Posts Tagged ‘Radio’

Hank Williams: The Legend Begins

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Remastered Health & Happiness Shows + Earlier Bonuses

This three-disc set returns to domestic print the two discs of live radio performances previously anthologized on the 1993 Heath & Happiness Shows. These programs were remastered from transcription discs cut in October 1949 at the Castle studio in Nashville, and though there are a few minor audio artifacts, the sound quality – particularly the instrumental balance of the Drifting Cowboys and the presence of Williams’ voice – is exceptional. Each of the eight shows stretched to 15 minutes, when augmented by ad copy read by a local announcer; here they clock in a few minutes shorter. Williams opens each program with the Sons of the Pioneers’ “Happy Rovin’ Cowboy” and fiddler Jerry Rivers closes each episode with the instrumental “Sally Goodin”.

In between the opening and closing numbers, Williams sings some of his best-loved early hits, original songs, and gospel numbers, and much like the later performances gathered on The Complete Mothers’ Best Recordings… Plus! (or its musical-excerpt version, The Unreleased Recordings), the spontaneity and freshness of the live takes often outshine the better-known studio recordings. Williams’ wife Audrey accompanies him on a few duets and sings a couple of challenging solo slots; Jerry Rivers shines both as an accompanist and in short solo highlights. As with the Mothers’ Best shows, Williams is revealed to be not only a revered singer and songwriter, but a master host and entertainer.

The set’s third disc includes a dozen rare Williams recordings. From 1938, a fifteen-year-old Williams is heard singing the novelty number “Fan It” and the then-current movie theme “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” These are rough recordings, but a priceless opportunity to hear just how precocious Williams was as a teenager. Two years later Williams recorded a number of home demos, including the four standards covered here. The recording quality is tinny and the discs are far from pristine, but they’re clear enough to reveal the adult Hank Williams voice beginning to emerge. The final six tracks jump ahead eleven years, past the Health & Happiness shows to a March of Dimes show from 1951.

The Health & Happiness recordings haven’t always had a healthy or happy history. MGM released overdubbed versions in 1961, and the 1993 reissue was plagued by physical problems with the transcriptions. But as with the Mothers’ Best release, Joe Palmaccio has deftly resuscitated ephemeral, sixty-year-old recordings with his restoration and remastering magic. Given that these discs were only meant to last through a radio broadcast or two, their picture of a twenty-six-year-old Williams just breaking into Nashville is astonishing. Those with an earlier reissue will value the sonic upgrade, historic bonus tracks, 4-panel digipack, 16-page booklet and detailed liner notes from Williams biographer Colin Escott. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Jeff R. Lonto: Chronicles from the Analog Age

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Intriguing grab bag of pop culture ephemera

Jeff R. Lonto is a pop-culture historian whose books on radio and breweriana [1 2 3] led to the formation of his own Studio Z-7 imprint. Lonto has an eye for obscure topics – such as the history of regional big-box retailing – that reveal interesting lessons in cultural history. He has a flair for story telling and a good sense of irony – not least of which is publishing a large format book of short articles in the age of the blog. But given the era about which he writes – the 1920s through the 1970s – a paper edition is fitting to the material. The twenty pieces have no pattern or story arc, but instead form a grab bag of pop culture ephemera that can be picked up and set down without losing your place. Highlights include articles on 1950s civil defense (including a description of emergency radio’s evolution from CONELRAD to EBS to the current EAS), the infamous one-episode Turn On television program, 50 songs that were banned or changed for radio play, and a look at the origins of French’s mustard and its forgotten advertising mascot, Hot Dan the Mustard Man. The book features a selection of ironic period advertisements and is capped with an all-too-believable essay about a fictional lard-based dessert shake. Lonto is adept at rekindling the excitement that greeted cultural innovations – such as the building and expansion of a local movie theater – that are now taken nearly for granted. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Gene Autry: South of the Border – The Songs of Old Mexico

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

The singing cowboy sings of Old Mexico

Varese continues to round-up the stray works of singing cowboy Gene Autry, giving grown-up buckaroos a convenient place to find ephemeral performances from film and radio. Their latest volume corrals twenty Mexico-themed tunes from Autry’s feature films and Melody Ranch radio show. Among the titles collected here are some of Autry’s most celebrated, including “Mexicali Rose,” and movie themes “South of the Border” and “Gaucho Serenade.” The material is mostly drawn from Autry’s prime in the 1940s, but reaches back to the late ‘30s for “Cielito Lindo” and “Come to the Fiesta” and to 1950 for “El Ranch Grande.” Digital mastering engineer Bob Fisher has sewn the disparate audio sources into a tremendously listenable program, and introductions by Autry and his radio announcer provide vintage frames for several tracks. The eight-page booklet includes new liner note by Western music historian O.J. Sikes and detailed information on each song’s source. This is a terrific companion to the numerous Western-themed Autry collections issued by Varese and others. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Gene Autry’s Home Page

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Border Radio

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

borderradioFascinating subject, so-so writing, poor editing

Border Radio chronicles the “quacks, yodelers, pitchmen, psychics and other amazing broadcasters” that populated the high-powered radio stations once arrayed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The characters profiled, including the goat-gland transplanting John Brinkley, the cancer treating Norman Baker, the flour peddling soon-to-be Texas governor Pappy O’Daniel, and a parade of singing cowboys, astrologers, patent medicine salesmen, soul-saving preachers, and late-night DJs, are colorful, to say the least. So to were the battles fought over, around and between the stations, owners, operators, performers, competitors, politicians, and regulatory agencies, both within Mexico and between Mexico and the U.S.

Yet as rich as is the book’s subject matter, the authors’ historical account isn’t nearly as engaging. The book’s timeline meanders back and forth, failing to provide a through-line of the medium’s development, and there’s insufficient context to really understand how border intertwined with its more conventional brethren and within depression, war and post-war society. At times the narrative wanders from the primary subject, such as a lengthy discourse on Pappy O’Daniel’s career as a politician, and the same material pops up in different sections. For the most part, the failure is in the hands of the book’s editor, who failed to mold the author’s extensive research into a compelling story with a coherent structure.

Though the authors conducted extensive new interviews, the copy still reads like a patchwork of researched sources, seeming to fall into recitation without offering specific quotes. The narrative feels detached, rarely getting inside the characters. None of the writing, for example, communicates the intense creepiness displayed in the photo of Dr. Brinkley in a 1930s operating room. The authors have done their research and know their subject, but their knowledge is inadequately served by their writing. That said, as the only book in print on the subject, this is worth reading, even if it doesn’t always live up to its promise. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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