Blogpost #19

Welcome back, friends! Last week, we were all just a little too depressed to enjoy celebrating Apollo 11's 40th anniversary. Now that Walter Cronkite has been laid to rest, we can take the time to properly reflect on this historic occasion.

As a child, I collected souvenir LP records of the Apollo moon mission and even taped the live TV coverage on cassette. Those tapes were amateurishly recorded, so of course you'll probably never hear them played on my show.

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of Apollo 11 souvenir LPs released in the weeks and months after the astronauts returned to earth. To my knowledge, none of them ever made the Billboard album charts, despite being released on well-known labels such as Capitol and RCA. A few came from small regional labels, and one came from a Chicago radio station. It was titled "Man And The Moon", and it was produced for WBBM Newsradio 78.

Shortly after WBBM first signed on as an all-news station in 1968, station management began assigning their staffers to produce documentaries for LP release. Four LPs were released by WBBM between 1969 and 1971, and they were all offered as promotional items through various Chicago-based banks. John Hultman was responsible for the well-produced "Prelude To The Seventies" LP, a year-end wrap-up of the news events of 1969. Incidentally, he's still anchoring on the air at WBBM four decades later.

Tom Clark was one of the original news anchors at WBBM, starting in May 1968 as midday anchor. In 1969, he was assigned to produce an album about the upcoming Apollo 11 moon mission. The finished product remains fascinating listening today. Unlike other producers, he didn't rely heavily on the astronauts' radio transmissions to fill out the album. Instead, he did extensive research and conducted exclusive interviews. My only major fault with the documentary is that it ends abruptly without covering the astronauts' return to Earth. I can't confirm it, but I suspect that the album was completed before the moon mission was.

The album has been out of print for decades, but copies are available from various rare record dealers on the web, and I managed to track down a copy at Reckless Records in Chicago. If you'd like to add it to your collection, visit reckless.com and type MAN & MOON into their search engine. Their reviewer describes it as a "great record" with "some really cheezy (sp) poems". If you're listening up on Chicago's North Side near our WLUW studios, call their Broadway store at 773-404-5079 to see if it's still in stock. Ask them to check in the Spoken Word bin, and be sure to mention this blog if you decide to buy it.

Next week: a birthday salute to master satirist and comedian Stan Freberg. We'll hear his classic singles from the fifties performed live before a studio audience with the original cast, including an extended version of his classic Lawrence Welk parody.