
Some years ago, I found myself carrying on conversation via social media with several childhood friends. Although we had all grown up on the same block, we had since scattered to the Pacific Northwest; Alaska; Washington, DC; and Sidney, Australia. Such geographically dispersed conversations are fairly commonplace today, but as a reference librarian helping researchers access the Library of Congress’s collection of 1930s and 1940s radio broadcasts, I know that it took far more advanced planning, and no small investment in broadcasting infrastructure to connect far flung audiences in 1933. A case of an early musical conversation involving musicians, audiences and listeners dispersed across two continents can be seen in the remarkable NBC international broadcast with Carlos Gardel of March 5, 1934. Carlos Gardel, perhaps Argentina’s most popular tango singer, performed several numbers in NBC’s New York studios while being accompanied by three guitarists and an orchestra performing in the studios of station Radio Splendid located 5,300 miles away in Buenos Aires. The results were heard in both countries.
Gardel grew up in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires originally settled by people from the surrounding countryside and, greatly expanded in the late 19th century by an influx of Spanish, Italian and other immigrants. Gardel himself arrived in the city from France at the age of two.
Today he is known for the tango, but he had achieved popularity with his partner José Razzano singing popular and folk songs associated with the outskirts of the city and countryside. Today the tango is most familiar as a passionate dance which is performed to instrumental music. Gardel’s achievement – and he was not alone in this effort – was to popularize tango song with lyrics. Gardel’s “Mi Noche Triste,” recorded for Nacional Odeon in 1917 became the decisive hit that proved lyrics could be wedded to the tango. The lyrics for “Mi Noche Triste” were penned by Pascual Contursi to the tune of the pre-existing “Lita,” and were probably seen by Gardel in 1917 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The lyrics were notable, like Gardel’s other repertoire, for the inclusion of elements of lunfardo, a dialect native to the Rio de la Plata region which included Bunos Aires and other port cities along the estuary. By the mid to late 1920s, Gardel’s releases and tango songs by other musicians had garnered popularity around the world, particularly in Latin America, Spain, Italy, and France. Gardel’s popular titles would include “El día que me quieras,” “Mi Buenos Aires querido,” and “Cuesta abajo.” The tone of such lyrics was typically somber, and the theme of lost or doomed love was ubiquitous, but Gardel’s sensitive delivery struck a deep chord with his audiences.
At the time of his NBC broadcasts in 1933 and 1934, he had performed in theaters and dance halls around the world, made films in Paris, and Argentina, and appeared on radio regularly. It seemed likely that he would charm the huge English- and Spanish-speaking US audiences for film, records, and broadcasts. Audiences received Gardel’s NBC broadcasts and his live performances in New York that winter with enthusiasm as is clearly attested in local press, and in NBC’s own press . At the same time, his appearance in three films made in New York enhanced and broadened his appeal during 1934. Sadly, he could never ultimately build on this success because in the summer of 1935, he and his staff were killed in a plane crash in Medellín.
On several occasions over the years, reference staff here in the Recorded Sound Research Center have been asked whether any of Gardel’s NBC broadcasts from 1934 were recorded, and whether they exist in our NBC Radio Collection. The collection includes approximately 170,000 recordings on disc of broadcasts made between 1930 and the early 1970s and donated to the Library of Congress in the 1980s. As such, it seems like the logical place to look for these recordings. There is even written evidence that a disc was made of Gardel’s New Year’s Eve NBC broadcast in 1933 in Simon Collier’s biography of Gardel, The Life, Music and Times of Carlos Gardel (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986). Collier, however, makes clear that staff at NBC gave the disc of the broadcast to Gardel, and there is no evidence that it survives. Staff have searched for original disc recordings of the Gardel performances from early 1934 many times over the years, but to no avail.
At the time of Gardel’s performance in 1934, NBC was only recording a small fraction of their broadcasts. In fact, even at the height of their recording activities during World War II, they probably recorded under 20% of the programming carried over the airwaves. It is common for those unfamiliar with radio recording practices during this period to assume that much more was actually recorded than was. However, very little broadcasting from the period between 1926, when NBC incorporated, and 1934 was recorded. Occasionally a researcher will become convinced that a broadcast must have been recorded because they have found a photograph with the logo of a station or network. However, the presence of a microphone is only evidence that a broadcast aired, and the important question is whether it was committed to disc either at a live event or in in the studio. Recording was possible throughout the period, but it was simply not routine practice in radio studios to record their broadcasts.

Recording did become much easier in 1934 when 16-inch lacquer discs became available in the U.S. These discs would allow 15 minutes of recording per side, and the fidelity was much better than some early recording discs. The recording process was more cumbersome than recordings made to later formats like reel-to-reel tape, but it was much simpler than recording to earlier formats that were typically shorter in duration. The new lacquer discs also allowed continuous recording for events longer than fifteen minutes by making it simpler for the recordist to start a second disc the moment the first was finished. Recording lathes produced for radio studios typically included platters for two discs for this reason.
NBC cannot be assumed to have been recording their broadcasts to maintain a complete historic record of their output. They were recording for business reasons, particularly to show the sponsors of their programs what had aired, and to keep examples of some of their public service programs. For the entirety of 1934, when Gardel’s broadcasts aired, the NBC Collection at the Library includes only 50 recorded programs; elsewhere in the Library’s collections there may be 30 additional unique NBC recordings, bringing the total to 80 programs recorded. At a time when NBC broadcast between 17 and 18 hours a day on each of its two networks this accounts for well under 1% of their output.
While the audio for Gardel’s 1934 performances hasn’t survived, the documentation in the NBC Collection does allow one to gain a clear picture of these broadcasts. Included in this material are logs listing each hour of daily programming, supplemented by a microfiche set of what NBC called “masterbooks” which include scripts, music clearances, and scripted studio announcement for programs. A set of NBC press releases was also included in the NBC gift, and these bound green volumes included announcements for scripted programs, speeches, and musical performances which aired on the network. Descriptions of Gardel’s arrival by ship in New York in late 1933, and some of his performances in the winter and early spring are detailed in the press releases. (For more information on this NBC documentation see the research guide on the collection at the link provided at the foot of this blog.) The daily logs (or “traffic sheets”) during this period include the typed schedules, but some of the most interesting material appears in the handwritten comments which typically appear on the reverse of the typed daily listings. This is where we find the comments, mentioned in the opening of this blog, on Gardel’s international broadcast by a clearly excited employee of NBC’s staff. “International !!,” begins the entry for 10:00 to 10:30 pm on back of the page for March 5, 1934. The anonymous commenter continues by listing Carlos Gardel as the performer in the New York studio performing the song “Tropilla” accompanied by the “Three Guitars in Buenos Aires.” As the program continues, “Edgar [Edgardo] Donato in Buenos Aires played a part of ‘La Comparsita’ in Buenos Aires and [bandleader] Hugo Mariani [in New York] picked up the melody and played the rest of the piece. [T]hat meant the two orchestras playing alternate strains of the same tango blended by radio as tho [sic] only one orchestra were playing.”
A full portrait of a musician like Gardel must also rely on commercially made recordings, published accounts of his staff, published biographies, and news reports in Spanish-language press including daily radio listings, but documentation in the NBC Radio collection can add important depth.
For more information related to this blog or any Library of Congress holdings, please see Ask a Librarian, and if you plan to come in to view or listen to any collection items, please reach out to our reference staff in the Recorded Sound Research Center or Moving Image Research Center.
To learn more about the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Collection at the Library of Congress, please consult The National Broadcasting Company at the Library of Congress Research Guide.
Comments (4)
In Puerto Rico, Gilbert Mamery, who died in 2003,had a huge Gardel memorabilia collection, said to be the largest in all America, was a personal friend of his. Maybe there is something there.
I am curious about the eventual widespread use of recording technology that was intended for archival or delayed programing. It wasn’t a technological limitation; it was a reimaging of how content was used and reused. I worked in radio in the early 80s and we erased live content because we needed the tape. It was about getting fresh content on the air quickly. Tomorrow would have to take care of itself.
Great blog article!
Thank you for the interesting and informative blog! It gives insight to the artist and the time period, as well as the development of broadcasting technology, and as a bonus highlights the value of the reference library. How sad that the theme of ‘lost or doomed’ love also applied to the star who tragically died.