[78-L] National Barn Dance documentary on PBS

[Harold Aherne]

I watched part of the last episode of "Prohibition" last night, but the program that followed,
at least on my own PBS station, was considerably more interesting. "The Hayloft Gang:
the Story of the National Barn Dance" has apparently not been mentioned here, at least
not in the last couple months, but many of the program's performers were regulars 
on shellac as well as on the radio.
 
I'll confess an ulterior motive for watching: I hoped that Henry Burr would be mentioned 
at least briefly, as he was a regular on the broadcast for several years until his 1941 
passing. But no such luck; still, I think the documentary did a pretty good job of covering
the popularity and social impact of the National Barn Dance. It was interesting to hear 
George Gobel as an adolescent singer; I had known that he recorded for ARC in 1933 but
didn't know (or forgot) that he was a Barn Dance regular. 
 
Speaking of which, about how much of NBD was preserved? Elizabeth McLeod doesn't 
list any NBD programs among the surviving pre-1932 broadcasts, and I wonder if in later
decades the entire local program was recorded or only the network hour. In addition, 
different sources are sketchy about when the program ended; the documentary cited 
April 1960, Wikipedia says 1968, John Dunning's encyclopedia says 1970. 
 
Here's the official PBS site:
http://www.pbs.org/programs/hayloft-gang/
 
-HA