Audio (Recordings and Radio)

Recordings

For my first interview with my grandpa, we talked about audio. We talked about this first because I assumed he would have a lot to say considering how my grandmother would tell me about how much she enjoyed music and the radio. Bob, my grandpa, on the other hand, wasn't as immersed with audio as I was hoping.

To begin, I asked him if he had a record playing in his house growing up, to which he responded no. He said he didn't get a record player until he was married to my grandmother. Bob grew up working on his family's farm and they were far from rich, so they didn't splurge on things that they didn't feel were needed.

Most of the recordings portion of this interview ended up segueing into the radio portion since he didn't own a record player. He did mention that the music that he listened to at the time was WHB out of Kansas City which played 50s music. He told me his parents trusted him and his siblings to listen to appropriate music.

"WHB was the first station to play the Top-40 songs 24 hours a day. I wasn't super in to music so all the music I knew came from here. Now, WHB is mainly sports so I don't listen as much."

Since they didn't have a record player the only times he said that he listened to music then was when he was old enough to get a car, but he did say that the one limitation was he couldn't listen to music during school hours.

As a result of Bob growing up working on his family's farm and working other jobs on top of that, when asked if he had any experiences with school or church dances he said he had never been to one before, but based on the era he said the music was fast and was intending for "dancing and parading around". Relating to never going to any dances, he also answered no to if he'd ever been to live-music performances.

My grandpa has never been someone to be on top of modern technology. He's struggled with his tv, flip phone, and computer. So when he was asked if he used the internet to stream or listen to any music or audio recordings he quickly shot it down by saying that it's new technology that he's really not into.

Radio

Most of these interview answers intertwined with the ones he had given me for recordings. When I asked him what his overall experience was with radio he said it wasn't a huge part of his life. They'd listen to WHB for music but that would only come from his radio in his car. They'd listen to the news every morning and would listen to variety shows, but not very often. The times that he would listen would mainly be between 6:30-8:30pm and he would have at least one other buddy with him listening.

When I asked him what he remembered about the commercials he gave oddly specific examples, Gerber Baby Food and one on baking soda. He said he couldn't remember exactly what the commercials were about but he remembered that a majority of commercials during that time were catchy and tried to grab your attention -- similar to commercials today.


                                           
          This is an example of a Gerber Baby food 
          ad that is from the 50s. Although it is a print 
          ad, the text is an example of something that 
          may have been spoken over the air. 


He did mention that when he upgraded from an older car to a newer one that it had an FM radio in it and he was blown away by how clear the music was. It had less static and was a lot more enjoyable for him.

Even though he is much older now, radio is still not a large part of his life. He barely listens to the radio any more as it's only on in his car, but he says his drives are so short that he never really gets the full radio experience every time he gets in his car. He stated that he mainly watches TV, but even with that he mainly watches local channels.