They'd listen to shows like the Grand Ol' Opry, and singers like Hank Williams and Hank Snow, whose big hit, "I'm Movin' On", probably came through that radio a few times. He had the perfect radio voice - strong, a little reedy, and backed by the driving guitar. (Hank was a pretty big star at that time, but also has another claim to fame. A few years later, he helped a young singer named Elvis appear on the Opry.
Unfortunately, after the show Elvis was told to go back to truck driving.)
When my mom and I visited, the radio was usually on every evening, limited only by my grand-dad's patience and my mom's persistence. However, I had a great aunt who had much stricter rules about radio usage at her house. She lived way in the backwoods and didn't have electricity, so if we visited her and night fell we'd end up sitting and talking by the light of a kerosene lamp - and sometimes listening to the radio! It worked on batteries and was the first I'd ever seen.
Battery radios were pretty common in pre-war rural America, but as electrification spread after the war, they were no longer needed except in isolated locations. They were often called "farm radios" which kind of gives you an idea of where they were most often used. Batteries were expensive, but sometimes the radios were rigged so that they could run off a lead-acid battery that could then be recharged in the farmer's car or tractor. Of course, the battery might leak all over the parlor floor and ruin your carpet, so that method had its drawbacks too.
Listening to music now is a lot simpler and easier than it was then, but maybe not quite as... interesting.
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Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
this reminds me of this country store i went to a few months ago in upstate ny. there were old radios here and there on the shelves.
...all tuned to the same station, which was picking up the satellite radio playing elsewhere at the store.
2 - Big Geez
But was there a pot-bellied stove with an electric log inside? LOL
Thanks for the comment, Mark.
3 - Mark Saleski
even better would be one of those cardboard fake fireplaces with the lightbulb and spinner behind the fake cardboard flames.
oh yea!
4 - Michael J. West
God, Big Geez, I love your articles. Pretty soon I'll be able to get back into some music writing of my own. :-)
5 - zingzing
i don't own an ipod. i don't own a home computer. just in the past couple of weeks i've been adding music to itunes on my computer here at work. basically, i just bring in stuff i've borrowed or mp3 discs that people have made me. i've begun to notice how infrequent it is for me to listen to a full album. kinda sucks. having so much choice kind of allows you to make choices. for once, that is dangerous. [struggling to make it all the way through the band-the band, but really wanting to put on the new current 93...]
6 - Big Geez
Thanks for all the comments, everybody.
Michael, I hope you do - you are missed. (Your "critic's conundrum" article not only reverberated with me, but I also stole the word for a completely unrelated article I wrote later.)