1920s OTR

[Amy Jeanne]

Does this exist? The earliest I've come across is 1931. Did they "save" radio programmes back then? What did they consist of? Is there absolutely ANY place I can find 1920s OTR? I've looked on Archive, but as I said -- the earliest I've found is 1931. Thanks.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ah, you've just hit on the area where I've done a lot of research -- and I can tell you that there are very very few genuine surviving broadcasts from the twenties. The earliest complete program that exists is the National Defense Test program from 1924, a ninety-minute program full of generals and AT&T executives scratching each other's backs. There are various fragments from after that, but the earliest complete network entertainment program I've found is a special broadcast on the opening of the Cascade Tunnel in Washington from 1929.

Quite a few bits and pieces of syndicated programs from 1928-30 are floating around as well.

An article I wrote ten years or so ago about early broadcasts can be found here. A few more things have surfaced since it was written, but it will give you a rough idea of the sort of stuff that survives.

I can tell you where to get hold of at least some of these -- contact via PM if interested.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Wow. I read your whole article. It's very interesting that in 1935 they invented the "disc" to record the programmes on. Certainly explains why I can only really find OTR in earnest beginning at about 1937.

I've heard some of the Morse Code airchecks from 13/14. They gave me the shivers, and I knew they would freak me out a little if I heard them, but I just can not help myself! I'm sure any broadcast I hear from the 1920s will have the same effect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The frustrating thing is that there are broadcasts which were known to have been recorded, for one reason or another, but the recordings have been lost and don't to anyone's knowledge survive. There was a very famous program in 1928 where the top stars of United Artists -- Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, Glora Swanson, and a few others made a joint appearance, and it actually was recorded by a guy in Chicago. But none of his recordings are known to exist, unless there's an attic somewhere nobody has looked in for eighty years or so. Stranger things have happened.

 

[Shangas]

It used to be done that OTR shows were recorded on big discs (like record-discs, but considerably larger in size) so that they might be played back later on, but to my knowledge, this only started in the 1930s. As Lizzie says, there are very few 1920s complete OTR broadcasts that still exist. I have a rather sizable collection of OTR on my computer; the oldest recordings I have go back to the mid 1930s...absolutely nothing before that.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I'm assuming no 1910s OTR has been saved. Did the '10s have OTR? What was it like and what would've been broadcast? How about earlier?


Got so many questions!!!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, there was "wireless" in the 10s, but it was mostly morse code stuff, like those Charles Apgar recordings from 1913-15. There was a DeForest Wireless station in New York that actually broadcast voice news bulletins and such for amateurs to hear, and even covered the 1916 elections. A few other amateurs were playing records on the air as far back as 1906, so the technology was there. Radio broadcasting on a commercial basis probably would have happened several years earlier than it did had the Government not ordered all amateurs to shut down for the duration when the US entered WW1, and didn't allow anyone back on the air until 1919.

Broadcasting for the sake of broadcasting started in the US in 1920, but it was 1922-23 before it really caught on and became a fad. For a while it was a hobby for teenagers and handymen who built their own radios at home, but manufactured sets caught on around 1923, and by 1925 you started to see them built into furniture, big leaky batteries and all. Then in 1926 you got the first radios that ran on AC power that you could just plug into the wall, and I think that was the point where it really went from being a novelty to a must-have. Programming evolved right along with the technology -- at first it was basically anybody that could be talked into appearing, so you got a lot of tone-deaf violin solos, high-strung sopranos, and Elks Club basses singing "Asleep in the Deep." By the middle twenties, it got more professional and you started to get the sponsored dance bands -- the Clicquot Club Eskimos, the Ipana Troubadours, and such as them. And then at the end of the twenties, "Amos 'n' Andy" started the craze for serials, and Rudy Vallee pioneered the idea of variety programs. So by 1930, you pretty much had the foundation for what radio would eventually evolve into.

It really is a pity so little audio from those days survives, because it was a time when people were willing to try just about anything on the air -- nobody knew what would or wouldn't work, so everybody had a chance.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I was just reading this article about San Francisco radio station KFRC and West Coast broadcasting pioneer Don Lee. Of all the lost broadcasts I would love to hear, it would be the KFRC Blue Monday Jamboree programs from the late '20s and early '30s. Among the cast was Jane Green, one of the great female vocalists of the 1920s. In her heyday she was a Broadway star who made a dozen or so recordings for the Victor label. She was with the Blue Monday Jamboree until her premature death in 1931 at age 34.

Jane is in the front row, fifth from the right. And standing at the bottom of the right hand stairs is Musical Director Meredith Willson who later went on to write and compose the musical The Music Man.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

This is fabulous. I adore Jane Green, also.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I listened to the 1924 programme and the 50th anniversary of the phonograph.

WOW!! The 1924 broadcast was very clear and not as "spooky" as I thought it would be, but that 50th anniversary! Fascinating and haunting!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I listened to the 1924 programme and the 50th anniversary of the phonograph.

WOW!! The 1924 broadcast was very clear and not as "spooky" as I thought it would be, but that 50th anniversary! Fascinating and haunting!

I thought you might like those. The 1924 broadcast was a very early electrical recording made by Bell Laboratories, from a direct connection to the WEAF line, so it probably sounds much cleaner than it would have to someone actually listening to it on the radio.

The 50th Anniversary of the Phonograph is a fascinating story in itself -- it's the earliest example of an experimental recording process invented by the Edison company, using a microgroove 30rpm disc -- basically an LP record twenty years before they were "invented." They actually recorded it through a microphone in front of a horn speaker -- so that's pretty much exactly what it would have sounded like to listeners at home.

I especially like the drunken salesmen singing along to the Ediphone song. What a bunch of cutups.

 

[vitanola]

I listened to the 1924 programme and the 50th anniversary of the phonograph.

WOW!! The 1924 broadcast was very clear and not as "spooky" as I thought it would be, but that 50th anniversary! Fascinating and haunting!

Where were you able to find these?

 

[Marla]

Oh yes, I'd love to listen to it also!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Vitanola and Marla, PM me (Marla, you'll to need to make five more posts around the lounge to activate PM privileges.)

 

[W4ASZ]

Likewise..

It is sad, too, that much of the early transmitting apparatus was not preserved. We have one Alexanderson alternator left, preserved thanks to the Swedes and their pride in their native son. I have pictures of the broadcast transmitter built by my grandfather in 1922, but the only part in existence today is the high-voltage rectifier assembly.

As for the early transcriptions, we can only hope that more will surface. I fear that most physically degraded and were then discarded.

 

[vitanola]

It is sad, too, that much of the early transmitting apparatus was not preserved. We have one Alexanderson alternator left, preserved thanks to the Swedes and their pride in their native son. I have pictures of the broadcast transmitter built by my grandfather in 1922, but the only part in existence today is the high-voltage rectifier assembly.

As for the early transcriptions, we can only hope that more will surface. I fear that most physically degraded and were then discarded.

Well the early '20's airchecks that have survived are generally processed phonograph records, that is SHELLAC PRESSINGS. When the Bell Telephone Laboratories was developing high-quality electric recording they used the broadcast signal form WEAF and a microphone line from the Capitol Theater as a program source. The masters produced were processed and pressed at the Pathe works in Brooklyn for the exclusive use of Bell Labs. About fifty different selections from this program are known to have survived, most dating from 1923 and 1924, and most being recordings of the Capitol Theater Orchestra, rather than radio airchecks. Many of these were discarded after the development program was finished. Many of the surviving copies remained in company archives until the early nineties, when the majority of the discs (hundreds of them) were discarded. Some found their way to Naucks record auction, but many then disappeared into private collections.

Miss Maine's article, referenced in an earlier post, is, I believe the standard reference work regarding known actual OTR recordings of this period. Her scholarship is excellent.

 

[W4ASZ]

Quite so !

It is fascinating business. (I have seen what heat and humidity can do to acetates. Disturbing.)

I appreciate the good scholarship.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

FINALLY! Listened to all of LM's programmes!

My favourite was the Meadows Program. It has everything I like -- persuasive advertising, silly jokes, and the popular music of the day. I'm a right sucker for those 15 and 30 minute music programs from way back when.

My only complaint was the gal singing "I Ain't Got Nobody." OUCH She gave me an earache with some of those wobbly high notes. Still loved it, though.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Glad you enjoyed those -- the Meadows series was among the earliest sponsored pre-recorded radio programs, and fortunately a number of segments have survived. This particular show was issued on an LP in the mid-70s along with some other bits and scraps of other syndicated programs of the era.

I especially like "Sonny Meadows, Master-Of-Entertainment," with his block-long pauses between every phrase. Obviously script reading came easier to some people than to others.

The Ray Miller Orchestra, featured on that series, turns up a lot on Brunswick 78s of the period, but I've never come across the vocalist, Mary Williams, anywhere else. She apparently did make some records on her own in the late twenties, but I've never found any. She sounds a lot like Vaughn de Leath to me, and for all I know might actually be her under a pseudonym...

 

[Mark D]

Rich Conaty posted a 1929 Jones & Hare early broadcast recording this past weekend. Apparently it's from an aluminum disc recording of a spot for the Interwoven Stocking company. Quite clear...

http://bbs.wfuv.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6769