Oscar Rabin and His Band - Moonlight Serenade (1947)
Oscar Rabin and his Band recorded the song "Moonlight Serenade" with Harry Davis in 1947 for the Parlophone label. Though the British band was named for Rabin, he primarily handled the business duties and Davis led the band in performances while Rabin played the saxophone. Their partnership lasted from 1924 to 1953, when Davis moved to California to live with his daughter Beryl, who had been a singer in the band for many years.
The swing instrumental "Moonlight Serenade" was composed by Glenn Miller, becoming a phenomenal hit upon its release in 1939 and one of his signature tunes. The non-instrumental version has lyrics by Mitchell Parish.
Early Radio Announcers Invented Their Profession in the 1920s
Anyone who listens to the radio knows that the announcer or disc jockey has gone through some form of training to do the job right. But obviously in the early days of radio, there were not any schools to train people in the field of communications. So that meant anyone who wanted to do on the air work could just walk down to the local radio and ask for a job, and most likely they would get one.
The first person who deserved to have the title of announcer was H. W. Arlin who got his job just by hanging around the local radio station. He attended the University of Kansas and earned a degree in 1917 in electrical engineering. He was working in the east Pittsburgh plant of the Westinghouse graduate student training course.
At the time that the station KDKA went on the air in 1920, he was a supervisor, which would allow him to get all around the studio. He peeked in the studio one night and after a conversation with the person who was working at the station, got himself a job.
On Jan. 1, 1921, Arlin became the first permanent station announcer. The studio did not look like one -- basically, the studio was anywhere from which you could broadcast. A tent was set up next to the station shack that housed the transmitter, but the tent was not every helpful when any kind of bad weather came around!
Also, the 8:30 p.m. train did not help them any, as its whistle was heard during any program that was on, and this was a major annoyance. One night a tenor was brought in to sing. When he opened his mouth to sing, an insect tried to explore his mouth and the tenor said some words you do not say on radio, let alone anytime. The engineer did not wait to cut the power.
Arlin was everything that a radio station needed. He also became the first sports announcer in the nation when in 1921, he broadcast a prizefight at Motor Square Garden that was transmitted via telephone to Arlin in the studio.
The first New York radio announcer was Thomas Cowan. He was given the job when station WJZ went on air. The studio was a shack on a roof at the Westinghouse plant in Newark, New Jersey. He officially started on October 1, 1921. At 8 p.m. he went on air with these famous words, "This is WJZ, WJZ, WJZ, the radio telephone station located in Newark, New Jersey. This is announcer Cowan. Please stand by to tune.
The station only stayed on the air for two and a half hours, but that is a lot of time for a radio announcer. He decided to play phonographs on the air. He had earlier borrowed a phonograph and some records from his friend Thomas Edison. A few days later, Edison called and asked the station to stop playing the records, so they returned them and bought their own.
Cowan also brought singers to go on the air. After a while, he did not have to request that singers go on air; they volunteered.
WJZ made up a new studio with carpets, drapes and a better piano. Limousines were rented to pick up the singers, and their photos were hanging on the walls. Cowan later resigned from being an announcer but became a station manager and brought in Milton Cross. Cross took the job because he was a singer and thought that singing on the radio would enhance his musical career, plus he would get paid $40 for four nights of singing. He even read the Sunday comic strips when the Newark author didn't show up to read them.
However, there was one rule on his job that probably not many announcers appreciated: They were not allowed to use their own names on the air. So Milton Cross became "AJN."
Ryan Mihalak in Old Time Radio Gazette, February 1994
Little Man You've Had a Busy Day - Harry Leader and His Band (1934)
Harry Leader and his Band recorded the song "Little Man You've Had a Busy Day" in London on June 28, 1934, for the Eclipse label. Leader was a successful band leader known for his work on the British radio program Workers Playtime, begun as a morale booster during World War II in 1941.
The vocals on this song were performed by Dawn Davis, who sang with several British bands in the 1930s and 1940s, and also had a successful solo career. She sang with Al Bowlly on several recordings. Davis moved to Australia in the late 1940s but returned to England in 1955, where she had difficulty picking up where her career left off. She died in 1993 at age 83.
The music is by Mabel Wayne and lyrics by Al Hoffman and Maurice Sigler.
Quin Ryan Broadcast the Scopes Trial on Radio
Quin A. Ryan, manager of WGN Chicago. has had a colorful career including such vicissitudes as reporter, actor, sports correspondent, magazine editor, advertising man, syndicate humorist, columnist, feature announcer and station manager.
Born in Chicago. Nov. 17, 1898, he divided his education between Loyola Academy. Northwestern University and the Old Essanay film studios. with early interest fixed in writing and acting.
While in college he became sports correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and following his graduation came into the local room of that paper as a full-fledged newspaperman.
In 1922. Ryan became a sports columnist for the Herald-Examiner and in the same year tried his hand at the first written radio continuity in Chicago, In Verse. which the author read himself.
In 1924 Ryan was an announcer, continuity writer and general utility man for WLS, then under banner of Sears. Roebuck. When the Chicago Tribune purchased WDAP and renamed it WGN, Ryan signed up, along with two promising young radio men, Sen Kaney and Jack Nelson, as publicity director.
In 1924 Ryan became manager of WGN. In 1925 when the Scopes trial burst on the bewildered fundamentalists of Tennessee, Quin and his engineers commandeered the courtroom and broadcast the proceedings -- which is radio history. Later Quin was named by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis along with Graham McNamee to air the first World Series to go on the beginning chain of stations.
In February 1931, Ryan married Roberta Nangle of the society side of the Tribune. In this same year he was renamed manager of WGN. the job he held between 1924 and 1927. and a position he has held ever since.
From Radio Daily, April 15, 1937
The Opera Singer Lily Pons Lost 5 Pounds During Performances
I've dressed numbers of opera stars but Lily Pons is the most glamorous and dynamic. I know she isn't a movie star and perhaps the editor will bawl me out for including her here, but I feel that enough people have heard her over the radio to be interested in her.
Lily is a great shock at first because one thinks of opera singers as being robust and dramatic. Pons is very tiny -- I think her actual weight is a hundred and five pounds -- and she is as quiet and as shy as a mouse.
She was brought into my shop by Jetta Goudal and all during that session the two of them conversed in French. I designed a dress for Pons to wear at her Los Angeles concert and, after the order had been placed and the measurements taken, we discovered that none of the dummy figures -- upon which the clothes are draped -- were small enough.
When the dress was finished I sent one of my fitters to the theatre so that she could see that everything was all right before Pons stepped on the concert stage.
This is a little honor which we usually save for brides -- having the fitter who made the bridal dress on hand to pat into place the last fold of the bridal train.
Pons came back after her first series of songs and said to my fitter, "But I cannot find my voice. I do not know what is wrong." To the audience, her voice was as brilliant as usual, but there did seem to be a change during the second half of the program. Pons became radiant and sang so beautifully that the audience almost stampeded toward the stage.
When she finished the concert she came back to her dressing room and sank down upon a chair. She confessed, to my fitter, that during each concert she often lost as much as five pounds -- from worry and exertion.
Howard Greer in Modern Screen, January 1934
Radio Broadcast of 1934 America's Cup Crossed the Globe
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent, months of work have been devoted to obtaining and perfecting equipment -- all to the point that the greatest maritime sporting event on the yearly calendar, the America's Cup (International Yacht Races), may be brought to radio listeners in complete and thrilling detail.
From the air, reporters will give accounts of the races as they circle above the competing yachts. On the water, cutters will carry details. of the contest from specially built transmitting stations. A listener sitting in their home with the races tuned in may be able thereby to get a many-sided picture of the races not possible to spectators on the scene anywhere along the 30-mile course. Furthermore, a carefully selected and unusually well-versed group of yachting experts have been hired to bring the races to your living room. Truly, radio's part in the coming event represents in many ways the broadcasting feat of the year.
Ever since the trials began early in June, the engineers of both the National Broadcasting Company and the Columbia Broadcasting System have been wrestling with the trying problems of rigging up equipment and arranging a suitable background for a letter-perfect. audible report of the 83-year-old event.
To augment a regular corps of trained sports announcers, NBC conducted a series of strange auditions, in which 40 millionaires --count 'em -- vied for the honor of becoming a nautical radio reporter. Some of the best known persons in the financial world, who are social leaders and skippers of racing yachts as well, went through the voice and diction tests, with the audition chiefs sitting in judgment of vocal and descriptive qualifications.
Pay of course was no incentive to the society sportsmen. The group of yachting enthusiasts volunteered their services in the interests of accuracy and the desire to prevent erroneous descriptions from being broadcast.
As this is being written. only one millionaire skipper has successfully passed the microphone test. He is Fred Gade, a social registerite, and he will be progressively stationed at strategic positions along the racing course when the races get under way.
Frederick Gade, or Fred Gade as he is known in yachting circles, is a yachtsman of long experience, and is rated as one of the crack skippers of America. One can safely say that he was born, bred and brought up to the salt water and the sailing of sloops. He is supremely happy in anything that floats, and spends all of his spare time, when he is free from his Wall Street office, in yachting. He has sailed, raced and cruised in national and international competition. Since he was a youngster he has manned all types of boats from dinghies to eight-meter craft, one of which he owns. The New York Yacht Club is authority for the statement that the National Broadcasting Company has chosen in him a man of proven ability with a lifetime of yachting experience.
"Of course it's great fun discussing the yacht races over the air," said Gade, 'but I've accepted the task primarily in order to prevent some of the grievous past errors from cropping up again. I believe that the American public is becoming more yacht-minded than ever, and they must given a square deal in acquainting them with what is occurring out there in the open sea.
"Yachting is a wonderful sport, the true blue ribbon amateur sport of the nation. Yankee Endeavor and Rainbow are grand boats. Their aggregate cost is in the vicinity of two million dollars. The pair that race should put up an immortal struggle."
Gade, of course. would not predict the winner. He did however make one significant remark. "I'm happy that Mr. Sopwith did not give in to the professional crew which struck on him when he needed them most. He has a great crew of amateurs aboard now, and in my estimation they are as capable as any crew assembled for the races. The day of the professiona1 in yachting is about over. Soon every sloop will be completely manned by amateur sportsmen. It will be a radical departure, but it will work. Of that I am positive."
NBC will broadcast six times a day over the coast-to-coast networks every day the races are run. In addition, the broadcasts will be relayed by shortwave to the BBC, so that English listeners may follow the yachts as they vie for top honors. The voices of announcers Bill Lundell and Ben Grauer will describe the tactical maneuvers of the challenging Endeavour and the defending. Rod Stephens, internationally famous naval architect and yachtsman, has been hired to command one of the mike positions aboard an NBC Coast Guard cutter, which will keep abreast of the racing yachts.
The start of each race will be broadcast from 11:15 a.m. to 12 noon Eastern, over the networks of WJZ-WEAF. The progress of the yachts as they round Brenton Reef Lightship will be broadcast over the WEAF network at 1:30, 2:15 and 4:15 p. m.. and over WJZ at 3:30 p. m. The results of each day's race will be heard over both NBC networks at about 4:30 p.m.
Columbia has not been outdone in the matter of elaborate preparations for reporting the races. The United States Coast Guard has cooperated with CBS, and engineers are now building a shortwave transmitting station on one of the cutters which will patrol the course. CBS will also use a special plane which will cruise above the competing yachts. Ted Husing, ace CBS sports announcer, will give the listeners a description of the match from the air.
Herbert L Stone, editor the magazine Yachting, who is considered one of the foremost authorities on the subject in the United States, has been signed to head the CBS announcing staff.
A "cue" station has been erected by Columbia at Sakonet Point. where Paul White, head of the Special Events department, will direct the.CBS broadcasts. White will be in constant communication with both the cutter and the plane, and will signal the announcers when to start and when to stop their portions of the program. The voices from the plane and the cutter will be transmitted by short wave to Sakonet Point, and relayed to the studios of WABC by telephone lines, from which point they will be sent out over the Columbia network.
Interest in the: International Cup Races has mounted tremendously since radio started to play such an important part in reporting the famous maritime event. Sports-loving American fans entirely unfamiliar with yachting terms and tactics, are nevertheless vitally interested in the sporting struggle that gets underway September 15.
The American Defense candidates had a thrilling time in the elimination heats to determine the ultimate defender. The Yankee, commanded by Charles Francis Adams, held a slight early edge in the trial heats over the Rainbow. commanded by Commodore Harold Sterling Vanderbilt. The Weetamoe made a gallant showing, but could not keep up with her elimination rivals.
The Rainbow. however, showed her heels to the Yankee, making her the inevitable choice to defend the cup.
The challenging Endeavour.. commanded by Thomas Sopwith, millionaire Bntish airplane manufacturer, is conceded to have one of the best chances of hitting the cup since the late Sir Thomas Lipton took up the hopeless task many years ago.
The Endeavour is equipped with a flexible boom that has been the subject of a flurry of debate among racing experts. Despite the fact that two of the booms snapped in the heat of competitive racing, Sopwith's ardor for the newfangled creation has not dimmed.
The Endeavour departs radically from set yacht construction. She possesses a newly designed triangular boom, perforated set and reefed mainsail, in addition to the flexible boom.
The prize for which millions of dollars have been spent is an ugly, bottomless silver cup, wrought by Victorian silversmiths in 1851, and offered as a prize by the Royal Yacht Squadron of Great Britain. It is officially known as the Hundred Guinea Cup.
Block Island Sound. off Newport, where the races will be run, is the site of the last American Cup contest in 1930.
The races will be held over the regular America's Cup course, starting from a special buoy which has been planted five miles southeast from Brenton's Reef Lightship, in the open sea. Marks will be set out each day, according to the wind. Some will be triangular, others windward or leeward, or vice versa. The distance of each race will be approximately 30 miles, and if neither boat has finished within five and a half hours after the start, the race will be declared off.
During these periods the story of the thrilling contests will be heard by millions of radio fans. Listeners all over the counttry will be in constant touch with the progress of the yachts. Four out of seven races determine the winner. and each race will be broadcast in detail.
In addition to the broadcasts from cutters, airplanes and other vantage points, both NBC and CBS are seriously considering sending several blimps aloft to report the progress of the racers as they speed through the choppy Newport waters.
Radio will do more in eliminating the past difficulty of relaying the relative positions of the racing yachts than any instrument known to science. Heretofore, many errors cropped into the early newspaper reports of the races, but radio, with its numerous vantage points, will report the races accurately, in detail, and on the instant.
Thus. as the crews of the challenger and defender run out spinnaker booms, and balloon jibs fill the air on September 15, radio listeners throughout the world will be assured of all there is to know.
Fred Champion in Radio Guide, Sept. 15, 1934
Martha Tilton Thought She Failed Benny Goodman Audition
Sam, the man who made the pants too long, gave Martha Tilton her first job on an air show. Her singing suited the tailor man fine and he paid her the lordly sum of twenty-five dollars for her renditions over a Los Angles radio station-thousand watter KFAC.
The day she got her first paycheck from the sponsor Martha rushed over to a department store and bought three items: a new hat, imitation pearls for her mother and a pink sweater for her dog who was enduring a cold winter. Martha spent everything and to her chagrin was later put off the street car when she failed to come up with the requisite fare.
Thus started rather chaotically a career which was to see Martha Tilton put off no stations thereafter. She became a swing singer of note on American's Radio Hall of Fame and her motion picture appearance also helped enhance her renown.
For, as it happened, Martha's singing over KFAC was heard by a prominent agent. He approached the petite blonde who had come to Los Angeles from her native Corpus Christi, Texas, at the age of seven and asked her if she would like to sing at the Cocoanut Grove. Martha assented to the salary of $45 for she had always wanted to be a professional singer, had thought about it since her graduation from high school at seventeen. Yet she was far-sighted enough a little later to shift to Hal Grayson's band at a salary cut of fifteen dollars because she would be able to tour the country and meet the people.
Her strategy was successful for her next step was to sing on Three Hits And A Miss. While on this program she was given an audition as vocalist for the Benny Goodman band. Benny listened patiently to one number and walked out on the second. Martha noticed the retreat and immediately thought that her next stop would be Los Angeles or Corpus Christi. She went home in what is know as a blue funk.
When she arrived she heard the telephone ringing. Thinking it was another bill collector she picked up the receiver, heard a voice say angrily, "Why did you walk out?" "Who wouldn't?" returned Martha with asperity, "Goodman left and that's why I did." "Well," said the voice which was that of Goodman's manager-"Benny liked you and he wants to talk to you." She was hired the next day at $125 a week and sang with the Goodman band for three years.
Martha had many exciting experiences while singing with Goodman. When Benny was at the Paramount in New York a couple of enthusiasts jumped on the stage and started dancing. This is the first known instance of such exhibitionism. The incident was unforgettable because the boy who was dancing accidentally kicked Martha and she collapsed on the stage.
Tilton returned to the coast, joined NBC, and was featured in a program called "Lilton ' Martha Tilton Time" which ran for a full year. She was a guest star on the Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Carson and Dick Powell programs, as well as many others.
In 1944, Martha shipped off for a South Pacific tour with Jack Benny, Carole Landis, Larry Adler and June Bruner. She was a hit from here to Guadalcanal and back. Then on Radio Hall of Fame, Tilton each week welcomed a famous guest whose career was reviewed in song and story. Personable, unspoiled she managed to delineate her own charming character in each of the songs she sang.
Martha's path to success was never easy-her father Fred was in the wholesale rug business and that was no guarantee that one is to be an outstanding singer for young rug-cutters. Martha had an up-and-down row to hoe until she impressed Benny Goodman.
That meeting with Benny Goodman affected her life in more ways than one. She eventually married Benny's manager, Leonard Vannerson, who had been a seaman, first class, in the Navy, and whose return to civilian life found him back in his old position with Goodman's band. Much of his managing comprised of his wife's activities. When a girl appears in pictures, sings a song, "I'll Walk Alone" which sells a million copies and is on Philco's Hall of Fame, she has already stepped into big. business -- a far cry for Martha Tilton from the days she sang hopefully for Sam, the man who made the pants too long.
Warner Grainger in Tune In, February 1946
Subscriptions
People
Topics
Projects
Statistics
This blog has been published since May 29, 2020 (a span of 1,687 days).
Top 10 Articles
- The Marriage of Don Ameche and Honore Prendergast
- The Night Arthur Godfrey Fired a Singer On Live Radio
- How Ed Wynn Spent His $5,000-a-Week Radio Salary
- The Home Life of Jack Benny
- Bing Crosby: A Quick Study in Singing and Acting
- Early Radio Announcers Invented Their Profession in the 1920s
- Phil Harris: Why Alice Faye Moved from Movies to Radio
- The Earliest Radio Shows of the 1920s
- Dennis Morgan Began as a Radio and Sports Announcer
- The Tragic Death of Russ Columbo at Age 26
Winnetoba Radio hosted by Workbench
