rand’s esoteric otr

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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Bea Kalmus, according to several sources I browsed on the web and in books, was one of the first female disc jockeys in New York and a respected nightclub singer.  Kalmus broadcast her WMGM show from Silverman’s International; she featured show business guests on the program and would sometimes sing along with records or perform songs from her own repertoire.  (You can read more about Kalmus here.)

In this post, we have a half-hour excerpt from her broadcast of January 13, 1960 featuring an interview with songwriter Otis Blackwell.  They discuss his hit songs such as “Don’t Be Cruel”, “Fever”, and “Hey Little Girl” and different aspects of breaking into the songwriting business.

The show was dubbed direct from a one-off acetate made by TV Time Recordings, which would make reference discs for performers, agents and others in the business from radio and television programs.

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This program was originally posted on my personal blog a few months ago before this podcast and blog were started. To gather all my radio shows in one location, I’m transferring the program here.

Here’s another local radio rarity from my collection of wires. This is a program that appears to have been created for a private party by the staff of radio station WLAV on the occaision of the stations tenth anniversary. The program is a dramatized version of the story of the station that pokes fun at WLAV’s founder and owner, Leonard Allen Versluis.

WLAV was located in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is now WBBL, which broadcasts a sports-talk format. The show references the American Broadcasting Company, so I’m assuming they were an affiliate at the time of the anniversary.

I contacted the station about the recording, but, with the changes in management over the past fifty-plus years, they didn’t know anything about it. They wanted a copy for their collection and I sent it to them; they sent back some WBBM memorabilia, such as a frisbee and t-shirt.

As you listen to the show, not that the sound levels vary - it gets louder as the show progresses. Also note that, at about the 1:45 mark, part of the audio is missing. You hear some scratch and pops, so I think this may have been directly dubbed from a long-lost acetate of the show.

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In this post, a local early morning country music radio show, “Smile-A-While”, originally broadcast on WLS, Chicago, on August 3rd, 1951. This is an incomplete recording of the program, preserved on a Chicago-Webster recording wire by an amateur that captured it directly off the air. I’m basing the dating of the show on the program contents, which mentions an upcoming WLS Barn Dance show at the Illinois State Fair and the relationship of Frank Sinatra and Eva Gardner.

The show features as performers the Sage Riders, with Dolph Hewitt and Don White taking solo duties. Announcer Bill Dwayne is also heard in the program. You can read more about the Sage Riders at hillbilly-music.com.

Songs include “On Top of Old Smokey”, “When the Chapel Bells Are Ringing”, “Fisher’s Hornpipe”, “My Rocky Mountain Sweetheart”, “I Only Want a Buddy, Not a Sweetheart”, “Old Skyball Paint”, “When Jesus Beckons Me Home” and part of an unidentified fiddle instrumental.

This wire is part of a set that was given to me with a vintage 1947 Lear wire recorder. The owner used it mainly to record family events and individual songs off of the radio; this is one of few times it was used to simply record a major part of a radio program. (You can read more about the wire recorder at my personal home page here.) Amateur wires and tapes from the 1950s may be one of the “last frontiers” in finding previously lost radio shows. I’ve found some recordings of television programs and radio shows scattered on amateur tapes and they’re worth looking through - you never know what you might find.

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