A Lot of Jack Paar, A Letter from Korea, New Things with Bobby, Astoria Oregon, and Our Regular Features, Too!

Howdy, everyone!

I have another wide variety of recorded material for you today. I'll start with the one I suspect will be far and away the most popular of the six offerings. 

It's another recording of Jack Paar shows! These have been very well received before, so why not offer up some more. 

But I have to be up front here - I have not listened to this lately. It looks like I made this MP3 well over a year ago, and I don't really recall what's there. I have not re-listened since, but when I found that I hadn't offered up this compendium yet, I thought it would be an excellent idea to do so. I do recall that, as indicated, it's not a single show, at least not all the way through, but rather, there are segments, probably from more than one episode. 

So please enjoy another 77 minutes of vintage Jack Paar. 

Download: Jack Paar and Guests - Various Jack Paar Segments

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~~

Okay, on to Korea. During the time I was posting at WFMU, I offered up four tapes featuring an army doctor who had worked in Korea, in a command role. Three of those postings featured tapes back home to his wife, while he was in Korea (all after the hostilities had ended). There were five tapes featured in those three posts. The fourth and final reel shared was an audio diary of a road trip he and his wife took, in retirement. They were well received at the time.

That last tape can be found here, and it also contains links to the three previous postings of tapes from Korea. Recently, I discovered that I have at least one more reel featuring an audio letter to his wife, from this doctor, whose name was Lt. Col. William Reiber. It is a longer tape than the other Korea tapes I have shared - a five inch reel rather than a three inch reel. He mentions running out of things to say due to having chosen a longer tape. And there are a few things that are fairly cringeworthy, when views from today, particularly the segments about his "houseboy". 

But overall, what's here is pretty magical - a slice of life in a time and place that precious few people today experienced. I'll let you experience its various fascinations yourself. Here it is: 

Download: Lt. Col. William Reiber - Audio Letter From an Army Doctor in Korea - 4-15-54

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And here are both sides of the tape box!: 

~~~~

Okay, now let's switch gears so violently that we break the transmission. And this next segment is probably sort of self-indulgent, but I'm gonna share it anyway. I hope you'll listen, but understand if you don't. 

Because this is a tape of me, at age ten. When I recently posted several media recordings that I made at that age, including some rare game show recordings, I added that my early personal reels - those I was gifted with to use for my own recordings, thusly: 

Most of the recordings were pretty unlistenable by anyone who wasn't me, and wasn't me in grade school. I was a severely hyperactive child, prone to simply talking to myself, or pretending I was presenting a (usually very uninteresting) show, or even just banging on things with other things, like a reject from a Spike Jones cover band. 

There was, however, one recording in which I created a "fake show" that I was looking forward to finding, and last week, I found it. Maybe I like this because I remember this day, and this recording, as clear as I remember what I did this morning. Maybe I like it because it's goofily entertaining in its own way. Or maybe I'm the only one who will like it. 

Here, I am pretending I have my own radio channel (later identified on the tape as WREP - that is, W, followed by my initials), and I am demonstrating a home art project that anyone can do (and which I did a lot, around that age). You take a sheet of newspaper, preferably one which has a lot of different squares of stories, ads, or whatever, and your tempera paints, and you paint the different boxy areas different colors, so that no two boxes next to each other are the same color. An art project is probably not the best thing to do while pretending one is on the radio, but I still think this is adorable, and again, I know exactly where I was and what that space looked like, at that moment. 

A couple of things to note here. On two occasions, I say "makes the adjustment", in the voice and cadence of Shelley Berman, which is a lift from one of Berman's greatest bits, one I had long since memorized at age 10. You will also hear my mother and sister, briefly. And perhaps most fun of all, near the end, you will hear my sister playing (and briefly, singing along with) the Absolutely Free album, by The Mothers of Invention. 

Download: Bobby - The New Things Show

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I will add that this artistic "show" was followed by two brief "radio" shows, each featuring an improvised song that the shows were named after, the "Buns Galore" show and the "Fannies Galore" show (butts were a constant source of humor in our household). The "Fannies Galore" show song was rather entertaining, but I will resist the urge to post it here unless there is a groundswell of support for me doing so.

~~~

Many years ago, I bought a bit batch of tapes which turned out to be from a radio station in Astoria, Oregon, circa 1990 or so. I've featured individual tapes from that collection in my "Very Short Reels" project over the years. But here is a 13 minute reel that collects PSA's sponsored by local business and a few local Astoria ads, interspersed for some reason with some ads for Stroh's. 

Download: A Collection of Ads for Stroh's and Local Astoria, Oregon Businesses

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~~

And now, the Acetate of the Month. This one features a small child named Gail along with a woman named Hattie. If I could find the disc, I'd post a picture here, and maybe it would have more information. 

It takes about 75 seconds to get going, but the last 2 1/2 minutes are deeply endearing. I particularly enjoy the snoring sound offered at the end of "Little Boy Blue", and the duo singing featured in the last minute or more. Let's suppose this is from the mid-1940's, and if so, Baby Gail would now be about 80 years old. 

Download: A Presto Acetate - Baby Gail and Hattie

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~~

And finally, the ever-popular feature, the "Very Short Reel". 

I love this little scrap of tape: What we have is a couple of guys testing their machine, going through a variety of topics and accents. A radio announcer in the background seems to announce WSPL or WFPL, but I can find no definitive information about stations with either of those call letters at 104.3 anywhere, at any point. Maybe someone out there knows, or can find out. 

Download: "Testing" - An 88 Second Chat

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Steve Allen Highlights, A Soldier Vacations in Japan, News From the Dawn of Reel Recording and More!

 Howdy, 

I have a wide variety of recordings today, so let's get right to it!!

First up - and this may be Manna from Heaven for some of you - here is a compilation someone made, featuring (mostly) musical performances as seen on the Steve Allen show. This was not his pioneering Tonight Show, but rather from The Steve Allen Show, most likely the late in the run of his of his NBC Sunday night show, or from his brief run thereafter on ABC. Here's the top of the tape box: 

I think the tape largely speaks for itself. There are a few spoken segments, including a short bit about angry letters in the paper and a phone call, among others, but most of this is music. It's not really my type of music for the most part - for me the best part by far comes when the always great Smothers Brothers show up at the end. But if you want a preview of what you're going to hear, here's the part of the back of the tape box that has the lineup: 

Download: Musical Highlights from the Steve Allen Show

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~~

And now, here's the entire contents of a reel which is Manna from Heaven for me. For this is one of those elusive paper reels, of the type only produced between about 1948 and 1952. Often these turn out to be a letdown, containing recordings of classical music off of radio or records. But this one is the jackpot - news and comment from 1951 and 1952. 

At first, I thought the first segment was simply a newscast, but the amount of commentary, from decidedly left-of-center, led me to realize that it was something else, more akin to what Paul Harvey used to do, but from my side of the aisle. A more careful listen - d'uh - indicated that it was a broadcast paid for by the American Federation of Labor. The host is Frank Edwards - he hosted this show for close to ten years. As seen by the note contained in the tape box, this program was dated 9/17/52. 

Following this, we hear the well known and respected voice of Edward R. Murrow, delivering a eulogy for the then-recently deceased Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan. Oddly, although this seems to start with the turning on of the tape machine, this broadcast (heard after Frank Edwards) clearly dates from more than a year earlier, both because that is when Vandenberg died, and because that's what it says on the other side of the paper: 

The tape ends with some Western Swing. Usually, when there are records recorded on a tape that I feature, I leave that segment, but here, I wanted to present the tape in its entirety, plus, the music is SOOO great - first, there's Merle Travis with "Alimony Bound", then there's a rendition of "Orange Blossom Special", following which there is just a moment of some walkie talkie conversation. 

Download: A Paper Reel - 1951 News and Comment, An Obituary and Some Western Music

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~~~

And speaking of Walkie-Talkie Conversations, here's an oddity I found on a three inch reel of tape. It's a series of police calls and dispatches from somewhere in England. Like many three inch reels I find, this was recorded on a machine which did not keep its speed very accurately throughout the recording, and if you compare the background hum throughout, you'll note that it varies in pitch from spot to spot: 

Download: Some Police Calls From England

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~~~

And now - and I hate to bury this wonderful tape so far down, but I like everything I'm sharing today - here's a really neat tape featuring a young soldier in Japan, recording a chatty tape for the folks back home in the spring of 1968, all about his vacation through parts of Japan, with loads of great detail and thoughts about what he did and saw. 

This tape was recorded on all four tracks of a three inch reel - as you'll hear, he realizes he has a lot to say after finishing side two, so he went back to side one and started using the right channel. 

By the way, each of the four segments, except the second one, starts with what "used to be" on the tape, before he started erasing it, and I've left these in. On parts one and four, this isn't that interesting, but part three starts with someone starting up The Beatles' "I Feel Fine", and proceeding to play drums along with it, in possibly the worst possible mismatch for the record, and exceptionally badly, to boot. I found that most entertaining. 

Here is the mailer cover for the tape: 

And here is the tape: 

Download: Audio Letter About a Vacation in Japan, 8/27/68

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~~~

For my Acetate of the month, I've chosen to dig into my mother's collection. As I've mentioned here and elsewhere, she was a coloratura soprano, and as her training and career began in the 1940's, she had many acetates of herself performing, that being the most convenient way to hear oneself, in those days. 

I share this, not to feature her vocal performance, although it is nice, but because her comments at the end - starting at the 2:10 point - make me smile, and I hope it does the same for you. One thing mom didn't lack for was belief in herself....

She was exactly a month shy of her 23rd birthday, the day this was recorded. 

Download: Mary Frances Godwin - Addio, del passato (with Comments) - 3/16/46

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~~~

And now, it's time for our "Very Short Reel". On the tape, the label says "Coke Theme" (I am unable to get my scanner to replicate the very light writing on the reel). On the recording itself, Coke is not mentioned, and the show is called "Refreshment Time". The entirety of the tape is heard here - it features someone named Singing Sam, who sounds a bit like Bing Crosby, saying goodbye at the end of the show. 

Download: Close of 'Refreshment Time' With Singing Sam

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I hope you've found something - hopefully a lot of somethings - to enjoy here today. 

Mort Sahl Hosts the Tonight Show! PLUS Some Truly Odd Coca-Cola Ads

Howdy, everyone,

As you will have seen if you read my other blog, this has been a truly hectic and busy month, so I will not be typing nearly as much as I often do, allowing much more to be experienced by the listener without all those comments from me.

But first, I want to continue to the Scotch Tape Box series, and that's where I'll do most of my commenting for today. Two entries ago, I shared the box that seems to have been the one they settled on for most of the 1950's, then last time, I went a bit out of turn and showed the 10 inch reel box that seems to have been their style for quite a while in the '50's and maybe into the '60's.

Below you will find the box I believe came next, and it's a radical change from the "picture of a reel of tape" which had been the focal point, to one degree or another, from each previous design:

I believe this design replaced the iconic black-with-most-of-a-reel design some time in the very late 1950's, and was the going design for a couple of years. I say this both because of the material I've found on such tapes over the years - the likely dates of those recordings, and, most centrally: because I literally never saw one of these until I started collecting tapes in the 1980's. That dovetails nicely with the fact that my family did not have a reel to reel machine that worked well - at all - from about 1960 until the fall of 1963. There would have been no reason to buy tapes during that period.

Now, Scotch is promoting the high quality of the tape, and suggesting via the image, that it is what the studios use - and that was probably fairly accurate. This happens to be a 2400 foot reel, which was twice the length that the first reels of tape had. They had previously expanded to 1800 feet, and now made the tape even thinner and lengthened it again. The box says "Double Length - Double Strength", and while the former was absolutely accurate, the new, thinner tape was not in any way stronger - it was more fragile and more likely to stretch and damage, just as you'd imagine. It got even worse when they thinned the tape again and crammed 3600 feet on the same roll of tape, about a decade later.

~~

Okay, like I said, I'm just going to put up this rare and wonderful tape and let it unspool for your enjoyment, without commenting much at all. Here we have an episode (or I think perhaps parts of multiple episodes - I listened to it months ago) of NBC's "Tonight Show", featuring the guest hosting of Mort Sahl. The main part of the tape is an episode featuring several famous women discussing male/female relationships. I'm fairly certain this comes from the several months between Jack Paar's departure from the show and Johnny Carson's arrival, a period during which NBC had multiple guest hosts for the show. If I had more time, I'm sure I could figure out the date(s) of this recording. This is an amazing 90 minutes of tape.

Download: Mort Sahl and Guests - The Tonight Show (1962)
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~~

And here's a VERY peculiar tape I heard for the first time, just this week. It features nine Coca-Cola radio, each one of them featuring a string of helpful household hints that, aside from a couple, have NOTHING to do with Coca-Cola, interspersed with the then-current jingle. I'd love to know how these were received in 1971, because hearing them today is befuddling. Make sure you remember to rub lighter fluid on the walls of your house!

Download: Nine 1971 Coca-Cola Radio Ads
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~~

Finally, I again pulled out a "very short tape" from the pile of them I have by the tape recorder, and found that it was labeled ""Clock Jingles". However, that seems unrelated to the tape's actual content, which is a series of ads for several businesses - no doubt in the same market - very likely from the same advertising company. The link below lists the apparent names of the companies (and, for the first one, the radio station). I'm very unsure that I have them all right, but again, maybe someone out there can identify the location and correct names for these companies.

There are 16 1/2 jingles/ads heard here in just 135 seconds. I say "1/2" because the ad that starts at 1:04 is incomplete - it plays just as you'll hear, on the tape.

Download: Unknown - WMMM, Kettering’s Bread, Sorrow’s, First Federal & Corwin’s Ford
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Late Night Gossip Radio, New York City, 1959-1960

Before I get to another quartet of tapes, I wanted to continue with the "Scotch Tape Box" series, which you can follow by clicking the link for "Scotch Tape box History" at the bottom of this post. I'm going to do my best to share these in chronological order, although I'm not sure on a couple of styles, but this post is the exception. 

Because while the 3 inch, 5 inch and 7 inch boxes produced by scotch each went through myriad changes during the '50's, they seemed to have largely stayed with one style, throughout, for their 10 inch product. Maybe they were setting it apart because it was even more likely than the other products to be used by professionals in the recording studio (and indeed, this was a sales point, right on the box). Regardless, every ten inch Scotch reel I've found from the early days (and admittedly, I haven't seen that many) has looked like this: 

Similarly, every Scotch box I've ever seen with this design has been a ten inch reel. I don't think they ever housed smaller reels in boxes that looked like this.

That box has considerable wear. This particular tape is one of six 10 inch reels my family owned and used, all of them filled before I was born in 1960, and this is the only Scotch brand one of the six. The others were all Audiotape brand. Unlike almost all our family's early tapes, there are no personal family recordings on this tape - it contains a performance of a Paganini violin piece and a collection of live Benny Goodman performances.

~~

Not so very long ago, I obtained a couple of five inch audiotape reels, labeled professionally with a "TV Time Recordings" logo, and featuring segments of "The Bea Kalmus Show" on WMGM radio, New York, dated exactly two months apart, and both of them featuring a local New York starlet named Fairfield Mason. I'm certain these came from Mason's collection or that of her family, as each tape is clearly excerpted from a much longer radio show.

And what a show it must have been. I'm not particularly a fan of this "gossip column on the air" style of radio, which Irv Kupcinent did for years here in Chicago. In fact, I find it aggressive in its vapidity. On the other hand, its certainly a snap-shot in time, and a time where this version of show-biz might have felt quite strong and steady, even though it was nearing the end of the line.

Bea Kalmus is written up in a few places as the first female DJ in the country, and I have no idea if that's true. She also made albums, appeared in a forgotten film titled "Disk Jockey" (which I would love to see, as it also features an appearance by the Weavers - but no one seems to have it) and would sometimes sing along with the records that she played. In between, on her late night show, which came from a local restaurant (as did Kupcinent's), she would interview the stage, screen and music stars who were in town.

If Bea Kalmus' star has faded to almost nothing - and significant mentions of her on the web are minimal - Fairfax Mason, the guest heard here, does not appear to have been much of a star even in 1959 or 1960. The potential Broadway show she mentions in each broadcast does not appear to have ever come to fruition, and she has only one Broadway credit to her name, a small part in "How to Succeed", a few years later. A deeper search in Google Books finds that she was still working as a singer/entertainer in 1992, at what appears to have been a small New York club. But Bea treats her as if she was Ethel Merman.

I, for one, cannot stand Fairfax Mason's laugh.

Here are both tapes, from November 26th, 1959 and January 26, 1960, dates which nicely book-ended Mason's trip to Newfoundland, where I'm sure it's quite lovely at the start of winter. The second interview is nearly twice as long as the first.

Download: The Bea Kalmus Show, with Fairfax Mason - 11/26/59
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Download: The Bea Kalmus Show, with Fairfax Mason - 1/26/60
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~~

Going in about as random a different direction as I could, here is a bit of virulently right wing propaganda - John Birch Society style - railing against the United Nations. I only have tape four of the series, and if I had more, I'd annoy you with those, too. By the way, the crackling sound is on the original tape. A quick search shows that Mary Davison wrote multiple books on this and related subjects, and was called a "whistleblower about the United Nations" at least once.

Download: Mary Davison - The United Nations, Tape Four
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~~

And finally, something very nice randomly selected by my towering stack of Very Short Tapes (this series can also be linked, at the bottom of this post). This one turned out to be a Demo Reel for legendary voice-over talent Hal Douglas, who was particularly well known for his narration of movie trailers. Here he is heard in a series of commercials and segments of commercials, in a demo reel for potential customers.

Download: Hal Douglas - Voice Talent Demo Reel
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A Vacation! Ed Sullivan! Mike Wallace! The Brooklyn Dodgers! All on One Five Inch Reel!!!

Hello everyone!

Before I get to this weeks remarkable reel of tape, here is volume two of my series covering the evolution of tapes from the Minnesota Mining Company, aka Scotch Tapes. Last time, I shared what has been confirmed to me as the first design they used, a very attractive and busy Scottish plaid theme that was in place from around 1948-1949.

Fairly quickly, they appear to have modified this box considerably. Perhaps someone in marketing decided it would be a good idea to have an image of the tape right on the box. The plaid theme is relegated to the background, and is well under a quarter of the box, the reel is the dominant part of the image, and in a new feature, there is a little box near the bottom telling you whether you've purchased the paper-backed tape which had initially been the only choice, or if you've bought the new, plastic-backed version (which would soon become the industry standard). This box appeared in perhaps 1949 or 1950, and was replaced by at least 1951, if not earlier. By the time the next design came along, paper-backed reels were a thing of the past.

Incidentally, the timing chart seen here as part of the reel, was indeed part of the reel, although it must have been easy to dislodge - I've only ever seen two or three of them. And finally, for seven inch reels, 1200 feet seems to have been the only choice at this point. As different (and thinner) plastics would be employed, going forward, this would eventually expand into a choice of 1200, 1800, 2400 and even 3600 feet on a single seven inch reel.

What a fascinating and fantastic time capsule I have for you today, all captured at 3 3/4 inches per second in glorious mono, on a single five inch reel of tape. Here's what the back of the box (a Scotch box, by the way) looks like: 

Incidentally, in reference to my comments on tape length, above, by the tape this tape was bought (1956 at the latest), the industry had figured out how to use thinner plastics. This tape lasts an hour or so on each side, meaning it's an 1200 foot reel, the same length as on the seven inch reel pictured at the top. In 1951 or 1952, they probably would only have been able to fit 900 feet onto a five inch reel. 

These are the things I think about. Don't pity me. 

The tape is dated 1957, as you can see, and virtually all of the recordings do appear to come from that year. But the tape had also obviously been used previously, as the last thing on the tape - and the most wonderful of the four segments - is clearly something recorded in the fall of 1956, then partially erased by the material earlier on that side. And I sure wish that erasing hadn't taken place. But still the material that is here is mostly great, so let's dive right in. 

The first segment of the tape is the one I find the least interesting, even though it contains a genre I usually love - the home recording, with family and friends. In this particular case, the 16 minute recording just isn't all that interesting, starting as it does with someone breathing into a microphone, and dominated as it is, later, by a woman reading a Mad Magazine article without much humor or character in her vocal delivery. The entire recording is essentially some folks from Massachusetts finishing up their yearly visit to the home of friends. 

Download: The End of our 1957 Vacation

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Next up, a reel treat for anyone who enjoys recordings of vintage variety TV. The remainder of side one, except for a tiny bit at the end, contains the broadcast of the Ed Sullivan show for March 3rd, 1957. I suspect that this was recorded first, then the opening section was by the vacation material, which seems to date from later that year, in summertime. 

The show is billed as a tribute to My Fair Lady, on the first anniversary of its debut on Broadway, and there are several acts (and comments) related to that show, but there are other, unrelated acts as well, including a lengthy, sort of pathos-laden bit at the end by a comedian, as well as a lot of commercials, particularly those featuring a special offer/contest, which you'll hear about as the tape unspools on your listening device. 

On the one hand, this is not an episode of "The Ed Sullivan Show" that I would have particularly enjoyed watching, compared to some of the episodes which have had segments excerpted on specials over the years, but on the other hand, it sure is a fascinating listen!

(the last two minutes or so are what's left of an even earlier-recorded business meeting of some sort. I'm not sorry that this recording was mostly erased.)

Download: Various Artists: The Ed Sullivan Show, march 3rd, 1957

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Side two begins with a split second of the same meeting, followed by someone starting to sing "Stardust", before quickly segueing into an episode of a show Mike Wallace hosted during this era, "Night Beat". Virtually the entire show is here - 51 minutes - missing only what Wallace indicates at the start were going to be some theatre reviews. 

There are three segments here, first a news round up, then an interview with the former ambassador to Russia, George Kennan, and finally Garry Davis, proponent of one-world government. It's an interesting listen. For one moment, mid-show, the recordist stops the tape and picks up again a few feet forward on the tape, and we teasingly get to hear a few moments of a pivotal Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game. Ah, well. 

One more thing; in four spots early in this segment, whoever was recording did <something> which resulted in lengthy and loud, high pitched whines. I have edited these out, leaving just a split second of the start of the whine. They will sound like edits, because they are. I am sparing your ears. 

Download: Mike Wallace and guests - Night Beat (date unknown)

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And finally, the pièce de résistance.

What we have here is a tantalizingly brief (eight minutes) recording of the Brooklyn Dodgers, at the start of their locker room celebration, just after beating the Pittsburgh Pirates, on September 30th, 1956, to win the National League Pennant on the last day of the season. What a great little hunk of tape.

Download: Brooklyn Dodgers Pennant Celebration - September 30th, 1956

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