301110 - Armistice Day Reunion

FINALLY. We now arrive at the first of the weekly Empire Builders broadcasts for which audio copies are in circulation. As I’ve stated in the past, I have copies for my own reference, but I do not engage in distributing or selling them in any way. Having said that, there are several web sites out there where you can either stream this episode (and others) online, or even download a copy. I have no connection with these sites whatsoever, and make no assertions about how secure or unsecure the sites might be. Proceed at your own “risk” (however minute that might be). Here are a couple of them I found quite easily using Google:

RADIO ECHOES …. Download or listen:  http://www.radioechoes.com/the-empire-builders#.Vj05kf-FOpo

SILVER CLASSICS …. Stream online:  http://www.silverclassics.org/listserie.php?id=240

And now that the topic of online access to extant episodes of Empire Builders is once again on the table, I will reiterate something I wrote about in the past. Back in 1929, on November 11^th (which was a Monday), Empire Builders aired a broadcast (episode #291111) that they referred to as “Armistice Day – a story of ‘Over There.’” That story was written by Wyllis O. Cooper, who went on to achieve great success in a long career as a script writer in the radio business. NO RECORDING OF THAT BROADCAST EXISTS. I don’t even have a continuity for that broadcast, just a very brief press release. But one year later, and just a day prior to Armistice Day, 1930 (which was a Tuesday), Empire Builders went on the air with a new story for the occasion called “Armistice Day Reunion.” As best I can tell, these are two entirely different stories, although it’s possible that Cooper wrote this one too. He was a veteran of the Great War, and as such was considered a worthy person to write about it.

Most internet sources for digital copies of Empire Builders will offer a broadcast called “Armistice Day,” and a second one called “Armistice Day Reunion.” I have found that these are in fact the same broadcast. Please see this blog commentary about extant copies of the recordings (and what the correct names are for some of those episodes).

I have not yet taken the time to transcribe the recording of the Armistice Day Reunion broadcast, but perhaps I will at some point. In the meantime, I can still share a few comments and insights about the broadcast. First of all, this broadcast is notable in the fact that it may be the earliest existing recording of the voice of Don Ameche, and possibly the series’ stalwart Old Timer, Harvey Hays.

In this broadcast, the Old Timer arrives in Chicago (on the Empire Builder train) to join some of the boys he ran into in France right at the end of the war. As the story unfolds, we learn that the Old Timer was assigned to the “13^th Engineers (railroad), ‘B’ Company, Great Northern Railway.”

Members of the real 13th Engineers
in a trench in France.
Collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago

During World War I (or the “great war” as it was called then), there really was a 13^th Engineers (railway), organized in Chicago in 1917. Again, when an opportunity arose to keep elements of the story realistic, the Great Northern generally took it. As another example of this, Empire Builders had a reputation for always enlisting the services of a qualified telegrapher when the story called for it. In this broadcast, there is a significant amount of telegraphy, and while I cannot decode it, I feel certain that it really translates into whatever the characters in the story said it did. It was well known that real-life railroaders, including telegraphers, would be listening in.

Composite image published in Popular Mechanics, showing a variety of sound effects contraptions and tools used to air Empire Builders. I'd be grateful to learn the identity of the sound effects technician pictured in these images.

The sound effects used in the early days of commercial radio were rather primitive, compared of course to how this aspect of radio evolved over the years. During the era of the Empire Builders series, NBC forbade their broadcasting partners from using recorded sound of any kind. This meant that all sound effects had to be developed by these pioneers of radio through some fairly ingenious means, and then performed live, exactly on cue, during the live broadcasts every Monday night. Some of the sound effects used to replicate trains included actual locomotive bells and steam whistles provided by the Great Northern Railway. Due to their bulk and very loud volume, this equipment was generally kept on the roof of the Merchandise Mart building and picked up remotely during the broadcasts. There seem to be two schools of thought about the sound effects achieved by these early radio technicians. On the one hand, some radio historians acknowledge the demands and challenges of producing realistic sound effects without use of recordings, and with only a minimal amount of experience to draw upon. Other radio historians have concluded that sound effects employed on Empire Builders were rudimentary and quite unsatisfactory. With this group I will respectfully disagree. In the first place, I’m assuming they’ve drawn this conclusion based mostly on listening to the circulating copies of the show. I think we can all agree that these are not high-quality recordings, but they are all we have. The program was picked up over the radio, and that sound was then recorded on a (typically aluminum) transcription disc. These recordings were not intended for future use over the air. It seems the only reason for making these recordings was for the folks at the Great Northern Railway (and possibly the NBC staff working on the broadcasts) to assess after the fact how the show sounded over the air. It may have provided a basis on which to negotiate changes or improvements to future efforts as the series went along. What now exists in circulation are, to the best of my knowledge, at least 3^rd or 4^th generation re-recordings. I have no idea what the disposition is of the original aluminum transcription discs, but it seems they must have been keep for years in the holdings of the Great Northern Railway.

When the GN joined some other railroads to form Burlington Northern in 1970, vast amounts of material from each of those individual railroad companies were suddenly irrelevant. The new Burlington Northern reportedly went on a house-cleaning binge of epic proportions. Many of their old files were donated to the state of Minnesota, and are now available to researchers at the Minnesota Historical Society. Many more files (literally boxcars full of material) were donated to the Great Northern Railway Historical Society, and most of this material is also accessible to researchers in St. Paul. It is also important to note that quite a number of items of true historic value were destined for the garbage dumps near the Twin Cities. Thankfully, some quick-thinking individuals glommed onto some of those things and saved them from destruction. I suspect the Empire Builders aluminum transcription discs may have fallen into this category.

I still don’t have all the facts sorted out yet, but it appears the transcription discs were dubbed onto reel-to-reel tape, probably sometime in the 1980’s. I believe that it is from this effort that the nine extant broadcasts emerged. I’ve heard that these recordings have wound up on cassettes at some point, probably prior to being digitized as MP3 or similar formats. For my money, then, it appears the existing recordings may have gone through at least 3 or 4 iterations before coming to the internet as digital files. As I understand it, anyone who plays back an aluminum disc on a standard 78 RPM turntable, without the proper needle, will likely do irreparable damage to the disc. This might easily have happened to the existing Empire Builders recordings. I think it may be premature to conclude much about the quality of the broadcasts based on such a pedigree.

Publicity photo by Theatrical Chicago, showing four members of the NBC sound effects team. The photograph was very likely taken quite close to the time of the Armistice Day broadcast in 1930. One of these men is likely the director of their team, Fred Ibbett. If you know for sure which one is him, please let me know.  Author's collection

As for the issue of whether the sound effects were sophisticated – or ultimately effective – there is a bit more evidence to consider regarding the Armistice Day broadcast of 1930. Almost two weeks after the show aired, the San Antonio (Texas) Express had this rather lengthy report about the broadcast:

BATTLE EFFECTS IN THIS BROADCAST

Probably the most complete sound effects equipment ever used in broadcasting, including battle effects in which two machine guns, a score of rifles, and several other actual instruments of warfare were used, were heard in the Armistice eve program of the Great Northern Railway's "Empire Builders" series, presented from the Chicago Studios of the NBC.

Special equipment for the sound effects of this production alone cost almost a thousand dollars. In order to set the proper battle effects for the war-time story to be dramatized, two machine guns were mounted on the roof of the building outside the NBC studios, and fired volley upon volley of blank cartridges in order to feed the actual noise of the firing into the microphones. A squad of rifle and pistol men was present and rockets and flares of the type used during the war were discharged at intervals from the flat top of the Merchandise Mart.

An all-male cast of 53 actors took part in the production, in addition to Josef Koestner's orchestra of 14 pieces. Other special equipment installed at great expense for this and other Empire Builders broadcasts, include two gigantic engine bells of the type actually in use on the Great Northern railway engines, a specially constructed apparatus 15 feet in height for the production of the noises of explosions and other loud noises, a regulation engine whistle, and many other innovations in the production of sound effects for radio broadcasting.

The story, which was written by a member of an A. E. F. combat organization stationed on the Western Front at the conclusion of the war, had for its climax the first Armistice Day in France. Harvey Hays, as "The Old Timer," and Don Ameche, youthful juvenile lead, shared dramatic honors in the production.

To date, the only thorough biography of Don Ameche that I am aware of is a book by Ben Ohmart, published by Ohmart’s own BearManor Media in 2007. The book is titled “Don Ameche: The Kenosha Comeback Kid.”

 

 

Mr. Ohmart did a very thorough job of accessing a multitude of research resources, and the result is a well-written and comprehensive view of Don Ameche’s life and career. In the introduction of the book, Mr. Ohmart credits two sources in particular with informing his book. One is a woman who requested to remain anonymous, but who apparently is a devoted Ameche enthusiast and who has amassed an enormous collection of Don Ameche photographs and other material. The other key source that Mr. Ohmart attributes is the family of Don Ameche himself, who were very generous in providing their personal recollections of the family’s patriarch. Don Ameche’s daughters were entrusted with an extensive press clipping collection which Mr. Ohmart had access to as well. Beyond these brief credits and a few others in the introduction, Mr. Ohmart does not cite specific sources for the numerous quotations of Don Ameche. It is left to the reader to assume many of these were derived from interviews given by Ameche over the years, and which Mr. Ohmart may have located either through the collaboration of his anonymous source, or the extensive news clipping files held by the Ameche family. Some content, presented as direct quotes from Don Ameche, is prefaced as having been made “in an interview” but with no further citation. This same limitation applies to the dozens of historic photographs that richly illustrate the book. As a researcher myself, I would have preferred knowing a little more about the sources. However, I highly recommend Ben Ohmart’s book to anyone seeking a comprehensive look at the life of Don Ameche. You will find nothing better on the market. True, you will likely find nothing else on the market, but it is hard to imagine anyone coming along at a later date and doing a better job with this topic. Unless of course they are in a position to cite their sources – I’d value that.

On the topic of Empire Builders, Ben Ohmart includes a couple of pages of explanation about Ameche’s participation in the Great Northern Railway’s radio campaign, including a very interesting commentary attributed to Ameche in an interview of unspecified origin:

Don called Empire Builders ‘one of the most realistic and gripping radio dramas ever produced, because the sound effects were authentic… If the producer wanted the sound of marching feet, he’d hire a small army of men to tramp about the building when the show was on the air.’

I have to believe that Ameche’s recollection on this point was specifically about the Armistice Day broadcast. I don’t know of any other programs he was a part of that would have called for a large group of men to march around for the sound effects.

 

Until next week, keep those dials tuned to Empire Builders!