutes or so of radio from Canton, Ohio. Most of this recording is from WHOF, which was a country station at the time. I didn't included it in the name of the file, but this is almost certainly from the fall of 1965, as the then-future # 1 (and resolutely awful) country hit "Giddyup Go" is the pick of the week. 

The station is changed a few times, including at least once, briefly, to a top 40 station, and then there is a twirling of the dial in the last few minutes. And then, at the very, very end, we get a piece of what all this radio station recording was erasing - the last few moment of some sort of band rehearsal. 

Download: WHOF, Canton, OH (Mostly)

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Here's a set of home recordings (with some radio and other music thrown in) that I think is pretty interesting and almost stunningly weird in one aspect. It's also REALLY random and so I've labeled it as a "Hodgepodge". I'm going to describe this one in detail, because I think it's worth it. Leaving out a few very short moments in between the longer segments, here's a rundown of what you'll hear: 

A few microphone tests, then a young girl reading some text about tapes and tape recorders. 

A man reading a very bawdy poem, a slightly off color limerick and a shaggy dog story about the old west.

A different man claiming to be broadcasting on radio station S-H-I-T and who tells a lame joke, and another man, identified as being from Shit University, who tells another lame joke, both of them about men having a lack of sexual prowess. 

After several very short things, a stage band plays three songs.

Some radio recordings, including KQV in Pittsburgh (one of the oldest radio stations in the world), including a pop song I don't recognize, a devilish "drive safely" PSA, some DJ patter and the start of a Brenda Lee record. 

A pianist fumbles her way (she speaks at one point, making clear it's a girl who is playing) through "Exodus", fumbles even more so through a piece I don't recognize, then falls back on a little piano piece that nearly everyone knew how to play in the 1960's, and which was popularized as "Down at Papa Joe's" at one point, before playing part of Moonlight Sonata", then cycles through various other pieces, returning to the "Papa Joe's" music after more struggles.

Then it's the REAL high point of this tape. If it was ever your dream to hear a flute player and a trombone play "Danny Boy" together (and at first, not lining up the tune together), particularly with the trombonist trying, and not always succeeding, to play in the upper register of his instrument, this is your moment. 

Back to the pianist, whose work was partially erased by the flute/trombone duo. She's onto the "Heart and Soul" chords (another piece every kid knew how to play on piano in the 1960's). 

Then, a man tells the story of John F. Kennedy from a clear position of clear distaste for the man and his politics, identifying Kennedy as Italian for some reason (using a national origin slur), and ending with a tasteless joke. 

Finally, a man recites a little piece of nonsense doggerel. We're now at Fink university, but before any further silliness can be captured, the tape ends. 

Quite a little compendium, there. It astonishes me that the people who decided to record some off color material chose to do so on a tape that a teenage girl was also clearly using and probably listening to. 

Download: Early to Mid 1960's Hodgepodge of Home Recordings

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Next, remember Pete? I featured two tapes of Pete, featuring his off key warbling, badly tuned guitar and generally odd ways, here... and here.

Well, glory be, I have found another tape of Pete. This one features a different side of the man, and yet the same absurdities - and some other ones - shine through. Just as on the previous shared tapes, in this case, Pete set out to re-record some of his other tapes onto the four separate monaural channels of a five inch reel. 

My big question here is.... WHO was he doing this for? The impression I get is that he was just trying to consolidate some shorter tapes (or perhaps his favorite parts of some other tapes) onto one reel. But then, he more or less ruins the majority of the recordings by plugging in his microphone and erasing part of the song being heard, in order to comment on the song being heard, or to make mention of what song it is. At one point, during a re-recording of a Lawrence Welk segment, he comes back in to comment that the performer being heard later died in a car crash. And every now and then, when some backwards material (from what he is erasing) pops through, he comments on that, too.

Again, these seem to have been for his own purposes/enjoyment. Did he want to hear interrupted songs, with his own comments (which he presumably would also be familiar with at a later hearing. Also, songs start and stop in the middle of the recording a lot of the time. The recording is amazingly choppy, even without taking into account his interruptions. 

This is a long tape, and surely won't be for everyone, but the sheer peculiarity of it caused me to choose to share it. 

Download: Pete Records His Old Tapes and Comments On Them

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Here are portions of the front and back of the tape box, for anyone who would like to play "Peteologist" and try to make more sense of this: 

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I recently found in my possession a tape which contained, back to back, a series of episodes of a short radio show which aired on the Mutual Radio Network for nearly three decades, a program of commentary by Fulton Lewis, Jr. I read up on him, and it sounds like he was somewhat akin to Rush Limbaugh, if Limbaugh had presented his program as news and had limited it to a few short minutes a day. I strongly suspect that Mr. Lewis' show would not be something I would dial into, were he still in business. Be that as it may, it's an interesting tape and worth a listen for its historical value, if nothing else. 

Download: Several Episodes of Fulton Lewis, Jr's Radio Commentary Program

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And now for an "Acetate of the Month". And this is an interesting little relic, which looks like this: 

The label is the same on both sides, and the recording is the same on both sides, too. The presence of a zone, rather than a zip code, means this recording is from no later than 1963. The song being parodied, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" was written by my musical, social and political hero, Pete Seeger, in 1955, but didn't enter the national consciousness until 1961, which helps date this little record to somewhere within an 18-20 month period. 

The performers are The Moritz Family, or at least two of them, singing to friends (I'm guessing) prior to their departure from the neighborhood to parts not named. There are two references Kenilworth, IL, a tiny burg (never more than 3000 residents, covering just over a half-mile square) which is very near the town I grew up in, and which was, in the 1960's, sometimes ranked as the richest town in America. 

Presumably this recording was given to The Moritz' friends upon their departure. I no doubt found it in a sale in the same North Shore area where it was recorded, many years later. 

Download: Sound Studios, Inc - The Moritzs - Where Have All the Moritzs Gone?

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And finally, this 250th post's "Very Short Reel". This is a bit of a cheat, but in another way, not. I have very little doubt that this tiny piece of tape, which I found on its own on a reel, was chopped off of another, no doubt longer reel. Why that would be, I couldn't tell you, but the resulting sound of the material that I somehow acquired made me laugh. 

What it contains is a couple of people setting up an interview, testing the microphones, messing with volume, etc., and then making sure everyone's on the same page, and beginning an interview. 150 seconds into the tape, the actual interview begins, but after 20 seconds, containing one question and an "uh" (presumably leading to the next question), the tape ends. 

Maybe they started again for some reason and chopped off the unwanted stuff. I don't know. But the contents heard as this length of tape plays did make me laugh, as if, as I titled it, they set everything up, then didn't actually record the interview. Maybe you'll find it funny, too. 

Download: Setting Up an Interview, Then Not Recording It

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Were the Village People Still Hot in 1980? Also, a Automotive Interview, The Folks Back Home in 1951, Some Dutch Folk Singing, Two Sermons and a Hodgepodge Like No Other

Belated Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrated it! 

Right off the bat, I'm going to thank reader Chad - who has commented a few times - for publicizing my blog to something called radiodiscussions.com/, and ended up soliciting a few comments which he reposted at the end of this post, on which they were originally commented on that other site. They are a bit long to repost here, but have a look at the comments on that page. At the end of the comment, either Chad or the person who responded to him - I can't quite tell which, but I think it was Chad - asked for more sermon recordings, and a ways down there in this post, I have offered up exactly that. 

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I'm going to start with something I just find.... weird. I have a handful of tapes featuring episodes of something called "The Robert W. Morgan Special of the Week". I featured his program on the group "Chicago" in a post very early this year, and wrote about the host, and the show, at that time. 

As you will hear, this offering is a rebroadcast of an earlier "Special of the Week", originally from 1979, and it aired as part of a series of "Best Of" episodes, in January of 1980. What I find weird is that, for the kick-off episode of that "Best Of" series, they chose an episode about... The Village People. 

Unlike the stars of the other "Specials" I have found, which tended to be about acts with a long history and tons of hits, The Village People had a total of three US pop hits, two of them top ten, and if you want to throw in the dance charts, another couple of hits. Plus, by January of 1980, whether fair or not, The Village People had become yesterday's news, and Top 40 poison, for a wide swath of that format's listening audience, at least in the U.S., where this program aired. The release of and horrendous reception to their film a few months later would drive this point home further. It just seems terrifically odd to me that Robert W. Morgan would start a victory lap of sorts with a show honoring a very minor recording act which already was past its sell-by date. 

Download: Robert W Morgan's 'The Best of the Special of the Week - Featuring The Village People - 1-6-80, WRBR, South Bend, IN

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As I've mentioned far too many times to link here, I obtained some media tapes many, many years ago, which contain the raw sound recordings of many a TV program, tapes I've shared here and at the (now late and lamented) WFMU blog. And some of those posts have featured interviews from the 1960's Howard K. Smith show. The following is another of those, but in this case, Don Dixon is doing the interview (perhaps Smith was on vacation), with someone named John Keats (a common enough name that I've been unable to figure out who this particular Keats was), about new car models, American car buying habits, traffic patterns and related subject. Mr. Keats would have liked to see city dwellers stop driving cars - as he seems to have done - and causing so much traffic. 

One humorous moment comes near the end. As is always the case on these tapes, the director filmed one way (towards the interviewee) and then, afterwards, filmed the interviewer over the interviewee's shoulder to get shots of the questions being asked, after the fact. Mr. Keats, apparently not understanding this, starts answering a question he has already answered, before being told that no, he doesn't need to actually respond any more. 

Download: Don Dixon Interviews John Keats for the Howard K Smith Show

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This next one is a rather unusual selection, both because it seems to simply be an album of songs that someone recorded and also because it may very well be available elsewhere. As such, I've sat on it for literally years before choosing to share it. In the end, I've settled on two reasons to go ahead and share it. 1.) I enjoy it, and 2.) I am utterly unable to confirm that this particular set of songs is available online or on record/CD anywhere. And I've looked. 

It's a short group of songs - perhaps it was a ten inch album - by Bob Davidse, a Flemish host, singer and guitarist who I believe is singing in Dutch here (that Wikipedia link is in Dutch). The key word in the title of this collection - Volksliederen - has translated both to "Folk Songs" and "National Anthems" in various searches. I'm thinking "Folk Songs" is more accurate. Various sites also indicate - not surprisingly, that Davidse also sang South African songs, so perhaps some of this is in Afrikaans. Maybe someone out there will tell me and other readers.

Download: Bob Davidse - Volksliederen Met Bob Davidse

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Here's the tape box, so you can have all the song titles, and also in case any of you would like to do more digging than I've done: 

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Now for something really weird. Every now and then I will share a tape that has a changing series of recordings on it, often in the course of less than ten minutes. Typically, these tapes, which I call Hodgepodges, have at least a somewhat clear history to them - someone who recorded over a previous recording, but not completely, or who recorded several short unrelated items over the same section of tape. 

This one, however, mystifies me. Here's the tape box: 

Okay, so at some point this tape contained eleven commercials for Kodak and Kodak products. And there are remnants of those ads heard here. But the off-center pasting of the contents sheet onto the tape box is telling, if accidental. There are few tapes as off kilter as this one. 

After a split second bit of... something, we hear some testing of volume as utilized in the playing of a few instruments. This is interrupted by most of one ad and the start of a PSA, the latter of which stops and starts, before the volume tests resume. Then there is more of the same PSA and some more ads, just a moment of the sound tests. There follows a brief excerpt from "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" and another episode from some film-noir style narration. This gives way to portions of three of the Kodak ads, in quick succession and none of them complete (although the third appears to be nearly whole) - these are the 8th, 9th and 11th listed ads above, I think. 

After a short difficult to hear section, we hear the first and second of the eleven listed ads, complete, and part of the third one. Then Rod McKuen narrates one of his poems (and I vomit a bit into my mouth), we hear one second of another Kodak ad, and then Rod McKuen sings a bit (Kill Me Now!), and then we hear most of the 60 second Kodak disco ad and all of the 30 second Kodak disco ad. Then there is MORE of Sgt. Preston which suddenly segues into some other sort of drama - for the last 80 seconds or so - featuring a Scottish character and a narrator talking about Halloween night. 

Then it's over. A fascinating listen

Download: A Most Unusual Hodgepodge

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Here's another genre of tape I really enjoy - although I have little insight into how much my audience enjoys it. It's the home recording of people sitting around chatting and playing and singing music. And the older and more old timey the feel the better. Here's part of the tape box from this one: 

So this goes all the way back to the week before Christmas, 1951, just under 74 years ago, although part of it seems to perhaps date from April 8th of that year, as well. I don't have a lot to say here - just an enjoyable 45 minutes with Glenn, Nora, Bill and Bessie. 

Download: Conversations and Singing at Home, 12-20-51

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And now, because Chad - or his correspondent - requested a sermon, here are two, heard as preached by someone named Leonard, the second of which is from 1967. Perhaps they are both from 1967. I can't put my hands on the tape box just now, but presumably it told me - at the time I digitized this - that it was made in Madison Wisconsin. I have not listened to these recently, so I am not going to give a summary, but rather, will just let those of you who are interested, have a listen: 

Download: Unknown ("Leonard") - Two Sermons in Madison, WI, Mid 1960's

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And here's a very short reel. 58 seconds worth, in fact, and it's a radio ad - undated - for the world's toughest rodeo, which was coming to St. Paul very soon, at the time of this ad. The very uncreatively named "Ad Market Productions Inc." created this particular radio ad. 

Download: Ad Market Productions, Inc. - World's Toughest Rodeo, St Paul

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The Return of Lance Shepard, A Soldier in Germany, 1951 Up and Down the Dial, Rehearsing Some Songs and 1981 MOR Radio

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!

I have a media-heavy posting this time around, with three of the six items containing material that was on the radio airwaves at some point, and nothing remotely connected to ghosts or goblins.  

Deejay demo tapes seem to be pretty popular, so I'll start with one of those. I seem to have picked up multiple tapes from the collection of the well traveled Lance Shepard (AKA Bill Brown), at some point, and have shared one of his reels before. Here is another one, from that bicentennial summer (and at least for some of it, if not all of it, from that bicentennial day) of 1976, from a town that already existed in 1776, Waterbury, Connecticut, "Supermusic C-O", otherwise known as WWCO. Here's about twelve minutes of nearly 40 year old, "scoped" Lance Shepard.

Download: Lance Shepard Demo Reel from 1240 Supeemusic C-O, Waterbury, Connecticut, July, 1976

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For those who like audio letters, here's one that I found particularly interesting. It's from a soldier stationed in Germany (with his family), recorded off and on for three months. At the start, the tape is nicely dated to March of 1970, as the soldier mentions that year's NIT and NCAA basketball finals having occurred that day. Later, his son joins him. By the end of the tape, he has learned that he is being sent to Vietnam, but has a lengthy break in between, during which he will be returning to the states, during which time he will be finding and buying a house for his family, as they will not be going with him. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Soldier in Germany, Recorded from March to June, 1970

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Here's part of the tape box: 

I have at least one other tape of this soldier - let me know if you are interested in hearing that one. 

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I've labeled the next one "Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951". It begins with a couple of Country & Western numbers. These are "Rainbow in My Heart", and, after a moment of a commercial (which is then cut), an upbeat, accordion driven version of (of all things) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Then we get a bit of an ad for Royal Pudding, before the recording switches to "The Camel Caravan" starring Vaughn Monroe. The songs chosen for this program include a thoroughly awful of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise". (As an aside, I will never, ever, understand the appeal of Vaughn Monroe's voice.)

At just after the ten minute point, the real hodgepodge begins. We hear the end of a spoken word ad then a sung good morning jingle, then the station is changed repeatedly. We repeatedly hear moments of the masterful - perfect - version of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" by Les Paul and Mary Ford, a weather forecast (it's October 17th), what seem to be part of two different newscasts and a community events calendar fading in and out (as well as, briefly, yet another song). A Freddy Martin record is introduced and we momentarily hear two songs at once, before the final section, featuring a man with the moralistic fervor of the typical anti-communists of the day. When he all the terrible things that always occur whenever forms of socialism are in place, I have to wonder if he had any idea about the ways that many of the Native American tribes lived before the Europeans arrived. But maybe that's just me. 

Download: Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951

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For those of you who enjoy men rehearsing arias and songs, here is a man rehearsing arias and songs. It's called "A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs". I hope that makes things clear enough. 

Download: A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs

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And now, the good news is I have a nice, long musical aircheck from an American radio station. The bad news is that's from 1981 - not the best year for rock and roll, if you ask me, and what's worse, it's not from a rock and roll station. It's from an Adult Contemporary station. BORING!!! But it's a complete recording of over two hours, with commercials and newscasts and DJ patter intact. The station was in South Bend, Indiana and was called WTHQ (it's now WNSN). The ongoing discussion of whether the space shuttle would launch, as mentioned throughout these two-plus hours, very definitely dates this tape to November 4th of that year, as does the segment about how Guy Fawkes Day is coming up the following day. That's almost exactly 44 years ago! Here's that tape. 

Download: WTHQ, South Bend, IN, 11-4-81

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And as (almost) always, here's a very short reel. This is all that was on this particular 1200 foot reel, one which came housed in a VERY early Scotch design box - the type sold around 1951-52, but the recording cannot be from before 1956 or so, as that's when the latter of the two songs heard premiered.  The songs are sung by a woman, a cappella. That slightly "newer" song is "Around the World" from the film of a similar title, and is heard first, after which are some warblings of "Many a New Day" from "Oklahoma". All in just under four minutes. 

Download: A Couple of A Cappella Show Tunes

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A 1963 College Jazz Festival, Interviewing the Family, Top 40 Radio in 1966, Some Odd Rehearsals, A One Man Hodgepodge, The Rotations of Mars and Earth, and Some Pasta!

 Howdy, 

First, I'd like to feature a couple of comments from recent posts. A frequent poster who goes by "Snoopy" made some fun comments on this post, and specifically the echoey Chicago radio segment, and also asked "What the HELL is going on?!" at the 24:24 mark. I actually meant to mention this - there was some a cappella singing at a different speed on the flip side of this tape, which somehow bled through, backwards, for the last 25 seconds or so of that radio segment. 

And as I was sure he would, Eric Paddon helpfully cleared up any confusion about the baseball recording I posted last time around. Silly me, I didn't even check to see if the dominant game heard therein was the same game as any of the previous offerings. It turns out that it was. How this game ended up on two different reels, with the end AND start of this game on one reel and the rest on another, is a real mystery. Here's what he wrote: 

Back on March 18, you had posted the Bottom 6th to beginning of the Top 8th of this same 7/3/62 game and the beginning of this post picks up exactly where the previous one left off with Jim Landis batting in the Top 8th for the first two and a half minutes. Then it gets inaudible for the next few minutes but then around the five minute mark what we're hearing when the announcer mentions Joe Azcue is batting is the Kansas City A's-Detroit Tigers first game of a doubleheader from August 1 ,1962 with George Kell announcing on the Tiger network but the July 3, 1962 game is still bleeding through at intervals during that but it is predominantly the August 1, 1962 A's-Tigers game that dominates what's audible for the next ten minutes (faintly) and then suddenly we're back in July 3, 1962 starting at the end of the Top 2nd and that continues in good quality up to the Bottom 6th when the previous recording began (except for a couple bizarre sequences where someone is doing a test at slow speed over the recording.)

I have stitched together a single file of all material from this game in the right sequence: 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6krt6umaas2hy1vmcq8qq/1962-07-03-White-Sox-vs.-Tigers-WCFL-Partial.mp3?rlkey=21niwfuyrayhhtnq6u0oo7qg0&st=hcv31y46&dl=0

Thanks!

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I'm going to start with a real (reel) winner this time, a lengthy recording of a broadcast of "The 1963 Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival". This was the third such festival, and aside from the announcer talking over a few bits of performances, it's great stuff. The legendary John Hammond even stops by for an interview. I don't think any more needs to be said. 

Download: The Third Annual Villanova Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, 1963

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Next, something else very special! A long-time reader/listener name Bram B. offered up a three inch reel of tape which had come with a vintage Westinghouse machine (the type that could only record three inch reels, and which looked, to me, more like a sewing machine!) that he had bought some time earlier. The machine did not work correctly, just enough for him to recognize the recording as a home recording of a man and some children. So he sent the tape to me! 

One side of the tape was country music recorded off of records - most of it sounded (to me) like Jim Reeves, which is always a treat. But the real worthwhile stuff was on the other side. 

As Bram first described to me - and I agree - it sounds like a family patriarch, perhaps a visiting grandfather, interviewing some young children. And it is mostly delightful - a segment in which he works way too hard to get one shy child to talk is the only blemish here. The rest is very enjoyable and I wish there was more of it. The supposition he expresses at one point that one of the children would like Batman and Robin seems to date this to the brief but intense heyday of the ABC TV show of 1966-68, so this likely a dates from around that time. 

THANKS, BRAM!

Download: A Man Interviews Some Young Family Members, circa mid-1960's

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I do not know the source of this next tape, although maybe someone out there can make some sense out of this tape box: 

The tape contains a brief lecture - source unknown - about Earth and Mars, the relative speed of each and, essentially, how a contest between the two of them around the sun might be described. That's about all I think I have to say: 

Download: Unknown - A Short Talk On the Rotations of Earth and Mars

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Tapes from the golden age of Top 40 Radio are always welcomed by many people here and on other sites, so I'm sharing this one despite it's multiple flaws. It is poorly recorded, and the recordist chose to edit out commercials and some of the deejay patter. Given that those two things are often the most valuable parts of such tapes, this is, as I said, a lesser example of such a recording. However, it is a portion of a station's top hits countdown show, and some of what the deejay had to say is still there. 

The station is WILS, Lansing, MI, and, fairly remarkably, I found an online posting of the very survey being counted down here (although it starts with a "flashback" to 1964). The date on the survey is April 6, 1966, and it can be seen here. I was quite taken with the fact that there was a local hit, presented as up-and-coming on this show, by a local group called The Plagues. Perhaps others are familiar with this group - they are well known enough to have their own Wikipedia page - but if you'd asked me if a group named after a deadly disease would have had a hit song in 1966, I'd have said that would be very unlikely. 

Download: WILS, Lansing Michigan - Portions of the Top 20 Countdown for 4-6-66

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I've titled this next segment "A One Man Hodgepodge", and I can think of no better name for it (even though a woman joins the man at the end of the segment). Over the course of these 19 minutes, you'll hear a bit of some sort of reedy instrument, some religious songs and readings (including a bit of Revelation), a bit of a fake newscast, and some guitar accompanying wordless vocalizing. At certain points, one of those categories of recording repeatedly interrupts one or more of the other categories listed. 

Download: A One Man Hodgepodge

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And now, the "Acetate of the Month". This is a pretty early Acetate, dated July of 1939, and while it initially sounds like it contains a quiz show, but after a single question, it turns out to contain ads for Fleet-Wing Gasoline, a company I've never heard of. There are three commercials in all, each containing a tricky question, which then segues into an ad for this product. 

Here's the label: 

Note that already, by 1933, radio stations and others who needed playable material were using the 33 1/3 RPM speed, a decade and a half before it was introduced for commercially available products. 

There are many and varied photos of and comments about Fleet-Wing gas stations and products, and one poster to a Fleet-Wing thread out there says the company existed from 1928 to 1970. I've never heard of them before, myself. 

Download: General Broadcasting System 12 inch Acetate - Three Fleet-Wing Announcements, 7-20-39

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". I am very happy to announce that I recently bought a small box full of three and five inch tapes, most of which contain radio ads created by the Needham Harper Steers agency, and I will be digging into this pile of tapes from time to time in upcoming posts. Here's the tape which was on top of the rest when I opened the box. There's no date on this tape (or on any of them, I don't think). It contains three ads for Mueller's Pasta, another company I've never heard of. This company, however, still exists, and according to their website, the nearest store to me carrying their products is over 60 miles away from my home. 

Download: Needham Harper Steers - Three Mueller's Pasta Ads

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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

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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

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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

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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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New Year's Eve in July, Some Music Shows from 1958, and a Brief Mish-Mash

Greetings!  Today's offerings come from a far smaller number of tapes than usual, but within those tapes, primarily from the first one, there is a total of over five hours of material here. 

But first, a couple of comments. 

Reader/listener Kyle has again identified a site which contains a lot of information on the history of multitrack recordings, and the writer's history with sound on sound and later methods. It has a few home recording examples in the second part. You can find that site and those recordings here.

And then I also want to thank "Snoopy" and another anonymous poster, who both chimed in with appreciation for, and information about, respectively, the avant-garde music and the DJ tape by Lance Shepard, and their comments can be found at the end of that post, here. And Eric Paddon, who can always be counted on to offer up some interesting and relevant history on media recordings, added some thoughts to the Today Show tape I shared last time around. 

Thanks, everyone, as always!

~~

I was going to save the following tape for a New Year's Eve post, but I realized that I have too many countdown tapes to save all of them for one post. So instead of Christmas in July, this will be New Year's Even in July, complete with part of a nationally syndicated countdown of the top hits of 1980, as heard on WRBR in South Bend, Indiana.

Unfortunately, this is not the entire countdown, but it is the more than four hours of it that could fit on a 2400 foot tape at 3 3/4 IPS. Doubly unfortunately, most of the commercials are cut out. And triply unfortunately, this production, from some organization called Opus, and titled Opus 80, is an adult contemporary (or "soft rock") version of the top hits of 1980. So there is a LOT of dross among the occasional excellent record, more than even would have been the case in a general Top 40 look at the hits of 1980, and a lot of songs heard here would not have been anywhere near a top 100 from Billboard's main pop chart. 

To choose one example, Al Stewart's "Midnight Rocks" scores on this countdown - nationally, on the Billboard all format Hot 100, it got only to number 24 in its actual chart run, not nearly big enough to be one of the biggest 100 hits of the year.  There are a bunch of vacuous quotes and brief interviews throughout. 

Here's the side of that box: 

A small portion (about an hour) of this very countdown is available elsewhere online, but I couldn't find that anything further of it is out there, so I thought I'd share what I have. 

Download: Opus 80 - A Countdown of the Soft Rock Hits of 1980, 12-31-80 WRBR-FM, South Bend, IN - One Section.mp3

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Download: Opus 80 - A Countdown of the Soft Rock Hits of 1980, 12-31-80 WRBR-FM, South Bend, IN – Another Section.mp3

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~~

And now, a step backwards of 22 years (or more) to a show centered around a singer named Patrice Munsel. This comes from the fellow named Charles that I wrote about at a bit more length in this post (sorry about linking to it twice). This is not from the same batch related to the composer that I wrote about there, it's from a previous set of tapes he sent me, which I am also glad to be able to share at this time. 

I'd never heard of Patrice Munsel, but you can read about her show here, and from there you can link and read about her. In short, she was an operatic soprano whose husband worked in TV and got her a show. As you'll hear, the show was a mix of Ms. Munsel singing on her own, guest performers and comedy sketches. As you can see on the tape box, below, this tape contains two such episodes from April of 1958, one of them loosely Easter themed. These are not the entire shows - commercials are cut, for one thing, but even accounting for a few minutes of commercials, the two episodes heard here add up to about 30 minutes, which was the actual length of a single show, at the time. So these are excerpts. 

Download: The Patrice Munsel Show - 4-4-58

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Download: The Patrice Munsel Show - 4-18-58

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On the other side of the tape, there are more excerpts, this time from "The Patti Page Show". Patti Page I have heard of and am familiar with. However, while the tape box says these recordings are from 1958 - and they could well have been made that year - the show actually aired in 1956 and 1957, with reruns airing a year later. These are recordings of those reruns. "Including the final show", with Patti's comments making clear that she did not expect it to be her final show. 

Download: The Patti Page Show, Excerpts from 1958 Including Final Show

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And now, a very short reel. The name of this file makes clear what is on it - a series of short recordings all heard back to back on the same reel of tape. What I tend to refer to as a "Hodgepodge". The most interesting and entertaining thing here is the brief segment of the brilliant Bob and Ray at the beginning - unfortunately the start of the routine is missing, but its easy enough to figure out what's going on. That recording is from NBC's "Monitor", on which Bob and Ray were regulars, for a time. The rest of the tape is sort of hit and miss - a bit of piano, a bit of a speech and an NBC promo. 

Download: Short Hodgepodge - Bob and Ray on "Monitor", Piano, Speech Segment, NBC Promo

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Blowout Post # 3!!!

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

~~

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

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

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

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

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

Download: An Episode of the Liberace Television Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download: Unknown - A Rather Homely Christmas Carol Concert

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

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

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Here's that paper from the tape box cover: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download: A Brief Reading from "Great Expectations"

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

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

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Your Hit Parade, Local Basketball, The Newest in Stereo Sound and Much More!

 Good Day, Sports Fans (or not, if you're not sports fans, or if it's not a good day), 

Today, I have a supremely varied hodgepodge of recordings for you, selected from my bulging computer folder known as "tapes not yet used", including one which is literally labeled as a "hodgepodge", as well are my monthly acetate feature. 

But first, I wanted to pass along that I received a note from a creator of experimental music named James, who wanted to let me know he'd used some of the vintage radio recordings I've posted in one of his compositions. It's a very interesting track, and it can be found here. He is likely to continue to use my postings, after asking and receiving my okay, and I will continue to link to them. His main page is here. 

~~~

First up, a recording from 1950, contained on one of those tapes with yet another Scotch tape design which I missed, during my Scotch tape brand feature. This one is a variation of the one I identified as the second Scotch design, here, and also similar to the one I shared a few weeks ago, which I'd also missed the first time around. I still suspect the first one I just linked was the second design, but this one was either concurrent with it, and used with five inch reels, or came right around the same time. Here it is: 

So what's on this tape that makes it worth sharing. Well, it's "Your Hit Parade" from 1950. What we have here are portions of two episodes, both from early July, by the sounds of it. The only reason I'm certain it's not all from the same episode is that the first two songs heard, are heard a second time, later on, and that wouldn't have happened on a single episode of that show. 

The latter episode can easily be nailed down to one of the first two weeks of July, as the song that had VERY quickly hit number one (and I won't spoil the surprise) would have attained that position during that time period. Add the reference to a holiday - almost certainly the Fourth of July - and we have a date for these programs. 

A further note - the tape quality if fairly horrendous in the opening couple of minutes, ruining a version of "The Third Man Theme", which I consider one of the best hits of the pre-rock era, but the sound improves quickly after that, and another rendition of the song follows, later, anyway. 

At the end of the tape are a few remnants of other programming, including the introduction of a Percy Faith song, and what sounds to me like Vaughn Monroe singing is his typically godawful style. 

Download: Your Hit Parade, Early 1950, Parts of Two Episodes

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For those of you who like oddities (and very short segments), the flip side of this tape contains about 28 minutes of bland music from records, but then, at the end, there is some shouting, some whistling, some rifle shots (I think), and then someone named Bill tries out parts of a short speech several times. Given that this recording is made on the same damaged section of the tape as "The Third Man Theme" on the flip side, there is a short section here that also has poor sound. Here is that segment: 

Download: Shouts, Whistles and Shots, Then Bill Speaks

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Now here is a lengthy recording which may be of interest to some of you (the Sports Fans mentioned above). With March Madness just about done for another year, it occurred to me that some might enjoy this tape. It is coverage of a High School basketball contest in Maine - no date is listed, but I'm guessing this is from the 1960's. Someone with more patience (and interest) than me can probably figure it out, based on the players mentioned. 

The radio station was WBLZ, which probably didn't stand for "Blood, Luggage and Zucchini", but I'd like to think that it did. 

The teams are Banger and Caribou, and we have nearly the entire game coverage, minus some commercials and any half-time coverage. A true bit of local sports coverage, of the sort which rarely makes it beyond its live broadcast. 

Download: Maine High School Basketball on WBLZ

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Next up, here's another one of those ubiquitous Stereo Demonstration Tapes, which every producer of reel tapes and reel tape machines seems to have been obliged to produce, in the 1950's and/or 1960's. In this case, it's Bell Stereophonic Sound with a nearly ten minute production about the wonders of Stereo!

Download: Bell Stereophonic Sound - A Demonstration Tape

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And now, here is yet another tape from our young man in Japan. Please see my previous posts for more of an explanation of these tapes, and my confusion regarding exactly what he was doing there. This is before he started using music on the right channels of his tapes, and unlike some of the tapes, this one's date is crystal clear - it's June 27th, 1968 (just one week after I turned eight, by the way). 

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, 6/27/68

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And here is our acetate of the month. I don't know anything more about this disc than what it says in the file name, and I can't seem to find the record right now to scan the label. 

But it's an endearing little piece, featuring "Gail and Gram", with Gail, perhaps age four or so, telling the story of "Goldie Locks" (as it was spelled on the record). She is VERY dramatic, raising a laugh from Gram at one point. Very sweet. This is followed by three very short, the last two sung by Gram in a foreign language which I cannot make out through the surface noise. But I bet one of you can. 

Odd to think that, if the Gail heard here is still around, she's probably about 85 or 86 years old. 

Download: Gail and Gram - Goldie Locks and Three Songs, 11/23/40

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And now, two tapes which could probably be names as "Very Short Reels". First is the aforementioned "hodgepodge". I love coming across things like this, as their genesis is quite unknowable. While much of this tape is made up of minimal conversation around the house, those segments are surrounded by all sorts of recordings, as if things were recorded and erased at random, sometimes for only 5-15 seconds. I made this file some years ago, but I believe I remember correctly that this is all that was recorded on the tape. Almost an accidental performance of Musique Concrète.

The mention of George Smathers at the very start, identifying him as a Representative and not a Senator (and what sounds like a reference to him having won a senatorial seat, but clearly not in that seat yet), would seem to date at least part of these recordings from no later than 1951. 

I love stuff like this. 

Download: A Three-and-a-Half Minute Hodgepodge

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~~~

And finally, a tape which may be stretching it, a bit, in terms of being a "very short reel" and even more so, in terms of being worthy of sharing here. But I did digitize it, and it was waiting for me to use it, and I did address all you Sports Fans, so here it is. It is, quite simply, the merest short fragment of a baseball broadcast, all of 76 seconds in length, with more than half of that being essentially light crowd noise between pitches. Enjoy!!!

Download: Baseball Game (short fragment)

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