Show No. 197: Feb. 25, 1990
"Do's and Don'ts" features: Rudy Vallee's "Let's Do It," Elsa Lanchester's "Don't Tell My Mother" (1930), Marion Harris singing "You Do Something To Me" (1930), Mildred Bailey's "Don't Be That Way" (1938), George Olsen's Orchestra performing "Do Do Do," Billy Jones warning "Don't Bring Lulu," Zelma O'Neal singing "Do Something," Tallulah Bankhead warbling "Don't Tell Him What Happened To Me" and more (60 min.)
Show No. 198: March 25, 1990
"Dance Band ABC's" is a potpourri of bands (dad had hundreds of them) that you might not have heard. Dad's friend Lew English brings in a couple of his favorites, as well. Songs include Jack Bland's Orchestra doing "Shine On Your Shoes," the Coon Sanders Nighthawks doing "My Ball and Chain" from 1928, Charles Dornberger singing "Red Lips Kiss My Blues Away," the Golden Gate Orchestra doing "To Know You is to Love You" (1929), the Harris Brothers Texans doing "Somebody Stole My Gal" (1928) and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 199: April 1, 1990
"Spring" is the annual salute to the season, this time featuring Al Jolson emoting his way through "April Showers," Jo Stafford's "Spring is Here," a medley of various versions of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," Fred Waring's "I Found a Million Dollar Baby," Johnny Marvin's 1928 "Old Man Sunshine," the 1927 novelty song "When the Pussy Willow Whispers to the Catnip," Ruth Etting's 1931 "There Ought to be a Moonlight Savings Time" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 200: April 8, 1990
"Angels, Babies and Sweet Young Things" returns to the days when all women were referred to in demeaning ways in popular music. Songs include "Sentimental Baby" by Ben Pollack, "When My Baby Smiles at Me" by Ted Lewis, "Isn't She the Sweetest Thing?," "My Red Hot Girl" by Cliff Edwards, "Ain't She Sweet" by the Radio Lites and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 201: April 15, 1990
"1915" features: "Hello Frisco" by Sam Ash, a song celebrating the first phone call fron New York to San Francisco, the scandalous "How'd You Like to Spoon With Me?", the World War 1 anti-war song "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier," "When the Lusitania Went Down" by Herbert Stewart, Billy Murray's "10 Little Fingers and 10 Little Toes," Norah Bayes singing "Hello Hawaii How Are You?" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 202: April 22, 1990
"Requests & Earth Day" features a few songs folks wanted to hear, including "Darktown Strutters Ball" by the Coon Sanders Orchestra (1929), Bing Crosby's "Suppose I Should Fall in Love With You" (1928), Lee Morse's 1931 "Love Letters in the Sand," and a half-hour sound collage about the Earth and our place in it, drawn from probably a hundred different audio sources. (60 min.)
Show No. 203: April 29, 1990
"Building a House" traces the process of building and furnishing a home, all done with song titles. Songs include "You Turned the Tables on Me," "Old Rocking Chair's Got Me," "Washing Dishes With My Sweetie," "When Father Laid the Carpet on the Stair," "Singin' in the Bathtub" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 204: May 13, 1990
"Blue Songs" includes "Blue" by the Paul Elkins Orchestra, "Blue Again" by Paul Small, a piano roll of George Gershwin playing "Rhapsody in Blue," Gene Austin's 1927 "My Blue Heaven," "Blue Room" by Joe Venuti, "Blue Hawaii" by Al Bowlly, and in honor of Mother's Day, a mash-up of "Mother" and "My Mother's Eyes" that you'll hear nowhere else but here. (60 min.)
Show No. 205: May 20, 1990
"Who's That Singing?" features a departure in the show's format to include some folks who rarely sang -- sometimes for good reasons. In a quiz format, you can hear snippets and songs by Clint Eastwood, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Jackie Gleason, Don Ameche, Gracie Allen (left), Arthur Lake, Joan Crawford and others. (61 mins).
Show No. 206: May 27, 1990
"Happy Songs" has plenty of smiles, including "Happy As the Day Is Long" by Harold Arlen, "Happy Feet" by the Rhythm Boys with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, "Telling the Birds, Telling the Bees" by Whispering Jack Smith, Harry Reser's 1925 "I'm Sitting on Top of the World," Ted Weems' 1926 "My Cutie's Due at 2:22 Today" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 207: June 3, 1990
"June" features some of the songs devoted to the subject by countless songwriters, along with some trivia about things that happened in June through the years. Educational and tuneful! Songs include "Get Out and Get Under the Moon" by Paul Whiteman, Arthur Tracy's "June in January," the Hoosier Hotshots celebrating baseball season with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and more spring favorites. (60 min.)
Show No. 208: June 10, 1990
"Browsing the Attic" is an escorted trip through the random stacks of records in dad's collection, including Edddie Cantor's "Row Row Rosie" (1925), Scott Joplin's 1915 piano roll of "Anoma," Nora Bayes singing "Mr. Moon Man" (1911), the Coon-Sanders Orchestra (left) doing "Alone in the Rain" (1929), Paul Whiteman and the Rhythm Boys doing "Out of Town Gal" (1928) and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 209: June 17, 1990
"Making a Living" takes some job-related songs and puts them together for a Father's Day tribute. You'll hear Arthur Collins' 1909 "Strawberries" (about a berry seller), Sammy Kaye's "The Umbrella Man" and "The Old Lamplighter," Louis Armstrong's 1935 "Shoe Shine Boy," Spike Jones' "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," the Williams Sisters doing "Sam the Old Accordion Man" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 210: June 24, 1990
"Leftovers" features: A roundup of songs that were left off previous shows for time, including Al Bowlly's "What Do You Know About Love?," Al Jolson's "Never Again," Scott Joplin's 1914 "Magnetic Rag," Noel Coward's "I Like America," Anson Weeks' "By the Fireside," Maxine Sullivan's "Blue Skies" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 211: July 1, 1990
"Taking It Easy" features a summer's day worth of laid-back tunes, including "Ho Hum" by Bing Crosby, "The Laziest Girl in Town" by Marelene Deitrich, "Old Rockin' Chair's Got Me" by Mildred Bailey, "I'm Biding My Time" by the Daydreamers, "Nothing on My Mind" by the Ted Weems Orchestra, Russ Columbo's "Easy Come, Easy Go" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 212: July 22, 1990
"Showboat" re-creates the experience of having one of these 1800s traveling theaters come to town, complete with a bit of history, lively banjo music, melodrama done in the classic style, and romantic duets that are so clean they sparkle. (60 min.)
Show 213: July 29, 1990
"Cities" features: A trip around the country, musically speaking. Includes "My New York" by BIlly Jones (1917), Jack Kaufman's "Meet Me In Old Philly, Billy" (1926), The Premiere Quartet's "Washington Waddle," Al Jolson's "Miami" (1928), Louis Armstrong's "Dallas Blues" (1929), Harry Reser's "Kansas City Kitty," Viola McCoy's "Memphis Bound" (1929) and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 214: Aug. 5, 1990
"Sun" features a bright bunch of tunes, including Vincent Lopez doing "Sunshine" (1928), Jimmy Grier's Orchestra doing "The Sun's in My Heart" (1935), Dick Powell's 1935 "Down Sunshine Lane," Louis Armstrong's 1937 "Sun Showers," Noel Coward taking a dim view of sunshine in "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," Marion Harris doing "I'm Going to Make Hay While the Sun Shines in Virginia" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 215: Aug. 12, 1990
"The Movies" features a bit of history about the early cinema, and some songs about the movies, including Billy Murray's 1919 "Take Your Girlie to the Movies," "The Sheik" and "The Vamp," Billy Jones and Ernie Hare complaining that "You Can't Sleep in the Movies Anymore," and some rare audio discs that were played as coming attractions in theaters. The movies, alas, are lost, but you can hear 1929 previews by Fanny Brice and Sophie Tucker for "Goldiggers of Broadway," "The Queen of the Nightclubs" and "Honky Tonk." (60 min.)
Show No. 216: Aug. 19, 1990
"'A' Favorites" features: Some of dad's favorite songs, beginning with the letter A. You'll hear "About a Quarter to Nine" by Ozzie Nelson, "Address Unknown" by The Ink Spots, "After You've Gone" by Gene Austin, "Ain't MIsbehavin'" by Bill Robinson with Irving Mills and His Hotsy Totsy Gang, "Alone in the Rain" by the Coon-Sanders Orchestra, "Am I Blue" by Ethel Waters and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 217: Aug. 26, 1990
"The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra" features an hour of new/old ragtime music that gives a clear picture of what dance bands sounded like in the early 1900s. Paragon began in 1986, performing arrangements of ragtime music that had been thought lost. You'll hear "On the Level You're a Little Devil" from 1918, "Snookums Rag" from 1916, "Under the Mellow Arabian Moon" from 1915 -- all as they were meant to be heard, without scratches! (60 min.)
Show No. 218: Sept. 2, 1990
"Zoo" features songs about animals, including a medley of bands doing "Hold That Tiger," Collins and Harlan doing "Monkeys in Monkeyland" (1907), Stanley Holloway reciting "The Lion and Albert," Annette Hanshaw's 1933 "This Little Piggy Went to Market," Flanders and Swann doing three songs about animals, the 1910 song "My Prairie Songbird" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 219: Sept. 16, 1990
"Ups and Downs" includes "Up a Lazy River" by the Mills Brothers, "Up in the Clouds" (1932) by Billy Jones, The Boswell Sisters doing "Down Among the Sheltering Pines" (1932), Fats Waller's "Up Jumped You With Love," Collins and Harlan singing "Down in Jungletown" (1908), Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders doing "Keep Your Sunny Side Up" and a medley of the most-hated songs from listeners, called "Your Hate Parade." (60 min.)
Show No. 220: Sept. 23, 1990
"'B' Favorites" includes "Back in Your Own Backyard" (1928) by Gus Arnheim, "Barney Google" by Albert White, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (1934) by Hal Kemp, "Black Bottom" (1926), "Blue Skies" (1927) by Maxine Sullivan, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (1933) by Connie Boswell and more. (runs a little long at 61 mins.)
Show No. 221: Oct. 14, 1990
"You and I: A Love Story" is a tale of romance won, told through song. Dad plays it straight as a narrator, weaving together songs such as "I Ain't Got Nobody" by Marion Harris, "I Think I Like You" by Kate Smith, "You Have Taken My Heart" by Al Bowlly, "I Need You Like a Hole in the Head" by Pearl Bailey, and lots more. (60 min.)
Show No. 222: Oct. 28, 1990
"Halloween" is an audio tour of a haunted castle. Each opened door reveals spooky sounds or appropriately macabre musical selections. This is the perfect soundtrack for your Halloween party, with an odd sense of humor and retro charm. (runs short at 47 min.)
Show No. 223: Nov. 4, 1990
"By the Numbers Part 2" features songs that mention the numbers 4 to 10, including "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" by Arthur Godfrey, "Four or FIve Times" by McKenny's Cotton Pickers, "Dinner at Eight" by Al Bowlly, and the premiere of a new feature on the show, "Tune in Yesterday," that features old-time radio shows in their entirety. This week, Uncle Fletcher tries to make a long-distance call to Freeport, Illinois, on "Vic and Sade." (60 min.)
Show No. 224: Nov. 11, 1990
"Rodgers & Hart Part 1" covers the early years of this songwriting duo. Mismatched as people but successful as a team, the duo worked from 1918 to 1942. You'll hear 1925's "Mountain Greenery," "Manhattan" and "What's the Use of Talking?" as well as "The Girlfriend," "Thou Swell," "You Took Advantage of Me" (1928), "Ten Cents a Dance" and "Isn't It Romantic?" (1932) among others. And "Tune in Yesteday" revisits a Jack Benny program. (60 min.)
Show No. 225: Nov. 18, 1990
"Rodgers & Hart Part 2" contains some of the duo's later recordings into the 1930s, including "My Romance" (1935), "It's Easy to Remember" (1935), "There's a Small Hotel" (1936), "Poor Johnny One-Note," "My Funny Valentine" and "I Married An Angel" (1938). And "Tune in Yesterday" spotlights a Thanksgiving episode of "Lum and Abner." (58 min.)
Show No. 226: Dec. 2, 1990
"Up In The Attic 2" features a return trip to the storage space, where dad winds up the Victrola and plays a random assortment of things: Clyde McCoy singing "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?" (1936); the Mill Brothers doing "Nobody's Sweetheart Now" (1931); Ted Weems doing "I Don't Want Your Kisses" (1929); the Hoosier Hotshots playing "Annabelle"; and a visit to Fred Allen's "Town Hall Tonight" radio show. (60 min.)
Show No. 227: Dec. 9, 1990
"Oh! Songs" features just a few of the many, many songs that start with "Oh," including "Oh Baby" by the All Star Orchestra, "Oh Boy What a Girl" by Arthur Fields, "Oh by Jingo" (1919) by Margaret Young, "Oh Glory" by Murray Cahill, "Oh Daddy" (1921) by Ethel Waters (at left), "Oh How She Could Play a Ukulele" by Johnny Marvin, "Oh You Kid" by Billy Murray and more. And "Tune in Yesterday" features a Burns and Allen routine. (60 min.)
Show No. 228: Dec. 16, 1990
"1920" features a social/cultural history of the year, with facts and trivia and songs like "Avalon" by Al Jolson, "The Moon Shines on the Moonshine" by Bert Williams, "Whispering" and "Japanese Sandman" by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, "Margie" by Louis James, Ruth Etting singing "Hold Me" and "Did You Ever Think of Me," and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 229: Dec. 23, 1990
"Most Requested" is a rundown of the top requests of the year, including Ruth Etting's "Now That You're Gone" (1931), Cliff Edwards' "I'll See You In My Dreams" (1924), Kate Smith's "I May Never Pass This Way Again," Dick Robertson's "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" (1930) and Ted Weems' "You're the Cream in My Coffee." And a Christmas episode of "Lum N Abner." (60 min.)
Show No. 230: Dec. 30, 1990
"Leftovers" mops up some songs that didn't get on previous programs, including "I'm Following You" by the Duncan Sisters (1930), "Down Where the Sun Goes Down" by the Coon Sanders Orchestra, "That Eccentric Rag" by the Paragon Orchestra, Al Jolson's 1916 "Where the Swanee River Flows," Scrappy Lambert's "Bye Bye Blues" and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 231: Jan. 7, 1991
"C Favorites" includes a bushel of songs beginning with the letter C, including "California Here I Come," "Can't Help Loving That Man" by Tess Gardella, "Close Your Eyes" and "Carelessly" by Al Bowlly, "Carolina Moon" by Gene Austin, a nickelodeon machine playing "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia," a 1915 "Chinatown" by Sam Ash, "Collegiate" by Fred Waring, and a radio trip to swanky 1944 New York City on "Manhattan Merry Go Round." (60 min.)
Show No. 232: Jan. 14, 1991
"New (To Me) Records" features new old music such as "After You've Gone" by Marion Harris, "Fascinatin' Rhythm" by Fred and Adele Astaire (1924), "Little Girl Blue" by Margaret Whiting (1935), "When You're a Long, Long Way From Home" by Mildred Bailey, "If You've Never Been Blue" by Frances Langford (1935) and a cute-as-a-button "At The Codfish Ball" by Mae Questal, the voice of Betty Boop. (60 min.)
Show No. 233: Jan. 20, 1991
"Love Songs" was put together just as the first Gulf War began, so the hour is full of much-needed songs of love, including "Love Walked In" by Kenny Baker, "I'll Always Be In Love With You" by Vera Lynn, "Love Me and I'll Live Forever" by John McCormack, "Love in Bloom" by Arthur Tracy, "Love Me Tonight" by Bing Crosby, "Love Letters in the Sand" by Lee Morse, and more. (60 min.)
Show No. 234: Feb. 3, 1991
"Three Favorites" features songs by Johnny Marvin ("Still Get a Thrill," "I'd Fall in Love With Me," "Yours and Mine," Crazy Rhythm"), Ruth Etting ("Keep Sweeping the Cobwebs off the Moon," "Varsity Drag," "Hold Me") and Harry Reser ("Kansas City Kitty," "Everything's Going to Be All Right," "Always," "Sweet Little You") and more. The previous week, dad had tried to do this show, but the whole station went off the air! (60 min.)
Show No. 235: Feb. 10, 1991
"The Last Program" is a kind of greatest-hits show featuring "Tiger Rag" (1931) by the Mills Brothers, "Stay As Sweet As You Are" (1934) by Kate Smith, "There Is a Tavern in the Town" (1934) by Rudy Vallee, Al Jolson's "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy," the Boswell Sisters, Eddie Cantor, Dick Robertson, Paul Small and others. Dad intended this to be his last show, but a few months later, he would return after people demanded it. The next batch of shows picks up in August 1991. (60 min.)
More shows on Page 5
Click link at top of page