NRR Project: 'America's Town Meeting of the Air' (May 8, 1941)

 

NRR Project: ‘America’s Town Meeting of the Air: Should Our Ships Convoy Materials to England?’

Recorded May 8, 1941

60 min.

I cannot find access to this particular broadcast; refer toCary O’Dell’s excellent essay on the program here.

America’s Town Meeting of the Air launched on May 30, 1935 and stayed on the air until July 1, 1956. The format was simple: two experts on opposite sides of a given issue were given time to state their views, debate each other, and take questions from the audience. Creator and moderator George V. Denny, Jr. was the executive director of the League for Political Education; he was dedicated to tackling controversial topics and to giving each side in a debate equal respect.

What was first perceived as a boring public-service program rapidly became popular, inspiring thousands of letters from listeners each week. The engagement was surprisingly strong. Members of the studio audience cheered and booed at the remarks of the participants. Beginning in 1936, listeners could join in via telephone to pose their questions.

Such was the impact of the show that listeners could write in for transcripts of the broadcasts, many of which were used as educational aids in U.S. schools.

“Hold fast to the liberty you are enjoying tonight,” intoned the show’s announcer, “for once again the system of American radio unites you in a great nationwide town meeting.” The idea of free and open debate is a cherished right in our country; America’s Town Meeting upheld that right vigorously for decades.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Game 4 of the 1941 World Series.

NRR Project: 'Walking the Floor Over You' (1941)

 

NRR Project: ‘Walking the Floor Over You’

Composed and performed by Ernest Tubb

Recorded April 26, 1941

2:04

First, read Ronnie Pugh’s definitive essay on this selection at the National Recording Registry.

Ernest Tubb, the “Texas Troubador,” had a long and successful career, and this is his signature tune. It represents the birth of “honky tonk” music, the kind that got played on coin-operated music machines in country bars.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: America’s Town Meeting of the Air: Should Our Ships Convoy Materials to England? (May 8, 1941).

NRR Project: The Deep River Boys sing 'They Look Like Men of War' (1941)

 

NRR Project: ‘They Look Like Men of War’’

Composed by John A. Granade and Hattie Hill

Performed by the Deep River Boys

Recorded 1941

2:09

No notes. You have to read the essay on it by Sandra Jean Graham; it is perfect!

I have little to add. The effect of this powerful a capella hyman, sung by soldiers going into battle, is inspiring. That it survived into the 20^th century was due to a man who heard it in the field, Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

The song itself comes from the early 19^th century. The conflation of readiness for battle and belief in Jesus Christ is a striking one, lending the flavor of crusade to its message. It is moving, both in context and in and of itself, its beautiful harmonies undulating.

The Deep River Boys developed as the Hampton Institute Junior Quartet, and grew into their new name. They moved away from purely performing spirituals and hyms, and started covering conventional material as well. They persisted, primarily in Europe, for many decades.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Walking the Floor Over You.

NRR Project: Memphis Minnie, 'Me and My Chauffeur Blues' (May 21, 1941)

 

NRR Project: ‘Me and My Chauffeur Blues’

Composed and performed by Memphis Minnie

Recorded May 21, 1941

2:49

I can’t say much about this one, as Paul Garon’s essay on itat the National Recording Registry is superb. Read it!

Memphis Minnie (1897-19730, born Lizzie Douglas, lived in the Deep South and took up her instrument early. By the age of 13, she was performing on street corners for money. Her expert picking was matched with a stentorian voice that could make itself heard clearly amid the noise of everyday life.

She was an anomaly; there had been great women blues singers, but few who played an instrument, sang, and generated her own material. In that way, she was an early musical entrepreneur. The air of authority she exudes in her recordings is unmistakable. She was a brave performer, raw and honest, at times downright lewd.

“Won't you be my chauffeur?

Won't you be my chauffeur?

I wants him to drive me

I wants him to drive me downtown

Yes, he drives so easy

I can't turn him down

 

But I don't want him

But I don't want him

To be ridin' these girls

To be ridin' these girls around

So I'm gonna steal me a pistol

Shoot my chauffeur down

 

Well, I must buy him

Well, I must buy him

A brand new V8

A brand new V8 Ford

Then he won't need no passengers

I will be his load

 

Going to let my chauffeur

Going to let my chauffeur

Drive me around the

Drive me around the world

Then he can be my little boy

Yes, I'll be his girl”

She was enormously influential. She recorded in the neighborhood of 200 songs. This song was covered by Jefferson Airplane, and Led Zeppelin took her “When the Levee Breaks” to new heights.

In 1996, Bonnie Raitt bought her a tombstone. Her family attended. The inscription is perhaps the most eloquent I have read:

“The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues. For the blues are at once general, and particular, speaking for millions, but in a highly singular, individual voice. Listening to Minnie's songs we hear her fantasies, her dreams, her desires, but we will hear them as if they were our own”

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 Deep River Boys sing They Look Like Men of War.

NRR Project: The Almanac Singers, 'Talking Union and Other Union Songs,' 1941/1955

 

NRR Project: ‘Talking Union’

Performed by the Almanac Singers, and Pete Seeger and the Song Swappers

May, 1941; revised and expanded 1955

33 min, 41 sec.

From December 1940 to March 1943 the Almanac Singers existed. Despite their brief life as a group, their influence was profound. They sparked the folk movement and the protest-song movement in American music simultaneously. A collection of left-leaning artists, portrayed as suspicious Communists by the press and  government, they sang out songs of social activism, anti-war, anti-racism, and pro-union.

First I must point you to Cesare Civetta’s excellent essay on it at the National Recording Registry. Wikipedia is also quite helpful.

They were radicals, philosophically and musically. They utilized traditional American instruments and folk tunes to create a secular hymnal that the dispossessed and their allies could sing, stirring feeling and rousing the conscience. The idea of pouring sociological content into song was not new; listen to Gene Autry’s 1931 recording of “The Death of Mother Jones.” But the Almanacs put it on the map.

The original group consisted of Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Peter Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. Talking Union was their second album, after Songs for John Doe. Doe, released in May 1941, was anti-war; Talking Union was recorded the same month. Doe was quickly shelved after June 22, the date on which Hitler invaded Russia and the group became pro-interventionist. 

On Talking Union is heard Seeger, Hays, Lampell, John White, Sam Gray, Carol White, and Bess Lomax Hawes. The six songs are all pro-union – “All I Want,” “Get Thee Behind Me Satan,” “Talking Union,” “Union Maid,” “Union Train,” and “Which Side Are You On.” All catchy, memorable, moving. This was a new kind of American song, or rather the rebirth of an older kind, of ballads and singalongs. Their earnestness, their energy, would be transmitted to a future generation of singer/songwriters who would ignite the social protest movements of the coming decades.

The Almanacs recorded three more albums, then sputtered to a halt. Seeger and Hays would go on to form part of the Weavers quartet in 1948, another group that was watched by the FBI. (The Weavers would end up blacklisted.) Liberal sentiments were despised; to adhere to them was as good as to be a card-carrying Communist, anathema to the American way.

In 1955, Folkways reissued the album, padding it with seven more songs from “Pete Seeger and the Song Swappers,” an ensemble that included a young Mary Travers, later of Peter, Paul, and Mary. They perform “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “Roll the Union On,” “Casey Jones,” “Miner’s Lifeguard,” “Solidarity Forever,” “You’ve Got to Go Down and Join the Union,” and “Hold the Fort.”

This stuff is dynamite. Plaintive like “All I Want (I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister),” ardent like “Solidarity Forever” (to the tune of the Battle Hym of the Republic); defiant like “Which Side Are You On?”

World War II and the Red Scare slowed its progress, but the American folk music revival would explode in the 1950s, spawning a multitude of artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins, not to mention Peter, Paul and Mary, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Kingston Trio, the New Christy Minstrels, and many other outfits.

But this was the real thing – songs they sang at labor rallies. “Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m stickin’ to the union/’Til the day I die.” These were committed activists who paid the penalty for speaking their minds. They were the first folkie heroes.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Memphis Minnie with Me and My Chauffeur Blues (1941).

NRR Project: Carousel of American Music (Sept. 24, 1940)

 

NRR Project: Carousel of American Music

Performed Sept. 24, 1940

Golden Gate International Exposition Federal Plaza/California Coliseum

San Francisco

4 hours, 42 min.

It’s the most amazing concert you’ve never heard.

First, I must point you to the explanatory essay about it by David A. Banks at the National Recording Registry. His account of the origin, gestation, and fulfillment of this project is comprehensive and precise!

The origin of this mega-concert was a boycott. The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) received royalties based on the public performance of its members’ material. In September 1940, the National Associations of Broadcasters (NAB) decided to forego using any music covered by ASCAP, beginning in January of 1941.

ASCAP wanted to flex its muscles, to demonstrate how vital they were to American culture. Since practically all the great composers, lyricists, and songwriters were members of ASCAP, they had a powerful bench to turn to to produce a concert – the biggest concert of its kind ever staged. Over the course of one day, music-makers from Roy Harris and Deems Taylor to George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin convened in San Francisco to perform their biggest hits.

ASCAP was also celebrating its 25^th anniversary. Gathering the “star power” of the premier songwriters of the first half of the 20^th century was quite a feat, and it went off like a charm.

The first part of the concert was performed in front of 25,000 at the Federal Plaza. It consisted of orchestral works by such composers as Harris, Taylor, Howard Hanson, and William Grant Still.

Later in the day, 15,000 people crammed into an auditorium built for 12,000; tens of thousands more listened over loudspeakers outside. ASCAP president Gene Buck served as the master of ceremonies, smoothly if somewhat obsequiously introducing all the acts.

And how lively they are! The chance for these composers to perform their own works in front of thousands energizes them, makes some of their renditions ebullient, even hammy. It’s a love fest with frequent applause breaks, singalongs, and encores.

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra provides the accompaniment for most of the songs performed, a task they more than rise to. They play some selctions of Victor Herbert’s music. They play “Smiles.” The composers take the stage and perform classics such as “Love in Bloom,” “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” “Some of These Days,” “Over the Rainbow” (Judy Garland appears), “Melancholy Baby,” “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,” “Three Little Words,” “My Blue Heaven,” “My Buddy,” “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Woolf?”, “Singin’ in the Rain,” “You Made Me Love You,” “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” “Goodbye My Lady Love” – basically all the hit songs of the past 50 years.

Jerome Kern appears, and knocks out “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “All the Things You Are.” We get to hear “Sweet Adeline,” “Lover, Come Back to Me,” some Sigmund Romberg, some Gershwin.

Johnny Mercer sings “Jeepers Creepers”! We get “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.” Hoagy Carmichael comes out and does “Stardust” and “Little Old Lady.” There is “Deep Purple” and “Chinatown My Chinatown.” W.C. Handy, probably the only Black composer present, gets up and performs “St. Louis Blues,” playing the cornet! He gets an impressive and lengthy acclamation. The popular baritone John Charles Thomas sings a few more songs . . . then GEORGE M. COHAN shows up and sings a medley of his hits.

The crowd goes crazy, naturally – then IRVING BERLIN steps out and sings “God Bless America.” A wow finish.

The two-part concert was recorded but never broadcast. I was lucky to find it on something called Youtube Music, which you can link to here.

It is vastly instructive to hear these songs performed by those who created them. The rhythms, intonations, emphases, are all unique to them; hearing them as their creators intended is gives you a blueprint of what it was like to craft and sell songs in the early days of the Great American Songbook.

Most importantly, they all gathered together to receive the affection of the crowd, the energy of which is palpable in this exciting but rarely heard production.

In a way, the concert marks a turning point in American music. The days of the finely crafted songsmithing of Tin Pan Alley were over. Big band music was all the rage, but soon would come bebop, R & B, and rock and roll. This concert was a summation of the charms of a passing era.

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 Almanac Singers present Talking Union (1941).

NRR Project: Edward R. Murrow reports from London (Sept. 21, 1940)

 

NRR Project: Edward R. Murrow reports from London (Sept. 21, 1940)

CBS Radio

4:14 min.

Everything essential about this selection is limned in Bob Edwards’ comprehensive essay on it for the National Recording Registry, which you should read here.

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) was a heroic journalist. He broadcast from London during Germany’s attacks on it, insisting on broadcasting from open squares, rooftops, and basements even as he was getting bombed out of them. His eloquent and descriptive solemnity fit the perilous nature of the situation he found himself in and made the experience vivid for millions of listeners. And it was all done live -- CBS didn't do taping back then. 

Murrow was a descriptive master. At a time when most ran for shelter, he toughed it out on the rooftops of London. Listen to it here. He hung in there and told us the truth, becoming a paragon of journalistic guts and integrity. The correspondents he later corralled together with him on CBS Radio were known as “Murrow’s Boys,” and they were legendary.  

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 Carousel of American Music.