BURNS and ALLEN Publication of the Old Time Radio Club
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Established 1975 Number 288 March 2001 BURNS and ALLEN Publication of the Old Time Radio Club Membership Information Club Officers and Librarians New member processing, $5 plus club member President ship of $17.50 per year from January 1 to Jerry Collins (716) 683-6199 December 31. Members receive a tape library list 56 Christen Ct. ing, reference library listing and a monthly newslet Lancaster, NY 14086 ter. Memberships are as follows: if you join January-March, $17.50; April-June, $14; July Vice President & Canadian Branch September, $10; October-December, $7. All Richard Simpson renewals should be sent in as soon as possible to 960 16 Road R.R. 3 avoid missing issues. Please be sure to notify us if Fenwick, Ontario you have a change of address. The Old Time Canada, LOS 1CO Radio Club meets the first Monday of every month at 7:30 PM during the months of September to Treasurer, Back Issues, Videos & Records June at 393 George Urban Blvd., Cheektowaga, NY Dominic Parisi (716) 884-2004 14225. The club meets informally during the 38 Ardmore PI. months of July and August at the same address. Buffalo, NY 14213 Anyone interested in the Golden Age of Radio is welcome. The Old Time Radio Club is affiliated Membership Renewals, Change of Address with The Old Time Radio Network. Cassette Library - #2000 and YR. ' Peter Bellanca (716) 773-2485 Club Mailing Address 1620 Ferry Road Old Time Radio Club Grand Island, NY 14072 56 Christen Ct. Lancaster, NY 14086 Membership Inquires and OTR Network Related Items Richard Olday (716) 684-1604 Back issues of The Illustrated Press are $1.50 post 100 Harvey Dr. paid. Publications out of print may be borrowed Lancaster, NY 14086 from our Reference Library. Tape Libraries Deadline for The Illustrated Press is the 1st of each month prior to publication. Cassettes - #1 YR. to 1999 Dan Marafino (716) 684-0733 The Illustrated Press is a monthly newsletter of the 19 Church Street Old Time Radio Club, headquartered in Western Lancaster, NY 14086 New York State. Contents except where noted are copyright © 2001 by the OTRC. Reel-to-Reel and Reference Library Ed Wanat, Sr. (716) 895-9690 Send all articles, letters, exchange newsletters, 393 George Urban Blvd. etc. to: The Illustrated Press Cheektowaga, NY 14225 c/o Ken KrL\g, Editor (716) 684-5290 49 Regal Street Depew, New York 14043 Tape Library Rates: All reels and video cassettes E-Mail address:[email protected] are $1.85 per month; audio cassettes and records are $?85 per month. Rates include postage and Web Page Address: WWW2.pcom.net/robmcd handling and are payable in U.S. funds. MwteIi 2001 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club Aside from Autry the only other famous singing cowboy AlAtr~1 Ka~e (on radio, television and the silver screen) was Roy Leave Rogers. He left NBC Radio on July 21, 1955 having starred in an on-again, off-again series since 1944. None of the remaining major western legends (Hopalong Large Legacies In Radio Cassidy, The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Wild Bill Hickok and others) made a career out of singing while catching rustlers red-handed. by Jim Cox All, incidentally, departed network radio several years (Special to The Illustrated Press) earlier, making Autry the last of that genre. [Gunsmoke and its contemporaries didn't qualify as they aimed for an adult audience.] Autry was also gone from the tube A couple of highly respected musical entertainers only a couple of weeks after he left radio. He was on whose shows might well have appealed to vastly diver CBS-TV continuously every week from July 23, 1950 to gent audiences-left their long running radio berths for August 7, 1956. His prime competition (Roy Rogers) the very last time in the same year, 1956. Their depar remained on NBC-TV from December 30, 1951 to June tures left few others with their prestige and durability 23, 1957. Rogers and his wife, cowgirl Dale Evans, head as replacements during the waning days of radio's gold lined an ABC-TV musical variety series for 13 weeks in en age. the fall of 1962. Gene Autry's Melody Ranch was a western musical adventure that brought together a mixed band of faith A slide trombone in the first few notes of a tune was a fullisteners. The Sammy Kaye Show was predominant dead giveaway in the big band era that radio listeners ly musical, highly representative of the big band era could join those in grand hotel ballrooms to "swing and Americans recalled from the 1930s and 1940s. sway with Sammy Kaye." Kaye's orchestra was on radio so often, in fact, that he was certified as the most "air Beginning January 7, 1940 on CBS (and never leaving exposed" bandleader of the 1940s. During that era his that network for another) Gene Autry's Melody Ranch orchestra broadcast on all four networks: six times pretended to originate in a campfire setting at screen weekly on CBS and MBS live from the Astor Roof, star Autry's California spread. It featured western weekday evenings at 8:15 p.m. on ABC and on NBC's songs and a 12-minute dramatization of a western Sunday Serenade. adventure: Autry would outsmart a band of cattle rustlers or put a local bank robber behind bars every Kaye, a clarinet and alto sax instrumentalist, was an week. Then he'd ride into the sunset singing his signa engineering student at Ohio State University in 1933. ture "I'm Back in the Saddle Again" or a similar bal On the side he gathered a small group of amateur musi lad. cians to perform at college dances and off-campus one nighters. By 1937 he appeared sporadically on the With the exception of two years, 1943-45, when Autry Mutual Broadcasting System. His first permanent radio took the show off the air to serve in the Army Air series was launched on that network December 17, Corps, it was one of the most durable variety programs 1938, a 45-minute musical variety show at five o'clock on radio. From its start in 1940 until it departed on Saturday afternoons. Within a year he attracted NBC May 13, 1956 the show had but a single sponsor: the and the rest is history. William J. Wrigley Company, for "healthful, delicious, satisfying Doublemint chewing gum" Autry reminded His programs went under many titles: Sensation and fans each week. The program was broadcast in a Swing, Sunday Serenade, Tangee Varieties, So You Saturday or Sunday night timeslot and went from a Want to Lead a Band, Chesterfield Supper Club, Sammy quarter-hour to a half-hour in 1946. Kaye's Sylvania Serenade and Bring Back the Bands. His final series, on ABC Sundays at 9:30 p.m., was can Comic Pat Buttram was Autry's most prominent com celed on February 12, 1956. panion. Johnny Bond, singer and comedian, often appeared along with several vocal groups, principally Kaye's longevity can be explained in several ways. "If a the Cass County Boys. In the program's later years tune can't be danced to, we won't play it," he admitted. announcer Charlie Lyon introduced the show's star as "That's our motto. We have a sweet sound, but if a new "the boss man himself, America's favorite cowboy, Gene vogue comes along, such as rock n' roll, we adapt it to Autry." our approach ....And we always play plenty of the .MarreA 2001 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club good old standards-'My Buddy,' Blueberry Hill' Vaudeville fans are, of course, familiar with Senator songs that people remember and want to hum. Ford. When radio was invented, he wrote, cast, directed and played in a domestic comedy. When talking pictures He died at 77 on June 2, 1987 in Ridgewood, New came in, he made one of the first movie shorts for Jersey. Kaye was one of the last survivors of the big Warner Brothers. band era, both on and off the air. On the serious side, dropping the Senator, Edward Ford When Autry and Kaye departed the ether, they left helped the artist Dwight Franklin on the famous sculp commanding legacies-but few contemporaries who ture groups "South Street" and "Inauguration of could equal their stature as two of radio's most Washington." Independently, he also made a figure of admired, and durable, performers. John McGraw, the Napoleon of the Giants, which now occupies a prominent spot in the Cooperstown Baseball Museum. Senator Ford The Can You Top This? program was his idea, thought up while after-dinner speaking and commuting between New York and his home in Southold, Long Island, The "Senator" tacked in front of Ed Ford's name has where he's lived for twenty years with his charming the same authenticity as the "Colonel" that used to pre wife. cede the names of so many Southern gentlemen. (He's on Can You Top This? NBC, Saturdays at 9:30 P.M.) Edward Ford, as he was chris tened by his perfectly normal Internet Killed the Radio Star .parents, made his initial By Ed Grabianowski ::appearance in Brooklyn, N. Y., a long time ago. He won't tell In recent history, a new technology became popular how long ago. After a couple of that shook the foundations of the music industry. years of high school, he decided People feared that it would prevent musicians and pro he wasn't getting educated in moters from making money because suddenly music the way he liked and quit.