Showing posts with label Queen Elizabeth II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen Elizabeth II. Show all posts

Saturday, February 28, 2026

A Very British Set of Recordings from 1961 and Radio Shows from the Folk Revival Era

It's been a really hectic month and as I always strive to get two posts up every month, I'm going to do so here by being very brief with my comments, here on the last day of such a short month. I do have some people to thank and comments to copy but that will have to wait until at least next time. 

And aside from this post's "Very Short Reel", today's post comes entirely from two rather wonderful tapes. And everything in this post was aired on the radio, albeit in (for the two primary tapes) two very different parts of the world. 

The first of these tapes is one of a large number of recordings of the BBC that I acquired many years ago, all of them recorded at the ultra slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS on five inch reels, usually with one or more handwritten inserts and or items cut from newspapers. In this case, these are recordings from 1961, and here's what was in the box: 


And here are the very segments on that tape (there are actually three - one didn't make it onto the slip of paper). 

First up is a very detailed reporting on what was essentially a parade, but one with some extremely complex and traditional portions, broadcast live during the Queen's Birthday celebration (always held on the second Saturday in June, as I understand it, although that was not the Queen's Birthday). The even is actually titled "Trooping The Color", and you will hear the details of that activity during the recording.

This seems to have been a very visual event, as parades tend to be, so a radio broadcast of it is a bit odd. But there does not seem to be video of this full event - I can find only a handful of stills and some brief film of a few specific moments. So this may be the only full documentation of the event. Presumably, those who took part in this rigmarole did so every year. Wow. 

Your narrator is Robert Hudson. 

Download: "Trooping the Color" at the Queen's Birthday Parade, 6-10-61, Narrated by Robert Hudson, on the BBC

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Next up on this tape is a large sampling from the Royal Variety Performance in November of that same year. This was the annual event that the Beatles would appear at, two years later, during which John Lennon told the royals to "rattle your jewelry" to the next song. 

This is not the entire event - unlike the parade recording, visual-only acts were cut out, as were some of the other performances. I'm guessing quite a bit was cut out, as the show apparently ran quite long. Sammy Davis, Jr., for example, is mentioned, but not heard. There actually IS video of some of these performances, which aired on a US special hosted by Jack Benny, and which is available on YouTube (and which does include Sammy Davis, Jr.), but not everything on this tape is in that video. 

Download: Various Artists - BBC Broadcast of Highlights of the Royal Variety Show, 11-6-61

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Not listed on the sheet inside the box, and perhaps the most charming and historically interesting thing here, is a 1961 rebroadcast of a 1957 program put together and hosted by Fritz Spiegl, on Mechanical Musical Instruments - those created many many years before the harnessing of electricity. 

Download: Fritz Spiegl Presents a Program on Mechanical Musical Instruments on the BBC (From 1957, Rebroadcast in 1961)

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The other lengthy tape I am featuring today was made in Chicago in 1960, and featuring two shows - one unidentified, from an unidentified station - and one legendary and from a legendary station. They are both shows primarily featuring folk music, although both of them branched out into comedy, satire,  Broadway and other areas at times. 

The first, short segment of the tape is the segment I know nothing about. It is presumably a Chicago station and presumably from around the date of the larger segment shared below. It ends suddenly after a few minutes. If anyone knows what the source is of the last record played - the horrendously annoying proto-rap number between husband and wife - please let me know. I hate it, but I'm also fascinated to know what it is. 

Download: Fragment of Folk Music and Variety Show on Chicago Radio, circa summer, 1960

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The rest of this lengthy tape is taken up with a recording, in its entirety, of a broadcast of WFMT's "The Midnight Special", dated, according to the box, as being from July 23, 1960. This is, as I mentioned, a legendary program, started by Mike Nichols (yes, THAT Mike Nichols) in the early 1950's, and continuing to this day, although like the true folky that I am, I have to add that it's been a shadow of its former self since at least the late 1980's, and especially since the passing on of it's two long-time hosts, Norm Pelligrini and Ray Nordstrand, some years after that. I'll just say this: just because a singer-songwriter plays acoustically, doesn't make that singer-songwriter a folk singer, or make the resulting songs into folk songs. Just as an example: Steve Goodman, no matter how great you might think he was (and I admittedly don't think he was great), was not a folk singer. The subsequent hosts of the show don't seem to understand that. Anyway, I wrote a much longer piece on The Midnight Special, making the same point there, when I featured another episode of the show, in 2022. 

This is a special episode of the special, because in the studio and performing several songs live were local folk legends George and Gerry Armstrong. I'm actually not much of a fan of the sort of English balladry and Appalachian folk music they specialized in, but I know a lot of folk fans eat this stuff up, so hopefully those of you who enjoy folk music programming will find this episode extra wonderful. Plus, they played an extended bit from Shelley Berman (who was also not, by his own admission, a folk singer), and how that be bad? (Answer: It can't.)

Download: WFMT, Chicago - The Midnight Special, with Special Guests George and Gerry Armstrong, 7-23-60

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And here's a Very Short Reel. This advertisement for Dairy Queen is not dated (aside from the four day window it was to run), and the station isn't identified but it was selling the "Chicken Strips Country Basket", so if anyone knows when that was a thing, feel free to write in. 

Download: Campbell-Mithun-Esty - Chicken Strip Country Basket (Dairy Queen)

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Saturday, May 24, 2025

Toastmistresses, A Fairly Generic Rock Band, Pete and his Musical Limitations, The End of the Broadcast Day, and MR. PERSONALITY

Hi, everyone, 

Well, I said things might slow down here and, as I wrote in my most recent post on my other blog, they sure enough have. I want to explain that an immediate family member has received a serious diagnosis and has had two surgeries since my last post. Since I posted to my other site, things are looking up, and hopefully in June I can get back to two posts a month, or... I might not. I hope you will continue to visit and view, read and listen whenever I do post. 

A few comments, first: 

In my last post here, I offered up, without much comment, a short recording from Armed Forces radio, which I included only for completeness sake, as I was much more interested in the material on the other side of the tape. However, I received the following comment, from Chad S. about that Armed Forces material, which indicates that it is far more interesting than I thought: 

At the very end of the Armed Forces Radio Service tape is a brief ID of "VOUS" that gets cut off by the end of the tape. This would appear to be the actual call letters of the American Forces radio station in St. John's and later moved to Argentia, Newfoundland, Canada. Older Newfie stations can still retain their VO- calls from before the province joined Canada in 1949. The base at Argentia shut down in 1993, but it appears the tiny 250 watt station shut down some time before that.

This tiny clip is an absolutely amazing find and possibly the only extant audio of this station!

https://www.radioheritage.com/llri50-post/

And, as I expected, Eric P. returned with a couple of comments on the baseball recording that I posted, including the following: 

1-We start with the ending of the 9/12/59 CBS Game of the Week TV audio (Tigers-Yankees) with Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner announcing that we heard an earlier portion of on the other tape posted.

2-At the four minute mark, we find ourselves at the end of the Bottom of the 3rd inning on August 20, 1959, again Yankees-Tigers. This is the Tiger radio network and the announcer is George Kell. Action is continuous through the Bottom 6th to the end of the tape. The Tigers pad their lead from 6-2 to 11-2 in a game they ultimately won 14-2. The station ID is WKZO-Kalamazoo.

Thanks to Eric and Chad, and to everyone who comments, and everyone who listens!

(As an aside, I have, just in the last couple of days, found another tape with over three hours of baseball recordings on it - I have not listened to it yet, as I just digitized it yesterday - but will share it here in the future.)

~~

Let's start with a tape which reflects a couple of different things which have not existed for a good many years. It is a tape featuring two speeches by members of the "Toastmistress Club", as heard during what appears to have been a radio broadcast. As it says on the page linked, the Toastmistresses had their own club from 1938 until 1985, so this tape could not be less than 40 years old. It's clearly older than that - my other out-of-date thought is that such speeches being broadcast on the radio places this in the early 1960's at the latest. 

Three other things about this tape. First, much of the recording is marred by being doubly recording - some classical recording can be heard throughout more than the first half of the tape, as well as a bit of announcer talk at one point. And second, the machine on which this broadcast was recorded was not working well at all, and the speed of the recording goes up and down, wreaking havoc on the women's voices. And third, not only is the beginning of the first speech missing, the recording starts and stops a couple of times, causing us to miss bits of each speech. 

The last 50 seconds of this tape feature some children being children, followed by a very brief moment of another radio broadcast. 

Download: Two Short Speeches by Members of Toastmistresses (and a bit more)

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Next up, I know nothing about this tape - or this band - beyond what I think is stated after the first song: that this is Miss Patsy Van Simon singing with a band. I could well have that name wrong - feel free to write in if you think you're hearing it better, or especially if you think you know who this is (beyond the name). Anyway, it's a combo playing just about the sort of repertoire you might have heard from a bar band or a wedding band at some point, especially if you weren't paying too much for them. 

There is no audience here, but they are clearly going through said repertoire, and at the end, in the absence of a crowd, they applaud themselves. So was this a demo? I doubt it. A rehearsal? That seems more likely. 

Download: Miss Patsy Van Simon and Her Band

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And now something extremely esoteric. A fellow named Pete - he says his last name a few times here, but I'm not sure I'm hearing it right (as with the above) - had recorded a set of (apparently small) tapes at some point earlier in the 1960's. He mentions multiple dates on these tapes - the tape box reads 1967 - and I'm guessing there are recordings from multiple year copied here. These are all tapes in which {ete sang (badly) with his guitar (tuned and played badly) on one side and without his guitar on the other. At some point, Pete apparently decided to simplify his collection and made copies of his tapes onto another tape, with minimal comment as to their content. That's what we have here. 

The first side, as this tape came to me, starts off with Pete calling it "Side Two", but that may mean side two of whichever older tape he was copying, since on the other side, he refers to it as "This Side", in comparison with the other side of the tape. I may be overthinking this. 

These performances are, to use the technical term, awful. And it does not appear that Pete was particularly aware of this. In fact, I have another tape (which I'll share later) where Pete consolidates even more of his old tapes onto another reel, copying them onto the left channel, while he sings along with himself, anew, on the right channel. 

These go out to a reader/listener with whom I have been having a delightful email exchange with, about terrible records and performances. Enjoy!

Download:  Pete - Pete Sings With His Guitar, One Part

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Download: Pete - Pete Sings Without His Guitar, Another Part

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Pete wrote all over the tape box and also put stickers on both sides of the reel, to sum up everything captured on this tape. See?: 

 

  

He also included copious notes, four pages of them. Here is one: 


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Here's a neat little reel I found recently. Shortly before her father's death, then-Princess Elizabeth made a trip across Canada, which, based on what I've just read, was supposed to have been made by the king, but he was too ill. This little tape simply captures a variety of reports made before and during that visit, and ends with a speech by the princess just before her departure from the country. The tape ends just as she starts speaking in French, so we unfortunately miss the point at which John Astin rushed the stage and began kissing her up her arm, saying "Princess, You Spoke French!"

Download: Coverage of Princess Elizabeth's Visit to Canada, Fall, 1951

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The next tape is little more than a fragment - under eight minutes of radio recording. But it does feature something rarely heard these days (except from those relatively few remaining AM stations which are licensed for daylight broadcasting only). It's the end of the broadcast day, as heard on WHFS, South Bend, IN, on some long-ago day (or rather, night). You'll hear some classical music, then some station ID backdrop music with an announcer ending his show ("The Wax Museum"), and previewing his next episode (which sounds like an interesting broadcast, actually). Then another announcer does Marine Corps ad, offers up some items of interest about the station and closes up shop for the night with the National Anthem (complete with a moment of un-syncopated rhythm where there usually is syncopation). They were not returning for broadcast again until the next day at 1 PM. What's that about? 

Download: WHFS, South Bend, IN - End of the Broadcast Day

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Nearly every post, I end with a "Very Short Reel", and this week is no exception. But before that, here's a "Very VERY Short Acetate" - all 91 seconds of it - as my "Acetate of the Month". I labeled it as "Man Speaks About 'Protocol M'", and at that time, I did not find anything more about it. I've now searched again, and discovered that the man is reading an editorial from Time Magazine, dated 4/19/48. You can read it here. The acetate space runs out just before the man finishes his reading. 

Play:

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And now for the aforementioned "Very Short Reel". This tape, of just under five minutes, starts with a man introducing himself as "Mr. Personality". He then babbles on for a few minutes, telling some ancient jokes along the way, in a very poorly recorded segment. Then the sound improves, and it's Christmastime - a group of folks test the microphone and levels, and continue this process, and to discuss it, for far longer than seems necessary to me. 

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Thursday, November 30, 2023

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. 


Play:

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!


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Wednesday, March 29, 2023

More Jack Eigen, A Lot of Early 1960's BBC, and a Couple of Guitarists

Hello, everyone, 

In the past two months, I have had three - THREE - people ask me if I would share some more of my voluminous collection of recordings of the Chicago late night radio talk personality Jack Eigen. It would appear that this broadcaster either deeply appeals to people or rubs them the wrong way. And when I first found these tapes, in the 1990's, I learned (from my mother) that it was always thus. She said she found him extremely annoying, as did most people, yet they listened - I believe she told me "that was kind of the point". That explanation makes no sense to me, but maybe it does to you, or maybe you just love these recordings. 

I am here to honor those requests, and will continue to do so in the future. 

I have not scanned this volume recently for any clues as to when it might be from, or for any glitches. I listened to these tapes more than 20 years ago, and made the sound files at that time. If anyone wants to pinpoint the date, that'd be great. 

Without further ado, volume three of Jack Eigen. 

Download: Jack Eigen, Volume 3

Play:

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Next up, an hour long tape which is sort of peculiar. It starts off and ends up normally enough - just a couple of guys playing guitars - some instrumental duets, some songs with vocals. 

20 minutes into it, though, a man starts speaking, and introduces a recording of a shortwave broadcast of a speech by the first lady of Guatemala, thanking Ham Radio operators who assisted the country during the then-recent (1976) earthquake. Then follows that shortwave recording, and then the man comes back and shares that he will be providing some recordings of his recent performance with another guitarist. 

The earlier segment does not appear to be a "live" recording, and at one point, an organist (with one of those beat-box built in drums) joins them. But after the "thank you speech", it seems that we're hearing a club or bar performance. There's no applause, but there is talking in the background. 

I guess what I find peculiar about it is that the sender put the "interesting" short wave broadcast right in the middle of the tape, in between highlights of his performance. That strikes me as a weird choice.

Download: A Guitar Duo with Some Vocals, With a Thank You Speech in the Middle

Play: 

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Okay, now I'm going to go back to doing something I did quite a bit in the early days of the blog, and share the various sections of a full tape, a tape which I found quite interesting. It came to me in a batch of tapes that someone very meticulously recorded off of the BBC and documented. And if I could find the box (I digitized this perhaps eight years ago), I would share that documentation. But I did capture the names of the segments and the date in the individual file names.  

I'm just going to line them up in the same order they were on the tape and let you listen to them. 

They are: 

    1.) Stanley Watkins talking about introducing sound to the movies

    2.) Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's Royal Tour of Ghana

    3.) Robert Reed (surely not that Robert Reed) on the Queen's 10th Anniversary on the Throne

    4.) "Conference"(a weekly program) - Episode: Britain's Defense Policy

    5.) The Aberdonian Train (a narrated train trip from King's Cross to Aberdeen)

Quite a wonderful little five inch reel of tape, if you ask me. Dig in!: 

Download: Stanley Watkins - Sound For the Movies (BBC, 9-27-61)

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Download: The Royal Tour of Ghana (BBC, 11-19-61)

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Download: Robert Reed - Anniversary Portrait (Queen Elizabeth's 10th Anniversary) (BBC, 2-6-62)

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Download: "Conference" - Britain's Defense Policy (BBC, 2-8-62)

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Download: The Aberdonian Train (King's Cross to Aberdeen) (BBC, 1962)

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And let's finish with a "Very Short Reel", shall we? Here's a promotion from WBUZ in Toledo, a prize package featuring a trip to the Napa 500 Auto Race in 1998. Yippee!!

Download: Kendall Energies, Inc - WBUZ, Toledo, Trip to the Napa 500

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Saturday, September 17, 2022

Queen Elizabeth in Chicago, A Labor Day Address, A Demo Reel, Gynecology and "The Dong With the Luminous Nose"

First, I wanted to thank the several people who wrote, either via the comment box or via e-mail, to share their thoughts on last months "BLOWOUT" post. I appreciate the kind words, the thoughts on that format, and the general reactions and impressions of my site. They are all deeply appreciated. It was a small sample, but the general feeling seems to have been that such a post, in which I share a huge volume of material, about which I have relatively little to say, and therefore with minimal text, is a welcome offering. I may do such a post as often as once every other post, at least until I've used up a significant portion of the 400 or so items I have waiting for sharing. For my other posts, I think I will try to cut down on the amount of typing I do, unless there is really something specific I want to pass along.

And now, on with the countdown: 

When I heard the news about Queen Elizabeth, one of my first thoughts was "I should share that tape of the time she visited Chicago". I've owned this five inch reel for decades, digitized it over two years ago, and if I could find it, I would scan the tape box for you. 

Elizabeth visited Chicago for a 16 or so hour visit, after visiting multiple sites in Canada. She arrived, as you'll hear, on a boat in Lake Michigan, and crossed Lake Shore Drive into Grant Park. For decades, that crosswalk was known as "Queen's Crossing", until the city removed the crosswalk and the stop light, a few years ago. I'll let the tape tell the rest of the story. 

Download:  Coverage of Queen Elizabeth's Visit to Chicago, 7-6-59

Play:

As long as I'm sharing that tape, I thought I'd let you hear what was on the rest of that reel. Here's a short segment of WGN radio show called "Midnight Ticker", from the same day as the Queen's visit. 

Download: Peggy Cass on "Midnight Ticker", 7-6-59

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And, as often happens, the remainder of the tape actually contains something which was recorded earlier, and then partially erased by the later material. Here is the tail end of the final episode of "The Gisele MacKenzie Show, a television show which ended its run on March 28th, 1958

Download: The Gisele MacKenzie Show (Final Episode) with Cameraman Lee Mossman and Miyoshi Umeki - 3-28-58

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We also just celebrated Labor Day, and in honor of that, here is a broadcast Labor Day speech by the Vice President of the AFL-CIO, just a short 58 years ago. 

Download: Albert J Hayes, Vice President of AFL-CIO - Labor Day Address, 9-7-64

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For those of you who, like me, can't get enough of all things Top 40 Radio, I have just the thing for you. Here is a demo reel produced by (or on behalf of) Lee Sherwood, a journeyman DJ, Radio personality and radio executive. This sampling was put together in April of 1971, and is "scoped" - that is, the songs are cut out of the equation. Just listening to this, you can tell that he was that "journeyman", as I described him - still early in his career, this tape represents stops at several different stations. 

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Here's a performance of an old bit of nonsense verse with guitar. When I first spooled out this next tape, as soon as the person began reciting the poem, I thought, "I KNOW THOSE WORDS". When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was "The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear", a fantastic collection of prose, poetry and drawing which I still adore to this day. And for whatever reason, the performer here decided to do a little rendition of "The Dong With a Luminous Nose". The words aren't quite in the order here that they are in my book, but it's certainly the same Edward Lear poem. 

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And now for something aggressively esoteric. Somewhere along the way I obtained a batch of reels which contain medical lectures and symposiums, under the umbrella title "Audio Digest". These would be sent on a monthly basis to doctors in various specialties, addressing issues within those specialties, from various aspects. The example I have today - this was the tape on the top of the pile, and one of only two of these that I've listened to so far - is on Obstetrics and Gynecology. It is a mind-numbing 57 minutes long, but I am really trying to give a sample of everything in my collection so..... ENJOY!!!

Play:


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And finally, here is our "Very Short Reel" for the day. It is, simply, an ad for a local bank. Here 'tis: 

Play: