October 29, 2009
Here’s a rare treat with a Halloween theme - some music composed especially for the spooky season.
It’s a concert from the “Hollywood Bowl”, distributed as Program 78 in the series when it was broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Service. According to Jim Hiliker of Monterey, California on the OTR mailing list, KFI locally broadcast the Hollywood Bowl concerts in the 30s and 40s, so the show probably originated at KFI.
A Mario Lanza website dates this particular show to July 24, 1948. It’s “MGM Night”, so we hear various musicians and personalities under contract to the studio. The orchestra is conducted by Miklos Rozsa and we hear Mario Lanza, very early in his Hollywood career, and Kathryn Grayson doing the vocal duties. The program opens with the overture to the “Bartered Bride” and we hear works by Puccini and Victor Herbert.
The highlight of the show is “The Halloween Suite” composed by none other than actor Lionel Barrymore, who also provides narration for the piece. This “Time” magazine article from 1944, notes that Barrymore had composed hundreds of works in the since the turn of the century, a side of the famous actor not as well known as his work on the screen.
The show was transferred from an original undated AFRS vinyl transcription set and appears to be uncommon or uncirculated among old time radio enthusiasts.
updated 11.3.2009: Corrected spelling of “Miklos Rozsa”.
July 31, 2009
The “Quiz Kids” was a popular NBC radio series that ran from 1940 to 1953 and featured a panelist of children with high IQs answering questions sent in by listeners . What you might not realize is that there was more than one “Quiz Kids” series on radio.
NBC ran promotions where local stations staged their own “Quiz Kids” programs, with winners on the local editions winning a chance to compete on the network series. In this post, the first program in the series “WRAK Quiz Kids”, originally broadcast October 12, 1948. The station was located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and the show is sponsored by the Lundey Paint Store.
The program was transferred from an original vinyl transcription, possibly pressed as a demonstration disc for sponsors or for local stations as an example to follow in their own “Quiz Kids” promotions. Matrix numbers are matrix 8980A1 and 8981A1. I’ve based the date on some internal references in the show.
July 1, 2009
What could be more American on July 4th than apple pie?
In this post, we continue our peek into some local programming from NBC affiliate KGW, Portland with the Hood River Valley Apple Picking Contest. The show looks at a local apple picking contest staged at Vic Thompson’s Orchards near Mount Hood, Oregon. The announcer describes the contest, which went on for a couple of days, and interviews some of the individuals participating as we listen in on the last few minutes of the contest and find out who won. We even get to hear the “snap” of the apples as they’re picked off the vine.
There’s no label or date on the disc, but it would seem to be from the late 1940s or early 1950s since it mentions that the show is being brought to us via a wire recording.
Now you can tell all your friends you heard an apple picking contest on the radio.
Here’s a short bit of rare local programming I discovered on the flip side of a lacquer transcription, an excerpt from a local show probably only saved because an engineer was testing out some equipment.
From KGW, Portland, we offer a few minutes of “620 Matinee”, a morning music program featuring local musicians. The show appears to date from November 1948. The recording starts out with the NBC id and chimes from the end of a network program. Then we hear the local ID, program opening, a song and some commercials. The excerpt includes ads for a local dentist, John H. Miller, and for Richard L. Neuberger who was running for the Oregon State Senate at the time.
According to Wikipedia, Mel Blanc started at KGW and was featured on a variety program on the station from 1927 to 1933. The station took on the call letters KPOJ in 2003 after several call sign changes in the 1990s.
April 2, 2009
Once in a while, we have to listen to an old time radio show that’s significant for what it says about changes in the radio business, but ranks low as entertainment.
“The Stanley Radio Telephone Quiz” is one of those shows.
Originally broadcast on WOR, New York (and perhaps on part of the Mutual network), the series was a call-in game show, one of many that became popular after the War. After listening to this program, which is basically an audio version of Bingo combined with a trivia quiz, we can begin to see how a radio talent like Fred Allen was dismayed when his own show tried to compete with this kind of non-entertainment programming. I can’t imagine something like this working today - the actual game play that involves circling numbers on your card based on the answers to questions would be hopelessly confusing to most radio listeners. (And using your Social Security Number for the quiz? Sheesh…)
Take a listen to this dreadful show and be appreciative of the many fine drama and comedy programs that survive from the old time radio era. If we weren’t so lucky, the legal departments of the network would have had shows like this recorded and preserved to the exclusion of everything else.
“The Stanley Radio Telephone Quiz” was sponsored by Stanley, which made shaving supplies. Our example episode was originally broadcast on February 16, 1948. The show includes the Mutual ID at the end, but, based on the contents of the show, it’s unclear if it was actually broadcast locally on WOR or on a part of the network. There appears to be only one other recording of the program in the hands of a private collector; it is half of the program of August 9, 1947.
The mp3 was directly transferred from a set of WOR reference acetates, number 12-3826.
March 6, 2009
Let’s pause for some light music to put you in a good mood after all that murder and mayhem in our previous posts.
Here’s “Voices Down the Wind”, a local program of light classical music originally broadcast by WGY, General Electric’s radio station in Schenectady, New York. This is a very rare series - Goldin lists two partial episodes in his database, so this appears to be the only full surviving episode and is previously uncirculated.
The program was transferred from a set of original WGY lacquer transcriptions.
February 27, 2009
Recently, I’ve been buying some old time radio transcriptions from another collector. Once in a while, he throws in odd discs for free - parts of shows with missing discs or acetates with test material or sound effects and music that were tossed from local radio stations.
A few of these discs came from WREN, a radio station in Lawrence, Kansas, and include excerpts and around three almost complete episodes of a local music program, “Ted West and His Range Riders”. So, here’s one of the discs with the Range Riders program of September 2, 1946. The group performs songs such as “Back in the Saddle Again”, “Take Your Girlie to the Movies (If You Can’t Make Love at Home)” and “You Don’t Love Me But I’ll Always Care”.
WREN was originally located in Lawrence, Kansas, before moving to Topeka in 1947. The station was purchased by Presidential candidate Alf Landon in the early 1950s and was in operation through the late 1980s.
There’s a bit of WREN history that survives in Topeka - a giant wren statue that used to be perched on top of the radio station. (You can see another picture of it here.) The bird was sold off as a fundraiser when a Christian radio station bought the building in the early 1990s and was the statue was purchased by a local historical society. If you’re visiting Topeka, you can also take a gander at a giant meat cleaver and Truckhenge that are located nearby.
The show was transferred from an original WREN acetate. Note that, at the beginning, you’ll hear brief excerpts from an episode of “Easy Aces” and an NBC news broadcast that are also on the disc, probably recorded to test some equipment at the station. The “Range Riders” show starts about one minute into the file.
Apologies for the rough sound, but the years haven’t been kind to this one of a kind disc. I’ve got a couple more Range Riders shows I’ll post in coming months if folks are interested.
February 13, 2009
Up next on the blog is an interesting little local program of special interest to our listeners in the Southwest.
“Farm Fresh Audition”, likely titled “Ghiz Quiz”, is a quiz show recorded in a grocery store in Pheonix, Arizona by radio station KTAR. In the show, housewives going about their shopping try their hand at winning groceries at the Farm Fresh Market #3 in downtown Phoenix by answering trivia questions about Arizona.
I’m not sure if this program was actually broadcast since it’s labeled as an audition. Anyone know what the phrase “Dubbed FM Wire” might mean on the disc label?
KTAR, according to Wikipedia, was originally licensed as KFAD in 1929 and changed their call sign to KTAR in 1930. The station was the hub of the Arizona Broadcasting System, which fed programs to various stations around the state, from 1939 to 1975. The station’s been through a number of ownership changes over the years; it’s currently a sports-talk station broadcasting programs from ESPN radio and acting as the flagship station for the Phoenix Suns, Arizona Diamondbacks and other area teams.
The show was transferred from an original KTAR lacquer.
July 3, 2008
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.
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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