Vintage BBC Documentaries, The Return of Joe Gerossi, Unusual Sounds, Some Wild Piano, and Christmastime Is Here Again

Two posts in six days!!! Christmas must have come early! (And that's actually foreshadowing for this post....) 

I'll start with something off the beaten path. Here is everything that's contained on a reel of tape made by someone in England, featuring three programs, two documentaries and a show about policy. 

The first show, taking up about the first 27 minutes of the tape, is a documentary about the story of sound coming to the movies. The second was labeled on the tape as a review of Queen Elizabeth's 1961 visit to Africa, although the program expands into a more general review of many aspects of the Queen and her reign. This program mentions her tenth anniversary on the throne, so must actually have been broadcast in 1962. Most likely, all three shows are from 1962 (I can't seem to find the tape box at the moment, as I digitized this one some four years ago.) Finally, starting about an hour and 14 minutes into the tape, a program called "Conference", which in the episode heard  here was concerned with British Defence Policy (given that the show and the person recording it were English, that's how it was spelled on the box). The tape runs out before this show ends. 

Download: British Radio Potpourri - History of Sound Film, Queen's Visit, British Defence Policy

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Next, do you remember Joe Gerossi? The gregarious barber who I have featured three other times, here, here and here? Well, here I have a bunch more from Ol' Joe. And although this is the fourth such posting, it's labeled "Volume 2". Why? Because this one features Joe and his friends and perhaps family, and is thus more of a sequel to the first posting than to the other two (both of which largely or entirely featured Joe on his own).

Let me just say: This Tape Is A Mess. The sound goes in and out, there are problems with the speed of the machine recording it in spots, and there are other spots where newly recorded material did not fully erase older material (which was a problem on another one of Joe's tapes, too - he must have had a lousy tape recorder!). There are some truly winning moments here, and some others which go on too long, or should never have been kept in the first place. But I think Joe has some fans, so I thought I'd share another batch of recordings that he made. 

Download: Joe Gerossi and Friends - Various Recordings, Volume 2

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Incidentally, this reel came with THREE different slips of paper claiming to contain descriptions of what was on the tape and in what order. I present them here in case you'd like to see if you can tell who is who, and what is where: 

 

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This next segment is a five minute oddity I've labeled "Unusual Montage of Late 1970's Media Sounds". I have no idea for what purpose this might have been created, and aside from that, I think the title suffices as an introduction to this interesting compilation of sounds: 

Download: Unusual Montage of Late 1970's Media Sounds

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AND NOW - with the exception of a short reel at the end - IT'S TIME TO MOVE INTO CHRISTMAS MODE!!

I have so many Christmas related items that I won't possibly be able to squeeze them all into one post in the middle of December. So with Advent beginning in three days, I'm going to get ahead of things and share four Christmassy items with you.

I'll start with the one which, to my ears and in terms of what I prefer, is by far the most interesting of the next four tapes. In it, a man, perhaps a patriarch, for lack of a better term (or perhaps not), spends some time "Interviewing the Family on Christmas Night". I find this fascinating and endearing, and I hope you will enjoy it, too. 

Download: Interviewing the Family on Christmas Night

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For those of you who enjoy manly men singing Christmas music with Mitch Miller's idiosyncratic echoey production - with a few female vocals thrown in - here is a Christmastime episode of "Sing Along with Mitch!: 

Download: Sing Along with Mitch - A Christmas Episode

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And here's a tape of three songs - none of which are related to Christmas - but which were offered up as an sort of musical Christmas Card by some unknown folks, folks who very likely were living in Indiana (on 52nd Street), from the sound of things. At first I thought this was a musical audio letter to someone ("Honey") who was far away, but upon a closer listen, I'm pretty sure that the male singer present IS honey, and that the woman who speaks first is addressing him following a return from.... somewhere. The sound quality is more than a bit rough, but the homey qualities and the clear affection in the voices of all involved make this a sweet, short offering.

Download: Merry Christmas to Honey - Three Songs

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And finally, a neat little tape (well, I think it is, anyway) of a rehearsal of Christmas Songs by a high school choir. I picked up several tapes of this group some time ago, in a batch of tapes purchased from God knows where, and this was the first one I listened to. 

Download: A High School Choir Rehearses Christmas Songs

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This is all it says on the box: 

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Finally, it's time for our "Very Short Reel". This one is sort of intriguing. This is a small reel of tape, containing a recording of two piano pieces, recorded at the professional speed of 15 Inches-Per-Second. Only the second piece is identified (on the side of the box), listed as "Down Yonder", but the first, shorter piece is clearly "Who's Sorry Now". The pianist on the first piece is listed as Tom Slade, and the second piece is listed as a duet between Tom Slade and Milton Jackson. The performance of "Down Yonder" is upbeat, and jazzy, rollicking, features elements of other familiar tunes, and is just a whole lotta...... 

Wait, Milton Jackson? Surely not the legendary jazz musician? I doubt it, but I can't figure any way to determine this one way or the other. The date certainly makes it possible, but that's hardly an unusual name.

Here are two images from the box. This was, unfortunately, one of the tapes whose boxes got damaged in a pipe leak in my basement several years ago. For the most part, the tapes were undamaged, as is true for this reel (reel to reel tape tends to be pretty hardy), but the box is a mess. 

Here is the side of the tape box, which is admittedly hard to read in this scan. It reads Tom Slade (Down Yonder) 10-13-54

And a portion of the back. Again, hard to read. It says: 

Reel # 3, 10/13/54, 15 IPS

1. Tom Slade, Piano

2. Tom Slade and Milton Jackson, Piano

And here's what it sounds like!

Download: Tom Slade and Milton Jackson - Who's Sorry Now and Down Yonder - 10-13-54

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Adventures in Sounds!

Before getting to today's triple feature, I received this nice note from Ken, regarding the second tape featuring Bob Hopp, which I shared a short time ago. The note contains a link to a Youtube video which, given its nature, will probably not be up for very long: 

I downloaded this just after you posted it but just got around to listening to it, hence the late comment. Fascinating. He gave his address as 830 High street, and on the earlier tape he mentions he lives in Aurora IL. Putting two and two together, I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_ay2nPsDY

I also received the following about the tape with the banjo music and the older woman talking, from frequent correspondent Timmy: 

The old gal dictating to her tape for whoever, sounds like she got a Cajun accent. And I would think SHE is the banjist, as well. She mentions 1969 a couple times, so there's the date of recording.

Thanks to both of you, and to everyone who offers up comments!

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For today, three different types of Adventures in Sound. I'm naming them such because the first of them is literally labeled "Adventure in Sound", on the tape box. The tape came in set of boxes of tapes, many of which had some relation to the phone company. While there were several there which had no apparent connection (recordings of a community house-type production of a play, high quality recordings of live TV from the '50's), they all have notes on them in the same handwriting. I've featured several of them here and at WFMU. 

Here is the sheet of paper which comes in the "Adventure in Sound" box, and it gives you a good road map to the many short bits of sound - some only in one channel, others in both - which are going to come at your rapid-fire. The sheet indicates 15 different bits in just over six and a half minutes. 

And here is the tape. Clearly, this has something to do with the continual changes and improvement in the way sound is transmitted, but I wonder for what purpose. If you have an idea, please offer your thoughts!

Download: "Adventure in Sound"
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The next adventure is from a sound stage. From another batch of tapes that I've dived into here several times - the group of tapes that feature raw tapes and promotional items from various TV productions of the late '50's through the mid '60's, here is yet another twelve or so minutes of raw takes, from a production of something apparently called "Greenwich Village", according to the tape box.

It sounds to me like these people are REALLY not getting a lot done. The number of shouts of "CUT" while people are still talking, and the occasional curse make it sound like a rough day. Or maybe I just don't know how life on a sound stage works. These takes average about three seconds each! Maybe they were just fixing specific shots.

Download: Raw Takes from "Greenwich Village"
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And finally, a place where people once went to have a few adventures. Here's a commercial for the Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, the same classic park that Chuck Barris wrote a song about and Freddie Cannon sang that song about.

The whole thing isn't technically here. What I have here is an entire, very entertaining jingle for the park, with spoken details afterwards, which are cut off by whoever was recording the bland "beautiful music" programming that day on WOR-FM. This was the only thing worth salvaging in that entire 30 minute tape, and it's sort of wonderful, if more than a little moronic, too.

Download: Palisades Amusicement Park Ad
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The Return of Bob Hopp - The Retired Mailman - And His Audio Diary (Plus: An Odd Demonstration)

Ten months ago, I presented a fairly fascinating and esoteric reel of tape, recorded by a retired mailman. I speculated at his name, based on what he said, but had no definitive answer to that, as there was nothing written on the tape or box.

Last weekend, though, while rearranging some of my thousands of un-listened to tapes, I came across one which had the name "Bob Hopp" on it, as well as some extraneous information (above). Sure enough, it contained another in what may be a series of audio diaries (I did not find any others yet).

In this case, the tape dates from December, 1975 through May, 1977, and the contents are more varied than the first, giving a better picture of this Aurora man's life.

As to those variations: For one thing, there are multiple moments, during the holiday sections of the tape, where he is joined by his grandchildren, and he seems to enjoy them mightily. There are also some religious thoughts, points of view on life, and, near the beginning, some music recorded off the radio (All in the first portion of the tape).

I think I would have liked to have met Bob Hopp.

Download: Bob Hopp - Bob Hopp's Audio Diary, 1975-1977
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And now, to something nearly undefinable. The following little snippet of tape - less than four minutes long - came housed on a large reel in a box full of tapes which (mostly) involved some branch(es) of the telephone company, way back when. I've shared parts of this collection before, including the training tape of handling difficult calls.

This tape is labeled "TASI Demonstration", and I'm guessing it has something to do with this definition of "TASI" You will hear two phone calls, twice each, first with both ends of the call, then one of the speakers, isolated. After those four items, there is a fifth call, which I'll let you experience without further comment.

THEN, for the last 45 seconds, there is an even odder little montage of sound, which I'll also let you experience without further comment.

Download: Unknown - TASI Demonstration
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Here are two images for this tape, one of the label on the tape, and the other of the list inside the container: