[78-L] Records about records - was: RE: Playing a broken 78

[Rodger J Holtin]

Kristjan, 

I forgot one:
Stay Up Stan, the All-Night Record Man by Charlie Barnet - flipside of Cherokee.

You may be sorry you asked but here it is:

Big Band Sounds
Our campus radio station started in 1967 when a new faculty member arrived on campus. He had been part of the start-up of the station at Morehead State University up in Kentucky.    Our college Dean had watched a similar station go in at his Alma Mater up in Illinois. The president of Morehead State, the redoubtable Dr. Adron Doran, was one of our alumni, and a close friend to our college president.  (This is where Mike Biel taught and I think he told me he came the year Doran retired.)  The ladies’ auxiliary for the college came up with the money to fund building the radio station and it is my understanding that some of them also bought a bunch of records to go in the station library. We were blessed with a few gems like the Readers Digest 10 LP set, a handful of the RCA Victor reissues of Dorsey, the three Miller aircheck albums and some Goodman.

When I came along three years later I parlayed that and a handful of tapes I brought from home into a regular big band program that I ran every Wednesday afternoon. The local jewelry store loved it and so did the college art department. They were my first fans and critics. I owe them all of the “success” thereafter.

After college I spent a few years on a station in Tuscumbia, Alabama, (two blocks from Ivy Green, birthplace of Helen Keller), alternating with a guy who had been there during the big band days. Our station engineer regaled me with stories of listening to Coon-Sanders from the Muehlebach Hotel on his cats whiskers radio.

By the late 1980s my sales career had taken me to Fayetteville, Arkansas, home of the flag ship campus for the University of Arkansas. They had a big band program on their college station on Friday nights, and I was a loyal listener. After about eight or 10 weeks of listening, the host made mention that he was a graduate student and would be leaving at the end of the semester and had no idea who would take it over. So the next time he gave the request number I called him to find out what would be involved in applying for the job. That next week I was there and co-hosted with him. The following Monday morning I got a letter from the station manager telling me I needed to go by the personnel office and get signed up.  Those checks became my only record money for years. They were running a syndicated big band program starting at 7 o’clock and we filled from 8 to 10 locally. Well before graduation he decided he needed out right away because he had already accepted a full time job in research with General Electric and the program became mine.  His grandfather had helped fuel his program and with gramp's blessing, gave me the records, but we didn't lack much.

At the end of December, the station manager met me as I came in one evening and said I needed to come in an hour earlier because they were canceling the syndicated program, and based on calls and feedback they had they were giving me the entire three hours, and I got a raise.  As hinted above, we were exceptionally blessed to have a tremendous record library. One of the angels of their station had been a fellow who owned a local AM station since the late 40s and he gave them all of the big band LPs that he had been collecting since 1950. We had the original pressing of the Goodman Carnegie Hall concert and Label X records all the way up to most of the then-new Bluebird twofers. The AM radio guy became one of my staunchest listeners and an excellent resource. With all of those advantages, I couldn’t lose, no matter how lousy I was. It was a great run.

Concurrent with my hiring on, we made the jump from 100 to 60,000 watts. When we held our first fundraiser at that power (we hit four states), it became evident that by catering to that demographic, I became the biggest moneymaker of all the local programs and actually rivaled some of the NPR syndicated programs. I also wrote personal thank you cards to everybody that pledged during my program. Yes, it was a hot streak. After that I did specials like three hours of songs with girls names, or a big band theme songs. Those specials seem to go over quite well with the pledging public and they begin using my program as the anchor, the beginning and the end of each of those weeklong campaigns. But all good things come to an end.

Meanwhile, back in Henderson Tennessee, my alma mater had also grown. They had begun broadcasting 24/7 and one of the guys who was in a class behind me had become the manager. The station became a jazz format and some weird student decided he wanted to do a big band program as well, so that got started in the 1980s and was continued for years. The fellow who was the manager at the time told me that as long as they were still getting new big band CDs of various kinds from the music distributors, and as long as some kid was always willing to take it on by reading liner notes, it continued. When I moved back to town (2002), my third son was the student station manager and the big band guy he had just graduated and my son took it on short term. He convinced the station manager to let me have it. I’m still at it. Since we, like every other school in the country, shut down and sent all our students home last month, the administration hired me as the acting station manager. 

The Lists
Going all the way back to the days in Tuscumbia, I kept a notebook of program ideas. I had lists of songs that followed themes: Piano players as leaders, early jazz tunes that morphed into swing band arrangements, girls names, songs about the South, songs about birds, songs about time (I hate DST and have made no bones about it between "There Ought to be a Moonlight Saving Time" and "Time on My Hands") etc., etc., etc. It graduated to a loose-leaf notebook with newspaper clippings and photocopies of borrowed record album liner notes. About the time I took over from my son I started a file folder on my computer with some of that stuff and a handful or a few dozen Excel files. Some weeks I spend a lot of time in preparation and digging through those files and making notes, some weeks I just grab CDs and run out the door.  Sometimes it’s as much work as a term paper. No, come to think of it, it’s more work than any term paper I ever saw, and occasionally I even call it "The Term Paper on the Air."   Sometimes I do it every week for weeks on end.  I do them all live, so they are subject to all kinds of errors and bloopers: CDs that don’t play, hit the wrong button, play the wrong CD, the track list does not match the disc, or the wasps slip through the back window again and land on my nose. It has been suggested to me for several years that I should record them and replay them on Sunday afternoon. Last week I did that for the first time. And, yes, I did edit out all the bloopers - I hope.  I have resisted pre-recording them because that strikes me as too much work, and the hassle of editing the aircheck helped reinforce my contention. I don’t know how long I will continue with that process.

The name of the program is still “Big Band Sounds” but I do play fast and loose with that format.  I wanted to change the name, but they had just printed a ton of brochures.  Inertia set in long before the brochures were long out of date.  Basically if it happened before 1950 on 78 or concurrent technology, it is fair game for me, but I try to stay pretty close to the swing era stuff. One of my favorite tools is to play “twins:” same song done by two different performers, sometimes wildly different. “Somewhere a Voice is Calling” by John McCormack was followed by “Somewhere a Voice is Calling” by Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra; “Stardust” by Benny Goodman, and “Stardust” by Tommy Dorsey, with the story about the swing classic label. I’ve tried to play decidedly non-big band things in the context of a “twins” presentation, and sometimes I just give up and reserve the last 15 minutes of the program to what I have come to call the Collectors Corner and I will play everything from Vernon Dalhart or Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald to the Yeast Foamers March or the Peerless Reproducers – or even “You Know My Name” by the Beatles. The weekend my son got married, I played the Lohengrin Wedding March from an Orthophonic Victor by Mark Andrews.

Reading back through all this for obvious errors, it looks entirely too impressive.  Trust me.  With few exceptions, it's not.

And here we are Thursday afternoon, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do this coming Saturday.

Rodger Holtin
78-L Member Since MCMXCVIII

For Best Results Use Victor Needles

-----Original Message-----
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Kristjan Saag
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2020 2:11 AM
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Records about records - was: RE: Playing a broken 78


Thanks, Mike and Rodger!
And Rodger, don't worry about the show - I'll use these tips in mine on Swedish Radio!
And would love to mention the source. Why don't you tell us more about your show?
Kristjan



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