The Eveready Hour began broadcasting on December 4, 1923 (maybe.. dates differ; it could also have been November 4, 1923, or February 12, 1924...I don't think calendars had been invented back then) from WEAF Radio in New York City. It was the first commercially sponsored variety program in broadcasting history. It was the brainchild of National Carbon Company's George Furness -- National Carbon owned Eveready Battery, hence the name. Furness realized the possibilities of radio programming and advertising, and sought "to bring the full spectrum of American culture to the airwaves."
Wendall Hall, a banjo-playing vocalist, who wrote the popular song "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo," was the host. (Hall himself was married on the program in 1924.) By Election Day 1924, the program was carried by 18 stations in the "WEAF chain". That evening, the election results were being reported by Graham McNamee (who had also originated play-by-play sports radio broadcasting) while the program featured Will Rogers, noted crooner Art Gillman, country music singer Carson Robison, the Eveready Quartet, and Joseph Knecht and the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra.
The Radio Corporation of America bought eh WEAF chain in 1927, forming the basis of NBC Radio. NBC continued to broadcast The Eveready Hour until 1930. guests on the program included Bugs Baer, Eddie Cantor, Pablo Casals, Irvin S. Cobb, Richard Dix, and Lew Fields (of Weber and Fields), among others. Yip Harburg helped script several of the shows.
From Wikipedia: "The only known recording of an Eveready Hour broadcast was made by an engineer in the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, on the evening of May 15, 1928, from the over-the-air signal of station WEAF. This remarkably clear recording contains a local announcement by a WEAF staff announcer, Paul Dumont, then the first 18 minutes of the hour-long broadcast. This same recording holds the distinction of being the earliest known aircheck (off-air recording) of a live dramatic radio broadcast, it was a recording of a radio transmission that was not a news event, speech, or music-only presentation. This rare recording is now archived at the Edison National History Site (ENHS), which is part of the National Park Service."
Take a listen, and enjoy the interview with a 62-year-old former tattooist now seller-of-equipment-to-chinchilla-ranchers who married a circus fat lady...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRnvLpbxzv0
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