Acousticon Hour
Encyclopedia
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
. It offered selections from classical music, orchestral favorites, operas and operettas.
History
The show was sponsored by the company that marketed the Acousticon brand hearing aidHearing aid
A hearing aid is an electroacoustic device which typically fits in or behind the wearer's ear, and is designed to amplify and modulate sound for the wearer. Earlier devices, known as "ear trumpets" or "ear horns", were passive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energy and...
, invented by Miller Reese Hutchison
Miller Reese Hutchison
Miller Reese Hutchison was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed some of the first portable electric devices, such as a vehicle horn and a hearing aid.-Early life:...
.
As broadcast historian Elizabeth McLeod has noted, in the 1920s a product name used in a show's title was considered a more acceptable form of advertising than the use of intrusive commercial messages:
- The most popular program format of the late twenties was the sponsored musical feature. It could be a large symphonic group, a dance orchestra, or a song-and-patter team — and it would usually carry the sponsor's name. The A&P GypsiesThe A&P GypsiesThe A&P Gypsies was 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....
, for example — a large, genre-crossing orchestra conducted by Harry Horlick. The Ipana TroubadorsThe Ipana TroubadorsThe Ipana Troubadors was a musical variety radio program which began in New York on WEAF in 1923. In actuality, the Troubadors were the Sam Lanin Orchestra...
— a hot dance band directed by Sam LaninSam LaninSam Lanin was an American jazz bandleader.Lanin's brothers, Howard and Lester, were also bandleaders, and all of them had sustained, successful careers in music. Lanin was one of ten children born to Russian-Jewish immigrants who emigrated to Philadelphia in the decade of the 1900s...
. The Goodrich Zippers — a banjo-driven orchestra conducted by Harry ReserHarry ReserHarry F. Reser was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos.- Career :...
, when he wasn't leading the same group under the name of The Clicquot Club EskimosThe Clicquot Club EskimosThe Clicquot Club Eskimos was a popular musical variety radio show, first heard in 1923, featuring a banjo orchestra directed by Harry Reser. A popular ginger ale, Clicquot Club, was Canada Dry's main rival...
. Everyone remembers The Happiness BoysThe Happiness BoysThe Happiness Boys was a popular radio program of the early 1920s. It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones and bass/baritone Ernie Hare who sang novelty songs.-Career:...
, Billy JonesBilly Jones (singer)William Reese Jones was a tenor who recorded during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program....
and Ernie HareErnie HareThomas Ernest Hare was a bass/baritone who recorded prolifically during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program.-Career:...
-- but what about Scrappy LambertScrappy LambertHarold "Scrappy" Lambert was an American dance band vocalist who appeared on hundreds of recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s....
and Billy Hillpot, who performed exactly the same sort of material as Trade and Mark, The Smith Brothers. The list is endless: The Silvertown Cord OrchestraThe Goodrich Silvertown OrchestraThe Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra was a musical variety radio program, sponsored by B. F. Goodrich and heard in different formats and timeslots from 1925 until 1935. The performers included Henry Burr , Carl Mathieu , James Stanley , Stanley Baughman , Monroe Silver , Frank Banta , and Sam Herman...
, featuring the Silver Masked Tenor. The Sylvania Foresters. The Flit Soldiers -- yet another Harry Reser group. The Champion SparkersChampion Spark Plug HourChampion Spark Plug Hour was a music radio program sponsored by Champion. It was broadcast on New York's WJZ and WGY during the late 1920s and early 1930s. An entry in The Chronicle-Telegram for October 4, 1926, indicates the show aired on Tuesday afternoons at 5:00pm...
. The Fox Fur Trappers. The Ingram Shavers, who were the Ipana Troubadours on alternate Wednesdays. The Yeast Foamers. The Planters Pickers. And, the magnificently named Freed-Eisemann Orchestradians. All playing pretty much the same sorts of music, all announced by Phillips Carlin or John S. Young or Alwyn Bach or Milton CrossMilton CrossMilton John Cross was an American radio announcer famous for his work on the NBC and ABC radio networks.He was best known as the voice of the Metropolitan Opera, hosting its Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 43 years, from the time of their inception in 1931 until his death in...
in pretty much the same sort of stiffly formal style.
The Acousticon Hour was not a 60-minute show as the title suggests. It was a 30-minute program which NBC broadcast from 5:30 to 6pm on Sunday afternoons. In 1928, the Acousticon male quartet sang "The Palms" in recognition of Palm Sunday. The singer-songwriter Jack Norworth
Jack Norworth
Jack Norworth was a U.S. songwriter, singer and vaudeville performer.Norworth is credited as co-writer of a number of Tin Pan Alley hits. He wrote the lyrics of the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in 1908, his most long lasting hit. But it wasn't until 1940 that he actually witnessed a Major...
was a guest in March 1928, and the pianist-songwriter Jean Schwartz
Jean Schwartz
Jean Schwartz was a songwriter.Schwartz was born in Budapest, Hungary. His family moved to New York City when he was 13 years old...
appeared as a guest the following month. Selections from the operas Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
and La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
were included in the April 1928 schedule.