It exists so that people that are looking for oldies can find them, no matter how obscure they are. There are a lot of audio items, very old novelty songs from the very early 1900's through the 1920's, lots of great doo-wop and R&B tunes, obscure rock songs, rare out-takes and stereo versions of songs that I have personally been looking for for many years. In addition, I am always looking for vintage radio commercials, radio station jingles and old TV show themes as well. For example, I have been looking for ages for the Milton Berle Texaco Star Theater theme from his 1948-'53 TV show on NBC. I wasn't alive when Uncle Milty's Texaco Star Theater dominated that 8 PM time slot on Tuesday nights, but I heard the theme for the first time back in 1985 in a special two part Family Ties show called Remembrances of Things Past.
OCTOBER 27, 2008 UPDATE: After 23 years of looking for this theme, I finally found an early Milton Berle show on Youtube and recorded the audio of this classic hard to find theme song about the men of Texaco who work from Maine to Mexico. You can download the theme here or stream it here. I am mighty glad to have finally found this theme after 23 years of searching.
It occured to me that there may be songs and other audio items that you folks have also been looking for. So I thought I would set up a special website where we can share audio material with each other. Then as I got thinking about it, I thought it would also be nice if we could have a place where we could discuss music with each other, topics like rare versions or original versions of songs, alternate takes and whether they are better or worse than the released versions, novelty break in records, whether certain songs were ever recorded in TRUE stereo and so much more. I felt it would be really nice if there was a place where we could exchange thoughts and ideas and information about rare vintage music, airchecks, commercials and jingles, and although the Audioldies forum isn't very active nowadays like it once was, I hope that with any luck, perhaps eventually it'll come back to life with your feedback, contributions and participation. I sure hope so, and I would like to personally thank Andy Merey and Alice for their very worth while contributions to the Audioldies forum.
Plenty! You can get a lot of music that you won't find anywhere else on the net for one thing. Just ask Mike Yale of Huntsville Ontario how many of his requests I've managed to fill, literally hundreds of songs have been uploaded to this website because he was looking for them.
Jay Spell of North Carolina is also a very happy camper with this website, and requested a rare Joe South song and several others which he was able to download literally within hours of requesting them. Walt Kramer too has often requested songs sometimes going all the way back to the twenties, and your Audioldies webmaster has been able to put these songs up on the site within just hours of his requests as well. For example, one day Walt requested a 1927 song by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra called Ain't no sweet man that's worth the salt of my tears, and your Audioldies webmaster happened to have this song in his collection. So it was up on the site within an hour or so of being requested. Other songs that Walt has asked for in recent months include: On The Sunny Side Of The Street by Tommy Dorsey, Can't Find My Way Home by Blind Faith, Got A Girl by the Four Preps, When I Learn How To Cry by Jan and Dean, Fantasy by Les Paul and Mary Ford, Twinkle Toes by Roy Orbison, Boys Don't Cry by Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones, Slinky by Link Wray and his Wraymen, Inn The Good Old Summertime by the Kirby Stone Four and Just A Little by Brenda Lee.
Marc Baillargeon of Edmonton Alberta recently made a request for a song whose title he wasn't absolutely sure of. He knew that the song was popular back in the forties during World War II. He thought the song was called Rosie the Riveter but he had no idea of who it was done by. Within hours, Jay, our website administrator had located this song by Redd Evans and John Jacob in his collection and had it up on the site. So as you can see, here at Audioldies we really do try to find the songs that folks are looking for. This site will attempt to do the same thing for you, provided that one of our many Audioldies members has, or can locate the song or songs that you're looking for. The number of people available to upload material to this website is constantly growing, so we are really establishing a solid network of music efficianados who can find even the most obscure songs from a number of different genres. There will be all kinds of material passing through this website, everything from old songs from the twenties and earlier through the forties, novelty songs to rare doo-wop and R&B from the late forties and fifties, perhaps some rockabilly, hard to find stereo songs and of course those wonderful out-takes with count off and studio chatter included so that you feel like you're right inside the studio with the recording artists.
I have been searching for hard to find material before which I've casually mentioned on this website, and thanks to the power of search engines like Google, people have found my requests and even managed to provide them for me. One example was a ten-inch Columbia album called Joanne Sings by Mary Stuart with Percy Faith and his Orchestra from 1954 that my parents, particularly my dad wanted to hear once again since our copy had been thrown out years ago because it was no longer playable. Incredibly, a woman named Lisa was looking for this same album as well because it brought back childhood memories for her also, and Google directed her to this very page of this website and she contacted me to tell me that her dad still had the album, and he made two CD copies of his album, so finally after over thirty years of searching, I now have a copy of the album on CD. Thanks again Lisa. There are several other people that over the past few months have been searching for this album using a search engine, and they were probably disappointed that they only found mention of the album, but didn't find the album itself on this website. Well, because of the interest in this hard to find album, I have made it available now as a self extracting Winrar file, and you can download the Joanne Sings album now right here. I figure that since music files are your thing anyway, you won't have any trouble with downloading or extracting this file. However, should anyone have any problems extracting this file onto your hard drive, just drop me a line on the Audioldies contact form and I'll do my best to help you. It's certainly an album that fills my mind with very early childhood memories from when I was only three years old. If there are childhood memories that you would like to be able to hear again, just ask, and I'll certainly see what I can do along with the growing network of Audioldies members that can find almost anything no matter how obscure it is, especially this woman who calls herself Cookie!
Then of course, there is also the Audioldies forum which is a very genuine and friendly group of people with a passion for music, and you may want to join the Audioldies forum as well. You can read all forum topics and comments without signing up with the forum, but if you want to reply to an existing topic or add your own new topic, then you'll have to register with the Audioldies forum. To do this, go to the Audioldies website at: http://www.audioldies.net/ From the main, index page You will see several links related to the forum. Select the link that says "register here." When that page opens, all you need to do is fill out a very short registration form with the log in name that you'll want to use on the forum and your E-mail address. It must be a valid E-mail address since the system will be sending you a temperary password. Once you've registered with the forum you should receive that E-mail almost immediately. If you don't receive an E-mail from Audioldies with a temporary password soon after registering, please let us know by using the Contact Sam form link at the bottom of the Index page. Note that the temporary password will be sent to you automatically from the address: forum@audioldies.net We suggest you enter that email address in your address book so messages from it will not be removed from your in box by any junk filters you may have in place. Once you have received your temporary password, log into the forum with your user name and this new temporary password. Then go to the link that says "Options" and you can change your password to something that is more meaningful and will be easier for you to remember. That's all there is to it.
Audioldies now has a special links page with links to many outstanding websites about music and many great oldies audio streams as well. The list of great oldies audio streams is continuely growing thanks to great folks like Walt Kramer and Marty Rimpau that are constantly alerting your Audioldies webmaster of new obscure oldies audio streams as they find them. There is also a section devoted to radio aircheck and jingle sites, as well as a general interests section for you to check out. There is also a page devoted to directories of world-wide radio stations that you can listen to and enjoy on the net, and I've always found it absolutely fascinating to check out radio stations in exotic countries of the world.
We now have expanded to a considerable amount of available space thanks to the generosity of my web hosting administrator, so that means that there isn't nearly as much of a rush to download a song from the Audioldies web site as soon as you see it as there once was, because we can now leave material up here much longer than we did in the past. However, the site will still be changing very often, hopefully in a positive way as more and more material gets added to both our general oldies page and our themes page every week.
No problem, you are still welcome to join us in our discussions, and to download any material that you want.
For several months at least. That still depends on how much material is uploaded to the site, and although the site has considerable room now, I will sometimes be clearing older material from the site just so that the files page in particular doesn't end up getting too unweildy and loading for people too slowly. Many people out there are pretty impatient and don't enjoy pages that load real slowly. If something is really popular and lots of people want to download it, all they need to do is Contact me to tell me. I obviously won't take it off the site for a while. But one thing is for sure, this Audioldies website will not be allowed to get stale. I think this is something that we will have to play by ear.
Just use the Upload Registration Form you'll find on many of the pages here. Once your registration has been confirmed, you'll be able to upload files at any time. This registration only needs to be done once. Your "Login" and "Password" are yours only and won't change unless you request it.
To help avoid spammers and hackers from messing with the files page, I've had to create this log in function for the upload form. Sorry about that, but I thank you for your understanding.
Well, if you have short vintage video clips of rare live fifties performances of R&B or rock groups or artists or early old TV commercials or program openings, those would certainly be welcome very much since we do have the space for them here now. But for the most part, yes, this is an audio site, after all, the name of the site is Audioldies, and this is the theme and the primary purpose of this website, sharing audio files of oldies with other people that visit this web page. Here at Audioldies, we have an interest in a wide range of oldies from the very earliest days of recorded sound through the twenties, the swing and big band eras, the oldies of the fifties and sixties and everything in between. I personally have a keen interest in the doo wop and rhythm and blues music of the late forties through the early sixties. Of course we also love novelty material here at Audioldies as well and when the website was first up and running back in 2002, the novelty selections on the site seemed to be the most popular. . I generally want to keep this site focused on audio files, but certainly if you have some rare video footage that you'd like to share with us, then by all means post it.
In addition to the two pages of mp3 files available on this website, our regular files page and our themes page which changes each month, sometimes you will see a link available on the themes page, which will take you to an additional or second page called the EXTRA THEME PAGE which will have a completely different theme on it than the theme that appears on the main theme page giving you even more musical selections to choose from and enjoy.
The Audioldies website also carries four weekly oldies radio shows. We carry Serius-XM Radio's Pink And Black Days shows from their 50s on 5 channel with Alex Ward no relation, and My Place with Joel Najman from Vermont Public Radio. The shows can either be downloaded or streamed depending on your preference. In addition, Audioldies also archives a radio show from WKNH FM at Keene State College in New Hampshire called Oldies Time Machine with Steve Summers and just like with the other two shows, you have your choice of downloading or streaming these shows as well. We sincerely hope you enjoy these three hour oldies show archives hosted by DJ Steve Summers, as well as the one hour Pink And Black Days shows from Alex Ward at Serius-XM Radio and Joel Najman's My Place shows at VPR.
We have just added a brand new oldies sho to the lineup of weekly shows available here at Audioldies. This show is especially geared to serious doo-wop and R&B collectors, Johnny Galindo's Vinyl Treasures show a two hour show of very rare material from the golden age of doo-wop and R&B is now available for you to enjoy right here as well.
As most folks that have been here for a while know, we also have a Special Announcements Page available for folks to check out. Although two of the three radio shows that we make available on the website used to be located on this page, now the page has been set aside for exactly what it was intended for, special announcements and updates about the website and special audio features that are not a regular part of the Audioldies website. So check this page often. It's another Audioldies page that will be changing often.
So have fun, enjoy the "AUDIOLDIES" site, and welcome to you all.