Tag: 1930s

A Drive Up Fifth Avenue, ca. 1937

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You know how, when you’re watching an old movie and there’s a scene in the interior of a car, and through the rear window, you can see rear-projected footage of the city streets the car is supposedly traveling on? If the movie you’re watching is set in NYC, there’s a chance that this is the footage you’re seeing.

This trip back in time begins at 60th Street and Fifth, just a block up from the Plaza Hotel, and continues north for 3.5 minutes or so, and then other angles are shot for the remaining time.

Big News from Cladrite Radio!

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Big news!We’ve got big news! Cladrite Radio has taken the Patreon plunge, and we wanted you to be the first to know.

Patreon is a website that allows creative types to receive monthly support from their fans, followers and, in our case, listeners. We’ve set up several contribution levels, starting as low as $1 a month, and with a thank-you gift (or gifts) at each level.

Cladrite Radio is a labor of love, but it costs us a good deal of money, time and energy. A little support from our listeners, readers and followers will go a long way toward making things a bit easier for us.

If you listen to our toe-tapping tunes, enjoy our posts here on our blog and on our various social media platforms, or both, we’d very much appreciate if you’d at least pay a visit to our Patreon page and consider chipping in what you can—you’ll receive some swell stuff in return, in addition to our deep gratitude. We love exploring the pop culture of the first half of the 20th century with you, and your support can help us dig even deeper.

Cladrite Radio’s New Home Sweet Home

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You may have noticed that things look a bit different around these parts, and there’s a good reason for that: We’ve been hard at work for weeks, revamping our website.

Cladrite Radio is now a fully secure, mobile-friendly website and we have a brand new streaming player for you to enjoy our toe-tapping tunes of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. We hope you’ll put the new site through its paces and let us know if you experience any technical issues.

Moving the site to a new server and springing for increased security wasn’t cheap, so if you’d like to show your support by chipping in a few clams, you’ll see a link to the right of this post that allows you to do just that. And thanks!

An attractive woman sits listening to a vintage radio

Dame Vera Lynn’s Still Got It

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Dame Vera LynnWe were tickled pink recently to learn that the recent greatest-hits release from Dame Vera Lynn has sold more copies than any other album released by a female artist in the U.K. this year.

Not bad for a 100-year-old songbird!

Lynn, known during World War II as “the Forces’ Sweetheart” for the inspiring wartime songs she sang and her dedicated efforts to entertain the troops, celebrated her centenary birthday in March of this year, and though she’s no longer recording, her reissues and greatest-hits packages have always done very well.

But the top-selling female artist in the U.K. more than 65 years after her heyday? That speaks to the deep affection and high esteem in which Dame Vera is held.

Longtime Cladrite Radio listeners and readers know very well how we feel about Dame Vera; her music has been a big part of our playlist since we went “on the air” years ago. So you can imagine how excited we were to receive in the mail last week this lovely autographed picture, direct from Dame Vera herself.

In the brief note that accompanied the picture, Dame Vera wrote, “My P.A. [personal assistant] Susan has told me about your radio station, and I commend you for keeping alive the memory of that bygone era.”

It’s our great pleasure, Dame Vera, and we’re grateful you’re still here with us. You’re an inspiration to us all.

If you’d like to show your appreciation to Dame Vera for the joy she’s brought us all over the years, consider supporting Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity, which is dedicated to supporting families with children under 5 years old with cerebral palsy and motor-learning difficulties. Dame Vera thanks you, and so do we.