------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2002 : Issue 300
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
First Transatlantic Broadcast [ "Bernd Wichert" <b_wichert@[removed]; ]
Hi i am enjoying your newsletter ver [ AirForce88sLady@[removed] ]
RE: OTR instead of a sleeping pill! [ MAGICIN95@[removed] ]
1951 Giants/Dodgers Playoff Game #3 [ Wwtom@[removed] ]
Re: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar [ "Bruce R. Glazer" <bruceglazer@attb ]
Re: Non-Muzakal Chopin [ Ga6string@[removed] ]
OTR or Ovaltine [ "Mark E. Higgins" <paul_frees_fan@a ]
OTR and sleep [ Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed]; ]
Sound Quality [ wich2@[removed] ]
21st Precinct and James Gregory [ joseph <josephm@[removed]; ]
Re: 1925 Transatlantic Broadcast 2LO [ Michael Biel <mbiel@[removed]; ]
Alternative to OTR soporifics [ Derek Tague <derek@[removed]; ]
Does Anyone know where I can sell? [ Tom Trueman <wollow@[removed]; ]
Baseball Announcers [ sojax@[removed] (Roger S. Smith) ]
I Remember Mama search [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
What was this show? [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
Re: aftra pension plan [ Chet <cien@[removed]; ]
OTR on TV [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
OTR Baseball [ "Cope Robinson" <coplandr@bellsouth ]
The talking piano, and the 1939 jam [ "Marcus Antonsson" <[removed] ]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 18:35:44 -0400
From: "Bernd Wichert" <b_wichert@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: First Transatlantic Broadcast
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2LO5 from London (Daventry 5xx) was broadcast on [removed] and [removed]
and was dance band music, relayed to RCA, and Victor Studios returned the
greetings.
Bernard Wichert,Germany
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Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 19:07:02 -0400
From: AirForce88sLady@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Hi i am enjoying your newsletter very much
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i was wondering if any one has a complete list if the Grand Central Station
[removed] believe they ran from 1937 until the early 1950's.
I would appreciate any help any one could give me.
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Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 19:35:55 -0400
From: MAGICIN95@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: RE: OTR instead of a sleeping pill!
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Add my name to the list of folks who listen to OTR on the way to dreamland.
I have a small "boom box" that plays both CD's and cassette tapes next to my
bed and I often spend about an hour relaxing to OTR before I drift off. It
is the best way to relax I know of.
Janet
[removed]
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Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 20:03:51 -0400
From: Wwtom@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: 1951 Giants/Dodgers Playoff Game #3
I would like to get copies of the radio broadcast of the last game of the
1951 Giants/Dodgers playoff game done by all three announcers: Russ Hodges,
Red Barber and Gordon McClendon. Can anyone help out?
Wesley Tom
Redlands, CA
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 20:04:12 -0400
From: "Bruce R. Glazer" <bruceglazer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
For Harry Bartell, please:
Mr. Bartell,
I, among others I am sure, would be very interested in
hearing about some of the behind-the-scenes activities
on the set of YTJD, if you [removed]
During the 5-parters, did you record all 5 parts in one day?
Did you know the climax/ending before you recorded it?
Was there much rehearsing? How were the microphones set up
([removed], did Bob Bailey have his own mic?) The music and sound effects
are expertly done - any thoughts about them? Any interesting
anecdotes about the show?
Thank you kindly for your time!!
Bruce R. Glazer
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 01:05:32 -0400
From: Ga6string@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Non-Muzakal Chopin
Kenneth Clarke writes:
If there's any audible sleep aid, I MHO, it would have to be MUZAK--not
OTR! Sitting through 15 minutes of Chopin while waiting for your bank
representative to come back on the line is more than any human being should
have to bear!
Woah!! Like it or not, Chopin's work is NOT Muzak!!! As any musician will
tell you!
Sincerely,
Bryan Powell
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 01:06:44 -0400
From: "Mark E. Higgins" <paul_frees_fan@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: OTR or Ovaltine
Gotta cast my vote for OTR at bedtime. Now, when we go to bed at
night, my wife's first question is "What are we listening to tonight?"
(We're getting old). Seriously, she looks forward to it, too. Some
nights it's something different, other nights we opt for Bob and Ray
(those tapes won't last forever, but they never get old). I seldom stay
awake through the whole story, and usually the tape accompanies me to
work the next day, for the trip home next evening. I'm glad so many
others share the habit.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 01:06:50 -0400
From: Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: OTR and sleep
Like many others, I often listen to OTR when I go to
bed. However, I don't do so as a sleep aid. I do so
because I can lie there in the dark without any
distractions and really get into the story. Sometimes
I fall asleep before the tape ends, and sometimes I
don't. In fact, sometimes I'm still awake after
listening to both sides of the tape. It all depends on
how tired I am on a particular night. I guess in some
ways listening to OTR at night is like listening to a
bedtime story.
Rick
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 01:08:11 -0400
From: wich2@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Sound Quality
From: "Gerber, Barry" <bg@[removed];
I know personally and professionally what excellent sound is and I can say
with some confidence that I have never heard an OTR show that requires CD
quality sound to preserve its sonic characteristics
Barry (& the other folks that have "chimed" in on this topic)-
Well, I can only say that I felt that way too, [removed]
Like a lot of folks my age (just 44), I first heard OTR as the often-off
speed, poorly transferred, multi-generational stuff on LP & cassettes in the
early '70's. True, the content hooked me- but I thought (as MetaCom's intro
used to lie to me!) that there was no evading "the problems so common to Old
Time Radio". It was a REVELATION when I first heard such things as Sperdvac's
archive recordings, and the conscientiously made recordings of folks like Ed
Carr.
I'm interested in the content of the shows, not their sound quality.
This kind of attitude, from this list, surprises me: it's like a film lover
saying, "My ep-mode vhs, from a battered '80's TV 16mm print, is a perfectly
good way to appreciate GONE WITH THE WIND" (please to take a look at a DVD
made from the camera negatives!). If you're not fully seeing/hearing the all
the quality, are you really getting the content?
When I want radio with high sound quality, I visit one of the many live
radio theater groups here in Los Angeles that do both old and new radio or I
listen to modern radio drama on CD or FM radio.
As a guy who produces such new stuff in NYC, I can honestly say that- but for
being mono- a classic-era show (from a studio disc, lovingly transferred &
restored; and especially from the "better-FI" '40's & '50's) can sound every
bit as good as the above. Give a listen to such a DRAGNET, or SUSPENSE, some
time. It's worth it!(And somewhere upthere, Jack Webb & Bill Conrad will
appreciate the respect you gave their hard [removed]).
Craig Wichman
Quicksilver Radio Theater
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 02:50:00 -0400
From: joseph <josephm@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: 21st Precinct and James Gregory
The lead character, the precinct Captain was played by three different
actors. They were:
Everett Sloane as Frank Kennelly,
James Gregory as Vincent Cronin, and
Les Damon as Thomas Keough.
Summaries of the cast and crew information for the series are given in the
log.
This is kind of interesting. I am a huge Barney Miller fan, watching
it on TV Land right now. Here I read about James Gregory, who played
Inspector Lugor, being on a cop radio show. What's interesting is on
radio he was at the 21st Precinct on TV he was at the 12th Precinct.
I wonder if the creators Danny Arnold and Theodore Flicker knew
about this. Oh well probably just my wild imagination.
Joseph
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 09:30:00 -0400
From: Michael Biel <mbiel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: 1925 Transatlantic Broadcast 2LO London
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
About half an hour's worth of excerpts exist, recorded on 78rpm wax
masters by an unknown recording facility
There is a possibility that the recordings were made by the Western
Electric gang who were still working on their electrical recording
process. Along with the multiple pressings of the ten sides containing
the broadcast, there was one pressing of a frequency sweep test
recording made that same day, and there are initials engraved in it that
Arthur Keller told me might indicate his name and that of his assistant
whose last name was Refuce (sp?).
the technicians apparently tuned in the program on an ordinary radio
and placed a microphone in front of a horn speaker to pick up the sound.
This was my theory I reported in my dissertation back in 1977, and this
technology and the sound quality of the recording would be a giant step
back for the WE boys if this indeed was recorded by them. But remember,
all of the broadcast recordings they are known to have made during the
previous two years were from the lines of their own radio station WEAF.
WJZ was the rival RCA station, and they probably didn't have any other
access to WJZ audio other than to take it off the air like this. As you
noted, RCA had to resort to using Western Union lines for this
broadcast--AT&T wouldn't let RCA use theirs!!
the sound is rough and metallic and you can sometimes sense the sound
of music under the noise. The local station ID by Milton Cross, on the
other hand, comes thru clear and strong.
But it still suffers from the hollow metallic sound. It is the sound
quality of Cross's announcement which I used to determine my analysis of
how it was recorded. But that test tone recording is something else.
The level is razorsharp flat throughout the sweep frequency range up to
5,000 Hertz. I don't think any recording system other than WE's could
have done that. (I have a flat unequalized first generation dub of all
of these discs.) I did discuss these recordings with Keller back in the
early 80s and need to go back to my tape of the phone call to get the
details. Someday maybe we might be able to get access to the Bell Labs
files that Keller told me should exist detailing all of their
experimental work.
These discs may have been made for Dr. Albert Goldsmith of RCA,
It's Alfred Goldsmith, and his name was on the box that the discs were
in when I found them back in the late 1960s. Significantly, these discs
were also with an incomplete set of discs of the January 1, 1926 Victor
Hour broadcast which I have every reason to believe were the discs
Goldsmith played to Radio Broadcast magazine editor Edgar H. Felix later
that year. (Felix wrote about the recordings in the December 1926
issue, but did not specifically remember them when I spoke to him in
1973.) That January 1, 1926 broadcast also included a section of yet
another special retransmission of a 2LO/5XX broadcast which sounds
almost as bad as the earlier one, and this is despite the vastly
superior recording quality of the January 1, 1926 discs.
From: "Russ Butler" <oldradio@[removed];
I wonder if they used the Big Ben, hourly chimes in 1926?
Yes they did. In fact, Milton Cross mentions that we have just heard
the chimes of Big Ben, but for the life of me I swear that I hear
absolutely no evidence of this sound thru the din of the noise-to-signal
ratio of that recording!!!
. . . Tom Kneitel's "Radio Station Treasury 1900-1946" . . .
reprinted a collection of early, published radio station logs.
No information about the broadcast content, however.
There are weekly broadcast listings magazines from the 1920s which give
great details of the scheduled contents of the 2LO and other British and
European broadcasters. I was able to pick up some from the later 20s
when I was in London last year. There also are a number of British
comedy records which re-create in parody form the sound of these
broadcasts. For the BBC's 75th anniversary in 1997 they trotted out
some re-creations of these early broadcasts that they did for an
anniversary program in the 1930s, and they sound funnier than the comedy
records do! (The BBC does not publically acknowledge that those 1920s
broadcasts are from a 1930s re-creation. It was with great difficulty
that I got a BBC cataloger to let slip the identity of the listing of
anniversary program.)
Michael Biel mbiel@[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 09:30:46 -0400
From: Derek Tague <derek@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Alternative to OTR soporifics
Hiya Digesters:
Never mind OTR programs to fall asleep by. If you really can't get to
sleep, try railroad videos, independently produced & widely available within
the train enthusiast hobby.
One year about 5 years ago at the FOTR convention here in [removed], I bought
from a dealer (I think it was either Larry Caffin or Tom Martin) a double-VHS
video on the history of the Erie-Lackawanna RR (one of the ancestors of NJ
Transit, a train line w/ which I'm quite familiar). The
2 cassettes were on sale for $[removed] the bargain since I've seen similiar
sets going for $[removed] or $[removed] when NJTransit has that
train festival in the Hoboken Terminal every autumn.
Believe me, watching old steam-trains chugging along the length of a
train line is quite sleep-inducing for anybody not within the train hobby.
Please allow me to apologize in advance to all the railroad enthusiasts
out there in the ether.
Zzzzzzzzzz,
Derek Tague
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 09:30:18 -0400
From: Tom Trueman <wollow@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Does Anyone know where I can sell?
Hi everyone I have an 8 cd set of the series
SUSPENCE that I bought but it's not the kind
of suspense shows that I like to listen to.
Does anyone know of anyplace I can sell it
on the [removed] anyone know knows please email me
at wollow at [removed]
PS they are in mp3 format
Thanks
Tom
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 12:26:07 -0400
From: sojax@[removed] (Roger S. Smith)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Baseball Announcers
I have to submit Harry Heilmann announcer for the Detroit Tigers from
1934 to 1951. He was the best. Also another is Ernie Harwell still
going strong. If anyone has any broadcasts of Harry Heilmann I sure
would like a copy. Roger Smith
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 12:27:57 -0400
From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: I Remember Mama search
Received this query the other day. I already forwarded him Rosemary Rice's
address, figured that's a shot, but does anyone know of a direct route?
Looking for Toni Campbell who played Dagmar on the I Remember Mama
television show back in 1958. She and I were old school friends and the last
time I saw her was while she was doing the show in '58. Would like to find a
way to contact her or have her get in touch with me. Thank you.
Gary D. Chambers
9217 Topoco Drive
Knoxville, Tennessee 37922
gchambers17@[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 12:28:08 -0400
From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: What was this show?
Does anyone know anything about the two programs listed below? I managed to
compile a broadcast log and airdates, but I don't know anything else about
them. Jay Hickeron's Ultimate Guide doesn't have anything listed (which
surprised me cause his guide is a dynamite book) and Dunning's One the Air
didn't have any mention, either.
Captain Post, Crime Specialist Broadcast 12/5/30 to at least 2/6/31.
China Town Squad Broadcast 7/1/32 to at least 9/2/32.
If any experts can fill me in on what they were about, who starred, etc. it
would be greatly appreciated.
Martin
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 12:27:33 -0400
From: Chet <cien@[removed];
To: "[removed]" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: aftra pension plan
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in reply to the following sent in by Kubelski@[removed]
I figure there must be some AFTRA retirees on this list - anyone want to
comment on the situation as it applies to OTR veterans as opposed to musical
recording artists?
i am an aftra pension collector for voice work i did in los angeles and
dallas and they send me a notice every year stating the work i have done
and if i don't agree im invited to challenge it ..so in other words i
don't have a problem with the pension dept. (as far as i can tell)
chet norris
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 12:29:20 -0400
From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: OTR on TV
Since there's been talk about OTR on [removed]
I've been searching around through Dave Miller's catalog and others and I
have yet to find a source that offers Fibber McGee and Molly, Whistler,
Aldrich Family, etc. of TV versions of radio programs. I know an episode
here and there has been put on DVD and video, but I'm really looking for
someplace that offers a huge handful of Aldrich Family and Fibber McGee and
Molly episodes, not just one episode. Does anyone know of a place? You can
e-mail privately, since this isn't really about old time radio, rather TV
shows.
Martin
mmargrajr@[removed]
[ADMINISTRIVIA: Actually, this topic fits both here AND The Kinescope, the
Vintage TV sister list to The Internet OTR Digest. See
[removed] for info. --cfs3]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 15:04:36 -0400
From: "Cope Robinson" <coplandr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: OTR Baseball
From: michael berger <intercom1@[removed];
To: otr <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: otr baseball
There were two other live radiocasts of that game in the
Polo Grounds.
And there was, as you may know, several hundred recordings (78RPM) of that
inning and Russ Hodges' call made by Liggett & Myers for distribution to New
Yorks cigarette dealers who were then members of the "Chesterfield 3 to 1
Club". Somewhere I still have a copy.
Cope Robinson
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 15:05:04 -0400
From: "Marcus Antonsson" <[removed]@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: The talking piano, and the 1939 jam session
Hi Gang!
Even on the Swedish radio (or what's left of it) some intresting stuff comes
up from time to time. A few years ago for example, they were discussing old
"trick recordings". In connection with that, they played part of a [removed]
recording about a little boy who had a piano that could not only play by
itself, but also talk with a kind of "robot voice". I don't know if it was
from a radio show or from a record, but I'd very much like to know, and to
get a copy of it. It was quite funny. Can anyone of you out there give me a
hint?
More recently, (earlier this year) I heard another intresting recording on
the Swedish radio. This was an all star jam session recorded in New York in
1939. The program was hosted by still active BBC-legend Alistair Cook, and
was aired in many European countries including Sweden. It had also been
released later as an lp. My question is:
Is it still available somewhere, on cd maybe? I'd love to have a copy of it!
Thanks in advance for any help on these things!
Best to all!
Marc Antonsson, Sweden
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #300
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