Monday, March 27, 2000
Public can add to WVXU's audio history of Cincinnati radio
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Mike Martini and Mark Magistrelli glow like old radio tubes whenthey talk about their passion for Cincinnati's rich broadcasting history.
They crackle like an old Crosley radio speaker, nearly bursting with enthusiasm for their latest project. The WVXU-FM (91.7) staffers are producing an audio history of Cincinnati radio, from its birth in 1922 to the start of World War II in 1941.
“Cincinnati in its heyday as a broadcast center was right behind only New York and Chicago,” Mr. Magistrelli says. “Yet nationally, this is largely a forgotten chapter in broadcasting history.”
“Radio was never more important or more dynamic than during the Depression,” Mr. Martini says.
Red Skelton, Fats Waller, Red Barber, the Mills Brothers, Eddie Albert and Durward Kirby all got an early career boost in the 1930s from their work here. “The nation's station,” Crosley Broadcasting's WLW-AM (700) fed the NBC and Mutual networks.
The two radio historians — each in their 30s — have spent countless hours tracking down more than 100 hours of local and national network recordings. That's incredible, because audio tape and home recording was not common until the 1950s.
In public and private collections, they've found Mr. Albert singing with The Threesomes (1933-34), Mr. Barber's announcing (1934-38), Mr. Skelton telling jokes on Avalon Time (1939), the late-night Moon River show and Procter & Gamble's Ma Perkins soap opera. Many were originally recorded on glass or aluminum transcription discs that look like 16-inch records.
But they need more, and you may be able to help them.
“A lot of people may have these things up in their attic. I know there is more stuff out there,” says Mr. Martini, who started at WVXU-FM as a Xavier University student in 1985.
They're looking for:
• Broadcasts of Mr. Waller, the legendary jazz pianist.
• NBC's Salute to WLW and WSAI,a one-hour network special on Sept. 23, 1939, with Mr. Waller and the Mills Brothers.
• Samples of Sidney Ten Eyck's Doodlesockers comedy show.
• Audio from Cincinnati's three non-Crosley stations: WKRC-AM, WCPO-AM and WCKY-AM.
• Old movie film used in 1929 to record WLW-AM sound for a Crosley presentation at the Palace Theater. “The Crosley engineers tried everything,” Mr. Magistrelli says.
• Any trace of the May 2, 1934, broadcast when Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a White House button to fire up WLW-AM's 500,000-watt transmitter. The world's most powerful station prompted congratulatory telegrams from wireless inventor Guglielmo Marconi in Rome, Italy, and Albert Einstein.
“Nobody knows of a recording that exists of the dedication, but I'm convinced it was recorded for Crosley's own purposes,” says Mr. Magistrelli, a Cleveland native who started volunteering at WVXU-FM as a Xavier freshman in 1977. He's also a WCPO-
TV (Channel 9) promotion writer.
During that six-hour broadcast gala in 1934, “Mr. Crosley replied to the Marconi message in a special broadcast in Italian, which it was hoped could be heard in Rome, Italy,” the Enquirer reported at the time.
Wouldn't that be great to hear?
@subhed:Missing gap
@body:
The audio documentary fills the missing gap in WVXU-FM's award-winning collection of broadcasting histories. The station has produced documentaries about Red Barber; Cincinnati's World War II broadcasts; radio and TV star Ruth Lyons; and the 12-hour D-Day Plus 50 collection of news bulletins and entertainment shows that won a Peabody Award in 1995. This first chapter in Cincinnati radio history should be completed in 18 months, for WVXU-FM's fall 2001 fund drive.
The producers also are scrambling to interview former Crosley employees, now in their 90s, about the era. Mr. Martini interviewed Mr. Albert over lunch at his Beverly Hills home last year, after sending him a tape of one of his 1930s broadcasts.
“He had tears in his eyes when he heard it, because it brought back so many memories. He didn't know anything existed from back then,” Mr. Martini says.
TV's former Green Acres star said he started the transition from singing to acting here. “This is where he learned how to do comedy and act, because they were always offering people opportunity to do other things,” Mr. Martini says.
They've also spoken to Crosley bandleader Burt Farber and Norman Corwin, the radio dramatist fired after two weeks at WLW-AM in the 1930s for questioning a corporate edict prohibiting “pro-union stories on the news,” Mr. Martini says.
@subhed:Check your attic
@body:
Next on their list are New York guitarist Al Casey from Mr. Waller's band, and radio historian Erik Barnouw in Vermont, who spent a year here researching The Golden Web, his history of radio from 1933-53.
If you have old transcription discs, Crosley newsletters or other 1930s radio memorabilia, contact Mr. Martini at WVXU-FM. He promises to copy materials and return them.
“We have a good base right now, but we'd like to add to it,” Mr. Martini says. “We'd like to find that gem hidden in somebody's attic.”
Mike Martini can be reached at WVXU-FM (458-3162). Write: Mike Martini, WVXU-FM, 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207-7211. E-mail: mmartini@xstarnet.com.
Cell phone fee faces Senate battle
Bike trails have cities pedaling to tie in
Tristate lands role in major motion picture
Madisonville pride intact, despite insult
Census workers count homeless
NKU's comeback kids bring home title
Public can add to WVXU's audio history of Cincinnati radio
Speaker: Parents should control local education
St. X's first fan dies after win
Agencies to share location?
Cleanup volunteers to spruce up Reading
Consultant drops Lebanon as client
Deerfield asks input on police
Golub thrills CCO crowd
Intervention starts in 4th grade
Middletown schools look ahead
Newport revives bid for low-income housing grant
Project would link art, city
Theologian differs with Commandments as posted
Queen City's moments to shine reflected in book
GET TO IT
TRISTATE DIGEST
