Radio Drama · Old Time Radio Researchers · Variety & music
Railroad Hour
- Heard
- 1938–1954
- Episodes
- 311
THE RAILROAD HOUR
More about it
Background of The Railroad Hour The series was sponsored by the Association of American Railroads. It featured highly condensed versions of popular musicals and operettas from old favorites, like Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta, to more contemporary hits such as Rodgers and Hammerstein's State Fair. Since the show was produced for NBC's "Night of Music", it should come as no surprise that the plotline sometimes came second to the music. One reviewer noted that "The complicated and multi-layered plot of Showboat, for instance, becomes nothing more than the misbegotten romance of a riverboat gambler and a romantic young lady" (RadioArchive.com). Gordon MacRae always sang the romantic lead accompanied by his leading lady du jour. Among his most popular co-stars were "MGM and Warner Brothers vocalist Lucille Norman, Metropolitan Opera stars Dorothy Kirsten and Nadine Conner, Dorothy Warenskjold of the San Francisco Opera Company, and guest artists like Jane Powell, Jeanette MacDonald, and Kenny Baker" (RadioArchive.com) The vocals were augmented by the Norman Luboff choir, and the music was led by renowned conductor/arranger Carmen Dragon. The libretti were edited by the highly experienced team of Jean Holloway, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. From the Old Time Radio Researchers Group. See "Notes" Section below for more information on the OTRR.
Episodes, in broadcast order page 1 of 4
Where it comes from 3
The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.
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Railroad Hour - Single Episodes
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Railroad Hour
Uploader’s mark: Public domain (Creative Commons dedication): Marked Public domain (Creative Commons dedication) by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.
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Railroad OTR
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
A set by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group (otrr.org), at the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio collection.
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Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.