"War of the Worlds" and Crypt Tunes

TUNE IN OGR ON
Saturday, October 30th for a special airing of the 72nd anniversary of the 1938 broadcast adaptation of H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” by Orson Welles. The original broadcasted over Mercury Theatre on the Air, a CBS radio network, scared audiences all over the country with vision of aliens landing in New Jersey.

DJ Jitar will rebroadcast the complete original airplay, uninterrupted, on Our Generation Radio on October 30, 2010 starting at 6 PM Eastern Time.

Be sure to tune in and get everyone ready for Halloween.

Sit back and enjoy a small glimpse of radio's hay-day, just as our Moms and Dads did, when words played a triple role that of sight,sound and imagination.

Orson Welles, 1937
The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast, a series of simulated "news bulletins", led listeners to believe an actual alien invasion by Martians was happening.

What made it more realistic was Mercury Theatre running it without commerical interruption. Sensationalist accounts in the press occurred about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast but the precise extent of listener response has been debated. Widespread outrage followed the broadcast. It was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode secured Orson Welles' fame.






Halloween always a time for scary songs, but not the overplayed "Monster Mash", "Werewolves of London", or "Witchy Woman". Try downloading one or two of these classics for a haunting change of pace.



"Rumble", Link Wray & His Ray Men, 1958, used unheard of musical techniques for distortion and feedback. The song is "the only instrumental single banned from the radio airwaves as it had a rough sound and said it sounded like a street fight.
And once a long standing theme song from two of my fav local TV shows Son of Svengoolie and Screaming Yellow Theatre.




"I Put a Spell on You", Screamin Jay Hawkins, 1956. His most successful recording, was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.









“Bad Moon Rising" , Creedence Clearwater Revival, written by John Fogerty. No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in September 1969.
The song has been recorded by at least 20 different artists, in styles that range from acoustic folk to reggae to psychedelic rock to zydeco.





“Tubular Bells” , Mike Oldfield, 1973, not a single word is spoken in an all hell breaking loose theme from THE EXCORIST.












"Gloomy Sunday", closely associated with Billie Holiday, who scored a hit in 1941. Unsubstantiated urban legends tell that it inspired hundreds of suicides, and was dubbed the "Hungarian suicide song" in the United States.








From ghoulies and ghosties, Long-leggety beasties, And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us.

WINNIE-BOO wishes you a devilishly-delightful Holloween!

Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

The “Queen of Disco” after years of touring the U.S. and Europe now embarks on a new second act: teaching.

Gloria Gaynor, singer, actress and author is back in school studying psychology and hopes to one day open a Los Angeles healing and recreational center. Her goal to teach teens and parents life skills. “I want to teach them how to survive.”

And who better - her famous chart-topping, disco song, “I Will Survive”, is still played in nightclubs and radio. Its rated 97 on Billboard’s “Greatest Songs of All Times” with over 14 million copies sold and earned her a Grammy Award.

Gloria’s life long passion for song roots back to her early childhood where she was one of six children growing up in a tiny Newark, NJ flat.
Listening to the radio with dreams of becoming a singer as great as Nat King Cole or Sarah Vaughn.
Honing her skill, she joined school choirs and glee clubs. After high school, singing with house bands in local bars and clubs.'
Soon thereafter, on the road and auditions.
Columbia Record label signed her and she recorded her 1975 first disco hit, “Never Can Say Goodbye”.
The National Association of Discotheque Disc Jockeys crowned her disco queen in 1976.

Two years later Gloria took a serious spill on stage that left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Emergency surgery, months in a half body brace, and while still in recovery, Gloria records “I Will Survive”.
She is not surprised by the song’s staying power all these years - it just magnifies her own personal belief with its timeless lyrics.

As many OGR’ers know, like Gloria, we can not only fulfill our childhood dreams but then go on to reinvent ourselves too.

Ciao for Now!! Winnie