Radio Guides the Plow

In 1932 Popular science ran an article foretelling the use of radio to control plows. The images were rudimentary with long wire aerials slung high over the chassis the full length of the vehicle. Maybe it wasn't elegant, but it was the beginning of an idea. It described the experiment this way:

"Recently, J. J. Lynch, of Miles City, Mont., demonstrated his radio-controlled tractor before 200 electrical experts and business men. Steered from a closed car traveling behind, it plowed around a thirty-acre field. Radio relays beneath the empty driver’s seat operated it in response to a radio transmitter in the control car."

In 1929 the Japanese were looking at radio control. A Japanese army major named Nagayama rebuilt some Fordson tractors for experimental remote control by radio waves. These weren't meant for farming. This was a tank. It was intended for mine clearing and mine laying. It was able to move up to 5 mph.

I found another reference in to the 1934 World's fair in Chicago where a "robot plow" was exhibited which could be started and steered remotely. The International Harvester Company held daily demonstrations of the driverless, radio-controlled McCormick-Deering tractor in a field outside the the Agriculture building. When I read it I assumed the closest thing we had to remote controlled tractors was the little John Deere RC cars. I was way off.As recently as 2004 The International Journal of Vehicle Design publishes an article on the refurbishing of a Ford model 4600 agricultural tractor for remote control operation. The abstract for the article detailed the following:

"Modifications to the tractor involved installing a protective framework, electrical actuators for fuel, brake, clutch, and steering controls, and a radio link for remote operation. The tractor has been used to complete over 30 total side and back upset tests, with no failures of the remote control system."

So the idea is still simmering. But the idea has probably run it's full life-span. It began as science-fiction, and has now become science kitsch. Large-scale agribusinesses have moved past radio-control to GPS controlled plowing with a number of competing systems all in use presently including the IntegriNautics AutoFarm GPS 5001 AutoSteer System. Doesn't that sound like something from the Jetsons?

Transcription Mystery Disc #58

José Granahan is almost certainly a pseudonym. I knew that when I saw this dusty Capitol Pro-Disc. What was immediately interesting to me is that this is the same brand of blank that the Beatles recorded to. [see here] José Granahan is not a missing Beatle. but I can use that exact match to date this recording to as late as 1965. I also found an identical blank used to record a Gene Autry Program from 1948. It's a big time window, but generally I favor later dates. It's not deterministic, but as a rule the newer discs survive longer. This is not because they are mroe durable but simply because less time has elapsed.

The Disc was recorded at 78 rpm from the outer edge. Sadly it was dented at one corner preventing tracking on the first grooves of each side. Whatever identifying data is in that space is lost forever. It's a recording of someone speaking in very bad spanish, undoubtedly a student either at practice or in a project. José Granahan is Probably a Joe or John Granahan. It's common in Spanish classes to impose Hispanic first names upon the students. The title "Tema diecisiete" is Spanish for "theme seventeen." Tema can also mean Subject or Text which would make even more sense. My Spanish isn't good enough to transcribe it let alone translate it. I tried to make out the words but the parts about old women, Compañeros and bears didn't make any sense to me

Morse Code Speed Records

You may have seen the Youtube video of the two senior citizens proving they can send a message faster with Morse code than teenagers can texting via cell phone. NBC keeps taking it down but this link may work for a while.
Morse Code-Leno - More bloopers are a click away

So that looks pretty fast in the video. But how fast can an operator, competent in Morse code send and receive a message? First of all let's cover how speed is calculated. Most common is the PARIS calculation. it breaks down dots and dashes this way. I'm quoting from Wikipedia for simplicity since everyone else seems to have. "Each dot is one element, each dash is three elements, intra-character spacing is one element, inter-character spacing is three elements and inter-word spacing is seven elements."

By that measure the word PARIS is exactly 50 elements. This simple set of rules makes for a consistent yardstick. There is another method called CODEX which is based on random strings of 5-letters and 60 units of time. (I'm skipping this since I cant find any source that actually uses it.) A skilled operator often can send and understand code in their heads at speeds over 40 WPM. The worlds record is significantly higher.

According to The Guinness book of world records, the world's record for Morse Code speed was set in Asheville, NC in July 1939 by Ted R. McElroy. He was clocked in Continental Morse Code with witnesses at 75.2 WPM. (Adjusted for the modern PARIS standard, that would be 72.2 wpm). His record still stands today. The record hasn't been broken in over 70 years. Ted also carries separate records for American Morse code and Japanese Kanji code. Just to rub it in he also claimed that he could type at 150 WPM. [In 1993 Tom French published a comprehensive book on the man]

Ted R. McElroy is an interesting character. He'd been using Morse code since he was a kid, and by the age of 15 he was a telegrapher for Western Union. He started and his own company manufacturing Morse code keys in 1934. That record he set in 1939 beat his own previous records set in 1935, and 1922. Between WWI and WWII McElroy worked for WCC / WSO, one of RCA's transoceanic wireless stations. More here. His McElroy manufacturing Corporation made Morse code keys for decades and made millions during WWII. After the war things slowed down and in 1955 he sold the company. He died in 1963.

The Cackle Sisters

I was visiting the WFMU's Beware of the Blog as I sometimes do and they posted a set of acetates of the Cackle Sisters. It's here. I recommend you listen and the download furiously. Without revealing much detail the short post and long list of 32 MP3s set me off on two parallel hunts: the Purina Mills' Checkerboard Time radio show, and the career of the DeZurik Sisters Mary Jane and Carolyn Dezurik aka the Cackle sisters.

They began on KSTP in their home state of Minnesota. In 1935 and 1936 they won amateur talent contest on the station. That led to a show at a large country fair where they were seen by George Ferguson of the WLS Artists' Bureau. In 1936, the DeZurik sisters signed a deal appear weekly on the National Barn Dance at WLS-AM. In 1937 they were hired to perform on Purina Mills' Checkerboard Time radio show also on WLS. There they performed as The Cackle Sisters. Yodeling was a craze, and Ralson Purina was cashing in. In 1938 they signed a deal with Vocalion and cut 6 sides.
They stayed with Purina until 1941 only leaving because they were starting families. After leaving WLS the sisters split up. Carolyn went on to join Sonja Henie's Ice Review for about a year. Then she went home to St. Paul and did some time on the Sunset Valley Barn Dance and the afternoon show Main Street Minnesota back at KSTP. In 19434 the sisters reunited and went back to Purina. but also performing weekly at WSM on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. thsi required a commute by train each week.In 1946 A third sister Lorraine was added to the act. In 1947, after a car accident mary jane retired again. Lorraine and Carolyn continued on as the Cackle sisters but now they were transitioning into TV. By 1951, they'd been on WLW-TV and WBKB-TV. But Abotu then Lorraine retired from performing. Carolyn stayed on to sing for her husband, Rusty Gill's band The Prairie Ramblers sticking with yodeling in some way until 1963. Carolyn finally died in may of 2009 outliving everyone.

Randy Michael's forbidden words

I tried to resist touching this but I loathe micromanagement. It's the unwelcome creative outlet for frustrated MBAs. After reading the news I knew that Randy Michaels is running amok. It's not Orwellian.. it's more Monty Pythonian. He issued a list of 119 words and phrases that must never again be uttered within the confines of of 720 WGN-AM.

When executive management wanders off the reservation into programming... something has gone very very wrong. There is an org chart. Use it. If your programmers and producers aren't doing the job - fire them. Hire new ones. Do not hallucinate that you can do the job of any and every subordinate. When you've blown an 8 million dollar buy out the next thing to do is obvious start tinkering with the News style book. Micheals used to be a shock jock back in the 1980s... some people just cant let go of the attention. Not that this is his only ham-handed blunder.. just the most recent.

That complete list of forbidden words is as follows:

Flee, Good News, Bad News, Laud, seek, Two to one margin, Yesterday, Youth, 5 a.m. in the morning, After the break, After these commercial messages, Aftermath, All of you, Allegations, Alleged, Area residents, As expected, At risk, At this point in time, Authorities, Auto accident, Bare naked, Behind bars, Behind closed doors, Behind the podium, Best kept, secret, Campaign trail, Clash with police, Close proximity, Complete surprise, Completely, destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished, Death toll, Definitely possible, Diva, Down in, Down there, Everybody, Eye Rack (Iraq) , Eye Ran (Iran), False pretenses, Famed, Fatal death, Fled on foot, Folks, Giving 110%, Going forward, Gunman, lone gunman, Guys, Icon, In a surprise move, In harm’s way, In other news, In the wake of, Incarcerated, Informed sources say, Killing spree, Legendary, Lend a helping hand, Literally, Lucky to be alive, Manhunt, Marred, Medical hospital, Mother of all____, Motorist, Moot point, Near miss, No brainer, Officials, Our top story tonight, Out there, Over in____, Pedestrian, Perfect storm, Perished, Perpetrator, Plagued, Really, Reeling, Reportedly, Seek, Senseless murder, Shots rang out, Shower activity, Sketchy details. Some (meaning about)Some of you, Sources say, Speaking out, Stay tuned, The fact of the matter, Those of you, Thus, time for a break, To be fair, Torrential rain, Touch base, Under fire, Under siege, Underwent surgery, Undisclosed, Undocumented alien, Unrest, Untimely death, up there, utilize, Vehicle, We’ll be right back, Welcome back, * Welcome back everybody, We’ll be back, Went terribly wrong, We’re back, White stuff, World class, You folks

A Moment of Silence Please

WOXY is dead.
Long live WOXY.

WOXY has died and been resurrected at least three times now.In the early days they were based in Oxford Ohio in a little studio in the middle of a road by a corn field that ended in dirt at one end and at Miami University at the other. I'm not making that up. I've been there.

Gentle historians would say that 97X transitioned to the internet on May 31st 2005. That was abotu a year after First Broadcasting bought the station from Balogh Broadcasting. The format flip came for the same reason it always does. It wasn't making money. But some longtime pro0grammers couldn't let go. WOXY had been a monument to Rock since 1983. They took it online. 97.7 held onto the WOXY call letters complicating branding forever.

In August 2007, WOXY.Com cut a deal was finalized with Cincinnati public radio station 91.7 WVXU wherein WVXU broadcast WOXY.com programming on their HD-2 radio channel. To their credit, WVXU seems to still be holding on to that programming and branding for their HD-2 even now. Lala.com, owned the station from 2006-2009 but didn't do a damn thing with it. On the bright side the bills got paid . In July 2009, WOXY.Com relocated it's studios to Austin, TX. Their broadcasting schedule remained the same. Then yesterday that announcement came out. Live broadcasts are over, and to my definition that's not radio anymore.

Transcription Mystery Disc # 74

This is a Voice-O-Graph disc and it's in pretty average condition. There are no chips or scratches. It's not dirty, worn nor is it water or sun damaged. But the recording is somewhat distorted. The user was too close to the microphone or alternately too much gain was applied. the end result is some flat tops in the wave form even visible in the digital transfer.

The recording is of a very drunk man singing in a very flat tenor. The song is "I Can't Begin to Tell You" best known for the Bing Crosby version released in 1945. it sold a million copies. So it's unsurprising that it was still popular when this was recorded on July 25th 1946. the handwriting is hard to read but it's says Mr. Fedman or maybe M. Reedman. I can't tell. The handwriting is pretty poor. Only two verses are sung and they are sung out of order. His also drunk friends join in around 00:53 seconds to match him in equally flat harmony.

At the end of the recording after the more tuneful part a second man delivers a quick identification ending most of the mystery. Tommy Levitz recorded it at Seaside Park in New Jersey.

McMahon

Ed McMahon had a strange job while he was alive. His job was to laugh at Johnny Carson. Plenty of people already did that for free. From 1962 to 1992 his job was to sit on stage and laugh like a monkey. It's no where near where he began his career. He began as a carnival barker in Mexico, Maine about 50 miles from Augusta. He put himself through college as a pitchman for vegetable slicers on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Somewhere in the middle of all that, he did some work in radio.
His first broadcasting job was at 1400 WLLH-AM in his native Lowell, Massachusetts. He studied electrical engineering at Boston College and it enabled him to do his remotes solo, a plus for hiring managers. McMahon's voice was heard on WLLH doing station IDs in the 1980s, and he returned to Lowell in 1994 to be honored with a live broadcast on WLLH alongside then-morning host Paul Sullivan. WLLH-AM was a whopping 250 watt station back in those days. Today it's an ESPN affiliate with a more substantial 1000 watts. More here.

In 1949 Ed scored a gig doing overnights at WCAU-AM in Philadelphia where he was the announcer for The Ol' Night Owl, Powers Gouraud . He also co-hosted an afternoon program. He also did some announcing on WCAU-TV. Nobody is proud of it now, but he also was a clown on Saturday Mornings. He was drafted twice. Once in WWI and once in the Korean war both tours flattening his broadcasting career. This second tour was when he was at the peak of his work in Philadelphia. By 1952 he had bits on 13 different programs; new game shows, and the late night movie program. He had learned to fly in WWII so now they wanted him to bomb small islands in the pacific. When he got back they were all cancelled. He got a little piece on the nightly news. Philly was over he started looking at New York. But in 1958 he was still in Philadelphia, still on WCAU. but Agent Chuck reeves set him up with an audition for announcer on Johnny Carson's show on ABC. It was called "Who Do you trust." It was in actuality a game show but most of it was Carson being a funny man in the classical sense. That show ran for four years. In 1962 the two of them started on the tonight show replacing the twitchy Jack Paar on NBC.

For Ed that was really the end of radio. He came back to WLLH a couple times to do some station IDs as a favor to be friendly to the station that started him at $10 a week. He came back again when they celebrated Ed Mcmahon day with a parade. In the 1990s, on the USA Radio Network he hosted a weekend talk program called "Lifestyles Live." I think that was his last spin in radio. He died June 23, 2009. He was at 86.

IBS vs The Ivy Network

There are a number of annual radio conferences running today. NAB of course is the large commercial conference and CMJ is usually considered the bigger of the college focal conferences: IBS, CBI etc. IBS of course is the oldest but it's ivy league roots have really kept it inside it's own social enclave and there is a strange long story to explain why.

The history of student broadcasting in Ivy League schools starts early. WBRU and WHCN founded IBS in February 1940. George Abraham a student at Brown interconnected half a dozen radios in his building so they could all hear his classical recordings. It went so well he expanded service to a dorm across the street, then the rest of the campus. Eventually 100 radios were tied to his "Brown Network" with 16,000 feet of cable. Programming began in earnest. The Brown University station WBRU was the first on air in 1940.

Harvard followed them in 1943 with WHCN graduating from their own carrier current system. You may nto recognize those calls because WHCN only used those calls until 1951 when they broke off from the campus newspaper and became WHRV. These two stations founded the first college network, IBS the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System.

IBS was founded by the intrepid engineer being WBRU George Abraham, and his cohort David Borst. they were still undergraduates at the time. By 1947 there were five members in the IBS: WDBS at Dartmouth, WHRV at Harvard, WXPN at U. Pennsylvania, WPRU at Princeton, and WYBC at Yale. WPRU at the time was broadcasting just through the universities electrical system. In 1956 they applied for a FM license but had to change calls because a ship at sea was using the WPRU calls.

In 1943 WVBR Cornell, WDCR Dartmouth, WPRU Princeton, and WYBC Yale split off from IBS and formed their own network called the Ivy Network. WXPN Pennsylvania joined in 1948. It's offices remained based at Yale in New Haven, CT. More here. At a conference in 1951 they met and accept ed a contract to allow Ivy stations to broadcast the nationally-heard "Philip Morris Play House." NBC was to install dedicated telephone lines to enable syndication. In 1953 the NBC tie was expanded with a contract to carry more programs. The Ford motor company sponsored a classical music program. More here. WKCR at Columbia University joined sometime in the 1950s.

What's most important to remember here is that these were all AM stations and were permitted to run advertising. It's only when they moved to the FM band they were restricted to non-commercial licenses that forbid advertising. IBS and The Ivy Network shared member stations. Some texts even have WBRU carrying programs via the Ivy Network after 1952, effectively merging the two splinter groups. I assumed originally that this marked the end of the Ivy Network but it did not. In 1960 a small group of stations from the Rural Radio Network began calling themselves "The Ivy Network." This had to create brand confusion. So I assumed that had to be after the end of the Ivy Network. That was wrong too.

In February of 1961 an issue of Billboard refers to IBS and the Ivy Network as the two largest college radio networks. The article was written by Jim Cameron of WLVR, the college radio station of Lehigh University. This was not a misinformed outsider. Clearly both IBS and Ivy were still operating in the early 1970s in some capacity. And it seems to be true. In 1966 the eight existing Ivy Network stations invited 11 more: Boston College, Colgate U. Middlebury College, M.I.T., N.Y.U., Lehigh, St. Lawrence, Union, and American University. Again many of these were still carrier current stations. One piece I read indicated that a slew of Boston area stations joined Ivy at the end: WTBU, WZBC, WBRS, WHRB, WTBS, WZLY and WBRU. I have some trouble crediting this as the network ceased to exist shortly thereafter. In 1969 the Network had a reporter Linda Sutter give a report by phone live from Woodstock. That was taped and survived to appear at a recent auction. More here.

I cant seem to find a firm date where the Network ended. But I think i know what happened. The growth in FM undermined their ability to sell advertising. A WYBC history spells it out "During the late 1970s and 1980s, WYBC fell into financial trouble due to declining student interest." Yale went through a rough patch in which 94.3 was LMA'd to COX radio, and their AM stick sold off outright. They had a resurgence in 1998 with 1340 a new license but they were the lynchpin for The Network. One record I found has Stan Federman, WXPN manager, named president o f the Ivy Network and the Network HQ relocating to U. Penn. So WYBC implodes, Ivy relocated around WXPN which was already moving to FM themselves. It fell apart gradually losing importance and being more fully absorbed into IBS.

Who Buried Harry Choates?

If you don't know the name Harry Choate (or Choates) let me briefly summarize his ethno-musical significance. He played the fiddle, the guitar and the accordion. He played a mix of French-Cajun music and western swing that changed the genre forever. He wasn't epicly popular like Elvis, he was more of a Ernest Tubb character who's musician ship and song craft influenced everything. He had a single "Jole Blon" a transformation of a traditional Cajun waltz into a swing dance tune that became a regional hit in 1946 on Gold Star Records. It was licensed to a few other labels for national distribution and hit #4 on the Billboard country music chart. But he was a so naive and drunk he sold the publishing rights to the song to Quinn Recording Studio for $100 and a bottle of whiskey. He never even owned an instrument.

His hometown is somewhat disputed as is his birth date. It's generally accepted to be Rayne, LA December 26th 1923. Other dates are as early as 1922, other places include Vermillion, LA. He was performing in bands by the age of 13. He played around New Orleans, Port Arthur, and Houston. He appeared on KOAI-TV in San Antonio. His career was on the upswing with or without the rights to his hit single.

In 1951 his band the Melody Boys, fell apart over Choate's constant drunkenness and missed concert dates. His wife divorced him. But that didn't slow down Harry, he kept touring and drinking. . Later that year he played on KTBC with Jesse James & His Gang. Jesse James and crew were a long running western swing band based in Austin. They formed before WWII and reformed after. Their program was sponsored by Pearl Beer.

Harry never left Austin. He was dragged into court for not paying child support. The judge found him in contempt and tossed him in jail. Three days later on July 17, 1951 he was dead at 28 years old. There are two stories of how he died. One version has him shaking from the DTs and banging his own head on the bars until he knocked himself unconscious, then falling into a coma then eventually dying. If you think that's a stretch the other version is that the cops beat his head on the bars and accidentally killed him. Witnesses claim there was a gash on his forehead. His autopsy intimated that he was beaten but attributed his death to liver failure. The family was so poor they could not afford to bring him back to Port Arthur for burial. More here.

Gordon Baxter, a DJ who'd been at KPAC since 1945 thought this was a travesty. He held a live fund-raiser and raised enough money to bring his remains back to Port Arthur. Choate was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery. KPAC was then the voice of Port Arthur College, today it's a Public Radio affiliate. The charitable gesture went well for Bax, he was Assistant manager of the station by 1954. Baxter died in 2005 at the age of 81. He was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2007. Why did Baxter do it? It might be partially that Choate was so popular. It might have been that Bax was a fan. Or maybe Baxter was just one of the good guys. More here..

The Beast of WBSD

I have to admit I like some of the oogie-boogie radio shows. They're utter nonsense, but they make for great radio. Coast-to -coast has an obsessive audience and lights up the phones all night. But there are smaller similar programs such as Uncanny Radio which broadcast on 89.1 WBSD.

Hosts Manwolf and Linda Godfrey present Uncanny Radio a mishmash of horror stories and supernatural pseudoscience. Ghosts, The Jersey Devil, UFOs, Aliens, and Bigfoot are all fair game. It's broadcast on Wednesday nights from 8pm to 9:00pm at WBSD in Burlington, Wisconsin.

The terrain is flat and the HAAT of 92 feet is respectable. (They are housed at Burlington high school but the transmitter is on the somewhat taller middle school building.) But those 210 watts don't quite make the Milwaukee suburbs 35 miles to their North East. it leaves them where most non-coms are: serving a small community. It's also interesting to note that the stations founder, Terry Havel, is still running the station after 32 years. They are also one of the four high school stations in America running a Triple A format: WBSD, WAPS, WJHS, and WYMS. (WYMS is a bit of a stretch)

Host Manwolf is also known as the award-winning fantasy author Stephen D. Sullivan. Linda Godfrey is a journalist, author, and self-proclaimed supernatural expert. They actually got a little TV exposure when they did a program on the Beast of Bray Road. Linda was a frequent guest on Coast-to-Coast...which says a lot about the genesis of the program.

Transcription Mystery Disc #81

I can find no reference anywhere for this brand and make of transcription blank. It's a 12-inch aluminum core disc with intact labels on both sides. Side A is perfect, but Side B has some cracking and a large piece has flaked off preventing play of that portion. Each side has several false starts, and whole blank tracks. The flake is unfortunately from a successful recording... now lost forever. All remaining audio was of surprisingly good fidelity.
Interestingly on what I take to be Side A the last track was recorded with a center start. All other tracks start at their outside edge. The Side B label is blank, but the Side A label lists the names Carpy, Mel, Ede, & Harry. The program is "Soapy Quiz." It's put together to resemble a radio quiz complete with fake sponsor "soapy suds." It ends with a recording actually from the radio of some bland ballroom music.

In the days of radio quiz programs and soap operas there were a great number of soap and detergent sponsors: Super Suds, Duz, Rinso, and many others. At first I thought it might be an actual program, but the flubbing of lines was a dead giveaway. The host is clearly a teenager, and the other actors adults. On the other side George Howard plays a little piano before the recording engineer flubs the take.

It's 105 Degrees and Rising

There has been much written about the Vietnam War. But we write about radio here so I must narrow my focus to a 3 minute and 6 second moment in the history of the war. It marked the fall of Saigon, it's capture by the North Vietnamese. This was prudently preceded by the evacuation of the American embassy. In some ways it was the last three minutes and six seconds of the war except that by all reports they played the song on repeat to make sure the signal was heard by all.

To prepare for this impending evacuation, the American embassy distributed a 15-page booklet called Standard Instruction and Advice to Civilians in an Emergency. The booklet included a map of Saigon which indicated rally points for helicopter pick up. There was an insert page which read: "Note evacuational signal. Do not disclose to other personnel. When the evacuation is ordered, the code will be read out on Armed Forces Radio (AFVN). The code is: The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising. This will be followed by the playing of I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." The version they selected was sung by Bing Crosby. After the signal was given buses began to bring evacuees to the pick up points. It was called Operation Frequent Wind.

Radio was everywhere. There were radios in the PX, radios in the barracks radios in the offices for the REMF. It was the fastest and most certain way to convey a message to everyone simultaneously. On April 29th, 1975 At 10:51 AM Henry Kissenger gave the order and the signal was broadcast on AFVN. It's important to note that between 1973 and 1975, the station was operated by civilians at Federal Electric, a subsidiary of ITT. (Thank you N4UF)

Interestingly, Bing Crosby was privately opposed to the Vietnam War. Whether the administrator who made the pick knew that I don't know but I love the irony. In 2002, the Library of Congress selected the 1942 version to add to the National Recording Registry.

************************UPDATE***************************

I was contacted by N4UF, an AFVN staffer with a slightly different version of events. But This version, despite contradicting popular sources comes from the most authoritative source possible: The last DJ: Chuck Neil. I'm quoting:

"We had a big Gates Automatic Programmer. We programmed most of our day on that machine. And I went back in there and took the cartridge with "105 degrees and rising" and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," and popped it in the slot and punched it up. And that was my final act at the radio station...."

Basically this means that Frank Snepp's account in "Decent Interval"was incorrect. AFVN did not air the Bing Crosby version. In an article by Chuck himself in the Library of Congress he states that he couldn't find Bing Crosby's version in the record library and substituted the Tennessee Ernie Ford version. Every other writer who used Snepp as a source passed on the error into history until in 2002 the National Recording Registry archived the wrong version of the song.

78 RPM Label Archive

I have been scanning 78 rpm labels for years. I am trying to keep at least one good clean image of each design. There are tens of thousands of which I have barely over a hundred. But mine are all scanned from my own copies and I am keeping them in a public folder at a relatively high resolution for others to re-use at will. Maybe it's a tad compulsive, maybe it's even silly. But this is a growing attempt to be comprehensive with no regard for value or rarity. Brown shellac Aeolian Vocalions' are scanned alongside vinylite skating waltz cuts from the mid 50s. It's meant to be inclusive not comprehensive. Enjoy.

The folder is HERE.

TRAVEL

Got a plane to catch.
See you tomorrow.

HOU (Part Dos)

I was able to visit Nauks Vintage Records by appointment today. If you don't know, for a collector of 78s, this is like visiting Mecca. Floor to ceiling shelves and cabinets of 78s, transcriptions, cylinders, catalogs, books, periodicals, stampers and phonographs everywhere. It was truly a wonder. But it's auction time so one must consult the catalog to buy. I stopped a little later at Vinal Edge Records and strangely it was there that I bought a stack of records. They have a big selection of vinyl, record players, phono-preamps, CDs and ephemera. It's the kind of place where one finds a portable reel-to-reel deck under a milk crate of reggae 10-inches. I found it by accident and it was a great stop....and then there were taco trucks. Records and tacos, a perfect field trip.

HOU

For all intents and purposes it's not just a state. It's a different planet supported by tax subsidies on the other 49 states. (Texas gets 30% of it's budget from the Federal government.) Fiscal trivia aside, It's an interesting piece of geography in terms of radio.Houston has had a ratings anomaly I'd noticed for years but never examined. I'd wondered for years how KSBJ, a non-commercial Christian Con. outlet could get a 4-share in a top 10 Metro. The reason, at least in part, is that they are a trimulcast. 89.3 KSBJ is also 89.5 KZBJ, 91.1 KYBJ, and six repeaters totally blanketing Houston, Beaumont, Galveston, Bryan, Freeport, and south to Victoria. Through sheer coverage they improve their odds of appearing in a sample in a geographically large metro. Additionally by occupying 9 different frequencies they reduce the incidence of competitors in the market.

On the FM band they have only two vague competitors: religious talker KAFR which is all satellite fed from AFR and KHCB 105.7 which is also all religious talk. KJIC is there as well but it's to the south of the metro and inspo. It is a very special situation to be the only Christian Con. outlet in a major metro.

My favorites in the market are KPFT, which I've written about before. This morning they've got The South Austin Jug Band in the studio live. KTSU which plays jazz 99% of the time was running an NPR program "Tell me More" when I checked. KACC is too weak to hear up by the airport. KTRU normally reliable is running some local football game. snore. 91.3 KPVU, however was rocking some Howling Wolf last night. But I could tell it was automated. It feels strange to stop there but there are no Public radio Stations on the AM band in all of Texas. It leaves over 2 million Texas without the option of Public Radio. Strange place this Texas...

Ray-Dee-Oh Yip Yip.

I had to research thsi as much as any other radio story. I haven't watched Sesame Street in a few decades. the characters are called the "Yip Yips." The Sesame Street website describes them as " interplanetary visitors from Mars who valiantly explore our world despite their frequent terrifying encounters with everyday objects like telephones, clocks, and computers." they debuted in 1971 with a telephone skit and first met the radio in 1975.

I posted this because of their very instinctive attempts at tuning the radio. The radio pictured looks like a 1940s GE or RCA model. They have a visceral reaction to each station instinctively; just like people do but with a verbalization I think we all have internally. Yup. Nope.

Newton Minow

FCC commissioner Copps tore into the media and the FCC recently. He was at a workshop called "Public Interest in the Digital Age. As it often is with Copps, he was no-holds-barred. He said the under the Bush administration the FCC was:

...under the spell of an ideological deregulatory mind-set that fueled the evisceration or outright elimination of just about every public interest obligation or public interest guideline we had. Much of media began to resemble the vast wasteland that Newton Minow had predicted as early as 1961."

It's a great quote but who the hell is Newton N. Minow? Minow was appointed in 1961 by President Kennedy to chair the Federal Communications Commission. He resigned in1963 and was succeeded by E. William Henry who was said to largely agree with Minow. But was somewhat less quotable. The FCC has almost always stayed out of content questions. Unless obscenity is involved, their saber-rattling peaks with a little charged language and the occasional tsk-tsk. Minows remark was legendary in some circles. American Rhetoric has the audio and complete speech here. Here is the paragraph Copps was referring to:

"When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

Minow was a strange pick for the FCC. He had some legal experience, and some military background and a little work for the Governor of Illinois. But he had no background in media or communications law. He was friends with Adlai Stevenson. Hey, Nepotism happens. Nonetheless he turned out to be a historical figure in his own way. I think he knew his career there and in politics would be brief so he took the opportunity to tell the truth. Some people agreed, some people disagreed but a conversation had begun. More here and here.

Werly Fairburn the Singing Barber

Werly Fairburn is remembered as a lost legend of rockabilly, when he's remembered at all. Bear Family records rounded up all his singles and brought him back form the archives in 1994. Those 29 tracks of country, rock and rockin' country brought him to my attention and my eventual discovery that he was also a radio man.

Fairburn was born in Folsom, Louisiana in 1924 so it is not surprising that on his return from WWII he returned home to Louisiana. In the war he'd been in the Navy and worked in the Honolulu shipyards so its a tad incongruous that he became a barber. How exactly he became known as the singing barber I don't know. But he was Singing on 1000 WJBW-AM by 1948 in a weekly 15-minute spot as the Delta Balladeer. When he first recorded for Trumpet Records it was as the Delta Balladeer. This was before his Rockabilly phase.

He later moved to 690 WWEZ-AM as “The Singing Barber.” The move probably had something to do with the Cadillac Club. He'd begun playing out as Werly Fairburn and his Delta Boys. In 1954 they began playing the Cadillac Club whose booking was done by Jolly Cholly Stokely, a WWEZ DJ. A year later Billboard reported that Jolly was booking shows and touring with Fairburn. Fairburn came off the road in 1958 and he settled into a regular gig on the Louisiana hayride on KWKH. More here.

In the 1960s he moved to California where he continued to DJ and also started a record label called Milestone Records in the 1950s and early 1960s. He signed a number of R&B and Doo-Wop ground including the Blue Jays. In 1961 the Blue Jays released the biggest single on the label "Lovers Island" produced by Werly Fairburn himself. it made #31 on the Billboard chart.

MPR Vs. Minneapolis!

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and the Minneapolis City Council are having a bit of a spat. Admirably, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council is looking forward and making a better mass transit system to lighten the burden on their clogged roads. But like any rail or road project, there is always some contention on what path it should take in and around the city. It has actually come to the point where MPR has sued the Metropolitan Council.

The problem is that the board has approved a route for the light-rail line that would run trains right past the radio station headquarters in St. Paul. This specific train route is part of their Central Corridor Light Rail Transit project (CCLRT ). It will connect downtown St Paul and downtown Minneapolis. the track is to be 11 miles long at a cost of $941 million. Needless to say, the city has planned to shell out big bucks on this.

This is exceedigly bad for MPR. Trains are so powerful and so heavy that they conduct physical vibrations right through the ground. This isn't a big deal for some businesses. But it is a big deal with the on-air light is on. This is why in 2009 the Met Council made an agreement to take steps to reduce noise and vibrations from city trains. In fact, they signed the CCLRT Mitigation Agreement on April 8, 2009. It's a binding contract with a lot on the line for MPR. A passing subway train can measure 95 decibels, and can shake your furniture so bad that you cant read a newspaper.

What they're fighting over is a choice of vibration muffling mechanism. MPR wants the city to go with a steel spring mechanism. The committee is more focused on the budget and favors a less expensive and less effective rubber pad. There is some irony here as radio station often suffer their own NIMBY woes over tower proposed locations. But this isn't an aesthetic argument. radio is all audio. If you damage that, you damage the core of what they are. This is currently raging and I'll keep you all up to date.

RLC/WVPH

I paid a social call on RLC/WVPH today. I live much too far away myself, but if you are around Rutgers, it's a fine place to make your first foray into radio.

Transcription Mystery Disc #52

This is another Wilcox-Gay Recordio Disc and it is in terrible, I mean terrible condition. There are cracks both parallel to, running down and running across the grooves. It's center hole is worn and its even warped. It has been wronged in almost every way possible. Bad condition can be a sign of age, but poor storage can accomplish significant damage quite quickly. I get the impression this was stored somewhere very warm.
Side A is clearly marked "No. 1, Dec. 22" No year. They always forget the year. Maddeningly parts of the audio are perfectly clear giving me false hope. I transcribe below what you have no hope of understanding from an MP3 minus the parts I find wholly unintelligible.

"Merry Christmas everyone, we're here at the ...house in Canton Missouri... They're two nice people. They've invited us over tonight we're making popcorn balls... they've also taken us around the country side to several different towns. It looks like we're going to have a white Christmas. We had a big snow last night and I cant get to see our Christmas Program until Tuesday. I am beginning to think that we're this close to southerns. We have had about 13 inches of snow here this winter. It is two below zero now and getting colder. Gina's out calling all the Cows and chickens and pigs and dogs in so they don't freeze."

But after those niceties things get strange. A man starts mooing a hollering about cows and dogs, then the sing a rousing but terribly off-key version of Jingle Bells, then back to the mooing. It's truly strange. The recording has nothing to date it by. Hypothetically some detailed weather records might help match it up but I think that's a bit much. Phonozoic identifies this specific Wilcox-Gay transcription blank as a "Wilcox-Gay Recordio Type 3A variant 1"
Which dates it to around 1947.