1929 Brunswick Brevities – Phantom Dancer 14 July 2020

Brunswick Brevities, the 1929 weekly radio series advertising Brunswick electrical records,  Brunswick radio and the Brunswick Panatrope with Radio  is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature.

You’ll hear 1920s Brunswick artists Frank Black, Libby Holman and Red Nichols with his Five Pennies from 1929 radio transcriptions.

The Phantom Dancer is produced and presented by 1920s-30s singer and actor Greg Poppleton. The show has been on-air over 107.3 2SER Sydney since 1985.

You can hear The Phantom Dancer  online from 12:04pm AEST Tuesday 14 July at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

The finyl hour is vinyl.

BRUNSWICK

Quoting research on the Brunswick Brevities radio series by John Newton at vjm.biz,

“By the summer of 1929 radio had become firmly established as the primary entertainment vehicle in the USA and it had already begun making a significant impact upon the record industry in the form of lower sales. The reasoning then was “why buy phonograph records when similar entertainment could be had for free via radio – including the very same performers.
Record sales peaked in the early 1920s and declined through much of the decade, though there was a slight bump in the 1927-8 period. With that in mind, and with radio reaching more and more households, executives of the Brunswick Balke Collender Co., hit upon the idea of using radio to advertise its products – phonographs and records and radio receivers.

BREVITIES

In mid-1929 the Brunswick decided to use its own resources of contract talent and facilities to produce their own series of broadcasts, to advertise Brunswick talent and, especially to produce Brunswick records and Brunswick radio-broadcast combinations. Instead of “live” programs, Brunswick pre-recorded its programs for future or varied time slots. In many cases these recordings for radio purposes could be made while the talent was at hand in the studios for regular recording sessions.

Brunswick called its own series of broadcast programs Brunswick Brevities and produced about 26 of the shows, each containing almost 30 minutes of entertainment and advertising. Ultimately this format would be copied by others, particularly Columbia a year or so later in the fall of 1930. The Columbia offerings were called Tele-Focal Radio Series and used dubbings from commercial recordings with added announcers and advertising. Brunswick, however, did not use dubbings. The broadcast series therefore often contained performances that were very different from the commercially-released versions of the selections.

Additionally – and significantly – the Brunswick artists occasionally did their own announcing and sometimes performed selections that they did not record for commercial release.

FIRST

The premier Brunswick Brevities went on the air, August 19, 1929 and were broadcast weekly until February 1930. Al Jolson, then Brunswick’s top artist, was featured on the first program. Jolson’s recordings for the program had been made during his July 25, 1929 recording session which produced Liza (Brunswick 4402). It was therefore no coincidence this same number was one he recorded for the broadcast. It is believed the Colonial Club Orchestra recorded the non-vocal parts of the program as they were in the studio nine days earlier. That session included a medley of songs made famous by Jolson as well as an instrumental version of There’s a Rainbow `Round My Shoulder, another Jolson hit.

Brunswick advertising in its own publications shortly after the series began listed the 28 stations that carried the weekly programs. Trade advertisements later stated that 32 stations, blanketing the country, were airing the programs every week. These advertisements for Brunswick Brevities – Radio’s Greatest Entertainment” proclaimed such “Stars of the First Magnitude” as Al Jolson, Belle Baker, Red Nichols, Abe Lyman, Nick Lucas, Ben Bernie and Zelma O’Neal.

This is the 14 September 1929 radio listing for Brunswick Brevities over WSM Nashville

VIDEO

In this week’s Phantom Dancer Video of the Week see ‘exclusive’ Brunswick artist, Red Nichols and his Five Pennies’in a 7 minute musical short from 1929. Red Nichols plays “Ida”, “Whispering”, “Nobody’s Sweetheart”, “Who Cares” and “China Boy”. The musicians are Red Nichols (cornet), Tommy Thune and John Egan (trumpet), Herb Taylor (trombone), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Irving Brodsky (piano), Eddie Condon (banjo and vega lute) and George Beebe (drums).

14 JULY PLAY LIST