The Eveready Hour

Last updated
The Eveready Hour's election night broadcast from WEAF to 18 stations on November 4, 1924: Will Rogers (far right), Art Gillham, Wendell Hall, Carson Robison, Eveready Quartet, Graham McNamee and the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra. Eveready Hour 11-4-1924 WEAF.jpg
The Eveready Hour's election night broadcast from WEAF to 18 stations on November 4, 1924: Will Rogers (far right), Art Gillham, Wendell Hall, Carson Robison, Eveready Quartet, Graham McNamee and the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra.

The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923 (or, according to other sources, November 4, 1923, or February 12, 1924), on WEAF Radio in New York City. As radio's first sponsored network program, it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery. The host for many years was the banjo-playing vocalist Wendell Hall, "The Red Headed Music Maker", who wrote the popular "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'" (Victor Records). Hall was married on The Eveready Hour in 1924.

Contents

History

The program started locally on radio station WEAF in New York City in December 1923. The idea for the program came when the National Carbon Company's George Furness tuned in WJZ that summer and heard Edgar White Burrill reading Ida M. Tarbell's He Knew Lincoln. Envisioning the unexplored possibilities of radio programming and advertising, Furness became the producer and supervisor of The Eveready Hour, a show he structured to bring the full spectrum of American culture to the airwaves. [1] Media critic Ben Gross later stated that "Immediately after its première in 1923, it became the most important program in broadcasting." [2]

In early 1924, The Eveready Hour began to be carried simultaneously by a second station, WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, and the number of outlets was expanded to a group of Eastern and Midwestern stations "as quickly as WEAF could add stations" to its "WEAF chain" radio network. [3] On election night, November 4, 1924, the program, hosted by Wendell Hall, was carried by 18 stations, with Will Rogers, Art Gillham, Carson Robison and the Eveready Quartet entertaining between election returns given by Graham McNamee. Joseph Knecht led the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra. In 1926 the WEAF chain operations were purchased by the Radio Corporation of America, becoming the basis of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in early 1927. The Eveready Hour continued as a featured broadcast on NBC until 1930.

A 1926 Saturday Evening Post advertisement for The Eveready Hour and Eveready Batteries showed a fantasy illustration of radio listeners above the following copy:

Like the fabled ship in which Jason brought home the enchanted fleece of gold, The Eveready Hour brings a rich treasure of entertainment to charm the harbor-homes of its hearers. Inaugurated two years ago, The Eveready Hour was an adventure in broadcasting – an hour of connected entertainment, uninterrupted by the frequent injection of the name of the broadcaster.
Radio has already become a highly specialized art worthy of the most scrupulous code of ethics, and The Eveready Hour represents a sincere effort to pioneer in providing the most acceptable form of radio entertainment.
Eveready programs cover a wide range of entertainment and human interest, transporting us to periods of wholesome simplicity; to barren islands where marooned sailors meet adventure, starvation and death; to battle-scarred France with singing doughboys; to emotional heights by telling with music the stories of the seasons; and to memories of yesteryear aroused by old ballad and musical comedy favorites.

Guests included Lionel Atwill, Arthur "Bugs" Baer, Belle Baker, Eddie Cantor, Pablo Casals, Irvin S. Cobb, Richard Dix, Emma Dunn, Lew Fields, the Fonzaley String Quartet and Laurette Taylor. Directed by Paul Stacey and Douglas Coulter, the show featured an orchestra conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1924, Charles W. Harrison brought together the Eveready Mixed Quartet, a group that included Harrison, soprano Beulah Gaylord Young (Harrison's wife), contralto Rose Bryant and bass Wilfred Glenn. Tom Griselle provided the piano accompaniment. Harrison also led a male quartet for the radio show.

The songwriter Yip Harburg was involved in several shows as indicated by existing scripts:

Announcer Helen Hahn in the WEAF studio in 1922. Milestone 1922.jpg
Announcer Helen Hahn in the WEAF studio in 1922.

Surviving recordings

The only known recording of an Eveready Hour broadcast was made by an engineer at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, on the evening of May 15, 1928, from the over-the-air signal of station WEAF. This remarkably clear recording contains a local announcement by a WEAF staff announcer, Paul Dumont, and then the first 18 minutes of the hour-long broadcast. This same recording holds the distinction of being the earliest known aircheck (off-air recording) of a live dramatic radio broadcast. In other words, it was a recording of a radio transmission that was not a news event, speech, or music-only presentation. This rare recording is now archived at the Edison National History Site (ENHS), which is part of the National Park Service. [5]

Listen to

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yip Harburg</span> American lyricist (1896–1981)

Edgar Yipsel Harburg was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his leftist leanings. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadcast network</span> Form of centralized broadcasting

A terrestrial network is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ABC (U.S.), CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada), the BBC (UK), the ABC (Australia), DW (Germany), KBS, and NHK (Japan) are TV networks that provide programming for local terrestrial television station affiliates to air using signals that can be picked up by the home television sets of local viewers. Networks generally, but not always, operate on a national scale; that is, they cover an entire country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathaniel Shilkret</span> American songwriter

Nathaniel Shilkret was an American musician, composer, conductor and musical director.

WFAN is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, carrying a sports radio format known as "Sports Radio 66 AM and 101.9 FM" or "The Fan". Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves the New York metropolitan area while its 50,000-watt clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the eastern United States and Canada. WFAN's studios are located in the Hudson Square neighborhood of lower Manhattan and its transmitter is located on High Island in the Bronx. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WFAN is simulcast over WFAN-FM, and is available online via Audacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Network</span> American radio network (1927–1945)

The Blue Network was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graham McNamee</span> American radio broadcaster (1888–1942)

Thomas Graham McNamee was an American radio broadcaster, the medium's most recognized national personality in its first international decade. He originated play-by-play sports broadcasting for which he was awarded the Ford C. Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Gillham</span> American songwriter

Art Gillham was an American songwriter, who was among the first crooners as a pioneer radio artist and a recording artist for Columbia Records.

WOC is a commercial AM radio station, licensed to Davenport, Iowa, and serving the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois. WOC is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. It broadcasts a news/talk format, under the slogan "The Quad Cities News Leader." Its studios are located at 3535 East Kimberly Road in Davenport. Its transmitter is located at an antenna farm in Bettendorf, Iowa, near the campus of Scott Community College. WOC broadcasts with 5,000 watts with a directional signal to avoid interfering with other stations on 1420 kHz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WEZE</span> Religious radio station in Boston

WEZE – branded 590 AM The Word – is a commercial Christian radio station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts, serving Greater Boston and much of surrounding New England. Owned by Salem Communications, WEZE is the Boston affiliate for the Salem Radio Network. The WEZE studios are located in the Boston suburb of North Quincy, and the station transmitter resides in neighboring Medford. Besides a standard analog transmission, WEZE is available online.

The A&P Gypsies is a musical series broadcast on radio beginning in 1924. With the opening theme of "Two Guitars," the host and band leader was Harry Horlick, who had learned gypsy folk music while traveling with gypsy bands in Istanbul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NBC Radio Network</span> Former American radio network

The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it was one of the first two nationwide networks established in the United States. Its major competitors were the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), founded in 1927, and the Mutual Broadcasting System, founded in 1934. In 1942, NBC was required to divest one of its national networks, so it sold NBC Blue, which was soon renamed the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). After this separation, the Red Network continued as the NBC Radio Network.

The Broadcasting Company of America (BCA) was a short-lived subsidiary of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). It was formed in May 1926 in order to consolidate AT&T's radio station and network operations into a single organization. However, just two months later AT&T announced that the subsidiary was being sold to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). This sale took place on November 1, 1926, and RCA reorganized the BCA assets to form the core of National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) network operations, including its "Red Network".

1924 in radio details the internationally significant events in radio broadcasting for the year 1924.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendell Hall</span> American singer-songwriter

Wendell Woods Hall was an American country singer, vaudeville artist, songwriter, pioneer radio performer, Victor recording artist and ukulele player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillips Carlin</span>

Phillips Carlin was a radio broadcaster, a radio executive, and later, a television executive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra</span> American orchestra

The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra was an orchestra that played primarily at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, both the old and new locations. In addition to providing dinner music at the famous hotel, the orchestra made over 300 recordings and many radio broadcasts. It was established in the 1890s, and was directed by Carlo Curti in early 1900s, Joseph Knecht at least from 1908 to 1925, later by Jack Denny and others, and then Xavier Cugat from approximately 1933 to 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capitol Theatre (New York City)</span> Former theatre in Manhattan, New York

The Capitol Theatre was a movie palace located at 1645 Broadway, just north of Times Square in New York City, across from the Winter Garden Theatre. Designed by theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, the Capitol originally had a seating capacity of 5,230 and opened October 24, 1919. After 1924 the flagship theatre of the Loews Theatres chain, the Capitol was known as the premiere site of many Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) films. The Capitol was also noted for presenting live musical revues and many jazz and swing bands on its stage.

Coca-Cola Topnotchers is an American old-time radio program starring sportscaster Grantland Rice and announced by Graham McNamee who, at the time, was regarded as "the [radio's] most recognized national personality in its first international decade."

WJY was an AM radio station located in New York City, licensed to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from May 1923 to early 1927. It was operated jointly with RCA's primary New York City station, WJZ. After RCA took over operation of a third New York City station, WEAF, WJY was discontinued as being no longer needed.

WMAF, known as "The Voice From Way Down East", was a radio broadcasting station licensed to "Colonel" Ned Green's Round Hills Radio Corporation in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts from September 1922 until 1931. In the summer of 1923 it began rebroadcasting programs originating from station WEAF in New York City, which is generally considered to be first sustained radio network connection in the United States.

References

  1. Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 235–236. ISBN   978-0-19-507678-3 . Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  2. I Looked & I Listened by Ben Gross, 1970, p. 93.
  3. A Tower in Babel (A History of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933, Vol. 1) by Eric Barnouw, 1966, p. 159.
  4. E.Y. Harburg Collection, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University
  5. Edison National History Site, West Orange, New Jersey

Further reading