"New Year's Dance Party 2014" December 30, 2013

(Week 378)

This RADIOLA! happily bids "Good Riddance" to the old year and heartily welcomes the new one.

RADIOLA! streams continuously from my Live365 station. Get over it-cast here. Each RADIOLA! is sent to subscribers on my mailing list (email here).

Gertrude Niesen - Jamboree (1937) - Brunswick 02429 B

Mal Hallett and his Orch (Frankie Carle p) - Ridin' High (1937) - Decca 1163 B

Raymond Scott Quintet - New Year's Eve in a Haunted House (1939) - Columbia 35247

Willard Robison w/Ipana Troubadours - Wake Up! Chill'un, Wake Up! (1929) - from Columbia 1779 D

Horace Heidt and his Californians - Turn On the Heat (1929) - Victor 22195 A

The Plantation Orch - Smiling Joe (1926) - Columbia 4185 (UK)

Boyd Senter and his Senterpedes - Copenhagen (1929) - Bluebird B 6050 A

Tom Cline and his Music Featuring Jack Carney - I'm Disappointed in You (1929) - Brunswick 4497

The Revelers - Blue Again (1931) - Victor 22622 B

Harold White and his Orch (ARC band) (Will Osborne v) - I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan (1932) - Perfect 15665 A

Don Voorhees and his Earl Carroll's Vanities Orch - Fantasy on St Louis Blues (arr by W. G. Still) (1927) - Columbia 1078 D

Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orch (Johnny Marvin v) - Georgia Pines (1929) - Victor 22195 B

Bob Crosby and his Orch - I'm In the Mood For Love (1935) - Decca 508 A

Isham Jones' Orch (Ed Stone v) - You're OK (1934) - Decca 220 A

Horace Henderson and his Orch (Henry Allen v) - Ol' Man River (1933) - Parlophone R 1766

Jack Hylton and his Orch - Talkie Hits Medley Pt 1 (Happy Days Are Here Again/ My Baby Just Cares For Me/ Let's Go Native/ Happy Feet) (1930) - HMV B 5926

Jack Hylton and his Orch - Talkie Hits Medley Pt 2 (I'm In the Market For You/You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me/It Happened in Monterey/ I'm a Dreamer Aren't We All?) (1930) - HMV B 5926

Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica Rascals - Daybreak Express (1934) - Decca 174 A

Garland Wilson - Mood Indigo (1933) - Brunswick 01692 A (UK)

Earl Hines and his Orch - Fat Babes (Jimmy Mundy) (1934) - Decca 218 A

Little Jack Little - The Grass is Getting Greener All the Time (1933) - Bluebird B 5014 A

Elsie Carlisle - Come Up and See Me Sometime (1933) - Decca F 3737 A

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians - Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway! (1932) - Brunswick 6390

Clyde McCoy and his Orch - Readin', Ritin', Rhythm (1931) - Columbia 2389 D

Louis Armstrong and his Orch - You Can Depend On Me (1931) - Parlophone R 1355

Ray Noble and his Orch (Al Bowlly v) - Living in Clover (1932) - Victor 24064 B

The Revelers - Lady, Play Your Mandolin (1931) - Victor 22622 A

Cleo Brown - When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan (1935) - Decca 632 B

Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm Orch (Bob Goday v) - She's Tall, She's Tan, She's Terrific (1937) - Bluebird B 7180 B

Joe Reichman and his Orch (Paul Small v) - The Object of My Affection (1934) - Banner 33270 B

Rhythm Kings Orch (Ken McComber) - Love Is Just Around the Corner (1934) - Bluebird B 5767 A

Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orch - Suite of Serenades Pt 1 (Spanish, Chinese) (Victor Herbert) (1928) - Victor 35926 A 

Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orch - Suite of Serenades Pt 2 (Cuban, Oriental) (Victor Herbert) (1928) -

Victor 35926 B

Mills Brothers - I Heard (1932) - Melotone M 13180 A

Allan Small and his Orch - Pink Elephants (1932) - Crown 3378 A

Ray Noble and his Orch (Al Bowlly v) - Brighter Than the Sun (1932) - Victor 24314 B

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (CL v) - Don't Blame Me (1933) - Melotone M 13124 B

Harold Stern and the Biltmore Orch (Bill Smith v) - Remember Me (1933) - Bluebird B 5019 B

Harry Woods and his NJ Orch (Joe Haymes) (Audrey Blaine v) - I Wish I Were Twins (1934) - Decca F 5159 A

Bob Crosby and his Orch - Two Together (1935) - Decca 508 B

Isham Jones and his Orch - Rock Your Blues Away (1934) - Decca 662 B

Earl Hines and his Orch - Maple Leaf Rag (1934) - Decca 218 B

Eddy Duchin and his Orch (Lew Sherwood v) - I've Had My Moments (1934) - Victor 24613 B

Dolly Dawn and her Dawn Patrol - The Mood That I'm In (1937) - Bluebird B 6861 B

Henry King and his Orch (Joseph Sudy v) - Our Penthouse on Third Avenue (1937) - Decca 1333 A

Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets - She's Stopped Giving Everything Away (1938) - Bluebird B 7218 B

John Ryan with Orch - My Love's a Country Gal (1940) - Varsity 8198

Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orch - Three Shades of Blue Pt 1 (Indigo) (Ferde Grofe) (1928) - Victor 35952 A

Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orch - Three Shades of Blue Pt 2 (Alice Blue, Heliotrope) (Ferde Grofe) (1928) - Victor 35952 B

Roy Fox and his Orch (Barry Gray v) - Harbor Lights (1937) - Victor 25593 B

Gertrude Niesen - Where Are You? (1937) - Brunswick 02429 A

Bee Sharp and Orch (Dick Robertson v) - Not For All the Rice in China (1933) - Bluebird B 5219 B

Jack Denny and his Orch - Just Friends (1932) - Victor 22907 A

Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orch (Kenneth Sargent v) - How Can You Face Me? (1934) - Brunswick 6983

Coleman Hawkins and his Orch - Heart-break Blues (1933) - Parlophone R 1766

Joe Marsala and his Orch - I Know That You Know (1941) - Decca 3764 A

John Kirby and his Orch - Anitra's Dance (Grieg) (1939) - Vocalion 4890

Milt Herth Trio (O'Neil Spencer v) - Lambeth Walk (1938) - Decca 2046 A

Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica Rascals - Caprice Viennois (Fritz Kreisler) (intro The Blue Danube) (1936) - Decca 1090 B

Ray Noble and his Orch (Al Bowlly v) - Goodnight, Vienna (1932) - Victor 24064 A

Richard Tauber (Idris Lewis orch) - Vienna, City of My Dreams (1935) - Parlophone RO 20286

Ambrose and his Orch (Sam Browne v) - For You (1931) - HMV B 6068 A

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (CL v) - Singing a Song to the Stars (1930) - Columbia 2205 D

Bert Lown and his Hotel Biltmore Orch (Elmer Feldkamp v) - The Hour of Parting (1931) - Victor 22738 A

Prohibition Hijinks and NPR's Memory Hole

When I came downstairs today my wife had on the Diane Rehm Show which incredibly featured a rebroadcast of the program with Bill Bryson from Sepember 30, 2013 talking about his book One Summer: America. 1927. It was near the end of the show and I said, "Listen--you've got to hear this. This is where he talks about the government poisoning people during Prohibition." What I discovered was that they had re-edited the show to remove the last part of the interview (including the mention of Wayne B. Wheeler and the poisoning of the alcohol supply) entirely.

The original show archive seems to not have been edited (yet) and is available for download at this link. Here is the end portion of the transcript of the original:

REHM 11:54:35

Indeed. I've got to ask you about one more thing, and that's prohibition and the role the U.S. government played in, in fact, apparently poisoning some people.

BRYSON 11:54:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if there was a single thing that just totally astonished me, it was the discovery that the American government was randomly but intensely poisoning its own citizens in prohibition -- during prohibition as a way of trying to make everybody behave.

REHM 11:55:05

How?

BRYSON 11:55:05

Well, it was -- they would put strychnine or mercury or some other serious toxic substance in industrial alcohol. Because what was happening was they hadn't really thought this through at the beginning but when they made prohibition, they forgot that you still need a lot of industrial alcohol for making things like paint thinners and nail varnish and all that stuff. So millions and millions of gallons of alcohol was still being legally produced and it wasn't very hard to divert that and kind of doctor it up and make into sort of bootleg gin or whatever.

BRYSON 11:55:34

So as a way of discouraging people from doing that, the government in its wisdom would pour in all of these things that would actually blind or maim or even kill people. And that was still -- some of it was still getting diverted.

REHM 11:55:47

Who had charge of doing that? Who made that decision?

BRYSON 11:55:49

Well, if there was one human being who was responsible for this it was a guy named Wayne B. Wheeler who was a mousy little man who ran the anti-saloon league. And he was so vehemently against drinking. I mean, he really believed that it was at the root of all evil, that he and his followers insisted that instead of just putting detergents or soap or something else that would make industrial alcohol unpalatable but wouldn't actually kill you, they insisted, no no. These people should be killed. It's against the law. It's the law of the land. And if they decide to drink alcohol and they don't know what the source of it is, they're committing suicide.

REHM 11:56:25

How many people died?

BRYSON 11:56:27

Well, they don't know. The numbers are all over the place. It could be...

REHM 11:56:29

Thirteen thousand or thirty thousand, whatever.

BRYSON 11:56:32

Yeah, I mean, some sources will say, you know -- because it just wasn't always -- a lot of it was kept secret, you know, or the people -- it was caused -- some other cause. So -- but what is certain is that that the government was, you know, poisoning people. And what's really interesting is the people like Al Capone -- the reason -- part of the reason -- big part of the reason that they thrived was because their drink was safe. You know, you could count on stuff you were getting from Al Capone.

REHM 11:56:57

And on that note we'll end our discussion sadly because there's lots more in this book. Bill Bryson, so good to see you.

Thank You!!

Today I received a generous gift (via gift certificate) toward the operating expenses of my Live365 station. Since I have no way to sending a personal note to the giver, I'll express my sincere appreciation here. Thank you, Matthew!  

In other news, I've begun to transfer a crate of newly-acquired records in anticipation of my four-hour New Year's program. It will definitely be worth the wait!