Golden Age of Radio

DON BALL . . . our hat’s off to Don Ball of CBS for having a name easy to catch over the air. Block Island, R. I., was his home before he reached 11 inches over 5 feet in his vertical movement. Weighing 165 pounds and with reddish brown, wavy hair and blue eyes, he could convince anyone to buy Ipsy Wipsy wash Cloths. He’s 29 and married. 

The 11th November, is observed annually across the world to honor military veterans, who have served in the armed forces. The anniversary is always marked with special remembrance programs, and as well as the ones on television, there are also many radio shows available. One of the most popular is Wings To Victory . Presented by the Army Air Forces, each thirty minute story is a dramatization of America heroism based on combat reports from the fighting fronts. If you'd like to listen to a little music and variety, there's a series called Sound Off . It features favorites such as Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller and ran from 1946 - 1948.  Sponsored by the US Army as part of its recruiting program, and the shows are remarkably good quality.  There's great music and variety from Command Performance too, a series that was created especially for the US Armed Forces. You'll find a non-stop selection of poignant old time radio shows to remind us of the courage and bravery of th...

Say Hello To – JACK BAKER—whose nickname around NBC’s Chicago studios is “The Louisiana Lark,” partly because he was born in Shreveport, partly because he loves to sing. His real name is Ernest Mahlon Jones, he has been a semi-pro baseball player, a baseball coach and a schoolteacher, and his job as star soloist on this morning’s Breakfast Club is the result of an audition he took at NBC back in 1936.

Betty Barclay __ was selling Sammy Kaye ’s records in a music shop in Macon, Go., when she decided that some day she would be the vocalist with his band. Today she is appearing with him on both Sunday Serenade and So You Want to Lead a Band, over the ABC network. She admits that it took several preliminary jobs with other name bands and her singing of “I’m a Big Girl Now” to put her where she wanted to be.

SAY HELLO TO . . . GEORGE BARNES—the 19-year-old guitarist you’re likely to hear doing solos on almost any NBC musical show originating in Chicago—Club Matinee, Breakfast Club , Plantation Party, Show Boat, to name a few. He plays an amplified guitar, which has a more resonant tone than an ordinary guitar and works with electricity. Because he loved music too much to waste time at anything else, he left high school at the end of his sophomore year and has been playing in bands ever since. He looks like a very calm person, but really has terrible stage fright at the mike. He was married last March to singer Adrienne Guy.

BEN BERNIE . . . the Old Maestro was Bernard Ancel May 32, 1893, the day he became one of the eleven little Ancels back in Bayonne, N. J. When it was decided that Ben was too frail ever to follow the family trade as a smith, his father decided he should be an engineer. His mother decided he’d become a violinist. So violinist he became. He gave a concert in Carnegie Hall at 14, and a year afterwards was teaching violin in a school. There’s a wife and son.