In the 40's and 50's, radio stations commonly had hired choirs that performed on air. KGW used a group in 1946 called "The Men About Town." Does anyone have memories of this? comments? audio clips?

I don't have any memories, but there is a choir group on the Ernie Hopseker "History of Portland Radio" documentary that sings,

Portland! Portland!
The city with the Happy
Di-i-i-fference.

Radio K-G-W!
Very Portland.

Perhaps the choir in that recording is the Men About Town.

When I was a kid KOIN CH 6 had a noon time music group, I think it was the Juleas Walter group or something like that.

In fact when I was in cub scouts, we went to be on the Red Dunning show and watched Mr. Moon, and then the music group practice.

That was the KOIN Orchestra and Julius Walter, I believe, played the organ. On TV they were on "Hi Neighbor" which was on from 10:00 to 10:30 hosted by Johnny Capenter and Doris Kyber. They were on the radio at noon on a program called "Come and Get It" hosted by Blaine Hanks. They also played in the morning on the "KOIN Klock" program with host Clint Gruber.

Some of the other musicians:

Red Dunning- Bass
Cash Duncan - Violin
Jack Lenard - Guitar

There were others but there names escape me. Glenn Shelley had two programs of live Organ music but only rarely played with the orchestra.

KOIN was the last station west of the Mississippi to employ a staff of studio musicians.

It is interesting to note that radio stations back in the day had live bands with regulars shows doing COVER SONGS!

That would never fly today. Could you imagine? Unless of course Pink Martini had a daily radio show...

It would be like being at the Holiday Inn lounge. Or like the radio verson of Lawrence Welk maybe? Actually LW probably started as a radio show!?!

Were these same orchestras or "house bands" doing night time gigs at local night clubs as well?

Or was that usually their one and only gig?

Another opportunity for a Craig Adams history lesson!

I'm thinking Lawrence Welk was never on radio. He had a local band in LA that ended up on ABC as a summer replacement.

KGW had PAMS "Happy Difference" package circa '62.

The KOIN Orchestra also had Jack Leonard, Kash Duncan, Bob Dougles, Harry Gillgam & Fred McKinney replacing Red Dunning in 1968 as Director.

Another station with a house Orchestra was KXL. In 1928 Herman Kenin's Multnomah Hotel Orchestra was heard on a regular basis from KXL's "Rose Studio" on the Mezzanine floor of The Multnomah Hotel.

KOIN's orch was a gas; Mom never missed KOIN Klock.

I'll never forget this gem, ca 1966:

"You know what's great about working for KOIN?"

(wait for it...)

"Any bus driver will cash your paycheck!"

(For those under 50: Bus drivers used to carry limited cash to make change.)

> I'm thinking Lawrence Welk was never on radio.

While Googleing, I found references to a syndicated radio program Welk did in the 1940's that was sponsored by Miller beer.

That's interesting, thank you! I was going for the concept of a network radio show that moved over to TV. His would not be an example of that.

Wow! what a collection of great broadcast minds we have in this circle.
All I said was Julius Walter, and from everywhere came some super info...
This brotherhood of broadcasters that we are, is a precious, wonderful thing.

Notalent...

I don't know if any of the KOIN musicians played at the local watering holes, but Walt McKinney did sing at my parents wedding in 1946.

Just received this E-Mailed:

Header: Red Dunning Orchestra

"Don Bottari played the accordion on that show. He passed away this past August."

Rosalind Cooper

> It is interesting to note that radio stations back
> in the day had live bands with regulars shows
> doing COVER SONGS!
>

> That would never fly today. Could you imagine?

I would suspect that in the early days of radio this was done out of necessity. Some time ago, we had a thread on this message board where somebody (Craig?) had stated that in the early days of broadcasting, the musicians' unions imposed restrictions that made it impractical for radio stations to play phonograph records on the air. I guess that some of the really popular studio bands,like the KOIN one, lasted for some years after these restrictions were lifted.

Today's audiences consider cover tunes hokey second-rate entertainment. The one place where it seems not to be taboo to play covers is Jazz.

In the beginning of recorded music, after songs were published, they were sent to many artists for their consideration to record. You would end up having many versions all "charting" at the same time with no definitive version. This was the norm. Take for example 1947 and the song "Open The Door, Richard". This song charted by 7 artists between January & March. They were:

Count Basie, charting at #1.
Three Flames, charting at #1.
"Dusty" Fletcher, charting at #3.
Jack McVea, charting at #3.
Charioteers, charting at #6.
Louis Jordan, charting at #6.
Pied Pipers, charting at #8.

Can you imagine trying to figure out the version you want to buy or request if you only have the name of the song.

[Chart information used from: Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954]

from the perspective of a trained and talented jazz musician doing an "interpretation" of a classic miles davis piece for example, much of todays pop music would be considered hokey second rate entertainment even before being covered.