Transcription Mystery Disc #214

This is a red Wilcox Gay Recordio. It's 8-inches in diameter, spins at 78 rpm and has a metal core. There is some damage to the outermost grooves but the audio cleans up in about 30 seconds. The disc is unlabeled and comes from that mystery stack I connect to WIP-AM in the mid 1940s.

The opening song starts with the lyrics "When I was union, handsome and only 17."  The rest of the song continues as you might expect. This could either be a long lost Union organizer song or a long lost Civil war Union army song. The basic gist is that union guys get all the babes. (I've heard the same thing.)

When I was Union


It's followed by a recording of a crooned version of "Let The Rest Of The World Go By."  The singer appears to be Gene Autry, and the narrator is "Gary".   The song isn't a part of a program, it's a part of an advertisement for Doublemint Gum.  The program is probably Gene Autry's Melody Ranch which was sponsored by Wrigley's.

Sig Alert!

 Every major metropolitan area has it's highway information system. Californiahas Sig alerts. A "Sig Alert" is defined by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) as any unplanned event that causes the closing of one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or more." Sig Alerts are carried on radio, television, highway message signs, and posted on their Web site. The actually made it into the dictionary in 1993.

While the California Highway Patrol currently issues these messages, they used to originate with L.A.P.D.  They began issuing Sig Alerts in 1955. The story begins in that year with a man named Loyd "Sig" Sigmon. He was the co-owner of AM radio station 710 KMPC-AM in Los Angeles, with Bob Reynolds. It was at the time part of the Golden West Broadcasting network. Yes, that's the one founded by Gene Autry.

Los Angeles radio stations began carrying traffic information early on. There were 74 million cars in the United States by 1960. We got there very quickly. There were only about 4,000 in 1900 and less than 200 miles of road were even paved. large cities led the way, so they also had the curse of leading in traffic, gridlock and car wrecks. [ref hypertextbook]  The anecdotal version is that people began calling the police department, soliciting traffic information. I cant corroborate thsi at all.  What is certain is that it was Sigmon who convinced the L.A.P.D. to call KMPC-AM when accidents were effecting traffic. KMPC summarized all this in regular traffic reports. Sigmon thought it woudl be good for ratings. He was right. More here.

Loyd C. Sigmon was a true radioman, (W6LQ) actually an engineer by trade. He began his broadcasting career in 1932 at the Boston Short Wave and Television Laboratories. He joined KMPC in 1941, 11 years before he Bob Reynolds and Gene Autry had purchased it. Sig was also in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. So it's unsurprising that Sig had a hardware solution to collecting these disparate traffic reports from the police. It was a reel-to-reel tape deck that recorded automatically when it was triggered by a tone. This allowed the police to phone in the reports in an automated fashion via the regular police dispatch frequency of 1730 kc.

LAPD's chief, William H. Parker who later insisted they be called "Sig Alerts" was also the person who insisted that KMPC not have a monopoly on the information. But the stations that participated also had to use the specially made Sig Alert reel-to-reel decks. The words Sigalert" were stenciled on the side. In 1969, the Calofirnia Highway patrol assumed responsibility for freeway traffic from the LAPD and also the mantle of control over sig alterts. They worked to expand it state wide. Messages are still broadcast on the current CHP  frequency - 42.34 MHz. But the information is mroe commonly acquired directly from the CHP's website. Loyd C. Sigmon died in 2004. He was 95 years old.

Transcription Mystery Disc #78

Mr. George C. Strange recorded two old country songs, "You Are My Sunshine" and "South of the Border." It is a 78 rpm transcription most likely in the 1940s by a totally unknown musician. Audiodisc blanks of this make were available for years before and after the songs were first published.
The first, You are my Sunshine, was written in 1939 by Governor Jimmie Davis of Louisiana. The second, South of the Border, was written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr but best known for it's 1939 performance by Gene Autry in a film by the same name.


The convergence of the two dates probably dates this disc to 1940 or as late as 1942. I considered that it might be a recording by George Glenn Strange, an old black& white western movie villain. I have confirmed that he did play guitar. But I can find no record of recordings, not even novelty records. It may also be George Strange & His Memory Ranch Boys, a Hillbilly artist who recorded between 1946 and 1956. These are all possibilities.. nothing is certain. The recordings are in rough shape... the first 20 seconds of each suffer from a crease in the thin aluminum blank beneath the black acetate.

Gene Autry's radio station

Gene Autry, western star and recording legend was a good capitalist. He didn't just put his money in the bank to gather dust. He bought stuff. Since satellite radio, PCs and ipods had not yet been invented be started companies. He owned Golden West Broadcasting which in turn owned KMPC-AM, KOOI-AM, KOWL-AM, KPHO-AM, KOPO-AM, KSFO-AM, KTLA-TV and the California Angels baseball team. Let's focus on KMPC since I care less about baseball than TV.

Today KMPC-1540 is known in LA as 1540 The Ticket. It's owned and operated by the radio division of the Sporting News magazine under the company Rose City Radio. They compete directly with KSPN-AM, (ESPN outlet obviously) How the station got from the bedazzled hangs of Mr. Autry to a sporting magazine is kind of interesting. Go here, click the pic.

Let's move backwards. In September of last year KMPC's parent company was sold to American City Business Journals (ACBJ) with a block of other stations. ACBJ bought Sporting News at the same time. They used the brand to develop what they thought would be a competitor to the dominant ESPN brand. Before that it was on 710, and that was the stick that Gene owned. The irony is that today 710 is KSPN-AM, that aforementioned ESPN competitor.

The station first went on air in 1927 with the call letters KRLO and the frequency of 1170. it was started by a real Estate Developer and a Stock Broker. A year later the money men bailed, selling the station to engineer Ernest J. Krause who renames the station for himself with the calls KEJK. He offloads the hot potato the same year to R.S. MacMillan Petroleum Company. they start a dayshare with KFSG the station airing insane drug-addled mumbling from Aimee McPherson. In 1929 the gasman moves the stick to 710 to get away from Aimees death cult. http://www.710kmpc.com/kmpc61.rm

MacMillan tried to change the KEJK call letters to KMP the same year, but the call were already assigned to the Omaha-based Boeing Air Transportation Co. They retry in 1930 and settle naming it after themselves, MacMillan Petroleum Company. In 1932 they accept an offer from the Beverly Hills Broadcasting Co. It's major stockholders were all stars and starlets, including Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman, “Amos & Andy” (Freeman Gosden & Charles Corell) and others.

The movie stars ran the station into the ground and by June of 1934, the Beverly Hills Broadcasting Co was in receivership. It was acquired by Pacific Southwest Discount Corporation and in turn purchased by Detroit businessman George Richards for $125,000. Things are profitable and stable until Dick kicks the bucket in 1952. It was only then, that the widowed Mrs. Richard offloads the station and Gene Autry became the principal owner. His real first name is Orvon just so you know. Gene is his middle name.

So what happened between then and the call change in 1998? Orvon died in 1998. his personal office was inside KMPC, it's bigger-than-a-football-field building was his as well. His own radio show had ended it's run in 1956. Gene’s Melody Ranch radio show aired for an unprecedented 16 years. Autry of course first found fame in radio, beginning his career as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, OK. Autry is the only entertainer to have all five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one each for Radio, Recording, Motion Pictures, Television, and Live Theatre/performance. More here.