Today's post combines a cleaned-up version of the Carnation show with bonuses of a Clark Christmas single and a duet with Doris Day, both from shellac.
The Carnation Contented Hour
Carnation has made condensed milk products for well over 100 years, and sponsored the Carnation Contented Hour on network radio from 1931-51. The hour was "contented" because Carnation's milk came "from contented cows," whose emotional health apparently was rigorously monitored. Also, Carnation optimistically called baby-feeding time "the contented hour."
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Carnation's ads generally plugged the radio show, at least in the fine print. This was common back when advertisers sponsored complete shows. Another Carnation ad below is themed to Christmas, and depicts cute kids who were as interested, improbably, in Carnation's gelatinous "Christmas Tree Salad" as they were in the gifts under the spruce. "Jiminy Christmas!" they exclaim. "Presents ... and Santa Claus ... and exciting things to eat!"
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| Ken Darby |
The program mixes holiday fare with other items. Clark sings "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night" and "White Christmas." Darby and singers perform the tiresome "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Dale's crew presents "Winter Wonderland" and "London Bridge." I don't believe the latter is the Eric Coates composition with the same name, but I could be wrong. In any case, the arrangement shows off quite a Coates influence.
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| NBC's caricature of Clark didn't look a thing like him |
In addition to the Christmas numbers, Clark performs "My Darling, My Darling," a song from Frank Loesser's current Broadway show Where's Charley? Buddy's duet with Doris Day was then on the market. (Their Columbia 78 is one of the bonus items mentioned below/)
The sound on the show is quite good, after some finagling, except for rustle during the first few minutes.
Bonus Singles
As mentioned above, I've also included Buddy's commercial recording of "My Darling, My Darling," to go with the radio performance.
The download also includes a Radio Album article about Clark's family finding a new home on the West Coast. Production of the Carnation Contented Hour had moved from New York to Los Angeles before the 1948 season.
Link (Apple lossless):
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/file/bd80RCpT#n5WXDM9Suclxuj0TK9fGx5seEklKGajr68yoDEmejiw
Haven't really looked for them, but didn't Eileen Farrell have a Christmas show every season on her radio show back about the time of this Clark post?
ReplyDeleteBrian - I suspect you are right, but I am not sure.
DeleteThanks, Buster! I knew this Buddy Clark show would be right up your alley. :)
ReplyDeleteAN END-TIMES NEW YEARS CAROL:
ReplyDelete“We’ll always have Ardmore,” I tell my wife as insular allusion to “Casablanca,” a 1943 movie she loves about a famous city in her native country, Morocco. In that homeland, she moved from town to town during her first 12 years of life that coincided with France’s last 12 years of colonial occupation. In 1956, she joined the French diaspora back to Europe. Since 2015, we’ve been home wards in Philadelphia’s suburbs.
Fittingly, this New Years celebration begins with a 1948 monster hit of a French drinking song by Marcelle Bordas, “Boire un petit coup (Drink a small glass).” Monique remembers hearing it played on the radio and sung in her home. What better way to begin an end-tines New Years than by lifting glasses and spirits in increasingly distant recall of old, impractical pleasures associated with the biggest night of the year.
Given the current concurrence of disease, disruption and demagoguery, I imagine festivities of a kind I’m too old and immunocompromised to indulge. To accomplish this feat, three personae were required to construct this mix, all named after Moi: Daves of New Years Past, Present and Future. Hence I call this download, "An End-Times New Years Carol."
The first Dave raised a dickens with a nostalgia binge for pre- and post-war nights his parents might have known when old was still new and young. He wanted to prove that life was once incontrovertibly worth living, even when the people who had to face it were faced with life-but-not planet threatening catastrophes. So he stepped into his father's shiniest shoes and went for the wildest night on the town he and my mother could afford. Back then, it was easier to stretch dimes into dollars. Bit coins were real then, fit in your pocket and made of silver to be spent on streets of gold.
The second Dave had a dickens of a time being pried back to the present. But the midnight chimes forced him to the final night of the present year for some self-examination. As you will hear, his mood turned more inward, bordering on morose, as he left the wildly cavernous past to raise a glass in the four-walled present he shares with his wife. Never have the drinking songs associated with New Years seemed sadder. But he sang them, including the original version of "Those Were The Days," as recorded by its composer, Gene Raskin, in 1962 when he was part of a folk group called the Limeliters.
Thank goodness, the third Dave became so soused that he could entertain a wobbly optimism and toast with slurred speech a future barely able to do its duty of sober beckoning. Dave Three’s job was to save New Years the way Dickens’ wraith-threesome saved Christmas. And so this mix veers where it should--to last dances and chances as well as thoughts of lasting love and restored dignity. In a time of climate change, he imagined Neil Young's lovely "Harvest Moon" belatedly lighting the sky and being sung by Cassandra Wilson. But he let the past have the last--albeit ambiguous--word about the future.
Before the finale, Dave pays a small tribute to Stephen Sondheim, by including, New Years-appropriate “So Little To Be Sure Of" and "Something's Coming." Instead of showbiz versions, he went with pop recordings by Steve Lawrence and Vic Damone respectively. They take these songs from the Great White Way to where they belong: on a black hole in your external drive this staunch New Years. May enough of us come to our senses in 2022 to make our world salvageable. Sanity is not only Job #1, it’s the only job. Stay warm; stay safe; stay sound, and, the toughest wish, stay sane. Staying sober remains optional. At WeTransfer for a week.
Love from Ardmore
https://we.tl/t-hGmHKHqDrX
“We’ll always have Ardmore,” I tell my wife as insular allusion to “Casablanca,” a 1943 movie she loves about a famous city in her native country, Morocco. In that homeland, she moved from town to town during her first 12 years of life that coincided with France’s last 12 years of colonial occupation. In 1956, she joined the French diaspora back to Europe. Since 2015, we’ve been home wards in Philadelphia’s suburbs.
ReplyDeleteFittingly, this New Years celebration begins with a 1948 monster hit of a French drinking song by Marcelle Bordas, “Boire un petit coup (Drink a small glass).” Monique remembers hearing it played on the radio and sung in her home. What better way to begin an end-tines New Years than by lifting glasses and spirits in increasingly distant recall of old, impractical pleasures associated with the biggest night of the year.
Given the current concurrence of disease, disruption and demagoguery, I imagine festivities of a kind I’m too old and immunocompromised to indulge. To accomplish this feat, three personae were required to construct this mix, all named after Moi: Daves of New Years Past, Present and Future. Hence I call this download, "An End-Times New Years Carol."
The first Dave raised a dickens with a nostalgia binge for pre- and post-war nights his parents might have known when old was still new and young. He wanted to prove that life was once incontrovertibly worth living, even when the people who had to face it were faced with life-but-not planet threatening catastrophes. So he stepped into his father's shiniest shoes and went for the wildest night on the town he and my mother could afford. Back then, it was easier to stretch dimes into dollars. Bit coins were real then, fit in your pocket and made of silver to be spent on streets of gold.
The second Dave had a dickens of a time being pried back to the present. But the midnight chimes forced him to the final night of the present year for some self-examination. As you will hear, his mood turned more inward, bordering on morose, as he left the wildly cavernous past to raise a glass in the four-walled present he shares with his wife. Never have the drinking songs associated with New Years seemed sadder. But he sang them, including the original version of "Those Were The Days," as recorded by its composer, Gene Raskin, in 1962 when he was part of a folk group called the Limeliters.
Thank goodness, the third Dave became so soused that he could entertain a wobbly optimism and toast with slurred speech a future barely able to do its duty of sober beckoning. Dave Three’s job was to save New Years the way Dickens’ wraith-threesome saved Christmas. And so this mix veers where it should--to last dances and chances as well as thoughts of lasting love and restored dignity. In a time of climate change, he imagined Neil Young's lovely "Harvest Moon" belatedly lighting the sky and being sung by Cassandra Wilson. But he let the past have the last--albeit ambiguous--word about the future.
Before the finale, Dave pays a small tribute to Stephen Sondheim, by including, New Years-appropriate “So Little To Be Sure Of" and "Something's Coming." Instead of showbiz versions, he went with pop recordings by Steve Lawrence and Vic Damone respectively. They take these songs from the Great White Way to where they belong: on a black hole in your external drive this staunch New Years. May enough of us come to our senses in 2022 to make our world salvageable. Sanity is not only Job #1, it’s the only job. Stay warm; stay safe; stay sound, and, the toughest wish, stay sane. Staying sober remains optional. At WeTransfer for a week.
Love from Ardmore
https://we.tl/t-hGmHKHqDrX
David F - I have your New Year's comp. I have no idea why it isn't showing up here, but I keep getting it via email. I'll post it myself soon.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas and Happy New Year, Buster, and many thanks for the holiday goodies!
ReplyDeleteThanks, flurb - best holiday wishes to you as well!
DeleteThanks for the festive gift of Buddy Clark, Buster, and may Santa be kind to you and yours
ReplyDeleteThanks, Phillip - best of everything to you as well!
DeleteThanks so much for this, Buster.."The Carnation Contended Hour" is unknown on this side of the POND (UK).
ReplyDeleteAnyone who would like my discography of Buddy (23 x A4 pages) by e-mail can just ask !
"burlinson@orange.fr
Hi Nigel - I referred to that same discography when preparing this post to check on Buddy's Christmas output. Very useful!
Deletemany thanks Buster yet more Xmas goody. always liked Clark. note he cannot resist the Crosby trill on 'dream-a-ring' of a white christmas. the cows may have been contented but the babies would have been fat, unhealthy and cursed with a sweet -- decaying -- tooth.
ReplyDeletezoot - I thought the notion of using condensed milk for babies a strange one myself.
DeleteThanks much for this Carnation Contented Show. Looks like I'll be off to the Internet Archive shortly to retrieve more of them!
ReplyDelete