Obviously, they’re not entirely forgotten. I mean, here they are. Someone saved them. I’ve had them for years. It would be safe to say they’re not forgotten at all.

But I wrote that on the banner, so I suppose I’d better explain what I was possibly thinking. I mean, it’s not as if anyone spends a lot of time thinking about these sounds. If anyone does consider 50s radio, it’s strictly in the rock-and-roll Wolfman Jack DJ mode, right? As if that was the entirely of the medium, instead of a sliver.

Fifties radio was a mature medium, past its monopoly days. TV took center stage in the living room, and the radio was relegated to the kitchen, or the portable. These were the sounds that wafted out from the countertop media dissemination device, or the car radio.

There are ads, which is self-explanatory, and then there’s the music from radio shows, interstitial ditties that introduced scenes or walked them out to the spot. The latter is more interesting to me, and comprises a body of music that’s uncollected and somewhat . . . well, forgotten. Until now!