Wide Weird World of Shorty Petterstein (Henry Jacob MP3s)

When the history of freeform radio is written, KPFA from Berkeley will figure prominently. It was on KPFA in the late 40's and early 50's that some of the first audio experiments and collages took place on a broadcast station in the US. And one sound artist who influenced KPFA from afar (and then became a programmer there) was Henry Jacobs.

Jacobs got his start in radio on a Mexican border blaster, but eventually settled in Chicago where his love affair with reel to reel tape manipulations and audio experimentation gave birth to a weekly radio show called Music and Folklore (a Best-Of was later issued on Folkways Records). KPFA aired the Music and Folklore shows, so when Jacobs arrived there in 1953, he was already known. In the bay area, Jacobs fell in with Alan Watts and Ken Nordine and collborated with Lenny Bruce and Karlheinz Stockhausen. (Lenny's first LP, Interviews of Our Times, was a Jacobs project.) Jacobs went on to co-invent the concept of Surround Sound at the Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco, and he was invited to the Brussels World Expo in 1958 to recreate it. He also went on to produce ground-breaking television, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1964. A few years ago, Important Records issued a Best-Of Henry Jacobs CD and DVD called The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs.

Here is his 1950's "comedy" LP, The Wide Weird World of Shorty Petterstein. Click the image on the right for the album's annotated back cover.

A History of Jazz   |   Origins of Jazz Terms   |   Do You Want A Little Lovin?

Chess (3 Dimensional)   |   Rock and Roll Interview with Jump Caulkenburger

Georges Mother (The Classic Psychopath)   |   Guitar For Sale

Telephone Interview (Another Service Of Your Local Telephone Company)

Drums In My Typewriter   |   A Visit To My Best Friend's Girl

Mental Blockages   |   Breaking The Habit   |   Quiet Children

Self-Analysis - A Frank Admission   |   It's No Laughing Matter

Comments

[Brendt Rioux]

Brendt Rioux, Music Director at WCBN here saying THANKS for posting this album! I've been looking for a long time for it, as I'm a big fan of the Henry Jacobs school of radio- you and me both, I guess.

[Andrew]

Beautiful poetry. Thank you.

[scoot]

This brief article got me ordering several Henry Jacobs CDs even before I got a chance to listen to these brilliant downloads. As always to WFMU, I owe a million thanks for introducing me to another too-little-known genius! (I was delighted to discover that I already had an old album that features Mr. Jacobs: Folkways FX 6160, "Sounds of New Music" from 1957, which also features John Cage, Halim El-Dabh, Henry Cowell, Vladmiri Ussachevsky, Edgar Varese, and others--illustrious company, well-deserved. Now I've just ordered a new CD of that classic from the Smithsonian Folkways website.)

[Cheshire Adams]

Far out. Cheers!

[Jamie Haynes]

Thanks so much for putting these up. My parents had this album when it came out (for reasons I can't begin to fathom) and I used to play it to death. Have been looking for it forever. God bless you, and WFMU.