The Italian Hour

Radio Stations

I used to listen to a Sunday morning radio program of Polka Music. This was long before the internet when radio was the only way to listen to music. Sometimes I’d stay up late to listen to country music from WWVA Wheeling West Virginia or Ravi Shankar ragas being played  on WBAI, a New York college station.

There were numerous radio stations mostly on the AM band that played music for an ethnic audience. Besides the Polka show, there shows for every nationality.  In Pittsburg there was a show called “The Italian Hour”. It was hosted by Tony Ortale.

The Italian Hour

Anthony S. Ortale hosted “The Italian Hour” for 43 years. However during that time he did have some help with the broadcasts. One of these hosts was Gino Romagna, father of my friend Paul Romagna. Paul described how his father would record  the show on a portable Webcor tape recorder attached to a microphone and turntable connected with an audio mixing device.. His mom would join in with advertisements in English. The tapes would be sent to WPIT in Pittsburgh, PA for broadcast.

The Record Collection

Paul ended up with a box full of Italian records that his Dad had played on the radio show. He gave them to a charity yard sale but no one what interested. I had an idea of digitizing a few of them and uploading them to YouTube. I figured that YouTube was the new medium for finding esoteric recordings. For me it was late night AM radio, maybe I might make a connection via this technology. This is one of my uploads.

https://youtu.be/-7Wfezito_w

Imagine My Surprise

I received a nice comment from a woman explaining that her grandfather was singing on the recording . His name was  Giovanni Pasini and he was called in to replace someone who was ill. He did an admirable job considering that he had one collapsed lung after a bout with pneumonia. She explained that she was unable to locate this recording and I was only too happy to sent it to her.

Now I wonder what else I might find in this box of records. I’ve only digitized a handful. This story is incomplete.