Audio History Online at the Municipal Archives

I’m probably the last to know, but I was browsing NYC’s Municipal Archives Online Gallery for cool, historical choral-related pictures when I noticed they’ve started making archived WNYC radio broadcasts available online as well.

Because I was searching on the word “choir,” one of the first broadcasts I came across was a December 20, 1939 broadcast of the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at City Hall steps. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia gave a speech, and I realized I didn’t know what his voice sounded like! Did he have a New York accent? (Sadly, no.) Then the Sacred Heart Boys Choir sang, and you have to listen, their voices were just so painfully sweet.

The Police Department Glee Club sang as well, which was interesting. I remembered reading about the history of a Christmas carol I love, “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues. There’s a line in the song, “The boys of the NYPD choir still singing “Galway Bay,” but apparently the NYPD doesn’t have a choir and that caused some problems when they were making the video (they used the Pipes and Drums unit instead). But they used to!

Which brings me to a question, you can always tell when you are listening to choirs from the past, and it’s not just a matter of the quality of the recording, it’s something about the voices, perhaps the harmonies, but I think it’s just the voices. You can hear it in old movies, radio broadcasts, tv shows, etc. What is it, exactly? Now that I think of it, in the movies people used to talk differently too. They always had a slightly formal accent, not British, but … something. It’s like they all took elocution lessons from the same person. Maybe something similar was going on with singers.

Anyway, you can browse broadcasts on a variety of subjects, like famous people or events and topics of the day, starting in the 1930′s. I noticed this broadcast from January 14, 1952, “Recording of telephone calls between WNYC Newsroom and various police and coast guard departments concerning Rikers Island plane crash. Includes moment-by-moment details of the crash and survivors.” Oh! These recordings are available on WNYC’s site too. What do you know? It’s great in any case.

Very cute young love. I especially like the matching purple hair color.

Google Hangouts?

I’ve been meaning to ask, I don’t use Google +, but Google hangouts look fun. Are people using Google hangouts much?

This is why I can’t have nice things. Because I encourage them when they try to eat things. It’s not my fault! it’s cute! The video is a little shakier than normal because I was zoomed in and that always exaggerates movement.

Morbid Brooklyn

I went out to the Gowanus section of Brooklyn to hear a lecture about parapsychology given by author and researcher George Hansen. The place was the Observatory, where I will also be giving a lecture about singing next month. I should have given a lecture here about my last book about the former Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University! Everyone who runs the place has an interest in the macabre.

I just looked at the month of July, and before me there will be a bunch of events “surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture curated by Observatory’s Morbid Anatomy,” and after me a “Wearable Taxidermy Workshop by Beth Beverly, Rogue Taxidermist.” So someone scanning the list will read: death and culture, happiness and singing, taxidermy.

They must have been thrilled to find a space where you need to pass by the South Brooklyn Casket Company in order to get there.

The actual entrance is around a corner and through this beautiful alley. Who doesn’t love a great alley?? They are among the best things about New York.

This is George Hansen, who gave a very entertaining lecture. George is the author of the book, The Trickster and the Paranormal. George also very graciously mentioned me and my Duke book, so thank you very much George!

Now that I’ve been to the place I think I should focus my lecture on singing about death, which is something choral singers do a lot.

Poet Christina Davis Reading

Last night my friend, the poet Christina Davis, read from her new book An Ethic at Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side/Chinatown. (Published by Nightboat, who did a beautiful job by the way.) That’s Christina on the right.

Christina had other people read from the book, like Jen Bervin, Catherine Barnett, Dorothea Lasky, Filip Marinovich and Kathleen Ossip. That was kinda cool. A short movie of Christina follows below.

The last poem she read took my breath away (it’s not on this movie though). It just hit me. Besides being great I think it must have something to do with where I am right now.

Or, as Thoreau replied
          to the deathbed question,

“What do you see?”

One
world at a
time.

Prison Choirs

Some of the more interesting papers I came across while researching my book were by Mary L. Cohen, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa who has been researching prison choirs. The prisoners she quotes sound exactly like the singers in my own choir.

“The most wonderful time I had in about 8 years … it touched my heart so much that I almost cried three times.” “This is how I felt about the concert: ecstatic, elated, excited, joyful, grateful.”

Here’s one I didn’t find at the time that looks like a must read, Mother Theresa, how can I help you? The story of Elvera Voth, Robert Shaw, and the Bethel College Benefit Sing-Along for Arts in Prison, Inc. “This event, organized by his longtime friend and collaborator, Elvera Voth, was Shaw’s final out of town engagement prior to his death. It was as well a remarkable public testimony to a passionate belief, shared by Voth and Shaw, that choral singing could be an instrument of social justice, healing and empowering the disenfranchised.”

I’d come across a prison choir while working on the Hart Island chapter of my book, Waiting For My Cats to Die. Hart Island is the site of New York’s Potters Field and it’s maintained by the Department of Correction. While looking through the Department of Correction archives, I came across a crude but endearing inmate-produced magazine called The Hart Islander (inmates were housed on the island for a time). The December 25, 1959 issue begins, “Our first issue—our baby—our sweetheart,” and there’s a description of their Christmas show.

“From it’s [sic] spirit-lifting choral beginning to it’s [sic] shoulder shakin’, moving end, the X-mas show was completely enjoyable … The future for Three Notes would be assured with proper management and polish … their delivery of Walking by the River and I Laughed at Love were quite good, perhaps better, than vocal groups on the scene today … Mr. Parrish does very good work with Caravan and All the Way with a most interesting vibrato that could sell records.”

While looking around for an appropriate picture for this post I came across a 1950s prison doo-wop group from Tennessee called The Prisonaires who actually did sell records. They had a radio hit called Just Walkin’ in the Rain. It’s quite beautiful and worth listening to all the way to the end.

The picture is from a 1953 Life Magazine article titled, Stars Behind Bars: Life with the Prisonaires. More about the Prisonaires here.