Blogpost #29

Welcome back, friends! Here's a preview of what's coming up for the month of November.

November 2, 1920 marked a milestone in the history of radio. It was on that day that KDKA signed on the air under the ownership of the Westinghouse Electric Company. Today, nearly 90 years later, it is still on the air with its original call letters. Other stations have claimed to have started transmitting prior to 1920, and WBZ claims to have the first legally defined broadcast license in 1921, but only KDKA can claim to have retained its original call letters since 1920.

The station was started by Dr. Frank Conrad, a radio hobbyist who worked for Westinghouse. In the fall of 1920, he was operating a small radio transmitter out of his garage purely for his enjoyment. He would read news items out of the paper and play records from a Victrola. Since microphones hadn't been invented yet, he spoke through a telephone mouthpiece propped up in a cardboard box insulated with cotton. He called his station 8XK.

Harry Davis, Conrad's boss at Westinghouse, knew about his radio hobby but thought nothing of it until a Pittsburgh department store placed an ad offering radio sets to the public for ten dollars. When Davis read the ad, he suddenly realized that radio offered unlimited potential for growth. Not every home could use electricity back then, but any home could use a battery-powered radio. He asked Conrad to start up a radio station for Westinghouse, and he managed to get it on the air just in time to announce a breaking news story: Republican candidate Warren Harding had been elected president. KDKA had scooped every newspaper in Pennsylvania.

To honor this historic occasion, I will be presenting a special two-hour edition of A Time To Remember which will document radio's famous firsts. You'll hear a reenactment of the first broadcast on KDKA along with dozens of other milestones, including the radio debuts of many of radio's best known performers such as Frank Sinatra and Edgar Bergen. You'll also hear an hour-long documentary produced to commemorate KDKA's golden anniversary.

Don't forget, it's a two-hour show next Sunday, November 1. Thanks for reading and thanks for listening.

Blogpost #28

Welcome back, Beatle people! We're presenting a month-long celebration of John Lennon's birthday as well as the anniversary of the first Beatles single to be released in Britain.

John Lennon was born October 9, 1940, and so was his son Sean (not a coincidence, as it was later revealed). All month long, we'll be listening to excerpts from his final interview taped hours before his death. The interview was conducted in Lennon's New York office by Dave Sholin of San Francisco's KFRC in the early afternoon of December 8, 1980. Dave and three staffers flew back home that evening with two 90 minute cassettes filled with John and Yoko's revealing commentary; by the time the plane landed, Lennon was dead.

Dave had little time to mourn his passing; he suddenly had to deal with dozens of requests for media interviews as 'the last man to interview John Lennon'. With the help of engineer Ron Hummel and writer Laurie Kaye, the historic interview was expanded into a three-hour radio special titled "John Lennon: The Man, The Memory" that first aired December 14, 1980.

In February of 1984, Silhouette Records compiled a two-LP package titled "Reflections and Poetry" using lengthy excerpts from Dave's special (taped off the air without his permission) with newly added narration from New York radio deejay Bob Miles. It was released in June 1984 in a limited edition of 10,000 copies which sold out within two months. Plans for a repress were foiled by Yoko Ono's attorneys on the grounds that her voice was used without her permission. A British record label simply reedited the material to eliminate any trace of Yoko's voice, and issued it on CD as "The Last Word". Having heard both the CD and vinyl versions of the repackaged interview, I can assure you that the vinyl is definitely more listenable and more complete.

The original two-LP package will be presented in its entirety over the course of four weeks, one side per show. The interview has been restored to its original speed, since Lennon's voice was speeded up on the records. In addition, the vinyl has been cleaned up extensively for broadcast using digital declicking and noise reduction. It actually sounds better than the CD version, which appears to have been mastered from a cassette.

In addition to Lennon's farewell interview, we'll also hear the classic Beatles singles as released in Britain - all 22 of them! This is my way of commemorating the 47th anniversary of the first Beatles single release on October 5, 1962. We started with "Love Me Do" on October 4 and we'll finish up with "Let It Be" on October 26. I hope you'll join us every week as we celebrate Beatle month on A Time To Remember. See you again in November!