Betty Terry - Make Believe / I'll See You Again (1941) Live WOSU Broadcast.

Broadcast date: Late 1941. Likely October.
This is the B Side of this acetate, as will be shown in the future, because a broadcast from around June is on the flipside.

Back in July of 2024, I acquired 5 10" 33rpm Acetates that someone in the Ohio area recorded between Summer 1941 and Spring 1942 from what I've found. Whoever this person was, they had likely just bought a console radio with a turntable & lathe. This was by no doubt recorded by an amateur, and you'll hear audible anomalies all throughout as a result (aside from crackle & hiss from the age). Recording will start and stop abruptly, sometimes with some "wow-ing" that I can't correct. Some of these discs it seems they were using to test out their new lathe by recording what was on the air, while others are more intentional by how they will have all of the space for grooving used up on each side. Some have writing saying what it is, while others have nothing but the contents recorded to explain themselves. Some of these have had a significant amount of damage from improper play, or just from abuse over the years. In some cases so severe that it's been intimidating to approach. But now with a solid year of digitization experience under my belt, I'm finally getting around to this. All songs will have these paragraphs of analyses under them upon release.

Info on Betty Terry is very scarce. Aside from timetables at various stations in the 20s - 40s, I've found barely anything on her at all. Like most everyone of the radio age, she has no commercial recordings. This is quite possibly her only known recording around. She was limited to the Ohio area. Seeming to first appear as a featured organist at the Grand Theatre in Columbus, Ohio in 1925, who played the hit song "Pal Of My Cradle Days" enough that it got her picture on a copy of the sheet music. You see this picture in the video. She was playing organ on the air as early as 1926 from what I've found, for a "Midnight Concert" program of hers, over WAIU in Columbus. When it became one of the original stations to start the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1927, she was broadcasting there still. She stayed there through 1936. Obscure timetables published in "Movie Radio Guide" starting in 1937, show that this year, she was on 15 minute programs for another Columbus station, WHKC, and staying through 1939.

In 1940 she's spotted over Ohio State University's station WOSU for 15 minute slots, mostly in the afternoon and early evening, as it became 1941 and 1942, where she seems to be doing her "Melody Time" show. (This is a common title, seen as frequently as "[Instrument] Recital/Concert" back then on many stations) On the timetables shown in video (Movie Radio Guide 2/8/1942; pp 17), it shows her slot being at 5:30 EST. In a funny coincidence, on September 19th of '42, she had one of her 15 minute slots, while in Chicago over the Mutual Broadcasting System 17 hours prior at the start of the day, Griff Williams's orchestra featured a contralto singer of the same name over their airwaves. She didn't last long as this is the only mention of her. After 1942 the Betty Terry of this broadcast, nearly disappears from view. in April of 1956, The International Musician, the official journal of the AFM, reports her as the organist at the Hollywood Restaurant in Columbus. So she likely continued working at least into the early 60s in that area.

These two songs are almost certainly from the end of one of the countless 15 minute slots she had over WOSU for this "Melody Time" program. She's not said to be at any other station at the time, and it checks out with the frequent 5PM window she was on the air usually, helped by the announcer stating the next program would be at 5:15 on a Monday. WOSU back in these times had a range of about 70 miles outside of Columbus, and was independent of networks. So unless our lathe-operator is listening in from Northern Kentucky, or central West Virginia, more than likely, these acetates originate from Ohio, and not from here in Florida, or elsewhere. It was likely recorded in October 1941 sometime, due to the next track being Jose Morand over WLW on October 31st, 1941. We can't ever know for certain, but it seems unlikely to me that they waited months between having this segment, and then go straight to a few minutes of the Morand broadcast.

0:00 Make Believe.
1:41 I'll See You Again.
3:07 "Melody Time" outro theme.

#1941 #wosu #bettyterry #organ #1940s #1940smusic #radio #radiobroadcast #acetate #history #ohio #ohiostate #osu

Califone 1030AV, 3mm compatible sapphire stylus.
This is one of 3 recordings featured on this side of this acetate. The other two you can find here:
1. Tommy Dorsey record over unknown station:    • Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra - I Guess I'l...  
3. Jose Morand live over WLW:    • Jose Morand & His Orchestra  - [??] Tropic...