History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
If there's one thing that pairs up with a great cup of coffee, it's great radio. And for a few glorious decades from the 1930s to the 1950s, people in the Capital Region of New York got both from the legendary WGY Radio.
WGY is one of the pioneering radio stations in America. Broadcasting continuously since 1922, it was home to many firsts in broadcasting, including the first remote broadcasts, the first radio dramas, the first high powered broadcasts, the first experimental TV station and one of the very first FM radio stations, among them. It's local reputation as a media powerhouse also lent itself to some unusual diversifications.
With the blessing of WGY's ownership (General Electric), WGY Food Stores was launched in the 1920s.
How WGY entered the grocery business isn't like how you would expect. WGY Radio itself never directly handled the grocery business. Instead, they licensed their "brand" (i.e. their call letters) to a local distributor and chain operator for a cut of the profits or a set fee.
This arrangement, plus the chain's whopping 130 stores in the full blast of it's signal (a full 75 miles around Schenectady!), gave both operators an advantage. The grocer had an instantly identifiable brand and the radio station had instant free advertising and a great promotional asset.
Because radio was a marvel for people in the 1920s and it's tie-in with anything sold well.
Though best known for it's coffee (as evidenced by the many WGY coffee tins that circulate in the antique underground) WGY Food Stores also offered other branded products, such as canned evaporated milk (as mentioned in the ad above), fruits and vegetables, spices and tea. There were likely other WGY branded products as well.
WGY was still operating in the grocery business as late as 1958. But with the 1960s came the first waves of distributor consolidation and grocery stores became supermarkets. But the WGY stores seemed to be smaller stores, which were fading away to the supermarkets.
WGY Coffee jar, 1940-50s
But WGY could be considered the Amazon of it's day. It's one of the earliest examples of how one could get both their staples and entertainment from the same source (in name.)
Today, WGY has been long out of the grocery business. But still broadcasting to to the Capital Region.
Remember that Not Found In Nature, Only At Kmart shade of turquoise blue? Well bring it home for the holidays!
"This is a digitized version of an in-store reel to reel tape
that was played within a Kmart store in December 1974. The opening
Kmart jingle is interesting at the beginning of both hours, and there
are theft deterrent security pages and store policy announcements
between every few songs. This must have been in attempt to discourage
shoplifting.
This is a Tape-Athon product
perhaps in their early days - see the attached pictures. There also was
an insert within the reel to reel box stating that the recording was
made on a state of the art system -- and to possibly adjust volume
levels.
The recording contains both sides,
which are 1 hour long each, totaling 2 hours. This tape is in good
shape and was recorded on the 3¾ speed. This was transferred to digital
using my Akai GX-4000D which is in excellent operable condition, and I
cleaned the heads between plays as the tape did leave residue.
Special
Thanks to Tom Schwarzrock (Zephryrhills, FL) who personally provided
this very rare tape to me so that it can be added to the archive
collection. Tom preserved this from store #3405 Lake street in
Minneapolis, MN as he worked there as a department manager in the
1970's." - Mark Davis
Kentucky Fried Chicken holiday bucket and lid, circa late 1960s.
The 1960s and '70s will always be the heyday of the Christmas album loss leader. Tire companies were using Christmas records to entice customers. Department and grocery stores too. If it was round with grooves and played at 33 1/3 RPM, you were likely getting extra business with it.
Colonel Sanders was also bitten by the Christmas vinyl bug. And released his own series of Christmas compilation albums through RCA from 1967 to 1969.
1967
1968
There was even an Australian pressing of the 1968 edition!
Play this record at your own risk. Because once it gets inside your head, you can't get it out.
And in a surprisingly good way. The bass and drum playing are insanely catchy, if the lyrics and vocals are simply awful - even for an early bubblegum rock prototype, as this song seems to be.
This 45 was a complimentary extra with the purchase of it's latest colour-coordinated, polyester/cotton blend sportswear line, The Swingers. However I read on WFMU's page on this record that it was an extra with a doll called Bay-Hay Bee Doll. But I've never seen any evidence of this doll (and I really hope such an evil thing does not exist.)
If The Swingers sound familiar, bear in mind there were literally dozens of bands in 1965/1966 called The Swingers, or some variation (The Swingle Singers, The Swingin' Blue Jeans, The Swingin' Medallions, et al.) I'm guessing "swinger" also didn't quite have the sexual connotations at that time that it would be infamous for throughout the '70s.
The song was written by someone named Warren Parker. However, the musician roster on this track as well as any session information have been lost to time (or more likely, never kept. As it was considered a commercial marketing one-off and not a legitimate band.)
I swear between Columbia and RCA, these two former rivals (ironically, they're now both subsidiaries of Sony Music) were in a race to tie in as many custom Christmas compilation albums for retail businesses as possible in the '70s.
Columbia released albums for Goodyear, JCPenney, A&P, Safeway, Firestone and several others. RCA had Firestone, True Value Hardware, Radio Shack, Piggly Wiggly and others.
Most of these compilations contained music heard on older compilations, but with different track listings.
You probably don't recognize the name Stanley Arnold. That's a shame. Because he was the mastermind behind the best selling yearly Christmas music compilation album series in history; The Great Songs Of Christmas
You know it was best selling because your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents probably owned a few copies, if not the entire set. And to this very day, you can't thumb through any vinyl LP bin of your local thrift shop without finding at least one of the 1961-1970 Vol.1-10 run.
"Simply put, Stanley Arnold was an idea man. He originally worked for
the ad agency Young & Rubicam, then struck out on his own. He
didn’t want to start an ad agency, he started an idea agency, coming up
with marketing ideas for companies but letting them (or their ad
agencies) handle the details themselves. One of those ideas was
getting Goodyear to put out an album of Christmas songs. His logic was
simple: “Santa Claus never used a tire, but it occurred to me that
Christmas had two deep connections with Goodyear. First, everyone is
interested in Christmas; second, Goodyear sells many, many tires during
the pre-Christmas season. That would be the million dollar idea for
Goodyear, I decided: an album of Christmas music.” He was adamant that
the album not be one of “cutie” songs like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa
Claus” or “Rudolph”, but rather of classic tunes done by quality artists
– a collection worthy to be called “The GREAT Songs of Christmas.”
Arnold
was savvy business-wise, not just in the idea department. He had
Goodyear act as the outlet for the album, but did not require them to
actually invest anything in it; that way, Goodyear couldn’t lose a penny
on the deal even if no one actually bought the record. But he did have
to convince Goodyear to think big: they initially thought 30,000 copies
nationwide would be sufficient for Columbia to make; Arnold was
thinking 3 million. They eventually compromised at 900,000. The
success was proven by a simple act: by December 1, Goodyear ordered its
advertising agency to stop all advertising for the record –because there
weren’t any left! The print order for the 1962 album was 1.5 million,
and almost 2 million for the 1963 album. History repeated itself, and
those albums sold out well before Christmas also." - The Great Songs of Christmas from Goodyear
Beginning in 1961 and well into the '70s, for one dollar and a trip to your Goodyear guy, you could pick up this record and one every year. No need to stick around and kick a tire or two (unless the smell of brand new vulcanized rubber is your thing.) Nothing else to buy.
It was a loss-leader gimmick that worked out so amazingly well, it spawned some imitators (Goodyear rival Firestone had it's own custom line of yearly holiday albums custom made by Columbia's rival RCA Records for "FTP Productions" beginning in 1962.)
The Firestone album series, while a worthy nod had one problem. They initially offered a couple stars across the records and that strategy backfired against Columbia/Goodyear's wider selection. (Firestone's 1966 album was ALL Julie Andrews!)
The Goodyear records also, like K-Tel & Ronco's a decade later, had smaller grooves and selections were edited to fit. (Coincidentally, Columbia would go on to press K-Tel's early '70s albums.)
Look familiar?
Some Goodyear albums also contained exclusive recordings that to this day cannot be found anywhere else.
The Goodyear Series
(1961)
(1962)
(1963)
(1964)
(1965)
(1966)
(1967)
(1968)
(1969)
(1970) Vol. 10 was a "Best of" compilation of the most popular tracks of the
previous nine albums, leading most collectors to believe Goodyear was
discontinuing the series (they weren't just yet.)
In 1971, the series did continue...but under different names.
(1972)
(1973)
(1974)
(1975) Distribution switched from Columbia to RCA and featuring mostly RCA artists. And Goodyear's rival Firestone affiliated with Columbia.
(1976) An all Henry Mancini LP
(1977) Perry Como and Eugene Ormandy
However, other retailers were also interested in releasing their own tie-in
packaged compilation albums. JCPenney, Sears, A&P Grocery, Safeway
and several others also offered holiday music compilations of their own
through the major labels and now Goodyear and Firestone were two of many and sales slumped.
The labels also offered non tie-in compilation albums (sometimes with the same track listing and order as the Goodyear/Firestone albums) available through any
retailer through their "Special Product" or "Special Market" divisions.
The Christmas album loss leader remained popular through the 1980s. By the '90s, production had switched exclusively to cassettes and CDs.
One of the last attempts at a Christmas loss leader series, these cassettes were produced by RCA in 1991 and marketed by Winston cigarettes. They were given away free with the purchase of specially marked 2 pack boxes.
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