His father knew every tune

File: macintyrestewart-oh-radio_M.mp3

Speakers:

LM – Stewart MacIntyre

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

LM: Learned the tunes – My father knew every tune, Scotch or Irish tune, that ever existed, because he used to listen to this Stephen Campbell, and he played them out of a book, you know.

KP: Stephen Campbell did?

SM: Yes, he was a violinist. And I built the first radio receiver that was in the eastern end of the country in 1922, and that was a sensation of course – Just head phones of course. One night, I was listening to an orchestra in Philadelphia and they announced that one of the leading violinists in the U.S. was going to play an old Scotch tune. So I called to my father, and he came and put the headphones on and he listened. When the fellow was done, I said "Do you know the tune?" "Yes, I do, he said but he wasn't playing it right." (laughter). And he wasn't, either. A classical violinist; he can't play that old time stuff.