A Remarkable Document of Radio, Television (and a Home Visit and a Church Service, Too) in 1970! Plus, KHJ!

Greetings!

I have something extra special today - at least I find it to be extra special, and I think a good portion of the audience for this site will, as well. I only have one reel (plus the almost mandatory "very short reel") today, but it is just over four hours long and is both a treasure and amazing example of something I might be willing and able to share more of if there is interest. 

For those who don't dig this, I will have a more varied program of taped wonderment next time around. Although this is pretty damn varied. 

The story behind this offering goes back well over 30 years ago, and involves the Mammoth Music Mart. I have mentioned this wondrous sale at least a dozen times in various posts and on the multiple blogs I've written for or current write. The explanation I've given for it is here. 

The short version is that this an immense tent sale, which ran for 25 years on the North Shore of Chicago, with literally all formats of recorded sound for sale, in support of ALS research. And whoo boy did they have reel tapes. I would go there for the whole day with my best pal Stu and both of us would pore over the tapes. 

One of those years - I'm guessing around 1990 - we found that someone had donated a remarkable set of tapes. Perhaps the recordist had died and the family had donated all of his tapes (I'm absolutely going to assume this recordist was a man - precious few women would have been this obsessed with collecting sound). 

And what amazing tapes they were. This person had recorded virtually anything that appealed to him or interested him, off the radio, off of TV, from personal conversations, from in-the-field (i.e. lectures given at national parks while on vacation), and more. He was Chicago-area based, but recorded things when he was in other cities and towns, too. 

He seemed to be particularly interested in advertisements, which crop up repeated between other recordings, often not bothering to record whatever show was being sponsored by those ads. And he also seems to have been more than a little ADHD - recordings of certain things go on and on and then are interrupted by something else, mid thought. Just as you think you're going to hear the whole program - whatever it was - you don't. Other times, he might record something at length - in today's offering, he does this with a Frank Sinatra movie - and then would erase part of it with something else, resulting in a segment of tape that has xx number of minutes of movie, then x minutes of something else, then xx minutes more of the movie. It's REALLY scattered. 

And he also appears to have recorded things on other tapes - perhaps cassettes - and transferred them to his reels, so that the order of things recorded is not always chronological.

He decorated nearly all of the boxes with pictures of albums and performers. Here is the box cover for the tape I'm sharing today: 

 And he kept METICULOUS notes about what was on the tapes, almost to the point of obsession, but not always in the most helpful manner - a page of notes might have the first section of the tape listed on the right hand side, then the second part on the left hand side, the a bit more of the contents listed on the back of the same paper. He also sometimes listed the number (of the tape recorders odometer) where something starts, but other times just wrote in sections ("1" "2", etc.), often, as with this offering, regarding the same side of the same tape. 

Here's the big news - I have hours and hours and hours of this stuff. Between Stu and I, we bought well over two dozen of this man's tapes (this one is labeled "#53", but the ones we own start in the single digits and go well into the hundreds - sadly we were not able to get the full collection). And what I'm sharing today is only one channel (of four) on one tape. The left channels are almost always recorded at 3 3/4 IPS, which on this tape means nearly two hours to a side. The right channels were recorded later, presumably after he got another machine, and they are almost always recorded at 1 7/8 IPS, meaning, in this case, nearly four hours to a side. This tape alone has nearly 10 hours of material on it, and my friend and I have more than 25 of these tapes!

So, if anyone is interested, let me know, and I will do my best to digitize more of these and share them again. Understand, though, that it takes hours to go through these, first. And not all of them are as interesting or as varied as this one, although many are. 

This particular tape comes from the tapes my friend Stu bought (we each bought about half of them). I have had Stu's tapes in my house for about ten years, having promised to listen to them and give them back and, well, I still haven't done that. I listened to all of mine 25-30 years ago, long before digitizing was a choice. Thanks to Stu for allowing me to have these tapes all this time, and for agreeing to let me share this tape. 

In the case of this tape, I have scanned all of the content notes, and they are below. I think I have posted them here in order. Most of what is on this tape is from 1970, but the first material in this offering is from 1969. Some of the highlights, in order (there are myriad commercials listed, during and in between these segments): 

A program featuring the work of young Black poets

Recordings made during visits to Jacksonville and Miami, including some music and other things from local radio, including news of Moratorium day the day before (this was actually in 1969 - the date on the sheet is wrong)

The Frank Sinatra Movie I mentioned

Recordings from a Christmas Eve Church Service

Kukla, Fran and Ollie on Chicago Public Television (this is extraordinarily wonderful - I love KFO)

Al Capp being the A$$hole that he was., or at least had become, by 1969-70.  

Coverage of portions of the 1970 Super Bowl and Post-Game

Part of a Tonight Show Episode

A local Chicago newscast from 1/20/70

Segments of a few sitcoms

A home recording of a visit from a family member

More news, specifically about the end of the Chicago Seven trial

A few more shows, including a documentary on beavers narrated by Henry Fonda. I have not been able to identify that show called "Change" in the notes. 

Recordings of part of an Ecology forum which took place at Northwestern University. 

Here you go - let me know if you'd like me to delve further into this collection. 

Download: 1969-1970 Media Variety

Play:

  

  

   

  

~~

Well, that was a heavy meal. How about a light dessert? This little tape is pretty wonderful in its own right. It comes from Los Angeles Top 40 powerhouse KHJ. The tape starts with a few internal promos, for special programming and for a contest they were running at the time (this tape is dated 10/18/75), presumably read by Chuck Martin, whose name is on the box (see below). The rest of the tape contains KHJ production music - backing music for sports reports and for news breaks, and then typewriter noises, presumably also for news reports. The tape ends with two PAMS style KHJ "stingers". 

Download: KHJ - Ads, Jingles, Sports Themes and News Backing, 10-18-75

Play:

BASEBALL for Opening Day, Wife Beating Songs for Children, Life at Home in the Mid 1950's, Jazz from Charlie's Party and Beyond, and the Cow Goes Moo

Hello! 

I forgot to add this when I posted this, but I have tapes for sale. I also forgot to publicize the last two batches, which sold earlier this month. But these are still available. Nothing posted to this site is on any of the tapes listed in that auction. 

And now: Let's jump right into things. Major League Baseball got an early jump again this year, with two teams starting the season today in Japan, while the rest of the teams are still playing Spring Training. My Chicago Cubs - the ONLY team that matters - have a two game series of games that will count against the Los Angeles Dodgers - who have been the Spawn of Satan since at least 1976, maybe 1973 (I'm not sure about earlier) - before both teams go back to Spring Training. 

In honor of the Cubs opening the season, here are their Artificial League (AL) Chicagoland cohorts, the White Sox, heard over very poor reception in a game against the Tigers, perhaps from 1962 

(I'm guessing 1962 because the other side of the tape was a poor recording of part of the second 1962 All Star Game, at Wrigley Field. That broadcast, in full and in better quality, is on YouTube). 

I suppose it's possible that this broadcast is also out there already somewhere, but I have no idea how to find out if it is. I'm sure someone out there will know - much quicker than I would - how to date this recording.

Regardless of the appalling lack of CUBS in this recording, it's still a lot of fun. Plus, it's always amazing and encouraging to me, when I hear old baseball broadcasts, to realize how little has changed about the game, in the (in this case) roughly 62 or 63 ensuing years. That is, except for the damnable Designated Hitter rule, which is no Spawn - it is the direct work of Satan himself.  

Download: White Sox at Tigers, 6th, 7th and 8th Innings

Play:  

~~

I was quite pleased and surprised to find a nearly complete episode of a show featuring Alan Mills from CBC radio on an otherwise nondescript reel the other day. With my folk music background and my history of working with children, Mills' voice was very familiar one to me, and this show was called "Folk Songs for Young Folk". 

I mentioned up there how baseball seems to be eternally the same in a lot of ways. Well, here we have the opposite: In what could not be a more clear example of how much times have changed, this show - which I'm guessing is from the late 1950's - is largely focused on songs about marital discord, including every grade school child's favorite subject, wife beating. It's all handled with the most pleasant and avuncular good humor, too. 

Download: Folk Songs for Young Folk with Alan Mills on the CBC

Play:

~~

The next three segments all come from the same tape. And as much as some - perhaps many - of you may find the first part too sickly sweet, I found it deeply endearing and memorable. It is an edited version of a considerably longer tape, a tape which mainly features the cries, gurgles and other sounds made by an infant named Paulie in late November, 1955. 

I have come across many such tapes - in the days before video cameras, I think it was fairly common for parents to audiotape their newborn's utterances. But that's not the focus of the segment heard here. For whatever reason, halfway through the side of the tape, the child's mother, Betty, begins thinking out loud about the baby, about his father and grandfather, about his development so far, etc., and.... well, like I said, I found it extremely touching. I hope you do, too. 

Download: Mommy Betty and Baby Paulie, 11-28-55

Play:

On the other side of the tape are more baby recordings, from February of 1956, then, the following curious little segment, in which Betty complains that someone who borrowed the machine may have damaged it in some way (the recordings sound fine to me) and it order to test it, she will read from the Sears Catalog. Not, mind you, the products and prices, but rather, the advertising copy no doubt on the first few pages, telling the customer how wonderful Sears is. And for someone simply doing a machine test, four minutes seems sort of... excessive? 

Download: Betty Tests the Machine by Reading from the Sears Catalog

Play:

After she's done expounding on the wonders of the Sears company, for the rest of the reel, we get to hear a fairly wonderful example of what local radio sounded like, circa 1955. I'm guessing 1955 as that's when the baby recordings started and this is what those recordings were erasing, at least up to the halfway point or more of side two. In this case, it's the long-lived, but now defunct WMAQ in Chicago, with a bit of midwestern daytime radio, typical of the era. 

Download: A Few Minutes of WMAQ, Chicago, Circa 1955

Play:

~~

The biggest chunk of tape I have for you today is the entire contents of a tape which came in a box that looks like this: 

The back of the box (below) says "Dixieland and Other Jazz From Our Annual Studio Party for Charlie Miller" featuring - I think I'm reading this right - Guy and Lenore Preston. If those names mean anything to anyone out there please leave a comment. Otherwise, I'm just going to let this go without further comment. 

Download: Dixieland and Other Jazz From Our Annual Studio Party for Charlie Miller, 1-7-73

Play: 

Now to my ears, where there is a definite break in the recording - at the 62:20 mark - the music returns with what sounds like a different session, even a somewhat different band, so I have broken that part of the tape out as a separate track, indicating that I think it's just a jam session from the same (or more likely, a similar) band. I could be wrong, of course, but that's how I separated out this tape. 

Download: Jamming with the Band from the Charlie Miller Tape

Play:

Here's part of the back of the box: 

~~

For our very short reel, which is the homiest of home recordings, I have come up with a title which, I think, summarizes the contents nicely, without anything else that needs to be said. 

Here it is!: 

Download: Four Minutes at Home - Two Songs, An Interview, and the Cow Goes Moo

Play:

Some Great Jingles, London Nightlife, High School Radio, Talking to Australia, Some Cute Kids, and the Sports of 1971

HI! 

I'm gonna dive right in! Let's start with a lovely little tape which is labeled, as you can see below, "Agency Jingles - Background Music", and on the side of the box it is further labeled "# 53":

And of course, it's also labeled with a complete listing of the tracks, most of which - but not all - are in fact instrumental music for radio commercials. There are some vocals mixed in, though. I have no idea what agency created these or exactly when they are from. All of the information I have is in the scan, above. But these are great!

Download: Agency Jingles - Background Music # 53

Play:

~~

Now here is a bit of programming, from the BBC, that I find absolutely fascinating. It is an edition of what was apparently a weekly show, one which captured as much as possible of what was going on in world of entertainment and theatre in London. Again, this was captured on a weekly basis, with new material every week, some of it from records, but mostly recording specifically from this program. I have found, in my collection, a tape containing three episodes of this show, "London Mirror", from late in 1961, all but this first one complete (this one is missing the opening theme). The variety heard in these forty-some minutes is truly impressive even if, rather than play that icky Elvis Presley, they instead had a bland rendition of his latest hit performed by an in-house conglomeration. In fact, rock and roll music (and its creators) is conspicuously absent among the otherwise fairly broad picture of night life in London reflected in these shows. Many of you (well, me, at least) might be most intrigued by the segment featuring Goons great Harry Secombe, as this appears to be a recording of him made specifically for the show, and perhaps not available anywhere else. The person who recorded this show even cut out the newspaper ad for the program, which captures all of that variety in a very small space: 

Please let me know if you'd like to hear more of these - as I said I've found three and there may be more.

Download: London Mirror, 11/18/61

Play:

~~

Now, let's fly from London to Turlock, CA, some time in the late 1970's, and what was then the local high school radio station, where someone was trying - very poor attempts, to my ears - to make some promos for said station, KDBG. 

Download: Working on a Promo for KDBG Radio, Turlock High School, Turrlock, CA

Play:

But that's only part of what's on this reel - if it wasn't, I'd have used that segment for a "very short reels" presentation. No, the rest of the tape contains an episode of another student's country music programming, including, for the last several minutes, what was apparently the stations very own mix of some odd, humorous country material, ending with a peculiar take on the country standard "Still". 

Download: Country Music on KDBG Radio, Turlock High School, Turlock, CA

Play:

~~

And now, here's a moment in time. I have a bunch of tapes from a professional band - nowhere on them does it seem to specify who they were, just the number of "men" in the group and the event captured on the tape - in concert at "The Elks' Ball" at the end of January, 1959. I have unfortunately misplaced the box for this one, but that's what it said, along with that reference to "nine men" or whatever it was. Their repertoire is pretty well all over the map - everything from "The Peter Gunn Theme" to "The Walter Winchell Rhumba" to "Misty" to "Oh Johnny Oh". Download this one and listen to it sometime while you're working around the house. It's about 72 minutes long. 

And again, if you dig this, let me know. I have more from this ensemble. 

Download: Unknown Band - Performance at The Elks' Ball, 1-30-59

Play:

~~

For those of you who enjoy Audio Letters, here's one from a man in Maine to a friend in Australia: 

Download: Audio Letter from Maine to Australia

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". And I gotta say, as brief as this is (67 seconds), it's one of the sweetest, even the most adorable, things I've ever shared here. This record scores a 10 on the "authentic cuteness" scale. It's titled (by me, anyway, there is nothing written on the disc itself) "Two Children Play-Act a Visit", and I don't think anything further needs to be said. Enjoy!

Download: Voice-O-Graph 6 Inch Recording Disc Acetate - Two Children Play-Act a Visit

Play:

~~

And finally, a very short reel. Here is a child of the early '70's, clearly from Pittsburgh (or at least a Pittsburgh fan), giving a short play by play of the 1971 world series, before cutting in with a bit of radio, then being generally boisterous (with at least one other child, I think) and finishing with a bit of basketball play by play. Interestingly, both the Pirates and the basketball team end up with 14 runs/points. 

Download: Unknown - Baseball and Basketball Reports, 1971

Play:

New Year's Through and Through

Greetings, 

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season, whatever it is you celebrate or don't celebrate. I have a batch of recordings which all (except maybe one) have end of the year and/or beginning of the year theme. 

Here's hoping for a fabulous 2024. 

Whatever happens next year, though, it will happen without one of my favorite people in the world. Tommy Smothers died this week, and I want to just say a word or two here. That's because I think The Smothers Brothers - in addition to what they did for the expanding of boundries in television (and for letting Pete Seeger back on the air) - they were, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest comedy acts of the 20th century. I'm probably forgetting someone or some team, but I'd put them with Monty Python, The Marx Brothers, Shelley Berman, George Carlin and David Letterman and the staff of "Late Night" on that short list. 

And specifically for Tommy, I'd say that I'm not sure anyone ever had better comic timing or a more fully realized comic persona. And he was a hell of a guitar player, too, something that flew under the radar, but of which he was very proud. 

My favorite political site, Electoral-Vote.com has a nice write up about Tommy, saying far more than I want to here, and doing it better than could. 

Here are my two favorite Smothers Brothers tracks, both of which make my personal all-time favorite top 200 tracks ever recorded: Mediocre Fred and Crabs Walk Sideways.

Also, please keep reading after all of the new year related offerings below, as I am debuted my latest recording, a parody song I've been working on, off and on, for the last seven months or so. 

~~

Presumably, this first offering will be the most interesting to a good many of the people who are nice enough to frequent this site. It is a partial recording of the KFRC, 610 AM in San Francisco, broadcast of the top hits of 1967. This is far from the pristine (or complete) recording I'd wish it to be - the recording quality is relatively poor - noticeably bass heavy, despite some attempts at my end to rectify it, and it does not contain anywhere near the entire program, or even a single segment - it starts with # 92 and then, 103 minutes later, we hear the end of the number one song of the year. More songs were skipped than were heard. Still it's a piece of top 40 radio history, and that's worth something. 

Download: KFRC, San Francisco - The Top 100 of 1967 (Portions)

Play:

Incidentally, if you do a search for the gentlemen (and his home town) who stamped his name onto this tape box, you will find his obituary. It popped up as the first item found for me. He was 42 years old when he recorded this. I would have thought a fan of top 40 music in 1967 would have been half that age or less. 

~~

The next two files come from the same tape, and were recorded, first, as 1955 became 1956, and then again, a much longer segment featuring some of the same people, which appears to have been recorded sometime later on New Year's Day, 1956. I do not know anything more about this tape. In fact, I digitized this tape eleven months ago, and do not actually remember what happens during either segment. So we'll all be surprised. 

Download: At a New Year's Eve Party, 1955 into 1956

Play:

Download: A Group of Friends Goofing Around, Circa New Year's Day, 1956

Play:

~~

In my last post, I had what I called "A Post-Christmas Tape From Canada to Lenore and Her Family in Bermuda". Well, here is a sequal of sorts, another audio letter to Lenore. My labeling of these tapes is a bit confusing, or maybe not, based on the labeling of each. But whereas the other tape was labeled "from Canada to Lenore in Bermuda", this one is labeled "To Lenore from Family in Bermuda". A quick spot check of segments of the tape does indicate that this seems to be a tape to Lenore from a different group of people than are heard in the previous tape, and these people were definitely in Bermuda, apparently from a time before Lenora lived there, or between times that she lived there. What we probably have here are two tapes to the same person from two different groups of people. 

Regardless, just as the other tape was made after Christmas, this one was made a day or two after New Year's Day. 

Download: A Post New Year's Tape to Lenora From Family in Bermuda

Play:

~~

And here's a tape I've labeled simply "Party - Lynn and Gene", which is probably self explanatory. I don't know that this is from a New Year's Eve party - chances are it's not - but it still fits the theme of celebrations. 

Download: Party - Lynn and Gene

Play:

~~

And now for a Very Short Reel that I wish was longer. Although perhaps the longer version of this tape - and this segment - is readily available elsewhere, I don't know. It's a short moment from All American New Year's Day tradition. I was thrilled, a few years ago, to find a Scotch tape of the earliest design, labeled thus: 

Perhaps that's hard to read. It says Reel No. 1, Date 1-1-52, Stanford 7 - Illinois 40, Rose Bowl Game. Unfortunately, I found that nearly the entire reel had been erased with much less interesting material, leaving just 140 seconds of this football game broadcast recording. A real pity. Anyway, here it is. 

Download: The 1952 Rose Bowl Game - Short Fragment

Play:

~~

And now for something completely different. About six years ago, something inspired me - something insistent - to write a parody lyric for the song "Up Up and Away" by the Fifth Dimension. This is not even a record that I like - not when it came out when I was seven, and not now - and although I've written and recorded parodies in the past, all but one were of records that I love. Anyway, it wasn't until April of this year that I decided to make a track of my parody. 

Anyone my age or perhaps even 10-15 years younger will likely know the song this is based on, but for those who don't, the original can be found here. 

I decided along the way that I wanted my music track to sound as close to exactly like the original Fifth Dimension track as I could possibly get out of my Midi set-up, and I think I succeeded to the point that the track sounds like a Karaoke track. It is not - I built it from the ground up, instrument by instrument. I worked on it off and on, sometimes on weekends, mostly when I took days off from work. It took me over seven months! 

I am very happy with the final product.... except that I can't settle on which prospective title is better, the one that reflects the original song's title ("Come, Come in and Play") or the one which better reflects the text of the parody ("My Curio Filled Room"). Regardless, I hope you enjoy it, and would love to hear comments, including thoughts on the better title. 

Download: Bob Purse - My Curio Filled Room (AKA Come, Come In and Play)

Play: 

Vintage Demo Reels, A 1950's Comeback, Super Bowl Predictions, Shutting Down, and the EBS Gets Musical

 First, let's get this said: 

HAPPY YOKO ONO'S 90th BIRTHDAY!!!

I hope your Yoko Birthday Eve family gatherings went well last night, that they continue apace today, and that your holiday meals this evening will be festive. Remember, for good luck in the rest of the year, be sure to eat some chocolate cake in a bag. 

~~

Before continuing, I wanted to comment on a segment of my last post. In the middle of that post, I offered up some music from Marge Magenheimer. What I didn't realize until later, is that I'd shared ol' Marge and her music before. But at the time of the earlier sharing, I had no idea who she was, and likely had only heard the one tape (I have at least eight that I've heard since then). So I thought I'd direct anyone who is interested to this post, where I featured a segment of what I called a unknown singers rehearsing a few songs over and over. That's Marge and her friends, featuring some of the same songs as heard in my last post, among others. 

~~

I have another interesting and varied batch of reel highlights for you today, and I'll start with the set which I suspect will be the most popular of this post. It's a set of airchecks from a deejay with the intoxicating name of Jack Daniels. 

If you research this fellow, you will mostly find a North Carolina deejay named Jack Daniel. This is not the same person. The NC fellow does not appear to be old enough to have been on the air in the early 1970's. In fact, I can find very little about this Jack Daniels, aside from a few mentions deep within radio tribute sites and archived pages of old newspapers. 

Regardless of all that, somewhere along the way I became the owner of two of his demo reels, one dated April 26, 1971, at which point he was at WEEL in Fairfax, Virginia, and a much shorter demo reel from his time (around March of 1970, it would appear) at WINX in nearby Washington, DC. The latter one, as you can see below, was described as a "Humor Show" on the side of the box: 

I do wish that today's top 40 stations (or what passes as top 40 today) would play this much of a mix of old and new, rather than entirely new. 

Download: Jack Daniels' Demo Reel, WEEL, April 1971

Play: 

The most interesting thing to me about this WINX tape is that the station had put an absolute flop of a Bee Gees single, "If Only I Had My Mind on Something Else" (from their brief Barry and Maurice only period), into rotation. Daniels even comments on the relative weakness of the song! Oh, and that B.J. Thomas song doesn't sound like anything that would ever have been a hit - that it reached # 26 can only be attributed to it being the follow-up to a massive # 1 record, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head":

Download: Jack Daniels' Demo Reel, WINX

Play: 

~~

Jumping back in time nearly 20 years, here is an ultra rare recording of a completely forgotten television show, "The Comeback Story", hosted by George Jessel. This show told the story, each week, of someone who was once popular in his or her field, who hit a losing streak, but who was now, "BACK". You can read about the show, and its 19 episodes, here. This particular episode, from October 30th of 1953, centers on violinist and bandleader Harry Horlick. The first 15 seconds here appear to be from a recording of a different show. 

Download: The Comeback Story - Harry Horlick - 10-23-53

Play:

~~

Here's a tape I don't recall anything about. It looks like I digitized it close to a decade ago - where the original box is, I haven't a clue. But something on the box, I assume, let me know the family involved was from Georgia. And beyond that, it is self-explanatory - a group of folks singing The Beach Boys' hit "Shut Down". 

Download: Unknown Georgia Family - Shut Down

Play: 

~~

I had hoped to have this post up one week ago, but in reality, that was never going to happen. So here, a week late, and in terrible sound quality, is a little three inch reel of tape containing a 1973 recording of Joe Namath discussing the then-upcoming Super Bowl VII, and predicting the outcome: 

Download: Joe Namath - Joe Namath Previews Superbowl VII

Play: 

~~

And finally, our Very Short Reel of the post. This is one I just heard for the first time earlier this month, but I knew immediately that I had to share it right away, as it literally made me laugh out loud. Here's a station (or a production team) who took the required introductory text to the Emergency Broadcast System tests, and set them to music, and goofily catchy, silly music at that. Two bits that sound exactly like ads or promos if you aren't listening closely. They are absolutely great, particularly the second, longer one: 

Download: Two Emergency Broadcast System Test Jingles

Play: 

All That Baseball, Audio Letters, Some Dubbing, Superman, A Short Concert and Some Ads!

  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I want to start with a bunch of housekeeping and thanks. 

First, thanks to everyone who continues to read and listen to my posts, and especially those who comment. I understand the purpose of the anonymous comment feature, but I sure wish I had a way of knowing how to respond individually to many of these comments which come through anonymously, or with a name, but no e-mail address. Please know I read and appreciate all of them. 

To a person named Kyle, who wrote that he is reposting some of this material to YouTube: I appreciate you doing that, and I found a couple of those postings. I would love it if you would include, in your re-postings, a link back to my site. That would give a little bit of publicity to the site, and to the additional material people can find here. Just a request. 

I also want to direct folks to the comments of my last post. "Old Guy", who has commented several times, and an anonymous poster (who might also have been "Old Guy") did some digging into the wonderful "Christmas 1978" tape that I shared. Between the two of them (or the one of him) they/he found out exactly who this family was, and provided more information on daughter Ginger, who was Miss South Dakota of 1977. Have a look. 

Next, I am very much overdue in directing folks to the YouTube page run by a frequent commenter to this site who goes by the name Timmy. His page is chock full of great - and often quite lengthy - radio broadcasts of the sort that people really like, based on what gets responses here. These date from the 1960's all the way into the 2000's. I listened last month, for example, to a great overnight appearance/interview by Flo and Eddie, a nearly three hour show from January 1st of 1977 on KLOS. His posts can be found here. Timmy has been a great pal and a true friend of my blogs. 

I also was lucky enough to encounter a gentleman named Charles who has a fascination with (and an enormous collection of) acetates, and who has been buying some of those from me (which I've mentioned a couple of times that I've been selling). He was delighted to find out who he was buying from, having been a reader of my posts at WFMU for years, and I was equally delighted to let him know I was still in business, here. He was kind enough to send along some fascinating looking reels that he had sitting around, which had belonged to a staff person at WABC-TV in New York. I have not delved into them yet, but if they contain what the boxes say they do, you will probably hear the contents of some of them, eventually, right here. 

Finally,  I want to make mention of a new correspondent - whose name I'm not sure I've yet been told - who is something of a kindred spirit to me, and who also has what sounds to be a massive collection of a great variety of sounds, some of which he has already started sharing with me (including an American's audio letter back home from Australia) and which, once I listen to it, I may request that he allow me to share some of it here. I am very much looking forward to whatever else our conversations may reveal. 

Oh, and one last thing - that final gentleman who I just wrote about, passed along some information I think is very helpful and worthwhile. He wanted to make sure I shared that libraries will transfer old media to digital formats for free, or, as they do in my local library, teach you how to do it and then let you do it for free. I'm sure there are some which will do this with reel tape, but most will do it with 8mm film and video tape. 

Thanks to everyone above, and anyone who I've forgotten to shout-out to. 

And now, back to the countdown: 

~~

Okay, I'm gonna start with the subject of much comment, e-mail conversations and requests and offer up the full baseball game recordings which I alluded to in an October post. At this point, I have no idea if these are the recordings which are already traded in baseball collector circles or if they are recordings of a different station than those traded tapes. I do know that the game I thought was from 5/31/61, and is labeled as such on the tape box, is actually from 5/30/61, and that means that both of these games DO circulate in those trading circles. But on the off chance that these are versions of those broadcasts unknown to the great number of baseball collectors out there, here they are. 

One note before anyone gets to the end of 5/30/61 and is frustrated - the tape runs out just before the last out of the game. The game probably continued for fewer than a half-dozen pitches (perhaps only one) after the recording here ends, but... the entire game is not here. 

Here's the relevant detail from the tape box:  

And here are the two games: 

Download: New York Yankees vs Boston Red Sox, September 25, 1960

Play: 

Download: New York Yankees vs Boston Red Sox, May 30, 1961

Play: 

~~

Okay, on to things I haven't been asked to share. I have several tapes- all from the same collection - which feature people doing dubbing work for films or television shows. At some point - which I can't seem to find right now - I shared at least one of these tapes, and someone told me what was going on, which is that dialogue is being re-recorded to be looped into the existing film or video soundtrack. . The tapes never have anything written on them which identifies the work being "corrected", and by their nature are quite choppy and nearly random. Have a look at the box, which seems to actually say "Pubbing", rather than "Dubbing": 

This one is more interesting than most, to me, because of the interruptions at a few points by sounds in the studio and in the street outside. 

Download: Dubbing - with Some Interruptions

Play:  

If anyone is interested in hearing more of these, I have at least a half dozen more. 

~~

Now, here's a tape I've been sitting on for nearly three years. But I never shared it, for whatever reason. It is a compilation of audio letters from a medical resident - his name is in the track properties - to his family. The early tapes captured here have fairly poor sound quality, but it get considerably better after about 30 minutes or so. At the end of the tape is a bit of odd music which was contained on the other channel of the tape at one point. 

It's been a long, long time since I listened to these all the way through, so I don't actually remember any details at all, but I remember that this tape was quite captivating. I hope you will find it the same. 

Download: Compilation of Tapes from a Medical Resident to His Family

Play: 

~~

Okay, so here's a tape called "A Concert By a Male A Capella Group". And that's the pretty much everything I know about it, although I will say that a bit past the 30 minute point, they sing a wordless song which will familiar to many people who found themselves enjoying a certain viral YouTube video several years ago. At the end, they sing two songs I just adore, "Hawai'ian War Chant" and "Dry Bones"

Download: A Concert By a Male A Capella Group

Play: 

~~

Okay, I truly don't understand what's happening here, and this is another one I've been sitting on for years, with no real reason for the delay. I'll just call it a Superman parody, apparently in front of an audience, and invite any of you who'd like to offer up any insight into it, to do so, please. 

Download: Unknown - Superman Parody

Play: 

~~

And finally, our "Very Short Reel". And I suspect this will the favorite offering of the post for some of you, as it is a short reel sampling the commercial work of a company called "Com-Track, Inc." Dating from the spring of 1968, it contains some melodies and slogans which will be very familiar to those of us who were around in those days, for some of the most iconic American brands imaginable. 

Download: Com-Track, Inc - Sample Reel - 4-26-68

Play: 

Your Hit Parade, Local Basketball, The Newest in Stereo Sound and Much More!

 Good Day, Sports Fans (or not, if you're not sports fans, or if it's not a good day), 

Today, I have a supremely varied hodgepodge of recordings for you, selected from my bulging computer folder known as "tapes not yet used", including one which is literally labeled as a "hodgepodge", as well are my monthly acetate feature. 

But first, I wanted to pass along that I received a note from a creator of experimental music named James, who wanted to let me know he'd used some of the vintage radio recordings I've posted in one of his compositions. It's a very interesting track, and it can be found here. He is likely to continue to use my postings, after asking and receiving my okay, and I will continue to link to them. His main page is here. 

~~~

First up, a recording from 1950, contained on one of those tapes with yet another Scotch tape design which I missed, during my Scotch tape brand feature. This one is a variation of the one I identified as the second Scotch design, here, and also similar to the one I shared a few weeks ago, which I'd also missed the first time around. I still suspect the first one I just linked was the second design, but this one was either concurrent with it, and used with five inch reels, or came right around the same time. Here it is: 

So what's on this tape that makes it worth sharing. Well, it's "Your Hit Parade" from 1950. What we have here are portions of two episodes, both from early July, by the sounds of it. The only reason I'm certain it's not all from the same episode is that the first two songs heard, are heard a second time, later on, and that wouldn't have happened on a single episode of that show. 

The latter episode can easily be nailed down to one of the first two weeks of July, as the song that had VERY quickly hit number one (and I won't spoil the surprise) would have attained that position during that time period. Add the reference to a holiday - almost certainly the Fourth of July - and we have a date for these programs. 

A further note - the tape quality if fairly horrendous in the opening couple of minutes, ruining a version of "The Third Man Theme", which I consider one of the best hits of the pre-rock era, but the sound improves quickly after that, and another rendition of the song follows, later, anyway. 

At the end of the tape are a few remnants of other programming, including the introduction of a Percy Faith song, and what sounds to me like Vaughn Monroe singing is his typically godawful style. 

Download: Your Hit Parade, Early 1950, Parts of Two Episodes

Play: 

For those of you who like oddities (and very short segments), the flip side of this tape contains about 28 minutes of bland music from records, but then, at the end, there is some shouting, some whistling, some rifle shots (I think), and then someone named Bill tries out parts of a short speech several times. Given that this recording is made on the same damaged section of the tape as "The Third Man Theme" on the flip side, there is a short section here that also has poor sound. Here is that segment: 

Download: Shouts, Whistles and Shots, Then Bill Speaks

Play: 

~~

Now here is a lengthy recording which may be of interest to some of you (the Sports Fans mentioned above). With March Madness just about done for another year, it occurred to me that some might enjoy this tape. It is coverage of a High School basketball contest in Maine - no date is listed, but I'm guessing this is from the 1960's. Someone with more patience (and interest) than me can probably figure it out, based on the players mentioned. 

The radio station was WBLZ, which probably didn't stand for "Blood, Luggage and Zucchini", but I'd like to think that it did. 

The teams are Banger and Caribou, and we have nearly the entire game coverage, minus some commercials and any half-time coverage. A true bit of local sports coverage, of the sort which rarely makes it beyond its live broadcast. 

Download: Maine High School Basketball on WBLZ

Play: 

~~

Next up, here's another one of those ubiquitous Stereo Demonstration Tapes, which every producer of reel tapes and reel tape machines seems to have been obliged to produce, in the 1950's and/or 1960's. In this case, it's Bell Stereophonic Sound with a nearly ten minute production about the wonders of Stereo!

Download: Bell Stereophonic Sound - A Demonstration Tape

Play: 

~~

And now, here is yet another tape from our young man in Japan. Please see my previous posts for more of an explanation of these tapes, and my confusion regarding exactly what he was doing there. This is before he started using music on the right channels of his tapes, and unlike some of the tapes, this one's date is crystal clear - it's June 27th, 1968 (just one week after I turned eight, by the way). 

Download: Audio Letter from a Student-Soldier in Japan, 6/27/68

Play: 

~~~

And here is our acetate of the month. I don't know anything more about this disc than what it says in the file name, and I can't seem to find the record right now to scan the label. 

But it's an endearing little piece, featuring "Gail and Gram", with Gail, perhaps age four or so, telling the story of "Goldie Locks" (as it was spelled on the record). She is VERY dramatic, raising a laugh from Gram at one point. Very sweet. This is followed by three very short, the last two sung by Gram in a foreign language which I cannot make out through the surface noise. But I bet one of you can. 

Odd to think that, if the Gail heard here is still around, she's probably about 85 or 86 years old. 

Download: Gail and Gram - Goldie Locks and Three Songs, 11/23/40

Play: 

~~~

And now, two tapes which could probably be names as "Very Short Reels". First is the aforementioned "hodgepodge". I love coming across things like this, as their genesis is quite unknowable. While much of this tape is made up of minimal conversation around the house, those segments are surrounded by all sorts of recordings, as if things were recorded and erased at random, sometimes for only 5-15 seconds. I made this file some years ago, but I believe I remember correctly that this is all that was recorded on the tape. Almost an accidental performance of Musique Concrète.

The mention of George Smathers at the very start, identifying him as a Representative and not a Senator (and what sounds like a reference to him having won a senatorial seat, but clearly not in that seat yet), would seem to date at least part of these recordings from no later than 1951. 

I love stuff like this. 

Download: A Three-and-a-Half Minute Hodgepodge

Play: 

~~~

And finally, a tape which may be stretching it, a bit, in terms of being a "very short reel" and even more so, in terms of being worthy of sharing here. But I did digitize it, and it was waiting for me to use it, and I did address all you Sports Fans, so here it is. It is, quite simply, the merest short fragment of a baseball broadcast, all of 76 seconds in length, with more than half of that being essentially light crowd noise between pitches. Enjoy!!!

Download: Baseball Game (short fragment)

Play: 

Vintage College Top 40 Radio, Birthdays at the Dawn of Reel Recording, a Bit of Football and Some Compelling Selling

Greetings! I hope you haven't melted. 

I have a delightful set of rare recordings for you this time around. 

I'll start with the one I suspect will be the most interesting to the largest sub-section of this blogs listenership. It's another tape I've owned for decades, but one which I digitized just this week. The entire tape (well, one side of it, the other one is blank) contains portions of a mid-morning program that aired on a college radio station, WRBU, at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

A young woman is the DJ, and while she is earnest and a had a voice which is pleasure to listen to, she seems to have needed quite a bit of seasoning if she was going to pursue a career in that area. She talks over the opening lines of several of the songs, and her quips between the songs range from entertaining to inane, to.... well, I'm not sure what to call the moment when she opines that there was "quite a dispute" over how to categorize Simon and Garfunkel's music. 

The first 56 minutes here contain her entire shift from May 14, 1969, while the remaining 11 minutes are from two days later, May 16, 1969

Download: "The Coffee Break Show" - WRBU, 610, Peoria, May, 1969

Play:  

~~

And now for something completely different. I was extremely happy to line up a paper reel (i.e. a commercially sold recording tape from prior to about 1952, with paper backing to the recording surface, rather than paper), and find that each side featured a birthday celebration for a member of The Smith Family of Connecticut. 

What's more, one family member took it upon himself to be the Master of Ceremonies for the recording, and managed to keep the recording interesting throughout by interviewing various family members, offering up commentary, and generally speaking, maintaining the event as a sort of presentation. 

On one side of the tape is the celebration of the birthday of a man who (as becomes more clear on the other side) was named Senator Joe Smith, of Connecticut. I have done a fairly deep dive, but am unable to find out who this Joe (or, most certainly Joseph) Smith was. There was a Representative Joe Smith of Connecticut, who also had several other political positions, but he was, according to Wikipedia, born in America, while the man honored here was clearly - based on his accent - an immigrant. I suspect he was a state senator some time in the 1940's, a position not likely to have a huge footprint on the internet. 

Regardless of all that, here he is fêted by family and friends on the first day of March, 1951, just a short 70 years ago or so. 

Download: Birthday Celebration for Senator Joe Smith of Connecticut - 3-1-51

Play:  

On the flip side is another birthday celebration, and while I've labeled it 1952, I'm not sure that's correct. The person being celebrated on his birthday is Norman Smith, Senator Smith's son, on his 21st birthday, and nearly the last thing heard on this side is a date, part of which is talked over, but at the end he definitely says "1952". 

On the other hand, during the Senator Smith celebration, it is mentioned that the Senator's son recently had a birthday, and is now an adult, and that his celebration is on the other side of the tape. So either this recording is actually from 1950, or this is a different son, and a different recording, than the one described on the other side. You listen, you decide! 

And if anyone can find Senator Joe Smith in the historical record, I will update this site with my thanks to you!

Download: Birthday Celebration for Norman Smith's 21st Birthday - 1952

Play:  

~~

Now I'm going to use an obscene phrase..... BULK ERASER.

This evil contraption has been the bane of my reel collecting pastime. If someone has an old tape, and he or she does not wish to simply record over the old material, a bulk eraser can be used to wipe the tape (nearly) clean of previous recordings before use. 

I have found many, many tapes where I can just make out enough to know what used to be on the tape, and how fascinating it would have been, if not for bulk erasers. I have actually seen auctions on eBay of batches of tantalizingly old reels, perhaps even with something intriguing written on them, only to be confronted with "tapes have been bulk erased before sale". NOOOOOOOOOO!

If I had unlimited genie wishes, one would be to banish all bulk erasers. 

Anyway, that's a set up for what you're about to hear. Bulk erasers, in my experience, do a poorer and poorer job of performing their task, the closer you get to the middle or hub of a reel of tape. So it is that I found a tape which, at one time, probably contained an entire broadcast of a 1959 pro football game, recorded at 1 7/8 IPS on a 2400 foot reel of tape -  a speed and length which would absolutely have fit the whole game (in fact, the flip side is recorded at the same speed, and has over four hours of material). 

What you will hear, below, is the portion that didn't get erased beyond listenability - essentially the first 30 minutes of the broadcast, which is largely the pre-game stuff, with only a bit of the game itself, which was on 11/20/59, and was between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. The recording starts out fairly strong and slowly but surely fades away into near silence - I have boosted the sound considerably, particularly at the end, where the actual sound was miniscule. 

Download: Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears, November 20, 1959 (pre-game and short segment)

Play:  

~~

And finally, here's a very enjoyable "Very Short Reel", a 140 second blast of sound promoting a radio voice over/commercial spokeswoman talent named Florence Brown, extolling her "Compelling, Selling Touch". 

Download: The Compelling, Selling, Florence Brown Touch

Play: 

And here is the box for that tape!

Life in the Eisenhower Years: Sports, Slumber Parties, Live from Riverview, and Making Fun of the Hits

Howdy, y'all, 

I have a nice little collection of obscurities for you today. And after I selected them, I realized that they all fall within a very specific period: 1953-1960, nearly an exact overlap with the Eisenhower years. I'm not sure what that means, aside from something I already knew, which is that I'm particularly fascinated with recording made in the years before I was born. But I selected them because they are each wonderful in their own ways. 

To start, a tape of a grown man being completely silly. And I don't know who this guy is, but I love him. I have an image of "the Man of the House" in the 1950's, and it isn't this guy. He's not afraid to be ridiculous. I'm not sure if he was trying to amuse his grade school children (who are heard elsewhere on the tape, in less interesting segments), or just amuse himself, or what, but I have rarely come across a tape in recent months that I've adored as much as I do this one. And I'll say this right off - your mileage may vary - I could see this tape annoying the hell out of a person who is not like me. 

Basically, and for the most part, the gentleman in question is simply interacting with the radio, talking back to the announcer, making fun of the songs played, sometimes with satiric asides or comebacks, but just as often with wordless noisemaking. And it's not just the hits - classical music and quiet pop also get razzed - even the newscaster doesn't escape his playing. At one point near the end, he simply sings listing from TV guide over a rendition of "I've Got You Under My Skin". One of his kids joins in a few times, too. 

I am indebted to Brian B., who popped up in my e-mail, out of the blue, back in March, and offered to donate a stack of 1950's reels to me, for my perusal and possible use. Other tapes from Brian will be featured in the future - I've listened to three of them - but this was killer segment, and like I said, one that I couldn't wait to share. 

I love this guy. 

Download: Unknown - Singing Along with the Radio in 1958

Play:  

~~

Shooting back a half-decade, we head to Riverview Amusement Park, which was the place to be for teens and young adults in Chicago, right up to it's closure following the 1967 season. 

Apparently, the mighty WGN radio, which was conveniently located about six blocks from Riverview, had a regular remote broadcast from the park in 1953, and a then-newcomer to the station, Buddy Black, hosted that half-hour broadcast. 

This is another in the series of tapes that I've owned for decades, which I've started revisiting in recent months, and it's another of my favorites. There is a cornucopia of pre-rock 1950's feeling to this reel, from the songs played to the interaction between the host and his friend, to the interviews with attendees. 

Download: Buddy Black at Riverview Park, WGN, 1953

Play:  

~~

Now let's head right back into 1958. 

Clif Mercer (and that is how he spelled his name) was a mainstay in Chicago radio for somewhere around 25-30 years, mostly at WGN, and later, briefly, at WJJD when it was a big band oldies station. He also worked at WGN TV and did everything from news to commercials to DJing. 

He is said to have been a fairly wonderful person. That said, I always wondered, from the first time I heard him, how he ever ended up trying to make it in radio, and once he did, how he succeeded. My mother had the same reaction, as did most of the radio-heads that I knew when Mr. Mercer was still on the air. 

Because, as you'll hear, while Clif Mercer had a lovely, deep and authoritative-toned voice, he also a prominent lisp. One that would, I would think, preclude entry into the field of on-air broadcasting, let alone a 25 year plus career. 

I have several recordings of Clif Mercer, the best two of which I've been wholly unable to put my hands on, since starting this project. Many, many thanks to my best pal Stu, who sent me a digitization of a segment from 1958, featuring a Clif Mercer sports report, that I believe I sent him some time in the early 1990's. Now you can enjoy the dulcet tones of Mr. Mercer, too. 

Download: Clif Mercer - WGN Sports Report, May, 1958

Play:  

~~

And here's a discovery! Would you like to eavesdrop on a slumber party from 1960? Our host set up her reel to reel machine, and for part of this recording, her pals knew it was on, and at other times, it seems to be a surprise to them, particularly the last few minutes when they talk a bit more openly about certain things. 

The sound quality goes up and down here, and there are sections where nothing of very much interest goes on, but the overall tape is interesting to me in its one-of-a-kindness and just that "fly on the wall" aspect that makes, for example, the Beatles "get back" rehearsal tapes (50+ hours of them available on bootleg) so fascinating for some of us. Just to hear people being themselves when they are not conscious of being recorded and don't expect anyone else to hear large sections of it. 

They talk about school (a lot), boys, things they've been doing, etc. - there's even a few moments when they discuss (with someone's father present for a moment) what food to order. 

We're in (or near) Chicago, and the radio gets turned on in the last quarter of the recording. I'm assuming it's WJJD, which was a top 40 station at the time, as this is clearly the winter of 1960, based on the songs played, and WLS didn't flip to Top 40 until May of that year. 

Download: A Chicago Area Slumber Party, Winter 1960

Play:  

~~

For our "Very Short Reel", I've selected two items today, and they're from two sides of the same tape. The first is just under 100 seconds worth of an interview, at Bell Island in Canada, and a then-new ferry called "The John Guy". Since the ferry began its work in 1960, I'm guessing that's about when this is from. 

If you want to read about Bell Island, you can find that here. If you want to see a picture of The John Guy, that's here. 

Download: Brief Interview About "The John Guy" on Bell Island, circa 1960

Play:  

~~

Finally, on the flip side of that tape, is a series of short ads, which clearly date from the same era, just based on the sound of them (and that they're on the same tape). 

This is not actually three ads, but three recordings of the exact same ad. That's the way they're heard on the tape, as indicated on the box (below), and that's what I've provided here for you. The ad is for"Terra Nova Motors", which, like Bell Island, was and is in the vicinity of Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, where the dealership has been located since 1930. 

Like the guy who makes fun of the radio at the top of this post, I simply love this little ad. Those tight sixth and seventh chords in the final section are intoxicating to me - like manna from heaven

Download: Terra Nova Motors - 3 Jingles - "All Same"

Play: