Some Great Vintage PSA's, Letter from Akron, 1961 TV, Working on Songs, a Short Interview, Christmas in May and More Comments

Greetings!

Before I get to these week's offerings, I'm going to finish getting caught up with some of the great comments I've received lately. If I didn't get to yours, I apologize. And if you're not interested in these comments, just skip down to the squiggle. 

After my posting of multiple recordings of Antony Bilbow (all of which you can hear by scrolling through this link), an anonymous commenter shared this brief interview with the great Rowan Atkinson, conducted by Mr. Bilbow, so now you can see him and hear him. 

Another anonymous poster, responding to my offer to repost anything from the WFMU site, asked for a baseball broadcast from 1954. But that broadcast was actually listed at this site and is still available, in a posting from the earliest days of this site - in fact, it was my fifth post here.  

From one of those posts containing Mr. Bilbow's work, I also included an instrumental version of the "Top Cat" theme. Matt offered up this comment: 

This Top Cat bed was the real deal as my friends father worked at Taft which controlled Hanna Barbera at the time.

I posted a brief excerpt of the end of the broadcast date at WHFS in this post. about a year ago, and another anonymous poster shares that: 

The music played while the WHFS announcer closes his programme, and looks ahead to the next one, is called 'Hey Professor!' written and performed by Otto Cesana & his Orchestra, with soloist Bernie Leighton.

In response to a post which included some jingles sung by Joan Wile, I received this comment: 

Joan Wile is/was a notable composer of off-boadway musicals, jingles, a cabaret performer & social-justice warrior grandmother. https://joanwile.blogspot.com/

A year ago, in this post, I featured a tape labeled "Mood Music for Motion Pix", and got this quite interesting comment (slightly edited here) in response: 

The insert notation for the Music For Motion Pix are recorded from a then commercially available (1959/60) disc of Portuguese music which appears on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/1064705086?ev=bp_img The rest of the tracks have been recorded from various 10" LPs issued by the London-based KPM Music Library. These LPs are known as the KPM Brownsleeves. The composers are well-known library music (aka mood music) composers and the music is still available 65 years later , albeit digitally. 

In the midst of this long post, I included some radio from Kingsport, TN. My online pal Sammy (who I usually see over at my other blog), offered up the following information: 

I heard a couple of commercials with a young George DeVault, who later became president of the Holston Valley Broadcasting Corporation - which has WKPT radio & TV, as well as several area radio stations it has acquired over the decades - until his retirement in 2017.

Frequent contributor Eric chimed in for a second time on an older post (one which featured our sweet, beautiful and much missed kitty cat), with some interesting thoughts about who may have recorded "Your Hit Parade": 

The aircheck for this appears to be WTEN-Albany, based on the "Channel 10" declaration and the plug for a showing of the movie "Yolanda And The Thief". This likely indicates that the original recorder of this was Pat Rispole, who recorded tons of radio and TV from the Albany area on his reel to reel machine (primarily baseball broadcasts) from 1957 to his death in 1979.

Another frequent commenter, Chad, has offered up information on the two tapes of Steelers football that I have shared recently (here and here). Regarding the long post of a full game, with bits of other games afterwards, he wrote: 

The games on the other tape are not what's indicated on the box. The first portion is the end of the first half of the season opener Steelers vs. NY Giants from September 15, 1968. At about 10:20 it switches to Steelers vs. St. Louis Cardinals from November 13, 1966. Then at around 11:55 it switches to postgame coverage of the season opener Steelers vs Browns from September 26, 1959. All three of these games were Steelers home games, by the way.

And then regarding the end of the game I posted last time, he wrote: 

This is an absolutely incredible find! The announcer is Joe Tucker, who was the first Steelers radio broadcaster and continued up through 1965. He also called Pirates baseball and college football as well. I can only find two circulating clips of Tucker calling Steelers games: another partial game from 1955 and his visit to the broadcasting booth in 1981 where he joins Fleming and Cope. Despite a 30 year career with the team he's not well known and not in the team's Ring of Honor likely because there's so little preserved from his long tenure. So this is another absolutely incredible find!

Interestingly, after the game ends and the catchy Duquesne Beer commercial (another great find!) - there's a few seconds of coverage of *another* game: Coach Buddy Parker arguing with the officials after a 28-24 loss to the Eagles. This very brief snippet has to be from October 11, 1959. So whoever was taping these broadcasts was reusing the tapes regularly.

Incidentally, I have been in contact with the host of the McMillen and Wife website, which is dedicated to Steelers football, and he has synched up my recording of the Immaculate Reception game with the video from that game, which you can view here.  I don't recall who referred me to this gentleman, but whoever did, I thank you. 

And thanks to everyone who stops by and comments, as well as everyone who stops by and doesn't comment. I get a real joy out of sharing these sounds and I hope you get the same joy in experiencing them. 

~~

I have a great little item to start the show today. This is a tape I found that was chock full of PSA's from the 1960's. They start off seemingly at random, but eventually some themes show up, including multiple PSA's about seat belt use (a rather new thing at the time), some other ones about littering,  and even more about fire prevention. Be on the lookout (or the hear-out, I guess) for a couple of PSA's featuring the second best folk group in history (second only to the Weavers), The Limeliters with two different versions of a Smokey Bear number. But even beyond them, the famous voices, named and unnamed, crop up over and over again, in this most enjoyable string of radio blurbs. 

Download: Various Artists - A Series of PSAs on Various Subjects

Play:

The tape box was extremely descriptive, by the way: 

~~

Now, here is a lengthy but rewarding audio letter from a man to someone named Crystal. Their relationship is not clear to me (maybe someone out there will pick up on something I missed), but it's a very thoughtful outreach - he's offering feedback, advice and insights from his life to someone younger than him, someone he cares about very much. If you're into such things, this is a really good audio letter to listen to. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Man in Akron to Crystal - Reflections on Several Subjects

Play:

~~

A tape I recently listened to had some very fragmentary bits of an Ed Sullivan show, including his yearly introduction of the All American college football team for 1961, which includes one name which would become very famous in the coming years. 

Download: Fragments of an Ed Sullivan Show. 12-3-61

Play:

The Ed Sullivan segments were followed by a longer, and not nearly as choppy, recording of part of Red Skelton's show from a few weeks later. I have heard, over the years, about how beloved this performer, and his show, was, and also, how he became angry and frustrated when his show was cancelled and how this affected his later years and the release (or lack thereof) of his material on home video. 

Given the affection people have for the man and the show, I hope this excerpt is an aberration, because it is simply God-awful, the worst of old-timey sit-com and variety show tropes and stereotypes. Your mileage may, of course, vary. 

Download: Segments of The Red Skelton Show, 12-26-61

Play:

This tape box was even more expressive of its contents: 

~~

I return now to the David Hollister tapes. If this is of interest, please click the David Hollister link below this post and you will find every Hollister post I have shared so far. 

In this episode, he is working with what is described on the tape box as a "Client (Girl) on a few songs. What makes this tape a bit livelier is that partway through, the muffled sound of a thunderstorm can be heard raging outside. But the rehearsal itself has enough interesting moments, I'm sure, to entertain those who are entertained by such things. 

Download: David Hollister and Client (Girl) Working on Three Songs During a Storm

Play:

And here's part of that tape box: 

~~

Here's a tape I labeled "Interview with German Chancellor", when I listened to it a year or two ago. And that's all I know about it and all I have to say. 

Download: Interview with German Chancellor

Play:

~~

And now, for a Very Short Reel. "Christmas in July" is a cliche, a common trope used by many, but how about "Christmas in Mid-May"? Here is a short recording of some children, clearly made at some sort of Christmas gathering

Download; Some Kids at a Christmas Gathering

Play:

Bob Sirott Gets His Start in Radio, Political Commercial Sessions, Male Ad Voices and More!

I hope you're all ready for another set of interesting items from the archives. Today, we're heavy on the media side of things. 

~~

Bob Sirott is a Chicago Media legend and survivor of dozens of careers within a career. He has been through too many jobs and media lives to count. For my money, he was at his best in his first big name job, which was as top 40 DJ at Chicago powerhouse WLS for about eight years, ending in 1979. I was enamored of him enough that I made a point of recording his entire farewell show on WLS, which I might share some time here. Since then, he's been on TV and radio and radio and TV in any number of settings, culminating, perhaps, with his current job, holding what was once the single most plum job in Chicago radio: morning drive at WGN.  

Honestly, he ceased to be interesting to me a long, long time ago, and all of those jobs have been more establishment and corporate over the years, which is something I suspect is hard to avoid in such a career. But I respect his longevity, and have fond memories of listening to him as a teenager in the '70's. 

His biography on Wikipedia states his radio start point was on another Chicago station in 1971, but I have, for years, owned a tape that demonstrates that this is incorrect. Because someone filled both sides of an 1800 foot reel - nearly 100 minutes of a Bob Sirott aircheck - from December of 1967, on WRSV in Skokie, just north of Chicago. With his semi-recent hire at WGN, I made a point of digging the tape out to share for everyone. 

At first, I thought it was funny that the owner of the tape labeled it "The Bob Sirott Show", as it seemed to be, largely, simply Sirott doing a faceless job of performing a faceless task: spinning MOR and Beautiful Music records of the era. 

But eventually, it becomes clear that the show did have a "personality", as Sirott gets a few "bits" in, and even re-references one of them later in the show. Oddly, he makes it clear that his was a one-night-a-week job, and even odder (to me, anyway), is that the phones were apparently lighting up with requests for this tedious blandness. Bob Sirott would have been 18 at this time - I sure this was his very favorite music. 

Anyway, it's an interesting listen, to a format of music which hasn't existed in a very long time, and a glimpse into the very earliest days of a very big name in Chicago media. 

(Oh, and I should mention that there is some competing noise, singing, whistling and such on one channel for the first 30 seconds or so. I didn't want to edit out the start of the tape, so I just left it as-is.)

Download:  Bob Sirott Plays MOR of WRSV, Skokie, IL, 12-4-67

Play:  

~~

On to something I find even more interesting. The next two segments both come from a tape which is labeled as seen below: 

The box seems to be a set of commercials promoting Democratic Governor Shapiro of Illinois, who had only been governor for five months in October, 1968, in a series called "Mark of Cain", promoting his election to a full term that fall. But that's not really what's featured on this tape. Well, there is one "Mark of Cain" ad, but not four, and the first third or so of the tape is actually made up almost entirely by commercials (from the same election cycle) for the much better remembered Birch Bayh, Democratic Senator of Indiana. Most of the tape is a mixture of raw sessions from the Bayh commercials and finished product, with the single Shapiro commercial edited into the middle of the section, and a few stray moments the could be from something else. 

By the way, Shapiro was defeated, Bayh was re-elected. 

Download: Recording Commercials for Senator Birch Bayh and Others

Play: 

And then, in case that wasn't enough, and very happily, in my opinion, someone, surely from the same ad agency, spliced on a presentation of the company's Male Ad Voice Talent, arranged alphabetically, for the first half of the alphabet, anyway. 

I've featured several of these before, both here and at WFMU. As with those previous demo tapes, there are some absolutely hugely famous names heard here, and I find it funny to think that some of the actors heard here - including the likes of Oscar winner Burl Ives - might be able to command enormous fees for movie and TV work, but got to be pimped out along with 20 other guys in the advertising equivalent of speed dating. 

There are also some racial and ethnic portrayals here which wouldn't get past the drawing board today. 

Download: Male Ad Voices Demo Tape, A Through M

Play:

~~

And then there's this little three inch reel

Now, I don't know if this next set of material is rare or collectable at all, but I listened to it for the first time this week and thought it was enjoyable. I know that Ed Sullivan shows have been packaged, repackaged and re-aired in a dozen ways, and some Smothers Brothers' episodes have been released on DVD, as well. But it seems at least possible that these little segments might not be otherwise available, so I thought I'd share the contents of this tape. 

Side one, heard first, features three performers from the October 6, 1968 edition of the Sullivan show, including Flip Wilson and Dionne Warwick, but highlighted - well, at least I think so (and so did whoever wrote on that tape box) - by Tiny Tim's performance, and the introduction of Tim's parents in the audience. The tape runs out, unfortunately, during his performance. 

Side two features an equally short segment from the Smothers Brothers' show from the same night, featuring a sad tune from Nancy Sinatra, a goofy jug band turn from Nancy with Tommy Smothers, and part of Pat Paulson's then-current campaign for president. 

Download:  Ed Sullivan Show (Flip Wilson,  Dionne Warwick, Tiny Tim), and The Smothers Brothers' Hour (Nancy Sinatra and Pat Paulson) - 1968 

Play:

~~

And finally, this posts "very short reel". I have a LOT of tapes from a radio station in Astoria, Oregon. I bought a batch of them perhaps 15 years ago, in one of my earlist eBay purchases. A lot of them have since been sold, mostly episodes of a storytelling radio series. I have shared a few of the "short reels" I got with that batch, and here is yet another one, a PSA sponsored by the clunkily named K-TEK C.N.C. Machines company. This is truly "very short" - just 37 seconds. 

Download: K-TEC CNC Machines Astoria, Drunk Driving PSA, July 1987

Play:  

Biggest Post Ever? Over Three Hours of Sound!!

Good day! 

I can't be sure without checking every previous post, but I think this is the most material (in terms of duration of the various offerings) that I've ever put into one post. The items are widely varied and largely esoteric in nature, so I suspect that most will find only some of this interesting, but it is a nice cross section of the sort of things I might come across if I grab a pile of tapes at random. 

First up, and certainly the piece among all of them here which has some historical interest. What you're about to hear is the full contents of a Ten Inch Reel of tape, all of which seems to have been recorded with TV shows (and perhaps a bit of radio), primarily in November of 1950, based both on the contents and on the label on the tape. 

First up is some sort of talent show or other program featuring performers of various ages. I am particularly enamored of the small child who sings the second song. Two versions of the St. Louis Blues follow, perhaps from the same show. 

Some instrumental music follows, including a band-backed performance by a man playing tuned drums - which is unfortunately interrupted by some far less interesting orchestral music. This in turn is followed by a barbershop quartet and then something called "The United States Overture". That number is again interrupted, this time by some more faceless orchestral stuff. This goes on far too long - and I almost cut it out, but decided to leave the tape intact - and suddenly the channel is changed and we get to hear some delicate violin music. 

Everything prior to the violin music may fall under the general heading of "Band", which is what is written first on the tape (see below), and if so, it's from earlier in 1950, September to be exact. The rest is labeled as being from November 12th of that year. However, what has come so far doesn't all sound like "band". 

Anyway, this violin music turns out to be a performance from The Ed Sullivan Show, and this is when the tape gets interesting for me. If you want to skip to this point, it's around the 32 minute mark. This episode aired shortly after a song called "Our Lady of Fatima" by Phil Spitalny took the nation - or some part of it - by storm. The song is performed live by that Phil's organization, and Ed's comments follow, with an interview of the song's composer and some comments that seem to indicate that Ed assumes the rest of the country was Catholic, too. A special arrangement of "The National Emblem March" follows, then Ed's final credits. 

The next thing on the tape is a recording of a complete performance of an musical arrangement of "The Emperor's New Clothes", put together and conducted by Harry Simeone, later to become well known for his record of "The Little Drummer Boy". This appears to be a TV broadcast of the short musical, and it lasts about 17 minutes. While I've been able to find an album release of this material, I can find no reference to it ever having been a TV show, or part of one. My guess is that both this, and the Ed Sullivan segment are extremely rare, and may not exist as recordings other than on this tape.  

The tape finishes with some Negro Spirituals, done by various members of a African-American vocal group, with condescending comments by the (presumably white) host in between. 

Download: Various Artists - November, 1950, TV Variety on a Ten Inch Reel

Play:

And here is the listing from the reel itself: 

~~

Next up, and by far the longest tape shared here, features an odd moment in which a mixed choral group was rehearsing their repertoire. This tape is part of the batch that I found when I came across the wonderful Marigail Moreland tapes. The link between those tapes and this one is that the composer of the song "Why" which recurs on those tapes (sung at various times by Merigail Moreland, Don Moreland and others) is part of that repertoire. Not only that, the presence of that song, during the rehearsal, is highlighted on the tape box (which is also where I got the date), a clear indication that it came from the same person who was the original owner of the Moreland tapes. The segment is nearly 96 minutes long

This is truly a moment in time - if there are still people singing music in this style today, I'm certainly unaware of it. It's a genre that I believe has at least nearly (if not completely) ceased to exist. There are some interesting moments here, in terms of the arrangements, song choices and brief conversations between songs, but admittedly, listening to the whole thing is a slog. But rather than edit it down to my favorite moments, I thought I'd let you find whatever you might like in it. 

Download: A Mixed Choral Group Rehearses, 1963

Play:

~~

A few months ago, I mentioned a type of tape I come across sometimes, one which features short bits of a large variety of unrelated segments, and offered up an example, calling it a Hodgepodge. 

Today, I have another example. This one starts with a truly horrid version of "A Hard Day's Night" which is quickly cut off for a recording of a large number of very loud birds, who sound only slightly less like The Beatles as the group at the start of the tape. 

After nearly four minutes of that, we have some small children, interacting with a few adults and singing a few songs, mostly religious. But I particularly like the misheard/misremembered words sung during the brief rendition of "America the Beautiful". But this enjoy this whole segment - the kids sound very sweet. 

This is suddenly interrupted by an off-the-radio recording of "Master Jack" by Four Jacks and a Jill, one of the more peculiar hits of its era, before a return to the children for one more song, then some polka music off the radio, before the tape ends with a bit of microphone testing. 

Download: A Hodgepodge - Fake Beatles, Birds, Children Talking and Singing, and a Few Records

Play:

~~

Next, here is a fragment of a sales presentation. I have no idea how long the original presentation was - this was at the start of the second side of a tape which was otherwise taken up by 1940's era dance music (some of which can be heard bleeding through at a lower speed). 

Download: Unknown - ABC Newspapers' Business Model

Play:

~~

Finally, our very short reel. I thought I'd shared this before, but I can't find it. If I did, apologies for redundancy. First, here's what's on the box: 

Well, that bit of writing didn't prepare me for the downright oddness encountered on the tape. This is barely 95 seconds long, and as the box says, it contains two takes, but I'd love to hear what it was used for: 

Download: Star Spangled Cable

Play:

A Nice Little Variety Tape from 1953

Good day, everyone,

Before I do anything else - I truly want to thank all of you who commented about my recent computer issue and near loss of a huge amount of sound files. Thanks for the thoughts, support, stories, etc. I really appreciate it.

~~

And second - for those of you who don't peruse my other blog where I already posted this - I want to share with you a video that I made. Early in the shutdown, my church asked for happy videos - anything under two minutes - to send out to the congregation while we were alomst all spending lots of time at home.

My thought was to perform one of my favorite Ragtime pieces, a song I learned, by rote, off of an album when I was perhaps 16 or 17. As I say in the clip, I'm a sloppy pianist, but I make up for that in enthusiasm. And I've been forgetting to link to this client for two months now, so here it is. An added bonus (?) you get to see my charming visage and the rest of me, too. Click the link for the video!

A Ragtime Nightmare

~~

Today, I have something interesting and a bit different. Early on in this blog, I tended to just include the contents of one tape, or maybe two, before branching out and trying to give a varied picture of my collection, especially as I was only posting every 2-3 weeks.

Today, I'm returning to the original format, in a sense, but still offering a variety of types of recordings. Because today, I have the entire contents of a five inch reel, all of which was recorded between March of 1953 and May of 1953, in total, well over two hours worth of material - about 68 minutes per side. And there is a significant amount of variety - a school presentation, two birthday recordings, three recordings of visits with friends, and portions of three different television programs.

Now, I initially was only going to share the second side of this tape, because, you see, I previously shared the first side over four years ago, on this same site. But in reading that post, I found that I made several mistakes (I must not have had the tape box at hand at that moment), particular in mis-identifying the year of the recordings, but my editing of it was suspect, too.

Plus, I thought it would be nice to share the entire tape as it plays off the reel. So I hope you don't mind a few reruns. If you've already heard the first side, in that earlier post, you can jump down to the little squiggle, which is where the second side starts.

I will share the segments in the order in which they appear on the tape, and be briefer than usual in my introductions.

First off, and the longest segment on the tape, is a presentation given at a school. I suspect the teacher's name was Miss Olson, or Miss Olsen, but the tape box (see bottom of post) says Miss Ohlson, so that's what I've named the track. This was a sixth grade presentation on China, in May of 1953, a very interesting time indeed to be studying and presenting on China, although much of this is about history, not current events. The woman introduced at the start of this segment is almost certainly part of the family which recorded this entire tape.

Download: Miss Ohlson's Sixth Graders' Presentation on China, March, 1953
Play:

Next, we segue into a recording of a birthday gathering. If you've ever wanted to know what 13 and 14 year olds talked about (at least, with an adult present) in 1953, here's your chance to find out. Because here is Wayne's 14th birthday luncheon, a spaghetti meal on March 21, 1953.

Download: Wayne's 14th Birthday Spaghetti Luncheon, March 21, 1953
Play:

It seems that Wayne had a younger brother, Peter, who also had a birthday in March, as the tape then moves directly to Peter's 12th birthday party. It seems extremely likely that, having been 11 and 12 that school year, he was part of Miss Ohlson's class, and likely the reason their presentation was recorded. Here's the relatively brief recording from Peter's birthday.

Download: Peter's 12th Birthday, March 1953
Play:

The first side ends with a recording of about ten minutes featuring a recording of a visit from what presumably were some friends, identified on the label as "The Pettit's and The Blair's". Here is that segment.

Download: Visit with the Pettit's and the Blair's - March, 1953
Play:

~~

The second side starts with the second longest segment, labeled on the tape as "At the Epley's". This segment starts with a somewhat harder to make out conversation which I believe is about, and in response to, a slide show that everyone is watching. The tape box seems to also say "Talent Bridge" or "Jalent Bridge", so maybe they are viewing slides that tie into that writing, which I may be reading incorrectly.

This segues into some general conversation, and then there is some piano playing. Here is the segment:

Download: At the Epley's - Watching Slides, Chatting and Playing the Piano
Play:

Next up is something completely different and I'm guessing fairly rare. It's about 15 minutes of excerpts from an episode of Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" - a quick web search identified this as being from March 29, 1953. I will let you discover its contents and charms.

Download: Toast of the Town - March 29, 1953 - Excerpts
Play:

This is followed immediately by what I'm guessing is an even rarer segment (although much less interesting to me), ten minutes from "The Fred Waring Show" - according to the box, this is from April of 1953, meaning they erased some other material from March 29th, as that date pops back up at the end of the tape. Here is the Waring segment, which contains several songs - however, it's labeled as "The Palms" on the box:

Download: Short Excerpt from "The Fred Waring Show", April, 1953
Play:

As we near the end of the tape, there is this brief segment identified on the box as "The Aishton's", in May of 1953, and which the tape itself makes clear is a recording of a visit with the Arthur Aishton and his family. Much is made of the accent of a child present, which is repeatedly described as a "Chicago accent". I have lived in the immediate vicinity of Chicago my entire life, and worked in the city for the last 27 years, and have never heard anything remotely like the speech pattern identified here spoken by a native....

Download: A Visit with the Arthur Aishton Family
Play:

Finally, we have the remnants of what was originally after that Ed Sullivan recording - a nightly newscast, or at least just over seven minutes thereof. Several news stories here date this broadcast to 3/29/53, so this must have been recorded on that date, then erased with the 13 minutes of Fred Waring and the Aishton's.
Here's how the tape ends:

Download: Portion of a 3/29/53 Newscast
Play:

~~

I hope you enjoyed this little trip through two months or so of 1953 in the life of one family, their friends, their classmates and their television set.

The very short reels and the Scotch Tape Box series will return next month. Before that, the third weekend in June marks something very special for me, so next weekend, I will be sharing a post unlike anything I've shared here before, the likes of which is unlikely to be repeated.

Oh, and here's the tape box for the reel that you just listened to:

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

Play:

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

Play:

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)

Play:

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

Play:

Ed Sullivan Meets the Wounded Soldiers

Okay, here's a truly remarkable tape. I have, on several occasions here, and at WFMU, shared the bounty of a massive purchase I made well over a decade ago, featuring a variety of network recordings, including many raw tapes, sound effect reels, foley material, etc, primarily from CBS television. This one might be the most amazing of all.

It takes a moment to get going, but when it does, this recording features recordings made during a visit by Ed Sullivan to an Army hospital (or some such)  - apparently in Denver, according to the box, circa 1969 or 1970. Presumably, a camera crew was following, and some segment of this recording was used in a broadcast, whether on his show or elsewhere. But what's captured here is a good part of the visit - 25 minutes of it, anyway - Ed being taken from bed to bed and room to room, being told about the soldiers and their injuries (most of which occurred in Vietnam or in training to go to Vietnam), and then sharing a few words with each of the young men.

I don't think more needs to be said.

Download: Ed Sullivan - Ed Sullivan Meets the Wounded Soldiers
Play:

 ~~

Traveling further west, and another tone and attitude entirely, is another fairly unique tape. I have to believe this was made for a High School project, as there are lots of clues that a group of High Schoolers made this tape, and it seems unlikely that they'd have gone to this much trouble just for kicks. It's an imitation radio broadcast, from the mid '70's, complete with news reports, sports updates, lots of current and recent music, and other hallmarks of top 40 radio. Except the stories and ads are snarky and filled with lame jokes, a song by Paul McCartney is mis-identified (write album, wrong song), and the radio "staff" are clearly amateurs. All that could just point to this being a high school radio broadcast, but the kicker - and the proof that this never aired - is that the station is identified as K-R-A-P radio.

If I'm hearing it right, this seems to come from Turlock High School, which is in Turlock, California. And I really wonder if these students pushed things past their teacher's comfort level with that KRAP stuff.

Download: Unknown High Schoolers - K-R-A-P Radio

Play:

~~

And finally, for you advertising fans, here's an endless series of attempts to record the same hard-sell copy for "Cannon Flex-O-Matic", one of which you can see here.

Download: Unknown - Recording an Ad for the Cannon Flex-O-Matic
Play:

A Huge Collection of Comedians, As Recorded Off Television, and More!

Almost exactly a month ago, I posted a lengthy compilation of recordings off of TV, a series of Huntley & Brinkley "tag" stories from the end of their newscasts.

Today. I have the work of another obsessive tape compiler/collector. In this case, whoever made this tape labeled it "Comedians", and captured over two hours of stand-up comedy off of his or her TV set, in what sounds like the early to mid 1960's. The Ed Sullivan Show is no doubt the source of a good percentage of this material, and sure enough, ol' Ed can be heard from time to time.

Not everyone here is identified. Several of these voices are clear to me (I am also a collector of comedy albums, and have hundreds of them), a smaller number of them are mysteries to me. But rather than break this down into a who's who, I'll just share the whole 125 minute recording with you, both sides of a 1200 foot reel of tape, recorded in monaural on both sides of the tape:

Download: A Collection of Comedians on TV.
Play:

~~

We'll stop now for a brief commercial announcement from Playtex. Anyone else find the announcer addressing himself to "Mother" to be weird?:

Download: Playtex Nurser Bottle Ad
Play:

~~

Finally, a tape which may be of interest to only a few of you, but which is important to me just for the fact that it exists. It is on a paper reel. I've written about these before, but the earliest home recordable tapes were made with paper backing. They tear just like a piece of paper. Then, for a time, you could get either paper or some sort of plastic backing, and very quickly, the much more durable plastic backing won out. I'm sure someone out there could correct me, or improve my knowledge about this, but paper backed tape seems to have been available from the dawn of home-sold reel to reel machines in the late 1940's through about 1952.

Unrecorded paper reel tapes make a weirdly excessive amount of noise - white noise - when played through modern machines (and perhaps through their contemporary machines, too). But once recorded, they sound as good as any other reel, and they generally sound just about as good today, 70 years after having been recorded, as they did the first time they were played.

So this is a recording which is almost certainly in the neighborhood of 68-70 years old, and as it captures an FM radio broadcast, it represents a recording of music put over the airwaves at the dawn of FM broadcasting. I only wish the material it captures was more interesting. What is heard, with a couple of interruptions for concert notes by an announcer, is an approximately 30 minute performance by The George Steiner String Trio, heard in a series of classical performances, Mr. Steiner having been a violinist of some minor note, based on a quick web search (which also turns up two completely different dates of death for the gentleman). It is nothing of import, aside from its very existence, if that makes sense. This is labeled part one - next time around, I will include another paper reel of the same vintage, with more stone-age FM recordings.

Download: Very Early Recording from a Paper Reel, Volume One
Play:

A 1959 Cornucopia.... Plus Many Thanks!

I have a really fun tape to share today, but first, a giant THANK YOU is in order. First, to those who took part in the fundraiser, I am hugely grateful and wonderfully amazed. I did not know what to expect, and the response exceeded anything I would have thought possible. I believe I've thanked each of you privately in e-mail, and if I've missed anyone, I sincerely apologize.

And second, I am forever thankful for and to a reader and fan of this site, who has a significant collection of reel to reel machines, and who made me a very generous offer on a machine that had everything I needed, specifically, a Revox A77 MK II. It arrived a week ago, and I spent most of last Sunday transferring tapes into my computer. No doubt you will soon be enjoying reels that I have played through this machine, here on this site.

And again, THANK YOU.

~~

I listened to this tape about four months ago, digitized it, then sort of forgot about it. Last week, while still waiting for the new machine to arrive, I spent some time going through the "Not Yet Used" folder of my digitized reels, and came across it again. It's a bit of a time capsule, someone's recording of multiple moments from TV, as well as some conversations around the house, and even a bit of top 40 radio, from what can only be late 1958 and early 1959. The "part one" listed here is fairly clearly the original side two - the recordings are from just after those on the flip side - but that's the way the tape came loaded onto the reel when it got to me, so I labeled them that way...

Here's what you'll hear in part one:

1.) 0:00: 23 seconds of mood music
2.) 0:24: A preview of next week's "77 Sunset Strip" (episode "The Fifth Stair", to air on 3/6/59), and closing theme.
3.) 3:11: The opening of the same night's episode of "Maverick", followed by a preview of the episode, "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick" (apparently a rerun, as this episode dates to 1958), and the closing theme. (And this is the least interesting part of the tape to me.)
4.) 11:40: A live, and elaborate, performance of "Fever".
5.) 14:52 A live comedy performance by Shelley Berman - for my money, the best comedian of the era, and maybe the best comedian ever to appear on records. That said, this, however, is not one of his better characters or routines.
6.) 16:44: A brief, live segment of another comedian, one I don't recognize.
7.) 17:48: A short bit of a staid piano led performance of "The Peanut Vendor".
8.) 18:18: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", performed live by The Platters.
9.) 20:39: Closing moments of "The Ed Sullivan Show", from which, no doubt, the above performances came. The episode is from March 1, 1959, and you can read about it here.
10.) 20:56: This took a bit of research, but next up we hear two sections from an episode of the "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show", also from March 1st, 1959, which you can read about here. Included is the opening musical number, and a lengthy set piece, including music and skits, focusing on several comic strip characters, including a segment where they tie the Peanuts character of Charlie Brown in with the unrelated Coasters song of the same title. This takes us to the end of the first side of the tape.

Download: Various TV Recordings, Side One
Play:

Here's what you'll hear in part two:
1.) 0:00: Recordings not of TV, but radio. It's WING-AM, Dayton, Ohio, with a jingle, a time check, then part of "Stagger Lee", by Lloyd Price, and a segment of "Pink Shoelaces", by Dodie Stevens,
2.) 2:02: Likely back to Television, with a live rendition of of "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You".
3.) 3:50: A Segment of "Amos and Andy", live in front of an audience.
4.) 5:15: The "home recordings" section begins. It appears that this section was recorded first, with its opening portion erased by the 1959 recordings, because this is Christmas Day, 1958. There are some microphone and volume problems for the first two minutes, as well as bland background music which is too loud for the conversation. At 7:33, someone announces that he has fixed the problem, and from then on, aside from a brief soft section, the sound is decent from then on. By now, a news report is on the radio (WHIL?), leading off with the cheery Christmas news of fatal car accidents. Then there's the ad for Armour Canned Meats.
5.) 11:02: Continuing the home recordings. The radio background is gone, and the speaker attempts some meaningful thoughts about Christmas, and reads a Christmas card from a priest. He then attempts to get a woman (perhaps his mother?) to talk, without success, and mentions the address of the home, which you can look at here. Then he tells a tedious story about a classmate who called himself "Zorro", and shared some remarkably lame jokes. Even so, they are funnier than the belches which follow, with the assembled group seem to enjoy. Finally, the conversation starts picking up, and with perfectly bad timing, someone turns up the television just about the same volume as that of the conversation. Someone asks if this is being recorded, and someone else says "it better not be", and the home recordings end.
6.) 19:43: A recording of what I believe is "The Charlie Weaver Show", which ran (under that title) from November of 1958 until March of 1959,featuring stories of Charlie's mom and a brief song.
7.) 25:48: "That Old Rugged Cross", sung by (I'm pretty sure) Tennessee Ernie Cross.
8.) 28:24: Opening moments from an episode of "You Bet Your Life", with sponsorship, opening comments, and more advertising
9.) 29:23: Carl Sandburg talks about Lincoln, on his 150th birthday (2/12/59)
10.) 30:30: A man whose voice I don't recognize, talking about a Cold War issue involving Berlin (part of a news broadcast).
11.) 31:33: Some bland big band jazz to finish off the last 51 seconds of the tape. (Since I think this was really the end of side one, it's quite possible that this is the same combo heard playing a different song at the start of the flip side, above.)

I hope there are multiple things here for everyone out there to enjoy.

And yet again - THANKS!

Download: Various TV Recordings, Side Two
Play: