I’ve been in radio for so long, when I began, recorded shows were being broadcast from reel-to-reel tape (edited by hand using a razor blade). Later, they were played from DAT tape (that is to say, Digital Audio Tape), and now from automation from a computer network.

So I really dug deep into the archive for this week’s broadcast of “The Lost Chord” – 21 years deep, as a matter of fact – extracting from a vein of probably about 100 shows that I found here on CD-R, which I likely transferred from DAT, before the station ditched the machines. According to the label on the jewel case, this particular episode aired in 2003 and 2007.

For all that, the technology is not quite as ancient as that employed for the actual recordings I selected for a nostalgic glimpse back at Christmases of yore. A few of of them date to the 1910s and 1920s. Among the featured artists are Enrico Caruso, Fritz Kreisler, John McCormack, Paul Robeson, Raymond Scott, and Fats Waller.

I hope you’ll join me, when I wipe away the cobwebs for “Ghosts of Christmases Past,” a special holiday edition of “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/