Three Minutes In The Life of a Little Girl

Have you ever seen a recording disc? It's a record-album-looking thing with either a couple extra holes, or a blank side, or a label with empty spaces to write in the title of the recording. There were lots of ways these were made: mostly in the studio, although portable kits were around. There were even consumer-grade versions once in a while, but radio made significant use of the technology, archiving or forwarding live performances in disk format.

I love to grab these, whenever I can find them. Many are high school bands, struggling their best to sound like professionals (and they must be - they've got a record to prove it!), or hopeful musicians sending out their demo. I found one of a church organist, who archived one performance for posterity, lest her art be lost to her children after she passes away.

I recently acquired an interesting one - the label says, "STAR OF TOMORROW", dated 7/19/1947, recorded by KTSP, Minneapolis/St Paul.

Those of you over 25 who are familiar with record albums readily set the needle at the outside edge of a record -- because that's where the record starts, right? This album has a very significant marker to indicate that this is a one-and-only recording - the needle starts at the inside and works outward. There's also a caveat that this recording is for reference only, not for broadcast or other public performance. I, however, live on the edge, and have encoded the record for you to listen to.

PLAY >

You may want to listen to it as you read.

It starts with the unnamed announcer introducing the performer: Mary-Ann Shute, singing Mamselle.

She starts out quiet, too far away from the microphone, but slowly things become balanced. She makes a few mistakes, but continues on.

Stop reading and listen to her sing.

You can hear her voice, soft, melodic, untrained...and young. Mary-Ann, as they describe shortly after her performance, is ten years old, performing for the first time on the radio. Not only that, her studio audience sounds equally as young. The kind announcer chit-chats with her and the audience for a few moments, then offers Mary-Ann a prize from the gift table.

The young singer makes a wise choice: A Brenda Starr: Court Reporter Camera. She is then ushered away, with a description of her final prize.

Mary-Ann also won a record album -- one being recorded that very moment. Her final parting gift was this very album, on my record player, the recording of her own radio performance.

Imagine being ten in 1947: a little older than the Baby Boomers, and old enough to really catch on what's going on around you. War was recent enough to see the effects, air travel advances are taking leaps and bounds, space flight seems a near reality, racial integration in the baseball leagues, nuclear weapons, Communists are becoming a threat -- and the media world is really expanding. Movies are really reaching a golden age, television is publicly affordable, telephones are everywhere, and radio is king.

All your friends' families have a radio, everyone listens to the radio -- and your talents just happen to get you on the air. You're scheduled to sing a song on "Star of Tomorrow," down at the radio station. You arrive, you're briefed on what to do, and the show begins.

Back to the 21st century: have you ever been interviewed on TV? It's tough, you think you sound stupid, but with 500 channels, who's going to see you anyway. In the 1940s, if you were on the radio, someone you know would hear you. Mary-Ann wasn't just interviewed: she performed. This is the equivalent of a Star Search or American Idol moment on a 1940s scale. At ten years old, Mary-Ann got on the radio, sang for thousands of listeners, took her camera and her record, and went home.

While the collector in me wishes I had that Brenda Starr camera, I can tell why the recording is the prize that lasted the better part of a century. This isn't just some antique, not some old valuable to be passed around. Antiques and collectibles survive the years because they are worth something. Sometimes, it's not a monetary value. Sometimes the value is personal; it's the value of three minutes in the day of a ten-year-old girl.

Article by Derek


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