This is a 6.5-inch metal-core Federal Perma Disk. It spins at 78 rpm and has an outer edge start. it's labeled on each side with the phrase "Play this side first" and "Play this side second." The date is written as Dec 1940. It's refreshing to find one with a date for once.
Play this side first (Dec 1940)
The label is torn on one side and the disc slightly bent. But as with many metal core discs.. that can be ameliorated with a very judicious application of force. I don't recommend that technique for archival work... but that's not what we do here. The recording isn't free of surface noise but it was entirely listenable with no apparent wear. I ripped both sides and edited them together with a short gap.
The recording is an Xmas greeting with organ accompaniment to a couple in Florida. The recipients are identified only as Dr. and Mrs. Knight. The recording engineer briefly speaks on Side B and his name was Mr. O'Brien.The speakers accent and cadence are confident.. like an orator, DJ or preacher. I wish that his name had been included.
This is a 6.5 inch metal-core Federal Perma disk. It spins at 78 rpm and is in fine condition. But as per the average, it is wholly unlabeled. The audio is good, no damage, just a few minor pops I was able to easily edit out. The disc is unmarred, unbent and even in the original sleeve. The recording is of piano with a small choir accompaniment. I was even able to identify the song for once.
I Love You Truly
The song is "I love you truly" written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond, it first hit #1 in 1912 as performed by Elsie Baker. But it's been covered ahundred times by all the usual names: Bing Crosby, Pat Boone, Erskine Hawkins, The Ink Spots, Liberace, Guy Lombardo, Lawrence Welk and even Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker in the TV show All In The Family in the 1970s. This recording surely dates to the early 1940s. What version inspired them here I can't say, but I do recognize the lyrics...
I love you truly, truly dear,
Life with its sorrow, life with its tear
Fades into dreams when I feel you are near
For I love you truly, truly dear.
Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand
Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;
Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,
For you love me truly, truly dear.
This is a 78rpm Federal Perma Disk it's dated and labeled in pencil leaving less mystery than usual. The scrawl isn't even in the dreaded cursive, it reads "9-21-40 Moon River DeVore Sisters" Moon River was a radio program that ran night program that ran on WLW-AM in Cincinnati, OH. it was really mellow, sort of like elevator music. It was cancelled in 1953, revived immediately then killed again in 1972. The show actually began airing in 1930 so this 1940 program is well into it's run. I ripped one other disc from this set already here.
DeVore Sisters
The DeVore sisters were a bit of a house band on WLW in those days. They were a trio of actual sistes including Billie, Ruth and Marge. Then when Ruth left, Barbara Cameron filled in. Barbara actually outloved the troupe going into television at WKRC-TV later on. More here and here.
A note on the longevity of the Moon River program though. Both the Jay Hickerson History of Network Programming and the John Dunning Encyclopedia of Old time Radio list the program as ending in 1940 or ambiguous 1940s. The only source for it running longer is a Cincinnati Magazine article from 1985 and a Time Magazine article abstract from 1954. Wikipedia makes up it's own bunkum version of history referencing all three of those sources but adhering to none. My recordings corroborate add nothing to that conversation since they all date to either 1940 or 1941.
This disc spins at an oddball 39 rpm with an outer edge start. How do I know it's 39 rpm? Well for starters it's labeled that way and when I digitized it, the speed was clearly too slow at 33, and too fast at 45. So after some tweaking, my ear naturally found it about 10% faster than 33 rpm... so they were at least in the ballpark. The Dixon Family
This Federal Perma Disk dates to October 14th 1945. Fred the engineer dutifully labeled both sides of the disc properly. He even left a note that the other side came out poorly so I knew not to bother with it. I the end I tried a few things with the audio and found a basic low pass filter to be the least offensive change. There was another minute of a small child named Marlene, warbling in the beginning that I tripped off, she was virtually inaudible with anything less than a harsh noise filter. Still quite audible are Fred, Toots and Skipper. At the end "Daddy Dixon" thanks Fred for being the engineer. However, if Fred had recorded this at 45 rpm instead, it would have sounded much better.
This is a 6.5-Inch Federal Perma Disk. the word root "perma" insinuates permanent but it's not. The b-side has a bad split separating the track into two non-contiguous segments. Only this side is readily playable. Phonozoic identifies this type as Type 2 (Red.) The disc is dated as 9-29-40. These discs were made by the Federal Recorder Co. They advertised for a couple years in the Broadcasting Year Book. In several editions (1939, 1941 and 1965) editions, they are listed as located at 50 West 75th street, New York City, the manager as M.M. Pochapin. Pochapin was a bit of an eccentric. He is described in the August, 1936 issue of Time Magazine as a kazoo salesman. His eponymous corporation manufactured the "Bob Burns Kazooed Bazooka", a foot long kazoo-like noise-maker. It makes a 78 rpm home recording seem a bit pedestrian.
This recording is a letter to a kid away at school. the front appears to read RECORDED BY "the gang" which consists of John, Merle, Doris and perhaps a few others chortling in the background. They are his immediate family and he's away at school somewhere. The location is actually given but the man with the mic moves it at the worst possible time and rendered that unintelligible. The state is New York. His name sounds like George Wood, but the rest of the writing is more or less unreadable. (I despise cursive.)
The audio quality is good with a notable noise floor but a good signal to noise ratio. I edited out the bad pops and adjusted the volume. The result is very listenable and clear whenever the mic is properly used.
I collect acetates and other home acetate recordings. Most of them date from after 1940 and before 1960. But until recently they were all aluminum core or paper core. Both were delicate in different ways. Recently I found three at a church yard sale made of glass. I knew they existed, but I'd never seen any before. All three disks are identical makes of Federal Perma Disks. One was broken, one was cracked and one was intact. I bought them all. I read it in a text book some years ago. The reference went something like this: "Glass was also used during World War II, when aluminum was in short supply." They are somewhat rare in comparison to the other two types of blanks having been made almost exclusively between 1938 and 1942. That said, Emile Berliner's early blanks in 1887 were made of glass as well.
Two of them are playable, not that jumping that crack is good for the needle or the lacquer. But glass, beyond begin fragile, has a problem. Things do not stick to it very well. The labels and the acetate coating are trying to peel off the glass at every touch. I scanned the broken one (above) as it is beyond hope and am trying to touch the other two as little as possible. All six sides were used, and labeled, even numbered! But the damage to the labels is significant leaving me with partial labels on every side.
The recording is of accordionist Isabel Rozen. On the 6th side she notate inexplicably: "This is dark eyes." Aside from the glass blank, this is otherwise normal, the 10-inch disc recording starts at the outer edge and spins at 78 rpm.
Broken Disk - 8/31/42
1. Stardust
2. (Unknown)
Intact Disc - ?
3. Waltz N---
4. Fox Trot M----
Cracked Disc - 8/31/42
5. (Unknown)
6. Miss You - Aloha Oe
All surviving labels date the sides identically so it's safe to assume the set was recorded at that time since they were numbered. August 31st 1942 was a Monday. It was a scary time, Germany had attacked Russia, and the war was ramping up hence the Aluminum shortage. The continuity is all there. But there is no clue to who Miss Rozen was, or where this was recorded. that appears to be lost forever.
If this persons handwriting was more clear, tracking this one down would have been easier. It's very frustrating to find a disc that actually is labeled but that the label is nearly indecipherable. Only the date is clear 9-24-40, almost exactly 70 years ago. The rest is harder to read than doctors handwriting. Other than that it's relatively common in composition. It spins at 78 rpm with an outer edge start. The A and B sides appear to have been recorded on different dates with unrelated content.
I can infer some things from context. It came from a stack of other Perma Disks from that era, many with similar handwriting, a few that are certainly the same. I think under "speed" it says Moon River. Several other discs were labeled "Moon River." My first thought was that some person had been bootlegging various versions of the song Moon River. This was wrong. The song Moon River wasn't written until 1961. (It's by by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini) It turned out to be a very obscure radio program.
Moon River was a late-night radio program on 700 WLW-AM in Cincinnati. Moon River ran until the WLW sign off at night. It had what would now be considered an odd mixture of soft, "dreamy" organ music and romantic poetry. It was sponsored by Southern Cross Spring Mattress Company. It's run was surprisingly long, it began in 1930 and continued into 1972. Actually station management tried to cancel the dinosaur in 1953 but it's loyal listenership rebelled and the show was reinstated. In 1995, WMKV on 89.3 revived it for a four-year encore with it's original narrator Bill Myers. You can download some programs at Archive.org HERE.
This disc has about 2 minutes of music and poetry from the original Moon River somewhere in it's second decade of broadcasting. But Moon River is still alive. In December of 2007 Ward Glen, a later Moon River announcer started a late night poetry and organ music program on Sonoma California radio station 91.3 KSVY with organist Everett Lehman. More here.
It was very quickly clear that this was a recording of a wedding. but it was the packaging that attracted me to it. it came in the original 5-disc package for the Federal Perma-Disk Blanks It was still unlabeled and the decenter hole was too narrow for my spindle. I had to file it a tad with a very small round file so it could accommodate a standard spindle.That and the general good condition of the disc lead me to believe that it was never played. the crooked label tells me that the packages were probably labeled by hand in the factory. A machine would have almost certainly centered them better.
Phonozoic lists no dates for most Federal Perma Disk recordings. one type, not this one sadly is dated to 1948. Thankfully I have others of this exact type in my collection, and they were all dated to between 1940 and 1944. So I tend to favor a date earlier than the date Phonozoic gives. But the disc itself is unlabeled, and the contents therein do not reveal a date, it gives the day June 10th but not the year.
The disk itself played very well, and made for a good quality digitization. it spun at 78 rpm, and started at the outer edge. I edited together sides A and B into one track for your convenience. It opens with a few bars of a choral "Here Comes the Bride". The bride's name is given as Elaine Redlin which I take as a maiden name. Several brides maids and female relatives also give their names: Mildred Waters, Gertie, Hazel, Elaine, Mickey, Ruth Yancey, Ruth Hatten, Lenore and Elaine's Mother. In the background the girls giggle throughout the recorded greetings. These are a bit stiff like they might be reading from a script. On the B side is another longer choral tune, I assume the brides maids are doing the actual singing. I bought the disc near Milwaukee, WI and their accents give me every reason to think that it was recorded locally.
I bought a lot of 78s as I sometimes do. Occasionally I find a transcription disc. This one is the best ever. It's recorded to a Federal Perma Disk. these help up well. many "unreleased" recording of the Ink spots, the Mills Brothers, Al Jolsen and Louie Armstrong came off these .
It's a letter home but it's in the format of a radio show titled "Hooper's Madhouse" It was recorded July 24th 1944. The recording engineer is "R. Hooper" and probably also the host. He says he broadcasting to California.. where I assume this was mailed. My only other clue other than family names is that the mother "Evelyn" says warshing instead of washing. It's not strong, but it's there. Clearly mid-western. But she also says Y'all. He has a decent intro and even a pretty good singing voice. I struggled a bit with Side A and there are a couple un-navigable skips in the first few seconds it clears up. I also included this non-contiguous section of him fumbling with the machine at the end of Side A. Side B has much better tracking in my rip.
All content herein should be considered to have a Creative-commons-like license with the sole exclusion of Wikipedia. I welcome use of my research by all writers, readers and researchers except those that would publish such information on Wikipedia. Thank you.
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