We had a old 30s radio as my Dad often salvaged and repaired TV's and radios as a hobby. The radio always seemed to be on and I have fond memories of listening to 50s music, the smell of Sunday lunch cooking with Two way Family Favourites playing in the background and the familiar sound of ''Can you hear me Jean?''. The valves used to generate quite a bit of heat and occasionally the reception would be interupted with loud electronic 'burps'. Dad never spent much on luxuries but had his technology treats such as a Spectone 7'' reel to reel tape recorder which, according to a internet search would have cost 76 Guineas in 1959 - I bet my Mom had no idea! I still had the recorder until a couple of years ago, it was quite large and was stored in the Garden shed where it was destroyed by storm damage. Isaved a couple of reels but haven't had the time to do anything with them yet. Dad was quite innovative in that he managed to hook the recorder up to the radio and record the Sunday afternoon programmes to replay them again in the evening, electronic burps and all - much more up beat than listening to Sing Something Simple (as time goes by....), The Mike Sammes Singers or the Black and White Minstrels, all of which would instantly set the mood for school the next day!
The only exanmple of this machine I can find is in a museum! I'd love to get the old tapes copied but have a feeling that it would be quite difficult since the machine recorded at 3 different speeds and occasionally we'd have to adjust the playback. I can pretty much guess what tunes and artists will be on one of the tapes as they were played over and over....
Hang Down your Head Tom Dooly, Old Shep (and my Dad singing his version!), Big John, High Hopes, Rye Whiskey, For Me and My Gal, Marty Robbins,Jim Reeves, The Everley Brothers, Buddy Holly, Adam Faith, Marty Wilde,Nina and Frederick, Lonnie Donegan and the list would go on but for some reason there were three haunting songs from the early 60s....... Johny Day by Rolf Harris, Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakomoto, which fascinated me as I had no idea what the song was about though I still remember one or two lines I would try and sing in Japanese, also Rye Whiskey could have been sung by my Grandad , except for the American Accent lol
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Here's some of my radio nostalgia - Happy New Year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnchBPgKWlE