Peruna Presents: Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers

 

They were all there.
Albert was on bass,
Allen and George on fiddles,
Pauline, Christine, and Elnora looking very pretty,
and Johnny and Clarence on guitars. 

Little Dorothy and Sonny joined in the show

along with Glen Hardy,
and, of course,
Ma and Dad, too.

They played some snappy music
and sang a couple of old-time songs.
You should have seen them dancing.
They were the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers.
They were swell!

This battered card, a half-tone print, is captioned:

Greetings from The Crocket(sic) Family, K.N.X.
and Peruna

What makes it a special souvenir is that someone wrote  the names of each member of the band onto the card. The Crockett Family were a country string band who called themselves the Kentucky Mountaineers. This card is a souvenir from when they performed on KNX, an AM radio station in Los Angeles, California, a very long way from their origins in Kentucky. This family band was started by John Harvey "Dad" Crockett, who was born in 1877 in Wayne County, West Virginia, but as a young man moved to Bath County, Kentucky. The University of Kentucky archives keeps a collection of the Crockett family papers and has the best biography of John H. Crockett with a history of his string band, which I will reprint here.

John Harvey Crockett, Sr. was a musician, music teacher, and maker of musical instruments who taught fiddle, banjo, shapenote singing, harmonica, and guitar in communities throughout the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky. He married Admonia Jane Patrick of Tennessee, with whom he had eleven children, seven of whom lived to adulthood: Ethel (1898), George (1900), Clarence (1905), Albert (1907), Johnny (John Harvey Crockett, Jr, 1909), Alan (1915), and Elnora (1920).

In 1916, the Crockett family moved to California, where they lived for several years near Fresno. The Crockett children performed for their schools and at local dances throughout their youth. In the mid 1920s, the Crockett brothers were an early hit on the Fresno Bee radio station KMJ. The brothers sang songs written by Johnny, popular songs, novelty tunes, cowboy songs, songs from minstrel shows, and old-time songs that the boys learned from their grandfather, George A. Crockett.

The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers was formed in 1926 and included all of the Crockett children except for Ethel. Earlier names of the group included The Crockett Minstrels and The Crockett Family Orchestra. Albert, Johnny, Alan, and Elnora, who grew up mostly in California, gravitated towards modern music and old-time music that they learned from elder family members. George and Clarence, who were rooted in Appalachia, always preferred the music of the hills where they and their parents were born and raised.

Following their success on Fresno radio, John Harvey Crockett, Sr. and his five sons played for stations in Los Angeles and southern California. In 1927-1928 the group signed with the Keith-Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit and became a headline act on that nationwide circuit. They toured vaudeville theatres throughout the United States and Canada, played regularly over the radio, and broadcast nationally from New York station, WABC. The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers returned to California after their WABC stint and became the lead act on The Hollywood Barn Dance, a program on Los Angeles radio station, KNX. The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers' final tour was of the west coast in 1936-1937. Family addictions to alcohol led to the downfall of the group, with George Crockett's death from alcohol poisoning (1941) and the suicides of Clarence (1936) and Alan (1947).

Before we go any further
in their story let's listen to 
Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers
playing Buffalo Gal's Medley
in a recording made in 1931.

Though my picture of the Crockett family is the size of a postcard, instead of the usual stamp box on the back there is a small calendar for the year 1935. It has a title:

TRY PERUNA
TO HELP BUID UP
—COLD CHASING—
—COLD FIGHTING—
RESISTANCE

The band was led by John Harvey Crockett, Sr., "Dad", on fiddle and banjo, and accompanied by his wife, Admonia Jane, "Ma", and their five sons, George (fiddle), Johnny (banjo, guitar, vocals), Alan (fiddle, bones), Clarence (guitar), and Albert (bass, tenor guitar) and daughter, Elnora (vocals). The two other young women in the photo were sisters, Pauline and Christine Stafford, reportedly neighbors from Tennessee. The two children, Dorothy and Sonny, and the young man, Glen Hardy were likely extras used to add more youth to this family entertainment.  

Coos Bay, OR The World
7 May 1935

The group pictured on the card has 13 members but they usually toured with 10, as pictured here in a 1935 theater promotion in the Coos Bay, Oregon newspaper. By 1935 the Crockett family were seasoned entertainers having played on both vaudeville and radio. In January 1928 the Crockett Family (Kentucky) Mountaineers appeared at the Orpheum theater in Oakland, California as one of a half-dozen acts arranged around a featured film. A reviewer in the Oakland newspaper said "One of the greatest novelties which has ever played the circuit is the act of the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers, whose old-time music and square dances are something really out of the ordinary."  

Oakland CA Tribune
13 January 1928

The film was "Show Girl", starring "Hollywood's newest sensation", Alice White, as "the hottest little hotsy-totsy that ever shook a scanty at a tired businessman." I don't think she did square dancing. The "Show Girl" was a semi-silent film with caption cards for the drama and no audible dialog, but it did use a new audio technology with a synchronized musical score and sound effects that used the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process.

One tune was not enough.
Let's have an encore!
Here again are the
Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers
in a rendition of that great old-time classic
 Little Rabbit (1931).

In around 1927 the Crockett boys got their start on radio in Fresno, California at station KMJ. This station was one of oldest in America having secured its commercial license in March 1922. The first radio stations used an amplitude-modulated (AM) signal which, with enough power, could be picked up by listeners who were hundreds, or even thousands, of miles from the radio transmission antenna. Performances of radio plays and music concerts were broadcast live, and not pre-recorded. Over the next decade, as the technology of microphones, amplifiers, and receivers improved, radio shows were produced in front of a studio audience, which allowed performers like the Crockett family to appear dressed in costume. 

After some local success, the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers were taken up by larger stations and then national networks. As more and more people around the country began purchasing radio sets, their infectious music quickly created a sensation in the new medium. This opened up opportunities for the Crocketts to tour the vaudeville theater circuit.   

Fresno CA Bee
2 September 1929

The Crockett's home in California was in Fowler, a little farming town in the San Joaquin Valley about 12 miles southeast of Fresno. On 2 September 1929 the Fresno Bee, which now owned the KMJ radio  station, published a front page feature and photo about the meteoric rise to fame of the Crockett family.  The popularity of the Kentucky Mountaineers was bringing them new bookings in major cities like New York City. They were publishing their own songbooks, starting a nationwide tour of vaudeville theaters, and planned to release new recordings. They were now reputed to earn $2,000 a week. Not eight weeks later, on 24 October, also known as Black Thursday, the American stock market crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.

The people of Fresno seemed just as proud of the Crocketts as the folks back in Kentucky. The writer of the article explained their success this way:  

"The high praise that is accorded the Crocketts throughout the country is evidenced in the following review of their act, printed by a Denver, Colorado, newspaper: "In this sophisticated age, when there is consorted effort upon the part of the the majority of performers to be arty, Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers offer such a startling contrast that they all but caused a riot. 

   "The parent Crockett and his five sons present such a picture as has not been seen here in ages. That they are authentic is plain to be seen. Without any flourishes they fiddle away at the old tunes familiar to every one, keeping time with their swinging feet. 

   "Then to disclose their versatility two of the boys sing 'Sipping Cider'—and how they can sing it. The baby of the family then fiddles a tune accompanied by his brothers. 

   "But the riotous feature is when one of the boys calls off the old fashioned dances and trips about the stage showing this generation how it is done, while the rest of the family provide. the melody. 

   

   "The family also have a. priceless possession, huge, shy smiles that will win an audience no matter what they do. Really, no one should miss this troupe if for no other reason than to be convinced that people can, in this day and age, be so ingenuous and present their talents with such disarming simplicity." 

The following summer in 1930 the friends and fans of the Kentucky Mountaineers learned that they would get a rare treat courtesy of the Fresno Bee. Albert Crockett, the bass player with the big grin, was to be married to Miss Josephine Phillips of Pineville, Kentucky. The wedding ceremony was to be held in New York City, but it would be broadcast live over the CBS radio network which included the Bee's KML station.

Fresno CA Bee
8 July 1930

The audience demands more!
So here again is 
the Crockett Kentucky Mountaineers
in Sweet Betsy From Pike.
It was recorded in New York City
in either January or February 1931

The Crockett family's national tour in 1935 followed a route familiar to many family entertainers over previous decades. It was a trail of theaters in cities and towns linked by America's railway lines. Early vaudeville in the 1890s had all live performers of course. Change was coming though and after 1910 entertainers shared the stage with a new fade—movies. The actors may have been mute, mouthing their words, but the films were certainly not silent as there was always an orchestra, a pianist, or organist to provide accompaniment. And as early feature movies were usually short, theaters still depended on live acts to keep audiences entertained while the film reels were changed. But by the mid-1930s movies with full sound and exciting cinematic action forced theaters to give up on house orchestras and quit booking live acts altogether. Vaudeville struggled along in smaller towns but it would soon disappear.

Casper, WY Star-Tribune
22 August 1935

In August 1935 the Kentucky Mountaineers appeared in Casper, Wyoming at the America theater. The local newspaper ran an advert which showed eight members of the "internationally famous" Crockett family onboard a horse-drawn farm wagon. They were radio stars from KNX Hollywood.  The movie feature was "We're in the Money", a romantic comedy film starring Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell in a kind of "buddy" story. 

The Crockett family finished that 1935 season but despite their success, they seemed to have given up the vaudeville circuit and radio too. I could not find their group's name on radio listings or in theater adverts after 1937. Beginning in 1935 another group called "Uncle Henry's Original Kentucky Mountaineers" showed up in several newspaper, mostly in the East. Like the Crocketts it was a mountain string band, but with eight musicians. I suspect this band was produced as a deliberate imitation of the more famous Crockett family. It lasted up to the war years and then disappears.

From John H. Crockett's brief biography we learn that the Crocketts suffered some cruel sadness in their family. Their first loss occurred on 20 August 1936 when Clarence Crockett took his own life. After he had threatened his wife several times with a gun, she took their children and left their house. Shortly afterward Clarence shot himself. Tragically it was his father who discovered his son's body.

Oakland CA Tribune
20 August 1936

Such terrible events are a burden to any family, but for those working in show business, it can be even more stressful to keep performing. But the Crockett Family tried anyway, playing a show in December 1936 and a couple more in 1937. Yet like in all family  bands, the kids inevitably grow up and find other interests, start their own families, and pursue new ambitions. It was also the height of the depression which was affecting every industry including show business. After 1937 Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers seems to have broke up. Some of the other family members found music work in other string bands and even in Hollywood, too. But newspapers did not record any further concerts of the whole Crocket family. 

John Harvey Crockett, born 1877 in West Virginia died in Sacrament, California in January 1972.

* * *

I don't know how influential the Crockett family string band was to the growth of Country & Western music. The Crocketts called it old-time music,  even though some of the boys wrote new tunes for their band to play. They were influenced by Grandfather Crockett and a family memory of Kentucky mountain songs and dances. At the time some newspapers called it Hill Billy music, or Barn Dance music. What it lacked in sophistication was made up by its infectious toe-tapping rhythms. But I think the real reason for the Crockett family's appeal was that they were authentic. 

This was an era when traditional folk music was still alive and unspoiled by commercialization. The Appalachian mountains, from Alabama to Maine, were home to a mix of many cultures that in the 1930s were still very much isolated from the rest of America. By moving to California the Crockett family managed to take advantage of two new mediums—radio and recording. For a brief few years their genuine mountain music entertained American audiences with a sound that was fresh and novel. Eventually the world would recognize Appalachian music for its roots in Scotland, Ireland, Africa, and other musical cultures. For the Crocketts I think it was all about playing homemade music that kept you dancing on your toes.

  

Readers who have got this far may ask,
"Wait! What's the deal about Peruna?"

St Louis, MO Republic
28 February 1901

Peruna, or Pe-ru-na as it was sometimes called, was a patent medicine concocted by Samuel Brubaker Hartman,1830–1918, and sold to the public at great profit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peruna was purported to cure catarrh, a general purpose word for inflammation that covered all manner of ailments in the human body. Hartman was a trained physician and surgeon but his true talent was as a quack doctor. 

When his patients complained that their pharmacists were not preparing his prescriptions correctly, Hartman decided to manufacture his own special cure-all medicine. He called it Peruna and began selling it in 1885. He claimed it was beneficial for anyone suffering from pneumonia; tuberculosis; grippe – influenza; the common cold – catarrh of the lungs; canker sores – catarrh of the mouth; appendicitis – catarrh of the appendix; chronic indigestion – catarrh of the stomach; mumps – catarrh of the glands; Bright's disease – cattarh of the kidneys; and Yellow fever. It could also help people gain weight.

This wonder drug became a miraculous tonic, a magic elixir that was advertised in thousands of newspapers and magazines. Peruna was endorsed by hundreds of politicians, military officers, and other prominent dignitaries and received testimonials of its wonderous qualities from countless ordinary people. It made Hartman a very wealthy man. 

In 1905, Collier's magazine published a series of eleven articles by the journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams entitled "The Great American Fraud". In his report Adams exposed Peruna and other patent medicines as complete frauds and, in some cases, dangerous due to toxic substances. The only active ingredient in Peruna was 28% ethanol. Supposedly it was at least better than other panaceas which used opium and cocaine as ingredients. Adams' work was widely read and it led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. 

However Peruna continued to be manufactured though now under a different formula with less alcohol. After his death in 1918, Samuel Brubaker Hartman's company (No relation to me that I know of. Yet.)  stayed in business selling its fantastic brew to foolish people desperate to find cheap cures. 

By 1935 Peruna was still sold to the public but it was now just an ordinary household brand name. But in order to promote sales the Peruna company began sponsoring radio programs and musical artists. What I did not know until I began doing research on the Crockett family this week was that Peruna sponsored other radio bands too. There are promotional cards for Western, country, swing bands and more, all with a calendar for 1935 printed on the back.

Thus a new genre in my collection has begun—the Peruna Presents series. Stayed tuned for the next episode.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is tuned to their radio, 

so

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!

The Little Symphony Orchestra of KDKA Radio

 

As formal group photos go, this is a nice but unexceptional image of a small orchestra. Fifteen musicians, all men, are dressed in black-tie tuxedos and closely arranged in a small room. Heavy drapes line the walls and the string players' chairs have fabric slip covers. A large clock hangs at the back and a pair of small palm trees add an odd decorative theme. The orchestra's leader, wearing white-tie and tails, stands center. A caption at the bottom of this postcard reads:

The KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra,  Victor Saudek, Conductor

But hidden within this bland half-tone photo is a remarkable history. This small ensemble was one of the first professional radio orchestras to broadcast music in America, and possibly the world. It was the 1920s, an era when peace had seemingly returned to the world and modern technology introduced mankind to a marvelous new electrical device—radio. For the first time people could listen to the sounds of voices and music that originated in places far away from their homes. Geographic distance was no longer an obstacle. By means of invisible electromagnetic airwaves, anyone with this amazing device could magically receive news reports, sermons, stories, lectures, drama, comedy, and  music. All sounding as live as if they were in your living room.

The postcard was sent on 30 December 1925  to Louis Anna Reinke of Appleton, Wisconsin, roughly 500 air miles west of Pittsburgh.

                        Dear Radio Friend:
                            We were glad to know that you enjoyed
                        our  radio program about which you wrote
                        us recently.  Station KDKA broadcasts a
                        week day program beginning at 6:15 P. M.
                        daily and continuing until the time signals
                        and weather reports are given at 10:00 P. 
                        M. Eastern Standard Time.  Popular mid-
                        night programs are given Tuesdays and
                        Thursdays at 11:00 P. M.  Church services
                        are broadcast each Sunday at 10:45 A. M.,
                        4:45 and 7:45 P. M., with an organ Recital 
                        from Carnegie Music Hall at 4:00 P. M.
                        and a dinner concert at 6:30 P. M.
                            We are always glad to hear from our
                        radio friends, and welcome constructive
                        suggestions.
                                                Sincerely,
                                                        Station KDKA
                        "The Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World"

One of the first efforts to develop a commercial application for radio communication began with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This gigantic company was founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse (1846–1914), the inventor of the railway air brake and a pioneer in developing America's AC electrical infrastructure. By the time of his death in 1914 Westinghouse held 361 patents in his name and was responsible for creating 60 companies. However radio was not one of his inventions. In fact, as the result of a bankruptcy reorganization in 1909, Westinghouse had lost control of his company well before it became known for making radios and, later, television sets.

When war started in Europe the Westinghouse Company expanded into building a million rifles for the Imperial Russian army. But in 1917 the revolutionary Bolshevik government canceled the contract and Westinghouse once again faced bankruptcy. Fortunately the U. S. government took up the order as America entered the war and also awarded Westinghouse a lucrative contract to build radio transmitters and receivers for the military.

The first practical radio communication system was developed by Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), an Italian electrical engineer in the late 1890s and early 1900s. However his invention was intended to compete with transatlantic telegraph cables and used a wireless radio signal to transmit Morse code messages. Converting sound into radio waves was a much more challenging problem that involved countless inventors, engineers, and scientists. Though new concepts for audio radios were evolving when the war began, further advancements were delayed until the war ended.

In 1919 the Westinghouse Company in Pittsburgh was already substantially invested in audio radio research, having bought out the patents of other companies, but it had not yet settled on any commercial use for it. Fortunately the company had one important advantage. It employed Frank Conrad (1874–1941) as an electrical engineer in its Testing Department. It was Conrad's fascination with radio that led him to become one of America's leading pioneer broadcasters. In 1916 Conrad was granted an experimental radio license, callsign 8XK, and he began conducting radio experiments at home in his garage. During the war civilian radio stations were prohibited but Conrad luckily worked in Westinghouse's Pittsburgh factory where radio transmitters and receivers were made. 

In October 1919 the ban on amateur radio signals was lifted and Conrad returned to his experiments, testing new vacuum-tube radiotelephone equipment. On the evening of 17 October 1919 while he was broadcasting to a very small number of amateur radio buffs, he got tired of speaking and decided to play a gramophone record by moving his Victrola's megaphone horn closer to the microphone. The music became such a hit that Conrad was soon overwhelmed with requests for more. He began scheduling specific times every week to play 78 rpm records from his family's collection but that was not enough. He then contacted a local music store for help and they agreed to provide new records in return for his promotion of their store. In addition to broadcasting records Conrad installed a telephone line from his garage to the music room of his house and let his sons and a niece, who were talented musicians, play music live on-air via a telephone. 

Pittsburgh Press
29 September 1920

By the fall of 1920 there was enough enthusiasm for home radio equipment in Pittsburgh that the Joseph Horne department store took notice and began advertising its stock of amateur wireless sets. On 29 September 1920 they included a report about Frank Conrad's popular radio concerts of Victrola music. The word "radio" was still an unfamiliar word to readers, so instead it was called a "wireless telephone".

Radio Broadcast
May 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Most readers probably paid little notice to the report, but Mr. Harry P. Davis did. He was a vice president of Westinghouse, and he recognized a good business opportunity for the company. If Westinghouse wanted to increase sales of its radio equipment, he decided it should invest in its own radio broadcasting station because as more people enjoyed listening to news and entertainment, the demand for radio sets was certain to grow. Within a few days he ordered a new station to be constructed and Frank Conrad's operation was moved out of his garage. 

The new station, which soon carried the call sign KDKA, was operational in time to report the presidential election results on 2 November 1920. That night Pittsburgh's first radio station joined three other new stations in Detroit, St. Louis, and Buffalo to announce the election of Warren G. Harding hours before the news made the newspapers. It was a hollow honor though, as it was estimated that fewer than 1,000 households in Pittsburgh owned a radio and heard that first audio report. More sets had to be sold and more innovation would be needed to attract the public's attention and create a market for commercial radio.

Radio Broadcasting News
22 January 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

In 1922 the Westinghouse Company began publication of a weekly digest called Radio Broadcasting News that promoted Westinghouse radio sets and its station KDKA. It's banner on the 4th issue in 22 January 1922 claimed it was in its "fifty-seventh week broadcasting". Featured on the cover was a group that I recognized. It was a picture of The Pittsburgh Ladies Orchestra who, by curious coincidence, on  8 January 2022, almost exactly a century later, I featured in a story on this blog. Obviously from their name, this small musical ensemble came from Pittsburgh, so it's no surprise that they would get an invitation to perform on the KDKA studio. 

It was an all-female group, as long as you didn't count the leader and his son, that began in 1911 with programs designed for the Lyceum and Chautauqua festivals. For over a decade they became popular enough to tour the circuits in 19 states. It was led by Albert D. Liefeld and included his wife, Minnie Liefeld on piano, and son, Theodore S. Liefeld on cornet and trap drum set. According to one newspaper report, in 1921 The Pittsburgh Ladies Orchestra was the first "orchestra" to perform live on radio, that being at station KDKA. However with only three string players in a group of eight musicians, it was not really a proper orchestra. The group played KDKA again in July 1922 and continued performing until 1925 after which it stopped appearing in newspaper notices. 

The new studio of  Radio Station KDKA, Pittsburgh, PA
18 December 1922
Source: Wikipedia

As more radio stations opened across the country in the 1920s, many musicians and small ensembles from the vaudeville theaters and Chautauqua circuits found work in radio because the early studios were not equipped to handle large musical groups. The performing space was kept small and well insulated to minimize reverb and distortion of the music. Generally only one microphone was  used and some instruments were left out as being either too loud or too quiet. 

In this picture of station KDKA's new studio in December 1922 we see a woman playing a grand piano while a man, perhaps the announcer or sound engineer, watches. This room replaced the first "studio" which was just a tent erected on the rooftop of the Westinghouse building where programs were sometimes interrupted by the sound of train horns. In this picture yuletide wreaths hang on the drapery walls but the palm trees are the same as in the picture of KDKA's Little Symphony Orchestra. It's interesting that a set of tubular bell chimes are over on the left. The sound of chimes was probably introduced as a convenient way to announce time or a change of program. 

Radio Broadcast
January 1925
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

THE KDKA LITTLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Victor Saudek, Conductor. Seated, left to right: Milton Lomask, Pierre De Backer, Leo Kruczek, violins;
Elmer Hennig, 'cello; Raymond Bandi, viola; James Younger, 'cello; Herbert Saylor, viola; Rest Baker, violin.
Standing, left to right: Stephen Konvalinka, trombone; John J. Harvey, trumpet; William Nugier, drums;
Karl Haney, bass; Victor Saudek, Conductor; Stephen Miller, Jr., piano; Alvin Hauser, flute; S. Sapienza, clarinet

In January 1925 the magazine, Radio Broadcast, included a photo of the KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra that matches the one on my postcard. The magazine printed not only the name of the conductor, Victor Saudek, but also the names and instruments of all the musicians. 

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1879, Victor Saudek  became determined at an early age to play the flute and by age 15 was playing with city's orchestra. After high school he went to Chicago for further musical education and then to New York where he studied flute with a noted teacher and also sang in the National Conservatory chorus under Frank Damrosch. In 1910 he settled in Pittsburgh playing principal flute in the Pittsburgh Symphony and teaching music and the flute at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University. 

In 1922, or possibly a year earlier, he was chosen to organize an orchestra to play regular musical interludes for the new radio station KDKA. Most of the first references to musical programs were short pieces by vocalists or solo instrumentalists with piano accompaniment or small chamber groups like a string trio or quartet. The rooftop studio probably did not accommodate many people. 

 

Pittsburgh Press
9 November 1922

In around 1921 the Pittsburgh newspapers began listing radio schedules with programs from both Pittsburgh as well as the other new stations available around the country, though there weren't very many of them then. On 28 October 1922 a report for KDKA listed the "Premier concert by Westinghouse KDKA orchestra" at 8:30 but it did not include Victor Saudek's name and the music program was only for a violin, cello, piano trio and a soprano soloist. The next month there was a more substantial program by "KDKA's recently organized orchestra of 12 pieces, under the baton of Victor Saudek" The music was performed at 3:30 p. m. and included:

• Italians in Algiers ...................... Rossini
• Excerpts from The Blue Kitten ... Frimi
• Solo—To be selected
• Funeral March of a Marionette
  (Comigue) .................................... Gounod
• Scotch Melodies
• Solo—To be selected
• Prelude Siciliana Intermezzo
  Cavalieria Rusticana ................... Moscagni
• March—The Pitt Panther (new) ...Louis Panella

This was very light classical and familiar popular music for the time, clearly arranged for a much smaller instrumentation than what the composers required. After presumably a dinnertime break, the broadcast resumed with news at 7 p. m.; followed by a "bedtime story"; stock market reports; several speakers from the American Red Cross and the Electrical Exposition; then more music provided by a string quartet of KDKA musicians; more speeches; and more music from the Fellows club orchestra. These last bits were likely "phoned in" using a telephone to pick up voices and music from a remote location. Of course, listeners in this early era of radio could not expect the sophisticated sound quality we expect today, a century later. It all just seemed amazing then.

Radio Journal
August 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

E-Z Radio
May 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

KDKA was Westinghouse's primary radio station but by 1925 the company had added three more: WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, (now in New York City); WBZ in Springfield, Massachusetts (now Boston); and KYW in Chicago, Illinois (now Philadelphia). The first frequency for KDKA was in the 360-meter spectrum which was shared with other radio stations. In 1923 the U. S. Department of Commerce expanded this range and assigned 920 kHz to KDKA on the Amplitude Modulation (AM) band waves. 

The Westinghouse Radio Broadcasting News encouraged its fans "who are successful in hearing the program from any of the other stations will confer a favor by reporting the circumstances to the Radio Division, Department of Publicity." At this time the nature of how weather and astronomic conditions influenced radio reception was not fully understood and stations relied on distant listeners to measure the range of where the broadcasts could be received.

Science and Invention
(formerly Electrical Experimenter)
June 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

The advance of early radio technology could not have happened without the enthusiasm and experiments of amateur radio hobbyists. The first radio magazines reflect this kind of geeky spirit which did not really have an obvious goal other than basic long distance communication. These magazines are filled with complicated electrical diagrams and lengthy reports on new research or innovations. But it's interesting how quickly music, either live or recorded, became a major incentive for marketing radio as a novel appliance everyone should have in their home. 

Radio Broadcasting News
31 March 1923
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Ironically for the Westinghouse Company, the early radio sets did not use AC–alternating current which its founder George Westinghouse had established as the American standard for electric service. Instead the sets were powered by bulky batteries that used DC–direct current and had to be regularly recharged. We can only wonder how Thomas Edison, the champion for DC current, might feel vindicated if he could see how the entire world operates on battery power today.  

Frank Conrad gave up his amateur radio license in 1924 but continued working on new designs for Westinghouse's consumer radios. He also did important research on shortwave radio signals demonstrating a method that greatly improved the distance that a transatlantic transmission could be received at a fraction of the previous cost. In 1925 KDKA could even boast of its signal reaching radio sets in Australia and South Africa. For those special long distance international broadcasts Victor Saudek and his musicians had to get up very early, sometimes at 3 and 4 AM.

Radio Journal
August 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Within just a few years radio technology rapidly improved and hundreds of new stations started broadcasting all across America. Some countries, like Great Britain, enacted a license fee for radio consumers. But in the United States the airwaves were free, though everyone soon learned that radio programing was more about advertising than anything else. As the radio business model evolved, station KDKA tried to remain on the cutting edge. Victor Saudek was made music director of all four of Westinghouse's radio stations, and though I'm not certain, it seems likely that musicians were employed at each station. What I do know is that by 1927 the KDKA orchestra in Pittsburgh became a bit larger than it was on its first broadcasts. 

In this large 8" x 10" printed photo the KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra sits on a proper concert stage with Victor Saudek standing center on a podium. There are twenty musicians including two horns, two trumpets, trombone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and percussion in addition to full strings. It's a chamber orchestra that would be suitable for most classical music and theater music. It resembles photos of another radio orchestra that I wrote about in 2011, The Detroit News Orchestra, which was a competitor and contemporary of the KDKA ensemble.

The photo was taken by the Trinity Court Studio of Pittsburgh and marked 1-29-27 in the lower right corner, January 29, 1927. A printed label along the border identifies it as a souvenir gift, "presented to our radio friends through KDKA with compliments of Trinity Court Studio. Like the previous picture the musicians are dressed in formal suits like they might be for a regular performance but, of course, there was no audience inside their studio so why bother with high class fashion? This appears to be a theater stage and not the little KDKA studio so perhaps this was a rare occasion for a proper concert. The palm trees look bigger too.

I haven't yet discovered how long KDKA retained the services of Victor Saudek and his Little Symphony Orchestra musicians. An ensemble like this would be typical of a large theater orchestra used to accompany silent films. But 1927 was the year that Warner Bros. Studios released the The Jazz Singer, the first feature film with sound. Theater orchestras were soon made redundant. And two years later in 1929 Wall Street collapsed and Americans entered a long period of economic depression. Musicians became very expendable and any orchestra, large or small, was surplus to requirements.  

Pittsburgh Press
2 October 1981

In October 1981, the Pittsburgh Press featured a story on Victor Saudek, both father and son. The flutist and conductor, Victor Saudek Sr., was the father of Victor M. Saudek Jr. who never inherited any of his father's musical talents. Instead he pursued an interest in aviation, especially with gliders, and became a mechanical engineer at Hughes Aircraft in California where he helped design airplanes and satellites for NASA. In 1981, Victor Jr., now retired, said his proudest achievement was working on the unmanned lunar spacecraft Surveyor which landed on the moon in 1966. Sadly his father, Victor Sr died just before the landing. "Father couldn't accept the reality of Surveyor going to the moon," said his son.  

His older brother, Robert Saudek (1911–1997) became a noted TV producer and was a vice-president of ABC Television Network in the late 1940s and early 1950s. During his career he was honored with eleven Emmys and seven Peabodys.  He also helped establish both PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

From radio to the moon.
That's a remarkable history of a family and 20th century technology
to hide inside a postcard of a little symphony orchestra.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where no radio license is required

to listen in sepia tone 

Ringing in the Ears

There are some instruments
that are best appreciated
from a distance,
bagpipes for instance.
But I think bells also fall
into that category of faraway music.
Whether they are bicycle bells, hand bells, 
jingle bells, church bells, chime bells,
or fire bells
it is wise not to get too close.

 

 

However once upon a time there were percussionists whose ringing talent for tintinnabulation made them stars of the music hall stage. This man, Paul Nemson ~ Meister Instrumentalist, was one of those clangorous entertainers. He is pictured here on his promotional postcard with three small bells clutched in one hand and with the other is about to set off a wall of sleigh bells. In front of him is a xylophone and a table with more hand bells and behind him are racks of various kinds of tubular bells.

 

The caption implies that Paul Nemson is a solo metallophone artist but it's quite possible he led a vaudeville type group of other instrumentalists too. I have postcards of other German ensembles from earlier decades that feature these same instruments, especially racks of tuned jingle bells and wine bottles. Maybe German audiences developed a novelty fad for tinkling and jingling music that people enjoyed outdoors in a beer garden. Even with a full glass of beer I would have preferred to watch Paul perform from a very long distance.  

1934 Berlin city directory

I found Paul Nemson listed in several editions of the Berlin city directory with his address in 1934 at Kottbusser Damm 95. The word after each name in the directory describes a person's general line of work. For Paul Nemson's listing "Konzerthallen" translates as Concert Halls which I interpret as someone employed in music halls such as an entertainer. Of course I can't help feeling sorry for Paul's poor neighbors who had to listen to him practice his bells.

Paul's postcard was sent from Berlin, Germany on 14 September 1932, just four months before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.

 

 

The postmark includes a public service slogan: 

Werdet Rundfunkteilnehmer
~
Become a radio listener (subscriber/owner)

an interesting promotion of a new modern device
that would become very popular over the next few years
for more than just the ringing of bells.

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
which still broadcasts on a shortwave internet band.

 

 

 

 

 

Music for an Aeroplane

It was a modern age of wonder.
Things once impossible were now ordinary.
People flew across the sky in powerful machines.
The sound of voices and music traveled over invisible air waves.
Mankind attained an incredible new perspective
with the invention of airplanes and radio.

It didn't take long before
someone imagined combining the two.

How about a music concert
inside an airplane moving faster than a locomotive
and broadcast live over the radio?
How cool would that be?

 

 

 

This large 8" x 10" photograph shows about 16 musicians, dressed in winter overcoats and hats, crowding onto a precarious wooden stairway to board a large airplane, all while playing their instruments—accordion, guitars, trumpets, trombone, saxophones, double bass, and drums. They seem to be directing their attention to a man standing underneath the airplane which is marked Heracles, Imperial Airways. 

The back of the photo provides an explanation along with useful names, date, and place.

 

JACK HYLTON"S BAND BROADCASTS

FROM AN AEROPLANE                            15.12.33.

 

   Jack Hylton and his famous band played up in an aeroplane over
London today, and the programme was picked up by the Post Office
receiving station at Baldock, Herfordshire, and sent from there
by land line to Faraday House, and then to the Post Office
Exhibition in the Strand, London.  This musical experiment was to
test a new Post Office transmission apparatus.
O.P.S.     Jack Hylton and his band entering the air liner
               at Croydon.
                    HHS/S Keystone.

 

 

The photo was distributed by the Keystone View Company of Fleet Street in London. The band's comical pose boarding the aircraft was to promote their special radio broadcast for the B.B.C. This show would use a new wireless system that would transmit a live music concert over the radio airways as the musicians were literally traveling through the air. This press photo of the event ran in several British newspapers over the next few weeks. The man standing left was the band's leader, Jack Hylton. He and his orchestra were used to attracting attention as they were then one of the most poplar music groups in Britain.

 

 

London Daily Telegraph
15 December 1933

Jack Hylton (1892-1965)
Source: Wikipedia

Jack Hylton, born John Greenhalgh Hilton in 1892, was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario whose music became popular in Britain during the 1920s and 30s. He developed a light high society dance music that combined elements of popular songs with a British interpretation of American swing jazz. In 1930 it was estimated that of the 50 million records sold in the UK in the previous year, 1929, between 4 and 5 million discs were recorded by Jack Hylton and his orchestra.

 

By 1933 his orchestra had already made several successful tours of Britain and Europe and were recognized for their recordings and live radio broadcasts, mainly over the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, which established Great Britain's first national radio network in 1922.

 

Handley Page H.P.45 'Heracles'
Source: ipernity.com

The aeroplane that they were embarking on was named Heracles, a Handley Page H.P.42/45, manufactured by the British aviation company Handley Page specifically for Imperial Airways, one of the first commercial long-range airlines that operated from 1924 to 1939. When this bi-plane aircraft was introduced in 1931, it set a record in its first years of service as being the largest airliner in the world with a wingspan of 130 ft (40m) and a length of 92 ft (28m). It was designed to carry 24 passengers with a crew of 4. Each of the four  9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines generated 490 hp which was sufficient for the Heracles to reach a maximum speed of 120 mph and a cruising speed of 100mph. Only eight H.P.42/45 airliners were ever built, with the model HP42 designed to carry lighter loads over longer distance to places like Egypt or India, and the HP45, which was the Heracles model, modified for heavier cargo over shorter distances in Britain and Europe.

 

 

Kingston ONT Whig-Standard
11 January 1934

This aeroplane stunt was successful but did not attract much interest in America, perhaps because Jack Hylton and his orchestra had not yet toured there. However Canadian newspapers picked it up and reported a few more details. 

 

The flight lasted about an hour and a half and the live concert was devised as a test of a new type of radio apparatus for the General Post Office which was then in charge of Britain's radio system. Every member of Jack Hylton's band took part except the pianist and the harpist–whose instruments were too big for the plane–and the flutist. whose flute was broken just before the band left Croydon airport.  The main tune they played was "I'm on the Telephone Now."

 

 

* *

 

The interior of the Heracles aeroplane was clearly not very spacious and Jack Hylton's musicians must have felt cramped to play their instruments during the flight, not to mention suffering with the engine and wind noise. Nevertheless Jack Hylton and his orchestra performed at their scheduled time and were heard over a few radio stations around London. The photo gives us a sense of scale of this adventure but not of the music. But fortunately there was a movie camera filming the action for a British Pathé newsreel short, On The Air - In The Air! With Jack Hylton And His Band and through the magic of YouTube we can watch and listen to this historic occasion.

 

 

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As I was searching for newspaper accounts of this 1933 BBC concert, I happened upon an article that mentioned an earlier radio concert from the air that was attempted in November 1925.

 

 

London Weekly Dispatch
8 November 1925

This concert would involve male and female vocalists from London's theatres accompanied by a small ensemble, the Savoy Orpheans. They would be flying at 10,000 feet in another earlier Imperial Airways airliner, a Vickers Vanguard Type 170. 

 

 

 

Vickers Type 170 Vanguard, circa 1924
Source: The Internets

This aircraft was also a double wing design developed towards the end of World War 1. It had a wingspan of 87 ft (27m) and length of 54ft (16.5m). It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Condor III water-cooled V12 engines, each capable of 650 hp. The Vanguard had a maximum speed of 112 mph and could reach an altitude of 16,400 ft (5,000 m). Like the Heracles, the passenger cabin was enclosed, but the pilot's cockpit was open. It could carry 22 passengers with a 2 man crew. This airliner was originally planned for service between London and Paris, but later included a route to Brussels and Cologne.\

 

Leicester Mercury
10 November 1925

The "concert from the air" was scheduled for 6:45 on 10 November 1925, following a short performance of the Royal Air Force Band at 6:05, a talk by Capt. Douglas Sinclair from the Air Ministry on the civil aviation wireless system, as well as a demonstration of "direction finding from an aeroplane." The concert was supposed to last 15 minutes. The date was important as this was the evening before the seventh anniversary of the end of the Great War. The Prince of Wales would be giving a special Armistice Day message and there was music from several military bands.

 

Unfortunately heavy ground fog in London forced a cancellation and the concert was rescheduled for a few days later. The details were reported in the 25 November 1925 edition of Wireless World, a weekly magazine for British radio enthusiasts. This journal was in its 13th year of publication and rivals the geekiest magazines of our computer age, as it was filled with articles like "Measuring Anode Potential" and "Thermionic Rectifier for Battery Charging"; detailed comparisons of radio tubes and crystal sets; and countless mathematical formulas, graphs, and wiring diagrams.

 

Wireless World
25 November 1925

On page 737, Capt. A. G. D. West described how this was not the first broadcast made from an aeroplane, as two previous wireless transmissions had been made while in flight. But those had been microphones picking up only speech. This exercise was attempting to broadcast music at nearly studio quality level. 

The first tests of the in-flight radio equipment had to overcome the issue of electrical power, so a wind-driven generator supplying 1,500 volts was installed on the aircraft. This introduced another problem because noise from the aeroplane's engines interfered with the sound from the musicians. Situated on either side of the fuselage the big Rolls-Royce engines  were so loud that voices had to be just inches from the microphone to be audible. This issue was tolerable if the engine power was reduced and the plane "glided", but that diminished the air speed, thereby lowering the voltage output of the generator below what was needed for the radio transmitter. Engineers found a solution by finding a place in the cabin for a separate electric motor generator powered by large batteries. 

 

Wireless World, vol. XVII, no. 22, p. 738
25 November 1925

 

 

The final plan was to take the Vanguard up to 10,00 feet, cut down the engines to one third maximum speed, and use the other generator to run the radio transmitter as the plane descended. Considering that the aeroplane would be carrying 20 people, a piano, other musical instruments, and all the heavy equipment for the radio equipment, the scheme limited the concert to only about 15 minutes duration before the pilot would have to return the engines to full power. 

 

I'll let Capt. West finish the story.

 

 

"Arrangements were made that during the concert the various artists and musicians should be as close as possible to the microphones. One microphone dealt with the orchestra , the other one with the artists and the piano. The various parts were balanced up as far as could be done.

It is interesting to note that during the concert in the air it was impossible for any one else to hear actually what the announcer was saying or to hear the artists singing. Mr. Yearsley, of Messrs. Dix, Ltd., who provided the artists for the transmission, kept time throughout by signs; even the musicians themselves heard no other instrument but their own. It was really astonishing that under these circumstances any music at all was received at Keston and re-transmitted; but it was received well, and what was more, the engineers at Keston even sent it on to London in a better condition than they received it, as by the careful use of a form of a filter circuit, they were able to cut out a good deal of the engine noise and thus to purify the music that they received... Listeners on the ground had a much better idea of the music that was going on inside the machine than anybody actually there. It was therefore surprising that the re-transmission was so good."

 

 

 

Though the broadcast in 1925 did prove that music could be made in the air, I don't know if the BBC ever tried another "concert from the air" before repeating the concept with Jack Hylton and his orchestra in December 1933. The two aeroplanes were similar enough in cabin features that I think the in-flight entertainment was equally challenging for performers and radio audience to hear.

 

Both musical flights were genuine experiments in radio technology and aviation that revealed a number of problems and obstacles that would require many years, if not decades, to overcome. I don't believe these "concert from the air" were really expected to generate ticket sales for Imperial Airways or wireless radio sales for the BBC. But they did introduce a new perspective for the world that continues into our modern times whenever we take our seat on a 747, buckle up, plug in our earbuds and switch on the in-flight entertainment video screen to search for something to distract us for a few hours.

 

 

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I can't resist including one last video of the Heracles, Imperial Airways Handley Page H.P.45  preparing for flight operations at Croydon Airport in about 1935. Looking at this ungainly two-wing airliner from the vantage point of 2022 leaves me wondering if I would have had sufficient courage to climb on board the Heracles to play a concert in the air. At the very least I would have demanded double pay. Those were some brave musicians back in the day.

 

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 This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the conductor will always hold the bus.