(When I listened to my transistor radio way back when I thought I was being modern and never could have imagined the world of music we live in today. This story by contributing author, Dorothy Gast from Alabama, takes us back even further… and I discovered an amazing interview when the first time Arthur Godfrey had Patsy Cline on his show!)

RADIO CHANGES

by

Dorothy Graham Gast

Radio was an important part of our lives growing up in the ’40s and ’50s. Each school day morning we waked and dressed by the programs on the radio. Each school day the Rev. J. A. Pate, a preacher from West End Baptist Church, started us off. We knew by the time his daughters ended their closing song we needed to be dressed and at breakfast.

As we buttered our hot biscuits, Brother Simmons came on with music provided by Jack and Coolidge Ham. When they sang the theme song, Farther Along, We’ll Know All about It we believed they were singing “Father Alone Will know all about it” and were not quite sure what it was.

After school and chores, we listened to the Lone Ranger and his faithful companion, Tonto, and “the thundering hoof-beats of the great horse, Silver”, anticipating the question ”Who was that masked man?” and knowing that once again the silver bullet would be left behind.

The Lone Ranger: 75th Anniversary – Seasons 1 and 2

On Monday night we heard popular movies enacted on the Campbell Soup Theatre. Later that week we might get to hear Dr. Christian heal the sick and give wise advice to the confused, or laugh with the canned laughter of You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx.

Groucho Marx Collection: You Bet Your Life

On Saturday night when most of our friends were listening to the Grand Old Opry from the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, we listened to The Hit Parade.

Our friends at school might talk about Inner Sanctum Mysteries, but we knew that as soon as we heard the creaking door we had to turn to another station.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries

Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Complete Movie Collection (Calling Dr. Death / Weird Woman / The Frozen Ghost / Pillow of Death / Dead Man’s Eyes / Strange Confession)

Fibber McGee and Molly always had the closet door open and everything fall out as the audience laughed. Fannie Bryce delighted us with the antics of Baby Snooks.

Fibber McGee and Molly 9/19/ 50

Fibber McGee & Molly (Old Time Radio)

Life was simpler in the postwar days and the jokes were gentler, lacking the sharp retorts and risqué remarks of later years.

Our Miss Brooks radio show 11/22/53

OUR MISS BROOKS-10 DVD BOXED SET-40 EPISODES W/ INTERACTIVE DVD MOTION MENUS

Our Miss Brooks was very different from the teachers we saw at school each day, but Lum and Abner might have come out of rural America.

Lum and Abner Thanksgiving 1945

Arthur Godfrey and Patsy Cline

Arthur Godfrey’s’ Talent Scouts and Queen For a Day made listeners feel that someday they, too, might be recognized publicly.

Sweet Dreams: Her Complete Decca Masters (1960-1963) [2 CD Limited Edition]

The voices of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were as familiar as our own pastor’s and we had confidence that they were in control and that God would bless America as Kate Smith sang.

God Bless America, First Radio performance, Armistice Day November 10, 1938, Kate Smith

Best Of Kate Smith: Arranged & Conducted By Nelson Riddle

I remember listening to the announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed in 1941 and the nomination of Strom Thurman by the Dixiecrats years later in 1948. On election night we were hugely disappointed as Democrats to hear that Thomas Dewey was be our new president; when we woke the next morning radio told us Harry Truman had prevailed.

Radio allowed the imagination to flourish and each listener saw the characters in their own heads and were often disappointed when television portrayed them differently.

Radio could be enjoyed sitting with the family at night, or very quietly alone after others were asleep. It seemed a more personal medium that placed the listener in the center of the action, rather than the observer through television.

Radio helped to homogenize the speech of its listeners, allowing the Alabama farmer and the Italian-American in New York to understand each other, Dialects and sentence structure evolved into a more recognized standard speech. Regional and ethnic differences faded in the light of the common experiences from radio.

See best-selling books by Donna R Causey

Faith and Courage: A Novel of Colonial America (Tapestry of Love) (Volume 2)
In this action-packed novel depicting true events, the family saga continues with Ambrose Dixon’s family. George Willson witnesses the execution of King Charles II and is forced to leave the woman he loves to witch hunters in 17th century England as he flees to his sister, Mary, and her husband Ambrose Dixon’s home in Colonial American. Ridden with guilt over difficult decisions he made to survive, George Willson and the Dixon’s embrace the Quaker faith which further creates problems for their existence in the New World.