Jukebox Heroes

December 1, 2006 11:56 AM

Before music videos on MTV, even before Scopitones (previously on MeFi 1, 2, 3), there were Soundies. In a brief period during the early 40s, patrons of bars, diners and bus stations could slip a dime into a Panoram jukebox and see a three-minute 16mm video clip projected inside the machine. Soundies featured popular musicians of the era including Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, and Louis Armstrong. You can also find Soundies at Archive.org, including a great one from Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens.
posted by Otis (7 comments total)

I don't know if this is a double, but I've definitely seen that Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens film. If you haven't seen it, watch it. And keep an eye out for the bass solo.
posted by pracowity at 12:54 PM on December 1, 2006

Very cool stuff. That Reg Kehoe clip was played by a friend of mine at one of our music nights a while back.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:56 PM on December 1, 2006

This made me realize that a lot of old animated cartoons of bands were ... more realistic than I thought.

And I was, oddly, also reminded of Hey Ya! Charlie Brown Style. (OutKast does use a xylophone, and Pig-Pen plays the bass cello ...)
posted by dhartung at 3:01 PM on December 1, 2006

If you don't value your sanity, The Hut Sut Song is perhaps the most catchy of earworms.
posted by scruss at 6:56 PM on December 1, 2006

This post got past me... thank you
so much for this.
posted by squidfartz at 8:31 AM on December 2, 2006

Aahhh- Soundies.
When I wuz a kid, before we got a tellyvision set (yes, I'm *that* old...) my dad had a very fine Bell & Howell 16mm sound projector and lots of soundies- most, I think, from a restaurant/bar he owned earlier which had a Panoram projector. So several times a year, we'd get it out and show the films-
Check out A-1Video for an impressive amount of stuff- if you want the soundies and like that, then go directly to their musical page and start drooling. I've bought several there, been very satisfied- the Harlem Syncopation DVDs, the Irish songs, the Mountain Music & Cowboy songs all had stuff that I remember seeing as a kid. A great resource.... and if anyone locates anything from the Mound City Blue Blowers, send it my way! (There's *one* video, the first track on A-1's 'Mountain Music and Cowboy Songs' vol 1- that's all I've found.)
posted by drhydro at 2:25 PM on December 2, 2006

Very cool. Thanks for this post.
posted by Miko at 7:07 PM on December 3, 2006