NRR Project: “Gunsmoke: The Cabin” (Dec. 27, 1952)

 

NRR Project: “Gunsmoke: The Cabin”

Broadcast Dec. 27, 1952

30 min.

This program was perhaps the best in the history of American network radio. It fully explored the medium’s potentialities, both in terms of content and sonically. The detailed and grim world of the frontier it created endures if listened to in the present. The show, a Western, began in 1952 and lasted well into the Television Age – and transitioned to television itself, in a show that ran concurrently with the original radio show from 1955 to 1961, then persisted itself to 1975.

There are many great resources out there on this show. You can read Charles Tranberg’s essay on it at the National Recording Registry here. The eminent historian John Dunning covers it in his On the Air, pages 302-306; another comprehensive record is SuzAnne and Gabor Barabas’ Gunsmoke: A Complete History.

It was the brainchild of director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. For the first time, the two took a cliché-ridden genre and revitalized it completely, turning a kids’ subject into one starkly adult. The show was set in the frontier town of Dodge City, Kansas; there, all manner of characters and stories could spring to life. There would be violence, insanity, crime, and all of life’s foibles. But how to anchor the show?

Brilliantly, Meston created Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal (William Conrad) – a lawman grim and largely unhumorous, capable of righteous rage and cold-blooded calculation, as close to an anti-hero as the time would permit. He is a man with a past and no great concern about his future. He deals justice with understated intensity. He is perpetually alert, guarded, lonely. Rarely would an episode go by without Dillon regretfully killing a miscreant, but there were splashes of mercy from him as well.

Characters were complex; real-sounding people learned hard truths about themselves in the short space of a half hour. Dillon’s companions were deputy Chester Proudfoot (Parley Baer), doctor Addams (Howard McNear) and Kitty Russell (Georgia Ellis). Together they faced up to the killers, the thieves, the gunfighters, the bankers, the tenderfeet, the loose women, the cavalrymen . . .It is surprising to see how varied the subject matter could be, within the solid confines of the outline of the show.

Macdonnell and Meston were aided by the excellent music of Rex Koury, and the “sound patterns” of the sound effects team consisting of Tom Hanley, Ray Kemper, and Bill James. Never before had such an artful backdrop of appropriate sounds been rendered over the air. Listen to it today: you can make out the burble of a crowded bar, or the prairie at midnight, or people trapped by a raging storm.

The episode chosen for inclusion here is typical of the series. It does not feature Chester, Doc, or Kitty – it is a Matt story, and a bloody one. Dillon, trying to ride home, confronts a deadly blizzard. He finds shelter inside a house – that turns out to be occupied by two psychotic criminals and their female hostage. How he extricates himself from his predicament I’ll leave to you – you can listen in to the episode on any of a number of sites; I prefer Radio Echoes and the Internet Archive.

The show’s strength was such that the network ran it for an entire decade, long after most other radio shows had dried up and blown away. Listening to it is an education in how to write, produce, direct, and perform a radio show.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest.

NRR Project: 'It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels' (1952)

 

NRR Project: “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”

Composed by J.D. “Jay” Miller

Performed by Kitty Wells

Released 1952

1:40

Well, if you want to know all about this entry, just read John Rumble’s excellent essay on it at the National Recording Registry.

The country subgenre of the wronged-woman song really starts here. Interestingly, this is an “answer song” to Hank Thompson’s 1952 hit “Wild Side of Life,” which blames an unfaithful woman for the singer’s troubles. Wells’ response casts the blame back on men.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: ‘Gunsmoke’: “The Cabin.”

NRR Project: 'Happy Trails' (1952)

NRR Project: “Happy Trails”

Composed by Dale Evans

Performed by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Released 1952

1:40

This delightful and instantly memorable little ditty became the theme song for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, cowboy stars of movies, TV, and radio in the middle of the 20^th century. Rogers and Evans were married in real life. Evans penned this herself.

Roy Rogers (1911-1998) was a phenomenon. Born Leonard Slye, he knocked around show biz in California while working many different menial jobs. In 1933, he helped to form a singing group that soon became known as the Sons of the Pioneers. The group scored hits such as “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Cool Water.”

Then, in 1938, cowboy star Gene Autry wanted more money for his film work. The studio decided to create their own singing cowboy, whom they could pay less. Leonard won the job. He was quickly rechristened Roy Rogers, and he made Under Western Stars. He was an instant hit, and was soon to be known as the King of the Cowboys.

In 1944, he met Dale Evans (1912-2001), who up to that point had a successful career as a jazz singer. They married on New Year’s Eve, 1947 and immediately began performing together. In 1952, Evans created this song as the closing theme for the radio and TV incarnations of The Roy Rogers Show.

The lyrics are upbeat:

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

The song has become part of the collective consciousness.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Kitty Wells sings “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

NRR Project: Chopin, Polonaise Op. 40 no. 1; Arthur Rubenstein, piano (1952)

NRR Project: Polonaise, Op. 40, no. 1

Composed by Frederic Chopin

Performed by Arthur Rubenstein

Recorded 1952

5:31

This stirring performance gives just an indication of the brilliance of pianist Arthur Rubenstein (1887-1982). Read Annik LaFarge’s excellent essayon Chopin and Rubenstein at the National Recording Registry here!

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Happy Trails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NRR Project: 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' (1952)

 

NRR Project: ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’

Written and recited by Dylan Thomas

Released 1952

21:22

This mellifluous recording was the first offered by the spoken-word record label Caedmon. Read Nerys Williams’ excellent essay on it here.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was a dramatic and engaging Welsh poet, whose stentorian voice chanted out his verse powerfully. While his private life was chaotic, he turned out many assured works. He gained fame through his reading of his works. A Child’s Christmas in Wales is a prose work, but it is beautiful and potent.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Chopin’s Polonaise, op. 40, no. 1, performed by Arthur Rubenstein.

NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music (1951)

 

NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music

Collected and curated by Harry Smith

Released 1951

4 hrs., 15 min.

Oh my God. First, just go and listen to the thing. Take the time to do it. You’ll thank me.

It’s most extraordinary compendium of what Greil Marcus referred to as the music of “the old, weird America.” It covers folk music. It includes the blues. There are spirituals. There’s early country music here. The 84 songs were selected from genius scholar and filmmaker Harry Smith’s 78 rpm collection, recordings ranging from 1926 to 1933. The meticulous Smith classified them as three themed albums: ballads, “social music,” and songs.

It was not particularly noted at the time of its release. However, it inspired a whole generation of fans, first, folk singers, then rock bands, and rapidly evolving genres such as bluegrass and country. It created the American folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It inspired Baez and Dylan. Its impact and value cannot be overstated. Do I make myself clear?

It’s epic. It’s bizarre. It’s a revelation, The songs are ghosts from the primeval past, the American past.

And it was created by a bizarre individual. Harry Smith was an amateur anthropologist, an experimental filmmaker, a committed drug user, and a collector of all sorts of oddities, including 20,000 78 rpm records. It was from this collection that he culled the Anthology. Read about him here in Ian Nasgoski’s excellent essay at the National Recording Registry.

Smith plumbed the depths of American song, and its nooks and crannies, within the parameters he set for himself. He created the Anthology as a magnificent gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of sound, picture, and text that came neatly packaged together. Smith’s illustrated commentaries on each selection, released as a booklet along with the collection, are penetrating, pithy, and apt. (A fourth volume of vintage Americana in the Anthology series, encompassing 28 more songs released between 1928 and 1940, was released on Ravenant Records in 2000.)

The result of all this hard work is a document that illuminates the American musical psyche of the past. The largely ignored genres and little-heard tunes that are ironically now immortalized by Smith are, of a body, haunting: this is music made by real people, not mainstream groups nor mainstream genres. Thanks to Smith, those otherwise lost voices come back to haunt us. He gave us an X-ray of America’s soul.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dylan Thomas recites his A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

NRR Project: 'Rocket '88'' (March 3 or 5, 1951)

 

NRR Project: “Rocket ‘88’”

Composed by Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner

Performed by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm)

Recorded March 3 or 5, 1951

2:48

To really define “Rocket ‘88’” as the first rock and roll song is pretty arbitrary. Much of this approach dwelt in R’n’B, and precursors such as Johnny Otis, Louis Prima, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Louis Jordan set the tone for what was coming.

Still, there is something new, something driven and assured taking place. There is an urgency not present before. Read Steve Propes’ excellent essay about it here at the National Recording Registry. Propes proposes that it’s the accidentally fuzzed-out sound of Willie Kizart that makes it rock and roll.

It was an inspired setup that came together quite casually, a happy constellation of talent that drove this vibrant song into hitland, and changed the course of music. Legendary music producer Sam Phillips recorded it in his studio in Memphis. Jackie Brenston was Ike Turner’s saxophonist. The real genius behind this is the unacknowledged genius/villain Turner, backed by his Kings of Rhythm.  

It was a good-time, celebratory song. It was ostensibly about the singer’s new Oldsmobile 88, but it yaks along at breakneck pace about good times. It was upbeat and youthful, a new sound.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.