During the summer of 1966, I lived with my sister. Well, technically I suppose I still lived with my parents, but I spent the whole summer at my sister's house. My brother-in-law was in basic training that summer. I spent it reading and watching TV, mostly old movies and reruns of shows like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and DOBIE GILLIS. I also wrote the longest piece of fiction I'd done so far, a 40,000 word mystery novel shamelessly in Hardy Boys mode, featuring me and my friends as the detectives. (Long, long since lost, and I wouldn't put it up on Amazon as an e-book even if it wasn't . . . I don't think.) I also wrote a 30,000 word piece of what we'd now call fan fiction, combining two of my interests, the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs and secret agents. That's right, I called it TARZAN: THE MAN FROM A.F.R.I.C.A. (Go ahead and groan. I did.) This one is also long lost.
After those long days of reading paperbacks and comic books, watching TV, and scribbling furiously in spiral notebooks with a fountain pen, every night I listened to an hour or so of a radio show that ran every night on KRLD 1080 AM from 11:30 at night until 5:00 in the morning. It was called "Music 'Til Dawn" and was a nationally syndicated show sponsored by American Airlines. It featured easy listening music, which I already liked even though I was 13 years old. What can I tell you, I was a weird kid. But I think mostly it came from growing up around small-market mixed-format AM radio, so I listened to and liked just about every kind of music.
I really liked the theme song from "Music 'Til Dawn", which I think was played by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. But I don't know the title of it, and I've never run across anybody else who even remembers the blasted show. Figuring that the entire knowledge of the universe can be found in the blogosphere, I thought I'd ask here. Do any of you (those of a certain age) remember ever hearing American Airlines' "Music 'Til Dawn"? Did I hallucinate it? And if it was real, does anyone recall the name of the theme song? I've searched the Internet for this info with no luck. I'd love to hear the song again nearly fifty years later.
UPDATE: Thanks to Todd Mason for sending me the link to the clip below. I had thought about "That's All", but for some reason that seemed wrong to me. Nice to know that my first instinct was right after all.
17 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWe2MY5BvWY
for the opening theme... "Thats All"
http://www.speakingofradio.com/interviews/andres-jay-personality/
for one of the hosts, Jay Andres...
I don't know, The Man From A.F.R.I.C.A., a more professionally written one these days, might make for interesting reading. At least knowing what the letters were short for anyway.
Oh, and we've all done that likely. Before I got a typewriter, I scribbled on lined note paper with pencil. I have two first drafts, at least I think they're still buried somewhere in some boxes in the house, U.N.C.L.E. novels.
Talking about bad.
Wasn't there a show on a just before "Music Till Dawn" called "Music for Night People"? I remember listening to that one.
It seems a natural title, Bill...but I don't see anything national, at least, although there is no lack of albums, including mid-'60s anthologies of orchestral music, with that title...those last might well be related...
Todd,
Many thanks for those links. I added the clip of the theme to the post.
Randy,
I'm afraid I have no clue what A.F.R.I.C.A. stood for. I'm sure I thought it was really cool in 1966, though. As I recall, the plot had Tarzan getting involved in some espionage case more or less as an innocent bystander, rather than actually working for the organization.
Bill (and Todd again),
I vaguely remember "Music for Night People". I think it was a local show on KRLD. Ran from 8:00 to 11:00 or something like that. Right before "Music 'Til Dawn" came on, KRLD ran the half-hour religious program "The World Tomorrow", hosted by Garner Ted Armstrong. I'd hear the last minute or two of it when I'd turn on the radio to listen to "Music 'Til Dawn".
Oh wow! Does this bring back memories from the 1950s-60s! Thanks so much for posting. I listened to MTD every night from a small town in Canada (near Ottawa)....all night quite often, mainly from WBBM Chicago with Jay Andres and, when the WBBM signal occasionally faded, with Bob Hall on WCBS, Chicago. I went into radio myself in the early '60s and once managed a classical station, but spent most of my career in radio and print news. I learned more than anyone will ever know about music and about radio from these terrific broadcasters.
Does anyone know the themesong for the Musin in the Night program? I have a friend that listened to it and is wanting to hear it again!
Thanks!
I also listened to "Music Till Dawn" throughout my junior high and high school years. KRLD, 1080, Dallas, with Tony Garrett. As has already been noted, the lead-in local program was "Music for Night People," which I also enjoyed.
KNX in Los Angeles was nearby at 1070. Since I was about 200 miles west of KRLD, the signal was adequate, but not overpowering, and KNX often bled in with similar music. I had to tune my AM radio carefully to get just one, but sometimes, at 5:30, as KRLD was winding down, I could tune back every so slightly, and get two more hours when the ionosphere was just right.
I wish someone had recorded a whole night of Tony Garrett's "Music Till Dawn" so I could re-live it one more time.
I listened to it every night while reading in bed. The local station was kcbs.
I loved this program and listened to it nightly. It was on KGO San Francisco and that was over 100 miles from where I lived in Salinas so I had to play with the radio antenna until it came in clearly. I loved the theme and the music it played. I listened to pop all day so it was a pleasant break.
Thanks for your comment. I always listened on a cheap little transistor radio. Somehow the music sounded better on it, though.
I often would listen on KGO in San Francisco when driving home to Berkeley late at night after social engagements during my grad-school years. They started in 1968. Ken Ackerman was the host in those years. (He died in 2017 at the ripe age of 95.)
https://bayarearadio.org/ken-ackerman-original-radio-legend
The 'theme' song was the Adagio movement from Rakhmaninov's Second Symphony. A few years ago I heard this entire work in a concert by the St Petersburg Philharmonic in the glorious concert hall in St Petersburg. When the slow movement arrived, my eyes got misty as I remembered Music 'Til Dawn from more than 50 years earlier.
Thanks for those memories, Ed. That's a different theme song from the one on the KRLD version I'm familiar with. I'll have to look it up and have a listen.
Since Ken Ackerman was a Sacramento native and was almost assuredly broadcasting from a San Francisco location, I can only assume that 'Music 'Til Dawn', although 'syndicated' with American Airlines sponsorship, the various effusions of the program were all locally produced.
Ackerman himself may have selected the Rakhmaninov movement for the theme of the program which was broadcast in the Bay Area.
(BTW, if you seek a recording of this entire work, the one to get--as judged by many 'in the know'--is the one by Andre Previn and the London Symphony on EMI. The recording dates from the mid-1970s and was re-released in 1999 in a presumably budget edition.)
That's right, the different versions were all locally produced with the name and the American Airlines sponsorship all they had in common. I didn't know that when I wrote the original post and thought the Tony Garrett version on KRLD was what the whole country heard.
Thanks for the tip on that recording. It's available on CD and also on YouTube. I'll give it a listen.
If there was a plane crash, commercials were suspended for the night.
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