Boston radio program, 1953

My parents were married in Manhattan in 1949, several months after my mother’s New York television career had begun. My father, at the time, was in his medical residency.

At the start of 1953, his residency now completed, and having accepted a job with a Boston medical practice, my parents left New York, and moved to suburban Boston.

A couple of months later (her network career now ended), my mother began singing on a daily radio show on Boston station WEEI-AM. She was, at the time, pregnant with my brother. (I was born later, in 1956.)

The radio show, Beantown Varieties, was hosted by Boston personality Carl Moore, and she sang on the show with an orchestra. (I don’t know how many musicians the orchestra featured, yet I have long been struck by the fact that an orchestra would be part of a local radio show. It was, indeed, a different era.)

Here is a segment of a song she sang on the show: “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man,” from the musical Show Boat (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II).

http://www.luckystrikepapers.com/images/Can_t_Help_Lovin_That_Man,_segment,_1953.wav