Sound Beat

You’re listening to “The Airplane” from an RCA Victor Youth Series 78 entitled “LET’S PLAY”. It was produced by Helen Myers in 1946. The year before that, New York mayor Fiorello Laguardia left office. One of his biggest achievements, the development of the airport that would bear his name, came about as the result of, well, a bit of a hissy fit. The mayor had been sold a ticket to “New York”, which was at the time serviced by Newark Airport. Indignant, he refused to step on to Jersey soil and demanded to be flown to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, and held an impromptu press conference proclaiming New York City’s need for an airport. In short, it worked, and construction began in 1939. Image: unknown author, courtesy of U.S. National Archives. Aerial view of the tip of Manhattan, New York, United States ca. 1931. Note that the Cities Service Building (now known as the American International Building), which would become lower Manhattan’s tallest building in 1932, is only partially completed.

Why did Governor Dewitt Clinton build a giant ditch across New York state? To get to the other side. From the time the first shovel went into the ground in 1817, critics blasted the Erie Canal project, dubbing it Clinton’s Ditch. But it would go down in history as an engineering marvel. When finished, it stretched three hundred and sixty three miles across New York, from : (lyrics “Albany to Buffalo”) This is Low Bridge! Everybody Down, sung by Edward Meeker in a wax cylinder recording from 1913. The Canal forever changed shipping in the Northeast, cutting transportation costs a whopping ninety percent. It also helped open a steady trade route with the Midwest, turning a seed of a downstate port town into the Big Apple. Mules like Old Sal were the early stars of the canal system, but steam powered barges rendered them obsolete by the end of the 19th century.

You’re listening to the Carter Family’s rendition of “Honey in the Rock”, a Coral Record from 1949, and you’re on the Sound Beat. Frederick A. Graves originally wrote the song in 1895, but his version was a bit, well, heavy…A.P. Carter then rewrote it in 1937 to better fit the Carter Family’s repertoire. In short, he focused more on the “honey and the salvation” than the” blood and the sins”. Probably a good move, sales-wise. The Carter Family recorded for over 30 years, helping to create and then redefine country music, and were inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1970. This episode was co-written by Syracuse University Honors student Jack McCormack, part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership. Learn how students are interacting with historic sound right now at Soundbeat.org

Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan, and nicknamed Lady Day. This 1946 recording of “Big Stuff” represents something of an anomaly in her career. It emerged only multiple, vigorous recording sessions. Her difficulties in the studio seemed to mirror those in her personal life, as Holiday was struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. The song itself was composed by Leonard Bernstein for his 1944 ballet “Fancy Free”. Once Holliday’s version was released, it was featured in the opening scene, playing from a juxebox. This episode was written in part by Syracuse University student Sarah Detweiler, as part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership project. To learn more about the Partnership, click here!