Hidden treasure! I didn’t know that I had any “Your Hit Parade” programs until recently. My grandpa didn’t put the show name on any of his index cards or on the records themselves–only the song names were listed, followed by “HP.” My mom told me what that meant just a few months ago.

This is almost a complete show. The discs weren’t the on-air masters, just records he cut for himself. He missed the first couple of minutes of the show and cut out some of the commercials. Where he apparently just lifted the needle, I did a very slight fade-out/fade-in to make the transitions less jarring. The recording quality is pretty good except for pops at the end. The record is actually broken (cracked from rim to label) so I was amazed it turned out as well as it did. I didn’t do any noise reduction or restoration.

Thanks to Mike Harron, I found the whole script for this show online. Here’s the rundown for the show:

My recording starts during “Along the Navajo Trail,” so it’s missing any introductory material. Commercials no. 1, 2 and the closing commercial are all missing, but commercial no. 3 is included. The background music for the station break is there, but the actual station identification isn’t.

I have a few more discs of “Your Hit Parade,” but I have a feeling that this might be the only complete show. I’m having to do some detective work on the site with the scripts to try to piece together what I have. I’ll post them all eventually, whether they’re complete programs or not. This show was recorded on three record sides. There are about 4 or 5 missing records that should have been interspersed with the shows I have. My mom tells me that when my grandpa was moving from Davisburg (Michigan) to Detroit he had his records in the back seat of his car. He was almost to his new house when a dog ran out in front of his car, causing him to slam on the brakes. The records slid off the seat and quite a few were broken.

http://www.grandpasipod.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/40.55_HP_11-24-45.mp3