I can hardly believe it, but I think I’m done with the digitizing! I may go back and do a few of the ones I skipped if I get the chance, but I’ve done everything that (a) was an actual program, (b) seemed historically significant or hard-to-find, or (c) otherwise caught my eye. The things I skipped were all records that my mom confirmed were most likely copied from commercial recordings. Apparently he worked the day shift on Sundays for a while; there were no live shows so he had a bit of time on his hands. Almost every week, he’d come home with a record or two that he’d made from the WJR libraries during his shift. This would have been in the late 1950s to early 1960s.
I’m now ready to part with the records and the gear. I’ve got a place for the records (actually, a plan A and a plan B) and will be listing the gear on eBay very soon. Just in case anyone’s interested, I’ll post here with a link once it’s listed.
Preparations for our move are in full swing, but if I get a chance I’ll put some new programs up. I’ve been able to confirm that we should have a good internet connection in Thailand, so I will still be able to continue posting music after we move. Thanks for sticking with me!
I googled Betty Winkler and found your website. This afternoon I’m in the middle of entering knitting and crochet booklets. I found the booklet: Your Rosemary Sweater. The caption says that Betty Winkler played the lead, show was brought to you by Ivory Snow M-F over CBS.
Send me your email and I can en image. There’s a photo of her. Could this be your relative?
Bette
That’s interesting! Betty Winkler wasn’t my relative, though. My grandpa was the engineer who made the records. Thanks for the comment!
Congratulations for all your transfers and the website. Quite a lot to listen to here !
Ravel, Montreal, Quebec
Hi, Lisa!
I hope your move is going well. I wrote to you a couple years ago when you first posted the Landt Trio Sing Along programs. Skip Landt (Dan’s son) is my cousin and Karl Landt was my father. I have been so grateful to you for preserving this material and bringing it to the web. When I looked at your posts recently, I first thought you had sold everything, so I was very relieved when I read further and found you had digitized the content and kept it. Do you recall if there was any additional Landt Trio material? So much has been lost. I would be thrilled to see more Sing Along programs on your site or, if there is any way I can get material from your collection, I would be happy to pay for your time to collect and send it. Thank you again for your wonderful project.
Kitsie Parkinson
I really appreciate the material you have digitized.
I would like to thank you further in my humble way.
I downloaded your “Christmas 1945″ recording and took it into Roxio Creator 2012 (a troublesome but versatile piece of software). I segregated the Big Band version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, edited out the vocal (leaving just the driving big band sound), put it through a “clicker removal” process (your Grandpa’s acetate was cracked, as I recall from your posting and it produces a lot of clicks/pops), and also enhanced the sound a little to provide more presence.
I also downloaded your 1946 Tony Martin broadcast in which Georgia Gibbs and Woody Herman substituted for Tony (great rarity!), and isolated the up-tempo songs, doing similar processing to what I described in the previous paragraph. I isolated only the up-tempo tunes, because the slower ones exhibited “wow-ing” (probably due to a slightly off-center hole in the transcription) – the “wow-ing” is far less obvious on the up-tempo tunes.
I now have four relatively short mp3s from my processing:
1. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, by the Woody Herman Band (1945) from the 1945 Christmas set
2. “I Don’t Know Enough About You” by Georgia Gibbs
3. “Mable, Mable” by Woody Herman (vocal and clarinet solo) and his Orchestra
4. “Let’s Get Away From It All” by an unknown chorus
Items 2 through 4 are from the Tony Martin program in which Georgia Gibbs and Woody Herman substituted for Tony Maring.
I know that Item 1 is by Woody Herman’s Band because the vocal (which I edited out) is by him — his vocal style is very distinctive (as I indicated in a comment to your Christmas 1945 posting)
I would like to send you the four mp3s, but I do not know how to contact you by e-mail. If you would kindly reply to my e-mail address with yours, I will send them, and if you like them, you certainly can post them for others…
– Tom Perrone