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

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This tape box was even more expressive of its contents: 

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

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

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

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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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)

Play:

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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

Play: 

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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

Play:

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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?

Play:

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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

Play:

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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

Play:

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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

Play:

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

Play:

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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

Play:

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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

Play:

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

Play:

Being a Woman Through the Years, Late '70's Top 40, "The Children's Hour, Some Woozy Sound, Joerg Rothweiler's Greatest Hits and Dick Clark Gets It Wrong

I have a handful of comments to catch up with from the last few months. I got a few thanks for the beautiful music posting - you're quite welcome! Please pay attention, everyone, I really do try to honor requests. And regarding my observation in that post, that a Beautiful Music station I sampled seemed to have no actual commercials in an hour of broadcasting, Chad offered up the possibility of the tape having been edited, but then also added this interesting observation:

I also think most beautiful music on FM stations in the 1950s through 1970s never made much money in terms of advertising. The technology was new and took decades to reach full acceptance and availability especially in cars which were still being sent from the factory equipped with AM-only radios well into the 1980s. I suspect that most were holding a spot on the FM dial until the technology matured, which seemingly took 25 to 30 years from its introduction post WWII! Since AM-FM simulcasting was prohibited at the time, it made sense to put orchestral music on the FM dial for the mature hi-fi audience and left the pop music formats for the transistor radio set.

Eric wrote in to let me know that the WFMU blog, which is where this feature got its start, and which I've linked to own my home page and within many posts, has been taken down, as the host site has gone out of business. Posts are available at the Wayback Machine, but whether the downloads will work from there is a different story. If there's anything at that site that I posted that you'd like to have a copy of, let me know and I'll include it here. 

"Snoopy" and Eric (maybe the same Eric as above, I'm not sure), offered up thoughts on the Kingsport Radio tape, as well as the Death of Eisenhower programming included in this post. I'm going to combine their comments into one comment here. I hope that's okay: 

The Kingsport station is WKPT which as the newscasts show was an NBC affiliate in this era (it switched to ABC affiliation in the 70s). The morning program host we hear after the initial newscast is Charlie Deming who was known as the "Gloom Chaser". He started at WKPT in 1945 and was with them continuously until his death in 1974. If you can get past the first 5 minutes of church choir music on the Kingsport TN radio tape, there's quite a bit of interesting news and commercials from Friday, March 6, 1964; at 27:45 a comedy bit by prolific voice actor Paul Frees. 36:16 changes into something, not the radio broadcast - some comedic theatre, I can't tell what. Really interesting lost media. The NBC specials on President Eisenhower's death are clearly TV audio recordings from March 28, 1969. First, coverage after the news broke and then an 11:30 PM special. Edwin Newman anchors both of them.

Regarding the damaged player piano rolls, from a post one month ago, I wanted to make sure I linked everyone to this insane music that reader/listener Kit linked me to. I absolutely encourage everyone to read about and listen to what was shared in the following comment. 

Gosh, what a spectacular ending to the player piano piece and to your October postings. As if Conlon Noncarrow had a commoner sense of humor.

Finally, I'd like to deeply thank the anonymous writer who confirmed for me that Vaughn Monroe was an exceptionally bad singer. I like your term, "Baritone Sludge". 

And now, on with the countdown!

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I'm going to kick of this post's offerings with a remarkable tape of an episode of "The Columbia School of the Air". In a quick web search, I have found scattered references to this CBS radio show, but nothing in detail. One magazine article from 1946 indicates the show was in its 13th year at that time. 

This episode, as the dialogue makes clear, is from 1948, and this program was transcribed - that is, it went out to stations on a disc, perhaps an acetate. This tape is a recording of that disc - the tape itself is not from 1948, otherwise it would have, by definition, been on a paper reel, but from some time at least a bit later. It came to me in a metal can with the following written on the edge:

This is a radio drama, portraying woman seeking civil and other rights from 1848 to 1948. What I find remarkable about this program is that 1948 was hardly a good time for progressive thought and action, and this program is nothing if not progressive in many ways, not the least of which is in its matter-of-fact portrayal of a Black woman, Sojourner Truth, as simply another participant in the search for equal rights, and an equal to the other women in the room during that scene. But there are several other elements to this programming that pleasantly surprised me, as well. 

Download: The Columbia School of the Air - Being a Woman - Circa 1948

Play:

(This is, by the way, the second tape I've featured from a large stack of metal-canned tapes with that writing on the side. I'm trying to recall what the first one was - something about school, I think - but it's fuzzy, and I'm pretty sure it was not from "The Columbia School of the Air". If I figure it out, I'll update in a future post.)

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I have a lot less to say about the next tape. This is for all of you - and that includes me - who enjoy recordings of any era of Top 40 radio. This nearly 90 minute example is from WRBR in South Bend Indiana, from the early fall of 1979. It's got many of the hits you might imagine from that time period, plus a goodly number of oldies. 

Download: WRBR, Top 40 Radio, 9-16-79

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"The Children's Hour" was a radio program sponsored by Horn and Hardart (the pioneer company in terms of fast food) which ran on radio for more than 20 years, before starting up on TV for at least a few years, in 1948. The Wikipedia page for the program indicates it was only seen in Philadelphia and New York City, and it lasted until 1959. As with "The Columbia School of the Air", I've been unable to find out much of anything else about the show. The show featured juvenile performers, some of whom went on to stardom and/or long careers, in a variety of skits and plays.

What I have here is a tape of just under an hour, containing segments, some short, and some long, from this show. The recording is frustratingly haphazard - songs are cut off, scenes are excerpted without relevance to the larger plot, and one of the lengthier segments seems to be building towards.... something... when the recording is stopped and picked up at a later point, possibly even a later episode. But still, I found it a fascinating listen. 

Then there is this, from the Wikipedia page: "Fred Rogers worked as a stage manager on the show, which he later described as 'terrible' for forcing children to perform."

(Note: I have included a few moments of a performance of "My Funny Valentine" which leads off this tape, just prior to the "Children's Hour" recordings.)

Download: Segments of Episodes of "The Children's Hour"

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Okay, the following my be the very opposite of appealing to the broadest audience possible. Call it "Narrowcasting". I know I have at least one reader/listener (the aforementioned "Snoopy" who loves anything I share that has a woozy or deeply imperfect sound quality to it. And so perhaps I have targeting this solely at one person, but I hope others will find something to enjoy here, too. 

Anyway, every now and then I come across a tape where one set of recordings didn't completely erase a previous set of recordings, so that two completely different things are heard, often at roughly the same volume, at the same time. In this case, we have some classical music which is recorded on the same piece of tape which also contains a variety of spoken word segments from radio station KFAB in Omaha. This 30 minute slice of sound is not precisely what is heard on the tape - I have edited out segments from what was a longer tape, during which the sound of two recordings is not present. That helps explain the difference between this segment and the one just below it. 

Download: Doubly Recorded Segments

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On the flip side of this tape, I found that one spoken word segment - partially heard in the first half of the above recording - was heard backwards, without the classical music interfering. I have turned that segment around and present it here. This segment was preceded and followed by more classical music, which I have removed, leaving the following twelve minutes. There are a few announcements and some commercials and such, but most of this segment features an interview with operatic soprano Helen Traubel, and, as mentioned, much of this interview can be made out amongst the double recordings in the previous segment. 

Download: More from the Tape with the Doubly Recorded Segments - Interview, Etc. - KFAB, Omaha

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And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month", which looks like this: 

I don't know anything about this besides what you can see above. It features a combo, presumably led by Joerg Rothweiler - perhaps they are the Black Derby's or perhaps they worked at a place called The Black Derby's (either way, that apostrophe seems misplaced, and possibly Derbies would be a better spelling). There are performances of three disparate songs, all done Dixieland style. Maybe someone else knows more about this record and can shine some light on its provenance. 

Download: Midwestern Recording Studios, Inc 10 inch Acetate - Joerg Rothweiler - Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey, Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Dark Town Strutter's Ball

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And now for a "Very Short Reel". In a few recent posts, I have shared tapes from a relatively new acquisition - a box of tapes of commercials, some of which (including all that I have shared so far) from the Needham Harper Steers company. In this case, we have four ads for the same group of products that I featured in the first Needham set I shared, Mueller's Pasta.

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

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And now, for a little something extra. This is the mint on your pillow, the free handful of candies at the cashier's stand, the flowers from the audience after a great performance. It's only "Waffer Thin". It's not really a "Very Short Reel", even though it is extremely brief, as its source is a tape lasting well over an hour.

It's just a moment in time from an episode of a syndicated weekly Dick Clark oldies program, containing a factual error so blindingly wrong and idiotic I'm amazed no one picked up on it before it got out onto the program. You'll hear Dick Clark, being smarmy and know-it-all-y and talking down to his audience as usual, reading his copy and clearly not even noticing that he's just said something astonishingly stupid. That he makes this particularly error (and level of error) while simultaneously regaling the audience about all the names that they should know, but don't, well, that's just icing on the cake.

Download: Dick Clark Fact Check

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Blowout Post # 8! - I Don't Even Remember These Files!

I'm going to try something a little different today, even a bit different from the other "Blowout Posts" I've shared. 

You see, I have well over 300 sound files in my "Not Yet Used" file for this blog, including material I digitized over a decade ago. So today, I'm going to share some of the oldest previously unshared sound files from that "Not Yet Used" file. Everything in today's post, except the last entry, was digitized eight to twelve years ago. 

So for most of these, well, I simply don't recall them well enough to comment without listening again. And I'm not going to listen again, which means I'm just throwing them up, and you, dear reader and listener, can determine which you want to hear, and once you decide to hear them, you can decide if they were worth hearing. I'm sharing 12 files, some of them quite long, plus the traditional "Very Short Reel". My comments will be extremely brief. Perhaps some of you will prefer that. 

I also may have scannable tape boxes with information for some of these tapes, but those are probably packed away or at least filed on a shelf somewhere. If I come across any of them in the future, I'll add them to the post. 

This first one I actually know pretty well what it is, as it's titled "A Conversation with Van Cliburn" - obviously a chat with the internationally renowned pianist. Other than that, you're on your own. 

Download: A Conversation with Van Cliburn

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Here's what some of the radio programming sounded like in Kingsport, TN, in early 1964: 

Download: Kingsport, TN Radio, Early 1964

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For those of you who cannot wait to listen to almost 90 minutes of municipal meetings, especially if they are from Massachusetts and deal with a road upgrade, this next offering IS FOR YOU!

Download: Two Hearings About a Road Upgrade in Massachusetts

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Or Mayhap some down-homey singing, strumming and blowing is more your speed. If so, here is a short, home recorded tape of Vocals, Guitar and Harmonica from a few anonymous guys, with a bit of big band music at the end. 

Download: Vocals, Guitar and Harmonica

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Or perhaps a 20 minute show on a cure for arthritis is more up your alley. Presumably, the original tape ended suddenly, as heard here: 

Download: Dr. Bernard A Bellew - The Cure For Arthritis

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This one is labeled, "Robyn Hurt - Three Faces of Eve" - I assume this was written on the tape box, but given that I digitized this in 2015 or so, it's not surprising that I can no longer find that box: 

Download: Robyn Hurt - Three Faces of Eve

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This one says: "Two NBC Programs After the Death of Eisenhower". Yep, that's what it says. I bet that's what it is: 

Download: Two NBC Programs After the Death of Eisenhower

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This might be interesting - it's an audio letter from Florida to Colorado. I don't recall anything about it, though. If I was in Florida, I would absolutely move to Colorado. Well, I'd move somewhere else, somewhere cooler and saner. 

Download: Audio Letter from Florida to Colorado

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"The Bell Telephone Hour" was a mainstay on television for many years. Here is an episode from 1961 titled "A Galaxy of Music": 

Download: The Bell Telephone Hour, 3-3-61 - A Galaxy of Music

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Here is the endlessly pompous and completely insufferable Earl Nightingale, with a recording called "The Executive Market" which does not seem to be anywhere else online. If anyone ever deserved to be punched in the face, this guy would qualify.

Download: Earl Nightingale - The Executive Market

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Some additional cretinous material from Earl Nightingale is in this post. 

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Are you still with me? Because this is the one I'm sure most of you have been waiting for. It's the famous (perhaps infamous) "Chat Around the House & Fireplace Talk". I'm sure this one will be notorious enough to be discussed next week on "The View":

Download: Chat Around the House & Fireplace Talk

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And just before my "Very Short Reel", I will offer this "Very Long Reel", over two hours of Medical Hypnosis Training from Dave Elman. Sorry, I only have lesson two. You are getting very sleepy at this point. 

Download: Dave Elman - Medical Hypnosis, Lesson 2

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And now, for the only newly digitized item here. It's my "Very Short Reel" for the post. And this is from the same new-to-me box of tapes that I received in late July, which I also featured at the end of this post. It is another group of three ads, just as in that post, this time for Delta Airlines. Presumably, this is from the same company - Needham Harper Steers - as are many of the tapes in that box, but this one was unlabeled, so I can't be certain. But I'm guessing they are, hence the labeling here. 

Download: Needham Harper Steers - Three Delta Airlines Ads

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That's eight hours and 17 minutes of sound files. I hope you found something to enjoy today. 

Some Rare Monty Python, More Australian Shortwave, Mr. Handy and a REALLY Long Tape Few Are Likely to Listen To

Hello everyone, 

I hope you've had a wonderful summer, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere (like some of the people featured today), in which case I hope you start to have a swell spring soon.

Today I have something I believe to be quite rare. Although I can find a few dozen places online where this recording is referenced, I have been unable to find anywhere that this actual recording is posted or otherwise available. I may have missed something, in which case perhaps this is not as rare as I thought, but even if so, I'm making it available more readily here, I hope, and for free. 

This comes from one of my own home recorded reels, which I am slowly going through to find out their contents. And I've worked my way up to tapes made in 1976, the year I turned 16, and more to the point, perhaps 18 months after my mother and I became extremely early American converts to Monty Python (as I explained partway through this extremely long post). This is, specifically, a recording of the troupe's appearance on the King Biscuit radio show, in May of 1976. 

This performance is from the same series of shows (and same venue, of course) as was released on the "Live at City Center" album that also came out in 1976, with two significant differences. First, it is a different performance - this probably amounts to the most minor of changes from the released album (I haven't compared them), but it is a different show. And second, and perhaps more importantly, it contains a very humorous and self-depreciating introduction from John Cleese. 

I hope that all Python fans enjoy this recording. 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Live - On King Biscuit Flower Hour - 5-9-76

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The other recording on the same tape is less rare. It's an appearance of some of the troupe on "The Mike Douglas Show" that same week in May of 1976. There is a video of part of this appearance on YouTube. It is not the entire segment heard below, and it is in poor video and audio quality, but it is there. This, on the other hand, is the entire appearance, obviously without video but with much better sound quality (although my mom chimes in at one point to explain what's happening). 

Unfortunately, a good part of the visit is taken up with clips from the show and from the movie they were promoting ("The Holy Grail"), presumably to help the squares who watched Mike Douglas get an idea of what and who the Monty Python trouble was. Doubly unfortunate, John Cleese and Graham Chapman - the heart and soul of the troupe, in my opinion, are not present for the interview (Eric Idle isn't there either, but he was always - by far - the weak link of the troupe, for me, anyway). 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Promote "The Holy Grail" On the Mike Douglas Show, 5-14-76

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Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later. 

The 1968 recording starts off difficult to hear and grows progressively worse - this is not an easy to listen to tape - such are the vagaries of listening to short wave broadcasts. The 1970 tape is considerably clearer in sound quality. 

Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-23-68

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Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-12-70

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Okay, now here's a segment that perhaps only the masochistic among you might listen to. But I listened to all five hours plus of it, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to do something with it. But it is tedious and endless. 

I don't know what exactly was going on here, but what seems to be small group of friends/acquaintances spend nearly four and a half hours (in the first segment), singing songs, some of them multiple times during that length of time, accompanied by a few musicians. A lot of these are old, old songs, some of them probably fairly recent to whenever this was recorded. At one point, there is a lengthy break for what sounds like a meal, and it becomes clear that there are also a few children present. For a good period of time there is no singing and the soft conversations are hard to pick up at time. Then it's back to the singing, which is followed at the end by some goodbyes and final conversations. Enjoy? 

Download: A Group of People Sing a Lot of Songs (and Talk a Lot) for a Really Long Time

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When that segment ends, the tape immediately reverts to what was being erased by that lengthy recording, and that was, MORE recordings seemingly featuring the same people, or at least a similar gang of folks. There seem to be two recordings here, of differing sound quality, and they make up another 40 minutes plus of the same sort of things heard in the other, longer segment, including a lot of the same songs. 

I'm not even going to speculate as to what the event was or who these people are/were. I'm just glad I wasn't there. 

Download: A Few More (Much Shorter) Segments with the Same People

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Well, after that heavy and unappetizing meal, how about some lovely dessert. Our "Very Short Reel" features a radio announcer trying - and most of the time failing - to record a few ads for an apparently legendary and much loved business in Springfield, Ohio, "Mr. Handy", complete with hard-sell backing music. This business just closed five months ago, after 45 years in business

Download: Unknown - Recording Mr. Handy Commercials

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And finally, a mint on your pillow for getting all the way through this post. This doesn't really qualify as a "Very Short Reel", even though it's only 66 seconds long; it was pulled out of a 75 minute tape of (mostly) classical music recorded off of the radio at some point in the 1950's, probably the early 1950's. I faded in and faded out this segment, which was buried deep in the second side of this tape. It is simply a moment that made me laugh, and I decided to excerpt it here and share it with you. What's are the call letters of that station, do you say? And that's all I'll say. 

Download: A Humorous Moment

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A Tragic Industry, Some Funny Recipes, Children at Home, The Summer of '64 and More

First off, I'd like to than Eric Patton - yet again - for identifying details that I didn't have the resources (or, in this case, didn't take the time) to dig up. The baseball recording from my last post is from a game played on July 3, 1962. 

To Eric and anyone else who is interested: This particular collection of reels contains two more tapes of baseball broadcasts from roughly the same era (very late 1950's or very early 1960's). However, the recording quality is as bad as I've ever heard on a tape, and worse than anything I've ever heard here short of shortwave - they sound like they are coming over shortwave, and broadcasts simply start and stop at random. At one point, I realized I was listening to a broadcast of a collage baseball game. If there is interest, I will post these. But... they are lengthy (one is two hours, twelve minutes and the other is 55 minutes) and REALLY hard to listen to. Let me know!

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I'd like to start with something pretty awful, but awfully fascinating, too. It's an interview, very likely from the 1950's, with someone named Captain Hill (along with "Jimmy") on a show which I think might be called "The Pepperell Forum" - but that's just a guess, as the name of the show is said very quickly. The host is Major Barren (and again, I'm guessing at the spelling of his name). 

The subject of this abomination is "The Sealing Industry", aka the killing of seals, including baby seals, for their pelts and other materials. While I understand that this is basic necessity for people such as the Inuit, that's not what's under discussion here, and in any event, the killing of seal pups - discussed here - has long since been outlawed. 

I guess I'm both horrified and mesmerized - in the way one might be at looking at a terrible car crash - at the tone of this interview, which is very much clinical and informational. At one, point the interviewer does make mention of something terrible or awful happening, and I thought maybe he was going to acknowledge that they were talking about something incredibly cruel. But no, he was talking about an outing for hunting that ended in the deaths of multiple hunters. Oh, that. 

And to the contrary of any thoughts of awfulness contained in the practice itself, at the end of the show, we are told that the we've been hearing about "The Fabulous Sealing Industry". 

Download: The Pepperell Forum - The Fabulous Sealing Industry

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How about a palate cleanser. I was requested some time ago to share more tapes from my own childhood, and I was absolutely delighted to find the following short tape not too long ago, on a tape I had not listened to since I was a teenager (at which point I had catalogued what was on said tape), and which I have no recollection of EVER hearing before. 

I believe I've about eight years old here (putting this in 1968 or 1969), recording on what may have been the first tape given to me to be my very own - a three inch reel, recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS, in quarter track mono (different recordings on all four tracks) so as to get the most recording time out of it. Most of it was nearly unlistenable goofing off, save for some very nice interactions with my older brother. But in one segment, heard below, I read a series of recipes. I would love to say that I was this creative or deliberately funny to have written all of these fake recipes tongue-in-cheek at age eight, but that's absolutely not the case.

No, I'm reading from some source. I don't know where I got these from, but I'm guessing it was a book. And listening to the tape, I'm fairly certain this was a book - or perhaps an article - featuring a series of recipes dictated by kids my own age or younger. They are silly, funny, ridiculous and delightful. I love this tape. 

Download: Bobby Reads Kid Recipes

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Now it's time for some other children, perhaps a decade before the above - at least, I'm guessing it's the late 1950's), being silly, being fun... being kids. It's apparently both the week between Christmas and New Years (or thereabouts) AND around the time for one of the children's birthdays, judging from the various conversations heard here. 

This tape was in the same stack of tapes as was the one from which came the "very short reel" in my last post - the segment with the section about the cow going moo - and it could well be that both tapes came from the same family. 

Download: Kathy, Jackie, Michael and Others - Home Recordings, Christmas and Birthday Talk and More

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Here's something common to this blog but just a little bit different. It's a tape made from New York Top 40 powerhouse WINS in the summer of 1964. Normally, I'd be drooling over this, as would a certain percentage of my readers/listeners. However, this is one of those frustrating tapes where the taper made every effort - very effectively - to cut out all DJ voice overs, patter and commercials, and just get the songs. 

The reason I'm sharing it anyway (since it only contains the songs, many of which are extremely commonly available) is that I was sort of taken aback by the sheer variety of music heard on such a leading Top 40 station that summer. I am a huge record collector and have been studying the charts, and pop music in general, for more than 45 years. Yet there were close to a dozen songs within this two hours of recording that I'd never heard before. 

And were it not for the lists of songs included in the box, I'd have had to do a lyric search to find out what they were, and I'm quite certain some of them would not have been found online by that search. I was also sort of dumbfounded that The Beatles didn't show up until about 90 minutes into the recording, and even then, they appeared first in a version of one of their songs by The Boston Pops. Really? On WINS? The actual Beatles don't show up - during a tape made while they were dominating radio and the world - until eight songs from the end of the tape. 

I know that at that time there was a plethora of local and regional hits heard on many regional stations, but I guess I didn't expect that to be the case so much for what was perhaps the most powerful Top 40 station of its day. The tape box says something about "Tip Top Talent Hunt" - perhaps that's the explanation - that portions of this tape were recorded during was some sort of "potential future hits" programming. But on the other hand, the more obscure records heard here are played throughout the length of the tape...

Here's that portion of the box: 

One final note: I was sort of stunned by the out and out theft of others' material heard early on in this tape. The third song on the tape is identified as "Rules of Love", and even the compiler here didn't know who the artist is (an online search finds a single hit for the lyrics, and attributes them to The Orlons, which makes sense given the weird bass singer heard on this track). This record is literally "What'd I Say" rewritten with new lyrics. Note for note, section for section and nearly chord for chord. Astonishing. Three songs later comes "Moon Maid", a deeply unlikely tribute to a side character from the Dick Tracy comic strip which owes its existence to "Alley Oop". A little less ridiculous in terms of plagiarism, but only by degrees. (Youtube proves this one to be by "Billy Dee & The Debonaires", by the way.)

Download: WINS, New York, Summer, 1964

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And here are the lists - I believe you can open/save these and make them bigger. I made them small to save space: 

      

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And now, a little Ed and Frank. I have, in my collection, a small group of tapes featuring said duo, performing live at who-knows-where, each of them with little stickers on the reel with their names, the date, the speed of the tape and, on this tape, at least, the words "electric piano". And that's all I know. 

Actually, I find this stuff pretty damn unlistenable - it is electric piano... and brushed drums, with the very occasional vocal thrown in. Now, when I write what I'm about to write, I'm not talking about billed duos who actually have a full band behind them, or folk singing duos who don't need anything more than a acoustic instruments and voices: 

But with those exceptions, two person "groups" are, in my experience, pretty ridiculous, painfully limited and generally awful - looking at you, The White Stripes - and Ed and Frank are no exception. 

Download: Ed And Frank, 7-4-57

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For my "Acetate of the Month", I've selected a record featuring a presentation of William E. Fitzpatrick, being honored as the "Rochester Citizen of the Day" on some unnamed radio station and by an unnamed announcer. The date is August 1st, 1951, and the record looks like this. 

And it sounds like this: 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51

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The flip side simply says "NG" for No Good (see below), but contains the same material, told in three seconds longer than on the usable side. For whatever reason, this version was not considered suitable for airplay. 

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - Rochester Citizen of the Day - William E Fitzpatrick - 8-1-51 (NG Side)

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And now for the "Very Short Reels" entry for this week's post. And technically, this is part of a slightly longer reel (15 minutes or so), as this section comes after a short period of some dull recordings of commonly available music off of full albums played on the radio. A young woman gives the date and is excited about the upcoming Perry Como Kraft Music Hall show with Eddy Arnold - this allowed me to identify the year as 1967. Here is that show. Then there's time for a bit of talk about the music she'd just shared and just a little bit of family news and personal goings-on, and talks just a bit about some situation familiar to both her and the recipient of her outreach. 

Download: A Short Audio Letter - 1-25-67

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