The recording starts mid-song. When it ends, June Christy is introduced and sings “A-sittin’ and a-rockin’.” Next up is “Never Too Late to Pray,” sung by Gene Howard. The final number is a version of Kenton’s theme song, “Artistry in Rhythm.”  He describes it, “the melody of our theme song, beat up into a real fast, rather exciting arrangement… we hope it gets that way this evening.” It features Eddie Safranski on bass, Vido Musso on tenor sax, Buddy Childers on trumpet, and Rob Collier on drums.

If you saw my post from Christmas 1945, you might remember that the record is broken, cracked all the way through from edge to center. I’m really happy that I was able to get this side recorded as well as the Christmas side. It took quite a bit of work, including my husband using his specialty tools at his studio to clean up the pops from the crack, but it came out pretty well. The end of the program drops out as Kenton is talking.

The show is all movie music. Vera Brodsky is the guest singer. There’s also a male soloist, but I didn’t ever hear his name mentioned. I don’t know if maybe the very beginning of the show was missing, but what you hear is all that’s on my record. Mike Harron informs me that the NY Times listed Harrison Knox as the scheduled guest for this date, so it may be him (thanks, Mike).

The songs are “Suddenly it’s Spring” from Lady in the Dark, “I’ll Get By” from A Guy Named Joe, “Long Ago” from Cover Girl, and “The Piccolino” from Top Hat.

My question is, do you want me to put those poor-quality, incomplete programs on the blog? Or do you think my time would be better spent in getting up the ones that are more “listenable?”  One consideration is that the poor-quality ones take a lot more time for me to edit. I can probably do at least two or three better-quality recordings in the time it takes me to do one bad one. Of course, if the content seems historically significant I’ll put the time into it. But for more “run-of-the-mill” music programs, what do you think? For example, I’ve already spent several hours on a Frankie Carle show from February 1944, and I’m not finished yet.  It’ll probably take me at least two more hours to get it into a form that I would want to listen to. And I wasn’t even able to record all the way to the end of the record because of a broken glass base and delamination. Should I keep working on that or just set it aside?

Please respond in the comments with your opinion.

This is another episode of “Sing Along with the Landt Trio” of Karl, Jack and Dan. This program has a little extra interest to it: it’s Army Day! I knew about Armed Forces Day, but I’d never heard of Army Day. Google to the rescue!

“Army Day was established as a nationwide observance to draw public attention to national defense and to acquaint the public with Army activities.” Army Day had a rough beginning, but its official observance on April 6 began in 1929 to mark the day the U.S. entered World War I. 1949 was the last year that Army Day was recognized or celebrated. For more information, you can visit the Department of Defense page about it.

This program of Sing Along begins with popular songs of the day: “Don’t Sweetheart Me,” “I’ll Always be in Love with You,” and “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night.” It concludes with two songs in honor of Army Day: “One Little WAC” and “What do they do in the Infantry?”

Jimmie Fidler was apparently a somewhat controversial entertainment reporter who had a weekly Hollywood news show. I don’t know the exact date of this program, but the one on the reverse was from February 4, 1944 so I’ll assume it’s close to that date. It is FASCINATING, a real time-capsule of the entertainment world. Just to drop a few names from this program: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lena Horne, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Greta Garbo, Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye… and that’s not all. It’s a real “who’s who” of the day. The show is sponsored by Arrid antiperspirant, and includes a few good ads for that (as well as one ad for liver pills).

This record was in really bad shape, with the lacquer cracked and delaminating. In the middle, you’ll notice significant pops and drop-outs. I recorded this several times over, at both 78 and 33rpm (I could only do portions at 33), and tried to piece it together as best I could. Even so, there are places where anything from a portion of a second to a few seconds are missing. I encourage you to keep listening; it improves again as you get nearer the end and the content is so good that it’s worth it.

I’m not posting a picture since there’s no label on this. If you’d like a picture anyway, let me know and I’ll put one up.

Thanks again for your patience while I got both life and technical issues straightened out!

I have a new computer and a new phono preamp. My 33rpm motor is just about dead, so I’m primarily using the 78 motor and digitally correcting the speed. It’s not ideal, but it’s all I can do.

Here’s a quickie I could get off today.  This is a program called “Buffalo Presents Portraits in Music,” from WKBW.  It features David Cheskin and his orchestra, along with The Four Cheers and Jan Martell.  Songs include, “Don’t Worry, Mom,” “Little Did I Know,” and “I Want to be Happy,” along with others.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I’m going to start with some really bad recordings. Not only will that spare my new stylus (I’ll record those with the old one), but it will be a good test for the noise reduction program.  I’ll try to find something extra-special for my first upload.

Thanks again for your patience!

On the bright side, I’m on summer vacation from homeschooling my kids so I should have a little more time to devote to figuring it out.

Thanks to all of you who are still following me. Please continue to be patient as I get these bugs worked out!

Update: Bad news. It looks like the problem is either my phono preamp (which isn’t a big deal to replace) or the connection from the tonearm to the preamp, or something within the tonearm’s wiring. I’m hoping it’s just a loose connection somewhere. I’ll keep you posted.

Then, just as life started slowing down a little, last weekend my computer died again. It’s gone for good this time. I’ve ordered a new one (yay!) but the projected delivery date isn’t until May 27. Hopefully it will come sooner than that, but who knows. In the meantime I have my husband’s laptop from his office. I’m trying to set it up to record but I’m having some problems getting Cubase activated. I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to get it working before too long, though.

Once that’s working I’m going to try to digitize some of my worst-condition recordings. I have a new stylus for the turntable thanks to a generous contribution through my PayPal account, and I want to do these bad records with the old one in case it gets ruined in the process.

The record player is also still having some problems, but I think I can keep it working if I’m careful.

Once I’m on summer break from homeschooling I can hopefully crank out a bunch of records in quick succession. In the meantime, as always, thanks for your patience.

The playlist includes “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “Lamp of Memory,” “Shadrach,” and “Amour.”