rand’s esoteric otr

Note: This program contains some World War II-era racial stereotyping slang that may be offensive to some listeners.

Continuing our look at “Your Home Front Reporter”, a previously undocumented Wartime series, we hear program 2, broadcast May 11, 1943 on the CBS network.

Commentator Fletcher Wiley discusses why we shouldn’t get too excited about good news from the battle fronts since the end of the war may be some time away. He also mentions that new shipments of alarm clocks are coming on the market.

Eleanor Steber sings “Just a Song at Twilight”; Frank Parker performs “The Night is Young, And You’re So Wonderful”; Steber and Parker sing the duet “Why Do I Love You?”. The show features announcer Hugh Conover and the David Brookman Orchestra.

The mp3 was transferred direct from a vinyl transcription, matrix numbers BB35330 and BB35331, pressed by World Broadcasting System, Inc. for the Owens Illinois Glass Company, the sponsor of the program.

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Note: This program contains some World War II-era racial stereotyping slang that may be offensive to some listeners.

We’re starting a new series on the blog with “Your Home Front Reporter”. This half-hour program was broadcast in the afternoons, Monday through Friday, on the CBS network. Sponsored by the Owens Illinois Glass Company and produced by the D’Arcy Advertising Company, Inc in cooperation with the Office of War Information and other government agencies. I haven’t seen any shows in the series in otr listings or in circulation.

The program consists of light opera and popular music along with news and commentary about the War and ways that women and families could help with the War effort. Most programs in the series feature vocalists Frank Parker and Met Opera star Eleanor Steber. It’s a curious snap-shot of the War World II home front mindset and an opportunity to hear a Steber very early in her career. (Read the Wikipedia entry on Steber’s career for some interesting highlights; I have a copy of the ultra-rare RCA album of her concert at New York’s Continental Baths.)

The series also features commentator Fletcher Wiley, whose folksy style first came to notice with listeners in Southern California in the 1930s. Wiley was a pioneer in talking on radio to women about issues they were interested in; his style is similar to Arthur Godfrey and Paul Harvey in some ways. You can read a 1940 article about Wiley at the Time magazine archives. (On some of the “Your Home Front Reporter” shows from Fall 1943 I’ll be posting later, Wiley is replaced by Don Regan, who concentrated more on harder news stories. I’m not sure if Regan was a temporary replacement for part of the run of the series.)

In this first program of the series, originally broadcast May 10, 1943, Fletcher Wiley talks at the beginning of the show about the purpose of the series, then offers a commentary on politeness and another on the many uses of the soybean. Frank Parker performs “Begin the Beguine” and Eleanor Steber sings “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia”; they perform a duet, “Dearly Beloved”. The announcer is Ben Grauer and the show features the David Brookman Orchestra.

The program was transferred from a vinyl transcription, matrix numbers BB34870 and BB34871, pressed by World Broadcasting System, Inc. for the Owens Illinois Glass Company. This may be a rehearsal recording since it runs over 30 minutes (others in the series run 25 minutes). Note that there’s a nasty scratch on second side at beginning for first three minutes or so.

I have ten other shows in the series I’ll be posting in coming months; I ran into a set of eleven discs in the series, still in their original shipping containers where they were mailed to a staff member at the Owens Illinois Glass Company.

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Well, I’ve only got a couple of shows for you this week, but this one’s a doozy.

Direct for a set of Armed Forces Radio Service transcriptions, here’s a special ninety minute edition of “Command Performance” from May 29, 1946, celebrating the fourth anniversary of AFRS.

The show is a compilation of excerpts representing all of the major series produced especially for personnel in the Army, Navy and Marines during World War II.  The program, introduced by Bill Goodwin and hosted by Bob Hope is framed by a “letter” that is a kind of retrospective of major events in the War.

Hope opens the show with one his topical monologues.  Then, after setting up the show with the “letter”, we hear the following excerpts:

• “Downbeat” featuring a couple of tunes from drummer Ray Bauduc (who played with the Bob Crosby Orchestra)
• “Melody Roundup” with the Riders of the Purple Sage doing “New San Antonio Rose” and Abigail and Buddy performing a “hillbilly” version of “Begin the Beguine”
• “Showtime” with Janet Blair singing Cole Porter’s “I Love You”
• “Mail Call” where Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy do a routine on Dickins’s “Oliver Twist”, introduced by Bill Goodwin
• “GI Jive” hosted by GI Jill with the King Sisters singing “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano”
• “Jubilee” where the Slim Gaillard Trio perform the hit novelty tune, “Cement Mixer (Put-Ti Put-Ti)”
• a religions program with “Ave Maria” performed by the Bob Mitchell Boys Choir
• “GI Journal” with Kay Kyser joining Jerry Colonna as the Journal’s “star reporter”, then “copy girl” Linda Darnell and Mel Blanc in character as Private Sad Sack in an extended comedy sketch that includes “The Life of the Sad Sack”
• Fred MacMurray hosting a program reminiscing about the year 1935 where the King Sisters sing “I’ve Had My Moments”
• “Words With Music”, with Donald Crisp reading Thomas Hood’s “I Remember”
• “Command Performance” with Bill Goodwin, Bob Hope and Janet Blair in a parody of radio soap operas, “The Ups and Downs of Brenda Scuttlebutt, Girl Yo-Yo”; Fred MacMurray joins them for a sketch about an annoying little boy on the set of a Hollywood movie
• “Purple Heart Album” with Francis Langford singing “We’ll Be Waltzing Again”

If you’ve never listened to AFRS programming, which was produced especially for military personnel and not broadcast stateside, the show gives you a good idea of the range of shows that were a part of AFRS’s schedule alongside their rebroadcasts of material from the major networks.  It’s a really entertaining ninety minutes and an intriguing immersion into the popular songs, topical jokes and military culture of World War II.

The program was transferred from an original three-disc AFRS transcription set in near-mint condition.

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With Presidential candidate Barack Obama visiting Europe and the Middle East, it seemed like a good time to once again delve into a program that highlights how media in the US depicted foreign countries in the past. “Ports of Call”, syndicated circa 1935-36, was produced by the Philip J. Meany Advertising in Los Angeles and mastered at Radio Recorders in Hollywood. The program is similar in style to the popular CBS radio network show “The March of Time” that dramatized current events in a magazine format.

In this episode, we visit the exotic land of Persia, and are treated to three thousand years of the country’s history in a brisk half-hour. Highlights include the development of early religious philosophy of Zarathustra (and, yes, an announcer intones, “Thus spake Zarathustra!”), Mohammed, the story of Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights, and British conflicts over oil exploration as Persia sought to become more Western, but independent from European influence. Of course, Persia became Iran in 1935, so this show likely pre-dates that change.

“Persia” is a previously uncirculated episode of the series. The Old Time Radio Researchers group has episodes at archives.org of the show, certifying it as complete, but I believe other episodes may turn up since the series is rather obscure. (Program 33, “New Zealand”, previously posted on the blog, is another not in the archives.org set.)

This program in the series uses a different theme than two other examples I previously posted in the blog; I suppose the excerpt of the “Nutcracker Suite” sounded more exotic. The show was transferred from an original blue Flexite pressing by Columbia, matrix numbers RR2328 and RR2329; the label doesn’t indicate an episode number.

If you’re interested in exploring more about how the US viewed other countries, check out my friend Sean Martin’s blog, High School Musicals - The Origins, which looks at musicals written especially for performances in schools and local light opera companies.  His current entry, helpfully enough, is The Belle of Baghdad.

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This program was syndicated by the American Legion as a public service during the Korean War.  Different shows in the series dealt with various aspects of America’s readiness with air power.  The program is a curious relic of the Cold War - the changes in air fighting technology after World War II, such as the jet airplane and nuclear weapons, were fascinating to the public and the series seems to be an attempt to explain these changes in warfare in the face of Communist aggression.

Lt Gen Thomas D. White of the US Air Force and Rear Admiral Thomas Combs of the US Navy are the guests in episode 4 with moderator Bruce P. Henderson, Chairman, National Security Commission, the American Legion.  The show was transferred from an original RCA pressing, matrix number E2-KM-5229.

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Our final War World II era sound check from WCFL, Chicago is a show called “Any Bonds Tonight”.  This fifteen minute show, broadcast December 26, 1944 from 8:45 to 9:00 p.m., sounds like it was a larger War Bond drive taking place at the station on that day.

Instead of recordings, like the “Americans at Work” show previously in the blog, this program features some local musicians.  Jack Kelly and his Orchestra provide music for the show and perform “Emblem of Peace March”, and “Live the American Way”.  A country swing group, the Pioneers contribute “San Fernando Valley”.

The show includes salutes to local business such as Central Architectural Iron Works, Butler Brothers, Alloy Steel Gear and Pinion Company, Jefferson Electric Company and others.

Our old friend Carl E. Payne, sales manager for Oscar W. Hedstrom Corporation, gives a talk about the flag, patriotism and buying War Bonds.  The discs were probably created for Payne or his employer.

The show was transferred to digital from four sides of a set of 78 rpm 12″ acetates.  Sound quality varies, but the show is in good shape overall.

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Here’s another episode of “Americans at Work”, a weekly series produced as a WW II morale booster by WCFL in Chicago.  These WCFL transcriptions were probably cut for the guest speaker heard on the show, sales manager Carl E. Payne, or his employer, Oscar W. Hedstrom Corporation.

Payne gives a short speech on working together towards common goals to aid the War effort.  Businesses referred to on the show include the Welsh Scientific Company, Modern and Dye and Drop Forge Company.  The program was broadcast October 12, 1942 from 7:30 to 7:45 p.m.

Songs on the show are almost exactly like the other episode in the last post (”I Am an American”, “They Started Something (But We’re Gonna End It)”, “That’s Worth Fighting For”, “Arms for the Love of America”, and the end theme, “God Bless America”).  So, I wonder if they were running out of War-themed tunes to play or if the songs were popular enough to be repeated on the show.

This program was transferred from four sides of a set of 78 rpm 12″ acetates.  The sound quality varies a great deal - one side in the set was “gouged” by a heavy stylus in a concentric circle all through the side, producing several ticks and skips, unfortunately.

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“Americans at Work” was a locally produced morale-boosting series broadcast weekly over WCFL in Chicago.  In between recordings of popular war-themed songs, the announcers salute local businesses and manufacturers contributing to the war effort and the show features a short talk by a special guest.  The overall tone of the show might be influenced by the fact that WCFL was owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, by the way.

These WCFL transcriptions appear to have been created as airchecks for the guest speaker heard on the show, sales manager Carl E. Payne, or his employer, Oscar W. Hedstrom Corporation.

In this episode, broadcast September 29, 1942 from 7:45 to 8:00 p.m., Payne gives a speech encouraging everyone to buy War Bonds.  Songs heard on the show, via recordings, includes the theme, “I Am an American” (by Kay Kyser, I believe), They Started Something (But We’re Gonna Finish It) by Kate Smith, “Arms for the Love of America”, “This Is Worth Fighting For”, again by Kate Smith, and the closing theme, “God Bless America”.

Some of the businesses that are referred to in the show are B. J. Dolan and Company, a synthetics manufacturer; National Photo Identity Corporation, which made tamper-proof identity cards and badges for workers; and Belmont Radio Corporation.

The show was transferred from three sides of 78 rpm 12″ acetates, so the sound quality varies and you’ll hear a couple of skips that I wasn’t able to eliminate.

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In this part of the world, summertime is upon us.  At one time, that meant one thing to many parents - polio.

This post features “Man Against the Crippler”, a half-hour program that dramatizes the story of polio research.  It was syndicated to local stations in the summer of 1953 by the March of Dimes as part of their fundraising efforts.  The show features Mercury Theater alumnus Everett Sloane narrating and Kenneth Banghart announcing.  The style of the show might remind you of “The March of Time”.

The year after this program was broadcast, the first double-blind tests of the Salk polio vaccine would take place on a large scale around the country.

The discs were pressed by RCA.  Matrix numbers are E3-KM-5532 and E3-KM-5533.

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Another entry in the 1940s radio series, “The Ballad Hunter”, produced by the Library of Congress and featuring John Lomax and field recordings of American folk music.

“Blues and Hollers” is program number 2 from the series, matrix number MS 063262. This episode of the series includes recordings from Livingston, Indiana; Raleigh, North Carolina; Oklahoma and other locations. Songs heard include “I’m Gwine to Texas”, “Two White Horses”, and a discussion of the blues by Woody Guthrie.

You can read more specifics about the episode, including names of songs and singers in the show, at the Library of Congress website.

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