My Brother's Demo Tape, Rocketing Rhythms, Linda Grows Up, A Florida Aircheck, Bob and Reuben, Partying at the Firm, and an Exceptionally Bad Break-In

Hello everyone, 

I really do intend to return to twice a month posting on this site, and hope to begin that in November. I've just been extremely busy, have been out of town a bit and quite honestly am just a bit unnerved to sign into my google account (which is where I write this blog) and other accounts on my main computer, the one where I have to do most of the work on this site, after my recent hacking experience. But I think everything is secure now. Here's hoping.  

~~

I wanted to start off with something that is very special to me, and that I sort of forgot that I had until last month. I have mentioned before that my brother Bill was a professional musician, a field he left behind in his 50's for a variety of reasons. But right out of the box, at around age 20, he started getting work writing, arranging and singing on commercials in his hometown at the time, Miami. And by age 21, he had a short demo reel of the various ads and jingles he had worked on. 

Oddly enough, a few of these are for Chicago area businesses, including the radio station jingle that starts off the tape (but which was obviously then recycled for use by another station in Miami). I would also guarantee that's Bill on the trumpet (or perhaps it's a flugelhorn) on a couple of the ads. A couple of the instrumental segments were made, if I recall correctly, for a "Supermarket Sweep" type show.0 

Most of the vocal cuts on this tape feature Bill's then-future wife, who he had met not long before these ads were made, and who became well known for a very short period at the end of the decade. I am choosing not to name her here, because of the inexcusable things she did that ended their marriage after nearly 25 years. 

Sadly, my brother, now age 72, has been suffering from frontotemporal dementia since at least 2022, and possibly longer, and is in the latter stages of this disease in a memory care facility. I'm sure I will pull together a tribute to him - especially the years we joyously spent recording together during childhood, at some future point. 

Download: Bill's Commercial Demo Reel, Circa 1975

Play:

~~

I came across a very interesting tape in my collection last month, a tape containing multiple episodes - variously hosted by two different deejays - of a show called "Rocketing Rhythms". This show featured the hits of the day, in what I found to be a very idiosyncratic style. The songs aren't played based on chart position, although that week's chart positions of most of the tunes is mentioned. They are more or less at random, with song in the current top ten being played along side songs in the 60's of the chart and even songs debuting that week. The show is dated 3/14/61, and the chart being used is the Cash Box chart, which I have confirmed with the chart of 3/11/61 as found on this magnificent site, which is truly one of the best sites ever put up onto the internet. 

The host of this episode is Jack Brown. Other episodes on the same tape are hosted by Darryl Drier (I have no idea if I'm spelling that correctly - I couldn't find anything out about him). This is a great little time capsule. 

Download: Armed Forces Radio - Jack Brown's Rocketing Rhythms, 3-14-61

Play:

Here's the inside of the tape box with all of the dates of the shows available: 

~~

I thought this next tape was very sweet and worth sharing. Linda was born at the end of 1950, and around her eighth birthday, her father recorded her playing a few simple piano pieces and singing "Silent Night". And then, for the next four years (well, 1/1/63 filling in for December of 1962), he recorded her again, showing her increasing abilities, and at one point, her early efforts on clarinet and console organ. It's a minor pleasure, to be sure, but exactly the sort of thing I am always very pleased to fine on a reel. 

Download: Linda Plays and Sings as She Grows Up, 1958-1963

Play:

~~

I also recently found that I have three tapes in my collection that feature someone named Paul Deen, I've labeled these "Airchecks", but I'm not at all sure that they aren't manufactured - fake - airchecks, meant to show off his abilities, both as a deejay and in the songs he mixed together in his playlist. There is a WDLV jingle mixed in there, so maybe this is real, but something about the whole thing sounds canned to me. I'll share the others later, unless someone begs me not to. 

Download: Paul Deen Aircheck # 1 on WDLV, Stereo 59, Panama City, FL

Play:

This was in the box: 

~~

I don't know who Bob and Reuben are (or were), but here they are, according to the tape box, with a bit of rehearsing and then a live performance. And that's all I know. 

Download: Bob and Reuben Rehearse and then Play Live

Play:

~~

Here are both sides of a small reel of tape that nonetheless holds quite a bit of sound. It was recorded at the slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS. One side contains what sounds to me like a variety show or talent show, the contents of which suggest to me that it involved the employees of a legal organization. The flip side is labeled "Firm Party, 12/5/74" and no doubt, that's what it is. 

Download: Some Sort of Variety Show - Possibly Put On By a Legal Organization

Play:

Download: "Firm Party, 12-5-74"

Play:

~~

Before I sign off with an awful "Very Short Reel", I wanted to throw a bone to all of you who have been clamoring for some lectures from the General Services Administration, particularly those who are insistent that I share the lecture - number nine in the Fat Absorption in Disease series, it seems - on Medium Chain Triglycerides. Well, folks, here's your long distance dedication: 

Download: General Services Administration - Fat Absorption in Disease - Lecture Nine - Medium Chain Triglyceride

Play:

~~

Finally, a Very Short Reel™. 

And a Very Long and Unnecessary Rant©. Feel free to speak to the sound file. 

I really can't stand Break-In Records. Those are the alleged comedy 45s, pioneered by Buchanan and Goodman in 1956, where a series of questions are answered by clips from current hit songs. I don't think they take any particular talent - with the lyrics already available, the material writes itself. "ooh, Elton John is singing 'I'm a Bitch'.... what question can I ask to have that be the answer. Ecch. 

I find it much funnier to use existing songs and replace the words with words from other songs or from spoken word records, in sort of a musical Mad Libs creation, with totally unexpected replacements and in which you never know what's coming next. I heard them from a few friends who were doing them when I was around 20, started doing them myself, and have subsequently come across others who do them, each person with his or her own style. I find these to often be very creative and usually funny. 

No Break-In record has ever made me laugh. Many of what I call "Cut-Ups", done by me and by others, I find hysterical. For a while I was featuring my own work in this area on my other blog, and the one I think may be best of all can be heard, if you're interested, in this post. If you enjoy that, do a search within that blog for "Cut-Ups" and you'll find a bunch more. 

Anyway, I'm sure not a single reader/listener cares, and you'll therefore be happy to hear that my Break-In rant is over. But here's a new rant. If I find Break-Ins exceptionally mindless, and the making of them frightfully easy, and I surely do, I can barely find words to describe my thoughts on a Break-In where the creator can't even pull off the simple task at hand - one which is completely devoid of anything where I can say "yeah, someone who likes break-ins would find that funny". And I found exactly that sort of Break-In on a tape recently. This was no doubt made not long after the Beatles landed on American soil, as it utilizes, almost exclusively, the album (and a mangled album it is, too), "Meet the Beatles". Here, for your dining and dancing pleasure, is Richard McAllen with his creation. Don't bust a gut. 

Download: Richard McAllen - An Awful Attempt at a Break-In, Mostly Using "Meet the Beatles"

Play:

Guest Post: The End of the Road, Some Sales Promotions and Ads, More Midwestern Hayride, A Bit of Top 40, and Ancient Recordings on Paper

Greetings!

If you read my other site, then this might not be news to you, but the reason for the delay this month is that my main computer, a desktop, was attacked by malware a few weeks ago, and that has made it hard for me to do some of the things I need to do to share these sound files with you. I have been slowly putting this post together, but it has been a slog. Today is the first time I've been able to utilize the blogger site from my main computer, and my Gmail account (from which I excerpted some comments below) for the first time in nearly a month. 

Supposedly, the next step we are taking will succeed in removing the last vestiges of this attack from our computer and I can go back to twice a month posting here, and three times a month on my other site. 

And I've really wanted to get this one out to you for a while, because it is, again, a guest post provided by a man named Matt, who I have been talking to via email for over seven years now. Here is the first post that was generated by the material Matt sent me, from two years ago. Recently, he sent me reels with three more hours of material on them, and that's what I have for you today. I'm going to share them in the order that they appeared on those tapes, with just a few short moments excised due to the extreme poor quality of the sound, and one segment which I have attempted, to a degree, to speed correct. Other segments also have sound quality issues, but I thought them good enough, and certainly interesting enough, to share anyway. 

As always, thank you Matt. I am deeply obliged and fantastically thrilled to have made your acquaintance. 

~~

The first offering is by far the longest, at a full hour. This is a rebroadcast of material - one station playing back something that occurred years earlier at another station. The introductory segment heard here explains it well, but in essence, these are the current, and many former, on air staff from station WCPO in Cincinnati, talking with each other and reminiscing during what was literally the last hour of their format, their jobs and their call letters, after the station had been sold, in January of 1966. 

Download: The Last Hour on WCPO, Cincinnati, January, 1966

Play:

~~

Next up is a 1961 recording which will also qualify as our "Acetate of the Month", along with a couple of other items here, which were received by me on reel-to-reel but which clearly were originally on record. And this one is an internal promotion - sort of a short industrial musical, albeit one using existing melodies for the (brief) songs - for Hotpoint appliances, from 1961. I think this is my second favorite item, of the items Matt shared with me, this time around. 

Download: 1961 Hotpoint Promotion

Play:

~~

This next one, also from an acetate, is a bunch of hooey - Honeywell trying to convince its salespeople, and through them, their clients, that they could predict the weather six months or more in the future, down to the day and the region. It's 66 years later (I did the math on my 66th birthday this year) and we still can't say what the exact temperature will be and what precipitation to expect in eastern Iowa seven months from now in the third week of April. Did anyone buy this bunk? 

It's sort of entertaining, though.  

Download: Honeywell Weatherwatch - Predicting the Weather for 1960

Play:

~~

In Matt's previous offering, my favorite segment was the Midwestern Hayride excerpts, and in response, he sent me more from this program, and from some other, otherwise unidentified country music radio recordings from the same year, 1953. Matt offered the following behind-the-scenes information to further fill in the picture: 

Midwestern Hayride was performed by artists on the WLW payroll. Chet Atkins and Homer and Jethro met their wives at the station and Chet and Jethro married one of the Johnson sisters who are local to my rural area.  They used to gather at our neighbors place with Johnny Cash and other C and W notables for "woodsheddin".Jethro Burns (an amazing picker!) is buried in our township cemetery.

Download: Midwestern Hayride, Segments from February, 1953 and Other 1953 Recordings

Play:

~~

This next segment may well be the most interesting for some of you. It's a hodgepodge of sound, all recorded on a paper reel, the earliest reel to reel format, which was phased out by the early 1950's. In this case, there is a Chevy advertisement, a news report on a fire and a man giving play-by-play as if he is live at a ballpark, but he's actually recreating it based on wire copy as it arrives. 

Here are Matt's comments on this tape: 

Ok. recording from 1949 is all from the same reel, a Brush metal with Brush tape.  It was from long dark WNAO, which was a AM station in Raleigh ,N.C.  The tapes came from the garbage pile of the late station manager, George Case. He started in 1928 at WCKY in Cincy at the ripe old age of 16 . He told me they did "recreations" via teletype or telegraph as the microwave link had not been developed for anyone except the national networks until much later. The recreation is pretty obscure even though it's short.

Download: 1949 Variety on Paper Reels - 1950 Chevy Ad, News Report on Fire, Baseball Recreation

Play:

~~

Since I liked the Midwestern Hayride so much, Matt also provided some even older country music radio, from a precurser to the Hayride, "The Boone County Jamboree", from the late 1940's, followed by some more live music which he does not know the source of. Matt wrote: 

Boone County Jamboree was a show on WCKY. It predated Midwestern Hayride but didn't have the 4 station reach of the Crosley BC network.  WCKY was polarized so the majority of its 50 Kw signal was "squirted" south covering Kentucky. 

Download: The Boone County Jamboree, Circa Late 1940's

Play:

Download: Unidentified Live Recording

Play:

~~

My favorite item here is this set of six accounts for a variety of savings and loan facilities, dated 1961. These are also heard from what was originally an acetate, and clearly all come from the same company, even though they promote several different S & L businesses. Elements of these ads remind me of my beloved Star Ads. 

Download: Six Savings Account Ads, 1961

Play:

~~

This is followed on Matt's tape by yet another acetate ad, in this case a brief one which is not complete as heard here. It's for the World Book Encyclopedia. We had this product when I was growing up - it was deliberately written at about a sixth grade level so as to be ideal for use by families with any children from junior high age and up. 

Download: World Book Encyclopedia Ad, 1964 (Incomplete)

Play:

~~

Switching gears fairly radically from the era and the styles of the rest of this post, sandwiched between all that stuff is a "scoped" aircheck from James Francis Patrick O'Neill (apparently known as JFPO) from WLW in Cincinnati, some time in 1970. The sound quality here is quite poor, and the speed varied wildly, on the tape I received. I have tried to correct as much of the speed issues as I can. 

Download: James Francis Patrick O'Neill on WLW, Cincinnati, 1970

Play:

~~

And (almost) finally, some more "Midwestern Hayride", in this case, rehearsals that Matt has acquired somewhere and somehow. 

Download: Rehearsals for "Midwestern Hayride"

Play:

~~

And here is one, solitary entry from my own collection, a VERY, Very short reel (12 seconds), featuring a few moments of a phone call. And that's it. 

Download: An Extremely Short, Incomplete Phone Call Recording

Play:

PAMS, PAMS, PAMS! Plus an Audio Letter, A Few Rehearsals, Old Time Religion, Frito-Lays, and More!

Right off the bat, I want to ask the sports broadcast fans out there if I have something special, and if so, I will feature it soon. I will share a short excerpt here. The recording is of a national broadcast of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, which is considered one of the greatest games in history. It is not the entire game - a couple of the late innings were not recorded and then we pick up again in the ninth. But I'm assuming this material is not rare. 

What may be rare is that this is the armed service radio broadcast, and in place of the commercials, there is commentary and analysis by two other announcers, one of whom I think might be Red Barber. They act as if they are giving these observations live, in place of the commercials, but I suspect that the program was prepared, after the fact, for broadcast to the troops. If this is worth sharing, I'll do so soon. Let me know! Here's the excerpt: 

Download: Baseball Excerpt

Play:  

~~

And now for a lengthy side trip into the land of comments. 

I thought when I got caught up on comments not long ago that it would be quite awhile before I would need to do the same again. But there have been a LOT of interesting comments since then, so I'm going to compile them once again. If you don't want to wade through them just look for the squiggle ~~ which is where the offerings will start. 

First, I will address a request from Kyle, who let me know about which networks' JFK assassination/follow-up/funeral coverage is not already widely circulated and asked if I had any of this material. The short answer is "I don't know". When I'm done listening to something I don't plan to share, it typically goes in a big box downstairs, and I don't really recall what I may have heard or not heard.  I'm literally talking about hundreds of tapes, not all of which are even marked. Going forward, I will definitely keep an ear out for those networks, when I invariably come across more JFK material. 

Radio posts seem to be among the most (if not the most) popular. Certainly, my lack of research results in a lot of responses. The recent post "Radio, Radio and More Radio" got all sorts of feedback, some of which I will repost here, but if you want to see all of it, just go back to that post. All of the following refer to elements of that post.   

ACE contributed the following: 

Very interesting London Mirror recording for the following reason: I think it's an end of year review because mention is made of Moon River being 'high in the hit parade'. Well in the UK that entered the charts week ending 18 November 1961 and was the Christmas Number 1 that year. However the La Vallerossa song puts the timeframe back to early March 1961 as the presenter references their opening week, but from what I find out March 61 was when the did dates in the UK, maybe longer, can't say but that went so well they mined an album from it.

Snoopy adds the following: 

On the 1970s Ads and Music Beds tape, shazam tells me 1:03-1:56 and 1:57-3:13 are pieces from an album "Six Moons of Jupiter" by a John Hill, evidently originally released in 1971, re-released 2008. I like the jazzy solo sax piece at 1:57, "Ganymede"; it sounds so out of place from all the cheeseball ads.

Chad also narrowed down information on yet another item from that post: 

The notes about Grace Lutheran Church of Somers Point, NJ building a new parish hall narrows this down to 1955 as backed up by the church's history as listed on their website: http://mobile.gracelutheranspnj.comcastbiz.net/history. The news about protests in Mississippi following Emmett Till's murder and comments from newly crowned Miss America Sharon Ritchie further narrow this down to September 1955. The news story about five preteens who extensively vandalized the New Carondelet Baptist Church in St. Louis and, quote, "made page one news" is probably the best way to pinpoint the date. The congregation still exists but their website is off line.

Eric offered a wealth of information about various aspects of that post. I have edited this comment here - if you want to read more about the case missing girls, go back to the post. It is sad and maddening: 

The WOR broadcast is from June 27, 1963 as the sports report refers to the White Sox beating the Yankees 6-0. Before that, there is also a commercial for TV Guide mentioning Donna Reed and Carl Betz on the cover which was the June 29 issue.

The Mutual Newscast is from the week of July 19-23, 1965. The story about the missing Texas University co-eds refers to Susan Rigsby and Shirley Ann Stark who disappeared Sunday, July 18th and the newscast says they disappeared "Sunday" meaning this is still the week following the Sunday it happened. 

There were also two comments identifying the date of the tape containing news reports on the riots in Greece, each of which identifies a different date. Apparently there was more than one riot. Have a look at the original post for those offerings. 

That's all for that post - like I said, quite a bit. On to others...

Someone called "The Rabbit" made a comment - which is worth reading in its entirety on the post - about the instrumental version of theme song to the Top Cat TV series and the fact that this series was and is wildly popular in Venezuela. 

Eric also had something to say about the Magna-Tronics Sales pitch in this post: 

To give you an idea of what went into a Magna-Tronics setup, the April 8, 1963 edition of Broadcasting magazine lists Tape-Athon's "new automatic program system" designed to work with what Magna-Tronics was selling, a four tape deck system with built in timers and a switcher for 32 hours of continuous programming with no repeats.I'm sure the hardware paid for itself...at least it better, at $2,489 in JFK bucks.

A brief segment of radio station WGN in this post, resulted the following, from Frenchyak: 

The Freddy Martin song on WGN is Penny Whistle Blues from 1952, a cover of a South African song by Willard Cele from 1951. Very cool!

Andrew offered up this comment on a segment featured on this post from almost four years ago: 

The real name of KMUN's Polly "Columbo" was Polly Smullin. Her husband William was a pioneer broadcast operator in the Pacific North West.

Andrew (perhaps the same Andrew as above) went back to a post from more than six years ago, and in addition to wishing me the best (thank you), he shared this: 

The second of your "Can I Help You" programmes was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on Sun 25th Mar 1962, at 1:40pm.The programme strand, which offered information and advice on legal, social, and financial problems, first aired in 1947 and, as far as I can tell, came to an end in 1970. 

In my most recent previous post, I got the date on some beautiful music programming wrong, and if I'd been paying attention, would have gotten it right, as an anonymous poster let me know: 

At about the 22:45 mark of the WVNJ recording there's an ad for the "Chevrolet 68 Savings Explo" (a savings explosion!!) which suggests the year is actually 1968.

But my favorite comment - and I really didn't know folks cared so much - came after that most recent post, which I put up after an unusually long break of 26 26 days, due to having been really busy during July. I was deeply touched by this anonymous comment. It said: 

Good to see you back - glad all is well. The closer the end of the month came the more concerned I was.

Thank you for all the comments, but especially for that one. 

~~

A good percentage of those reading this site will be familiar with PAMS, the Dallas area radio jingle factory which was the Gold Standard in radio jingles, promotion music and other aspects of radio - particularly, but not limited to, top 40 radio, especially in the 1960's. 

What I have here is a compilation tape I found that has five of the sales promotions for five different PAMS packets of jingles on a theme. Perhaps these are all available out there in their entirety, in which case sorry to be redundant, but I have haven't been able to find that these are all out there - I haven't even found any one of them intact as heard here. Perhaps I'm just not good at searching. But in case I'm right that these are already floating around, I thought I'd share them here. 

Download: A Set of Five PAMS Sales Packages

Play:

~~

Next up, for those who like audio letters, here is a fun one, or at least I think so. A visitor from England, Mrs. Phillips, records a conversation with her American hosts, who seem to have visited her a few years earlier (if I hear it correctly, perhaps during Queen Elizabeth's coronation, in 1953). This was meant to go right away to a couple named George and Virginia, but Lou (who is heard of the tape) forgot to send it, so he recorded a lengthy apology as well as additional bits of news and gossip on side two of the tape, and included a note saying so: 

I've labeled it May, because that's when it was sent, but the main part of it was recorded in March. Here's the tape: 

Download: Audio Letter, May, 1956 - 'Lou's Tape #7 - Talk With Mrs. Philipps

Play: 

~~

This next one could have been a "Very Short Reel" feature, but since I have an even shorter one this week, I thought I'd put it up here. It's just an unidentified radio station in 1957, on which a few hits of the day are played and the recordist captured enough DJ patter to make it worth offering it up here, despite the distortion heard pretty much throughout. 

Download: Brief Excerpt from an Indianapolis Rock and Roll Station, 1957

Play:

~~

I know I have at least a couple of reader/listeners out there who enjoy hearing vintage religious related tapes, including services (and if you have something you are partial to, feel free to share, and if I have it, I'll keep it in mind to feature it). So here is an hour or so of what I believe is a 1950's pentecostal revival type service, featuring a certain Brother Green. 

Download: A Pentecostal Revival Meeting, Featuring Brother Green

Play:

~~

Next we have a tape from the Cinema Recording Corporation, the raw tapes featuring the sounds for (presumably) a television ad for a product that the company bought in 1961 and discontinued in 1973: Red Dot Potato Chips. I've never heard of them before. If anyone can figure out exactly what was going on visually in this commercial (or these commercials) feel free to comment. 

Download: Cinema Recording Corp - Frito-Lays Red Dot Ads Raw Tapes

Play:

~~

The next two offerings feature rehearsals, but other than that fact, they really have very little in common. Part of the back cover looks like this: 

So presumably the child heard warbling off-key, for the first 160 seconds here, in a few different songs,  is Johnny. I think it's cute - in fact, I'd rather listen to this 50 times than hear a batch of children who have had every natural bit of their singing ability trained out of them sing something like "Tomorrow". You, however, may well find it amazingly annoying. 

Speaking of child choirs, Johnny gives way to the "Jr Choir Hughes", whoever they may have been, for the last eight or so minutes of this tape. These kids are definitely rehearsed, but thankfully, they are not "trained" and they sing with their natural, exuberant voices. They sing a few songs, including the gorgeous "Brahms Lullaby" a few times. And despite the organ being a bit too loud and distortion creeping in here and there, I love those natural voices. Not as much as on the second best album ever made ("Through Children's Eyes") or on the astonishing, otherworldly and beautiful track heard at the 25:40 point in this video (okay, now I'm teary, and I probably will be for the rest of the night - happens every time I hear that). But still, it's very much in my wheelhouse. 

Download: A Young Child Sings, Then a Youth Choir Rehearses

Play:

~~

Recently, I came across a batch of tapes, many of them recorded at the professional speed of 15 inches per second, and all of which contain recordings of a pianist accompanying, and often teaching/offering suggestions to, a few singers. I thought I'd sample one of them here, one which primarily features a baritone but in which there is also a soprano present, who also sings a bit. If there is any interest in hearing more of these, let me know. There were about a half dozen, of varying lengths. 

Download: A Baritone and a Soprano Rehearse with Piano

Play:

~~

And here's a "Very Short Reel", perhaps one of the more pointless ones I've shared. This was the only thing recorded on a seven inch, 1800 foot reel (i.e. 90 minutes of recording time available at the least, at standard speeds, and as much as six hours of recording time at the lowest common speed). What's more, this was recorded at the start of the second side of the reel, as it came to me, which is extra weird. As it says, it's just a couple of guys checking the microphone and then talking about.... .something. 

Download: Two Men Checking the Microphone and Then Discussing Something

Play:

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:

The Return of Lance Shepard, A Soldier in Germany, 1951 Up and Down the Dial, Rehearsing Some Songs and 1981 MOR Radio

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!

I have a media-heavy posting this time around, with three of the six items containing material that was on the radio airwaves at some point, and nothing remotely connected to ghosts or goblins.  

Deejay demo tapes seem to be pretty popular, so I'll start with one of those. I seem to have picked up multiple tapes from the collection of the well traveled Lance Shepard (AKA Bill Brown), at some point, and have shared one of his reels before. Here is another one, from that bicentennial summer (and at least for some of it, if not all of it, from that bicentennial day) of 1976, from a town that already existed in 1776, Waterbury, Connecticut, "Supermusic C-O", otherwise known as WWCO. Here's about twelve minutes of nearly 40 year old, "scoped" Lance Shepard.

Download: Lance Shepard Demo Reel from 1240 Supeemusic C-O, Waterbury, Connecticut, July, 1976

Play:

~~

For those who like audio letters, here's one that I found particularly interesting. It's from a soldier stationed in Germany (with his family), recorded off and on for three months. At the start, the tape is nicely dated to March of 1970, as the soldier mentions that year's NIT and NCAA basketball finals having occurred that day. Later, his son joins him. By the end of the tape, he has learned that he is being sent to Vietnam, but has a lengthy break in between, during which he will be returning to the states, during which time he will be finding and buying a house for his family, as they will not be going with him. 

Download: Audio Letter from a Soldier in Germany, Recorded from March to June, 1970

Play:

Here's part of the tape box: 

I have at least one other tape of this soldier - let me know if you are interested in hearing that one. 

~~

I've labeled the next one "Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951". It begins with a couple of Country & Western numbers. These are "Rainbow in My Heart", and, after a moment of a commercial (which is then cut), an upbeat, accordion driven version of (of all things) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Then we get a bit of an ad for Royal Pudding, before the recording switches to "The Camel Caravan" starring Vaughn Monroe. The songs chosen for this program include a thoroughly awful of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise". (As an aside, I will never, ever, understand the appeal of Vaughn Monroe's voice.)

At just after the ten minute point, the real hodgepodge begins. We hear the end of a spoken word ad then a sung good morning jingle, then the station is changed repeatedly. We repeatedly hear moments of the masterful - perfect - version of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" by Les Paul and Mary Ford, a weather forecast (it's October 17th), what seem to be part of two different newscasts and a community events calendar fading in and out (as well as, briefly, yet another song). A Freddy Martin record is introduced and we momentarily hear two songs at once, before the final section, featuring a man with the moralistic fervor of the typical anti-communists of the day. When he all the terrible things that always occur whenever forms of socialism are in place, I have to wonder if he had any idea about the ways that many of the Native American tribes lived before the Europeans arrived. But maybe that's just me. 

Download: Media Hodgepodge, circa October, 1951

Play:

~~

For those of you who enjoy men rehearsing arias and songs, here is a man rehearsing arias and songs. It's called "A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs". I hope that makes things clear enough. 

Download: A Man Rehearses Arias and Songs

Play:

~~

And now, the good news is I have a nice, long musical aircheck from an American radio station. The bad news is that's from 1981 - not the best year for rock and roll, if you ask me, and what's worse, it's not from a rock and roll station. It's from an Adult Contemporary station. BORING!!! But it's a complete recording of over two hours, with commercials and newscasts and DJ patter intact. The station was in South Bend, Indiana and was called WTHQ (it's now WNSN). The ongoing discussion of whether the space shuttle would launch, as mentioned throughout these two-plus hours, very definitely dates this tape to November 4th of that year, as does the segment about how Guy Fawkes Day is coming up the following day. That's almost exactly 44 years ago! Here's that tape. 

Download: WTHQ, South Bend, IN, 11-4-81

Play:

~~

And as (almost) always, here's a very short reel. This is all that was on this particular 1200 foot reel, one which came housed in a VERY early Scotch design box - the type sold around 1951-52, but the recording cannot be from before 1956 or so, as that's when the latter of the two songs heard premiered.  The songs are sung by a woman, a cappella. That slightly "newer" song is "Around the World" from the film of a similar title, and is heard first, after which are some warblings of "Many a New Day" from "Oklahoma". All in just under four minutes. 

Download: A Couple of A Cappella Show Tunes

Play:

A Steve Allen Awards Show Recording, An Audition Tape, More Beautiful Music, Guitar at Home

Hello, hello, hello!

Before I get to this post's features, I want to thank a few people for writing in. Well, thanks to EVERYONE who writes in (except the spammers) - I appreciate it more than I can say. 

But two commenters mentioned the Anthony Bilbow stories, the most recent of which I posted last month. They both let me know that these stories were aired as part of a show called  "Morning Story",  part of the BBC's Light Programme in the 1960's, and that it can be researched at this BBC site. It started as "Worthington" in 1954 and ran through the '60's, eventually as "Morning Story".

Also, Chad let me know that the radio portion of the "Humorous Moment" I shared in my last post is from KFOR AM 1240 in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Again, thanks!

~~

First up, I have something I think is pretty special, and which I don't think is available anywhere else. This is a recording of an episode of The Steve Allen Show from the day after Christmas, 1959. On that date, the entire show was turned over to Steve announcing the nominees and winners of "The 10th Annual Look Magazine Awards", in several categories, and the comments of the winners,  as well as brief comedy bits with his regular troupe (Don Knotts, Tom Poston, etc.), and a few musical numbers. 

This appears to be the entire show. The sound quality ranges from fairly good to fairly iffy - the last few minutes have very poor sound quality, and there are a few other spots of poor quality, as well. But hopefully, if this is your thing, you can stand the less than pristine sound. I think this is a real find. 

Download: The Steve Allen Show - The 10th Annual Look Magazine Awards - 12-26-59

Play:

~~

KTUR, Turlock, CA, 1390 on your dial, existed at that frequency from 1949 to 1962. Relatively near the end of that period, someone whose name might be Jack Hield (I've probably got that wrong - let me know what you think he's saying) seems to have sent in an audition tape, using some then-recent news stories to demonstrate his skills. Those stories are all from October of 1958, so I'm guessing that's when this tape was made. 

Download: Jack Hield - Audition Tape for KTUR, Turlock, CA, circa October, 1958

Play:

Oh, and how do I know it was an audition tape and not an actual aircheck? Well, I have the tape box, dear reader/listener. And here is the part of that box that has writing on it: 

~~

And now, here's a treat (?). The following 45 minutes or so contain the remainder of what was on that audition tape reel. And what does that consist of? Someone playing electric guitar - everything from noodling to chord progressions to recognizable songs, at times loudly, at times softly, at times in tune, at other times out of tune. Then, at certain moments, the guitarist sings with his guitar playing. And then, at a couple of points, we are treated to some 1969 Top 40 radio. Best of all (?), some of this material was recorded on the right channel at 3 3/4 IPS, while the above audition is on the same spot on the tape on the left channel, at 7 1/2 IPS, and the audition tape bleeds through, at the wrong speed, making for a delightful listen during that segment. 

Download: Unknown - Some Solo Guitar, Some Singing with Guitar, A Bit of Top 40 Radio

Play: 

~~

Here's something multiple people have asked for - I'm not big on the so-called "Beautiful Music" stations which existed way back when, but plenty of folks love this stuff, and when I find it, I always share it. Here's an hour from WTVN in Columbus. This seems to be from around 1961. I am mystified as to how this station made money - there are very few breaks of any sort for the announcer and nothing I would consider a "commercial" during this hour long excerpt - only a promo for their own programming and a PSA for Radio Free Europe. And even those sound canned, as if the entire broadcast was just a tape someone made earlier, or perhaps even a subscription service. Anybody have an idea? 

Download: WTVN, Columbus - Beautiful Music Programming Circa 1961

Play:

~~

And now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". I think the titles here are completely self-explanatory.: it's a bunch of people singing at home, doing more than a half dozen songs on two sides of an unlabeled acetate. SING IT, GANG!

Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Singing Together At Home - Leela Leela, By the Light, My Happiness, Too Fat Polka

Play:

Download: Unlabeled Black Acetate - Singing Together At Home - You Are My Sunshine, Down On the Levee, Working on the Railroad

Play:

~~

And now for a "Very Short Reel". In this case, this is really a "Very Short Excerpt", because it's really just the first few minutes of a tape that I've been exploring this week. It has a bit of an audio letter (maybe almost the whole thing, but it doesn't seem like it), which is then - partially - interrupted by a recording of an orchestral piece. But the original recording continues on for a bit longer, and we hear both recordings more or less at equal volume. Sort of like part of that guitar player tape up there earlier in the post.

As I said, I've continued to listen to this tape after finding this little segment, and there are several more segments where it is doubly recorded, with both music and talking. I know of at least one reader who enjoys such things, so I may share more of this tape, the next time around!

Download: Brief Fragment of an Audio Letter (with Orchestral Interference)

Play:

Danny Thomas at Tahoe, A Young Family at Home, One More Set from Antony Bilbow, Even More Hollister, Badly Recorded Top 40 and the New Lux Lotion Bar

I hoped to have this up in a more timely fashion, but I was gone for a weekend and then extremely sick for part of the following week. I hope to have yet another post up before the end of the month. But this one was sort of thrown together. I hope you find it worthwhile. 

First up, and perhaps of interest to at least some of the media-sound-collectors out there, is a recording of an episode of "The Danny Thomas Hour", which ran during the 1967-68 season on NBC and was apparently not much of a success. Each week was a different format - drama, variety, comedy - and on 2/28/68, the host presented a hour of his live act, recorded in Lake Tahoe. There does not seem to be any recording of this out there, audio or video - if there is, I didn't come across it. 

Personally, this sort of thing drives me up the wall, and I fail to understand how it was ever popular. But popular it was, and I know there are people who still love this stuff. And objectively, I recognize that this is by far the most "collectable" thing I'm sharing today, and probably recently, so it deserves the lead-off spot. And so, for those who will like it, here is that tape: 

Download: Danny Thomas at Tahoe - NBC-TV, 2-28-68

Play:

~~

I have, on two previous occasions, shared portions of a tape I found which contains four tracks of a man named Antony Bilbow reading stories on the BBC. Click on his name to see the previous two offerings, as well as this one. At least a few people asked to have more of these, and today I am offering up the third of the four channels on that tape. 

Download: Antony Bilbow - Stories on English Radio, Volume 3

Play:

~~

As I often say here, recordings Top 40 Radio from its golden era are considered precious to many folks out there, and I count myself in that number. In my last post, I featured part of a countdown show from WILS, Lansing. Now I have something considerably less wonderful, from the same collection. Both shares were from three inch wonders, tapes which contain far more recording than one might think such a small item could hold. The problem with today's offering is the resolutely awful sound quality, and again, there is only some of the deejay patter, making these recordings less valuable than many others. Oh, and like many of the machines which were designed to record ONLY those three inch reels, the recording speed was extremely variable, depending on how much tape was left on each side of the reels. 

Unlike the previous offering, this is not all from one broadcast, although there are some countdown items here. And not everything here is from WILS, but most of it is, and I can't make out for certain what the other station(s) heard is/are. Oh, and the last few minutes heard here are from yet another three inch reel that came from the same collection, one which only had a few minutes of recording on it. 

Download: WILS, Lansing, Michigan, Circa Late 1964 and Early 1965

Play:

~~

And now it's David Hollister Time again. I don't want to repeat myself each time I bring up his name, but the explanation for these tapes is at the start of this post, and this link will take you to all of the Hollister tapes I've shared so far. 

Today's Hollister tape has two separate sections. The first part seems to be a rehearsal for something called AORN show, from 3/2/76. I don't know what that was. It starts with multiple takes of a brief parody of "Love Will Keep Us Together". The rest is some sort of short play, performed largely straight through, with a few breakdowns. I will let you discover whatever you find to be its highlights/lowlights/charms, depending on your opinion of the material. 

Download: David Hollister and Others - AORN Show, 3-2-76

Play:

The remainder of the tape has a pianist - presumably the composer - and a singer, running through multiple takes of a song called "Footsteps in the Snow". This is a very Broadway-esque number, as some of the other material on these tapes has been, and as such, is just as much not my thing as that Danny Thomas material up there. But your mileage may vary. 

Download: David Hollister and Singer - Rehearsing 'Footsteps in the Snow' - 6-2-76

Play:

~~

Now here's something I absolutely love - worth 1000 Danny Thomas stage shows. I've called this "A Young Family At Home", and it is simply about 34 minutes with a loving family, enjoying being together. The child heard the most during this tape is remarkably well spoken for someone who seems to be extremely young, and the whole thing is just one charming moment after another. The tape ends oddly, with a short, unrelated recording of something that many of us used to interact with from time to time, but which I'm sure no longer exists. 

Download: A Young Family At Home

Play:

~~

Time for a "Very Short Reel". This is simple enough - some folks spending a few minutes making a commercial for Lux Lotion Bar

Download: Making a Lux Lotion Bar Commercial

Play: