Thank you! I don't remember ever seeing this clip, but I do remember the occasion. My mother had a role in a story sequence on the Tom Mix afternoon serial. Of course to me at that age that was a far greater thing than V&S: listening to Tom Mix and the other shows for kids was part of my after-school agenda. So that day not only did I get to see Tom Mix broadcast and meet the cast (Tom Mix was played by Curley Bradley and Leo Curley was his sidekick sheriff), I discovered that another favorite program, Captain Midnight, was done in the adjoining studio, so my joy was complete. Both shows were on the Mutual Network, from the WGN studios in the Tribune Tower.
Tom
Mix was broadcast live twice, to accommodate different parts of the
network. That was a fairly common practice back then, before magnetic
tape was widely used. At one time V&S was broadcast both on NBC and
CBS. I remember my mother telling me that the cast and Paul Rhymer has a
standing reservation for a limo to get them from the Merchandise Mart
to the Wrigley Building every day. At any rate, there was an interval
of, I think, 45 minutes between the two Tom Mix broadcasts, with nothing
going on. That's when I met the organist, who showed me how the Hammond
organ worked. Then I was allowed to play it up until they began to get
ready for the second broadcast.
That did lead
to two years of piano lessons (I wasn't very diligent about practicing).
Later on in junior high school I learned to play the tuba, sort of, and
in high school switched to double bass. It was only after a hitch in
the Navy and a couple of other things that I got to college, eventually
as a music major, and got a degree in composition. I did study organ
some at that time, but my professional focus became composing and
conducting, the latter mostly choral. And that's where I am today. But
that encounter with the Hammond organ was certainly a starting point.
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