Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween.  No post tonight. I'm busy distributing Type II diabetes  to the neighborhood kids. For readers outside of New England, the mysterious candy in that image below is a Peanut Chew. You have no idea what you are missing.

In honor of the holiday I copied a poem by John Mayne from an 1805 issue of the Scottish Miscellany.  It dates back to 1780.  It is often cited as one of the earliest recorded works about the holiday but its usually quoted in part. I offer it here in it's entirety, because the internet is infinitely large and there is no longer a reason not to. I left the archaic spelling as is. I think it loses something when you modernize the spellings.  Enjoy.

HALLO-WE'EN

The mom is our gude Hallow-e'en,
And our Court a' will ride;
Gin ony maiden wins her man,
Then she may be his bride.
     Old Ballad of the Fairy Court.

Of a' the festivals we hear,
     Frae Handsel- Monday till New-year,
There's few in Scotland held mair dear
          For mirth, I ween,
Or yet can boast o' better cheer,
     Than Hallow-e'en.

Langsyne, indeed (as now in climes
Where priests for siller pardon crimes,)
The kintry round in Popish rhimes
     Did pray and graen;
But customs vary wi' the times,
     At Hallow-e'en.

Rang'd round a bleezing ingle-side,
Where nowther cauld nor hunger bide,
The farmer's house, wi' secret pride,
     Will a' conveen;
For that day's wark is thrawn aside
     At Hallow-e'en.

Plac'd at their head, the gude-wife sits,
And deals round apples, pears, and nits,
Syne tells her guests, how, at sic bits,
     Where she has been,
Bogles hae gart fowk tine their wits
     At Hallow-e'en.

Griev'd, she recounts, how, by mis-chance,
Puir poossy's fore'd a night to prance
Wi' fairies, wha, in thousands dance
     Upon the green,
Or sail wi' witches o'er to Fraace,
     At Hallow e'en.

Syne, issu'd frae the gardy chair,
(For that's the seat of empire there,)
To kuir the table wi' what's rare,
     Commands are gi'en;
That a' fu' daintily may fare
     At Hallow-e'en.

And when they've tuim'd ilk heaped plate,
And a' things are laid out o' gate,
To ken their matrimonial mate,
     The youngsters keen,
Search a'the dark decrees o' Fate
     At Hallowe'en.

A' things prepar'd in order due,
Gosh guide's! what fearfu' pranks ensue.'
Some i' the kiln-pat thraw a cl ue,
     At whilk, bedeen,
Their sweet-hearts by the far-end pu',
     At Hallow-e'en.

Ithers, wi' some uncanny gift,
In an auld barn a riddle lift,
Where thrice pretending corn to sift,
     Wi' charms between,
Their Joe appears as white as drift,
     At Hallow-e'en.

But 'twere a langsome tale to tell
The gates o' ilka charm and spell:
Aince, gaun to saw hemp-seed himsel',
     Puir Jock M'Lean,
Plump in a filthy peat-pot fell,
     At Hallow-e'en.

Ha'f fell'd wi' fear, and droolkit weel,
He frae the mire dught hardly speel;
But frae that time, the silly chiel
     Did never grein
To cast his cantrips wi' the de'll
     At Hallow-e'en

O, Scotland! fam'd for scenes like this;
That thy sons wauk where wisdom is,
Till death in everlasting bliss
     Shall steik their ein,
Will ever be the constant wish
     At Hallow-e'en

The Mona Motor Oil Twins

Now this is truly obscure. There are scant few references to the Mona Motor Oil Twins, and many of them erroneously list them as the Mono Motor Oil Twins. It's difficult to track down any information on the group. but we do know that they had a little something to do with KOIL. The Mona Motor Oil Company owned 1080 KOIL-AM, which signed on July 10, 1925. (They didn't move to 1290 until much later) They originally broadcast from twin towers in Council Bluffs, Iowa and then moved to Omaha in 1937.  None of my books even gave a year. Thankfully Google scans newspapers. The Milwaukee Journal newspaper mentioned the Mona Motor Oil Twins in a short article on Sept 6th 1928.

"Ned and John, the Mona Motor Oil Twins, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and station KOIL  will broadcast a special program over WTMJ, the Milwaukee Journal station from 7 to 7:30 and from 10 to 10:30 tonight. They will sing a number of popular songs of today and play a few Hawaiian guitar selections. Listen to the twins tonight over WTMJ."

That's the whole thing. I have also found exactly one 78 release by the duo titled "The Book on Etiquette/ I'm Saving Saturday Night For You" on Columbia [1340 D]. Modern complication CDs seem to list that first track as 'Etiquette Blues." That was also released in 1928. A 1927 issue of Ohio State University monthly lists the Mona Motor Oil Twins the morning of Tuesday, May 10th.My impression here is that the group was very short-lived. The Encyclopedia of American Radio lists entries for a Mona Motor Oil Trio, and a Mona Motor Oil String Quartet.

What ultimately happened to ned and Jonh we may never know.  The great depression was hard on the Mona Motor Oil Co. before the crash, the Mona Motor Oil complex was expanding down South 6th Stree. but after things were bad. Barnsdall Corp. acquired the company in 1932. They sold KOIL to promoter Don Burden in 1953. The stories about Don Burden deserve their own post and he too will have his day.

Voice-O-Graph Labelography (Part 8)

This is my eighth update to my Voice-O-Graph Labelography project. I have enough information to post just one more variant for the list today. I have found a red-text variant of the Blue on White disc. I have assumed that it too dates to the 1960s. Looking now at those four of very similar design I suspect that the paper labels predate the writable surface discs. Cost saving measures tend to appear in the declining side of a products popularity. Eliminating the label removes a step from the manufacturing process. It's a shame neither of those discs have confirmed dates.

Remaining work needs done in the area of date confirmation and integration of the anachronistic metal-core green label discs. I also do not discount the possibility of more color variants. [Contributions are always welcome if you know more.]

Red Top on Yellow: Unknown, assumed to be first disc1943?

GEM Mutoscope Disc: 1945?

Red on Yellow: 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947

Red on Beige: 1946, 1948

Red on Unbleached: Unknown 1940s?

Red On Blue: Years 1947

Teal-on-Unbleached : Year: 1948 (assumed)

Blue on Blue: Year: 1948

Black On Red: 1948

Black on Green: Years:1951,1953 - 1955 (also had metal core variant)

ESO Mutoscope Disc: 1950s?

Mutoscope Black Label: (45 rpm) Years????

Black on White (45 rpm) 1957, 1959

Blue on White: Unknown assumed 1960s?

Red on White: Unknown assumed 1960s?

Black on Yellow: Years 1964

Black on Red: Unknown assumed 1964?

Yellow Label Unknown assumed 1950s?

NPR's Scott Simon: How to Tell a Story

He makes a really cogent point Whether delivering the news, sharing a parable or telling a fish tale a story; it's still a story.  The art of story telling is ancient, and it's importance is all too easily forgotten. Even the smoothest, most mellifluous radio voice still needs to tell a good story.  Content isn't everything, just almost.

Arnie Woo Woo Ginsburg

As Thom commented yesterday, "Arnie Woo Woo Ginsburg was a radio GOD at WMEX." As often as WMEX has come up in the past I was remiss in my duties to not cover that so I am making amends tonight. Arnie Ginsburg, of the Barons, of Jan & Arnie Arnie did go into radio. After going nowhere as a solo singer in LA Arnie actually became a bit of a legend. In the 1965, September 18th issue of Billboard Ginsburg is listed as the #1 DJ in Boston on WMEX. The Contemporary Music Almanac by Ronald Zalkind claims that he is the first (and possibly only) jock to have a hamburger named after him: the Ginsburger. In other words, he rose to fame as fast as Jan & Dean fell from it.

I'll start with the obvious question. Ginsburg got the nickname "Woo-Woo" when he was hosting the "Night Train"program on 1600 WBOS-AM.  He would use this train whistle sound effect on air and it stuck with him. It wasn't his first radio gig, but it was early in his career. He actually started on 590 WORL-AM, where he was an engineer for announcer Alan Dary.  It was in 1956 that he moved to WBOS. Being the new guy, he got a night shift. Ginsburg obviously made that work for him.

Arnie crossed the street to WMEX in 1960. This was a big deal. He was breaking singles by 1961. Notably "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight" by British skiffle artist Lonnie Donegan. This was the top-40 phase of his career and he was quite literally number one. He was on air 7 days a week... though that 7th show was pre-recorded. More here.

In 1966 he screwed up a bit. He jumped to WRKO-AM and they got smacked with the non-compete clause in his WMEX contract. In his defense this is something that still comes up today.  Basically it's legally dubious for a contract to take away someones right to make a living. [more here] Interestingly, in this case WRKO fought the contract for 18 months and lost. Ginsburg was off air as of May 1967. He got lucky and they moved him into sales. They could have fired his ass.








But in the end, Arnie turned out to be good at that too. He went into a series of desk jobs: In 1970 he became the GM of WBCN, an AOR station. In 1972 GM at WWEL-AM, and part owner of WXKS-AM in 1979.  He did all that while doing a little oldies show back on WMEX-AM on Saturday nights and a weekend shift on WROR. IN 1984 with Pyramid broadcasting he purchased WVJV-TV Channel 66. (some courses incorrectly cite the calls as WDJD.) This was a fascinating experiment that was also a total business failure. They sold the station in 1986.

Arnie "Woo-Woo" Ginsburg retired just a little while after that. He was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2008. He is known to make the trip back into Boston to make guest radio appearances.

Jan and Arnie

That's a pretty nice radio-phonograph Jan and Arnie are leaning over. (I'm still trying to identify the make and model) Jan Berry later was in Jan and Dean with Dean Torrence. Jan and Arnie released three 45 rpm singles that I know of, "Gas Money" being the best by far. Arnie is Baron Arnie Ginsburg. They were all in a high school band together known as the Barons. None of this has much to do with radio sadly.  Jan and Dean were ever in radio. [but Arnie was] But there is one story you probably do not know.

According to the book Liberty Records by Michael B. Kelly, they had a fake radio station: KJAN.  They mixed contemporary pop hits with their own rough garage recordings. It was probably as jarring as it sounds. But this was all before they cut their first acetate for Arwin records. More here.

"He even printed up some stationery for KJAN radio, a station that did not really exist except as a tape recorder, which he [Jan] used to play DJ and provide music for school parties. His cohorts in this included Dean Orm Torrence(aka KDOT) and Don Altfeld."

The WMBI Home Hour

That is one very used cook book. I almost passed right over it then I noticed the radio tower in the image. It's anachronistic in the narrow field of radio show cook books. The call letters of 1110 WMBI-AM, the originating station appear nowhere on the outside. It was for the WMBI Home Hour, hosted by Frances Youngren.She was the director of women's programs at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. I note that in the image of her below the window behind her is fake. News clippings show the program aired at 11:00 AM.

Corroborating references to her, separate from the cook book, are scant. The 1951 Broadcasting yearbook lists her on the staff of WMBI as did issues though at least 1959. In 1957 Broadcasting Magazine wrote an article celebrating her 25 years in radio. That would put the start of her career around 1932. But the cook book was first printed in 1943. Clearly some of that first decade was something other than the cooking show.

The cookbook appears to have been published from 1943 to1947, and while the covers and  colors vary, it's contents were always the same. Volume 155  of Publishers Weekly briefly described the book "A unique cookbook of selected recipes of tempting dishes . . . and spiritual food, inspiring poetry, prose and scripture ... for the soul." Aside from trite biblical teaching, poetry, cleaning tips and recipes the book also includes some inspirational passages that were read on air during the program.

In 1953 she authored another cook book "Let's Have Fun Cooking" which was for children.Then around 1966 authored "Our Baby, God's Gift" which is probably the abomination that it sounds like. This copy is inscribed on the inside to May 12th 1946.

Super Bon Bon

(Please excuse the Soul Coughing reference)
In November of 1949  George "Bon Bon" Tunnell was awarded 3rd prize by the Freedom Foundation in a contest gauging "speaking up for freedom."  His radio show was only 3 months old. He'd just started on the previous August 15th. It seems like an odd pick for an openly paternalistic group that selected a religious drama "The Greatest Story ever Told" and a DuPont marketing vehicle "Cavalcade of America" for the 1st and 2nd prizes. I don't know the exact circumstances, but my suspicion is that it has something to do with Jan Savitt. But it might have well been just that they found Tunnell to be non-threatening. I'll quote Billboard:

"...the musical selections picked for each day's programming carried no racial tag, with a Perry Como platter getting as much attention as a Billy Eckstine side. There was no segregation of negro names for the theatrical interviews, with a Juanita Hall getting as much attention as a Patti Page. More-over Tunnell gave as much attention to civic personalities as to the theatrical names, with interview guests including such local figures white and negro."

It's always dangerous talking about race in radio. Demographics are sometimes racial without being racist.  You can dress it up in statistics; couch it in high-brow intellectual terminology and write whatever thesis papers you want for anthropology class... But after WWII there was a "white flight" to the suburbs and Philadelphia changed demographically. Demographics matter. Philadelphia hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1952. [Source here.]  No matter how liberal the north was in comparison to the South, it was still largely demographics that led to the rise of black radio. By 1950 Philadelphia had an African-American population of around 300,000 out of a total population of 2 million. That's 15%, a very real target market and the 1950s is when its ascendance began. My point is only that the change was a product of both a cultural and a demographic shift.

The Bon Bon Show  was hosted by George "Bon Bon" Tunnell on WDAS-AM in Philadelphia. Tunnell  was born on June 29th some sources put the year as early as 1903 others as late as 1912. Excluding his short career in radio, he was known as a singer. He was a Pennsylvania native and returned to Philly after his career as a vocalist has tapered off. He was one of the first black singers to perform with a white band, specifically the Jan Savitt Orchestra (aka the Top Hatters).  His career started in the 1920s with a group called "Bon Bon & His Buddies. At the time he sang and played piano. He was with a trio called the Thee Keys from 1932-1933. They were successful enough to make some live radio appearances. He hooked up with Jan Savitt in 1937. In that era it was so difficult to have a racially mixed group that Tunnell had to pose as Savitt's valet to stay at the same hotel as the band.  They recorded and toured together until 1942. He went solo after that but his solo recording career was pretty much a bust. He did record a few sides for Davis and Beacon records if you care to seek them out.

Tunnels' career as a solo vocalist overlapped his career as a broadcaster. At the same time he was doing one-nighters in Philly and Atlantic City, one article claimed his program was broadcast live from the bandstand at the Showboat in Philadelphia. This seems somewhat unlikely as his one-hour program aired at11:00 AM. In April of 1950 he added a half hour slot at 5:30 PM. The schedule couldn't have changed much, Billboard Magazine reported that he left the station in November of 1950.

He died May 20, 1975 truly under-appreciated.

INTERVIEW: Paul Freirich

I originally interviewed Paul Freirich (W3HFA) about his mother who played the part of Aunt Sammy on WBZA. But he had his own career in radio from 1962-1967. He just the sort of fellow that gets over-looked. Thankfully his memory is razor sharp... much more so than mine actually. He knows names, places, dates times —everything. It was kind of amazing really. He's retired now, but still is an active ham and announces for the Olney Big Band.

When you went into radio did you feel like it was a family tradition?
No, absolutely not. In fact I wasn't really very cognizant of my mother being in radio at the time although she had told me about it.

When did you start at WNCN?
I was only there from July to October 1962. Originally I was hired part time by the then Chief Engineer, Martin Gersten. Marty didn't have any money in the budget for an assistant so he paid me what he could out of the transmitter maintenance budget which was pretty damn thin. We'd work only after midnight because there were no commercials then and if we had to take the station off the air for a while we wouldn't cost the station any money as long as we were back on the air by six am. Transmitter was on the top of the Hotel Pierre, 5th Ave and 61st St. A posh, staid old hotel that we scandalized by dragging bags of tools meters and wire across their expensive oriental carpet in the lobby getting the key to the transmitter room from the front desk.

Which WNCN were you at? Was it 104.3 New York?
Yes, It was WNCN New York 104.3. That was supposed to be the flagship station of the Concert Network, WNCN New York, WBCN Boston, WHCN Hartford and WXCN Providence RI. I was once told there was supposed to be another station out on Long Island [WRIV Riverhead] but I could never find any evidence of that one. At that time our station break ID was "At 104.3 on your FM dial, this is WNCN, New York's Most interesting station". At that time I think we were the only FM station in New York that was still in mono.

What else can you tell me about WNCN?
We literally had to rebuild the main transmitter. It was a 15kw unit and the standby was 3kw. The main transmitter was a wreck and we had the standby on the air, just barely. There was a vacuum operated switch to change over the antenna from the main to the standby transmitter. Only problem? The vacuum pump didn't work and the antenna switch was held over to the standby by a broom handle jammed, not too well, in place.

There was so much wrong with the main it was a basket case. The final amplifier tubes could run at anywhere from 5000 to 6250 volts DC and the voltage change was accomplished by pushing raise or lower buttons. They controlled multi-deck switches driven by a dc motor at the base of the transmitter housing and a vertical rod the length of the unit. The problem was that one or more of the switch decks had arced over and welded themselves in place so the motor couldn't turn. I wound up taking the whole assembly out of the transmitter and one by one taking each switch deck apart, breaking loose the stuck contacts, filing them clean and reassembling the whole package. That took me three nights while Marty was coping with other problems.

The neutralizing capacitors in the final amplifier section had arced over so many times that there were globs of molten copper hanging down from the plates. The transmitter had been built by Radio Engineering Laboratories who were still in business in Queens. The next morning I called them to inquire about getting new neutralizing caps for the transmitter. When I gave them the model and serial number of the unit they laughed and laughed. "We haven't made anything like that old beast in over 15 years. We have no spare parts for it at all." I spent a couple of wonderful late nights sitting on the floor of the transmitter room with a piece of sheet copper, aviation tinsnips and a propane torch and I was able to mainly rebuild those neutralizing capacitors.

We were getting very close to putting the main transmitter back on the air when I was awakened by a frantic call from the Station Manager. Could I come right in and talk to him? I was still half asleep, having gotten in after 5am after another night with the main but I groggily got up and took the subway over to Manhattan. The station manager (I can't remember his name at the moment) verified my FCC First Class Radiotelephone License and asked me if I'd come to work full time as Chief Engineer. It turns out that Marty Gersten had come down with Mono and had to quit and in those days by FCC regs you had to have a First Class ticket on the wall to operate a station on the air. I needed the job and the money was good.........until paychecks started bouncing...........and so until the Navy claimed me I was the Chief Engineer of WNCN-FM. I finally got the main transmitter back on the air and reversed the broom handle to get the antenna back over to the main. Things were so tight that I actually called other stations that I knew replaced their transmitter tubes on a regular basis and begged for their pullouts so I could have some spare tubes in the drawer. I also took over the program "Hi-Fi Workbench" from Marty.

Then I had to re-wire the studio and control room. Somebody, I like to think it was the guy before Marty, had rewired the control room and studio and had left no wiring diagram. It took me several hours just to get the "On AIR" light outside the control room and studio to light up whenever the control room mic went live.

We had a live remote broadcast from a food show at an international supermarket at a food convention at the Convention Center. The problem with that is that we didn't have a portable board to take out in the field. I figured a way to get an extra mic input into a tape deck and stuffed a line preamp in it enough to get program material back to the studio over a Class A phone line. The only draw back of that is that we could only play the first cut on a tape (7" reel to reel) because I had absolutely no way of cuing up a tape to an interior cut. There's no way that should have worked but it did and we got two days of remote programming out of it.

One night about 3am, during a thunderstorm, I got awakened by a call from our night announcer. The transmitter was off the air. Muttering all kinds of imprecations under my breath I got dressed, walked four locks to my car in the rain (do you remember alternate side of the street parking in New York?) and drove over to the Pierre. When I got up to the transmitter room, a window had blown open behind the main during the thunderstorm and there was about an inch of water on the floor with the final amp set for the 5750 volt position. I got a wooden broom handle and managed to trip the main circuit breaker, then I had to sweep all that water out of the transmitter room with an old broom which was all I could find. Once out in the corridor all that water went cascading down the stairs which were right next to the transmitter room. It took me a half hour to sweep all the water out and another half hour to warm up the transmitter tubes again before I could punch it up on the air again.

Who did you work with at WNCN?
I remember two of the people I enjoyed working with at WNCN, Chris Borgen, who later went over to WCBS and Frank Walkdecker. I don't know what happened to Frank but he had a beautiful deep mellifluous voice.  We had a program at 8am on Saturday, "Hello Germany with Irwin Hall and Jeanette van Delden". They played all kinds of German music and spoke a mixture of German and English on the program. Irwin was the drummer in the band and Jeanette the vocalist at the Lorelei, a German bar up in Yorktown on the upper east side. They worked until 3 am so there was no way they were coming in a 8 on Saturday to do a live show.

The studio was actually an overgrown news booth on one side of the control room and the record control room was on the opposite side of the studio with the turntables in it. The tape machines, Ampex 10" reel to reels were actually in the control room. There was no talk-back between the record control room and the studio and no remote control of the Ampexes so I was all hair teeth and eyeballs trying to get the show recorded. They were nice people but Irwin and Jeanette were absolutely lousy on-air talent with lots of goofs, "Er -ums" and "Paul could ve start dat ofer again?" What I finally did was for a 55 minute show I'd record about 65 to 70 minutes of program and then with a manual tape splicer, a couple of straight edge razor blades I would physically edit out all the fluffs and errors.

What other stations did you work at?
"The Lucky 13 spot on your dial, WEEE, Rensselaer, New York". 1300khz 1000 watt daylight only, Licensed in the town of Rensselaer our studio and transmitter was actually on Smultz Road in Glenmont, NY, just south of Albany. I was weekend man, noon to sign-off, comboing on the board and reading the transmitter meters every half hour because of my First Phone but it only lasted for a couple of months. For a lousy $1.60 an hour I just couldn't justify giving up my weekends.

Did your college have a radio station?

WRPI at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Originally a carrier current AM station heard only in the dorms and for a block or two around the campus, an FM station went out of business in the Capitol District and donated their transmitter to Rensselaer. WRPI 91.5 is still on the air. I did not work there.

You didn't do any radio in College?
Wait a Minute, I did work in radio there. I went to school in Athens. The Navy had a school down there. As a matter of fact there was a local station right there, the Navy Supply Corp school. There was a local station there 1340 WGAU-AM and the navy school had a half hour show one night a week, the "Navy Showcase." I only found out about it after I'd been there a month. Somebody found out I was a ham and the CIO put me over there as the host of Navy Showcase for 5 months. That was in 1963.

After you returned from the Navy did you go back to radio?
No. I decided I enjoyed making a living. But my my wife and I were very active in community theater.

Transcription Mystery Disc #119

This is a 7-Inch, 78 rpm Duodisc. Like many others it has no markings of any kind, nor does its crumbling sleeve. It sounds similar to another in my collection. It too was unlabeled but it's sleeve had a single marking.  I cannot firmly date the recording based on the brand of blank. I have found ones attested to anywhere from 1945 to 1952 depending on the label. I still suspect this whole batch originates with some member of the 560 WFIL-AM Barn Dance also called the "Hayloft Hoedown."  I further suspect that some of these and perhaps this one is Texas Jim Robertson.

Unknown country instrumental
 
Unlike other recordings from this set, this one is an instrumental, and clearly not from a broadcast. You can hear the engineer pot up and down during the recording and breaks within the tracks as if they are rehearsing. I have inserted 3 beeps to separate the two tracks.  The fidelity is quite good, superior to most of the others.

The Poet Laureate Of Radio

Surprisingly, Norman Corwin is not dead. He is in fact 101 years old as of May 3rd 1911. At this point we have to accept that the poet laureate of radio may well me immortal like the Count of St. Germain. Since we cannot be certain we might as well discuss how radio ends up having a poet laureate at all.

Corwin began as a newspaperman at the Greenfield Recorder and in 1926, and moved on to the Springfield Republican newspaper in 1929. (Both of which sort of still exist.) Westinghouse contacted the Republican seeking to assemble a regular fifteen-minute 10:30 PM newscast. This was to air on WBZA-AM. Somehow this job went to the new kid. He was only 18 years old. Ballsy kid that he was, several months later he pitched them on a regular poetry program. The resulting series was called "Rhymes and Cadences."

In 1936 he moved to New York City and began working at 20th Century Fox.  But the a poet laureate cant just work in publicity. He called up WQXR and pitched them on a show just like the one he had at WBZA. His program "Poetic  License" ran Tuesday nights at 9:15.  Then he started subbing for A.M. Sullivan, host of The new Poetry Hour on WOR-AM.

In 1938, he jumped to CBS. VP William B. Lewis heard an episode of  "Poetic  License" and was impressed. How impressed?  Impressed enough that within a week Corwin was radio director for the Columbia Workshop.  Another version of the story has him making a guest appearance on the RCA program "The Magic Key Of RCA" courtesy of his brother Emil Corwin who worked in the publicity department at NBC. Both tales are believable for different reasons. Both versions end the same way. Corwin with his own series which he wrote and directed "Norman Corwin's Words Without Music."  Starting in 1941, he was writing, casting, and directing a new play every week. He had just turned 31!

That constitutes an accomplished career on it's own. But his work in WWII is what endeared him to many. He wrote and produced a number a very patriotic works before, after and during the war effort. personally I find these works trite, jingoistic and trite. It's all very Stephen Vincent Benét. But it was popular and it fit the mood of the nation at the time. In the 1940s America was in an isolationist mood, and had a very real and vocal fascist political minority.  Things could have gone the other way. Readers of history who ultimately see our role in WWII as having any valor must give some credit to the rallying writers who helped turn public opinion toward the allies. For that reason, I find Corwin's accolades totally valid.  More here.

Anyway, Corwin was a hot ticket after the war, he did screen plays, books, magazine articles, and a torrent of plays. He left radio for the most part but still wrote the occasional radio drama until the format petered out in the 1960s. In 1971 he was heading up "Norman Corwin Presents" on CBC. Then in 1995 Corwin returned radio. He wrote and directed a whole series for NPR titled "More by Corwin." 

He has received the One World Award, two Peabody Medals, an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1993. At least two documentary films have been made on the topic of his life and career. He has authored 19 books, five stage plays, and innumerable film and TV works. Today he lives in Los Angeles and  is still writing.

Road Trip

Back in a few days

Here's is some recommended reading in the meantime
North East Radio Watch
Broadcast Law Blog
Engineering Radio

Wire Wrap

I am glad for every day that engineers do not still have to do this.

Celia Mayer and Aunt Sammy

I wrote a post about Aunt Sammy back in  June of 2007. Recently I struck it lucky and was contacted by Paul Freirich, the son of a woman that played the part of Aunt Sammy on WBZA in Boston (see above.) Paul told me what he knew about her and her time in radioland and then even a bit about his own radio career. Between the emails and the 45 minutes of tape I have enough material for a few posts. I'll start with Aunt Sammy tonight and then get to Paul career later on.

Just to review...Aunt Sammy herself was a character created by the U. S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Home Economics. It debuted in 1926 and by the early 1930s was carried on about 200 radio stations. It was a 15-minute short about cooking, and home making. The show ran until 1946. Celia Mayer was Aunt Sammy in the 1930s. More here. I have found very little information about the women who played Aunt Sammy. But fortunately some people take an interest in their family history, and a few of those even feel like sharing... 

JF: When did your mother play "Aunt Sammy" on WBZA?
PF: She never gave me exact dates but let's use a little detective work. She's at a WBZA mic and WBZA went back to Springfield and Boston get the WBZ call sign in 1931 [March of 1931] so it was before that. She worked at the Statler hotel and WBZA moved there in late 1928 or early 29 so it was after that. [More Boston radio history here]

JF:How old would she have been then?
PF:In 1930 she would have been 23 years old.

JF:How did she score that gig?
PF:She was a secretary at WBZA. For some reason she stayed through her lunch hour one day to get some work finished. The noon program on WBZA was organ music from the Pump Room at the Hotel Statler. That same day the organ broke down and they had dead air. Gordon Swann, the station PD came running into the office with one of the USDA scripts and my mother was the only one there. Swann thrust the script into her hands and said, "You're on the air". Mom was smart enough to realize that many women get nervous in front of of a mic and their voices go way up in pitch so she deliberately lowered hers. It must have worked because she was on the air for six months until they sold that time to a different sponsor who put a different program into that time slot. [More WBZ/WBZA history here]

JF:Did she do any other work in radio before or after that?
PF:No.

JF:There were different Aunt Sammys in Different regions. Did she know any of the others?
PF:She never mentioned any so I don't think so.

JF:How long do you think she stayed there?
PF: She was there for six months on the air. I don't know how long after that she stayed working there. I can tell you for a fact that she married my father in 1934. But I heard she was not there much longer after she was off the air. But a funny thing, she showed me a fan letter "You gave me your recipe for pecan pie and it's wonderful, and I haven't never been able to make it before and yours came out beautifully." But she couldn't make pecan pie. [The USDA provided all the recipes]

TODAY IS COLLEGE RADIO DAY

They've topped 350 stations and today is the big day. I'm already seeing a little extra press around the events. Most of these stations will be airing the program "College Radio in 2011: Its Past, Present & Future. " Courtesy of the coalition.

Some stations, WSOU notably, will be airing 12 hours of College radio day programming with loads of live interviews. WBCN is doing live remotes all day, and WREK has perhaps just incidentally increased their power from 40k to 100k watts just in time for the occasion.

Today is a day to listen in and perhaps even to make a donation to your local college radio station.

The Bell Telephone Hour

The Bell Telephone Hour  was also known as The Telephone Hour.  Despite the name, it was actually just a half-hour program. It was a concert series on the NBC Red Network sponsored by Bell Telephone starting in 1940. It ran mostly piffle showcasing both light classical and Broadway music. In being piffle, it was extremely popular with some eight million listeners weekly and a Crossley rating of at least 6.0 after the first 5 weeks.

Prior to this Bell telephone hadn't advertised much on radio. their ad dollars had been spend mostly on print adverts. (Hey, when you're already a monopoly you don't have to try hard.)  So two decades behind the trend, Bell began sponsoring the concert series on April 29, 1940. Assistant VP John Shaw started researching the possibilities for a radio program as early as 1930. He recommended in 1931 that  they bite and launch a program. The idea sat in limbo for 9 years. In 1939 the FCC took Bell to task for it's relationship with radio.

"The Bell system does comparatively little advertising by radio, despite the fact that it is one of the beneficiaries of radio broadcasting through the leasing of circuits for program transmission service."

It was no criminal indictment, but it pointed out a one-way relationship at the hands of a monopoly. they implied much more than they actually said. Bell was producing sample programs within just a few months. It was produced by the N.W. Ayer Co. with assistance from Tommy Cook at AT&T. They assembled a 57-member orchestra mostly made up from members of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. During WWII an AFRS version of the program was recorded under the name "Music From America. In the late 40s a few short films were made of the rehearsals and backstage banter. It continued on NBC until June 30, 1958 when they prepared for the jump to television.

It continued on television from 1959 to 1968. Throughout the program's run on both radio and television, the studio orchestra on the program was conducted by Donald Voorhees. The TV version of the program was a bit more interesting, they even had Johnny Cash as a gust on a western-themed night. In 1978 Bell telephone magazine bragged that during its run on radio, the Bell telephone Hour was the "oldest, continuous nighttime network program in American Broadcasting." It might well have been true too... with all those caveats included.

Enna Jettick Shoes and Songbook

Enna Jettick made shoes. Sir Harry Lauder and 3 other unidentified singers performed on the program "Enna Jettick Melodies" which aired on WJZ, and WEAF back in 1930. It was carried by the NBC Blue Network to 44 stations across America from her studio at 711 5th Avenue on Manhattan. It was carried from there by wire to KFJ in Los Angeles to the rest of the Red network. the program started as early as 1929. In the Whites radio log for that year they advertise a dance program on WLW Cincinnati, the WJZ program but not the WEAF Program.

Though ostensibly carried on 44 stations, this songbook lists only those stations carrying their Tuesday evening program: WEAF, WEEI, WJAR, WTAG, WCSH, WFI, WRC, WGY, WGR, WCAE, WDAF, WTAM, WFJC, WWJ, WSAI, WIBO, KSD, WHO, WOW, and WOC.  That's essentially the whole NBC Blue Network. Meaning that the Sunday show was on the Red network. they alternated days and networks... how novel. They also appear to have advertised on a Durium record in 1932.

Enna Jettick survived the Great depression, but got out of radio. They donated some of property to Cuayuga county and which became Emerson park in 1944. It was named for Jettick owner Fred Emerson. Part of the property was already a park and interestingly the existing carousel was purchased by Hershey and is presently at Hershey Park down in Hershey, PA.  The company was still advertising their shoes in 1951. I have scanned all 50 pages of the songbook, ads sheet music and all.

YOU CAN GET ALL 57 MB

HERE

WNWT-AM Crosses State Lines

Today 1520 WNWT-AM airs satellite fed K-Love programming. It's a zombie by my definition. But it didn't used to be. Prior to April of 2009 they had real programming and everything. And sometimes before that they also had a very anachronistic transmitter set up. WNWT-AM had two transmitters. On it's own that's fairly common for an AM station. With the need to power down and/or go directional at night this is something we see regularly on the AM band. What we don't' normally see is the tower sites being in two different states.

It's a bit anachronistic. Daytime broadcasts were from a set of towers located at 6695 Jackman Road in Ida, Michigan. to be fair it was less than a mile over the border. The night broadcasts were from a row of 6 towers along I-75 in Perrysburg, Ohio. These arrays were almost 20 miles apart on opposite sides of the Toledo market. Today it broadcasts 24/7 from a row of 5 towers in Perrysburg Township, but now it's off Township Hwy 102. They run 500 watts daytime, 400 watts nighttime. They also have an Fm translator, W281AL on 104.1 Pictures here.

Back then the station was WDMN.  They changed hands in July of  2008, ending their "Dominion 1520" format under Cornerstone Church. EMF ran it as a talker for a while with a splash of smooth jazz. Then in  July of that year came the call change to WNWT-AM. Cornerstone had tried to run the station with gospel, and christian con previously. More here.

But prior to that they were a WJR-AM simulcast as WANR-AM... an Urban station as WVOI...  a country station as WTTU...and back in the 1950s they were a serious Top 40 station as WTTO-AM. It was another "Boss" branded pop station. But like the other stations of that ilk... it didn't last forever just till 1973 when they started using the bizarre branding "W-15-2" and became the aforementioned WTTU.

The National Lampoon Radio Hour

Remember when  there were still comedy shows on the radio?  OK, there are a scant few shows now and mostly on NPR. The pinnacle of commercial radio comedy today is morning zoo flunkies sniffing each others gym socks. The old tradition of radio sitcoms and skits died out in the 1970s. One of it's last shining moments was the National Lampoon Radio Hour. More here. A legal brief from 1973 described the program thus:

"Like the magazine, the radio program is composed of various kinds of materials, skits, monologues, songs, also of an irreverent, disrespectful nature, satirizing topical subjects such as the energy crises, Watergate, politics generally, the ecology movement, the use of illegal narcotics, and whatever else may be of current interest."

It launched on November 17th, 1973 and at least initially was written by staff from National Lampoon magazine. Even after the show was no longer being written by national Lampoon, it was being recorded in the same building where the magazine was produced. The show ran weekly, for a little over a year, from November 17, 1973 to December 28, 1974. It started as a 1-hour program but was later cut to half an hour because writing an hour of comedy is really hard.the half-hour program was more tractable. But that's not how the staff handled it. They called their stations ahead to warn them they were trimming the program but then they played a little prank. According to  John Gorman, who wrote in The Buzzard Lampoon pranked all their affiliate stations. at the end of the half hour an announcement followed that read "This radio station is censoring the second half of the National Lampoon Radio Hour."  No one was safe.

In it's 2.5 seasons it's stewardship transferred from show creators Michael O'Donoghue and producer/engineer Bob Tischler to Sean Kelly, Brian McConnachie and John Belushi.  Belushi was already a performer on the program of course. It debuted with about 150 stations and eventually was broadcast on over 600  radio stations: WEBN, WMMS, WRVR, and hundreds of others from east coast to west coast and north into Canada. But the show had problems with sponsors. Their first sponsor  7-Up decided that an episode about Nixons impeachment was offensive.They got that a lot. In their own ads they sold plugged the show as "thirty minutes of mirth, merriment and racial slurs." It was all of those things.

The show folded up it's tent and ran it's last episode on December 28, 1974. Several of the performers and writers moved on to Saturday Night Live: John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radnor to name a few.  Michael O'Donoghue went on to become the head writer for the first two seasons of Saturday Night Live. He mercilessly stole and re-used the material on SNL for the benefit of well... everyone watching. It was goddamned funny.  The program has had a long and strange legacy.  In 1996 Rhino released a box set of the national Lampoon Radio archives.Then in October of 2006 XM brought it back in reruns.  It was not just old Lampoon programming. In fact they seemed to just re-use the branding.  Most of it was more modern stand up. As of March 6, 2009, National Lampoon radio was dropped from the Sirius-XM line-up.

The magazine that had started it all went bi-monthly in 1986 due to reduced circulation and was the victim of a hostile takeover by Otter from the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House. I am not making that up.  Otter went bankrupt 2 years later and had to sell out to J2 Communications.J2 just liked licensing the brand name and just put out one or two magazine a year. The magazine's final print publication was November 1998. Then in 2002 Dan Laikin bought what was left of the company.

In December 2008, following an FBI raid, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia filed charges against Dan Laikin, the former CEO of National Lampoon Incorporated, for a scheme to artificially inflate Lampoon’s stock price from less than $2 a share to $5 a share. They had a whole scam set up with kickbacks for the stock promoters. He was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

COLLEGE RADIO DAY

College Radio day is only a week away. I first heard about the idea back in June and agreed instantly that it's long over due. If record stores deserve a day then college radio does as well. As of today over 300 stations are involved. You can read more at the following links:

Collegeradioday.com
Campus Frequency
NJ Monthly
Radio Survivor
Twitter #CollegeRadioDay
CMJ
RW Online
Revolution FM
CBI.org
Facebook

Radio Artifact # 89

Radio Shack was founded in 1921 by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann. It focused on amateur radio gear. their first store was in Boston, MA. In the 1960s as the hobby fell off the small chain of electronics stores was struggling. Tandy saw an opportunity and bought the company in 1962.
   In May 2000, the company dropped the Tandy name completely and became just Radio Shack. They must have regretted this somewhat as only about a year ago they began trying to re-brand as "the shack" which still makes me think of an outhouse. Regardless, this page of ephemera  probably dates to shortly after the merger. Radioshack was still making catalogs even in the 1990s but the binder-style catalogs stopped in the 1970s I think.