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WPRO Christmas stories read over the air late 1950's or early 60's looking for copies

W

whomever

A co-worker was telling me she used to listen to WPRO-AM during the holiday seasons when she was a little girl. In the evenings Leo Laporte (not the tech guy he would have been a toddler) read Christmas stories. My question is does anyone have tapes or a way of getting copies of these shows. It would have been in the late 50's or early 60's. This would make a very nice woman very happy. I have messaged WPRO facebook page and emailed them without any response
Thank you
 
That's going to be a tough find. Typically unless it's a national show, you'll rarely find archived copies of much on local radio unless the host has them himself. TV stations tend to save everything... but Radio stations.. not so much. Sure people tape snippets of things on occasion, but stuff from the 50's and 60's? Wow... I think that was before there was even affordable ways for the average consumer to tape anything off the radio. I know that many stations do keep a recording of things from the past 30 days or so for legal purposes (or any other reason they might need to check on something that went out over the air). But even then I believe that those recordings just get erased within a few months. Is Leo Laporte still alive? If so.... I think that would be your best bet at getting what you are looking for if you can track him down. I seriously doubt that WPRO has saved any such tapes.
 
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Just want to say I heard Leo Laporte read those stories back in the day and it is a crying shame those reads were lost to the ether. He had the gift of a rich deep voice, theatrically trained and always presented skillfully delivered readings, whether on TV or radio.
 
Christmas Candle Light

The title of Leo Laporte's radio program was "Christmas Candle Light". I used to listen to this when I was 8 or 9 years old. Truly a shame if it was not saved.
 
Christmas Candlelight

whomever said:
Thank you, I thought as much...but figured I would try
Click to expand...

We just came across this thread. Leo LaPorte was my Dad. He passed away in Providence in 1995 after having long retired from WPRO. Indeed, when I was dating the woman who is now my wife, she boasted to friends that she was "dating Christmas Candlelight's son."

We have some of the Christmas Candlelight tapes - all reel-to-reel save one, The Littlest Angel, which we converted to MP3 format - though sadly, without the accompanying music. We're happy to share that. As for the others, we haven't attempted to convert them to MP3, fearing that the magnetic surface has badly degraded and that they may not be playable (and expensive to convert). Nevertheless, as we now have three grandchildren, we are considering doing so.

Let me add that although no relation, Leo Laporte - "the Tech Guy" - also got his start in Providence, I believe at WJAR.

My thanks to you and the others who posted to this forum for the kind words about my Father and the program. Like so many of his era, my Dad flourished in the golden days of radio which have been gone for a long time now.

Peter LaPorte
Email: [email protected]
 
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