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Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg on WNBC, New York

Neal Lavon
 

I am searching for someone or some group that has programs from the Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg radio series on WNBC in New York. I am trying to trace down a particular show from what I believe is the first week of June, 1953. I don't have a specific date yet. Hopefully, I can find it. I went to the Library of Congress yesterday, which has an extensive NBC Collection but since the show ran on the local station, not the network, they don't have any records on the show during that time period. They have a few index cards on the program from from the late 1940s but little else. They did have one show from June 9, 1953, that was sent out on AFRTS and catalogued that way, but it wasn't the one I was looking for. I have seen the ones available for sale on OTR sites but they are not what I am looking for either.

So does anyone know if there are private collections of these shows anywhere?

Thanks!
--
Neal Lavon

Walden Hughes
 

Hi Neal,

 

Do you know who was the special guest you are looking for?

 

From: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io [mailto:main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io] On Behalf Of Neal Lavon
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2023 7:01 AM
To: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io
Subject: [OldTimeRadioResearchers] Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg on WNBC, New York

 

I am searching for someone or some group that has programs from the Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg radio series on WNBC in New York. I am trying to trace down a particular show from what I believe is the first week of June, 1953. I don't have a specific date yet. Hopefully, I can find it. I went to the Library of Congress yesterday, which has an extensive NBC Collection but since the show ran on the local station, not the network, they don't have any records on the show during that time period. They have a few index cards on the program from from the late 1940s but little else. They did have one show from June 9, 1953, that was sent out on AFRTS and catalogued that way, but it wasn't the one I was looking for. I have seen the ones available for sale on OTR sites but they are not what I am looking for either.

So does anyone know if there are private collections of these shows anywhere?

Thanks!
--
Neal Lavon

John Nicholson
 

There aren't any files in the published or unpublished files belonging to the REPS Library for Tex McCrary. Sorry.
   John Nicholson

On Sat, Jan 14, 2023 at 9:01 AM Neal Lavon <njlavon@...> wrote:
I am searching for someone or some group that has programs from the Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg radio series on WNBC in New York. I am trying to trace down a particular show from what I believe is the first week of June, 1953. I don't have a specific date yet. Hopefully, I can find it. I went to the Library of Congress yesterday, which has an extensive NBC Collection but since the show ran on the local station, not the network, they don't have any records on the show during that time period. They have a few index cards on the program from from the late 1940s but little else. They did have one show from June 9, 1953, that was sent out on AFRTS and catalogued that way, but it wasn't the one I was looking for. I have seen the ones available for sale on OTR sites but they are not what I am looking for either.

So does anyone know if there are private collections of these shows anywhere?

Thanks!
--
Neal Lavon



--
 
John

Neal Lavon
 

Thanks for looking. I think it's another of my fruitless rabbit hole searches.
--
Neal Lavon

Neal Lavon
 

Yes, the guest was a 16 year-old kid named Billy Brown from Yorktown Heights, New York.

Billy Brown hosted a very popular and influential Voice of America shortwave broadcast to Pakistan and the Near East in the early 1950s. The NY Times ran a front-page article on Brown on May 28, 1953, noting that the VOA had cancelled his program because they could not keep up with his fan mail.  An embarrassed Voice reinstated the program the next day.  But I am thinking that McCrary or his producers saw the article and booked Billy as a guest. Since May 28 was a Thursday in 1953, I thought the appearance would have been between Friday, May 29, and sometime the next week, which is more likely.
 
Brown's family has a copy of a 15-minute studio recording of the interview that McCrary did with Billy Brown. In the recording, McCrary says listeners would hear a snippet from Billy's VOA program.  After he says that, there is a pause, where a segment of Billy's show would have been inserted by program producers in a final tape for broadcast. That snippet could be the only record of his VOA program that exists.  A similar segment of his show also was used in a Mutual Radio broadcast of Radio Newsreel around the same time.

Thanks for the reply.
--
Neal Lavon

Walden Hughes
 

Have you put Bill Brown in www.radiogoldindex.com

 

 

 

From: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io [mailto:main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io] On Behalf Of Neal Lavon
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 7:54 AM
To: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io
Subject: Re: [OldTimeRadioResearchers] Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg on WNBC, New York

 

Yes, the guest was a 16 year-old kid named Billy Brown from Yorktown Heights, New York.

Billy Brown hosted a very popular and influential Voice of America shortwave broadcast to Pakistan and the Near East in the early 1950s. The NY Times ran a front-page article on Brown on May 28, 1953, noting that the VOA had cancelled his program because they could not keep up with his fan mail.  An embarrassed Voice reinstated the program the next day.  But I am thinking that McCrary or his producers saw the article and booked Billy as a guest. Since May 28 was a Thursday in 1953, I thought the appearance would have been between Friday, May 29, and sometime the next week, which is more likely.

 

Brown's family has a copy of a 15-minute studio recording of the interview that McCrary did with Billy Brown. In the recording, McCrary says listeners would hear a snippet from Billy's VOA program.  After he says that, there is a pause, where a segment of Billy's show would have been inserted by program producers in a final tape for broadcast. That snippet could be the only record of his VOA program that exists.  A similar segment of his show also was used in a Mutual Radio broadcast of Radio Newsreel around the same time.


Thanks for the reply.

--
Neal Lavon

Neal Lavon
 

Wow,. thank you, Mr. Hughes. What a great site and database. I had heard of David Goldin and knew he had a large collection of radio shows. But that's where it stopped.

At any rate, Billy Brown doesn't show up; Tex McCrary does; as does Jinx Falkenburg. For some reason, the year 1953 is not represented in these or other databases. The Goldin database lists Tex/Jinx shows from 1952 and then skips to 1954, unfortunately.

I put in Voice of America and found a bunch of shows titled, "Your Voice of America," which confuses me. Was it a transcription show syndicated by the State Department in the 1950s? I have one of those shows, "Ten Decisive Years," which was a 10th anniversary program of VOA.  I think these programs must have been broadcast on VOA, then maybe shipped abroad for playback. Anyway,  The title, "Your Voice of America "does not appear on the show. It would be interesting to find out more about this program and what exactly it was. The show I have that I got from the National Archives was highly dramatized program with music and dramatic readings interspersed with actual clips from the VOA, like FDR speaking in French.  When I was checking out some information on the late actor, Telly Savalas, who worked for a brief time for VOA, I ran across some web content saying he had hosted a show called, "Your Voice of America." I thought it was bogus because he did host a show on VOA English to the Near East called Telly's Coffeehouse.

That show was nominated by VOA for a Peabody Award in 1952. It didn't win, but a copy of the show exists at the Walter Brown Archives of the Peabody Awards. It was submitted to the Peabody Awards on transcription disk and they made a digital copy for me. Let's just say Telly's voice was a lot higher than during his Kojack days. There is a lot more to the Savalas story on VOA--he rarely mentioned his time there but did talk about his work at what was referred to as the US Information Service. I'll run that down in the future.

At any rate, it's a great site. I still wonder if "Your Voice of America" is really just the "Voice of America," or a separate series. I don't mean to prattle on, but I'll keep on poking around. Thanks for introducing me to the site.
--
Neal Lavon

Neal Lavon
 

BTW, on the Tenth Anniversary recording I have ("Ten Decisive Years") the narrator is named as Gene Kern, a VOA staffer and father of future VOA staffers. The Goldin entry names the narrator as Gerald Mohr. Still confusing to me as to whether these are the same shows or different ones?
--
Neal Lavon

Walden Hughes
 

I am not sure,

 

Walden

 

From: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io [mailto:main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io] On Behalf Of Neal Lavon
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 12:42 PM
To: main@OldTimeRadioResearchers.groups.io
Subject: Re: [OldTimeRadioResearchers] Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg on WNBC, New York

 

Wow,. thank you, Mr. Hughes. What a great site and database. I had heard of David Goldin and knew he had a large collection of radio shows. But that's where it stopped.

At any rate, Billy Brown doesn't show up; Tex McCrary does; as does Jinx Falkenburg. For some reason, the year 1953 is not represented in these or other databases. The Goldin database lists Tex/Jinx shows from 1952 and then skips to 1954, unfortunately.

I put in Voice of America and found a bunch of shows titled, "Your Voice of America," which confuses me. Was it a transcription show syndicated by the State Department in the 1950s? I have one of those shows, "Ten Decisive Years," which was a 10th anniversary program of VOA.  I think these programs must have been broadcast on VOA, then maybe shipped abroad for playback. Anyway,  The title, "Your Voice of America "does not appear on the show. It would be interesting to find out more about this program and what exactly it was. The show I have that I got from the National Archives was highly dramatized program with music and dramatic readings interspersed with actual clips from the VOA, like FDR speaking in French.  When I was checking out some information on the late actor, Telly Savalas, who worked for a brief time for VOA, I ran across some web content saying he had hosted a show called, "Your Voice of America." I thought it was bogus because he did host a show on VOA English to the Near East called Telly's Coffeehouse.

That show was nominated by VOA for a Peabody Award in 1952. It didn't win, but a copy of the show exists at the Walter Brown Archives of the Peabody Awards. It was submitted to the Peabody Awards on transcription disk and they made a digital copy for me. Let's just say Telly's voice was a lot higher than during his Kojack days. There is a lot more to the Savalas story on VOA--he rarely mentioned his time there but did talk about his work at what was referred to as the US Information Service. I'll run that down in the future.

At any rate, it's a great site. I still wonder if "Your Voice of America" is really just the "Voice of America," or a separate series. I don't mean to prattle on, but I'll keep on poking around. Thanks for introducing me to the site.
--
Neal Lavon

Neal Lavon
 

I think I figured out the "Your Voice of America" program. It's really very strange, given VOA's history and the prohibition against distributing VOA content domestically. In fact, prohibiting VOA distribution in the United States was significant to the creation of the congressional Smith-Mundt Act, which helped solidify the VOA as a force to counteract Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.
 
I found an old newspaper clipping from The Raleigh Register of Beckley, West Virginia, p.4, dated Dec. 18, 1951, with a column titled "Hollywood," by syndicated columnist Gene Handsacker, Handsacker interviewed radio and screen great Gerald Mohr about his new role as a host of the syndicated program, "Your Voice of America." These programs apparently were made under the auspices of the Voice of America (while under the U.S. State Department) and transcriptions were sent to local stations in the United States to, as Mohr put it in the article, counteract criticism of the Voice of America, and, "to show Americans what their Voice was doing." They began in January of 1951.

This is astounding given the congressional intent to ban VOA from being heard in the U.S. as a condition of continuing the agency and relocating it to Washington. Of course, you could always pick up VOA in the United States on shortwave radio if you knew where to look.

There are 14 of these programs listed in the Goldin index with what I suspect are Hollywood types on the productions, both in front of and behind the microphone. It would be very interesting to hear these shows, although the site does not make copies. They were fifteen minutes long. I do have a copy of one of them. I got it from the National Archives. It was titled, Ten Decisive Years, which was a VOA Tenth Anniversary Program. The description on the Golden site matches up to the content in the program. It was broadcast on VOA on Feb. 23, 1952. It was also Program #14 on Your Voice of America, also broadcast in 1952.

And to make the mystery complete, the Goldin site lists Gerald Mohr as narrator but the end of program calls Gene Kern the narrator. Gene Kern did work at VOA in the News Department and two more Kerns--Jonathan and Chris, both worked at VOA. Listening to the show, it's clear that Gerald Mohr in the narrator; I compared his voice to that of his radio and film work; perhaps Gene Kern is on the show somewhere; I'll post to a VOA Alumni Group and get some feedback from the Kerns who visit the site regularly.

I'm really tempted to see if there was congressional legislation to allow this as I remember there was an act of Congress allowing a USIA documentary, "Years of Thunder, Day of Drums," about the Kennedy presidency, to be shown in the United States as part of a documentary series and exhibition.

That's why I really like this hobby; you never know what you are going to find! All because of the link to the Goldin site.

Best,
--
Neal Lavon

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