"Radio Once More"

Last Monday night (March 8th), I appeared by phone, for a couple of hours, on the Internet radio station “Radio Once More” (http://www.radiooncemore.com/).

For most of its broadcast day, the station airs radio programs from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s (shows such as “The Lone Ranger,” “Inner Sanctum,” “Dragnet,” “The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show,” “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Mercury Theatre,” and many others).

Yet four times per week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9 p.m.-midnight, and Sundays from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.) the station features its three-hour “Live Show”; this is the program on which I appeared last week.

The program is oriented toward nostalgia and Old-Time-Radio subjects, and has been airing since the start of January. Its hosts, well-known in the Old Time Radio community, are Neal Ellis and Ken Stockinger.

The show features guest interviews, conversations between the hosts, contributions from listeners—via phone calls, e-mails, and postings on the show’s Facebook page—and episodes of old radio broadcasts.

(Part of one show, last week, concerned the 77th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s first “Fireside Chat”; two “Fireside Chats” were re-played, including Mr. Roosevelt’s initial 1933 broadcast.)

Neal Ellis and Ken Stockinger are warm and engaging hosts, and it was a great pleasure appearing on their program.

Fears about the S.S. United States

From The Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103900116560526.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

And an op-ed piece from The New York Post, by the Executive Director of the S.S. United States Conservancy:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/scrap_history_save_our_ship_oSUErZWu3xkx8jhKjBIVBL

"Radio Once More"

Tonight, at 9 p.m. (EST), I’ll be talking about The Lucky Strike Papers on the Internet radio station “Radio Once More.” (www.radiooncemore.com)

The program—the station’s “Live Show”—airs Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9 p.m.-12 a.m., and Sundays from 6 p.m.-9 p.m.

The show’s hosts are Neal Ellis and Ken Stockinger.

Early TV, and the Big Bands

An important part of my book about early TV is its focus on singers (including, of course, my mother).

There are a number of singers interviewed in the book. Many of them—such as Eileen Wilson, Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, Merv Griffin, and Jack Leonard—were vocalists from the big band period, who then became a part of the new medium of television.

The book, indeed, is primarily about television’s early years. Yet it also concerns this concurrent time: the last years of the big band era.

Some of the early TV programs on which my mother sang, between 1949 and 1952, were built around bandleaders: Kay Kyser’s show, Freddy Martin’s show. Your Hit Parade starred a cast of vocalists—yet it also featured, prominently, The Lucky Strike Orchestra, led by musician Raymond Scott; Scott had achieved great success as a bandleader in the 1930s and 1940s.

Such TV shows, therefore, were not simply part of the new, emerging medium. They were also part of (or had roots in) the band era, yet it was an era which was receding. A new musical period was coming into view: one in which individual vocalists were supplanting the big bands, in popularity—vocalists such as Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore, and Patti Page (all of whom starred on their own TV shows during the 1950s).

Found Objects

In the early 1970s my parents got a place on Cape Cod. My father still spends time there, and I was recently there for a visit.

While looking through some family things, stored there, I found some items from my mother’s career that I don’t remember seeing before.

There was sheet music, from the time (1948 and 1949) when she had a singing role in a Broadway revue— the show “Small Wonder,” which starred Tom Ewell.

I found a list, in her handwriting; it appeared to be of songs she had sung one week (or, perhaps, was about to sing) on the show Teen Time Tunes, on the Dumont television network. The TV show, fifteen minutes long (a popular time format during early TV), featured my mother and The Alan Logan Trio, and aired weeknights, for part of 1949.

I also found a nice publicity photo of her, which I reproduce here. The picture is not dated, but I believe it is from 1949 or 1950, during the time she sang on Kay Kyser’s TV show on NBC.

Early television, on a movie set

The picture at right was recently posted on philly.com—the website of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News—as part of a photo feature, concerning film stars from Philadelphia (including Grace Kelly, who appears in the photo).

The photo was taken on the set of the film High Noon, on October 4th, 1951.

In the picture, Grace Kelly, Gary Cooper, and others are watching the television broadcast of the opening game of the 1951 World Series (featuring the New York Yankees and the New York Giants).

In the photo, from left to right: High Noon cast members Otto Kruger, Thomas Mitchell, Gary Cooper, an unidentified member of the studio staff, Grace Kelly and Lon Chaney Jr. (Photo by Charles Handel, Associated Press)

Nat King Cole, "Mona Lisa," "Orange Colored Sky," & Milton DeLugg

This February 15th will mark the 45th anniversary of the death of Nat King Cole. He died in 1965, a month before his 46th birthday.

Here’s a video of Cole, singing one of his best-known songs, “Mona Lisa”; it was a hit record in 1950. I don’t know what year the video is from, but Cole’s performance of the song (as is typical of his performances) is quite beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M3uR24_V10

Cole had another hit in 1950, with the song “Orange Colored Sky”; he was accompanied, on the record, by Stan Kenton’s orchestra. Here’s the recording, via YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-6QknAOsVo&feature=related

Musician and bandleader Milton DeLugg (about whom I’ve written previously, in this space, and who is interviewed in my book) co-wrote “Orange Colored Sky” (with Willie Stein).

In 1950, DeLugg was the bandleader on (and was well-known for playing the accordion on) network TV’s first late-night hit show, Broadway Open House. He played “Orange Colored Sky” regularly on the program.

The star of Broadway Open House, comedian Jerry Lester, recorded a version of the song, prior to the recording made famous by Nat King Cole and Stan Kenton. A version was also recorded by Betty Hutton.

In their book, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (Ballantine Books, several editions), authors Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh write that DeLugg’s frequent performances of “Orange Colored Sky,” on Broadway Open House, led to this distinction: that it was “probably the first song ever to become a hit through television exposure.”