Those were the days. Men wore hats. Women wore heels. Everyone smoked. There was no Facebook and tough guys would say "why-I-oughta" through gritted teeth. No dummy, I'm not talking about Manchester in 1986, but America in the 30s and 40s. In this time and place, radio ruled the airwaves and families would huddle around a large box packed with wires and valves for entertainment. Sometimes they'd even switch it on.
So what were these good folk listening to? There's a good chance that their audio intake may have included the two fine examples below: War of the Words, the most famous radio play from Orson Welles' Mercury theatre, and a 'pulp' detective thriller called The glass donkey.
PULP RADIO
So, let's start with the pulp, and a Top of the pops presenter is bound to have said at some stage. The Glass donkey is a Raymond Chandler detective story written as a radio play, for the series The adventures of Philip Marlowe. Strangely for audio, it makes me really visualise the era. It would be a fun one to one to sample, too. Just check the intro - it's pure Wu Tang:
"Get this and get it straight! Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave. There's no other way, but they never learn."
Above: Gerald Mohr in action at the CBS studios
NBC-produced, The adventures of Philip Marlowe was a weekly series that began in September 1948, and by the following year was it was pulling the biggest audience on American radio, with more than 10 million listeners. At the core of its success was good writing and Gerald Mohr as Marlowe, with the trademark snappy delivery that bagged him a Best Male Actor radio award.
Download The glass donkey now
(If it's not your cup of tea, fair enough - but check out that intro)
PANIC STATIONS
War of the Worlds is something else altogether. One of the most infamous radio broadcasts ever, it's based on HG Wells' classic story of the same name, which as we all know imagines earth under attack from Martians. What director Orson Welles did was to treat the story in a news verité style, which caused sections of the great American public to panic, as they thought the broadcast - and the invasion - were real.
Broadcast as a Halloween special in October 1938, it's a wonderful example of the power of radio at a time when there was so much less media noise, and anything that sounded 'official' carried serious credibility. Of course, its impact would be far less in the modern world, where even a real alien invasion would take time to sink in to people's busy lives - until they picked up the Daily Mail and saw the headline Alien invasion house price shock, that is.
Download War of the worlds now
JIVE TURKEY
Now, I'm posting this kind of stuff as a change from the usual hip-hop mix tapes, but it seems I can't get away from it, even with a strange old gem like this. As with the Glass donkey mentioned above, the introduction to the War of the worlds broadcast has a sample-friendly intro. If you recognise the words, '...we take you to the Hotel Martinet in Brooklyn, where Bobby Millette and his orchestra are offering a program of dance music', the its because you've heard Double D and Steinski's cut and paste classic Lesson 2. I always preferred Jive Bunny myself.
Watch the Lesson 2 video:
Above (centre): Double D (Trousers) and Steinski (Upper body and head) lead their dancers in a live performance of Lesson 2.
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