Blind Lemon Jefferson was an early star among country bluesmen.
He was born south of Dallas, Texas, in 1893, and learned the guitar growing up.
Soon he was performing on the street – initially near his hometown, then in
Dallas itself. His high, keening voice and intricate guitar work distinguished
him from his rivals, and in 1926 he went to Chicago to start recording “sides”.
This he did until his untimely death in 1929.
The recording cited in this entry was taken from his work
for OKeh Records, a break from his initial commitment to Paramount Records. Of
the eight sides he recorded for OKeh, only these two made it to the public –
Paramount’s complaints about OKeh poaching him led to the other recordings
being suppressed.
So what are these songs about? “Match Box Blues” is somewhat
mystifying:
“How far to the river, mama, walk down by the sea
How far to the river, walk down by the sea
I got those tadpoles and minnows all in over me”
No idea. Blues singers used coded language to broach intimate
or unsavory topics. Presumably, the lines above are a metaphor for something
sexual. In “Black Snake Moan,” the reptile of the title is really a penis.
“Mmm, mmm,
black snake crawlin' in my room
Mmm, mmm, black
snake crawlin' in my room
Some pretty
mama better come and get this black snake soon”
Indeed.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman.
Written
by Frank Amodio/Lyrics by Ranzo Vampo, music by F. Pensiero
Performed
by Compagnia Columbia/Raoul Romito
Recorded: 1927
The tragedy of Sacco and Vanzetti is dimly remembered and
scarcely understood today. This unique recording commemorates their internationally
protested imprisonment and sentencing to death for a crime they may or may not
have committed.
On April 15, 1920, in Braintree, Massachusetts, Slater and
Morrill Shoe Company paymaster Frederick Parmenter and security guard
Alessandro Berardelli were shot and killed during the course of a $15,000 payroll
robbery. Two Italian immigrant working men who also happened to be anarchists,
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were later arrested for the crime.
The two were convicted and sentenced to execution on July
14, 1921. From that time on, numerous unsuccessful appeals for retrial were
rejected, even as popular opinion rose in support of the two men. It was
broadly thought by liberals that the men were innocent and were being
persecuted for their immigrant status and for their political orientation.
Protests for Sacco and Vanzetti grew and became worldwide.
This recording dates from 1927, towards the end of the two’s
imprisonment. It was enacted by the “Compagnia Columba,” an Italian-language
dramatic group. Evidently spoken-language records concerning the events of the
day were not unusual at the time. Here the action replicates a rally on Sacco
and Vanzetti’s behalf. On the record’s other side is a sung ballad supporting
them.
Despite the scope of protest in their favor, the two were
executed on August 23, 1927. A preponderance of historical analysis suggests
that Sacco was guilty but that Vanzetti was not. Still, their prosecution marks
a huge symbolic uproar in America about prejudice against immigrant Americans
and left-wing thinking.
This recording demonstrates a unique and little-known usage of the recording industry. The spreading of popular opinion using the media percolates up into society in a variety of ways.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: Blind Lemon Jefferson.
The violinist Pawlo Humeniuk migrated from Ukraine to
America when he was 18, in 1902. There he worked with his brother at their
instrument-making and -repair shop. He played his fiddle at social functions
for immigrants from Eastern Europe. This medley contains a typical number of
dance melodies known and loved by his expatriate audience.
At the time of this recording, large amounts of ethnic music
were recorded and purchased in America. Though America was the land of
opportunity, it also left many feeling stranded, bereft of the cultural milieu
in which they matured. Records such as this brought the sounds of the “old country”
to life. Humeniuk played for decades, achieving renown as the “king of Ukranian
fiddlers.”
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘Protesta per Sacco e Vanzetti’.
When they first met in 1916, George Gershwin and Fred
Astaire were both up-and-comers. Fred was a 17-year-old veteran of the stage,
who had been performing as a double dance act with his older sister Adele for
years. Gershwin was an 18-year-old song plugger – a lowly demonstrator who
played new sheet music for potential buyers, a holdover from the pre-recording
era. Eight years later, they would collaborate on a landmark musical that
featured this song.
The show they worked on, Lady,
Be Good!, opened on Dec. 1, 1924 and ran for ten months on Broadway, then
another ten in London’s West End, during which this recording was made. It was
the culmination of an annus mirabilis for
Gershwin – he composed Rhapsody in Blue earlier
in the year. He had finally settled down into a songwriting partnership with
his brother Ira, and after writing for topical revues to date, he switched to
writing for book musicals (which, unlike the revues, had at least the wisp of a
plot). The songs, instead of being free-standing, were to be integrated into
the story. Lady, Be Good! was a hit,
and “Fascinating Rhythm” was a standout.
This recording was made in England during the show’s run
there. Gershwin’s amazing chops as an accompanist are on jaunty display here.
He makes maximum use of the instrument. The Astaires’ flat, reedy voices aren’t
musically overwhelming, but they convey the rattling syncopation of the lyrics
effectively. The tune is frantically joyful. The idea is that the jazz pulse
makes its listeners terminally distracted, but the brisk cheer with which the
song declares its conflict belies the complaint. The singer is enthralled by the song.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘Tanec Pid Werbamy’.
Jelly Roll Morton, piano; Kid Ory, trombone; Omer Simeon,
clarinet; George Mitchell, trumpet; Johnny St. Cyr, banjo; John Lindsay, double
bass; Andrew Hilaire, drummer
Recorded: Sept. 15, 1926
Once again, for thoroughness and accuracy in contextualizing
this entry I must doff my hat to the National Recording Registry, which
features Burton W. Peretti’s expert essay.
Ferdinand LaMothe started playing piano in New Orleans whorehouses
in 1897 at the age of 14. From this salacious beginning, he embarked on a long and
checkered career of making music. Along the way he changed his name to “Jelly
Roll” Morton (jelly roll being slang for vagina). Along the way, he helped to
invent jazz.
Vain ebullient, and ambitious, Morton played all over the
country in all manner of venues and shows. He developed his talent, and in 1915
he published “Jelly Roll Blues,” one of the first jazz compositions put to
paper. He made his home base Chicago, as that city had become an
African-American cultural hub, a lure that drew early jazz musicians up from
the South.
“Black Bottom Stomp” is a textbook illustration of what he
brought to the genre. Morton was a composer, and he brought seriousness and
discipline to jazz. Previously, tunes had been worked out by the musicians in “head
arrangements” that were developed in performance and remained in the memory
only. Morton committed the work to paper, fleshing it out with arrangements that
balanced and contrasted the instruments in the ensemble.
The tune takes off like a rocket, whizzing through the air
at you. This is what was to be described as “hot jazz” (later referred to as
Dixieland or trad jazz). At the time this recording was made, Louis Armstrong
was making his Hot Five and Seven records, which mark a progression away from
fast-paced raucous music-making toward more lyrical efforts. This was the
original New Orleans ensemble approach, making up more than the sum of its
parts instead of serving as a frame that showcases the talents of a particular
soloist. Intense and rhythmically challenging, frantic and madcap, it dares the
listener to dance.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘Fascinating Rhythm.’.
Also: Lonnie Johnson, guitar; Jimmy Noone, clarinet; Earl Hines,
piano; et al
Comes the revolution.
It’s difficult to overstate how
important these recordings are. They mark a dividing line in the history of
jazz. In them, the emphasis moves from ensemble playing to featured soloists,
from novelty numbers and dance music to a medium that allows individual artists
to carve out landscapes, fill them with color, and create new ways of perceiving
and thinking about music.
As usual, the National Recording
Registry has an exceptional explanatory essay, found here, in place concerning
the entry. I can only add my private observations.
Listen first to the recordings that
Louis Armstrong played with his mentor King Oliver. The music is squat, tight,
busy. The ensemble puts out clusters of sound. Now put on some of the 89 Hot
Fives/Hot Sevens compositions. The difference is like night and day. The solos
and fills Armstrong provides are full of life, spontaneity. They spark similar
outbursts from the rest of the ensemble, creating a patchwork quilt of vibrant
melodic lines.
And Armstrong, if he didn’t invent scat
singing, surely made it popular with his recording of “Heebie Jeebies.”
He makes
all these innovations look easy, as if they were there all the time, just
waiting to be blown into the microphones. (The recent advance to electronic recording
made it easier to balance and shade the group’s contributions.) It’s just as
fresh today as it was then. That’s the mark of a classic. Listen and marvel.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: Jelly Roll Morton’s Black Bottom Stomp.
There is something immensely comforting for me about
old-time radio. During the heyday of American narrative audio broadcasts (approximately
1930-1960), millions tuned in to a wide variety of programs, hundreds of shows
ranging from soap operas to science fiction. At present, the massive influx of
podcasts has revived interest in audial work, and even the creation of new narrative
radio series. For myself and a few fellow fanatics, the old shows are still something
we enjoy on a regular basis.
My dad got me hooked on that great first wave of radio
programs. I remember working out in the garage with him one weekend in Denver,
when I was around the age of 12. He twisted the dial of a battered old Bakelite
radio, searching for the sound of sports. Suddenly, he found something different
and turned it up. It was Jack Armstrong,
the All-American Boy. The 15-minute juvenile adventure serial was cheesy
and ludicrous — and I was hooked immediately.
The local old-time radio show was curated, produced, and
hosted locally by the affable and relaxed writer John Dunning. I would follow
him around the dial from station to station as his program evolved. Once a
week, depending on how much time the station gave him — he was usually blessed
with two- to three-hour slots, which gave him plenty of time to schedule a nice
variety of shows — he would entrance me. He played every important show (as
long as the sound quality held up), and many lesser-known gems, and filled in
the context for each show with a comprehensive exactitude that is codified in
his immense and deeply enjoyable reference work about the period, On the Air.
What’s the appeal? First and foremost is the idea of
compelling the listening audience to collaborate by implementing its
imagination. With film and television, the visual is codified and defines how
we remember and think about the performance. In radio, you are free (in fact
required) to flesh out the story in your imagination. This leeway, this necessity
to make the brain work, is exhilarating. When one prominent show came on the
air, the announcer proclaimed, “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a
life of romantic adventure? We offer you Escape!
Designed to free you from the four walls of today . . .” If you give yourself
over the process, it’s mighty mind-expanding.
Next, versatility on the cheap. A handful of sound effects,
some appropriate music, and solid performances take the listener anywhere you
want. You can go to the moon, or sail to a treasure island. You can inhabit the
mind of a murderer, or that of a precocious child. It is easier to move into
the place of characters via audio than in any other medium.
Then there’s the nostalgia factor. Growing up, I was
marinated in the mainstream culture of decades earlier, which turned me into a
person of the 1930s. There is something about traveling back in time, into
earlier (and, you might say, more primitive) modes of entertainment, which both
takes me out of myself and grounds me. Despite the Great Depression and World
War II, my parents’ childhood world was a stable one. I identify these old
shows with that feeling.
Part of this legacy consists of some very inappropriate
racial stereotypes. One of the most popular comedies on the air, Amos ‘n’ Andy, featured white men
pretending to be black. The show is well-written, but it leans on and reinforces
popular prejudices, rendering it unlistenable today. On the sitcom Fibber McGee and Molly, their Black maid
Beulah was played by a white man, Marlin Hurt. Even on the tolerant Jack Benny
show, the clever servant Rochester (Eddie Anderson) initially referenced
attributes such as a penchant for razors, dice, and gin. There are Asian
stereotypes in many shows, most notably Terry
and the Pirates and Have Gun, Will
Travel. Even Life with Luigi trafficked
in obnoxious ethnic types. Replays of these broadcasts require warnings and
contextualization. When it came to racial equality in that era, radio was just
as behind as everything else.
Finally, the warm glow of sound issuing from the speaker
surrounds me and lifts me up. The simple comfort of the human voice, speaking
seemingly only to you, confers contentment.
So where do you begin? My list of recommendations follows,
grouped by genre. How to find them? It takes a bit of sleuthing to dig up these
shows, but the digital revolution has made it much easier. I utilize primarily
the Internet Archive’s Old Time Radio pages, as well as the excellent RadioEchoes, which carries classic British as well as American radio. YouTube is
also a valuable source.
COMEDY
Vic and Sade
The ultimate use of radio in the comedy format can be found
in this series of 15-minute freestanding sketches that took in the “the small
house halfway up in the next block” in an anonymous small Midwestern town. For
the bulk of the show, it was populated by only three characters: Victor Gook,
his wife Sade, and their son Rush. Through their incidental conversations, the
listener got to hear about the most bizarre and surreal collection of people (Fred
Stembottom, Y.Y. Flirch, et al), places (The Tiny Petite Pheasant Feather Tea
Shoppe, the Bright Kentucky Hotel) and events put out in any medium. The show
was enormously popular during its run from 1932 to 1945. From simple premises
such as “40 Pounds of Golf Clubs” and “Grandpa Snyder’s Christmas Cards” came complicated
curlicues of contorted nonsense. Most importantly, the players sounded like
regular folks, comfortable in their own skins and absorbed in the minutiae and
absurdities of everyday life.
Others: The Jack Benny
Program, The Fred Allen Show, Abbott and Costello, Baby Snooks, Bob Hope, Bob
and Ray, Burns and Allen, Duffy’s Tavern, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,
Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Lum and Abner, Our Miss Brooks,
Phil Harris-Alive Faye Show, The Red Skelton Show
THRILLER
Inner Sanctum
Mysteries
The home of the infamous squeaking door, Inner Sanctum (1941-1952) led its
listeners down gloomy and improbable corridors. Each week, it delivered
completely over-the-top melodrama larded down with gore, it was something you
wanted to listen to with the lights on. The creepy organ soundtrack and the
show’s sardonic, punning host only made it better. Sometimes the plots were so
absurd that you end up laughing — but it was still entertaining.
Others: LightsOut, The Whistler,
Murder at Midnight, Dark Fantasy
SOAP OPERA
One Man’s Family
I am not a fan of these daily/weekly weepies, but radio
started the soap opera genre (so named because soap companies, trying to reach
the housewife, were often sponsors of these shows), and it ran strongly on the
airwaves from beginning to end of the era. Some series even successfully
transferred to television. The gold standard for the long, involved, and
slow-moving intertwined narratives was this show (1932-1959), scripted by the
prolific and talented Carlton E. Morse, who also created the excellent serial
adventure I Love a Mystery. In Family,
four generations of the Barbour family lived, loved, laughed, and lost together
in weekly nuggets of conversation and consternation.
DETECTIVE
Richard Diamond
Private Detective
Not the first wisecracking detective but certainly one of
the best (1949-1953). Former crooner Dick Powell played Diamond (his name a nod
to Sam Spade), a cocky, bemused private eye who sometimes burst into song to
cap an episode. He good-naturedly jousted with his pal the police lieutenant
and solved crimes and other mysteries with one eyebrow cocked.
Others: Philip
Marlowe, Sam Spade, Boston Blackie, Dragnet, Gang Busters, The Saint, The
Shadow, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Candy Matson
ADVENTURE
Escape and Suspense
You can tell from the list of other shows below that most
adventure radio was geared toward kids. Escape
(1947-1954) and Suspense (1942-1962)
were different. They were for grown-up listeners, featured top-notch production
values, and rarely proved tedious. Escape
stuck mainly to adventure and action; Suspense
trafficked in mystery and crime, often featuring big Hollywood names in the
cast. These two shows drew talented people into their making, and remain
memorable.
Others: Green Hornet,
Superman, Buck Rogers, Challenge of the Yukon, Terry and the Pirates, Chandu
the Magician, I Love a Mystery, Voyage of the Scarlet Queen
WESTERNS
The Lone Ranger
The Masked Rider of the Plains was created specifically for
radio, and remains its most iconic figure. He was a Texas Ranger who was left
for dead by outlaws, but who survived and disguised his identity so that he
could wreak havoc against badmen everywhere in the Old West. From 1933 to 1956,
he fought for justice with his faithful Indian companion, Tonto. This was kid
stuff, but later Western series adopted a much more mature approach, especially
Gunsmoke. It’s difficult to realize
now that, at least until the 1960s, the Western genre was the nation’s most
popular.
Others: The Cisco Kid,
Fort Laramie, Frontier Gentleman, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, Gunsmoke, Have Gun
Will Travel, Hopalong Cassidy, The Roy Rogers Show
QUIZ SHOW
Information Please
Most quiz shows were dopey giveaways, but Information Please (1938-1948) was
different. In it, listeners sent in questions in an effort to stump four brainy
panelists, a team usually anchored by columnist Franklin P. Adams, sportswriter
John Kieran, and pianist Oscar Levant. It was a funny, freewheeling show and
for a time was wildly popular. It is still fun to listen in and play along.
(Its mirror opposite It Pays to Be
Ignorant lined up three comics who gloriously biffed on questions such as
“Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?”, getting confused, going off on tangents, and
generally abusing the show’s long-suffering host Tom Howard. Of course, in You Bet Your Life, the format was given
another twist as host Groucho Marx teased the contestants unmercifully.
Others: Doctor I.Q.,
It Pays to Be Ignorant, You Bet Your Life
SCI-FI
Dimension X
Science fiction was a late comer to radio, and again was
thought of primarily as kid stuff. However, many interesting ideas and sardonic
observations were unfolded through the genre, and Dimension X (1950-1951) was a strong contender. It was reborn (and
scripts were reused) as X Minus One (1955-1958).
Both shows took some of the best work of the most skilled sci-fi writers of the
day.
Others: X Minus One
DRAMA
Mercury Theatre on the
Air
“Straight” drama was a surprisingly weak genre on radio. The
need for family-friendly content meant that many topics were off-limits. The
first show to demonstrate the amazing power of radio was the infamous Mercury show of Oct. 30, 1938 —
Mercury’s adaptation of “The War of the Worlds.” The production was so
realistic that the entire nation panicked. The series was the brainchild of
Orson Welles and John Houseman, who first made a splash on the air with an epic
three-and-a-half hour adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” The Mercury
had confidence in the listener’s ability to absorb complex material, and its mature
and intelligent approach made it the most engaging of dramatic offerings on the
air.
Others: Columbia
Workshop, Columbia Presents Corwin, Lux Radio Theatre, NBC University Theatre
