Radio, Radio and More Radio

When I went to select things to post this time around, I sort of found that I had a LOT of various radio-related items - an abundance of them it seemed. So I decided to nothing but RADIO in today's post. 

All of the tapes featured here are recordings made of actual radio broadcasts, except the first one. And this first one is probably my favorite of the batch - just ten minutes or so of what I've called "1970's Ads and Music Beds". Presumably these all came from the same company, but I do not know who was behind this tape, or why it has completed ads paired with background music for ads. It just is. Enjoy!

Download: A Short Compilation of 1970's Ads and Music Beds

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Here's one I've labeled "Religion News, Circa 1956". Perhaps someone out there can narrow it down further: 

Download: Religion News, Circa 1956 

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And now, from more than a decade later, and from a far more Earthly realm, here is The Old Redhead, also  no doubt known to many in his orbit as "The Old Jackass", Arthur Godfrey. I have shared other Godfrey segments before - just click on the Arthur Godfrey tab below or put his name in the search at upper left. Like those previous segments, this comes from the waning days of Godfrey's radio show, in this case June 4 of 1969. Let's listen in: 

Download: The Arthur Godfrey Show, 6-4-69

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Just over two years ago, in this post, I wrote about a tape of a program called "London Mirror", saying: 

Now here is a bit of programming, from the BBC, that I find absolutely fascinating. It is an edition of what was apparently a weekly show, one which captured as much as possible of what was going on in world of entertainment and theatre in London. Again, this was captured on a weekly basis, with new material every week, some of it from records, but mostly recorded specifically from this program.

I later shared another episode from the same tape. While both of those tapes were dated well (by newspaper clippings in the box), the third episode on the box was not identified in any way. But as the other two were from the second half of November, 1961, I'm guessing this is from the following week, or shortly thereafter. I continue to find these tapes fascinating. 

Download: London Mirror - Unknown Date, Probably Late 1961

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Now here's an odd one, and I wish I had this entire program - some of it was erased by something far less interesting. It's a radio drama presentation of the story of "Rumpelstiltskin". And I really don't know anything more about it. I do think it's very worth hearing. 

Download: Radio Production of 'Rumpelstiltskin' (Incomplete)

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This next tape is labeled "Brief Excerpt from WOR, June, 1963", and indeed is what it is. But I should also mention that the sound quality starts out absolutely abysmal and gets steadily better throughout, but never approaches "good" quality. The segment starts with a mention of a 1964 gift catalog, but either that was extremely pre-mature or this is actually from two different recordings (which I doubt) because the sports report is definitely from late June of '63. 

Download: Brief Excerpt from WOR, June, 1963

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Now, what compilation of radio would be complete without a lengthy (perhaps over-long) AM radio tribute to musicians from the Big Band era. Well, I run a full service site here, so I have just what you were looking for. A radio station called WHEL, at 1570 AM, in New Albany, IN, ran a tribute the Dorsey Brothers and their various bands. That station's is now known as WLRS, and was only WHEL for 13 years, ending in 1978. My guess is that this tape comes from closer to the end of that period. Here is a 77 minutes excerpt of that Dorsey presentation: 

Download: Tribute to the Dorsey Brothers on WHEL, 1570 AM, New Albany, IN

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And now for our Acetate of the Month. This one is a short, vintage recording from radio station WJJD in Chicago. This AM station existed for some 63 years in Chicago, before rapidly switching call letters three times in four years. It is now WYLL. It is possible, or even likely, that the last 68 seconds here actually comes from another station, as WJJD had a country format at the time (it was later Chicago's first Top 40 station). This segment is, admittedly, very badly recorded and hard to listen to, but it does keep with this post's theme of radio material. 

Download: Audiodisc 6 inch Acetate - WJJD, Cowboy Song, Piano Instrumental

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And finally, a Very Short Reel. I have previously shared segments of country music programming from WEEP in Pittsburgh, and here is just a bit more of that station, However, this is a brief segment of the nationally syndicated Mutual News (including a commercial) as heard over WEEP from some time between 1966 and 1968, based on the news heard. Perhaps someone else can narrow it down closer based on the news reported. I have been unsuccessful in trying to do the same. 

Download: Brief Fragment of Mutual News on WEEP, Pittsburgh

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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)

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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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A Week in Radio and Television History - Mid-August, 1962: WNBC's Anniversary, News From Here, Abroad, and Space, Bert Parks. and the Star of Our Show, Shelley Berman!

Before we get to today's offering, I want to share my deepest thanks and appreciation to those who read and listened to my birthday post, and particularly those who offered up some truly wonderful comments. Thank you, everyone.

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I have a bunch of clips today, and all but the last offering come from the same reel, and I hope that I find that I own more tapes from this same collector (my unlistened-to tapes are a hodge-podge, and tapes bought together have gotten separated over the years).

The reason I hope that is because this person seems to have recorded like a fiend - I'm going to share with you almost the entire contents of this tape, well over two hours worth, and those contents appear to capture recordings made over the course of less than a week, in mid August, 1962. Imagine how many tapes this person may have had, and the contents thereof, if he or she filled a two hour tape in just four or five days!

Anyway, this tape is quite the variety reel, capturing part of one TV show, the entirety of another, parts of three different newscasts, and seven installments of a feature being aired that week by NBC flagship station WNBC, in honor of the 40th anniversary of their having gone on the air. The two dates I can actually nail down are August 14th and August 16th, but certain items here likely are from both before and after those dates.

I have grouped these items together by theme - what follows is not actually quite the order in which they appear on the tape. It is just much easier for me to do it this way, as I digitized these some time ago and am not sure where the tape is, so I don't recall the original order - hope that makes sense.

Let's start with the newscasts. The dominant news stories that week including the lengthy flight of two Russian cosmonauts, Eisenhower's visit to England, an assassination attempt on the President of Ghana, and a disagreement about whether the return to the US by an terminally ill American doctor who had been spying for Russia.

The first segment is from "London Calling", a news report from England but broadcast in the US. The second segment contains a brief excerpt from "Douglas Edwards News" then segues into another show, "The World Today", and the third segment is from Mutual News. It seems to me at least possible that this second clip flips again into another broadcast, as the end of that clip seems quite similar to the start of the Mutual clip. At least one of these items is from August 14th, based on the reference to it being one year and one day after the start of the Berlin Wall.

(Note: All three of these segments sound to me as if they are running slowly - the voices sound artificially low and slow. However, this makes no sense, as the rest of the tape (that these segments are interspersed within) does not sound slow. Why would only the newscasts be recorded on a machine not running correctly?)

Download: London Calling - News from England - Peter King Reporting - Mid-August, 1962
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Download: Douglas Edwards News and The World Today
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Download: Mutual News, August, 1962
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Now, the first of the two Television recordings. While I suspect that this tape's entire contents may be made up of sounds which no longer (or barely) exist anywhere but on this tape, this strikes me as something special even within that world of rarity. Maybe it's just because I love game shows.

But anyway, what we have here is a few portions of a game show called "Yours For a Song", hosted by Bert Parks. The show aired on ABC during the daytime for about 15 months and in a nighttime edition for just under a year. And I'd certainly never heard of it. It's a goofy program, but sounds like something I'd have enjoyed. Rather than explain it here, I'll just let you listen, as all the explanation you need is in the recording. There is a break near the end, and I don't actually know if the part following the break is from the same episode or not, but I suspect it was, and that a portion of the show was later erased by one of the other items being shared here.

Download: Yours for a Song, Starring Bert Parks, August, 1962
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Recorded rather haphazardly throughout the tape is a feature that was airing that week on WNBC, the flagship station of the NBC network, in New York (where, presumably, all of these recordings were made). The station was acknowledging their 40th anniversary. Please note that while Wikipedia (linked above) states that the station first went on the air on March 2, 1922, these segments, developed and provided by the station itself, are using August 16th, 1922 as the first date of operation. I don't know which is correct, but one of these clips definitely identifies that date. The clips all feature earlier recordings from the station, mostly from the 1940's or earlier. The first one is the only one for which I have a hard-and-fast date for - it's clear from the introduction what today's date was. And the two clips of announcer contests may well be two broadcasts of different parts of the same archival segment. ere are all of those clips, in succession as they appear on the tape:

Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - 8-16-62 - The Silver Masked Tenor, Joe White
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - Quick Reading Announcers' Contest
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - Jack Norworth Sings
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - Another Announcers' Contest (Segment)
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - Snoring Demonstration
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - Billy Hill Sings "The Last Round-Up"
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Download: WNBC 40th Anniversary Highlights - August, 1962 - The Ed Wynn Show
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And finally, the pièce de résistance! If you read my birthday post, you'd have seen a brief reference to my adoration for the comedy of Shelley Berman. Well, the saga of Mr. Berman usually includes a reference to an ill-fated show that was done about him in early 1963, following him for a day at a club, including parts of his performance, followed by a few things that happened afterwards. I will not recount the details here, but the legend is that this show ruined his career - although some recent research captured in a book called "The Comedians" indicates strongly that this was not the case.

What I didn't know until I listened to this tape - and this is not even documented on Shelley Berman's IMDB page - is that he did a show for ABC in 1962 - on August 14th - tied to his then-most-recent album, "Shelley Berman: A Personal Appearance", a show which carried the same title as the album, and which was almost entirely made up simply of his act, including much of that album, with slight differences, of course, since it is a different recording of the material. There is also other material here that I've never heard before.

Well.... Wow. My considered opinion is that "Shelley Berman: A Personal Appearance" is the greatest comedy album ever recorded. So I was knocked out to have found this tape, and to learn that it is virtually unknown. (There is a seller online who will sell you audio copies of any of hundreds or perhaps thousands of recordings he holds. He's got a copy.)

So here, unheard by virtually everyone in the world sing 8/14/62, is the ABC special, "Shelley Berman: A Personal Appearance".

Download: Shelley Berman - A Personal Appearance - ABC TV Special - 8-14-62
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Today's very short reel is an ad which apparently ran on Chicago's WNIB, which was, for decades, the second place classical music station in town. It's an ad for the Sunday Chicago Tribune, probably from 1972 or 73 or so, and it's an interesting curio, containing as it does some references to what one expert thought would become collectible in the future (the expert doesn't seem to have been too accurate, based on the view from nearly 50 years later), and a reference to a story on Jane Byrne, who would have been virtually unknown at that time, but who, by the end of the decade, would be Mayor of Chicago.

Download: Sunday Chicago Tribune Ad, Circa Early 1970's
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