SwingDJs

If you've collected old live radio broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s, have you noticed how terrible the announcers are? The men who talk between the songs. In what way are they terrible? Their voices often sound highly false and forced. Their scripts are slushy and over the top. And the timing is bad - they cut in too soon after the end of a song, spoiling the ending. It's like having your plate snatched away the second you finish eating.

Once or twice, the announcers get the spirit of the music - I think this is usually when they talk over the music, like the Ella Fitzgerald 'Live From the Savoy' broadcasts from 1939 and 1940. But in most cases, they sound completely out of touch with the spirit of the music being played.

Those men had requirements for their job that you may not have considered - mostly time constrictions.

Some of the announcers are great!

Paul Douglas who did a lot of Jazz and Swing broadcasts for CBS including the Glenn Miller Chesterfield shows and the CBS Saturday Night Swing Club. Good voice that lead him into films in the late 40s and 50s.

Gil Newsome - did a lot of the Coca Cola Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands during the war. Good voice, lots of energy. That whole series had good guys. Armey Archerd - the guy who has written for Variety for decades was an announcer for the CCVPoSB show.

Don Wilson - the regular series announcer and cast member on the Jack Benny program turns up on big band remotes - good voice, not a doofus.

Plus - some announcers also had to do their own engineering - bringing up the stress level.

Lots of bands, lots of broadcasts every night. 4 nationwide networks - CBS, NBC RED, NBC BLUE, MUTUAL. Mutual was the 'poorer' of the networks, possibly paid less.

Venues may have determined who got the gig that night. Perhaps the later the broadcast, the least accomplished announcer?

Black bands v White bands - Good question - Did one get better announcers than the other? Maybe.......but.....

I was listening to one of the Tommy Dorsey broadcasts on one of the NBC networks and the announcers ranged from excellent (the guy telling us there wont be any announcements in Spanish this week like last week) to the loud bozo guy who is talking over Sinatra as FS tries to say that TD will take a solo before he sings.

Anyway - good topic!

Hey - one more thing - 2 different types of band remotes back then -

industry terms :

sustaining - no commercials, no sponsorship. They 'sustained' themselves at station/network expense. A bottomline - beggars cant be choosers when it's all free.

commercial - broadcast is sponsored by some company. Those shows have money to spend, are always scripted and got the better guys b/c someone was paying for it and they were often prime-time shows, almost exclusively for the big band shows.

All that late night stuff after about 10 pm - all sustaining broadcasts.

Check this out for mega-fun/frustration with multiple bands on live at the same time on different stations-

http://www.jjonz.us/RadioLogs/pagesnfil ... s/1939.htm

Listening right now to Harry James 1946 from Meadowbrook Gardens, Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA - broadcast by The Don Lee Network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lee_(broadcaster)

Don Lee - interesting guy.

The announcer on this broadcast is fine. Some guy named Lou Blade or Lew Blaze. I dunno.....but he advises us to tune in tomorrow.

I bet that location is the old Frank Sebastion Cotton Club of the 1930s where Louis A. played and Les Hite.