Some Rare Monty Python, More Australian Shortwave, Mr. Handy and a REALLY Long Tape Few Are Likely to Listen To

Hello everyone, 

I hope you've had a wonderful summer, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere (like some of the people featured today), in which case I hope you start to have a swell spring soon.

Today I have something I believe to be quite rare. Although I can find a few dozen places online where this recording is referenced, I have been unable to find anywhere that this actual recording is posted or otherwise available. I may have missed something, in which case perhaps this is not as rare as I thought, but even if so, I'm making it available more readily here, I hope, and for free. 

This comes from one of my own home recorded reels, which I am slowly going through to find out their contents. And I've worked my way up to tapes made in 1976, the year I turned 16, and more to the point, perhaps 18 months after my mother and I became extremely early American converts to Monty Python (as I explained partway through this extremely long post). This is, specifically, a recording of the troupe's appearance on the King Biscuit radio show, in May of 1976. 

This performance is from the same series of shows (and same venue, of course) as was released on the "Live at City Center" album that also came out in 1976, with two significant differences. First, it is a different performance - this probably amounts to the most minor of changes from the released album (I haven't compared them), but it is a different show. And second, and perhaps more importantly, it contains a very humorous and self-depreciating introduction from John Cleese. 

I hope that all Python fans enjoy this recording. 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Live - On King Biscuit Flower Hour - 5-9-76

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The other recording on the same tape is less rare. It's an appearance of some of the troupe on "The Mike Douglas Show" that same week in May of 1976. There is a video of part of this appearance on YouTube. It is not the entire segment heard below, and it is in poor video and audio quality, but it is there. This, on the other hand, is the entire appearance, obviously without video but with much better sound quality (although my mom chimes in at one point to explain what's happening). 

Unfortunately, a good part of the visit is taken up with clips from the show and from the movie they were promoting ("The Holy Grail"), presumably to help the squares who watched Mike Douglas get an idea of what and who the Monty Python trouble was. Doubly unfortunate, John Cleese and Graham Chapman - the heart and soul of the troupe, in my opinion, are not present for the interview (Eric Idle isn't there either, but he was always - by far - the weak link of the troupe, for me, anyway). 

Download: Monty Python's Flying Circus Promote "The Holy Grail" On the Mike Douglas Show, 5-14-76

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Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later. 

The 1968 recording starts off difficult to hear and grows progressively worse - this is not an easy to listen to tape - such are the vagaries of listening to short wave broadcasts. The 1970 tape is considerably clearer in sound quality. 

Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-23-68

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Download: Australian Shortwave, 9-12-70

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Okay, now here's a segment that perhaps only the masochistic among you might listen to. But I listened to all five hours plus of it, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to do something with it. But it is tedious and endless. 

I don't know what exactly was going on here, but what seems to be small group of friends/acquaintances spend nearly four and a half hours (in the first segment), singing songs, some of them multiple times during that length of time, accompanied by a few musicians. A lot of these are old, old songs, some of them probably fairly recent to whenever this was recorded. At one point, there is a lengthy break for what sounds like a meal, and it becomes clear that there are also a few children present. For a good period of time there is no singing and the soft conversations are hard to pick up at time. Then it's back to the singing, which is followed at the end by some goodbyes and final conversations. Enjoy? 

Download: A Group of People Sing a Lot of Songs (and Talk a Lot) for a Really Long Time

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When that segment ends, the tape immediately reverts to what was being erased by that lengthy recording, and that was, MORE recordings seemingly featuring the same people, or at least a similar gang of folks. There seem to be two recordings here, of differing sound quality, and they make up another 40 minutes plus of the same sort of things heard in the other, longer segment, including a lot of the same songs. 

I'm not even going to speculate as to what the event was or who these people are/were. I'm just glad I wasn't there. 

Download: A Few More (Much Shorter) Segments with the Same People

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Well, after that heavy and unappetizing meal, how about some lovely dessert. Our "Very Short Reel" features a radio announcer trying - and most of the time failing - to record a few ads for an apparently legendary and much loved business in Springfield, Ohio, "Mr. Handy", complete with hard-sell backing music. This business just closed five months ago, after 45 years in business

Download: Unknown - Recording Mr. Handy Commercials

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~~

And finally, a mint on your pillow for getting all the way through this post. This doesn't really qualify as a "Very Short Reel", even though it's only 66 seconds long; it was pulled out of a 75 minute tape of (mostly) classical music recorded off of the radio at some point in the 1950's, probably the early 1950's. I faded in and faded out this segment, which was buried deep in the second side of this tape. It is simply a moment that made me laugh, and I decided to excerpt it here and share it with you. What's are the call letters of that station, do you say? And that's all I'll say. 

Download: A Humorous Moment

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Some Great 1960's Top Forty Radio Jingles, a 1955 Supper Club, The Today Show, More Shortwave, Baby-O, Available Postcards, and Shoving Off

 Let's start today's post with what I'm almost certain will be the most well-received of the several items I'm sharing. This is a reel of tape which contains just under an hour of Top 40 radio jingles, with a few bits of radio production music thrown in. There are multiple stations represented here, and all of this material seems to date to the mid 1960's. See how many hit records you can identify which were being copied - just short of copywrite infringement, and sometimes well over that line - within some of these jingles. 

The stations will become apparent quite quickly, and there are several minutes of jingles from each station. At least some of this material comes from the magnificent PAMS corporation in Texas (there's a brief PAMS jingle about five minutes in), and I wouldn't be surprised if all of it does.  

Download: An Hour of Top 40 Radio Jingles

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Here is the part of the tape box which has information as to the tape's contents, although I think the sides were reversed by the time it came to me, as it starts with WABC. 

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Almost exactly a year ago, I featured a husband and wife team - Ann and Len Nash - who appeared at a supper club, and who promoted their appearances at that club - and the club itself - on radio station KNPT, all of which took place in Newport Oregon. Today, I have two more of these fifteen minute programs for you. As with the first offering, these are from 1955, although in this case, they are not specifically dated. 

Download: Ann and Len Nash from the Hi-Tide Supper Club, Newport, Oregon, Some Time in 1955, on KNPT

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This particular tape box had a slightly damaged insert containing all of the details of these two shows: 

~~

With politics in the news nowadays seemingly every day of the year, it always seems like a good time to share something politics related. And so, herewith, a self-explanatory lengthy title for a short segment from a January, 1963 edition of "The Today Show"

Download: Two Segments of The Today Show, 1-14-63 - Arthur Schlesinger Interview, Two Senators Preview State of the Union

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~~

Periodically, I have shared parts of the large collection of shortwave recordings, most of them of Australian programming, which I picked up... somewhere, at some point. I've shared most of it, at this point, but have a few tapes left. I held off on this because the quality is fairly poor, then near the end becomes abysmal, but I thought I should share it, since there is an audience for these recordings. The newscast heard here makes it clear (specifically, the golf results, among other stories) that at least part of this tape is from the second week of March, 1968. 

Download: Even More Australian Shortwave

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And now, here are a couple of folks, identified on the tape box as "A. Quinn and Blonde" making several attempts to record a song called "Baby-O", and dated 1958. I think this scan of the back of the tape box is just barely readable. 

Incidentally, this tape was part of the enormous haul I made decades ago, of what turned out to the tapes belonging to (and largely featuring) Larry Taylor, tapes which I have featured here and here, and which also included the amazing "Dora Hall in Memphis" tapes, which I excerpted in my final post at WFMU. A. Quinn is (I think, based on other tapes I'm remembering from this collection) Art Quinn (and certainly not Anthony Quinn), but other than that, I couldn't tell you anything about him. 

There are some entertaining moments here.

Download: A. Quinn and Blonde - Baby-O - Several Takes, Summer, 1958

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How about an Acetate of the Month?!??! Both sides of today's acetate are shared here, and this is what it looks like: 

And in fact, that's what we have. A man who is "shoving off" for the Navy, spending both sides of the record "talking to Irene". Irene is his wife and he also has an infant daughter. At certain points, this is a remarkably touching recording. Let's hope he came back safely. 

Download: Philco Safety Record Acetate - Shoving Off - Talking To Irene, 3-23-44, Side One

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Download: Philco Safety Record Acetate - Shoving Off - Talking To Irene, 3-23-44, Side Two

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~~

And now it's time for our "Very Short Reel" of the post. I have this little segment identified as "Sally Everett Discusses Available Postcards", and beyond that, I can't tell you a thing about it. Maybe someone out there will do a little digging and discern who it was she was working for, and where these postcards were being sold. 

Download: Sally Everett Discusses Available Postcards

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More L.A. Radio, Jazz on Shortwave, Two Very Different Sales Presentations and The Edge of Night

First up, a quick shout out to commenter "Snoopy" for identifying that the "Reviewing Stand" episode I posted a few weeks ago is from March 23, 1964, based on the report on the death of Peter Lorre. He also made some funny observations about the WIND Top 1000 programming from a month ago. Oh, and Snoopy, that noise at 82:37 is just me being exactly who I was, much of the time, at that age. 

And thanks to both a commenter George and another, anonymous person for expressing their enjoying of my own pièce de résistance, the "Stop Playing the Tape" segment at the end of that same post. 

~~

I have made a decided effort, after receiving a few requests, to push to the head of the "listening" line the remaining few tapes I acquired featuring Los Angeles (well, technically in this case, Hollywood)  DJ's. This is not my typically practice, as I try my best to grab things at random to scan and see what's on them, but these are special tapes. The box for this tape claims that both of these (unfortunately brief) segments are from 1967, but one of them is clearly from 1968, given that the date is mentioned at one point - actually, I sort of took a stunned breath when I heard that date, given that it came shortly after a round-up of Robert Kennedy's political progress. May 8, 1968 - not quite a month before his death. 

Anyway, I find it interesting to note how much of these two segments are NOT made up of Top 40 music. I haven't used a stop watch or anything, but the duration of the ads and news reports seems at least to be equal to the amount of music hear here. I also got a kick out of the jingle at the very end of the Frank Terry segment, a clear ripoff of the Doublemint Gum jingle. How did they get away with THAT? 

Anyway, here are Frank Terry (on one side of the tape) and the legendary Robert W. Morgan (on the other), perhaps five months apart from each other, heard on KHJ. 

Download: Frank Terry on 93-KHJ, December, 1967

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Download: Robert W Morgan on 93-KHJ, May 8, 1968

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~~

Due to my postings of Shortwave broadcasts, most of which have been from Australian stations, I've been in occasional contact with Thomas Witherspoon of The Shortwave Radio Audio Archive, and he has reposted several, if not all of my Shortwave postings. 

Here are two more, which I recently came across. These are both segments of episodes of "The Voice of America Jazz Hour", circa 1980, each of which features live recordings of Jazz performers in concert in Europe. I suspect that the recordings shared within this programming might be quite rare, if in fact these tapes were made for VOA and not generally broadcast or released elsewhere. However, it could also be that these performances are actually from released albums, or at least that these performances were later released. By some weird coincidence, these two segments are both 35-36 minutes, even though the show original ran an hour. 

The styles of jazz performance heard here are not at all similar the styles within jazz that 1I prefer, and I therefore know nothing about these performers nor have I tried to research them or these performances. But perhaps some of you out there have a taste for this, and I don't ever want to limit this site to things that I want to hear. If anyone has information to share about these recordings, by all means, do, and I'll pass it along. 

Download: The Voice of America Jazz Hour (over Shortwave), One Episode

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Download: The Voice of America Jazz Hour (over Shortwave), Another Episode

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~~

The next two items both fit the definition of "Sales Pitches", but beyond that, they have absolutely nothing in common. The first is a slick piece of advertising, no doubt the soundtrack to a film, selling (the history of and) the purchase of a weapon of war as nothing less than the cost of maintaining freedom in that modern world (whenever that was - I'm guessing the late 1950's).

The weapon is the Lockheed F-104, and to hear the narrator tell it, it doesn't belong to Lockheed, it belongs to the free world, and to any free country who wants it. Price seems to be no object - somehow I doubt that. The sales pitch actually ends with several minutes extolling freedom - I don't think the product is mentioned in at least the last two minutes of this thing. A rather remarkable document. 

The opening minutes of this tape are in very poor sound quality, but this improves after about 90 seconds. 

Download: Unknown - "Wings of Freedom" - A Short Presentation on the Lockheed F-104

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From the other end of the "Sales" spectrum, here is a low-fi and low-energy presentation about all things file cabinet. 

Download: A Presentation on File Cabinet Sales, 1959

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And now, the "Very Short Reel" for this post. Here we have a couple who have apparently been enjoying (or at least watching) an episode of the seminal soap opera "The Edge of Night", catching, in this recording, the last few moments of the episode, then chatting (with the commercials turned low) about what to have for dinner (eggs, it would seem), then recording the closing credits of the show. Since the announcer mentions a change in scheduling for the following Monday, July 1st, it would seem that (based on the Wikipedia page for this show), that this recording was made on June 28th, 1963. 

Download: Meal Talk and 'The Edge of Night', June 28, 1963

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Stan Freberg Gives a Speech, Miss Newark of 1956, Lucky Beer in Hawaii, More Australian Shortwave, A Latin Acetate and Rudy Vallee

Hello again!

I have another wide variety of recorded tape to share with you today, lovingly digitized and shared with whatever little part of the world comes to visit. 

My first offering is quite the find, I think. I wish the sound quality was better, but even as it is, it's pretty damn special, and as far as I can tell, one of a kind. I consider Stan Freberg to be among the greatest humorists of the 20th Century, and he is one of my favorite recording artists, even though his recorded output is rather small. And Freberg, of course, became a force in advertising after he (mostly) left the comedy record field, pioneering a humorous tone in advertising that pushed aside the hard sell for at least a time. 

This recording is a speech that Freberg gave at the San Francisco Ad Club. I don't have a date for this, or, literally, any other information. And again, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. But still, other than those who were in the audience that night, and anyone who owned or played the tape before I owned it, this is a recording of Stan Freberg that has gone unheard, up until now. 

Download: Stan Freberg at the San Francisco Ad Club

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Okay, now let's spend some time with Barbara Reisman. Who, you might ask is Barbara Reisman? Well, she was only MISS NEWARK OF 1956!!!! I found the following two little segments of tape involving Miss Reisman at the end of a reel of tape which otherwise had nothing of interest on it. There is a local -and I mean really local - newspaper which mentions here here (it's in the middle right on page three).  I also found a link to an obituary, but that page wouldn't load. Boo. 

Anyway, in the first segment, she is heard talking with a few men and then singing a song, and in the second, she's heard on a radio show, "Club Tel Aviv", after the opening chat from the host and a performance by another person. She plays her cello. Whoever recorded this tape somehow managed to record over the big finish of her piece, so the last few notes are interrupted before you get to hear the very end of her performance. Oh, and is it just me, but does the audience at "Club Tel Aviv" sound like tapes of audiences applauding? 

Download: Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956, Chats with a Few Men and Sings a Song

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Download: "Club Tel Aviv", Featuring Barbara Reisman, Miss Newark of 1956

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Well, after that, perhaps you'd like a drink. Here a tape of a promotions man from Lucky Genuine Draft Beer, who went all the way to Hawaii to promote his product, early in 1966. Maybe that was the best way for him to get to spend a few days in paradise. 

Download: Hawaiian Promotional Interview for Lucky Genuine Draft Beer - February 1966

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For those of you who like it, here are two more entries in the series of Australian Shortwave, which I've been parceling out from time to time since not long after this blog began. I'm fairly certain the person who recorded these programs lived somewhere in North America, because all of the shows (up until this posting) were from episodes directed at that continent. But additionally, I wonder now if the person lived on the west coast of North America, because he or she made an effort (on the same tape as a show from 9/5/74), to capture Australia Shortwave during a program broadcast towards Asia and the South Pacific. The quality of the connection during that portion is, as you'll hear, quite poor, but it did come in, at a level and quality that I would guess it wouldn't have been received in the eastern half of the continent. 

Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, 9-5-74 (and another date) for North America

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Download: Radio Australia on Shortwave, Undated, for Asia and the South Pacific

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For my "Acetate of the Month", this time around, I picked one which features an unknown Latin band, (they are not named on the label) and a song I have very much enjoyed since the first time I played it, "El Telfonito", along with its flipside, a rather haphazard performance of something called "Zombie": 

Download: Unknown Latin Band - El Telefonito

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Download: Unknown Latin Band - Zombie

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At the end of "Zombie", you can hear an announcer, indicating that these were recorded off the air. Here's the record: 

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the week. Technically, this isn't a "short reel", as it is excerpted from a tape which was about ten minutes long. "Very Short Segment" is more like it. But this is a real period piece, a moment in time and too good to not share. Anyway, remember Zayre? If you're under 40 years old, the answer is probably "no", and if you're under 35, the answer is definitely "no", since they went out of business 33 years ago. But they were as big as K Mart for awhile (for those of you who remember K Mart, or who live near one of the three remaining K Marts that still exist in the US). 

Anyway, remember Rudy Vallee? You're older than 40 if you do. He went out of business a few years before Zayre, but in his time, made some brilliant records, and was as big a star as there has ever been, for a time, that time being 100 years or more ago. 

This brief segment brought Zayre and Rudy Vallee together, from what I am guessing was the only time, joined as well by The Ray Charles Singers, a conglomeration formed by a white man named Ray Charles a year or two before that other Ray Charles made his first record. 

Download: Rudy Vallee and the Ray Charles Singers - Zayre Commercial

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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

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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

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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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The 1950's on the Radio and at Home with the Coughlin's, Charlie Louvin Fandom, More Shortwave, and The Reasons People Buy Cars

 Before I get started with today's offerings, I would like to direct you to the comments from last time, and the way that three regular readers/commentators) figured out the teams and date, broadcaster and broadcast medium (and even the inning!) of the very brief baseball segment. One of them further delved in further and determined the date of the high school basketball game I posted. Aren't researchers amazing? Isn't the internet amazing? Have a look at the comments at the bottom of that post. Thank you, Ken, Snoopy and Eric!

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And for this week's post, I'd like to start with more Shortwave from Australia. And that's because, within the last month, I have made the acquaintance of Thomas Witherspoon, who blogs about, and has a shared archive of, Shortwave Radio and Broadcasts. His blog is here and his shortwave recording offerings are here. He has kindly written a post about this site, and cross posted one of my previous shortwave recordings. Glad to have met you, Thomas - you are clearly a kindred spirit to me and to those who read this site. 

Anyway, in honor of this meeting of the minds, I found yet another Shortwave broadcast in my collection to pass along. In this case, it is again Australian Shortwave, from Spring of 1968. An I will acknowledge right off the bat that the recording quality is abysmal. It starts poorly and gets worse and worse as it goes along. This is actually why I hadn't shared it before. But I thought the time was right to offer it up, terrible quality and all. 

Download: Australian Shortwave, Spring 1968

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And now we move on to the complete contents of another reel of tape, an old favorite of mine which I've owned for decades but only recently got around to digitizing. This is a recording made in the home of someone named Coughlin. The first side features part of a local Chicago daytime also featuring someone named Coughlin, specifically a show called "Coughlin's Corner": 

I believe, but am not certain, that this is John Coughlin, who went on to be a much beloved weatherman on Chicago television, and who you can read a bit about, here. This is a slight, but enjoyable 16 minutes or so, featuring Coughlin and a sidekick named Rainer, playing a few hits of the day - that day apparently being the mid-winter of 1957 - reading ads and making comments on the records and other such things as daytime hosts were known to do. 

Unfortunately, this was recorded from a radio with a microphone in a room, rather than line-in, so it's not the highest quality in the world, but it's not bad, either. 

Download: Coughlin's Corner

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The flip side of the tape is recorded at the slower 3 3/4 IPS, and therefore, has about twice as much time recorded on it, all of which are home recordings from the Coughlin Home. Just over half of this side is taken up with the singing of various pop songs, accompanied by piano. This is not the most scintillating part of the tape, but I decided to include it for completeness. By the way, a small portion of this recording was actually at the end of the first side of the tape. 

If this is not to your taste, I still encourage you to have a listen to the portion that follows after this sound clip.

Download: Recordings Made in the Coughlin Home - Pop Songs with Piano

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The remainder of the tape features a small child, containing a portion that I find this deeply endearing. I didn't set this up to correspond to Easter, but the first moments of the segment feature a performance of "Peter Cottontail", After another song (and a moment of an adult singing), the same child is allowed to bang on the piano and make up a song. Rather horrid and adorable at the same time. Then we have a rapid fire version of The Three Little Pigs.

But the centerpiece of the section starts at 6:45, and it's a mock interview with "Mrs. Gene Autry", with (I believe) the same small child taking the part of that interviewee, followed by a similar interview with "The Bride of the Year", Marjorie Coughlin. I encourage you to listen, if you enjoy whimsy to any degree, or just the guilelessness of children. The little girl's joyful noise just as the machine is being turned off is worth the price of admission. 

Download: Recordings Made in the Coughlin Home - Small Child Sings and Talks, and Mock Interview

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And now for something very, very specific, perhaps not only one of a kind in terms of being the only tape with this recording on it (of course), but also one of a kind in terms of the participant, the recipient and the subject matter. 

For here we have a gentleman in Germany recording an audio letter to someone named Pat, who was, at the time, the President of the Charlie Louvin fan club in New Rockford, Pennsylvania (I can't actually find that there's a town by that name, but that's what he says). He includes plenty of Louvin music, which, I would have to guess that the recipient of the tape would already have owned... 

The date is January 18th, 1968. And I think that just about covers it. 

Download: A Tape to Pat, the President of the Charlie Louvin fan club in Pennsylvania, From Germany, 1/18/68. 

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By the way, have you been wondering why people buy cars? If so, YOU'RE IN LUCK!!! Because for one night only, I have Dr. Ernest Dichter to speak on that very subject!

Download: Dr. Ernest Dichter On Why People Buy Cars

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As you'll hear, this seems to be some sort of mix between the actual interview, and various attempts to get retakes of certain questions just right. 

~~

And now the moment you've all been waiting for: our Very Short Reel™ of the day. This item is one of multiple short reels I have containing advertising for Firestone Tires. I previously shared three ads from 1967 or 1968 within this post, just about a year ago. In this case, it's two ads intended for use across the middle of January, 1969. The style of these commercials remind me more of ads I've heard from the late 1950's, than they do of other ads that I've heard from the late 1960's. 

Download: Two Firestone Tire and Rubber Ads - For 1/13/69 Thru 1/24/69

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Here is the reel box:  

The box indicates that there is an insert in the box. Here is that insert: 

Finally, here's a fun little request from the producers of the commercials, stuck right on the reel itself:

1953 Radio, Some Jingles, More from Japan, The Age of Jetomation, and Some Swiss Shortwave

Hello, 

This won't be news if you read my other blog, but... 

 Last time I posted, I mentioned being short of time, and that I'd be brief in my comments. Little did I know how much time I would have starting the very next afternoon. For it was the next day that I learned that due to COVID's effect on my agency's finances, my position was being eliminated, effective immediately. After 29 years with my agency, I am out of a job, and this is the first time in about 40 years that I've neither been employed or in school. Hopefully, it will be just a hiccup in time, but who knows. 

~~

Before I get to today's features, I wanted to share a link sent in by a reader. Back in January, one of my offerings was a "very short reel" featuring Judy Codlin's demo reel. Well, sadly, an anonymous poster recently sent a link to Judy's obituary. which is here. 

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Today, I have another typically varied set of recordings for you, which I hope you'll enjoy. And I'm starting with one from 1953, not because I think it's the most interesting, but because it allows me to continue a series I thought I'd completed, the Scotch Tape Box series. 

I do think this tape's contents are interesting enough, but I especially wanted to share this box, which is of a style I'd never seen before, and which I therefore overlooked in my series. At this point, Scotch was still differentiating between paper and plastic backing, meaning that this is probably style # 3, and from no later than 1951, as all styles from after that point did not specify the type of backing, since they had all been switched to plastic. Here it is: 

And what is on that five inch reel of tape, I hear you ask through the ether. Well, it's a recording that appears to date from 1953, a broadcast on station KROK, in Rockford, IL, of a classical concert, primarily featuring the Peer Gynt Suite, with narration, along with a short performance afterwards. Not the most scintillating thing to hear, but recordings from this period are very, very rare. Plus, at the end, there is some other material, including commercials and the start of a newscast. The mention of the war having ended would seem to place this near or in July of 1953. If nothing else, I encourage you to listen to the last few minutes captured here. 

Download: The Rockford Symphony Orchestra - Peer Gynt Suite and Programming After - WROK, Rockford, circa 1953

Play:

~~

Sticking with the radio theme, here are a whopping 30 Jingles from a station in Southern California which actually broadcasted its format from Catalina Island. The station was/is WBIG, which you can read about here. The sound quality is a bit dicey at the start, but gets better. 

Here are all of those jingles!

Download: KBIG - Radio Catalina - 30 Jingles

Play:

And here is the tape box: 

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Next up, it's yet another tape from our young man in Japan, circa late 1960's. I don't have a date on this one, but I know there are people out there who might be able to take some of the comments and narrow down the time frame. 

As with at least one of the other letters I've shared, our man (boy?) in Japan chose to play music in one channel while talking on the other. In this case, the music is actually louder than his letter in several places, playing up the questionable nature of this decision. 

Download: Another Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan

Play:

~~

And now, it's time for Horizons of Science. See?: 

And when I got this tape, a few decades ago, I was very pleased to hear that it was narrated by Lyle Dean. Lyle Dean's voice is familiar to generations of Chicago area radio listeners, as he worked in news and commercial production at multiple radio stations, for what must have been decades. 

This is a fun little diversion of a program. The things discussed here do not necessarily seem to have been the wave of the future that they are presented as being, at least not under the terms used here, but it's an interesting little program, regardless. 

Download: Lyle Dean - Horizons of Science - the Age of Jetomation

Play:

~~

Next up, a lengthy segment for those of you who enjoy vintage shortwave recordings. Most of those I've come across in my collection seem to be from the same collector, or a few people, anyway, and are recordings of Australian broadcasts. This one, however, from the spring of 1968, is a recording of broadcasts from Switzerland. The sound quality goes in and out here - it's never great, which is often the case with these shortwave recordings, but it's almost all listenable. 

Download: Swiss Shortwave, Spring, 1968

Play:

~~

And finally, here's our "Very Short Reel" for the week. It's a pair of ads for Kronenburgh Beer, from the late spring of 1980. Actually, to my ears, this is simply the same ad twice, but maybe there's a subtle difference that is escaping me, as I'm not sure why the same ad would be placed on the tape twice, back to back. Then again, the sticker on the box does say "Spot", while the handwriting indicates "2 cuts".  

Download: Lance and Enid - Two Kronenburgh Beer Ads - 6-5-80

Play:

And here's the very messy looking tape box: 

Boy Scouting in a Canadian Winter, An "American Idol" of the '60's, The Return of Australian Shortwave and Much More!

Hello, Hello, Hello!

Before I get to this week's offerings, I want to share a link which is very much overdue. One of my most frequent commenters goes by "Oldradios90", and three months ago, Oldradios shared, in the comments, that he or she had started a new, similar project to this one, capturing old audio from reel to reel tapes and other sources, on Archive.org. As of today, there are 46 items uploaded, including such things as: 

A Sailor's Message to His Family, 1945

 A Half Hour of Baltimore TV, 1958

A Talk on Cattle Feed and Disease

Football Game and Singing, 1961

As you can see, the items are just as varied and esoteric as those I've been sharing here. I want to take a deeper dive into the site, and encourage you to do the same. This looks like a great collection. 

I have shared the site in the links, to the right, but I'll also link it in this post. The site is found here. 

As a side note, OldRadios90 pointed out that last week's "very short reel" did not contain ads for Kodak cameras, despite what it said on the tape box, but for a competitor's product!

~~

Aside from making sure I left time for that explanation and link, I am, as I expressed on my other site, short of time in August, due to work demands that crop up this time of year, so my comments will be quite short. 

To start, here's a neat tape containing a recording of three boys describing (with the help of an adult) their adventures on a Boy Scout camping trip, during the no-doubt freezing Saskatchewan winter, in some unknown year many decades ago. 

The beginning of this tape was erased by other, less interesting material, so it begins mid thought...: 

Download:  Roy, Kenny, Bob and Ronnie Discuss Their Boy Scout Adventures In Winter in Saskatchewan

Play:

~~

Next up, here's an ancestor of shows like "Star Search" and "American Idol", a 20 minute segment of a program titled "Talent Scouts", from the summer of 1962, possibly August 28th. 

I should add that, unlike the shows mentioned, this was not a competition, and the performers were selected in advance due to having previously been discovered, and were being given, in many cases, their first national exposure. 

Download: Talent Scouts - Jim Backus, Harry Belafonte and Valentine Pringle

Play:

~~

Next up, here's an example of a type of tape that I come across fairly often, but rarely share. This is the genre of amateur musicians making a tape of themselves going through their repertoire. In this case, it's an unlabeled tape featuring an organist and a vocalist - two people or one, I don't know, but I would guess the former. Here's 22 minutes or so of R & B, Pop and Country hits from the mid '50's through the mid '60's. 

This tape starts as you'll hear it here, mid-song. 

Download: Unknown - An Organist and a Vocalist

Play:

~~

And here, for the first time in quite awhile, is another of the many tapes I manage to accrue, featuring mid 1970's shortwave broadcasts of "Australian Mailbag". This one, as becomes clear quickly, was recorded within days or weeks of Gerald Ford becoming president, meaning it's likely from August of 1974, but possibly (although unlikely) as late as September of that year. 

Download: Australian Mailbag - August or September, 1974

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I made this MP3 quite a few years ago, and can't currently find the disc in question, so I'm not sure how I knew the possible station or date, but the file is titled "Possibly WGBW - Political Commentary - Possibly 3-20-40". It's certainly from a station in Louisiana, and, on side one, concerns some troubles the Governor of a nearby state was finding himself in, while on the flip side (which plays with a few skips, and far more surface noise), the speaker comments on a certain bill then being considered in Congress. 

Download: Possibly WGBW - Political Commentary - Possibly 3-20-40

Play:

~~

And finally, for this week's "Very Short Reel", here is an ad for Carling Black Label Beer, dated April, 1971. 

Download: Carling Black Label Beer Ad, April 1971

Play:

Here is the letter that accompanied that tape, when it went to the radio station: 

A Nice Advertising Demo Reel, A Not-So-Nice Novel, The Return of Australian Shortwave and More!

Howdy, good people! I've got a good variety of material for you today!

Let's start with what I'll guess will be the most popular of the offerings. What I have here is a single reel containing two demo presentations from 1969, from a then-leading voice in radio and television advertising, Chicago's own Bernie Saber Musical Productions, Inc.

This reel actually has two presentations from approximately the same period spliced together, with the details of their contents taped to either side of the tape box.  The first segment, which is about a third of the entire tape, and runs just under five minutes, is summed up this way on the box:

And the second set, running almost ten minutes, is summarized on the other side of the box. This section starts with a spoken introduction by Bernie himself, wherein he plugs his new arranger, Jerry Zervic (who is also mentioned on the box, which looks like this:

By now, I have no doubt you're champing at the bit to hear what all this sounds like. I do not believe you'll be disappointed. Here are both segments, back to back, as heard on the tape:

Download: Bernie Saber Musical Productions, Inc - 1969 Commercial Demo Reel
Play:

 ~~

Staying for a moment with the theme of advertising, here's the other end of the production of a commercial - the multiple attempts to get it right. I don't know who this is (maybe someone will recognize the voice), or when this is from, or why they needed to do so very many takes sounding almost exactly the same, but regardless, here is... someone... from some point... recording multiple takes of what I believe may have been a radio promo, for CBS Television News.

Download: Unknown - Recording a CBS TV News Promo
Play:

~~

Switching gears fairly significantly, now it's time to revisit something I have on several reels, for some reason, almost certainly a batch of reels that were all bought together, but got separated at some point, as I keep coming across this stuff.

Anyway, it's more Australian Shortwave, and specifically, more "Australian Mailbag". This nearly 28 minute tape seems to be made up of one complete episode, from the very end of March, 1974, then portions of two other episodes. It would appear that the first episode heard here was erasing part of the second one, and that the second one was in turn erasing part of the third one, so that we're hearing the most newly recorded episode (and only complete one) first.

In addition, the (very short segment of the) second episode was recorded on a faulty machine, and the speaker's voice was slowed down unnaturally. The opposite was true of the third episode, which ran abnormally fast. I have attempted to adjust these segments to approximate the correct speed and tone, but I'm sure I wasn't perfect in doing so.

Also, I will note the first, full episode has mediocre sound quality, and that the other two segments have even poorer quality sound.

Download: Australian Mailbag, March 1974 and Two Other Segments
Play:

~~

And now, something fairly peculiar, in both content and sound. Here is a man reading from part of what I assume to be a novel. I found this 16 1/2 minute recording on a three inch reel of tape.

And here's a thing I've found, repeatedly, about some three inch reels of tape - some of the tiny machines built to only handle this size reel must have been extraordinarily crappy. Because I find the same problem recurs time and time again with a subset of three inch reels - speech fluctuation. And it's always the same fluctuation - a tape will play with what is clearly a "sped up" sound at first, and the tone of the speakers' voices will gradually approach a more normal tone, then pass that normal tone right by and continue to gradually lower into an artificially "slowed down" sound. I don't believe that certain of these small recorders were capable of recording at a consistent speed, and went too fast or too slow depending on how much drag there was on the left-hand reel.

I've made no attempt to correct that here - the process for doing so would be fairly complicated. Besides, I think it adds an extra odd, at times creepy vibe to what he's reading, which, as I've telegraphed in my headline, is "not-so-nice". Not that it's out of the mainstream of boilerplate fiction, it certainly isn't. But I found it jarring anyway - I mean, why record this for 15 minutes, from what clearly is the middle of a longer work?

Download: Unknown - A Man Reads Part of a Novel
Play:

~~

And finally, as always, here's our very short reel for today's post. In this case, what you'll hear below is all that there was on a small reel of tape. I don't speak French, so if anyone would like to translate this 36 second recording, by all means, please do, and I'll include it in an update of this post.

Au revoir.

Download: Unknown - A Very Short Reel in French
Play:

A Homemade Radio Show, For a Friend Out at Sea

Has it really been a month since I posted? I need to work on that, I guess. Anyway, hopefully, today's fascinating and entertaining main item will make up for the lost time. And what's more, I find that in my haste to get last month's final post up in time, I made an error in the timeline of my Scotch Tape Box series, and skipped two designs entirely. I want to get this up while I have the time, but I'll rectify that oversight next time.

~~

I was contacted back in August by Scott F., who wanted to pay tribute to a late family friend, Brian Nelson, of Chicago. His suggestion (and offer) was that I do this by sharing an example of the sort of thing Nelson did, back in the late 1960's, for Scott's dad, who was out at sea with the navy for much of the decade. In the simplest terms, it's an attempt to create a faux radio broadcast, featuring a mix of the music of the day, and some of the records that Nelson liked and loved, and those which he believed Scott's father liked and loved.

This tape is from 1968. Going into a bit more detail, as you'll hear, the "broadcast" includes a summary of the previous year's enormous Chicago snow storm (known forever more as "The Big Snow"), which seems to be excerpted from a real radio station's presentation about the storm, two phone calls to mutual friends, in order to capture their voices and thoughts on the tape, and brief comments from members of Nelson's family, who happened by the room while he was recording. It's a big production, clearly (see below) using quite a bit of equipment, and the final product is a bit of a mish-mash of music radio style, local news, audio letter and a few other things.

Scott F. offered up the following information:

Brian Nelson was one of my dads best friends, if not his best friend, for years. Brian Nelson was the ultimate audiophile. He built his own mixing consoles, modified the preamplifiers and amplifiers he used. In the day, 4 JBL L100’s with 4 Ionovac tweeters powered by a modified Phase Linear 400 that produced a kilowatt total audio. This tape was made in the period of time where Brian was starting to get his equipment up to speed and having been in broadcasting school he was honing his chops making tapes for my father who was serving our country aboard the USS Lawrence from 1962 to 1968. This tape is one of my favorites of the bunch and I hope all that listen to it can enjoy his humor, creativity and craftsmanship. His record collection numbered into the tens of thousands and were all carefully indexed using his own numbering system typed on index cards in library style drawers. I am going to take a guess that Brian would have been 23 or 24 at this time.

The tape Brian sent was a 2400 foot reel, meaning the ability to tape record just over an hour on each side, at the preferred speed of 7 1/2 IPS, And that's what we have here - more than two hours of one friend, involving other friends and family, and sharing the music they loved, in order to entertain a friend at sea. I think it's great fun and very sweet.

Download:

Brian Nelson Side One
Brian Nelson Side Two

Play:





Many, many thanks to Scott.

~~

Before going on, I want to thank those who confirmed that last month's Jack Paar recordings were from June 14th, 1962, with part of the June 15th show at the end. I'd also like to thank the person who suggested that the Coca-Cola ads were meant to suggest all the things you could be doing, and doing more effectively, while drinking a Coke. And yet another person seems to have confirmed that the short tape of ads I posted likely comes from the Fairmont, West Virginia area. Thanks to everyone for your great comments!

~~

It's been awhile since I shared another example of the unexpectedly large number of recordings I have of shortwave broadcasts from Australia. I no doubt bought a batch of them all in the same place, but at some point, that batch became separated, and I keep coming across them. These are utterly charming segments, and they strike me as a unique and sort of sad illustration of just how much the world has changed in the ensuing 40-50 years. There would be no point in shows like this "Mailbag" today. Also heard is a bit of another show.

Download: More Australian Mailbag
Play:

~~

Finally, it's time for our Very Short Reel of the month. Again, pulled out at random, it's features three ads from The Kidney Foundation, indicating how great it is to be alive.

Download: The Kidney Foundation - It's Great to Be Alive (3 Ads)
Play:

And here's the paperwork that came with the ads:

Denver Radio, Australian Shortwave and TV Commercial Work

Hello,

I remain far busier than I'd like to be, but wanted to get another post going here. Since there's not a lot to actually have to say here, I'll explain what I have in a few words and just let you listen. Since postings have been sort of few and far between, and since many of you seem to really like my media tapes, I'll feature three of them today.

First up is some vintage top 40 radio, from a very specific date - 12/11/64 - and place - the radio station at 710 AM in Denver, Colorado, KBTR - and an exciting time it must have been for Beatles fans. This date happens to have fallen between the English release of the "Beatles For Sale" album, one week earlier, and the US release of some of those same tracks on "Beatles '65", four days later.

The tape is rather choppy, and it will not be a favorite of those who collect DJ tapes - the person recording, as is often the case, cut much of the DJ chatter, trying to get the songs rather than the talking. But there's enough there to know (in the second half of the tape) that the DJ was featuring songs that no listener was likely to own yet, from a Beatles' album none of the listeners likely had a chance to own yet. And hey, there's even a newsbreak preserved for posterity.

Download: KBTR, 710 AM, Denver, Colorado, 12/11/64
Play:

Okay, here's the second clip - this is another segment of Shortwave recordings made from an Australian station which was specifically broadcasting to America. Two previously posted shortwave broadcasts from Australia can be found by clicking the "Australia" link at the bottom of this post.

Download: Even More Shortwave from Australia
Play:

Finally, here is about 15 minutes featuring a few folks trying to film a commercial for Lux soap.

Download: Filming a Lux Commercial
Play:

ENJOY!!!

Triple Play Tuesday! Australian Mailbag, Terrible Acting and a Bizarre Little Reel

It's been a busy February, and I haven't been able to get here as often as I'd like. To make up for that, I have three unrelated bits of tape today. (Oh, and I know this is going up on a Wednesday - but I wrote it on Tuesday then couldn't get it to post for the rest of the day. The title doesn't really work with "Wednesday".)

First up is a second sampling of the many tapes I came across somewhere which feature short wave recordings from Australia. Based on a couple of things heard here, particularly a reference to recently born Australian Quintuplets (the ones being mentioned were born on 12/31/67), this tape seems to date from early 1968.

The first section, a local news roundup, is not that interesting to me, but I've kept because I thought maybe others would be more interested. But that second section, for me, is GOLD. It starts at just past the 16 minute mark and lasts 15 minutes. It is called "Listeners Mailbag", and the concept of the show could not be more simple: The host reads cards and letters from listeners in America, complete with their names and addresses. Often, these are little more than reports of how well the Australian Shortwave station was coming in, perhaps a question or two, or descriptions of things or activities from the writer's hometown.

I find this a charming concept and effort, the likes of which have been completely lost in our modern world.

Download: Radio Australia - Australian News and Mailbag from America, 1968
Play:

Next, a very short segment from an ancient and clunky TV private eye show, called Martin Kane. I bought a tape some time ago which contained recordings off the air of a dozen episodes of this show, which starred multiple men in the title role over its entire run. An interesting feature of this show was that it used the setting of a local tobacco shop, right within the plot of its episodes, to further the plot and sell the sponsor's product at the same time. Every episode featured two scenes in the tobacco shop, with extensive descriptions of the various products from the sponsoring tobacco company.

On one of these episodes, someone had the wise idea to include a local sports star, a Yankees pitcher who happened to have thrown an excellent game a few days earlier. Tom Morgan may have been a good enough pitcher, but at remembering and delivering lines... well, I'm going to bet this was his only live acting appearance. It is fairly amazingly awful.

Download: Tom Morgan on "Martin Kane, Private Eye"
Play:

Finally, a completely inexplicable little three inch reel of tape. Someone went to the trouble to splice together short excerpts from what sounds like at least ten, perhaps 15 different tapes into a quick hodgepodge of sound. Many of the segments are less than 10 seconds long. Among other things, you'll hear someone playing an organ, several short excerpts of music of several styles from the 1930's to the 1940's, a jazz announcer from Chicago's WBBM, people at home talking into the microphone, and, in the longest segment by far (about 75 seconds),  a bit of a court proceedings involving J. Edgar Hoover!

I doubt that many people will give this a second listen, but it's certainly a weird little experience, and I'd love to know what purpose it served.

Download: Bizarre Small Reel of Tape with Many Edits
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