Blowout Post # 7!

It's time once again for me to clear the decks and post a whopping twelve different recordings in quick succession, with very little comment. Yes, it's another BLOWOUT Post, Number Seven in the series. 

A reminder/explanation: These are files that I have made over the years, from my collection, that I either have little to say about, or don't remember much about, or both. In most cases, I have not listened to these since the day they were digitized, which was likely more than ten years ago in some cases. 

In all, there is nearly six hours of recorded material in today's post. 

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Five months ago, in this post, I shared one episode of London Mirror, from a tape which contained multiple episodes of that show. I wrote quite a bit about it, at that time, and you can look back at that post for what I said at the time. Anyway, I find this program fascinating and very entertaining, so I'll lead of today's post with another episode from that same tape:

Download: London Mirror - 11-25-61

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This one says "Portion of a Trial". Again, aside from a bit of scanning, I have not re-listened to these offerings - I'm just putting a bunch of them up there and out there for your perusal. And I honestly don't remember anything about this one. Enjoy!

Download: Portion of a Trial

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Here's another recording which is well explained by its title, "Accordion Playing and A Cappella Singing". 

Download: Accordion Playing and A Cappella Singing

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Here is a tape featuring about five and a half minutes of news as broadcast in Michigan in 1954: 

Download: International, National and Local News from Michigan, 1954

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I have, on several occasions, delved into a collection I own which came from someone who worked for multiple TV networks (and possibly elsewhere) in the 1960's, including a bunch of tapes featuring dubbing or looping in dialogue for shows and movies. I can't find the box for this tape at the moment (I digitized this at least a decade ago), but it said something about "Figard" on it, and I've been unable to find out what that might mean. But it could be the name of the program or movie which was being worked on, here. 

Download: More Dubbing for a TV or Movie, Possibly "Figard"

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Somewhere along the line I managed to pick up a set of tapes by someone who led various sized dance bands in the late 1960's at local parties and events. This one is referred to, on the tape box (see below) as Kendall's Ork (with 8 members), but not all of them show this name for the group, and each performance seems to have a different number of guys on the bandstand. This particular performance is from the Winchester Nurse's Association's shindig on 9-25-59. Maybe you were there!

Download: Kendall's Ork (8 Members) - Winchester Nurse's Association - 9-25-59

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Lemme ask ya somethin'. Do you like Insurance Assessors? Put your hands together for Insurance Assessors! I bet at least a few of you were bopping to that great 1994 hit "The Insurance Assessor Mambo" when it got all the way to number one on the Billboard Insurance Songs Chart that year. 

For all of you Insurance Assessor fans, here's an Insurance Assessor reporting his findings on a variety of buildings that he insurance assessed. 

Seriously, I do like to throw in something like this every now and then, just to give a fuller picture of the ridiculously wide range of tapes that I come across. 

Download: An Insurance Assessor Reports His Finding

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Here's another easy one to describe. It's called "Three Songs by a Barbershop Quartet". The description I have for it is that it is three songs sung by a quartet, barbershop style. 

Download: Three Songs by a Barbershop Quartet

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And yet another easy one to explain. It's called "A Young Girl, A Baby, and Their Dad". In this one, you'll hear.... oh, never mind. 

Download: A Young Girl, a Baby, and Their Dad

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Yet another one I'm not going to have much of anything to say about. Here's "An Evangelical Preacher", who is preaching, evangelically. 

Download: An Evangelical Preacher

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And now, for an "Acetate of the Month". In this unlabeled recording, a group of family and friends sing the pop hit "K-K-K-Katy", and then a woman reads a short paragraph of nonsense, then a man tells a story about a small woman trying to remove a large boulder. The sound quality gets fairly poor in the last 45 seconds or so of this recording. 

Download: Audiodisc Unlabeled Acetate - K-K-K-Katy, Humorous Recitation and Boulder Story

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I have, on two previous occasions, here and here, I am, here again, featuring one of the many tapes I somehow became the owner of, which feature an amateur songwriter named Marge Magenheimer. This one qualifies as our "Very Short Reel" for this posting, although some of what's said indicates that it probably came from what was originally a longer tape. But this was all that was on the tape when I got it. There is a bit of pop song singing, then a dedication of sorts from a family member or friend, followed by a short statement from Marge. Then a pianist plays one of Marge's songs. 

Download: A Few More Minutes with Marge Magenheimer and Friends

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The Return of Joe Gerossi, Belated Mother's Day Thoughts, A Garage Band, An Audition, Some Promos, and the End of a Family Visit

 Greetings, fans of measuring the speed at which recording tape passes by the erase, record and playback heads of a reel to reel machine. 

That's probably not actually why you're here... 

First, I would like to share that, as of last Monday, I will again be gainfully employed. Thanks to everyone who chimed in with encouragement and/or condolences regarding the loss of my previous job. As I wrote today on my other blog, the immediate effect here is that I have considerably less time, as I am ramping up in the new job, to blather on at length about things I'm sharing. Some of you may not see this as a problem...

What is also means here, at least for this posting, is that I have not had the time to scan new stuff, or to go back and listen in detail to anything I saved some time ago. So I'm sharing a half-dozen things today which I listened to some weeks, or maybe even months or years ago, without the benefit of re-listening. I can remember all of them, to one degree or another, but will not be nearly as detailed as usual. They are not mysteries to me, but their contents are not fresh on my mind, either. 

With that out of the way, let's get the recorded material you've been waiting for!

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Back in 2020, on two occasions, I shared the entertaining ramblings of someone named Joe Gerossi. Those posts can be found here and here. At the time of the second of those postings, I mentioned that there was a third tape of Mr. Gerossi, which I intended to digitize soon. I did do so, but then failed to share it for well over a year. Here is that tape, lasting nearly an hour. Again, I have not rescanned this tape since digitizing it, so you are free to discover its charms, and any sections which are less than charming, on your own.

Download: An Hour with Joe Gerossi

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Since Mother's Day is so close in the rear view mirror, here is a tape I've been sitting on for at least five years, waiting to remember to share it for Mother's Day. I hope this is close enough for there to be some enjoyment. It's a recording of a Primary School's Mother's Day program, recorded at some point in the 1950's. As I recall, the sound quality is extremely poor at points during this recording, but the overall sweetness of it prevails and made it worth sharing. 

Download: A Primary School Mother's Day Program

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Here's a tape I've simply labeled "A Garage Band Rehearses". I did just scan this one a bit to remind myself of the era, and found it contained multiple Chuck Berry numbers, "Gloria", "Wooly Bully" and the like, so I'm going to say circa 1965-66. 

Download: A Garage Band Rehearses

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Here is the only item I'm sharing this week for which I have a relevant image. This is the sticker placed right on the reel: 

As you can see, this is the announcer audition reel for someone named C. Hughes, made on November 30, 1956, just a short 65 1/2 years ago. Mr. Hughes certainly was an announcer of his era. Have a listen!

Download: C. Hughes Audition Tape, November, 1956

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And speaking of radio advertising, here are eight commercials put out by The National Religious Broadcasters, in all of five and a half minutes, from 1971: 

Download: Eight Promos for the National Religious Broadcasters

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Here's the final offering for today. I guess I could have made either of these last two items the "Very Short Reel" for the week, but as this one is the shortest, at under four and a half minutes. I've called this, "Comments at the End of a Family Visit", and it's from July 15, 1953. In it, we hear a short organ solo, then a series of family members - adults and children, at least some of them having the family name "Van Sickle" - talk about what a wonderful time they've been having. I hope they came back again. 

Download: Comments at the End of a Family Visit, 7/15/53

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Vintage Folk Music Radio, More From Japan, Satchmo, Another Acetate, and The Man From Labatt

Hello, everybody, hello!

Before I get started with today's items, I wanted to share that I have again been invited to be part of a podcast. It's the same show - Ephemeral - which has featured elements of my collection four times in the past, and has had me on, as an interviewee, three of those times. 

This time around, I am sharing the world of the Star Ads. Those of you who have been with me since the WFMU days, or the 2003 365 days project before that, might remember the Star Ads, but in case you don't know what I'm talking about, I have shared excerpts from them here and here. 

The new podcast, which features several more , previously unshared Star Ads, can be heard at: 

https://www.ephemeral.show/episode/star-ads

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I also wanted to give an update on my last post, information which will be of great interest to those in the Chicago area, at least those over the age of 50. A new reader, Ed (and welcome and thanks, Ed), wrote in to confirm that "Coughlin's Corner" was indeed hosted by the future Chicago weatherman John Coughlin, but more interestingly, his sidekick on the show was none other than Ray Rayner, who would later become a star of children's television in Chicago for well over 20 years. I love Ray Rayner, and I'm glad to have that information. Thanks again, Ed!

And also, someone who calls himself "Old Guy" wrote in to say that the person in charge of the Charlie Louvin Fan Club (also from the last post), who received an audio letter from Germany, was located in New Oxford,  Pennsylvania, rather than New Rockford. Thanks to you, as well! 

Now if I could only make out the senders name, which is garbled by a bit of damaged tape, in the opening moments of that recording. 

And thanks to both of you - and everyone else who has written - for the kind words about my work on this blog. 

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Another cornucopia for you today, starting with a tape I first got to hear almost exactly 27 years ago, in the spring of 1995. And it was one of about a dozen tapes I had bought somewhere (can't recall) which I was very excited to play. And that's because they all contained vintage recordings of one of my favorite radio shows: The Midnight Special. Allow me to geek out about The Midnight Special for a half dozen paragraphs. 

The Midnight Special is legendary in Chicago. It began airing on the classical station WFMT around 1953, created by and initially hosted by none other than Mike Nichols. Hosting duties quickly turned over to two of the stations bigwigs, Norm Pellegrini and Ray Nordstrand, and remained in their hands - along with a third host, starting in the 1980's - for roughly 40 years. Their slogan was to play" folk music and farce, show tunes and satire, madness and escape". I've called it "Folk Music Radio" in the name of the post, and that was always the biggest part of the show, but as you'll hear, there were many other genres dipped into, as well.

Along the way, the program championed all sorts of musicians who were hardly being heard anywhere else, particularly in the years before the folk explosion at the end of the 1950's. They were also perhaps the first station in the country (or, at least outside of the Boston area) to play Tom Lehrer's music. My parents taped many favorites from the show, starting not long after its inception, and their New Year's Eve marathon shows were played every year, from long before I was born and well into the 1970's. 

The show took a dive, in my opinion, when people started to decide that if you played an acoustic instrument, you were automatically folk singer, even if you were singing navel-gazing songs. And so, somehow, "singer songwriter" and "folk music" got intertwined in a way I simply couldn't stomach, especially as I find them to be pretty much the antithesis of each other - the self-absorbed vs the global. To pick one example at random, James Taylor singing "Fire and Rain" - as much as one might like it - is not folk singing, and the fact that it's sung to an acoustic guitar does not make it so. I could go on, but I won't. I faded away from the show when the then-new host became the dominent and eventually only host, over 30 years ago. The show no longer resembled what it once was. Okay, end of rant.  

Anyway, these tapes were all from circa 1960, or a year or so on either side, and that was overwhelmingly exciting for me. My favorite of all of the episodes was this one, which dates from early October of 1960's, probably the first week of that month, based on the new releases mentioned and one comment from the host, who in this case is Norm Pellegrini (who I preferred to Ray Nordstrand, by the way). 

This is a recording of the entire two hour show, except for a verse or so of a Richard Dyer-Bennett song at the point that the tape needed to be turned over (and any time one can miss part - or all - of a Richard Dyer-Bennett performance is a happy moment for me). The commercials are included (except for a short period of time many years ago, WFMT has never allowed pre-recorded commercials - they are all spoken by the show hosts). There are segments here that I could do without, as there have been on every broadcast of the Special that I've ever heard, but the high points here are very, very high, and the low points are brief. 

The episode starts (after the introductory comments) with a track from the then-brand new Jimmie Driftwood album "Tall Tales in Song", the song is "Fi-Di Diddle Um-a Dazey", and upon hearing this tape, that immediately became an all time favorite of mine, which it is to this day. I sought out a used copy of that album starting virtually the next day, and not long after, Bear Family released ALL of Driftwood's RCA albums in a box set, which I gobbled up as soon as it was available. 

As mentioned, I have several more of these, as well as other Midnight Special tapes from the 1960's and '70's which I've picked up along the way, and if there is interest, I can digitize some of those. 

Download: Norm Pellegrini and Various Artists - WFMT: The Midnight Special, Early October, 1960

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Now, here's a little piece of tape featuring an interview with Mark David, who was a representative of Labatt Beer. The interviewer is one Bob Brokaw. I can't put my hands on this tape at the moment, to share an image (I digitized this about two years ago), but it was dated 7/22/64. The beer now claims to be the # 1 selling Canadian beer worldwide, but at the time of this interview (and this is the point of the interview), the beer was being introduced in the US. And we even get a weather forecast, another Firestone Tire ad (after those I shared last time), and a fantastic, if very brief, ad for Capri Luncheon Meats! This program aired on KGO, San Francisco. 

Download: Bob Brokaw Interviews Mark David, The Man from Labatt, 7-22-64

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Moving on, here's another interview, or at least a fragment of an interview. This might be a commonly available recording, I don't know, but in case it isn't, I thought I'd share it here. It's six minutes of an interview with Louis Armstrong, in which he is very briefly being asked questions about his career, in chronological order. Not included here (as it came after the playing of several Armstrong live tracks), is the announcer explaining that the interview is from Vancouver, in 1954. I believe this is wrong, as the album he is promoting seems to have come out in 1958, but I've kept the date as 1954 here, since that's what's identified. The key point here, I think is that "Hillbillies Make Love, Too". 

Download: Segment of Interview with Louis Armstrong, Vancouver, 1954

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And now, it's time for yet another in the series of tapes sent home, from our young man in Japan, who I will continue to identify as a "student/soldier", although that may not be accurate. This one dates from prior to his introduction of music to his tapes. 

Please see the previous entries for more explanation here - or rather, an explanation of my confusion about exactly why teen was in Japan in the late 1960's. Maybe there are some clues here that I've missed. This tape is date May 15, 1968. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, 5-15-68

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And here's what everyone has been waiting for! It's our Acetate of the Month. Today's acetate has all sorts of writing on it, identifying the singers and songs, with the pianist and the person recording the record listed in this side of the record, as well. Look!:  

These are religious numbers, and both are terrifically sentimental performances, sung in a very old-timey harmony style, one which appeals to me a great deal. The singers, as you can see, are Lillie Berggren and Clara Edvenson, with Edith Mathson at the piano, and A.C. Mathson taking care of the recording duties. Here's the side seen above, "The Lights of Home": 

Download: Lillie Berggren and Clara Edvenson, with Edith Mathson, Piano - The Lights of Home

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Here's the flip side, "Be Still My Soul", with more old-timey piano stylings and sweet, old-folks-at-home harmonies. 

Download: Lillie Berggren and Clara Edvenson, with Edith Mathson, Piano - Be Still My Soul

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And here's the other thing you've all been waiting for! It's this week's episode of "Very Short Reels". The following 148 seconds - about the length of the average 1960's pop hit - is all that was captured on one side of a three inch reel of tape that found its way to my collection. 

And at some point, this must have been someone's prized possession, as (after about 40 seconds of difficulty with making the recording) it captures what is described as "Debbie's First Cry at Four Days Old", with the date given as September 28th, 1952. Debbie is coming up on 70 years old this fall. This is followed by another recording, perhaps Debbie a few months later, but whether it's her or someone else, it's certainly a baby laughing. 

Download: Debbie's First Cry, Four Days Old, 9/28/52, Plus a Bit of Baby Laughter

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As the tape box (below) indicates, the flip side had recordings of part of Eisenhower's acceptance speech and Stevenson's concession speech, following the 1952 Presidential Election. Those seem likely to be available elsewhere, so I didn't include them here. 

Passover on 1960's Television, A Letter from Vietnam, "The Fat American", and a Moment from 1950

Today, we're going to run the gamut from religion to fatness, from Vietnam to car tires, all from a roughly ten year period, somewhere between 1962 and 1972, with a very brief side trip to 1950. 

Since we're in the first few hours of Passover, I thought this would be the perfect time to share a tape I came across some years ago, and listened to again over the winter. It features recordings of two televised programs about - and featuring elements of the celebration of - Passover. My guess is that they ran during the same year, although I don't know that for certain. 

I will largely let them speak for themselves. The first program on the tape, nearly exactly a half hour in length, features the Operatic and Broadway Tenor Jan Peerce, and comes from a series on NBC - one which ran without advertising - titled "The Eternal Light". This was a program which ran on radio, then television (while remaining on radio as well) for a total of 46 years.  

Download: "The Eternal Light" - Passover with Jan Peerce

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The second program - about which I have discerned fewer details - features another Operatic Tenor, Richard Tucker, who sings at times. Between his singing, there is a presentation of a Seder at home, presented in a sort of educational fashion. This one's nearly three quarters of an hour.

Download: Richard Tucker Presents a Passover Seder

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For those of you who didn't want to listen to 75 total minutes of religious programming - and for everyone who did - here is something I find truly fascinating. It's a tape I just listened to for the first time yesterday. This features a Marine narrating an audio letter from Vietnam. The speaker is quite self-effacing and I find him extremely likeable. He is speaking to a family - the Schaffer (sp?) family - but specifies that it's easier to visualize himself speaking to one person, and so chooses "young Ruthie" as the focus of his comments. 

The tape is punctuated a few times by such sounds as the unit phone ringing, the Marine's cohorts partying hearty somewhere nearby and a plane going over at low altitude, providing a level of verisimilitude rarely experienced in these sorts of recordings. 

Starting just before the end of side one, and extending through the entirety of side two, he draws out a secret that he wants Ruthie to keep - a gift he is buying, presumably for his wife or at least his girl. I'm guessing his wife, since the gift turns out to be something truly special, costing him "a year's pay". 

I think this is just a wonderful tape, and hope you do, too. 

Download: An Audio Letter from a Marine in Vietnam to Ruthie Schaffer and Her Family

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Coming back over to the domestic scene, here's a tape I found capturing an episode of "CBS Reports", from early 1962. It was fairly easy to nail down this episode and its date, but aside from its existence (verified on IMDB), there doesn't seem to be any other record of this program. 

It was absolutely wonderful to hear the long-missed voice of Harry Reasoner, who, in this case, was examining the expanding waistlines (and other measurements) of the American populace, in a program titled oh-so-discreetly, "The Fat American".

Download: Harry Reasoner - CBS Reports - "The Fat American" - January 18, 1962

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At the beginning of last month, after some prodding from a commenter, I initiated a new series, "Acetate of the Month" to capture the home recording format which was most common before reel tape became available to the masses. And that, of course, was the home record making device. Today, the second installment. 

And I will clarify that "the masses" did not have access to home disc-cutting machines any more than the average 1950's home had a reel tape machine. The disc machines were largely for the well to do, or at least the upper middle class. 

And so it was that one thing a person, group or family might do, is go to a public place and have the opportunity to make a record and hear their voices on it when they got home. This particular item is a six inch, 78 RPM record made at "The Chicago Fair", whatever that was, on July 9th, 1950, by The Rappaport Family. 

It looks like this: 

These records did not allow for a lot of recording - this record is barely a minute long. But it certainly captures the excitement of being able to record their own voices, even as they spend much of their 66 seconds complaining about how most things at the fair were not free this year. 

Download: The Rappaport Family - At the Chicago Fair, July 9, 1950

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(As a side note, this sort of side business still existed until at least 1968, because my family and I made one, in a downtown Chicago Woolworth's - I believe the resulting recording was a 45 RPM, but may have been a 78. I vividly remember this. We listened to it after it was made - my grandmother was in town for one of her rare visits - and in this case, her last one, before her death in 1972. At one point, she adopted a baby voice and said "I'm only three and a half years old". Sadly, we managed to damage the disc that day, before we even got it home.) 

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Finally, from my stack of "Very Short Reels", I grabbed one housed in a plain, solid black box with no markings on it whatsoever. It turned out to contain three ads for Firestone Tires. Unlike lots of tapes of this sort, these three ads are not variations on one particular sales pitch, but rather, they feature three completely different focuses. The ad mentioning the Indianapolis 500 would seem to place these ads in the early 1960's, but the reference to the number of years they'd been in use at that race, according to Wikipedia at least, would seem to date them closer to 1967 or 1968. 

Download: Three Firestone Tire Ads

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It's All About the Trappists

 Today, I have something that is perhaps even more esoteric than most of what I typically post here. I don't know how many people this will appeal to, but I've had this tape a long time, and I find it interesting, so I'm hoping some or most (or all?) of you will, too. I am posting the entire tape, in the various recorded pieces that appear on it. With the exception of today's "Very Short Reel" at the end, everything that follows here is from the same tape. 

Most of it is concerned with a young man, seemingly in his early days of high school, who has already decided that what he wants and intends to do with his life is join the order of the Trappists Monks. Much of the remaining tape concerns another young man with a similar calling. I'm mostly going to let this tape speak for itself, and simply introduce the segments. The names of the participants are in the file names, and can be heard on the tapes, but I'm only going to include their first names here. 

First up, and by far the longest segment, and the centerpiece of the tape and this posting, is the young man in question, offering up, first, an essay about the Trappists and their lives of solitude and silence, then an interview with the prospective monk, conducted by another young man. This segment covers the first side of the tape and part of the second, and is over 50 minutes long: 

Download: Andy - Essay on Trappist Monks and Interview About Becoming a Trappist

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Next, someone named Terrance reads a very brief letter that he has written to what was likely a local monastery: 

Download: Terrance - Letter from Terrance to the Brothers

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The same young man (Terrance) is then interviewed for a few minutes about answering a religious calling: 

Download: Interview with Terrance about Answering a Religious Calling

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The rest of the tape about - nine minutes or so - is something of a hodgepodge. Here is most of it, starting with the end of a very well known, disgusting and very non-Monk-like joke. The rest of this segment is made up of some deadly serious sounding readings - with accompanying sound effects at times, badly recorded at others. 

Download: End of a Joke and Some Readings

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And here, for lack of a better title, is what I've labeled "The End of the Tape". I'll just let you enjoy its charms: 

Download: The End of the Tape

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As an aside, I'm wondering what people think of this idea of sharing the entire contents of a single tape. If there is sustaining interest across most or all of it, is this particularly interesting, or not worth pursuing? I have several others where I think this concept might work well. 

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Finally, our "Very Short Reel". This is a bit peculiar, and I'm not sure what purpose this tape served. As it says on the box (below), this is recorded directly off of the soundtrack of a 16mm version of two commercials, in this case for Peter Jackson Cigarettes, a brand which still exists today, after nearly 120 years, but which I'd never heard of before. 

What strikes me about this tape - a little three inch reel, by the way - is that it has the typical low-fidelity sound that I would associate with a 16mm projector, and it's not clear to me why someone would want to copy the sound that way. Regardless, it happened, and it ended up in my collection, and they're a fairly interesting little set of two ads, so here is that tape!

Download: Soundtracks to Two Peter Jackson Cigarette Ads (From 16mm)

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Four Disparate Radio Tapes

Today, as indicated above, I have three recordings made of - and one made for - radio broadcasts. But first, a few bits of business:

First up: It was earlier last year that I discovered that a podcast had used one of my most ridiculous songs - titled "A Sailing Milk Moustache" - as the introductory music for their year-end show. I reached out to the person behind the podcast, and, after quite a bit of conversation, ended up doing a lengthy interview with him for one of his episodes, all about my history, in terms of my collecting and, particularly, my humorous songs. I was then invited to be a part of this year's New Year's Eve/New Year's Day special.

Interestingly, the show's general theme is (this is from their website):  "A podcast and Website dedicated to understanding the world in which we live from a Christian worldview perspective", although nothing remotely in that area came up in the two shows I was part of.

My interview can be found here, and the New Year show - which I am only part of sporadically, can be heard here.

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And second, I am indebted to Tony, who recently posted with regard to my recent 1949/1951 home recording post, that, having discerned a reference to Time for Beany, it was clear that this family resided in the Los Angeles area, as that puppet show was a local phenomenon at the time. Thanks!

As a side note, I would encourage everyone reading to find some early Time for Beany, the episodes with Stan Freberg and Daws Butler basically (I believe) improvising the show. There are episodes available in various formats, including youtube, It's among the funniest stuff I've ever seen.

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So, on with the countdown!

The most interesting of today's four offerings is probably this mish-mash of recordings off of Chicago radio. It lasts just over 37 minutes, and as far as I can tell, it's all from the AM band, with the exception of a few brief moments of home conversation, made over the earlier radio recordings. The dominant station here is broadcasting an appearance by Governor George Wallace, one of his first appearances after his assassination attempt, at the time of the Democratic Convention, which places this recording definitively in July of 1972. Whoever was recording this day flips back to this news coverage multiple times, and it makes up a good portion of the recording. Bernard Shaw, later to become very well known on CNN, is among the reporters heard. Other stations are heard only momentarily, such as the one playing an Eagles record, and still others are heard for too long for my taste, particularly a bit of religious blather which is fairly far outside my own ideas about faith.

All in all, a neat little time capsule.

Download: Chicago AM Radio, July 1972
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Moving back in time 14 years, here is an 1958 episode of a 15 minute show, produced by the Archdiocese of Chicago, and titled "The Catholic View". This show dates to a point in time when a local Cardinal, Samuel Stritch by name, received a deep honor from the Pope and the Vatican, and departed Chicago with great fanfare, to fulfill his new role, only to encounter unexpected tragedy along the way. I have found at least three tapes (perhaps all from the same collection) recorded at different points in this saga, and this one does not complete the story. If I can find one or both of the others, I will share it next time. The whole thing sounds like something out of a medical drama or even The Twilight Zone, so sudden and severe and unlikely are the highs and lows this man experienced. If you want to get "the rest of the story" a bit faster, you can read a very brief explanation of it at the end of his Wikipedia page, and after that, you can wonder what he might have thought about his niece, Elaine Stritch. 

Download: The Catholic View, May 1958 - Pray for Cardinal Stritch
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Next up, I'll offer a bit of explanation. Quite some time ago, I offered up an ad that I found in the midst of a tape of a "Beautiful Music" station, and mentioned that this is where it came from. Someone asked me to post that full segment, commenting that there is very little record of what "Beautiful Music" stations sounded like. Well, I couldn't find that tape - I may well have sold it. I often bundle together tapes which don't have anything interesting (to me) on them and sell them on eBay. But I've found a segment of another station, WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, complete with drab music and equally drab sponsors.

This segment is about 64 minutes long. I believe it's possible that the last 18 minutes are NOT from a radio broadcast, but rather, are all tracks from the same album. There is a sound (at 45:50) which might be a recorder being switched off or back on at that point, and the next song fades in. The final few tracks sound like they could all be from the same album. But I'm certainly not sure.

If anyone wants to hear more of this sort of material, I can post it as I come across it.

Download: WBNS, Columbus, Ohio - Beautiful Music Programming
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Finally, as part of the ongoing "Very Short Reels" feature, here's the next one I pulled out of the stack. It's a simple, 30 second ad for a Disney film that I don't remember ever even knowing existed, "Atlantis: The Lost Empire". That's odd, actually, because in 2001, my girls were 10 and 8 that summer, and likely at least on the fringe of the audience for this film. Or maybe I was just that dedicated to not having to hear "Come Sail Away".

Download: Walt Disney's "Atlantis" - Radio Ad
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It's worth noting that this commercial has to date to the very last point in time that ads were still being provided to radio stations on reel to reel tape. I'm amazed that this was still a thing in 2001.

",,,They've Been Practicing For Over a Month Now..."

I could not have come across this tape at a better time, and I had to race to share it with the little corner of the world which comes here to listen to my collection of ephemera. This ties in perfectly with the recent release of the wonderful film "Florence Foster Jenkins", and with the publication of a book by the same title, by my friend, and fellow blogger, Darryl Bullock.

For what fell into my lap last week (or, more specifically, my speakers), but a spectacularly incompetent performance by a pair of otherwise unknown young men, laughably bad and comically sincere. 

This came about a quarter of the way through an otherwise tedious and nearly unlistenable 90 minute tape of a Pentecostal style church event, date and location unknown. The tape starts with the singing of several hymns, interspersed by prayers and community announcements. After the segment I'm featuring was a lengthy sermon, based on a specific text of scripture, and then, an even lengthier revival speech, by a man who, based on his accent, was clearly Australian - his speech leads to music while people come up to the front of the church to be received and to accept Jesus as their personal savior. 

Ah, but in between the final of the initial hymns and that lengthy sermon, comes this moment of magic, when, as you'll hear, a member of the congregation introduces two young men from the congregation, who have been practicing their song "for over a month now". Clearly, "over a year now" would not have helped, either. I don't know if it would have been appropriate in that setting for people to applaud, but no one does, and only a meek "thank you, fellas" follows the atrocious performance. Perhaps the man who introduced them no longer felt it was the "very special treat" he indicted it would be. 

In the spirit of Florence Foster Jenkins, please enjoy Zac and Arthur, with their rendition of "I'll Tell the World That I'm a Christian": 

Download: Zac and Arthur - I'll Tell the World That I'm a Christian

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Some Early '70's Jesus Music and Talk from the Kids!

Here's an appropriate reel of tape for this Easter afternoon. What I have hear is a tape containing two productions by the youth of some church, or summer church camp or youth retreat (or the like), from the early '70's. 

These are energetic, earnest performances, amateur from start to finish but endearing in their own ways. I particularly enjoying the energetic, at times haphazard drumming and the unsure quality of many of the lead vocals. 

The two shows were performed almost exactly one year apart, as shows by the dates on the tape box, below, and as recorded, they run virtually the same length, just under 43 minutes for each show. 

Based on what the man introducing the second of these shows ("God Said Yes") explains, it would seem the adults (within whatever this setting was) chose the music and dialogue for the first of these performances, "God is Real" (and however many preceded this one, in previous years), while the young people - for the first time - made all of the writing and selecting choices for "God Said Yes". I don't perceive a huge difference between the messages or the way they are delivered, but perhaps you'll hear something I've missed. 

The first show starts mid-song on the tape, while the second starts with the aforementioned announcement. 

If you meant to get to church this Easter, and didn't quite make it, maybe this will make up for what you missed. If that's not your thing, you might enjoy this anyway, as a recording which captures a moment in time in America - the early '70's - the only point in our history, I think, when such a church group project of this type would have sounded exactly like these young people sound, on this tape. 

Download: Unknown Summer Youth Group - God is Real (8/2/70)

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Download: Unknown Summer Youth Group - God Said Yes (8/1/71)

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An Evening of Music with the Muir Family

Today, an example of the sort of tape I just live to discover. On both sides of this five inch reel of tape, members of a family named Muir (and a few kids from other families - perhaps relatives or friends) display their musical abilities, whether developing (in terms of the kids' instrumental abilities) or well-honed (as in some lovely harmony singing).

 

Those who like highly produced or even auto-tuned music, as well as those who don't want to hear down-home Christian songs may not dig this too much, but if you're a fan of home-made, heartfelt music, this is for you.

 

We start slow, with a piano piece by one of the kids, and a trumpet piece by another one, followed by a very short guitar/vocal performance of "Surfin' U.S.A."

 

Download: 1.) Piano Piece

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Download: 2.) Trumpet Piece

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Download: 3.) Surfin' U.S.A.

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Then, for me, the magic starts, as the pianist, guitarist and trumpeter team up on a short version of an old-timey song. This is ragged as all git-out, but it's honest and sweet and homey and makes me feel overwhelmingly nostalgic and very close to teary.

 

Download: 4.) You Tell Me Your Dream, I'll Tell You Mine

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The guitarist of the house now entertains with a country song which is unfamiliar to me, with simple strumming and a wonderful, aching vocal. I wish there was more of this material, actually.

 

Download: 5.) I Hate to Lose You

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Then most of the family gets together, and I find the resulting sounds to be just wonderful. The vocals and harmonies are just a bit ragged, but that makes the whole enterprise that much more real. They team up for three traditional religious songs (the third of which is missing the opening lines).

 

Download: 6.) Do You Know My Jesus?

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Download: 7.) How Great Thou Art

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Download: 8.) In Times Like These

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Next, a brief moment with the baby of the family, just three years old, and not actually quite ready for her close-up, as she's not able to carry a tune just yet.

 

Download: 9.) Jesus Loves Me

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For whatever reason, there follows an even briefer moment of conversation about how some recent repairs have left someone's car worse off than it was before.

 

Download: 10.) "The Car Ain't Been Right Since..."

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Next up, two more religious numbers, first, a duet, and then a trio, neither one of which strikes me as being as wonderful as the three earlier ones. The second one has a small section which was erased by someone laughing.

 

Download: 11.) Whispering Hope

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Download: 12.) God Leads Us Along

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The end of the tape is taken up by a couple of jokes, and here they are:

 

Download: 13.) Jokes

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Here is the back of the tape box. The way the tape played for me, out the box, had the second listed side here first, so that it how I digitized it. No telling which side was originally first - even the writing on the box simply says "one side" and "other side".

 

Thanks to the Muir Family. This is magical.