One of the questions I am posng to those who are kind enough to respond to my interview requests is about their first memories of hearing old-time radio.
I'd like to tell my early radio connections, as well as I can remember.
The world around me seem to change in the summer before my 11th birthday. It was that summer that I got my first guitar and learned to play from a booklet. It was the summer that I discovered what stereo what - as opposed to mono - when I got a pair of headphones and plugged them into a stereo (everything I had before that was mono. I had no idea what stereo was or even what it sounded like.)
These aural associations all came about the same time I discovered my love for baseball - and radio. Baseball and radio go hand in hand for me and always will.
One night when I wasn't listening to baseball, I remember listening to KRLD in Dallas. KRLD was a CBS station and late at night (it was probably 11 pm) I discovered CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
I really didn't like the show that much (still don't today) but if I recall correctly, they used to have old-time radio shows on before 11:00 and I found that via a commercial broadcast during one of the CBSMT episodes.
This is where I found out about Lum and Abner (it was probably one of the crummy 30 minute Lum and Abner shows.) I also recall Nightbeat very vividly because of the kettle drums in the opening musical sequence and the deep (or so I remembered), "NIGHTBEAT!" voice.Years later, I would think of the show, not remembering the name of it, thinking it was "WALKBEAT" and in my mind I would always confuse Nightbeat with the show Broadway is My Beat, another show I used to hear when I was a kid with a radio.
I also remember Groucho in You Bet Your Life and I recall vividly how it would come on at 11pm on televison in 1975 syndication - later I heard it on the radio!
Somewhere along the line I found a bunch of comedies to occupy my time on the radio. I really don't remember Jack Benny or Fibber McGee and Molly at all, but I do remember Our Miss Brooks, Life of Riley and Abbott and Costello, too.
When I had become older and moved out of the house in days long before I was married, I recall finding OTR again. I have no idea what I listened to but I would always get a thrill when Nightbeat came on and this time, I would remember the name.
I had given up on OTR for years because no stations I knew were playing it - but in 1995 when I first got the internet I realized I wasn't the only one who had a love for OTR.
It seems in the early days - maybe until only 2 or 3 years ago, people were reluctant to give away OTR as freely as it is given away today. But the internet has opened it up so completely now that it will never stop as long as there is the internet.
Well, that's my story. I know you all have stories too. I'd like to put your story in my blog. If you would like to be a part of this, please email me.
©Jimbo 2010/2011
