Radio Programs We're Looking For

H. V. Kaltenborn (CBS)

(thirties)
Missing landmark broadcasts by the "dean of radio commentators" include a 1932 interview Kaltenborn did with Adolf Hitler while vacationing in Germany, and a September 3, 1936, report from the border between France and Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

King Biscuit Time (KFFA, Helena, AR)
(forties–eighties)
This seminal blues program featured the talents of Sonny Boy Williamson and was sponsored by King Biscuit Flour.

Alan Freed
(1942–58)
The deejay who is credited with coining the term "rock and roll" got his start in broadcasting in 1942 at WKST in New Castle, Pennsylvania. No tapes of his six-month stint there are known to exist.
 

Elvis Presley (WHBQ, Memphis)
(1954–57)
On July 5, 1954, deejay Dewey Phillips interviewed Elvis Presley in his first on-air appearance. What makes this lost interview even more interesting is that Elvis thought it was a rehearsal and did not realize he was on the air.

Harding/Cox Election Results (KDKA, Pittsburgh)
(November 2, 1920)
This is generally considered to be the first official radio broadcast. Only a few re-creations are known to exist. Also wanted are other KDKA broadcasts from the early twenties.

First Major League All-Star Baseball Game (NBC)
(July 6, 1933)
The American League defeated the National League by a score of 4–2 at Comiskey Field in Chicago.

Early Rock 'n' Roll and R&B Deejays
(Late forties–early fifties)
There are no known recordings of famous African-American musicians B. B. King on WDIA in Memphis or Elmore James on WOKJ in Jackson, Mississippi; or deejays Willie Rice Miller, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf in Chicago and the South.

First Successful All-News Station (WINS-AM, New York City)
(1965)
1010 WINS switched from top forty to all news in 1965, but only a few snippets of the first broadcasts are known to exist.