Blogpost #24

Hello, hello, hello! This week's program is an hour-long salute to one of the most infamous names in broadcasting history. Arthur Godfrey was born August 31, 1903, and I'm remembering his birthday with a collection of rare clips from his various TV and radio shows covering the years 1939 to 1981.

Arthur began his radio announcing career in 1930 and became known for his casual, folksy style of broadcasting. Listeners found him extremely charismatic, which helped make him one of the most effective commercial spokesmen of radio's golden age.

President Roosevelt was a big fan of Arthur's, and he regularly tuned in to his early-morning radio on WJSV, Washington, D.C. There's a story that Roosevelt liked him so much that he arranged to have one of his shows recorded on September 21, 1939 for the National Archives. That recording is available online from archive.org. It's also been digitally restored and is available for purchase from radioarchives.org.

Arthur was offered a morning variety show by CBS Radio after he received critical acclaim for his emotional live eyewitness coverage of Roosevelt's funeral procession on April 14, 1945. You can hear it online on the Eyewitness To History site.

At the height of his popularity in the early fifties, Arthur had a daily radio show and several weekly TV shows. Sadly, his public image as a friendly, trustworthy broadcaster took a beating in the newspapers following his controversial on-air farewell to cast member Julius LaRosa on October 19, 1953. YouTube has several clips from Arthur's TV shows, including an episode of Biography that features Julius looking back on the incident decades later.

Arthur appeared as a guest on many TV talk shows in the sixties and seventies, including one memorable appearance with David Frost when he proudly announced that he'd had a vasectomy. He recorded a single called "This Is All I Ask" in 1964 which he performed on many TV programs, including the Jack Paar Program. That performance is available on DVD from Amazon.

Arthur's farewell appearance on TV came on a 1981 PBS special titled "The Fifties: Moments To Remember" when he reminisced about his career, played a 1953 clip of his show, and performed his 1947 hit "The Too Fat Polka" in the Grand Ballroom of New York's Waldorf-Astoria.

Next week's show will mark the seventieth anniversary of the start of World War II. We'll feature a hard-to-find documentary from a 1959 LP in which the late Walter Cronkite dramatically recaps the events in Europe during the thirties that led up to it. Your homework assignment for next week is to listen to the vintage radio news reports from the BBC Archives to determine why Britain's government declared war on Germany even though their country hadn't been attacked yet. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading.

Blogpost #23

Welcome back, Beatles fans! This week marks the anniversary of their farewell concert at San Francisco's famed Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. The Beatles' 1969 live rooftop performance (as seen in 'Let It Be) is not generally considered their farewell concert, because it was unannounced and was staged for the cameras. The San Francisco concert came at the end of three weeks of live dates in America, and the Beatles had secretly agreed that it would be their last tour ever.

Candlestick Park was built for baseball teams and not rock bands, so the group was obliged to perform on an elevated stage surrounded by a protective cage and positioned over second base. Shortly before the concert, Paul McCartney asked his press officer Tony Barrow to tape it as a souvenir. He had no time to rent professional recording equipment, so he brought a portable cassette recorder out on the field, pointed his microphone at the speakers and hoped for the best.

The cassette ran for thirty minutes, and was later put up for auction in London. The historic tape was digitally remastered and released by Bulldog Records on LP and CD in 1988 without permission from the Beatles. Bulldog was an Italian label founded in 1987 to exploit a loophole in international copyright law; apparently the Beatles' studio recordings were protected, but not their live concerts.

According to Eric Lefcowitz's 1987 book "Tomorrow Never Knows: The Beatles' Last Concert", the Beatles emerged from the dugout at 9:27 pm, with Paul documenting the event with his camera as he approached the stage. Before the first number started, Ringo accidentally swiveled his mike stand around in the wrong direction, making his drums inaudible for most of the concert. The guitars sounded hollow and distant because they were only being picked up through the vocal mikes.

Paul introduced "If I Needed Someone" as being "recorded by the blah-blah". He was actually referring to the 1966 single version by the Hollies, but Paul muffled their name on purpose because George hated what they did to his song. John introduced "Day Tripper" as "the one about the naughty lady", but couldn't remember when he recorded it. During the mournful "Baby's In Black", the crowd unexpectedly started cheering wildly. Their reaction was completely unconnected to the song; they were just applauding a group of five teenage boys that almost reached the stage before being ejected by security.

George jokingly introduced "I Feel Fine" as a 1959 song, calling it "very old indeed". Paul was very uncomfortable with the windy conditions in Candlestick Park, loudly complaining "It's a bit chilly!" Ringo made a quick adjustment to his microphone stand after realizing he was about to start singing into the wrong end, prompting a sarcastic remark from Paul: "Talented!" Another group of gate-crashers were captured by police as they attempted to rush the stage, and Paul impatiently waited for the crowds to quiet down before starting "Paperback Writer".

Paul introduced the eleventh and final song by wearily asking the crowds to "join in and clap... sing... talk?", to which John added "Dance?" The Beatles chose "Long Tall Sally" as their farewell concert performance after eight years and 1400 shows. Sadly, the song lasted longer than the cassette did. Only the first forty seconds were saved on tape. At 10 pm, the group left the stage, climbed into an armored van, and headed for the airport. On the flight home, George breathed a sigh of relief and announced that he was no longer a Beatle.

After their touring days were over, the group devoted their time to crafting an LP that would recreate the experience of a live concert, which became 1967's critically acclaimed "Sgt. Pepper". The album's success encouraged the Beatles to continue experimenting with new sounds in the recording studio, despite some complaints that they were producing music that was too complex for their teenage followers.

By 1969, the group had abandoned their progressive approach to music for their "Get Back" single, which was designed to recapture the energy and spontaneity of their early hit records. This regressive approach to recording was suggested by Paul, who had claimed to be strongly opposed to the idea back in 1966. "We're never going to do that," he told British radio deejay Ken Douglas during the American tour. "If we ever have to do that - if anyone suddenly says 'You're going too way out, you've got to get back to then' - well, we'll give up, you know?" This ironic and revealing quote comes from a rare LP released in 1966 by the Ring Around The Pops Foundation to raise funds for the blind. It was titled "Beatle Views", and I've never seen a copy anywhere. Edited highlights were released on a 1984 LP from Silhouette Records titled "The British Are Coming", which included a 3-D cover and a pair of cardboard eyeglasses.

The Candlestick Park tape is available on You Tube in four parts, starting with this one. I invite you to tune in to A Time To Remember next Sunday morning for my birthday tribute to the late Arthur Godfrey. He was once regarded as the most popular and powerful announcer in broadcasting. I'll present a live radio interview with Chicago radio personality Ed Schwartz from 1976, plus a live performance with Jose Melis on the Jack Paar Program from 1964. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading.

Blogpost #22

Greetings, Elvis fans! This week's show is a memorial tribute to Elvis Presley, who died exactly 32 years ago today on August 16, 1977. We're paying our respects to him with a collection of rare early recordings, including the legendary demo disc he made as a present for his mother in the Summer of 1953, around the time this yearbook photo was taken.

What was Elvis like back in those days? According to information he supplied for his high school yearbook and his driver's license, he had brown hair, blue eyes, weighed 153 lbs, stood 5' 11", and lived at 185 Winchester in Memphis, Tennessee. He had just graduated from Hume High School with majors in Shop, History and English.

He was inspired by an article by Clark Porteous published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar on July 15, 1953 about a recording studio called the Memphis Recording Service run by Sam Phillips, whose motto was "We Record Anything - Anywhere - Anytime". The following Saturday, the eighteen-year old Presley came by with his guitar and cut an acetate disc of two slow ballads from the 1940's: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". Elvis later revealed during the "Million Dollar Quartet" session of December 4, 1956 that he'd lost his only copy of the record. It later turned up in the collection of Ed Leek, a retired airline pilot and former classmate of Elvis who had kept it hidden away for thirty-five years. Both sides of the disc can be found on RCA's "Sunrise" 2-disc collection, available from Amazon.

When Elvis died, it seemed as if everyone of his fans needed to get their hands on some kind of souvenir connected to him. A reporter named Roy Blount, Jr. flew to Memphis and arrived at Graceland within hours of his death. He saw a rolled-up copy of the Memphis Press-Scimitar lying on the ground with a rubber band around it, and the gatekeeper told him it was Elvis' last newspaper. In his book "What Men Don't Tell Women", Roy revealed that he took it as a souvenir, and what Elvis fan wouldn't have done the same thing?

My mom was a diehard Elvis fan as well, and in the week after his death she devoted all of her free time to saving every possible Elvis-related TV and radio program on tape. I found a memorable clip from Eddie Schwartz' all-night radio show in which he announces that Elvis "died of natural causes", which was later proven to be untrue. He had actually died of heart failure caused by an overdose of prescription drugs from a doctor who just couldn't say no. There was a real lesson to be learned from his death, and it was a shame that Michael Jackson never learned it.

Shortly after Elvis' death, his former guitar player Scotty Moore gave an interview to a reporter in which he revealed how they made their first record together in 1954 within days of their first meeting. That interview was quickly issued on record to cash in on the demand for fresh Elvis material. This ghoulish piece of exploitation is now ironically a collector's item, but I included a lengthy clip from the album anyway because it's a genuine eyewitness account of history.

From 1954 to 1956, Elvis appeared practically every week on the Louisiana Hayride radio show over KWKH, Shreveport. He plugged his records and his personal appearances, and he got paid thirty dollars a week for the first year. Only a handful of his live broadcasts were saved, and some of them can be found on "The Elvis Broadcasts On Air", a well-packaged CD collection on Stardust. Sound quality varies from excellent to unlistenable, but it's still available from Amazon.

Comedian and talk show host Steve Allen earned the wrath of Elvis fans when he booked him on his prime-time variety show on July 1, 1956 to sing "Hound Dog" in white tie and tails to an actual Bassett hound, who ignored him for the entire song. It was a humiliating experience for Elvis, who never appeared with Steve again. In 1996, Varese Sarabande issued a CD compilation of clips from his various TV shows, and one of them was a comedy sketch featuring Elvis with Andy Griffith and Imogene Coca as stars of a Western-style TV show. I included it for its rarity, not for its comedy. Apparently the CD is pretty rare as well, judging by the price of a used copy on Amazon.

The phrase "Elvis Has Left The Building" is now part of American pop culture, but someone had to be the first one to say it. According to my research, it was first spoken by KWKH announcer Frank Page at the close of a live radio broadcast on December 15, 1956, and I couldn't think of a more perfect way to close my memorial tribute. The only thing I haven't mentioned from the program is an instrumental song from 1937 that I used as background music. It's called "Smoke Rings" and it's by Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra.

Next week's show will be another tribute to a great rock act. I'll be looking back at the Beatles' farewell stage performance in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. I'll be playing the tape of that concert in its entirety. Thanks for listening.

Blogpost #21

Hi, crimestoppers! (This is where you respond 'Hi, Steve!') That's a line from Steve Martin's "Wild And Crazy Guy" LP, one of the best selling comedy albums in history.

This week's show is a birthday tribute to Steve, who was born on V-J Day, August 14, 1945. The sleeve above is from his top twenty single "King Tut", which closes this week's show.

As a treat for my listeners, I am sharing one of the rarest albums in my collection. It's a 1978 radio show on LP featuring a revealing interview with Steve conducted by David Brandes. I found a copy in a used record store back in 1982, and I haven't seen another one since. I have seen copies offered online for $68 and up.

The radio show was produced by Warner Brothers to promote his "Wild And Crazy Guy" LP, and it featured clips from his first two albums. Unbelievably, some of the clips included profanity, which I have edited out. This might explain the extreme rarity of the LP. Steve was interviewed in the fall of 1978 when he was in the midst of shooting his "Wild And Crazy Guy" TV special which aired November 22, 1978.

Technical note: this LP is in very poor shape, and it had to be specially remastered for broadcast. Many hours were spent removing clicks, pops, scratches, and surface noise. I'm undecided as to whether it was worth the effort, because now it sounds more like a tape than an album. I'm the only one who knows how much the sound was improved, so I guess it was really just my way of paying tribute to Steve. I feel like I restored the LP just for him, even though he'll never know it.

Last year, Steve published his memoir, "Born Standing Up", now available in paperback from Amazon. It details his strained relationship with his parents, who initially disapproved of his showbiz career. There's a brief reference to this in the radio interview. If you haven't read the book, I recommend it as a companion piece to this program.

Next week, we remember Elvis on the anniversary of his death. Please tune in.

Blogpost #20

Welcome, Stan Freberg fans! This week's show is a birthday tribute to one of the most imaginative writer-performers of the late 20th century. He'll be turning 83 years young on August 7.

Together with his creative partner Daws Butler (shown on left) he created some of the most brilliant comedy singles of the 1950's, including a few that were too controversial to be released until decades later.

As a special treat for the Freberg faithful, this week's show features an hour-long "concert" of Stan, Daws and his repertory cast performing their greatest hits live before an audience. The performances were compiled from Stan's short-lived 1957 CBS radio comedy-variety series.

"The Yellow Rose Of Texas" comes from a broadcast of August 4, 1957. Stan's parody was released in October 1955 shortly after Mitch Miller's original version topped the singles charts. Alvin Stoller provided the relentless snare drumming.

"The Lone Analyst" is a parody of the Lone Ranger, and was released on a 1955 single as "The Lone Psychiatrist". Co-writer Daws Butler plays nearly every male voice. Stan and Daws revised and expanded this sketch for this broadcast of August 25, 1957.

"The Banana Boat Song" is also known as "Day-O", and was released in April 1957 shortly after Harry Belafonte's version hit the Top Five. Peter Leeds was credited on the single with "interruptions". It was first broadcast on August 25, 1957.

"Wun'erful, Wun'erful!" was performed on a broadcast of August 11, 1957 and released as a two-part single in October 1957. Songs include "Bubbles In The Wine", "Thank You", "Funny Old Hills", "Louise", "Please", and "Moonlight And Shadows".

"Rock Island Line" is a parody of folk balladeers. It was released in July 1956 shortly after Lonnie Donegan's version became a Top Ten hit. "Interruptions" are once again provided by Peter Leeds. This comes from a broadcast of August 18, 1957.

"Sh-Boom" is a parody of a parody. The Crew-Cuts recorded a take-off of the Chords' 1954 single, and their version outsold the original. Stan's version followed in September 1954, and was faithfully recreated for a broadcast of September 29, 1957.

"St. George And The Dragonet" was released in September 1953 and became Stan's only number one single. It was a faithful parody of Jack Webb's "Dragnet" TV series, done with Webb's full cooperation. This comes from a broadcast of September 1, 1957.

"The Honey-Earthers" was released as the flip side of Stan's 1955 "Lone Psychiatrist" single. This sketch imagines the cast of Jackie Gleason's Honeymooners as alien moon creatures. This comes from a broadcast of September 8, 1957.

"The Banana Boat Song" was brought back by listener demand for an encore performance on Stan's farewell broadcast of October 20, 1957. Bandleader Billy May appears briefly to introduce Stan as Lawrence Welk, who shows up just to get the last laugh.

"Heartbreak Hotel" was released in July 1956, months after Elvis Presley topped the charts with it. This abridged version comes from a broadcast of September 15, 1957 and features cameo appearances from Peter Leeds, June Foray, and Daws Butler.

The 1957 series was issued on CD by Radio Spirits, but it is long out of print. You can download the entire series for free from the Internet Archive. There's also an unedited tape of the show's premiere episode available on an animation archive blog produced by the ASIFA of Hollywood.

Next week's show is another birthday tribute to a favorite comedy star: Steve Martin. Join us for an hour-long documentary that captures him at the height of his popularity in 1978. It'll be a Wild And Crazy Show.