Sunday, October 16, 2016

"Radio Recall," Jack French, Martin Grams, and Mitchell Hadley's "It's About TV"

In August, I began subscribing to the Old-Time Radio newsletter Radio Recall--published six times each year by the Metro Washington Old Time Radio Club.  Its editor is Jack French, who is prominent in the OTR community, and whose books include 2009's Private Eye-Lashes: Radio's Lady Detectives.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Eyelashes-Radios-Lady-Detectives/dp/1593934505/

I learned, in the August issue of the newsletter, that Mr. French, who has edited Radio Recall for more than two decades, will be leaving his position as editor following the April of 2017 issue.

Mr. French announced last week, in an e-mail published in the Internet newsletter The Old-Time Radio Digest, that his replacement as editor will be Martin Grams, Jr.--"diligent OTR researcher," French wrote, "prolific OTR book author, respected blogger, and linch-pin of the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention."  Wrote French: "He promises to maintain the same excellent content, attractive graphics, timely OTR book reviews, with updates on future OTR conventions and events."

I congratulate Mr. French on his tenure at Radio Recall, and also offer my congratulations to Martin (about whom I've written on several occasions, in this blog), regarding his forthcoming editorship of the publication. (In a post last week, I mentioned the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, which Martin co-founded with his wife Michelle.)  Martin is (to echo Mr. French's words) an outstanding OTR researcher, as well as being a researcher of considerable note regarding television. (One of his best-known books is about TV's The Twilight Zone.)  In addition to the many books he's written, he writes regularly for such publications as Radio Recall and Radiogram (the latter being the newsletter/magazine of the group SPERDVAC--the Society To Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy). He also appears throughout the country to speak about his books and his research--in addition to overseeing the yearly Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention.

http://martingrams.blogspot.com/

http://www.martingrams.com/

By the way: in this space I've also written, in the past, about the blog "It's About TV," written by Mitchell Hadley.  Here is a September post from "It's About TV"; it's an enjoyable report, by Mitchell, about attending the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. (Mitchell and I have been in touch by e-mail, over time.  We did not, unfortunately, cross paths at the convention last month; as mentioned in my last post, I was there somewhat briefly.)

http://www.itsabouttv.com/2016/09/adventures-in-nostalgialand.html

In the above post, Mitchell wrote this, about one of the convention's presentations (by author and commentator David Krell):  "David Krell had perhaps the most informative talk, at least in regards to what I do.  He spoke on the year 1962, describing how an original idea to write about that year's baseball season had evolved to discuss the many notable things that had happened that year in politics, pop culture, and history. (The Cuban Missile Crisis, Marilyn Monroe's birthday song to JFK, and John Glenn's flight were only three of that year's events.) Krell's talk helped me solidify the structure of my own upcoming book on the relationship between television and pop culture, and to understand why it takes decades to understand the impact of a particular era."

I was delighted to learn that Mitchell is working on a book about television--and I look forward to reading it, whenever it is released.