The Immaculate Reception, A NASA Flashback, Lloyd Nolan Sells, Partying Like It's 1959, and a Whole Lotta Comments

 Boy, Howdy! Do I have a lot of comments, clarifications, corrections and great thoughts from readers/listeners to get to. It's been ages since I got caught up on these. I like to catch folks up on these, because readers may have looked at an individual page and missed the comments, or, equally likely, may have looked at a page before the comments were made. If you left a comment you really think I should feature here - and I don't do so - apologies in advance. 

<and yes, the promised football tape is here today - thanks for all the feedback on that.>

If this rehashing of comments is not of interest to you, by all means skip down to the first media player/download down there and have at it. 

I think I'll do this post by post. 

Here are some things that were said in response to this January 20th post (which was actually not, as I thought it was, my 250th post - it was # 247):

In response I heard from Snoopy, who let me know that the piano piece I didn't recognize is The Theme from "The Apartment". 

Chad offered up that the brief segment of Pittsburgh radio station KQV (heard on the same tape as the piano player) is from the spring of 1963, probably just before Easter weekend, which was in the middle of April that year. He adds that the two guys pretending to run their own obscene radio station have Pittsburgh accents.

An anonymous poster says that the interview that wasn't (from the end of the post) has to be from 1970, without explaining why, but I have no reason to doubt this. 

Finally, Josh offered up a link to a vintage religious broadcast, also digitized from a reel, which is found here. 

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Then, 11 days later, on January 31st, I posted again, and heard from Mike that the KHJ promo tape I offered up as a "very short reel" are bogus. He suggested comparing them with the real (reel?) deal at this page and at this YouTube posting. 

Also, if you follow the link to that post and scroll down to the comments, Eric wrote a bunch, too much for me to share here, about the dates and other minutiae regarding some elements of the featured tape. 

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My March 19th post got a lot of comments: 

Eric was as helpful as ever with dates, and confirmed that I was one year off on the Steve Allen/Ella Fitzgerald tape. It was from 4/25/56, almost exactly 70 years ago. He also noted that Gene Rayburn, who would later become much more well known, can also be heard on that clip. 

Multiple readers chimed in on the KNX segment. The finally named commenter "Easy Bake Oven" reports that I digitized the reel sides in reverse order, and that the second part was recorded before the first part, as I shared them. Chad points out that the deejay and the date are right there for the taking on the tape itself: Steve Marshall, and 7/26/74. Mike identifies the format as "Mellow Rock" and further identifies that linked to the wrong Wikipedia page. A station later known as KNX was playing country at that time, but this is not that KNX - this one is now KCBS. Spiritof76 contradicts my statement that no one in Chicago had this format by identifying two that did - WBBM-FM and WSDM. (I do remember WSDM - it called itself both "Wisdom" and "Smack Dab in the Middle" (of the dial) at different points and had all female deejays for a while, including Linda Ellerbee, although I don't recall their format at all - my main memory of the station is that it was the first Chicago home of Dr. Demento.)

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My most recent post, from March 31st, also drew a lot of comments. Most of them consisted of confirmations that people would like to have the football game I asked about, and that will be forthcoming, but there was also a request for an older clip that was formerly available on WFMU (and I will look for that, and there was this from Eric: 

The University of Portland and Lewis and Clark baseball game was played Tuesday, May 1, 1956. Portland led 8-2 after three innings and won 14-5. Pete Ward who played nine seasons in the major leagues mostly with the White Sox was on the Lewis and Clark team.

So it is 70 year old baseball, not 75 year old. Thank you for the additional information. 

There are some other, one-shot comments on older posts, but I'm going to save those for next time. Thanks to everyone who has written in - I'd be doing this anyway, I think, but reading the comments and knowing that there are people who care about this stuff makes my day. And my week. And my year. 

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Okay, so here it is. What I wrote at the end of last month should serve as an adequate introduction to this very historical and apparently rare piece. At the time, I was asking if this was indeed rare, and I got a lot of feedback that it is. Thanks to those who wrote to encourage me to post this. Here's what I wrote: 

I have found in my collection a nearly complete recording of the radio broadcast coverage of the legendary "Immaculate Reception" football game from 12/23/72. This is the Pittsburgh radio call, and while commercials (and half time) were not recorded, and the person recording also began editing the time in between plays at the end to save tape, the entire call from start to finish is on the tape with the exception of a few moments between those plays near the end.  

That description covers it well. Here is that tape. 

Download: Jack Fleming and Myron Cope: Oakland Raiders at Pittsburgh Steelers on WTAE, Pittsburgh, 12-23-72

Play:

At the end of side one - and just a little bit at the end of side two - there were fragments of other, previously recorded games, as our recordist had clearly been recording games for some time, and erasing those which were no longer of interest. Here is a composite of the ends of the two sides - what is heard after the 12-23-72 recording on each side ends: 

Download: Odds and Ends from Other Football Broadcasts

Play:

Here is the tape box, indicating that person's history of recording games on that particular reel of tape: 

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Switching gears pretty hard, here's a fun little tape, in which Lloyd Nolan records a few ads for Depositor's Trust. This was clearly recorded (since he mentions it) during the run of the groundbreaking show "Julia" (1968-71), which I call as the first sitcom I went out of my way to watch every week, and that I loved. That the title character's son  - a major part of the show - was a year or so younger than me was probably part of the appeal. Just a little side comment from your trusty curator. 

Download: Lloyd Nolan - Ads for Depositor's Trust

Play:

Here is a composite of the parts of the front and back covers that had writing: 

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With the recent successful NASA mission, I thought it might be nice to share the following tape. Following John Glenn's successful flight, he and his family were welcomed to a reception with President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and many others, three days after that flight. There are extensive recordings /videos of that event available. But this is something just a bit different - this is in depth coverage of the various participants moving from Cape Canaveral, to the site of that event. Narrating the action (and at one point getting humorously confused by what he's seeing), well, I believe that's Walter Cronkite (and "the action" is used loosely here), but someone out there is sure to correct me if I'm wrong. 

Download: John Glenn Goes to Meet President Kennedy Following His Flight, 2-23-62

Play:

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Now, lemme ask you somethin'. Do you like parties? Do you like the 1950's? Do you like friends? Do you like recordings of friends at a 1950's party? Then this tape is for YOU!

Download: A Friendly Party Gathering, 1959

Play:

Note: Based on the tape box below), this would appear to be some of the same people who were heard on the 1960 "Johnson-Mort" wedding anniversary tape that I shared in this post. 

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And now, a "Very Short Reel". I have named this "A Bit of Singing and a Bit of Counting", and that pretty much sums it up. 

Download: A Bit of Singing and a Bit of Counting

Play:

Jack Eigen, Volume Two, Some Short Advertising Tapes, and More Beautiful Music

Greetings!

Almost two years ago, I shared the first of what I expected to be many postings featuring a Chicago radio legend by the name of Jack Eigen. You can read about him (along with a few links) in that original post here.

I fully expected to hear from multiple people requesting more, given the nature and interest of those who frequent this blog, and was genuinely surprised when I received only two comments over the next couple of months, one from someone who was interested in hearing more, and one stating he'd rather not have me share any more. I left it alone.

In the last two months, though, for whatever reason, three different people have written in, requesting more, two of them sharing significant memories of the show, and one of those sharing pictures.

And so, in response to those requests, I give you a second helping of Jack Eigen. As with the other posting, I have not re-listened to this prior to posting, and probably last heard this tape all the way through 15 years or more ago. Doubtless there are excerpts from more than one episode here (the tape is over three hours long), and if you listen through, I'm sure more than one of you can fairly easily nail down a date. I do know that all of these tapes are from near the end of his reign - mid to late '60's and into 1970 or 1971. But that's it.

Enjoy!!!

Download: Jack Eigen, Volume Two
Play:

Oh, and I mentioned pictures! Here are three of the pictures which were sent to me, courtesy of a long time Eigen and WMAQ fan from those days, named Allen. Here's Jack Eigen himself, in October, 1967:

Here's a slightly blurry picture of Steve Allen (left) and Tony Bennett, who were on the air with Eigen, at the time of this photo:

And finally, this is Jim Hill, who took over every night after Eigen's program. He and Allen were lifelong friends, after getting to know each other when Allen went to the station, many times, to be in the audience of Eigen's shows:

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Speaking of reader/listener feedback, I've continued to receive further requests for posts of Beautiful Music Radio, and by chance, I came across one just this week.This tape is of the cleverly named KABL, which identified itself as being in San Francisco (get it? KABL), until the FCC told them they had to be upfront and honest and identify that they were licensed and were broadcasting from Oakland (and if you don't know why a station might misrepresent that fact in the bay area, well, there are plenty of websites which could explain it - and it's a very unpleasant reason, indeed, one with ramifications that persist - literally - to this day). 

Anyway, this is clearly two different, short segments. The first one has a newscast which places it firmly right after the Republican convention that year, so likely July or early August of that year (the brief mention of Lucky Lager will no doubt let you know that this comes from yet another tape in the same collection that I have delved into for the last two posts). There was then a gap in the tape (which I've eliminated) and a second segment of the same tape, with a reference at the end to Thanksgiving being on the way, so that is no doubt from November of the same year. I'm guessing that for some who wished to hear more Beautiful Music, there is too much talking and news here for your taste, but that's what I found (and honestly, it's what makes it interesting to me). 

Download: Beautiful Music KABL, Oakland/San Francisco, Two Segments from 1964

Play:

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And here's something quite a bit shorter - and it's from the first part of the KABL tape, above. These ads were likely recorded for use on KABL, as the announcer involved worked at the station, according to a few web sites I just perused. 

Here's announcer John K. Chapel, recording three ads for The Rose Exterminator Company, and one for Leisure Town in Vacaville - about 45 minutes from Oakland, by the way. This retirement community is still a going concern. 

These is a raw tape for the commercials - there are brief comments in between the third and fourth ads. 

John K. Chapel: Three Ads for the Rose Exterminator Company and one for Leisure Town

Play:

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And finally, as you've all been waiting for, it's another in the series of very short reels. By chance, the small reel I selected at random actually has more material on it than the ads I excerpted from a full size reel, just above. 

This is a demo reel for a commercial pitchman named Al Gates. Based on a quick web search, he seems to have a very well known guy in the radio commercial voice talent and voice over biz, although his is a common enough name that I could well have been looking at more than one Al Gates. 

This is an interesting set of commercials in that one of them contains a self-referential moment - Al Gates narrating a commercial about... Al Gates. 

Download: Al Gates' Demo Reel

Play: