In program two, Dick and his pal break up a ring of thieves operating in town.  Is a cadet at Farr Military Academy involved?  Will Dick and his pal escape from the clutches of the gang?  Listen and find out…

The show was transferred from an original World Broadcasting System vinyl transcription.

Jean’s having a party at her hotel as the troupe visits Venice, so we get lots of jokes about canals in the comedy sketch portion of the show.  Songs include “If I Had a Million Dollars and You” (with interesting Hawaiian slide guitar backing) and “Cherry Berry Bin” done as a gondolier song.  The Jack Tars perform “Be Still My Heart”.

Transferred from an original red vinyl Bruce Eells and Associates vinyl transcription.  Apologies for the “crackle” in the last four or five minutes of the show from some damage around the perimeter of the disc.

More episodes in the series will follow in the coming weeks.

In the episode of May 12, 1943, the third program in the series, Fletcher Wiley comments on taking care of your car for the war effort, women going on blind dates, and other topics.  Frank Parker sings “One Alone”; Eleanor Steber performs “In the Glow”.  The David Brookman Orchestra plays the “Missouri Waltz”.

Transferred from vinyl transcription, matrix numbers BB35351 and BB35352, pressed by World Broadcasting System, Inc. for the sponsor.

Duchin, of course, was a veteran of the US Navy and seems comfortable engaging in the promos for different branches of Navy service in the show.  For those unfamiliar with Duchin, his piano style might remind you a bit of Liberace, but his band could do some hot numbers when they wanted to.

Program 1 in the series is a tribute to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida.  Songs include “Blue Skies”, “Rendezvous With a Rose” sung by Tommy Mercer, “Begin the Beguine” by guest Jane Froman, and “The Man I Love”.

The program was transferred from an original Allied Radio vinyl transcription, matrix number D-33559 FS-ABC-ND-129-1.

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.

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.

I posted a later performance from the following year in a previous blog entry.  This first performance contains a “flub” at the end where the sound effects person makes a mistake and the actor who plays the killer gets mixed up.  The end of the show confused listeners and, the following week after many letters and phone calls, the producers of “Suspense” started the program with a special announcement explaining how the episode ended.

There are some MP3 files floating around that are labeled as “east coast” and “west coast” versions of the episode, with the “east coast” version containing the mistake and the “west coast” version done properly.  The “west coast” version is actually a fake - someone tacked on a correctly done ending from a performance done months later.  “Sorry, Wrong Number” was only presented once on May 25, 1943 on the network and it was not repeated at a special time for west coast listeners.

The show was transferred from an original AFRS vinyl pressing in nice condition.  Get a load of the AFRS announcer doing the opening with the echo chamber.

Transferred from an original Russell C. Comer vinyl transcription with no matrix number, this is the last program in the series in my collection.

One interesting note about the discs from this series.  Usually, if a program was syndicated and had space for a commercial at the beginning, they would play a music bed for the announcer to talk over or begin the next segment of the program in a new band on the disc.  Not so with this one - they recorded the brief opening and a long passage of silence for the commercial.  In episode one, the commercial break is about 1:15; in program two, it’s more or less 1:30.  If I were a staff announcer or engineer, I’d be annoyed to no end, since it doesn’t give you a good way to time or pace your commercial.

Enough with this dreadful series - let’s move on to something more interesting.

In this uncirculated episode, program 1B, Farrell, ever the perfect athlete, wins the big football game and the coach jumps on the team for not being the shining example that Frank is.  And, to really get things going, there’s a budding romance between Farrell and the new female cheerleader for the team.

The program was transferred from a Russell C. Comer vinyl transcription with no matrix number.  And, by the way, I have no idea if there was a program 1A (and really don’t want to find out).  Thankfully, there’s only one more episode of this series in my collection.

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.

Program 53 of the 1938 series features the Forum String Quartet of Boston performing the Lento from the String Quartet, Opus 96 by Dvorak and the Allegretto movement from the Creole Quartet by Harry Newton Redman.  This appears to be the only known recording of a work by Redman, who was a member of the New England Conservatory of Music.

Directly transferred from RCA Victrolac pressing, matrix number MS 013489.

“The Works Progress Administration Presents” was a series syndicated from 1936 to 1938 featuring WPA sponsored orchestral, vocal and chamber groups performing contemporary and standard classical works. The program was part of the Federal Music Project, directed by Nikolai Sokoloff, a Russian-American conductor and violinist. Each quarter hour program includes a commercial promoting some aspect of the WPA’s work in local communities or programs that unemployed workers could take advantage of.

In program 10 of the 1937 series, we hear the Los Angeles Grand Opera Group performing selections from the first and third act of the opera, “Fernando del Nonsensico” by composer Felix Borowski. The piece is a satire of grand opera that references “Lucia”, “Aida”, “Carmen”, and other popular works.

The Federal Music Project in Los Angeles produced the opera in February, 1936 and this was the radio premiere of the work. Borowski was newspaper critic at the Chicago Sun and professor of theory and counterpoint at the Chicago Musical College. This is the only known recording of “Fernando del Nonsensico”.

I recently obtained five programs from this series and would like to hear more - though the groups mostly tackle standard repertoire, they occasionally work in lesser known compositions from contemporary composers.

The program was directly transferred from RCA Victrolac pressing, matrix number PMS 09299. (Note that the disc has a slight warp.)

“Wet Saturday” reminds me a bit of one of Hitchcock’s lesser-known films, “The Trouble With Harry”.  There’s the whole premise of having a kind of “mixed up” murder, but also a kind of droll attitude about the killing that makes it seem like something rather bothersome and inconvenient.  According to the Goldin index, the story was performed on “Suspense” in 1942, 1947, and 1948 in addition to the 1943 version heard here.

The program was transferred from an original AFRS vinyl disc.  The AFRS opening announcer is our old friend Howard Duff and there’s a five minute classical music fill at the end of an unknown work conducted by Donald Vorhees.

This episode, number 144 in the series, was broadcast January 25, 1936 and is titled “Repayment”.  The story concerns international intrigue about a small European country and a US treaty.

The show was transferred from an original RCA Victrolac pressing, matrix 98715.  The disc, by the way, came from an antiques dealer with the original railroad shipping container and special needle originally used to play the disc at the station.  Amazing that the whole package survived over 70 years in this state.

In program 3081A, there’s a sketch about a passenger complaining about an airline, Ken Gillum sings a novelty tune, and Little Oscar pays a visit.  The show was transferred from an original Columbia shellac pressing.

In this Audition program, which isn’t in circulation among otr enthusiasts, the local commercials are replaced by a pitch to potential advertisers about the great increase in sales that can happen when you sponsor “Frank Farrell”.  The pitch also emphasizes the good, clean “all American” characters and notes that the show is “free from horror, shock, the supernatural and the abnormal”.  But it’s still exciting! (At least that’s what the announcer tells us.)

The program itself is from later in the series; the plot involves Frank getting held up from playing in the big basketball game by the coach’s arch-nemisis who hired goons to kidnap him and move all of his furniture out of his house! (Don’t ask.)

I have a big tolerance for a wide range of old time radio programming and can find something entertaining and interesting about everything I’ve posted on the blog, even the “Sports Answer Man”.  However, “Frank Farrell” has to be some of the worst scripting and acting I’ve run into.

The show reminds me a great deal of kids shows on PBS and Nickelodeon that are heavy on life lessons, role models and one dimensional characters.  “Farrell” seems to have been written by adults “talking down” to kids, thinking they knew how students talk or act.  I swear, if Spud, the goofy sidekick in the show, were in my high school, I’d be very suspicious - how sounds like he’s in his mid-thirties and suffering from arrested development.  I feel sorry for kids exposed to this kind of non-entertainment.

Well, enough of my editorializing.  The show was transferred from an original vinyl transcription from the Russell C. Comer Company, matrix number C-9537.  Unfortunately (for me) or perhaps fortunately (for you, if you’re interested in this show), I’ve got two other non-circulating episodes going up on the blog in a couple of weeks.

It’s unclear if the numbers were recorded especially for the program or if they were culled from commercially released material or alternate takes by various performers.  Regardless, there’s some fun music here.  In program 13, we hear the theme, a march called “Blaze Away”, “Wasting My Love On You”, “My Baby Cares for Me” and “Old Fashioned Girl”.  A more knowledgeable collector of period records might be able to identify the performers or specific recordings used.

The style is similar to many music shows that the National Radio Advertising Company released on Brunswick in the late 1920s, such as the “Sunny Meadows” program.  Those rare 12″ 78 rpm discs are fairly well known to jazz collectors since they contain very early performances by artists like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman who would go on to later fame with their own bands.

I was surprised by the relatively low-key commercial announcement at the beginning and end of the show and was expecting more extensive ads during the program itself since that seemed to be a common practice at the time; perhaps a local announcement by a watch dealer would have been done before or after the show to fill in the remaining four or five minutes of the quarter-hour show.

The program was transferred from an original Columbia laminated pressing, matrix number 305028-2.  Note the area around the label for checking off the number of times the disc was played - the printing template used for the label came from one used for Vitaphone-type discs.  It shows the relationship between the 16″ discs produced for Vitaphone “sound on disc” films of the period and early 16″ radio broadcast discs.  These heavy 16″ shellac discs with primitive electrical recording were state of the art or long-form programming in 1930.

Program 50 in the series, dating from circa 1949-50, is “Enoch Arden”, based on the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  It’s the story of a sailor who leaves his wife behind to earn money and make a better life for them as he travels the high seas; of course, life goes on while he’s away.  Regrets, heartbreak and much emoting ensue.

The program was transferred from an original set of vinyl NBC Radio Recordings transcriptions pressed by RCA, matrix numbers  ND6-MM-9219 and ND6-MM-9220-1.

So, picking up with episode 23 in this post, the cast is in Rome. Jean Cowan sings a song about “rock and roll”. (No, it’s not about some obscure forerunner to Elvis Presley or Little Richard - it’s about the “Rocking Rhythm of the Sea”.) The accordion player takes a turn and the Three Jack Tars do “Okay Toots”. The comedy sketch is about Ceasar and Brutus.

The program was transferred directly from an original red vinyl Bruce Eells and Associates transcription probably pressed in the 1940s. I’ve got nine more episodes in the series that will be posted in the coming weeks.

“If You Was a Moklin” was originally broadcast on June 12, 1956; the version heard here is an excellent condition copy broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service as program 77 in the “X Minus One” series.  It was transferred directly from a set of AFRTS vinyl transcriptions.

The episode was written by Murray Leinster and adapted for the series by Ernest Kinoy.  The program stars Joe Julian, Patricia Weil, Karl Weber and Ralph Camargo.

This really is “X Minus One” at its best - great little stories that focus on the characters and use just the right touch of humor with the sci-fi element as a backdrop and motivator of the plot.  It’s frustrating to me how the sci-fi genre has become centered on all kinds of quasi-technical gobbledygook or new age mysticism and quack philosophy in recent years, rather than using a sci-fi theme or setting to create good storytelling.

In program 6, the songs include “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”, “The Martins and the Coys”, “How Sweet You Are” and that old novelty tune, “The Sheik of Araby”.

The program was transferred from an original Columbia vinyl transcription, matrix number YTC 4624.  More of these are on the way periodically over the next few months.

In the show, “Grenada”  and “Thine Alone” are performed by Sosnick and the orchestra and Eartha Kitt lends her unique voice to “C’est Si Bon”.  She also does another number that I won’t reveal here - I’ll just let you listen to the show and be surprised by it.  It’s not something you’d associate with Kitt’s exotic image.

The program was transferred from an original Treasury Department vinyl transcription.  There’s great sound in the show - a true hi-fi recording in near mint condition.

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.

In program 443, dated September 18, 1955, we hear Vincent Price in a short drama called “Portrait by Cupid” that involves a talented painter, counterfeiting and, of course, love.  It’s not the best-known or best work in Price’s long career, but it’s fun to hear him in this setting.  The fifteen minute format didn’t allow for much character or plot development, so the script is a little simplistic; that’s probably why they didn’t try this format often for the series.

The show, in near hi-fi quality, was transferred from an original Treasury Department transcription in almost mint condition.  This comes from a period when the discs were pressed extra-thin - if you saw it and you were a knowledgeable record collector, it might remind you of RCA’s “dynaflex” albums from the 1970s.

Host Beryl Vaughn offers clues to songs performed by singer Don Moreland and organist Adele Scott.  Songs on program 5 include “Rose of Juarez”, “Foresticato” (performed solo by  Adele Scott), “Supossin’ I Should Fall in Love With You” and “Nellie Nie”.

The show was transferred directly from an original Columbia vinyl transcription, matrix number YTC 4611.

The questions include topics such as the origins of baseball’s spring training, whether a player can own a major league ball club, systems for beating the horses and others.  In the feature story, Laux gives the highlights of that memorable year in sports, 1906.

This is the last show I have from this series in my collection.

AFRS program 211, “Borrowed Byline”, was originally broadcast January 27, 1952 on CBS. The story concerns a reporter who is drawn into a scheme involving deception and murder in Hong Kong. A small part of the show might sound familiar - if you listen closely around the six minute mark, they use a library sound effects recording of boat sounds in a harbor; it’s the same record used in the Welles broadcast of “War of the Worlds” where the announcer is on top of the “broadcasting station” and the killer gas envelopes the city.

The show was transferred from an original Armed Forces Radio vinyl transcription.

Our surreal quarter hour of gospel music, yodeling, Blackface comedy and laxative commercials returns with another episode of “Southland Echoes”. The series was syndicated circa 1949 by the Nelson Chesman Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee and sponsored by Black Draught Laxative and Cardui for Women.

In program 49-18, the Homeland Harmony Quartet sing “Wayside Wells” and “I’m Gonna Cling to the Cross ‘Till I Die” and the Jones Sisters give us “I Hate to See You Go” and “My Mother’s Watlz”. Blackface comedians Jam-up and Honey perform a routine that compares math to marriage.

Another episode of “Southland Echoes”, a weekly quarter hour program of music and comedy syndicated to stations serving hillbilly audiences circa 1949. The program was syndicated by the Nelson Chesman Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee and sponsored by Black Draught Laxative and Cardui for Women.

The Homeland Harmony Quartet performs “I Love My Savior, Don’t You?” and “Lord Lead Me on”. The Jones Sisters do a nice yodeling tune, “Down at the General Store”, and “Two Little Overall Girls”. Jam-Up and Honey contribute a routine about buying a car.

Some shows in this series have an odd technical problem in the form of a brief drop out that is in the transcription disc; in this show, the drop out is heard in the opening theme song. This isn’t a problem with the MP3 file.

Program 24, which deals with a gang of bank robbers using walkie-talkies to plan robberies, appears to be uncirculated and probably dates from circa 1946 since it references the portable radios being developed during the War.

“The Firesign Theater” did some wonderful parodies of this style of kids programming with their Porgie Tirebiter sketches in the late 1960s, inspired by “Archie” and “The Aldrich Family”.  This is a wonderfully goofy, charming little show in its own way, a product of a very different time with it’s “Golly, gee whiz” attitude and peppy little “rah rah” school song.  It sounds as thought Dick Cole and the policeman could use a lesson in police brutality and Miranda rights - the cop invites Dick to beat information out of one of the crooks at one point in the show.  And, at the end of the story, the boys turn down the reward and give it to Farr Academy for scholarships.  A very different time, indeed.

The show, produced by Batten Barton, Durstine and Osborne, has been transferred from two original red vinyl transcriptions with paste-over Muzak labels; Goldin notes the show as being originally syndicated by Charles Michelson.