Music as I was growing up could be heard only live or on the radio and to a much less extent, on phonograph records.  I do not know when the family purchased its first radio or mechanically hand wound Victrola.  Phonograph records were played on a Victrola.  We had very few records as they were expensive.  Some of these Victrolas were table models.  The one we had was a floor model standing about 4 ½ feet tall.  Diamond stylus such as we have today did not exist.  Victrolas used steel needles that fit in the record grooves.  By todays standards the sound wasn’t very good but it sounded marvelous to us at the time.  At first, phonograph records had music only on one side as technology did not exist to record on both sides.  All records then were 78 rpm.

There was no television, audio cassette players, tape recorders, 8 track players, walkmen, or stereo systems.

Most of what we heard was on radio.  We had a Crosley brand table model radio.  There were not many radio stations.  We listened  to KRLD in Dallas and to WBAP/WFAA in Fort Worth and Dallas.  WBAP and WFAA shared the same frequency, 820 kilocycles.  When control of the frequency was passed from WFAA in Dallas to WBAP in Fort Worth a cowbell would ring.  When atmospherics were just right especially at night we could hear WSM located in Nashville and WGN in Chicago.  We could also hear XELO from Mexico in Juarez, Mexico.

In its infancy radio was not regulated.  Anyone who wanted and had the money could start a radio station using any frequency desired.  The Communications Act of 1934 changed all of that bringing order.  Under that Act government permission was required to place a station on the air.  The Federal Communications Commission was established by the Act and charged with assigning frequencies, call letters and the power or signal strength of the station.

Of course, we all sang in church.  I do not recall any church in Coleman having an organ.  Almost all had a piano.  In addition to large pipe organs there were also pump organs.  These latter were about the size of an upright piano and had a foot pedal that was moved up and down to put air in a bellows.  By pressing the keys on the keyboard air was released into different chambers inside the organ to produce different sounds.

Mostly we heard music over the radio.  Of course, our parents controlled the use of the radio.  Popular programs on the radio included “Fibber Magee and Mollie,” “Young Widow Brown,” “Stella Dallas,” “Inner Sanctum,” “The Shadow,” “Phillips H. Lord’s Gangbusters” (originally called G-Men), “Amos and Andy,” “Henry Aldrich,” “Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy,” “Captain Midnight,” “Charlie Chan,” “Duffy’s Tavern,” “Little Orphan Annie,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Ma Perkins,” “Lux Radio Theater,” “Texaco Star Theater,”  “First Nighters,” and “The United States Steel Hour.”  These could be called dramas or adventure or comedy programs.

Most large hotels in the cities had ballrooms.  Bands played in those ballrooms and radio broadcasts were aired of those bands.  I will write later about some of those bands.  We would listen on the radio to those bands.  In addition there were radio broadcasts of “The Cities Service Band of America with Paul Lavall.”  Cities Service Oil Company supported that band.  Other musical radio programs were “Longines Symphonette” and “The Firestone Hour.”

Many large companies had its own band.  Among these were Nabisco, Quaker Oats and Light Crust Brand Flour.  Of course, living in the small town of Coleman we heard none of these company bands.  Many towns had parks with a bandstand.  Local bands would play especially on summer evenings.  With the popularity of radio as it grew and with the birth of television most of these fell by the wayside.  In a few places they still exist.  In Niagara Falls, Ontario there are still outdoor summer concerts.  The Boston Pops Orchestra  still plays outdoors in the summer.  The Fort Worth Symphony has Concerts in the Garden in the summer in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.

On the radio you could hear symphony orchestras, but by far the most common types of music were swing or big band and hillbilly, now called country western.  By brother is three years younger than me.  He favored hillbilly music and I preferred big band.  When our parents were not listening to the radio, they let us kids listen.  My brother and I would have “discussions” about what to listen to.

On weekdays at noon on WBAP there was a program for which the announcer would say “W. Lee O’Daniel and the Lightcrust Doughboys are On the Air.”  Lightcrust was a brand of flour.  This band played country/western music.  O’Daniel later became Governor of Texas.  Other bands of this type were Roy Acuff, Red Foley, Ernest Tubbs and Eddy Arnolds.  The Sons of the Pioneers was also a noted group.

The most popular music program on radio was a show called “Lucky Strikes Your Hit Parade” sponsored by Lucky Strike Cigarettes.  The show was on radio from 1935 to 1955.  Each week record sales and jukebox plays were tabulated to determine the most played songs.  Each week we eagerly awaited the show.  Some of the vocalists over the years on this program were Giselle McKenzie, Snooky Lanson, Dorothy Collins, Alan Copeland, Jill Corey, Russell Arms, June Valli, Tommy Leonetti, and Virginia Gibson.  Each show usually featured the top seven songs of the week and three other tunes.

One of the greatest and most popular songs of the 1930’s was Star Dust.  Its popularity continued through the 1950s into the 1960s.  Some of the other more popular songs during this time were:

 I grew up in the era of swing and of the big bands.  It cost a lot of money to have a big band.  Composition of a big band often included a drummer, three trumpets, three trombones, three clarinet / saxophones, a piano, a bass player (usually a string bass), vocalists, and occasionally some other instrumentalists.  Usually, except for certain bands, there were no cellos or violins.  The bands played in night clubs and in hotel ballrooms.

Bands then did NOT go by unusual names such as Smashing Pumpkins, Beetles, the Who, and the like.  They went by the names of the leaders.  Some of the bands in this era were:

Vocalists were an adjunct to an orchestra.  Some of the outstanding vocalists as I grew up were Doris Day, Helen O’Connell, Jane Froman, Frank Sinatra, Tex Beneke,  Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Dick Haymes, Dinah Shore, Paula Kelly, Kitty Kallen, Betty Hutton, Connie Haines, Connie Francis, Peggy Lee, Ella Mae Morse, Kay Starr, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Lynn, Helen Forrest, Alice Faye, Sarah Vaughn, Mel Torme, Johnny Mercer, Tony Martin, Skinnay Ellis, Bob Eberle, Ray Eberle, Dennis Day, Vic Damone, Harold Arlen, Don Cornell, Buddy Clarke, Gordon McRae, Russ Morgan, Tony Pastor, the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots. 

This was also the era of the singing cowboys most notably Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

I wanted my children to also learn to enjoy listening to and playing music and to experience the benefits of being in a high school band.  My two sons, Donald II and David played saxophone and my daughter, Denise, played clarinet in their high school bands.  They also took piano/electronic organ lessons.

In our home at the present are a piano, three harps, clarinet, cornet, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, soprano recorder, baritone recorder, melody bells and autoharp.  I also write some music and was in to Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI).  This is using a computer to write music or to convert music into digital format.  I have created about 20 audio cassettes of music I have performed digitally.  Some computer programs used are Digital Orchestrator Plus, Band in a Box, Smart Score and Cakewalk.  We have an extensive music collection of two file cabinets of sheet music, 1100 phonograph records, 1937 audio cassettes, 125 8-track cassettes and 765 compact disks.  We like almost all types of music except rap, hip-hop and heavy rock.  We are season ticket holders to the Opera and the Symphony.