Re: [ARSCLIST] Looking for Roxy's Gang/Roxy Radio Hour sources

[Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2009-04-27 at 06:49 -0700, Jack Theakston wrote:

> I'm currently looking for more-than-general information and even holdings on existing "Roxy's Gang" and "The Roxy Hour" radio shows that were broadcast from the various "Roxy" Rothapfel theaters in the late '20s and early '30s.  I'm working on a number of projects where transcriptions of the shows would be most helpful.  Unfortunately, the collector channels have turned up nothing: in fact, no one seems to even remember this nationally broadcasted show!

Unfortunately, in that era it was extremely rare for any radio program
to be recorded. A few sponsors were having their shows recorded as early
as 1932 so they could critique the performances, but this was an
expensive proposition, and only a few services were set up to do this. 

The lacquer reference disc, which could be played back immediately, was
not developed until 1934; prior to that, a few home enthusiasts here and
there recorded snippets of various programs on aluminum blanks or on the
embossed Victor home recording discs. The number recorded must have been
extremely low; few of those are known to survive to this day. None of
them are of complete performances.

The recording mentioned by Mike Biel would have been a special case,
probably recorded to have a souvenir of The Old Man speaking on radio.
The Edison Laboratories did have special 30 RPM equipment designed to
pre-record radio programs for later broadcast, so they were actually
well-equipped to salvage the odd program here and there. But this was
not the common practice; nobody thought that future generations would
have any interest in that temporal entertainment. That is, after all,
why commercial phonograph records were being sold.

Michael Shoshani
Chicago