I also collect OTR. I have about 90Gb in mp3 format. Finally got an MP3 Player so I can listen while I’m workin’ on the railroad.
I have Sirius radio in my car. I love the old radio shows they broadcast.
You talking about 1930’s kind of stuff? My dad was into that - I used to listen to recordings with him when I was a kid. He combined that hobby with collecting antique radios, I still have one of his Atwater Kent battery models.
You guys ever listento Prairie Home Companion on NPR? Garrison and company sing songs and have all kinds of old timey type radio segments like the adventures of guy noir private eye. It’s a very clever show at 6 on Saturday night and repeated Sunday afternoon. Check it out next week on your local NPR.
Todd Haskins said:
You guys ever listento Prairie Home Companion on NPR? Garrison and company sing songs and have all kinds of old timey type radio segments like the adventures of guy noir private eye. It’s a very clever show at 6 on Saturday night and repeated Sunday afternoon. Check it out next week on your local NPR.
try to catch it each weekend. I like the old ones - the whistler, Lights Out, Yours Truly - Johnny dollar.
I have my 2 Sirius replay radios with me all the time when I’m out on the road. One is on Nascar and the other is on Radio Classics. Having both radios, I don’t miss my favorites on either channel. My favorite is Gunsmoke with William Conrad.
All my young life (1948 to 1960) visiting my maternal grandfather on his farm in 0klahoma, I can remember my Grandpa listening to the radio. As a farmer, he would usually go to bed with the sun and then lay in there listening to Cardinal Baseball on KMOX, with 50,000 red hot watts. He always used this same table model, portable, battery operated radio. Through out my time in service, plus many years working graveyard shifts and mid watches, when listening to KMOX, which could be heard almost anywhere in the country at night, I knew I was listening to the radio with my Grandpa. He passed in 1987. I had no idea what happened to that radio.
While moving my Mom from Oklahoma to assisted living in Carlyle, this last summer and taking apart my Mom’s apartment in Oklahoma, i found that radio sitting in a closet and she was planning to just throw it away, not even remembering where it came from. She said it hadn’t worked in years.
Well it hadn’t worked because the batteries had gone dead and nobody replaced them. I feared the worse with batteries corroded inside the radio. But it was high enough quality, that the batteries were in a plastic tube and all corrosion was confined. Cleaned it up and it works like it did sitting next to my Grandpa’s bed. Used it yesterday, while working in the yard. It is a Golden Shield “All Transistor” Cordless Model 8021 6 Transistor Super HET. Its only AM and you have to hunt on the dial to find KMOX and then turn it to get the antenna aligned, but it comes in great. Even has my Grandpa’s handwritting on the back on the hardboard backing of the dates when he changed the batteries.
He was a real Cardinal fan and his only time to St. Louis was to come watch the Cardinals play in old Sportsman’s Park. Laying in bed in Oklahoma he even got the school closing reports in St. Louis as he listened through the night and early morning. He used to force himself to stay in bed until 5 am. I used to laugh at that and now I find myself doing the same.
Todd, i too am a Prairie Home Companion fan and listen every week unless i cannot get to a radio or cell phone. My station is KQED out of San Francisco, but it is widely distributed on public radio affiliates around the country, and also available on the net.
Back in the 1970s i collected OTR on 12’ vinyl records and on cassette tapes. I liked pretty much everything – from Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in “Bold Venture” to the complete D-Day recordings on WEAF.
I also listen to 1920s-30s era rural music, and i make up my own little radio playlists – the fictitious “Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Rambler Hour” followed by “The Beale Street Strut, Live From Memphis – with your host, Son Brimmer” and “Carter Country” (featuring only musicians with the last name Carter, some of whom recorded under other surnames, as there were so many players with the Carter name). As some of you know, steam-era railroad songs are ging to be part of my Bachmann Big Haulers layout.
Ric, i loved your story of your grandfather’s radio. Thanks for sharing the memories!
We love the old stuff and now have webradio on our computer browser to listen that is tuned into KCEA out of Atherton in the SF bay area that plays music for the 20 and 30th and beyond.
I have Sirius radio and do enjoy old time radio especially when traveling. Love Johnny dollar and also the 60s station. Later RJD
On the computer there is http://www.otrcat.com/
They have daily downloads of mp3 files and you can buy CD’s from them. I have been downloading every day for several years.
There is another great one that is free and allows unlimited downloads. That is where I got the majority of my stuff. Unfortunately they had to go to another carrier because of the sheer size of their files. You can currently PLAY their files, soon will be able to download them.
http://www.radioechoes.com/
And there have to be some of you out there who just can’t get enough Polka Music!
http://loudcity.com/stations/wrjq/files/show/listenlive.html
Thanks for the inks!
Another site i like – for old-time music – is venerable radio at