John Charles Thomas - Mystery Recordings

[operabass78s]

I found these 3 home-recorded acetate discs recently at a secondhand store. I am under the impression that they are from radio broadcasts but I am not sure. There are fragments of a commentator on two of the sides. I will provide the information that is on the labels here in this message. Hopefully someone familiar with Thomas' recording activities can shed some light on these mysterious discs.

rapidshare.de/files/40979988/JCThomas.zip.html

Ol' Man River - Dated 4/16/44
Time For Making Song Has Come - Dated 4/22/44
Good Day - Dated 10/17/43
Passing By - Dated 10/17/43 (fragment of commentator saying "Here's how this one goes...")
Song of the Open Road (A.H. Malotte) - Dated 12/5/43
I Liken Thee to a Flower (R. Schumann) - Dated 12/5/43 (Commentator says "E'en as a Lovely Flower" during opening bars)

[matty]

I can't seem to access the file OB.
Is it just my computer or what.

[3victrolas]

Unfortunately, I can't access the file either.

[ultona]

Without listening (I didn't try to access them yet!), I'm guessing these are probably recordings for likely the "RCA Victor Hour Of Music" which was a show that ran for several years from at least the early 40s as far as I can tell from home recordings I have of the show. Thomas was a "regular" of course, since he was an RCA Victor artist by then. It's possible they could be "Bell Telephone Hour" recordings too. It's always fun finding acetates with neat stuff on them! That "huge" collection I got this past spring has hundreds of acetates, mostly Met broadcasts and lots of stuff from the "RCA Victor Hour Of Music" as well as a ton of private stuff. The neatest one I've unearthed so far is a Paul Robeson recital of spirituals. I have no idea what the source of the recording actually is. Could be a radio show, could have been a private thing. I do know they aren't from his 78s.

Sean

[MordEth]

I had no problem downloading the files from Rapidshare, but thought that for anyone who had difficulty in obtaining them I might as well make them available on my server (although downloading from Rapidshare will be quicker for anyone with a broadband connection, if you don’t mind the hoops they make you jump through).

I uncompressed the zip file, since mp3 audio really does not compress much further when shoved into a .zip, so you get 6 smaller files instead of one larger one.

Here you go:

“Good Day”
“I Liken Thee to a Flower”
“Ol’ Man River”
“Passing By”
“Song of the Open Road”
“Time for Making Song Has Come”

Your browser will most likely attempt to play the audio file if you click on the links above; should you wish to merely save them, click the link with your right mouse button and select ‘Save Link As...’ from the context menu, which will then prompt you for the location to which you wish to save. This looks like so:

Note: This screen capture was taken in Firefox; if you are using a different browser, it works the same way, but may be worded slightly differently. If you are using Internet Explorer, do your computer a favor and get Firefox, Opera, Safari or Google’s Chrome. (All of these are free and are superior browsers to IE, both in terms of security and in their features.) You can thank me for this advice when you have less possibility for infecting your computer. Internet Explorer is terribly insecure.

Should you have any questions or need assistance, please let me know.

Hopefully this will make it easier for more people to enjoy this music.

— MordEth

Edit: Transferred the files to significantly faster hosting; I hope you enjoy them. (Thanks again to operabass78s for providing the mp3s.)