NRR Project: 'Jole Blon' (1946)

 

NRR Project: “Jole Blon”

Performed by Harry Choates

Recorded July 17, 1946

2:45

Again, I must defer to the National Recording Registry for its explanatory essay by Ryan Brasseaux, which you can read here.

This recording represents the breakthrough of Cajun music into the mainstream. Surprisingly popular, it ran high in the sales charts when it was released. It’s a typical love song, sorrowing over a lost woman. The lyrics:

Jolie blon, regardez donc quoi t'as fait

(Pretty blonde, look at what you've done)
Tu m'as quitte pour t'en aller
(You left me to go away)
Pour T'en aller avec un autre, oui, que moi
(To go away with another, instead of me)
Quel espoir et quel avenir, mais, moi, je vais avoir?
(What hope and what future am I going to have?)

Jolie blon, tu m'as laisse, moi tout seul
(Pretty blonde, you've left me all alone)
Pour t'en aller chez ta famille
(To go back to your family)
Si t'aurais pas ecoute tos les conseils de les autres
(If you had not listened to the advice of the others)
Tu serait ici-t-avec moi aujourd 'hui
(You would be here with me today)

Jolie blon, tu croyais il y avait just toi
(Pretty blonde, you thought there was just you)
Il y a pas just toi dans le pays pour moi aimer
(There is not just you in this land to love me)
Je peux trouver just une autre jolie blonde
(I can find another pretty blonde)
Bon Dieu sait, moi, j'ai un tas
(Good God knows, I have a lot)

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 Partch’s U.S. Highball.

 

 

NRR Project: 'Folk Songs of the Hills' (1946)

 

NRR Project: “Folk Songs of the Hills”

Performed by Merle Travis

Recorded 1946

34:23

Merle Travis (1917-1983) was the real deal. A songwriter, singer, and expert guitarist, he made his way up through the ranks of country artists and found enduring fame. He wrote “Sixteen Tons” and “Dark as a Dungeon,” both classics. Both can be found on this record.

At the time, Travis had a decent solo career going; additionally, he was a member of the Brown’s Ferry Quartet, a gospel group. He recorded “soundies,” short filmed performances that were played much like a jukebox. His reputation was solid.

Then his label, Capitol, asked him to record an album of folk songs. He came up with “Folk Songs of the Hills,” an eight-song album that featured traditional tunes as well as his own compositions.

His style is simple and straightforward, and he includes little verbal introductions to each of his selections, referring to the listeners as “boys and girls,” which make one think he made this record with children in mind. He performs “Nine Pound Hammer,” “John Henry,” and the gospel song “I Am a Pilgrim.”

The result is a primer on folk and folk-style music. These songs would be covered countless times by others, and would become standards in the American song book.

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 Choates plays Jole Blon.

NRR Project: The Fred Allen Show (Oct. 7, 1945)

 

NRR Project: The Fred Allen Show

NBC Radio

Broadcast Oct. 7, 1945

30 min.

Fred Allen (1894-1956) was the funniest man in radio.

Jack Benny is the best-remembered of the radio comedians, but he was served by a staff of writers. For nearly 20 years, the dough-faced Fred Allen wrote, edited, and produced a comedy show that was, for a time, the highest-rated comedy program on the air.

Fred Allen was Boston-born, under the name of John F. Sullivan. He grew up hard, coming from an impoverished background and going to work at an early age. His workplace was an ideal springboard – it was a library. There he found a book on juggling, and taught himself how to do it.

Years of work in vaudeville followed. Allen gravitated to comedy, and soon was billing himself as “Freddy James, the World’s Worst Juggler.” Allen’s sharp, incisive wit propelled him onto Broadway, where he worked his way up to starring roles in the comedy revues of the day.

Finally, in 1933 radio came calling. For nine years, Allen created an hour-long comedy show once a week – a monumental task that found him working 12-hour days and 80-hour weeks. Gradually, he built up a cadre of talented voice actors who could handle any verbal challenge.

Beginning in December 1942, Allen created the popular “Allen’s Alley” segment, in which he went from door to door to ask various eccentrics about a topic of the day. Minerva Pious played Mrs. Nussbaum, a Jewish New Yorker; Parker Fennelly played Titus Moody, a dour New Englander. Alan Reed, later the voice of Fred Flintstone, played poet Falstaff Openshaw.

Also in 1942, the sponsors and NBC cut Allen’s show from an hour to a half-hour, to Allen’s dismay despite saving Allen from the undue stress of producing so much material a week. In this new format, the jokes came fast and thick; Allen’s comedic momentum was unrivaled. He hosted celebrity guests and put them through their comedic paces, making fun of hoary old entertainment cliches, other radio programs, and more.

Allen took 1944 off due to hypertension. He returned in the fall of 1945, and experienced his greatest period of success. Not only average listeners but other comedians would tune in to enjoy his work. His gift for improvisation perked up many a show, and sometimes led to his show running long and getting cut off. This and his on-air antipathy towards NBC’s executives got him in hot water time and again.

In the Oct. 7, 1945 broadcast, Fred welcomed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy to the program. They essayed a skit in which Charlie is set to leave Bergen, and he and Fred come up with a corny act with which to break back into vaudeville. They fail spectacularly, and Allen is offered a job -- without Charlie. He dumps him, and Charlie is reduced to begging Bergen for his job back.

The broadcast selected by the National Recording Registry features the debut in Allen’s Alley of Senator Claghorn, voiced by announcer Kenny Delmar. The senator was from the Deep South – “we call people from Alabama Yankees!” he proclaimed. Given to repeating himself and riding over Allen, the brash and daffy politician was a big hit.

In the end, the encroachments of television and the success of radio quiz shows destroyed his ratings. Additionally, his hypertension returned. After 1949, he would no longer hold a position on the radio dial.

Listening to his entire run of preserved shows is a pleasure and an education.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Merle Travis’ Folk Songs of the Hills.

NRR Project: 'On a Note of Triumph' (May 8, 1945)

 

NRR Project: “On a Note of Triumph”

Written, produced, and directed by Norman Corwin

CBS Radio

Broadcast May 8, 1945

57:06

This recording represents two apogees. It denotes the high-water mark of the American century, and it stands as the one of the last great works of famed radio producer, director, and writer Norman Corwin.

The defeat of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945 was an immensely emotional moment. Six years of war had devastated Europe and turned the United States from an isolated, sleeping giant into a world power crusading for democracy. The victory affirmed our values – freedom, inclusion, diversity, tolerance – and set these principles out as our guiding philosophy, our hope for the future of the world.

Corwin was an eloquent recorder of the American experience. In his many broadcasts he articulated contemporary wisdom, as we heard in his landmark “We Hold These Truths,” which you can read about here.

“On a Note of Triumph” is a companion piece. It shouts to the world our glee at finally beating Hitler and his rotten gang of criminals and psychopaths. It articulates our reasons for fighting, describes the good that is to come, and asks questions about the struggle and our victory.

Corwin constructs here a complex tapestry of voices, led by the narration of Martin Gabel. The great Bernard Herrmann, who got his start with radio’s Mercury Theatre, provides a stunning score.

“So they’ve given up! They’re finally done in and the rat is dead in an alley back of the Wilhelmstrasse. Take a bow, G.I.! Take a bow, little guy! The superman of tomorrow lies dead at the feet of you common men of this afternoon! This is it, kid! This is the day! . . . You had what it took and you gave it . . . seems like free men have done it again!”

The show goes on to outline the general rejoicing resounding around the world. The tone is grandiose, bombastic, naïve, evangelical – reflecting the feeling pervasive in the country.

“Somehow the decadent democracies, the bumbling Bolsheviks, the Saxon softies, were tougher in the end than the brown-shirt bully boys. And smarter too, for without whipping a priest, burning a book, or slugging a Jew, without corralling a girl in a brothel or bleeding a child for plasma, far-flung, ordinary men, unspectacular but free, rousing out of their habits and their homes, got up early one morning, flexed their muscles, learned as amateurs the manual of arms, and set across across perilous plains and oceans to whop the bejeepers out of the professionals.”

What follows, exuberantly, is a paean to the victors and a final, scornful analysis of the sins of the enemy. It recites the crimes of the Nazis, and holds up their actions to contempt. Corwin definitively differentiates the principles of the victors from the values of the defeated. Germany is thoroughly mocked for its imperial ambitions and its insensate cruelties.

And it asks questions – “Who did we beat? How much did it cost to beat him? What did we learn? What do we do know now that we didn’t know before? What will we do now? Could it all happen again?”

The broadcast then purports to answer these questions. Given the fact that the Allies were still at war with Japan, the job is seen as unfinished and vigilance and patience is counseled. Isolation is scorned and international cooperation is promoted. The broadcast ends with hope for the future.

America had not yet dropped its problematic atomic bombs on the enemy. For a couple of months, America could see itself as the embodiment of virtue. Corwin’s work celebrates that exuberant belief in the American way, and the dream of universal brotherhood.

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 Fred Allen Show.

NRR Project: 'Tubby the Tuba' (1950)

 

NRR Project: “Tubby the Tuba”

Music: George Kleinsinger; words: Paul Tripp

Narrated by Victor Jory

Recorded 1945

11:50

This pleasant entry is masterfully written about by Cary O’Dell at the National Recording Registry – you can read that here.

The idea of creating pedagogical compositions to familiarize children with musical instruments is not new. Prokofiev did it with Peter and the Wolf; Benjamin Britten would do it later with his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. This cheerful and chipper story is meant to be a non-intimidating introduction to the orchestra.

It succeeds in the context of a modern fairy tale, written in imitation of Andersen’s Ugly Duckling. Tubby the Tuba is tired of playing just accompaniment and wants to play a melody of his own. He is mocked for this. Disconsolate, he goes to a river – and there finds a frog who also feels left out musically. Together, they create a basso melody that Tubby then takes back to the orchestra.

Fortunately, the great conductor Pizzicato recognizes the value of Tubby’s tune, and the other instruments join in and fill out the orchestration. Everyone is happy! Tubby the Tuba has been recorded many times since, but here is the original rendition, featuring the narration of character actor Victor Jory.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: On a Note of Triumph.

NRR Project: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (April 25 - June 26, 1945)

 

NRR Project: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization

Recorded April 25 to June 26, 1945

These recordings are another resource that is on file but not readily available to the public. First, read Brandon Burke’s excellent essay on this entry at the National Recording Registry.

As World War II drew to a close, the victors once again strove to create a governing body for all the nations of the world. This had been attempted previously, with the League of Nations after World War I , but that organization proved ineffective. Now the Allies convened in San Francisco in 1945 to found the United Nations.

NBC Radio covered the proceedings, and the audio was recorded onto disc and stored for future reference. The conferrals are all there for the scholar to examine.

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

NRR Project: Arthur Godfrey broadcasts FDR's funeral procession (April 14, 1945)

 

NRR Project: The funeral of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Broadcast April 14, 1945

 Before everyone asked where you were when Kennedy was shot, they asked you where you were when you found out that Roosevelt died.

He was my father’s President. From two years before his birth to the age of 12, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in his White House. He governed enthusiastically, dynamically, some say with a heavy-handed imperiousness. Het got us through the Depression, and largely through World War II. His mythic weight, multiplied by his radio addresses and public speeches, marked him as an articulate and thoughtful President.

That being said, I can’t access the recording involved. Arthur Godfrey was the morning guy at the CBS radio affiliate WJSV, in Washington, D.C.  (Read about Godfrey’s performance on the full day of WJSV recording in possession of the Registry essay I wrote.)

Godfrey, using his unique technique of relaxed folksiness and emotional honesty, described Roosevelt’s funeral procession from the top of a nearby bank building. Godfrey broke down, and switched the show back to the studio. Read Christopher H. Sterling’s account of it here.

It was a genuinely moving tribute to one of the Twentieth Century’s essential individuals. Godfrey’s broadcast elevated him to star status.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization.