Transcription Mystery Disc #235

Jose Fritz archives

I was recently contacted by a descendant of Frank L. Eulau. You may or may not know that name, but a few years back I stumbled upon a short stack of his discs in a junk shoppe. I digitized and posted one here perviously. The brand of the disc is uncertain but I suspect it is an Audiodisc. The blank is a 10-inch, metal-core, 78 rpm acetate recording, with an outer edge start.  The sides are numbered 1- 6, but there are two discs bearing the sides 3 and 4, leading me to believe these are a mix of at least two different "sets."

Frank Eulau - 02/17/1955 (3:20)
*****audio expired**** 

The music seems to be Greek... possibly Turkish the capital letter appear to be Cyrillic. as is the rest of the labeling. Thankfully the dates are legible. The home made labels indicate that Frank was an amateur engineer of some kind and that he probably had a bit of practice before he recorded any of these. The only problem is that they have been played. They haven't been played to death, but enough to create some surface noise. I reduced the tracking weight and gave the disc a good wipe-down before giving it a go. It came out quite nicely.

Transcription Mystery Disc #222

This is a 10-Inch metal-core Audiodisc brand acetate recording. It is unusual, but this one is labeled, excessively labeled even with notes scribbled all over the sleeve in addition to the label the sleeve reads "E-2 They'd 2 at jerky phrasing 3-22-55 33 1/3 S Barber Gloria 1.00" then in the lower corner an address in pencil, perhaps unrelated "Sandy 2705 Newberry St. Williamsport"  The back side of the sleeve reads "Juan Benfer P.D. 1. Selinsgrove Penn." I'm translating from arcane cursive so some of those may be wrong. (I still maintain it should be banned.)

Gloria Dawn Barber


On the label of the disc it reads "Barber, Gloria side 1 Sept 21, 1954 Standar 33 1/3 Dec 14 1954 33S." I assume these are different recordings on that side of the disc. It has five widely separated tracks. the text on the sleeve may indicate the disc was also used the following Spring by another person. I believe these are students at a school, probably around Williamsport.

The recordings are of a young lady reading and being recorded onto an acetate. The last one, not noted on the sleeve actually dates to Wednesday May 11 1955. These are not the foreign language class recordings I suspected at first. Instead these appear to be reading tests. Gloria Dawn Barber seems to be reading from a the same source text as another disc I once ripped that I got from a completely difference source in Mt Carmel, PA. See post here. It was recording on the same brand of blank, and the following Fall but I suspect this is related somehow.

Recording Blanks For All Purposes

You may want to zoom in for this. This is a panel from an Allied Electronics catalog detailing all the acetate blanks they have for sale. Most of them are Audiodisc and Presto brands. The cheapest were paper-core discs at only 20 center per disc. The most expensive were their 17.5-inch "Master Discs" at a whopping $3.40 each. I've never seen one. The generic available was Knight, a brand I've also never seen.

Transcription Mystery Disc #201

Good gravy I've got a lot of these. Good thing I sold off a few. A gentleman at WMKV actually bought one of my stacks which is a pleasure and an honor. This week's disc is a nice metal-core 12-Inch from NOLA Recording Studios. Under the NOLA label it clearly reads Audiodisc. I have a few of these and they are all de-laminating form the outer edge a bit but none have lost audio data to that process yet.

 Gown of Lace


The recording is of a woman singing with piano accompaniment. The style is dated even for the 1940s so I'm thinking these didn't make any kind of commercial release. High falsetto operatic vocals with a lot of vibrato, paired with parlor room piano. It's a throw back to the 1930s.

NOLA Studios was not in New Orleans. It was at 1657 Broadway in New York City. The y operated from around 1942 through the early 1960s. FYI: that's also the same address as WMCA-AM after the station relocated in 1938. NOLA had another space on 57th street called Steinway Hill. The label has the song titles listed but not the artist. The songs are "Gown of Lace", and "Ain't Cha Don't Like Me." I'm not at all familiar with the song. Without the artist listed I'm going to take an educated guess and date it to the early-mid 1940s.

Transcription Mystery Disc #197

This 12-Inch, metal-core Audiodisc brand acetate has a center start with is uncommon. It's in nice shape except for some notable oxidation. I was able to wipe off much of the whitish coating of palmitic acid. This indicated increased bed noise but it was tolerable. I edited a couple pops off the start of the recording to soften the one problematic area. Sadly it's wholly unlabeled.

Unknown Clarinet


The recording is of an unknown jazzy organ and clarinet duo. There are no vocals and I don't recognize the tune. The arrangement is a bit strange but speaks of a level of competence that's interesting. I wish I knew who this was.

Transcription Mystery Disc #184

This is a  78 rpm 10-inch metal-core, transcription disc. It has 3 tracks and starts at the outer edge. It's in very nice shape and required little manipulation beyond a bit of amplification to get the mp3 in this shape. It had very low surface noise. That always helps. It's dated in pencil, 10-6-46. I have no reason to doubt it. The metal core has heft, and is not as flexible as the later metal-core discs.

Richard Matthews



This disc opens with a woman speaking a single introductory sentence "This is Richard Matthews recording from his own home." Then presumably it's Richard Matthews who tears into some jazzy clarinet lines. He opens with a bit of "St. Louis Blue", then an original "Two Grunts and a Groan" then "Beal Street Blues which is introduced by a young child. Right before the recording runs out is a man's voice says Bluest Blues ever heard, Goodnight" It sounds like a tape recording. This was either very cleverly staged or done in a small home studio with a tape deck.

Transcription Mystery Disc #180

This is a 10-inch metal-core Audiodisc with an outer edge start. It is labeled on one side in pen, and the other in pencil in different handwriting indicating the recordings did not take place at the same time. One side reads "John J. Zellen, Mt. Joy, Penna."  The other side bears only a date September 6, 1948.

John & Marion
 

The recording is of a couple, John and Marion, who are planning to visit what sounds like some of his family. Their names are given at various points on the recording as Hazel, Johnny, Gary, Terry and Grandma.They have a road trip up Route 66, with planned stops in Madison and Chicago on the way to Pennsylvania.  he even gives their starting address as 241 West 71st street in Los Angeles. The neighborhood is residential now as it surely was then. Today it's situated in the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles.

Transcription Mystery Disc # 176

This is not the kind of disc I normally find. It's a 10-inch Audio disc with an outer-edge start. It spins at 78 rpm though I had to rip it at 33 rpm because of a notable curvature in the disc. It's is labeled in nice clear block letters "9th Inning 2nd game of 1947 World Series Yankees-10 Dogers-3" This is a recording of the last minutes of the most famous 9th inning rally in Baseball history.

1947 World Series

 
The recording is just a bit over 4 minutes long and about half way in Mel Allen introduces "the old red Head," Red Barber who is heard for the rest of the recording. Allen wasn't just a sports fan, he was also a radio man. He started out in 1933 announcing college football games on 960 WBRC-AM in Birmingham. His sports broadcasting career at CBS started in 1937 where he stayed until the Yankees fired him as an announcer in 1964. They brought him back in 1976. In 1990 he guested and did play-by-play on WPIX-TV for a Yankees game making him the oldest sportscaster of the day at 77.  He died in 1996.

Transcription Mystery Disc #165

This disc is clearly a genuine radio transcription. The radio stations call letters WPAZ are emblazoned on the label in dark blue letters on a bold orange background.  The 33 rpm speed is scratched out and 78 written below it in pen. The typewritten text says "The Easter Story, Side 1 of a set of 10."  The recording if of an Easter Church Service segmented for transcription recording. I have all 5 discs (two sides each) but there is no way I am ripping them all. This is all you get.

The Easter Story
~audio taken down~

It is clear that this was recorded at or by 1370 WPAZ-AM in Pottstown. Moreover that it was recorded on or near Easter Sunday but there is no sign of the year. The envelope the discs came in has the post mark torn off. The station signed on in 1951 and signed off in 2009 so it can only be between those dates. Because of the format my assumption is that it dates to the mid 1950s. I have no other basis on which to guess.

Transcription Mystery Disc #163

This disc (and the rest of the set) spin at 78 rpm  and are 10-inches in diameter. Most of the discs have Audiodisc brand sleeves indicating the brand of blank beneath the logo. This song cannot be used for correlative dating as it was composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1909, more here.  These thankfully are dated. The set of discs all date from different months in 1950. Online I have also seen discs bearing the Ely logo from 1952 and 1954. That makes for a nice tight grouping indicating an era in which he was active.

Ely recordings were made by Mr. George Ely of Mt. Holly Springs PA. I suspect he was the same George Ely that played drums for the band the PA Turnpike, also known as The Shades. But it's hard to say it could just as easily been a relative or George Sr. or an unrelated George Ely.

Go Song Of Mine


This George Ely made the rounds recording school bands around new England. His recordings noted online include bands from as far west as the Michigan Marching Band, and as far north as the University of New Hampshire Summer Youth Music School Chorus. He probably didn't travel as much as that sounds. It appears from the sets of discs that are being found together that he was recoding school band concerts with multiple bands and conductors performing.

Transcription Mystery Disc #155

This is a 6.5 inch Audiodisc brand acetate recording. It spins at 78 rpm and has a center start.  It's a good thing it starts at the center because the lip had a bad dent making the outer laps unplayable. It's also spent some serious time in the sun. The lacquer has faded to yellow in bits, something I've only seen rarely. The dust washed off easily and the audio beneath is quite nice. I've ripped both sides and spliced them together. The sides are labeled but not with dates or names just as "Lang As MC" and "Party - Lang as MC" But it's cursive so maybe that L is a J, the g could be a y. So maybe that's Jany not Lang... My confidence is low with cursive. I hate cursive.

Larry's Drunken Party


The recording of of some drunk people at a party. Larry announces that he is "full of beer." Some guy nicknamed "Red" says hello and burps. Jay Stewart makes duck noises. Someone else is trying out the word mañana. Drunk people shouting into the microphone, drinking, singing, telling half a joke then drinking more. It's pretty funny. But it seems destined to remain unidentified. The song they sing at the end doesn't ring any bells, might be a school song. That's my only hope for a clue.

Transcription Mystery Disc #152

This disc is from my short stack of experimental discs that were resurfaced and chemically stripped. They are individual little mysteries from some long lost amateur mad scientist. This audio disc is strained green by who knows what. It spins at 78 RPM, and has a center start. One side is stripped nearly to the metal core with nary an intelligible tone remaining. tauntingly it was labeled "Radio Record"  The other side is labeled "No Play = Spoiled."  Inexplicably that one is the playable side.

Testing Eleven


For a second I thought it was a tone, then I realized he was whistling. There were several breaks in the track then the engineer counts off "Testing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11..." then breaks into a gibberish song based on the numeral eleven. The speed and pitch changes are indigenous to the record. I'd rate this as the most amusing acetate I've digitized that wasn't recorded by drunk people.

Transcription Mystery Disc #151

I have no idea what happened to this disc. The original blank was a 6.5" Audiodisc, with a center start, but the surface looks like it's melted into the label. It looks like it was melted at high temperatures in a stack with other acetates and instead of bursting into flame they stuck together. There are chunks both torn out and stuck to the groove.  My guess is that this disc fell victim to a solvent spill. Depending on the type of "lacquer" it could have been be acetone, turpentine, or even alcohol. Some frugal sadist tried to re-record something over that mangled disc surface.On the back side he/she clearly painted over the surface of an old recording with what looks like white latex paint. On that one bizarre surface I was able to recover some audio.

Infant


I ripped it at 33.3 RPM to help ease the needle over those chunks of acetate. When played back at slow speed the recording was strangely clear but also strangely unintelligible. It sounded like a cow wailing in pain, or maybe an insane person grunting. When I corrected the speed I realized that it was a baby crying.When the speed was corrected I found the engineer counting off the start of the recording. The disc stuck to it in the stack is dated 1947. That's my best guess. In that case, that baby would be at least 65 today.

Transcription Mystery Disc #123

While that's clearly a private recording label above, the label under it is also clearly an Audiodisc. The back side is labeled very clearly, the artist is David Greth, the song is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  The song is an old English nursery rhyme which is at least over 200 years old. But this recording is clearly dated to 1956. Hooray for clear handwriting!

 David Greth


The 78 rpm disc is in good shape, has an outer-edge start and is 12-inches in diameter. It has a couple scratches and a bit of crud stuck on one spot but otherwise even has a nice shine too  it. I edited just 4 pops and added a light low pass filter to mellow out the surface noise.

The recording is not a child's recital. This is a version of the famous Mozart work "Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je, Maman.'" "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman is a French song written in 1761 which the "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" melody is based on.  David Greth is quite a competent pianist. Enjoy.

Transcription Mystery Disc #28

This disc is in rough shape. Both sides had partial de-lamination. This is the better of the two sides. It took a low pass filter very well and despite appearances, is surprisingly listenable... at least in terms of old acetates. The other side is missing the label entirely. This one is labeled "I Won't Cry."  My initial assumption was that this was a version of the Bobby Vinton song of the same title, but it is not.

The lyrics appear to be original, and the rendition is accapella. Phonozoic dates this type of Audiodisc acetate to the 1940s. I have no reason to think this 7-Inch disc is otherwise. It spins at 78 rpm, and starts at the outer edge. That and the wear pattern is at least consistent with the vintage.

Transcription Mystery Disc #26

This disc is clearly a later era disc as it spins at 33rpm with an outer edge start. I will also note that it uses a generic Audio Devices label over top of a generic Audiodisc label. the label was typed out and stuck over the stock label. I've included scans of both sides of the disc as they have different information.  One side lists "Cohoes" a town just outside Albany, NY. with a July 30th date. The other side is labeled for Maryland, MD. It is that side which I was able to identify easily. The label recommends shadow-graphed steel needles. The earliest advert I can find for those date to 1945. Audio Devices, Inc. manufactured of Audiodiscs until Capitol took over in the late 1960s.

Both sides of the disc appear to be live field recordings of the Reilly Raiders, a drum and bugle corps that still exists today. The group was founded in 1946 by returning veterans of WWII. This makes the 1955 date totally plausible.While the group is based in Philadelphia, they definitely travel around to perform in other cities so Baltimore and Cohoes are not a stretch geographically.
The audio is pretty good, it cleaned up easily with a low pass filter. I chopped out a four-and-a-half minute sample from the better of the two sides. But these sides are hand-numbered as 15 and 16. It intimates there are another 14 discs of drum corps out there somewhere. Hopefully some of them made it into the hands of the Reilly Raiders.

Transcription Mystery Disc #92

This actually came into my possession as a pair of 16-inch acetate recordings. I got then in Nevada which is about where the story ends as far as it's provenance. the artist, engineer, venue and region remain unknown.  Not one of the four sides of the two discs has a complete label.  The largest swatch (above) is the size of a postage stamp and bears the date 8-8-54.  it's written three times indicating that the complete label had song titles which were dated individually by recording date. Also, the two discs bear large roman numerals I, II, V, and VI.  These were sides 1,2 5, & 6 indicating that there was at one time at least one more disc in the set. Between the two discs there were 24 tracks of very good fidelity. I post two below:
"Joy Cometh in the Morning"

"We Are Ever Building Temples"


It's simple hymns mostly, a male and female duo, with piano accompaniment. I did spend some time Identifying the tracks.  Many of the songs are covers of old southern gospel numbers, but some seem to be are unidentified originals.  All cuts were recorded at least twice, but there were four takes of "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." I also note that "Till the Whole World Knows" and "Whispering Hope" were both covered by Jim Reeves in the early 1950s. I suspect they were big fans.
When I Kneel Down to Pray
Living for Jesus a Life That is True
I Come To The Garden Alone 
Till the Whole World Knows
An Evening Prayer
Whispering Hope
Take My Hand, Precious Lord
Face to Face with Christ My Savior
Living for Jesus a life that is true
Face To Face

Transcription Mystery Disc #72

This transcription disc came in a Columbia 78 rpm sleeve that is probably 20 years older than the recording. Neither side of the disc is labeled in any way and only one side is recorded on at all. That one recording is only 3 minutes long, at 33 rpm and  starting at the outer edge.  It has some oxidation, but plays fairly well and is indeed mostly listenable with no filtering or other manipulation.
The host is very professional sounding.  The first clear phrase to my ear is "Located in Oji, Japan" the phrase is in English so some obvious questions emerge and are immediately answered. At the end of the recording he restates it all more clearly.  "...this is Army Radio Correspondence Specialist 3rd class Roger Dale speaking to you from the 29th Engineer Batalion located at Oji, Japan in central Honshu."

He interviews PFC Thomas P. Needlecorn from Greenville, Ohio who is being discharged the following December. No year is mentioned. Some of the ambient noises make it seem more authentic to me. About two minutes in you start hearing the background you can hear large vehicles, and even distant voices.I cant find a single reference for the surname "Needlecorn" and I suspect I am spelling it wrong, or that it is fake.  But the 28th Engineer Battalion is real and was in japan in an appropriate time frame for this recording to have occurred there as this suggests.  I quote below from  Global Security.org:

"In 1954 the Battalion assumed responsibility for Korea and Okinawa and moved to Tokyo, Japan. There it absorbed elements of the 64th Engineer Battalion and continued its mission of providing topographic support to U.S. and Allied forces in the Pacific Theatre, particularly to combat commands in Southeast Asia"

Lacking a direct date I'll put this recording in the mid 1950s. Admittedly I have seen ones with the exact same label from the mid 1940s, the 33rpm speed really has to put this at no earlier than 1948 so that fits our window nicely. It was probably recorded with at least the intent to broadcast, but it might also have been a discarded take from a practice session.

Transcription Mystery Disc #61

The disc here was in surprisingly good condition.  It is a 12-inch acetate starts at the outer edge and spins at 78 rpm with several tracks on each side.  It comes in two very different segments. First G.K. Paterson dubs a Spanish language lesson tape (presumably lesson 1-B) but it's not dubbed line-in. From the audio quality it's pretty clear that he just puts the mic near the speaker. But the EQ loss was pretty predictable. What it sounded like was a phone call, so I knew that the easiest way to remove noise was to chop out the audio outside that range with a bandpass filter. I chopped the frequency response to between 350 cycles and 3,500 cycles per second.  I tried it again at 500 and 2500 and found it almost indistinguishable but significantly more clear as some surface noise obviously exists above and below that frequency.
The recording of his own voice reading the lesson is much clearer. I used only one of the readings, and selected the clearest one. That portion of the audio leads as it has the best fidelity.the recording overall isn't a huge mystery compared to the other discs I've ripped. We have a last name, and a first initial, no school or lesson book name but that may be too much to ask. Date is probably mid 1940s based on the Yellow audiodisc label, but I have seen 10" discs with the same label used into the 1950s.  I'd err toward the latter based on the condition.

Transcription Mystery Disc #73

I bought this Disc at a flea market. There was a filing cabinet and each drawer was full of discs. I bought half a dozen, and this one because it was odd. This is a particularly strange transcription because it is so well labeled, but none of it led to anything. What is The Abbott Champion?

That big label you see above was stuck on right over an Audio Disc label. There's a blank Audiodisc label on the b-side. The b-side is blank. As the label suggests it was recorded from the outside edge and spins at 33.3 rpms. This dates it to the 1950s which is congruous with the date on the disc of July 1958. There are two takes of the song on side A, I include them both. the second one has a sax intro instead of piano. Vocals are by District 12, wherever or whoever that may be. It's not a high school, these are clearly adult male voices. Perhaps a union? One hint is the label itself. Clearly many copies were made. I'd guess enough for the choir members, maybe extended family, maybe more but nothing retailable.
The lyricist and conductor is Ralph Spence. the song "The Happy Wanderer" was a popular song written by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller after World War II. In 1953, BBC Radio aired the Obernkirchen Children's Choir performing the tune. It made the UK singles chart in 1954. In reading the original lyrics it's clear that this recorded version has slightly different words but I cant make them all out. So I know when, but not who or why or where.