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
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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:

Jack Eigen, Volume Two, Some Short Advertising Tapes, and More Beautiful Music

Greetings!

Almost two years ago, I shared the first of what I expected to be many postings featuring a Chicago radio legend by the name of Jack Eigen. You can read about him (along with a few links) in that original post here.

I fully expected to hear from multiple people requesting more, given the nature and interest of those who frequent this blog, and was genuinely surprised when I received only two comments over the next couple of months, one from someone who was interested in hearing more, and one stating he'd rather not have me share any more. I left it alone.

In the last two months, though, for whatever reason, three different people have written in, requesting more, two of them sharing significant memories of the show, and one of those sharing pictures.

And so, in response to those requests, I give you a second helping of Jack Eigen. As with the other posting, I have not re-listened to this prior to posting, and probably last heard this tape all the way through 15 years or more ago. Doubtless there are excerpts from more than one episode here (the tape is over three hours long), and if you listen through, I'm sure more than one of you can fairly easily nail down a date. I do know that all of these tapes are from near the end of his reign - mid to late '60's and into 1970 or 1971. But that's it.

Enjoy!!!

Download: Jack Eigen, Volume Two
Play:

Oh, and I mentioned pictures! Here are three of the pictures which were sent to me, courtesy of a long time Eigen and WMAQ fan from those days, named Allen. Here's Jack Eigen himself, in October, 1967:

Here's a slightly blurry picture of Steve Allen (left) and Tony Bennett, who were on the air with Eigen, at the time of this photo:

And finally, this is Jim Hill, who took over every night after Eigen's program. He and Allen were lifelong friends, after getting to know each other when Allen went to the station, many times, to be in the audience of Eigen's shows:

~~

Speaking of reader/listener feedback, I've continued to receive further requests for posts of Beautiful Music Radio, and by chance, I came across one just this week.This tape is of the cleverly named KABL, which identified itself as being in San Francisco (get it? KABL), until the FCC told them they had to be upfront and honest and identify that they were licensed and were broadcasting from Oakland (and if you don't know why a station might misrepresent that fact in the bay area, well, there are plenty of websites which could explain it - and it's a very unpleasant reason, indeed, one with ramifications that persist - literally - to this day). 

Anyway, this is clearly two different, short segments. The first one has a newscast which places it firmly right after the Republican convention that year, so likely July or early August of that year (the brief mention of Lucky Lager will no doubt let you know that this comes from yet another tape in the same collection that I have delved into for the last two posts). There was then a gap in the tape (which I've eliminated) and a second segment of the same tape, with a reference at the end to Thanksgiving being on the way, so that is no doubt from November of the same year. I'm guessing that for some who wished to hear more Beautiful Music, there is too much talking and news here for your taste, but that's what I found (and honestly, it's what makes it interesting to me). 

Download: Beautiful Music KABL, Oakland/San Francisco, Two Segments from 1964

Play:

~~

And here's something quite a bit shorter - and it's from the first part of the KABL tape, above. These ads were likely recorded for use on KABL, as the announcer involved worked at the station, according to a few web sites I just perused. 

Here's announcer John K. Chapel, recording three ads for The Rose Exterminator Company, and one for Leisure Town in Vacaville - about 45 minutes from Oakland, by the way. This retirement community is still a going concern. 

These is a raw tape for the commercials - there are brief comments in between the third and fourth ads. 

John K. Chapel: Three Ads for the Rose Exterminator Company and one for Leisure Town

Play:

~~

And finally, as you've all been waiting for, it's another in the series of very short reels. By chance, the small reel I selected at random actually has more material on it than the ads I excerpted from a full size reel, just above. 

This is a demo reel for a commercial pitchman named Al Gates. Based on a quick web search, he seems to have a very well known guy in the radio commercial voice talent and voice over biz, although his is a common enough name that I could well have been looking at more than one Al Gates. 

This is an interesting set of commercials in that one of them contains a self-referential moment - Al Gates narrating a commercial about... Al Gates. 

Download: Al Gates' Demo Reel

Play:

Honolulu Top 40 Radio, 1963, A Paper Reel, and Vintage BBC Shows

A little story first - if you're not interested, feel free to move on down to the newly shared files, below the break.

Earlier this month, I experienced a personal crisis related to this site. I don't want to overstate this, because there are true crises and tragedies happening throughout the country and world right now, but this is something that would have made me quite sad, and would have impacted this site.

All of my sound files are housed on an external hard drive, one which is not very old. At the beginning of the month, it began failing. I started copying things to a cloud site (which I should have done before) while looking for a potential solution, and while I saved my song-poem files, it died before I moved anything I'd saved for this site (as well as many other files I only had in MP3 form, on that drive).

You see, I have a backlog of stuff for this site, and every time I post, it's a mixture of stuff I've just discovered and things I've been sitting on for months or years.

Happily, my neighbor - one with whom we are on excellent terms - owns a company within which transferring data to a new drive would be right up their alley. But.... he told me right off the bat that it was 50/50 that they'd be able to do anything, depending on what was broken about the drive.

I spent a restless week worrying about this, but just got the word that everything was saved. YAY!

In the meantime, I am working from home 80% of the time, which has given me the opportunity to digitize a stack of stuff that's been sitting, waiting for me to do so. I sit at my laptop at one end of the room, and the reel machine (near) silently sends the tape into the recording software, only giving me a sign to get up and change it when the tape runs out.

So it is that I have a bunch of stuff to share with you today, anyway, all of it newly digitized, while I wait for the return of my other material, on the brand new-and-improved hard drive that I just bought.

~~

So last time around, I was already in this "stay-at-home-and-digitize-at-the-same-time" mode, and the one item from that project which made the post was the Lucky Lager sales promotion. The next tape in that particular stacks (and oh, do I have stacks...) also had a Lucky Lager tie-in, and it is about as wonderful as it can get.

For what we have here is "Lucky Lager Dance Time", just under an hour of Top 40 radio programming from Honolulu, Hawaii, back on April 16th, 1963 (coincidentally, my mother's 40th birthday!). I'm guessing that tapes of early 1960's Top 40 radio from Hawaii are extremely rare (although I really don't know). Whether or not that's the case, this tape is wonderful.

Among all the standard hits of the day one would expect to hear from any American Top 40 station in April of 1963, there are a few tracks which seem to have been local hits, two "triple plays" for prizes, and a number one record "Sukiyaki", which wouldn't be number one nationally for another two months - it's not surprising that Hawaii would be at the forefront of this song's popularity in the US, given the large percentage of Hawaiian residents - then and now - who were/are of Japanese descent.

I also get a kick out of how many times, while talking at some length, the Deejay mentions that this is the station to listen to for less talking and more music.

The name of the station - KPOI, referencing the mainstay of the local cuisine - cracks me up, too.

Great stuff!

Download: Lucky Lager Dance Time - KPOI, 1380, Honolulu, April 16, 1963
Play:

~~~

Next up, and very simply explained, is a set of two episodes of a show from the BBC, a show which could hardly be more British - full of explanations, assistance and other helpful information, all in response to listener queries.

I don't have a specific date on this, but the other material on the tape - which I will share another time - appears to be from 1961.

Download: BBC - Can I Help You - One Episode
Play:

Download: BBC - Can I Help You - Another Episode
Play:

~~

And speaking of two episodes of a show on one tape, here's something really old. What you're about to hear is the complete contents of a paper reel - one of those Scotch Brand reels which sports the very first design available from the Scotch company, which I shared here. That's a box that most likely was phased out by 1950. This particular one sports its original price tag of $3.50, meaning that a single reel of tape in that era cost the equivalent of between $35 and $40 dollars in today's cash.

And what did this person choose to record? Well, at some point (it would appear), he recorded a broadcast of a Boston Pops concert, as the end of the reel features a couple of minutes of that show, complete with a commercial and barely any music.

But at two points in 1953, he recorded episodes of an NBC network show - as broadcast on a Minnesota station - titled "Critic at Large", and featuring Leon Pearson and his erudite, very sedate yet often cutting commentary on any number of things one can be a critic about and for. The first segment is undated, but multiple references put it squarely in April of 1953. For the second one, the owner of the machine helpfully dates it for us. When that one is over - that's when we hear what was being erased - the Boston Pops.

As far as I know, there is nothing remotely like this on radio or TV now, although I certainly remember such things within my lifetime, mostly prior to my adulthood, though (late 1970's). It's interested to think what the response to this sort of program of criticism and comment would be today. Blank stares, mostly, I'm guessing.

So let's travel back to a certain  very different point in time, for a very different kind of broadcasting:

Download: Leon Pearson, 'Critic At Large' - Spring, 1953 (KSTP, Minneapolis)
Play:

Download: Leon Pearson, 'Critic At Large' - July 12, 1953 (KSTP, Minneapolis) (And a Bit of The Boston Pops)
Play:

~~

And if you want a sort of aural whiplash, from the sedate BBC of the early '60's and the suave and educated criticism of NBC in the early '50's, here's my very short reel of the day, an undated (I'm guessing 1980's) hard selling 30 second ad for a grocery store in northern Arkansas.

Download: Harps, Mountain Home, Arkansas, 30 Second Ad
Play:

Watch the Belgian Parade with some Lucky Lager!

I have another batch of interesting and widely varying tapes today!

I've periodically shared slide show narration tapes, and today I have one that is actually a bit of a mystery. Because first, I'm not sure this is a narration for a slide show or for an 8 mm home movie presentation. And second, because the subject matter seems to change without announcing itself partway through the material.

The first section of the narration is clearly for a parade featuring Belgian-Americans (and possibly the King of Belgium - see below), but then at some point we've clearly moved on into a tour of one of the many world's fairs which occurred in the mid-20th Century - I'm guessing the one in New York in the 1960's, but maybe the clues on this reel will steer a listener in another direction.

Narrating a slide show makes much more sense to me - my experience with film is that it is awfully hard to line up such a narration with the film and have it work every time, with a pre-prepared recording. Yes, I've actually done this, back when I was 14, with some of my family's home movies. But some of the announcing certainly sounds like it's related more to moving images than slides. Hear for yourself!

Download: Slide Show or Film Narration for a Parade and World's Fair Visit
Play:

And here, as an little added attraction, is a fragment of recording which was contained on the very next box I opened from this collection. This is the end of a radio interview, with a connection so poor as to possibly be a short wave broadcast, interviewing someone who was at a Belgian Reception, mentioning the presence of the King of Belgium, and wishing that more Belgian-Americans had been present.

Whether this reception is connected to the parade documented on the other tape is unknown. That this reception was in Detroit complicates that idea, since the parade seems to have transitioned into an event that I believe to have been in Detroit.

I do love my listeners/readers, though: you've come through many times with solutions, based on things I missed, or didn't have time to research.

Download: Brief Fragment of Conversation about Belgian Reception
Play:

~~

I'm not a drinking man, but I still usually recognize the name of a beer when I hear it. But Lucky Lager was a mystery to me. It seems to have been far more common in the western states, and I have never lived outside of Illinois, so maybe that's why. But it seems to have been massively popular, wherever it was enjoyed, in the 1950's and early 1960's, at least.

And it was in the early 1960's - late 1962, for use in 1963 - that Lucky Lager sent out the following promotional tape to its dealers, and who knows who else. I find this tape highly entertaining, except for the sections where they literally repeat portions of it again, most notably the upcoming new radio ad promotion featuring future game show stooge Jaye P. Morgan, complete with her introductory comments, twice.

Despite that bit of repetitive weirdness, this is a fun tape. One more thing: there is a moment where they were apparently going to insert some other sort of recording or presentation, and there is a moment of silence
instead. The brand was apparently flying pretty high at this time, but not so much by the end of the decade.

Have a listen!

Download: Lucky Lager - 1963 "Lucky Days" Sales Promotion
Play:

Finally, here's this week's "very short reel", chosen at random from a few large stacks. This is a late 1990's radio ad - two promos for use on one specific day, due to the content being related to that night's TV broadcast, on the local Toledo Fox-owned station, promoting both the news, and that evening's rerun of the never-less-than-aggressively-and-painfully-unfunny Home Improvement. 

Download: Two Fox News and Home Improvement Combo Ads

Play:

The 1962 Eurovision Song Contest, Jonathan Winters Uncensored and More

Hi, everyone,

It's time to update the ol' Scotch Tape Box History Series. I believe I can hear you whooping and hollering from here!

I have to say up front that I do not know exactly where this design fits in. Each of the last four boxes that I've shared seem to date from somewhere in the period 1958-1965 or so, which is mostly a period that my family bought precious few new tapes, as we only replaced our faded Concertone with a newer model in the fall of 1963. And even then, my father seems to have favored a brand called "Knight" (which also went through some interesting box design changes).

So I'm certain that the last four (including this one) come from that era, but really can't put a better date on them. However, today's offering is a definite change of pace. All of the previous designs prominently featured some representation of the reel of tape held within, and/or played up the quality of the tape or some special feature (extra length, weather balanced, etc.), this one contains none of that. It has a type number (141, indicating a 1200 foot reel), and some space age era illustrations. We're also told it's part of the "Tartan Series, whatever that was. But that's it. As with the previous boxes, the Scotch pattern has been relegated to a half-inch on the right edge of the box.

I suspect this box was in production longer than the last few that I shared, as it turns up more often, particularly more frequently than the last two.

Things get a lot less interesting, design-wise, from here on out.

~~~

The big offering for today is a remarkable piece of tape recorded live, off the air, in England, in 1962. It features virtually the entirety of the 1962 "Eurovision Song Contest". If you are unfamiliar with this amazing and unique event, you should really read up on  it, but if you don't want to, I'll tell you that it is a contest between some of the nations of Europe, held every year, to determine the best song of that year.

That it doesn't succeed in this is self-evident - for many years, a very specific few types of songs were offered up, intended to appeal to the generic middle-of-the-road European judge. Monty Python famously ridiculed this tendency around 1970.

The only worldwide hit to have come out of the contest, as far as I know, is the magnificent "Waterloo" by Abba, which may well have broken the mold, and perhaps brought more variety to future contest, but I really don't know.

The recording heard here features an announcer who seems more suited to a golf tournament, breaking in with hushed explanations and comments via what sounds like a walkie-talkie, at opportune moments.

Aside from a moment to turn over the tape, the whole thing seems to be here - all the performances, the intermission music while the countries are deciding on their favorites, the voting, and the second performance of the winning song. For me, I only liked a couple of the songs, neither of which got many votes at all.

I've probably made this sound awful. It isn't - it's weirdly wonderful, and certainly a moment in time that has long-since passed. Just think, less than six months after this contest, The Beatles recorded their first Parlophone Records 45. I have to think that, at least by the 1964 Eurovision contest, the difference between the songs performed at this contest, and what actual Europeans (and the rest of the world) were listening to, must have been as wide as the ocean.

Download: Various Artists - The 1962 Eurovision Song Contest
Play:

~~

Next up, something really remarkable. At least, that's the case if it's as rare as I think it might be.

This is a short tape of Jonathan Winters, at some undated point in his career, but I would guess the 1960's, performing without the restrictions of the day, for either stand-up (which he actually did very little of) or of album releases.

Over the course of these 13 or so minutes, you'll hear Winters - who has an audience of only a few people - engage in a series of mostly very short vignettes, punctuated here and there by words that would have been bleeped, at the time. The scenes include a bit about having diarrhea, a bit of gay comedy (the one thing not unheard of in his released comedy), some lighthearted material about a rape, some fun about teenage masturbation, and in the last (and by far the longest) bit, a parody of a hip black guy, which features the use of several racial and ethnic slurs.

Again, maybe this is commonly known of and circulated. But I've only found one reference to it, on an acetate (and indeed, it seems likely that this is a recording of an acetate), so I'm guessing it's fairly rare.

Download: Jonathan Winters - Unreleased, Off-Color Material
Play:

~~

The next tape, featuring Larry Blair talking about "The CIA" came in this box:

I am almost certain that this tape was recorded as accompaniment to a slide show, perhaps for use in High School or College classes. The factual reporting, with very little opinion on either side of any issue, and the open-ended nature of the ending suggests that it was meant to be followed by conversation, a written assignment, or both.

On the other hand, I doubt that this tape was the item that went with the slide show. I suspect it's far more likely that Larry Blair used this tape as a demo reel to promote his own talents as a reporter or voice-over/commercial pitchman.

Download: Larry Blair - The CIA
Play:

~~

And assuming that I'm correct about Larry Blair's tape, it's something of a coincidence that the "very short reel" I pulled out at random for today post is ALSO a demo reel, in this case for Harry Chase, an actor known primarily for his voice work, and who has credits on IMDB as recently as 2012. Here is his demo reel.


Download: Harry Chase - Voice Talent Demo Tape
Play:

Summer Varieties, Lichens and Mosses, and More!

Hello, everyone,

I hope you are all coping well with whatever level of madness is currently the status quo where you are. I have a few things to distract you from more difficult matters today.

First up, here's a neat bit of local television, of a sort that hasn't existed for a long, long time. It's a half-hour program that aired on WGAL-TV, in Lancaster, PA, in the summer of 1955. This is the final edition of "Summer Varieties", presumably near or at the end of that summer. The show featured local talent on organ, playing several solos, and also accompanying another local talent, a 15 year old female vocalist, one some other songs.

The tape was being recorded with an open microphone by someone, most likely in her home, and you can hear her curse at one point during a soft moment of the show. And I suspect I'm not alone in wishing the person taping this show had tuned in the next week for the return of show this program seems to have been replacing over the summer. "Stump Your Neighbor".

Download: Summer Varieties - WGAL-TV, Summer, 1955
Play:

~~

Next, here's a peculiar little item, which is short enough that I could have included it in my very short tapes series. But I find this one more interesting than many of those tapes, and actually filed it away after making an MP3 of it. It's labeled "Opening and Closing Music for Lichens and Mosses", so if you have any Lichens or Mosses outside your home, or in a frequently visited garden, perhaps you can play this music for them as you arrive and depart.


Download: Opening and Closing Music for Lichens and Mosses
Play: +

Here are the front and back of the tape box:

~~

For those of you who adore recordings of anonymous amateur bands sounding very amateurish while rehearsing medleys, do I have the tape for you!!!! Here 'tis!:

Download: Unknown High School Band - Rehearsing a Medley
Play:

~~

And finally, the moment you've been waiting for - this week's entry in the "Very Short Reels" series. In this case, it's a pair of nice ads for Dodge Pick-Up Trucks, sounding very much like they're from 1971, which they are.

Download: Two 1971 Dodge Truck Ads
Play:

A Rare Nat "King" Cole Recording, The March of Dimes, and More!

Hello,

I hope everyone out there is well and stays well. I have something remarkable today, but first, a few things about recent comments. I appreciate everyone who stops by, and love hearing whatever anyone has to say. Unfortunately, if the person commenting doesn't link to an e-mail address, I am unable to answer personally.

In light of that, I wanted to answer the person who asked if I had any earlier Jack Eigen recordings, from the late 1940's and early 1950's. The answer is that I don't - I only have them from the 1968-early 70's. I've only had one request to share more of this collection, but if anyone else wants to hear it, I'm open to sharing it - I have a ton of it.

On a completely separate note, writer Tony suggests that the mysterious writing on the most recent Scotch tape box, "Weather Balanced" might well have to do with the tape performing equally well, with no discernible differences, in wildly various weather situations, particularly with regard to differences in humidity. That's as good an idea as any.

~~

Today, I'm featuring a recording I believe to be exceptionally rare, given its historic value and the fact that I can find almost no posting of it online, save for several postings of a single song from the end of the broadcast.

It's from the legendary Nat "King" Cole TV show, which ran for two seasons before NBC gave up trying to find a copy that would regularly sponsor a show hosted by a Black man. The show ran barely over a year. What I have here is virtually the entire episode of August 6, 1957, when Cole welcomed Harry Belafonte. IMDB indicates this was a 15 minute episode, although elsewhere on the page for the show, and on Wikipedia, it says the show expanded to 30 minutes that summer. And indeed, this is a 30 minute episode.

(Not that you asked (and I'm sure you don't care...), but I'm not a fan, at all, of Nat "King" Cole, whose mannered over-enunciated style of singing I find insufferable. On the other hand, Harry Belafonte has made some records I love, including the "Calypso" album, which is certainly among my dozen favorite albums ever. But more often he could be just as precious as Cole, and that's the side of him featured, for the most part, here, with the exception of the calypso number at the end (and which is the segment that's readily available). The first time I heard "Scarlet Ribbons", for example, was one time too many.)

However, I do recognize the importance and rarity of this reel, and that there are far more people who don't share my taste than that do. And I'm happy to share this with whatever part of the world is reading and listening.

Download: The Nat King Cole Show, August 6, 1957, With Harry Belafonte
Play:

~~

Now please understand, I'm certainly not saying that Cole couldn't sing - he obviously had great talent, even if it's not to my taste. As a contrast, here's someone who absolutely could not sing - who clearly had no ability to hear or sing on pitch - and seems to have been blissfully unaware of it, as he happily sings - over and over and over again for God knows what reason - with a very family one-time # 1 hit record:

Download: Unknown - Singing Along to "Runaround Sue"
Play:

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Now let's transition into something more entertaining and certainly more meaningful: I recently came across this reel of Public Service Announcements, all strung together on one reel, despite being for three different organizations, ones with no direct link between them, as far as I know. During these 23 minutes, you'll hear from more than a dozen celebrities, some whose names live on even today, at least among some of us, and others who are largely forgotten today, promoting The March of Dimes, then Care Packages, then Cerebral Palsy (unlike the first two, all of the PSAs for latter feature the same celebrity, singer Ken Carson).

Download: A Collection of PSA's for The March of Dimes, Care Packages and Cerebral Palsy
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And finally, let's keep going with our "Very Short Tapes" project. As luck would have it, the tape I pulled out at random (after compiling everything else in this post, also features PSA's, in this case, four PSA's from late in 1980 from the American Heart Association. And here's that tape:

Download: The American Heart Association, Four PSA's, November and December, 1980
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