Until then, I’d like to share one of the treasures I picked up at a rummage sale this weekend. It’s two 16″ acetates¹ that lost their labels a long time ago. I love picking up acetates as it’s usually a complete surprise. Sometimes it’s a child’s bad piano rehearsal, sometimes it’s gold like this one.

The recording is an almost 13 minute long WWII field report for NBC. The reporter (Tom Stewart) is in Italy doing a segment on a Red Cross Trainmobile called the “Yankee Dipper”.

I have been trying to research the “Yankee Dipper”, but have not found any information. The Red Cross website says:

Records indicate that specialized use of railroad cars during World War II may have been limited to two “trainmobiles” that delivered services and comfort supplies to Allied armed forces overseas, much like the converted buses and trucks, called “clubmobiles,” that provided doughnuts and coffee to the military.

One of the two they mention operated in the Persian Gulf area and the other in the remote areas of Burma and India. It looks like I found a lost third Trainmobile.

The report was in four pieces. I recorded all of them, cleaned them up the best I could, then assembled them back into one report. You will notice a change in quality as you listen. The “B” sides of the records were the noisiest.

So now what you’ve been waiting for. Slip on your headphones and have a listen to a lost memory:

Go to the site to hear streaming audio.

Download File - (Right-Click / Save As)

¹ “Acetates are records, usually recorded at 78 RPM, usually 10 inches in size, recorded on primitive home disc recorders, which were on the market during the 1940’s. They have an aluminum metal base, coated with black lacquer, which the recording stylus etches (cuts) the groove into while recording. Most recorders had a constant-pitch feedscrew which moved the arm containing the recording-stylus across the record at a constant rate.” source

Photos courtesy of the Library of Congress

Hopefully I’ll get some time this weekend to root around the collection and see what I can find.

Here is the first show that kind of fell together as I was teaching myself Audacity. It’s rough and I don’t talk enough about what I’m playing, but I had to start somewhere.

Go to the site to hear streaming audio.

Download Show 1.1 - 59:27 (Right-Click / Save As)

The set list is below:

01) Rock-a-bye Boogie - The Modernaires (1953)

Show Intro

02) Pass That Peace Pipe - Beryl Davis
03) Laugh, Laugh, Laugh (Part 1) - Abbot & Costello (1941)
04) Hot Patatta - Jimmy Durante (1934)
05) Alarm Clock Boogie - Billy Briggs (1951)

Recap

06) You Must Be Losing Your Mind - “Fats” Waller (1942)
07) Sing, Sing, Sing - Fletcher Henderson (1936)
08) Rockin’ Chair - Hoagy Carmichael (1930)
09) If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d've Baked a Cake - Eileen Barton (1950)
10) Mussolini’s Letter to Hitler - Carson Robison (1942)
11) Main Street Breakdown - Chet Atkins (1949)

Recap

12) Cowboy Fun (Part 1) - Texas Jim Robertson
13) Salty Dog Rag - Red Foley (1961)
14) The Ballad of the Jumping Frog - Ed Hennessy
15) Laugh, Laugh, Laugh (Part 2) - Abbot & Costello (1941)
16) Kitchen Rag - Billy Cotton & his Band (1954)
17) Hitler’s Reply to Mussolini - Carson Robison (1942)

Recap

18) Hula Hula Twist - Pua & Johnny Almeida (1962)
19) There Ain’t Any Chorus - Irv Carroll (1941)
20) Three Little Bunnies - Gayla Peevey (1953)

Recap and goodbye

21) Cowboy Fun (Part 2) - Texas Jim Robertson