WLS Showboat

[Kitty]

WLS was a Chicago based radio station created by Sears Roebuck.
This recording was recorded as an example of the program called WLS Showboat. It is found on multiple 78 rpms, which explains the "break in continuity" notes in the following transcript.
This program actually pretty entertaining, although I think there was only one joke that was mildly funny.... it would get a if it were in the joke section of this forum.
I believe this was recorded in the late 20s. The music really kicks. I especially like the second song that is sung. It reminds me of early Beatles music for some reason.
The Showboat announcing and calliope music reminds me a lot of the ferry boat at Disney.
You can listen to it here, http://americainclass.org/sources/becom ... t1920s.mp3
and you can follow along with this transcript I found online.
Oh, and I have no idea what the last 10 minutes are about at the end of the recording after the program has ended.

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[donnie]

Thanks for posting this! I'm looking forward to listening to it. This is highly interesting to me because there is an ad for WLS in my 1927 catalog reproduction that I've always liked, and I've always thought I'd like to hear some of that programming.

[Kitty]

That is a really interesting ad! Did you notice the misspelling of the word 'department' in the second to last paragraph? I don't know why, that stuff always interests me in old literature.

[donnie]

I like the last sentence of the first paragraph. The fireside through the long evenings... I’ll bet they did get long in that day without all our modern electronic gadgets and before electrical lighting was even common in a lot of areas. I’d kind of like to experience what that was like...

I just listened to the broadcast—what a strange and interesting collection. The station announcement examples at the beginning were odd, the way they drew out the words in a monotone. And the WLS program...I wonder if it was broadcast that way originally, with the constant announcements of the station letters and program name, and with the short music bits and pieces—or if this is a collection of excerpts of some kind. What do you think?

At any rate, it was fun to listen to. I wish there was something like that complete broadcast day—but from the ‘20s—maybe even the early ‘20s. Wouldn’t that be fascinating??

The collection of announcements from disks at the end was also interesting. Those sounded like records from around the early 1900s to sometime in the teens, I would judge, from the style of narration and acoustic sound quality. I wonder if you could really learn that dance from the instruction record. Sounds kind of tough...

Thanks again for posting this.

[LouisHenry]

I like the last sentence of the first paragraph. The fireside through the long evenings... I’ll bet they did get long in that day without all our modern electronic gadgets and before electrical lighting was even common in a lot of areas. I’d kind of like to experience what that was like...

I just listened to the broadcast—what a strange and interesting collection. The station announcement examples at the beginning were odd, the way they drew out the words in a monotone. And the WLS program...I wonder if it was broadcast that way originally, with the constant announcements of the station letters and program name, and with the short music bits and pieces—or if this is a collection of excerpts of some kind. What do you think?

At any rate, it was fun to listen to. I wish there was something like that complete broadcast day—but from the ‘20s—maybe even the early ‘20s. Wouldn’t that be fascinating??

The collection of announcements from disks at the end was also interesting. Those sounded like records from around the early 1900s to sometime in the teens, I would judge, from the style of narration and acoustic sound quality. I wonder if you could really learn that dance from the instruction record. Sounds kind of tough...

Thanks again for posting this.

Totally agree! It’s so interesting to hear how things were back then. A full day of 1920s radio would be really cool to listen to!

[donnie]

Totally agree! It’s so interesting to hear how things were back then. A full day of 1920s radio would be really cool to listen to!

Thanks for resurrecting this thread! I'd forgotten all about that fascinating recording.