Transcription Mystery Disc #231

This is another 8-inch co-branded Capitol Pro-disc. Like the others it sports that matte-green color scheme and a metal core. The address given on the face of the label is no longer a radio shoppe. Today it's a doughnut shop. The disc is dated to 8/8/47.  So it's  a post-WWII recording. The rest of the text reads "Bette and Jerry Connors."  As you can see the disc has been sweating palmitic acid, indicating a gradual loss in condition. It can be cleaned at this point, but not without consequence.

I tried to rip the clean side first. Most of it was a total loss. The vocals are too soft in the face of all the surface noise. But as they gain confidence and my noise gate becomes more effective you can make out the chorus of Chattanooga Cho-Choo and then a spoken segment. The woman invites her mother to witness a record being made and she seems a bit mystified. But after that the bed noise rises again and buries the rest. The other side had far better levels.

Bette and Jerry


The dirty side (pictured) sounded fine after a wipe down and a little dish soap. The record opens with Bette naming her favorite song "If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)," then singing it.  Jerry sings a western song that seems familiar but I can't identify. He heard it "overseas" which I presume to be his service in WWII.The gist is that he intends to build them a home in the west now that she is his "little wife."  It sounds a bit condescending today.. but it was half a century ago.

Transcription Mystery Disc #210

This is an 8-inch,  metal-core, 78 rpm Capitol Pro-Disc acetate. It look sin worse shape than it actually is. The needle plowed thorough all that garbage stuck to it and right through the discolored areas. Inexplicably The sound is quite good.

Heinie - Lonesome Road


The disc is labeled in pen "Heinie, Lonesome Road" The recording is of solo piano, in a vaguely foxtrot  style. There are no vocals or accompaniment. The arrangement vaguely resembles the original 1927 by Nat Shilkret. Capitol made these blanks from the late 1940s through the 1960s but I'm going to guess this to be in the 40s.  The few 1960s discs I've seen were 12-inch in diameter so I'll favor the 1940s date based on size if nothing else.

Transcription Mystery Disc #205

This is an 8-inch metal-core, Capitol Pro-Disc. It's labeled, sort of. In red pencil it reads "Larry Carr" then an illegible line then in regular graphite is marginally more legible script... "Nice Work if you can get it."  I edited out the worst of the pops and ran it through a low pass filter to clean it up a bit.

Larry Carr


Larry Carr was a jazz singer from another era.  He sang at Hollywood supper clubs, back when there were supper clubs.  He was a crooner like a low budget Sinatra or Dean Martin. This recording is just voice and piano. Because of it's condition it's unclear if it's a live recording, radio recording or dub. The recording is undated but the other side, an unrelated recording,  is marked as December 14th 1942. I'd venture a guess that this recording wasn't much later than that.

Transcription Mystery Disc #196

This acetate is labeled "White Christmas 1946."  It's an 8-inch, metal-core Capital Pro-Disc. That white bit on the bottom half is a piece of another acetate stuck to it. I tried to remove it with an X-acto knife —no dice. Obviously this portion of the disc is not recoverable. But excluding that blemish, the recording is in surprisingly fine shape. The other side is labeled "NO GOOD" and that's a pretty accurate assessment. It has grooves but no audio data.

White Christmas


This side reveals a nice fluid solo piano performance of "White Christmas." There are no vocals btu the refrain is familiar enough. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time...which is pretty repulsive. Irving Berlin wrote it around 1940 and it's first performance was by Bing on The Kraft Music Hall program on NBC. Bing recorded it in 1942 and you know the rest. This version most have been recorded in 1942 or later. Most Capitol discs of thsi make that I've seen date to the mid 1940s so that's at least congruous.

Transcription Mystery Disc #135

This is a capitol Pro-disc that dates to 2-15-47. It spins at 78 rpm and has an outer edge start. It's labeled "Mary  Johnny Long."  The recording sounds like it's off off a radio program. It might be a recording of a program guesting or hosted by Johnny Long of the Johnny Long Orchestra. They were featured on "Teen Time" and the Judy, Joe and Johnny program among others.

Johnny Long Orchestra?



The audio on this disc is poor. The damage is unusual. It appears to have been overheated so while the groove walls have not collapsed, there is visible damage to the surface. It may even have been two discs stuck together...it's quite bad. The audio even after being edited and filtered is abysmal. There's enough signal to identify that there is some banter, some harmony singing... nothing conclusive.

Transcription Mystery Disc # 47

I have never seen one of these before. The Kathleen Smith Music Shop is listed first in a 1943 issue of Esquire. A 1948 issue of Bostonia reveals it was founded by two partners at least one of which is a University of Boston alumni: Rene E. Veins. The last references I can find are in are in a 1961 issue of the New Yorker. So the store existed for about 20 years.  the building no longer exists, and the address 267 maple street is now  a parking lot.


The disc spins at 78 rpm, has a paper core and as you can see is manufactured by Capitol. The disc is a bit beat up, but the audio is clear enough to hear a pretty slamming guitar solo by an unknown musician. It is sadly totally unlabeled, leaving me that vague two decade time frame. Even more sadly there's a puncture right in the middle of the crescendo so I'll never know how it ended.

Transcription Mystery Disc #107

I picked up two Cliff Morey branded 10-Inch 78 rpm acetates a couple years ago. I ripped one about this time last year. Both blanks are clearly made by Capitol, probably at the same plant that made Pro-Disc acetates. The address on the label  is 15409 Fenkell Street, Detroit, MI. Today it is a vacant lot. The priot disc was not labeled at all, but this one thankfully is. The artist (presumably) is Billie McGill.

The song "Goofus" is an instrumental played on piano and fiddle (in this version) was written around 1930 by Wayne King. It was covered in the 30s by Paul Goodwin, the Cumberland Ridge Runner, then later by Les Paul,  The Carpenters and even Chet Atkins. This is clearly an early version.


Cliff Morey's name, address and phone number are right there in bold print and a year later I've never found another byte of hard information elsewhere. I did find one bit of tangential but possibly unrelated information. There was a Cliff Morey employed as monotype machinist at the Sun and later at the Daily News. This is no direct connection, but the era and the region are at least correct and a machinist is a credible character to operate recording hardware.

Transcription Mystery Disc #50

I assumed from the get go that this would be the hardest one I ever researched... because it's blank.  Yes there is no audio on this disc. But having seen three other blanks of this same green and white design, I assumed that the are related. Those are here and here. I have others but they aren't ripped yet. the resemblance is to the Capitol Pro-Disc series.  With the gleaming Capitol logo at the bottom I think that it a safe supposition.The address on the label is a dead end.  Today at 1623 19th street in Bakersfield, CA is Kosmos Sports Bar.
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That lacked panache. I was hoping for a burned out storefront. Sadly every clue at that address is long gone. A random search revealed that as recently as 2005 that address was Victor Victoria's a restaurant and prior to that Goose Loonies, another Sports Bar. The 1953 issue of "The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries" Does list Tracey's Music Store. So we at last do have a time frame.

The phone number TR2-3802 which is sadly not included in the Telephone EXchange Project. My other two blanks give me a really wide range on this type of blank. Anywhere from 1948 to 1965. Phonozoic does not list the Capitol Pro Disc either and probably for the same reason.

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

Transcription Mystery Disc #84

This is the best mystery disc ever. The blank is clearly made by capitol, probably at the same plant that made Pro-Disc acetates. The man's name, address and phone number are right there in bold print and I cant find a single byte of information else-wise.

The address 15409 Fenkell Street, Detroit, MI is at the intersection of Fenkell and Prest Streets; four corners occupied by the palms night Club, a pizza joint and two empty lots. The empty lot is where Mr. Cliff Morey should reside. But once there stood an appliance company that specialized in radios and apparently... recording. I found a few addresses in an undated directory for Fenkell street. It's probably 1950s and it does have that address but it lists both Lloyd's Hardware and Lowe Bro's Paint glass & Tool... No Cliff Morey. I have two discs.. each side is a completely different recording. This one has the best clarity and the only spoken segment of introduction.

It spins at 78 rpm and starts at the outer edge. One disc has two tracks on one side. This one plows straight through. The intro says "This record recorded especially for ray Benny dance studios..." then he names a neighborhood or a street that sounds like "Waltkline." The rest of the recording is piano and dance instruction "Jump-shuffle-step-step, step-kick-hop."