University Place

Don Voegeli and Wisconsin Public Broadcasting

[Brady Carlson, Host, All Things Considered, Wisconsin Public Radio]

Hello and welcome. There is one song in my life that I hear more than all others, and that is, of course, the theme to NPR’s All Things Considered. And if you, like me, have ever sung along or hummed along –

You’re doing it right now, right?

– to that theme, then you are part of the legacy of Don Voegeli and Wisconsin Public Broadcasting. Don Voegeli was a longtime member of the staff at WHA Radio and at the UW-Madison. He served as radio Music Director in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, and among the pieces of music that he composed right here was the theme to All Things Considered.

So, millions of people who listen to public radio every afternoon hear music that was composed on this campus right here in Wisconsin.

[photo of Don Voegeli]

But that piece of music is only the beginning of Don Voegeli’s story, and today we get to hear the whole story from two people who know it well.

[Brady Carlson]

First, we’ll hear from Jim Voegeli, who is a Madison native and is one of Don Voegeli’s sons. He is a – a graduate of the UW-Madison with both a bachelor’s and a law degree and has, for the last few years, discovered that many of his father’s pieces of music have been lost or have gone missing. So, he has spent the last few years putting those pieces of music back together, trying to organize them, collect them, and preserve them for a new collection at the UW-Madison Archives. And he has helped put together a new set of, a new collection of that music.

He’s also been practicing law for the last 30 years, 15 of the most recent years have been as in-house counsel at the 3M company in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Today we’ll also hear from David Null, who has been with the General Library system since 1994 and has been director of the UW-Madison Archives since 2002.

The UW-Madison Archives are the official repository for UW-Extension. And so, therefore, they have extensive holdings of the archives of Wisconsin Public Radio and Television. So, please join me now in welcoming Jim Voegeli.

[applause]

[Jim Voegeli, Son of Don Voegeli]

Thank you.

Well, it is a great pleasure to be here with you today and talk about my father and his music. And at the end of our program, we’re going to hear maybe about a minute of him playing piano right here in the Philo Buck studio, in 1980, the last time he would have recorded in this studio, maybe on that piano that’s back there, which was part of a collection of piano pieces distributed to public broadcasting stations, TV and radio, to be film music as part of his Electrosonic Studio.

He was one other time on the Michael Feldman show. Bless Michael – Michael for having him on, and he really enjoyed jamming with the group. And we have that recording as well. So, he probably was in this studio one more time.

But thank you.

David Null is here, and I just want to, from the top, thank him for being so welcoming when we first approached him about doing a collection. David has been a guiding light in this whole project and has been so helpful throughout it. And we’re still digitizing some things. I’m doing that up in the Twin Cities. And I’ll tell you just quickly a little about that in a minute.

But I want to also thank Mike Crane the – from Wisconsin Public Radio and Jon Miskowski from Wisconsin Public Television.

Did I get that wrong? Radio and Television.

Both for being very welcoming and helpful as well.

But I would be remiss not to mention Danny Henry at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. And if you ever get a chance, go see this museum. It’s one of just a few of them in the world. They have broadcasting equipment from all eras, radio and television. They go back to wireless. They actually have a small version of the – the Morse code transmitter that was on the Titanic. And wait until you see that fired up. Its – they have everything there. And they are the place that I went to, to get most of the digitization done and a lot of the work that David will talk more about that. And – and – and we really had, this is a search and rescue effort where we had to find what recordings existed and then do major post-digitization processing to try to improve the sound, get rid of pops and clicks from records and so on.

In addition, Laura Schnitker, who is the acting curator of the University of Maryland Archives, helped us. They’re the repository for National Public Radio aircheck tapes. So, we got some of the interviews that he was – that Susan Stamberg and others did on N.P.R. from them.

And, finally, we’re hopeful that in a few weeks the American Archive of Public Broadcasting will have three MP3 files of the public broadcasting materials. We have a mixture here in the collection. Some commercial work as well. But those will be available hopefully, and you can download those and listen online.

So, let me tell you about my father. That’s my role today.

[return of photo of Don Voegeli]

And then David will speak when I’m done here.

My father was on campus as staff or faculty for 41 years. He was an undergrad here as well and, starting in his sophomore year, for three years volunteered at WHA. Now, by the way, of course, WHA back then was what you referred to, you didn’t refer to Wisconsin Public Radio.

[Jim Voegeli]

It’s before the public was around, the Public Broadcasting Act. Eventually it was Wisconsin Educational Radio Network. But today I’ll just refer to WHA to be historically correct because that’s what you use to refer to it.

But he did volunteer for three years as a student, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment. And then for five years before that he came to music summer camp. He started in eighth grade and played in the marimba band. So, if you take those years, that means 50 years on campus. And then, in retirement, he volunteered in several ways. Most notably playing the piano at the atrium of the University Hospital and Clinics to welcome patients and visitors. So, he was around a long time. He loved the university and he loved WHA. It was a very tight knit family.

And my sister, Julie, is here, and Kelly, my niece. Thank you for coming.

And Julie will remember too that we grew up coming to the station, getting to know many of the people, the old-timers. It was very much a family, a very tight family environment.

So, this is a photo –

[photo of younger Don Voegeli at the marimba]

– probably around the time he was a – a high school senior. We believe 1937.

He was born in Monticello in 1920 in southwestern Wisconsin. The only child of my grandparents. And my grandmother taught in a one-room school and also knew piano. And my grandfather, who ran a hardware store that they lived above, he was a very good violinist and – or a good fiddle player. You called it fiddle back then, I guess. And probably they’re the reason he took to music.

He learned keyboards or how to play piano. And, of course, keyboards was his main thing through his life. But, at this point, he really loved playing the vibes, the xylophone. He was somehow known in eighth grade.

[Jim Voegeli]

They were only 30 miles away from campus and they needed more people on the marimba band that they were starting. So, he was asked to come in eighth grade, and then through high school participated in the summer music camp.

And about the time of this photo –

[return of the photo of young Don Voegeli at the marimba]

– when he was a senior, he had a moment of youthful fame. The conductor for the marimba concert to showcase what they had done during the whole season couldn’t get back to Madison in time to conduct that concert. It was at the old Parkway Theater. And about noon that day a call came in saying that my father would have to stand in as the conductor, not just as a player. It went well. Well enough that the next day the newspapers reported it.

[Jim Voegeli]

And as a result of that and maybe other things, he was given one of the first scholarships given out by the university, and it was in 1937. This is during the Depression, of course. That allowed him to come to campus and attend the School of Music.

So, he started to volunteer sophomore year. He had a nine-piece, led a nine-piece national youth orchestra, administration orchestra that played for WHA productions. He played interstitials on the pipe organ in Studio A, which interstitials means the filler to bring things to the top of the hour. And he sometimes actually filled in running the board in master control if there was a shortage.

He also participated in the Play Circle Time weekly variety show –

[photo from the Play Circle variety show]

– that came from Play Circle Theater at the Memorial Union. And this photo we think is linked to that. This is probably about 1941. John Dietrich is pictured wearing the hat, the second from left. He was a professor, and he went on to become provost of Michigan State University. And he was a lifelong friend of my father’s.

And also pictured, on the right, is Richard Church, Professor Richard Church.

[photo of Don Voegeli at the piano in 1943]

And here’s a photo of him, 1943. So, 1942 he graduated. He was hired as the staff musician. And the next year he was promoted to Music Director, the position he held till 1964.

[Jim Voegeli]

Now, he taught briefly for a few years a course called Music and Radio.

[photo of Don Voegeli at the piano]

And so, during that period he had a joint appointment with the School of Music and the Communication Arts Department.

But he also – it’s important to know he kind of had a technical career.

Tom, I think you know about this.

That he – he not only did music, but he was really a good recording engineer.

[Jim Voegeli]

And Ken Ohst, who was WHA’s lead attorney at the time, had my father go with him to be the engineer for UW Athletic events.

And Ken, and I even remember this story but it’s in Randall Davidson’s book as well, used to love the story of what happened the night before a Purdue/Wisconsin game. They were having a press banquet and it was kind of dragging on. Nothing too exciting. And my father saw a piano in the corner, went over and started to play it, and soon he had a bunch of people around the piano singing with him. And this went on for hours until finally one of the Purdue coaches went up to Ken and said: “We’ll trade you right now a linebacker and defensive end for that piano player.”

[laughter]

So, he went on to be Operations and Facilities Manager from ’64 to ’67. And I don’t know what that really entailed except it probably had to do with making sure the station ran smoothly and that the recording, that they were trying to probably advance recording techniques, et cetera.

And then, ’67 to 1970, he had a special assignment to help plan the building of Vilas Hall. So, he was involved with the layout that – that we have here today in this building and the studios, which, at that time, worked well. I hope they still are. I don’t know. I haven’t been here in a long time. But that was part of his role as well.

Here he is in 1949 playing that pipe organ in Studio B.

[photo of Don Voegeli at the pipe organ]

He had a program that was a daily show called Organ Melodies, and he’d play standard pieces and then he’d improvise something at the end.

[photo of WHA-FMs Lets Sing in the WHA studios]

As you probably know, a rich part of the history of Wisconsin broadcasting, particularly, or actually for both radio and television, was the Wisconsin School of the Air, and then there was also the Wisconsin College of the Air.

Here’s a picture from 19 – I don’t actually know the date of this, David, but this is Norm Clayton doing the program Let’s Sing, and he did a bunch of songs for that series. That was on 15 years, from 1960 to 1974. But – and here’s a sound clip of a song called Beautiful and Lovely, which was written for kids and we also chose for the title of our compilation CD:

[gentle instrumental music with the following lyrics:]

* Beautiful and lovely * Lovely things to see * I’m thankful God has made these things * Such lovely things for me * Skies and clouds, sunsets * Trees with birds that sing * Butterflies and babies * Flowers in the spring * Beautiful and lovely * Lovely things to see *

[music fades out]

That was in 1964. This is 1966. He did a bunch of the themes for the show, and it would change every couple of years. This is from 1966, the program’s theme.

[upbeat music with the following lyrics:]

* Let’s sing * Let’s make the rafters ring * With songs both sad and gay * Let’s sing * Let’s hear the melody * Bring out the harmony to interplay * Let’s sing * Let’s learn a song or two * Let’s sing a song that’s new * Begin, let’s all get in the swing * Let’s sing, let’s sing, let’s sing

[lively instrumental music that fades out]

So, you might be interested to know that was beamed into the schools, and the purpose of Wisconsin School of the Air was kind of to equalize teaching through this state for small schools that couldn’t afford to have a lot of different curriculum.

And, anyhow, that was beamed in at 1:30 in the afternoon on Wednesdays, and that program was as popular among adults as it was kids. So, they had a big listenership when they checked into it.

[photo of Don Voegeli at the piano with Clair Kentzler and Karl Schmidt in the WHA studios]

Here he is with Claire Kentzler, in the background, and Karl Schmidt, in the foreground, probably, again, doing a Wisconsin School of the Air production. And I, you know, remember them both very well. And Claire was really sweet. A really sweet person. And I’m so delighted that they’ve named one of the conference rooms Jim Collins and Claire Kentzler Room. That’s great.

Here’s the sound, the – the part of the theme for a program that was Wisconsin School of the Air, very popular. It was 1956 when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered just a year or two earlier with Professor Mansour. It was a 13-part series. It was so popular it was distributed across the United States by the National – National – I can’t remember now. Educational something. I can’t remember the name. I’m sorry. But there was a body that used to distribute some of the better series. And, in any event, this was being requested even in 1965. And this is that theme.

[gentle instrumental music that moves into tense instrumental music]

[music fades out]

Most of his themes were more upbeat than that. That’s more serious.

So, it’s the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. So, it comes to mind. And that was a precursor to N.P.R. or anything. It was one of the ways programs got distributed.

[photo of Don Voegeli in the Master Control room of WHA]

Here’s a picture of him in the master control room at Radio Hall with Studio C in the background. But I’m going to play. I didn’t have any better graphic to show you, but because we have television here, I want you to know he did quite a few things for Wisconsin Public Television and WHA-TV.

For example, on our compilation CD, we have five of the songs for the Communicators, a 1963 production with, among other singers, Linda Clauder. And then he did a theme for a Friday night weekly news magazine called Mosaic, which was 1962.

Now, what I’m going to play for you were two math teaching themes. We presume that these are for Patterns in Arithmetic and Patterns in Mathematics, which both debuted in 1961. The first title was for younger kids and the older – the mathematics series was for older kids. In 1964, it appears they merged, and they came out with just one program, Patterns in Arithmetic, which was then for grades one through six.

In any event, this was so popular that by 1972 there were 336 15-minute episodes being aired or shown in classrooms in 35 states. So, this is the first of those two themes.

[playful instrumental music]

So, it had to be cheerier than the last theme we played –

[laughter]

– because it was trying to get kids not to freak out doing math. David and I were laughing this morning when we did a dry run, and we thought: God, it sounds like some, you know, game show on TV.

[laughter]

So, this is the second theme.

[lively instrumental music]

You know, I might have even been willing to learn my math tables.

[laughter]

At least, I would have tried.

He did other things on campus from 1941 to at least 1951. He had the Don Voegeli Orchestra.

[photo of the Don Voegeli Orchestra]

And Jim Gills here and your parents, remember your parents went and danced to them playing, Jim. I remember that.

Here’s a full picture of the ensemble when it was after World War II and they had 15-piece band and a singer. And the – we have a wonderful recording, the only recording in existence, and it’s about seven songs. That is from 1949, and that’s in the collection.

[photo of a playbill for Good for the Girls at the University of Wisconsins Haresfoot Club]

And here is a slide showing that he did a lot of work for Haresfoot. He was a music director for quite a few seasons of Haresfoot. Now, Haresfoot was similar to Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard. All the roles were played by men. And it was an annual production. And this is for Good for the Girls. So, what happened here is Bill Harley, who became a legendary person in public broadcasting, helped found P.B.S., N.P.R., a big name in public broadcasting after leaving the United – after leaving the campus here.

He and Al Beaumont wrote the book or the story the last month before the competition – competition deadline. And my father helped them do the lyrics. So, the three of them have a credit for the lyrics. And then my father had only a few weeks to write all the music. This – we have the – from acetate transcription disks, we have the music from this production. 22 different musical tracks is part of the collection from 1950. And, anyhow, they won the competition. John Dietrich, who you saw pictured earlier, was the director. And it toured in a number of states. Illinois and Wisconsin and I don’t know if it ever went to Minnesota, but I know it was down in Chicago and Illinois. And it was a big deal back then. So, he participated in that as well.

So, between – for two years –

[photos of a newspaper clipping titled Jingles Are Music To His Ears]

– that spanned 1957 to 1959, he took a leave of absence, a sabbatical, because he had the opportunity to write commercial music.

Somehow the J. Walter Thompson ad agency out of Chicago heard about him, and he was asked to submit a jingle for the 1956 Schlitz Beer national campaign. And his jingle was selected. I think they had three finalists, and his was selected. So, in 1957, he did another jingle, and this was significant because Schlitz was sponsoring Playhouse of the Stars on CBS. So, these jingles were heard on television once a week and on radio.

[photo of the recording session of the Schlitz Beer jingle in 1957]

This is the actual photo of the recording session of the second Schlitz Beer jingle from 1957:

[lively stringed instrumental music]

[Narrator]

Move up to quality, move up to Schlitz.

[lively stringed music with the following lyrics:]

* Here’s how to get refreshing lightness, * Flavor quality, modern taste * Move up to Schlitz * Light, light Schlitz *

[Narrator]

You owe it to yourself to enjoy the best. Schlitz is one of the finer things of life that everybody can afford. Move up to quality, move up to Schlitz. World’s best seller at any price.
[lively stringed music with the following lyrics:]

* The beer that made Milwaukee famous, have a glass * You will get the kiss of the hops in every glass * Ask for the beer that’s so refreshing, * Flavor quality, modern taste * Move up to Schlitz * Up, up, up, move up to Schlitz*

So, this is recorded in – at Universal Recording in Chicago. This is Studio A, and a lot of big things were recorded there, but this was really where most of the jingles in that era were recorded. And Chicago was the hub to jingle recording, and that’s my father conducting and Jamie Silva –

[return to the photo of the Schlitz recording session]

– who is the singer, a wonderful, very famous singer for jingles, and she was part of the J’s with Jamie, which you’re gonna hear next.

[photo of a 1959 Continental Airlines 707 jet]

Here’s a 1959, Continental was one of the first airlines to take delivery of the brand new 707. And here’s the jingle with the J’s with Jamie.

[jaunty instrumental jingle with the following lyrics:]

* Wonderful, wonderful * Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful * What a wonderful flight * When you travel as guests * On the most experienced jetline in the west * Golden Jet’s the way, the way to fly * It’s time to try * Continental * Continental Airlines*

And he also worked with the singers Unlimited Bonnie Herman on many jingles as well. Here’s Jamie again singing for Trailways. We think this is probably from 1960.

[photo of two Trailways busses with an upbeat instrumental jingle with these lyrics:]

* For the easiest travel on Earth * Take Trailways * Take a Trailways bus * For the easiest travel on Earth * Take an air conditioned Trailways bus*

That was actually for a television commercial. And Danny up at Pavek and we edited that right down to that short clip of it.

I wish I could play a lot more, but we have – we have time is fighting against us here. This is a great photo of Studio B at Universal –

[photo musicians in Studio B at Universal Studios in Chicago]

– and I’m going to play you the jingle first. It’s Heat with Oil. My father is in the left conducting the session actually from the control room. Mason Koppinger, who became a friend, is the engineer. And that’s Jamie again singing this jingle.

[lively instrumental music with the following lyrics:]

* If you want to have BTUs aplenty * Then you’ll choose to heat with oil * If you want to have safety in turn * With the fuel that you burn * You’ll heat with oil * If you want to have cleanliness * No muss, no mess, * Modern oil heat can’t be beat * If you want to live modern * All the way through every winter day * You’ll heat with oil * Heat with oil *

[Jim Voegeli]

You can see all the string players.

[return to the photo of Universal Studio and then the jingle with these lyrics]

* If you want to live modern * All the way through every winter day * You heat with oil*

So, I want to take just a moment to talk about how this worked. My father actually didn’t make a whole lot of money in his life on commercial side. And only – he did it for about eight years.

He would be paid a certain amount of money, but then he’d have to go out and hire the musicians and pay the recording fee. And he put a lot into it. As you can see, look at the musicians for this one spot. By the time he was done, he often didn’t make a lot.

And in our history booklet, we actually talk about some of the documentation we have how little he was paid. He was paid only $100 for the Arlene Francis Show theme, the third big daily show on NBC. Now, NBC didn’t pay him that little, it was a production company. And he made very little money. There’s a letter apologizing. He did a wonderful film score for the film Chicago: City that Cares, and there’s a letter saying: “I’m sorry we couldn’t pay you much. We didn’t budget for music. ”

Quite frankly, musicians are often taken advantage of, and he died with a very humble estate. Luckily, he had his University of Wisconsin pension, which saved him.

Now, in contrast, these wonderful musicians that are pictured, you know –

[return to the photo from Studio B at Universal Studios in Chicago]

– they – by the way, I got to go as a kid to a few of these sessions. They would literally play it through once or twice, and then they’re ready to record. That’s how good they are. And they do this all day long. Different sessions come in. And they’re so good. But they would get paid a recording fee and a royalty for as long as the jingle or commercial was on the air. So, they did quite well in sort of one of the ironic twists of my father. But he loved doing it. So, no – no regrets, I’m sure.

So, now we’re going to turn to a video clip, and we hope this works. We had some technical difficulties earlier, but we’ve taken the same commercial and put it back-to-back.

When he had to do a commercial or write for an educational film, the film was cut, and he had to score the music to the timing of the film. And so, I’m going to play the first version has just the visual –

[screen grab from a Ken-L Meal commercial]

– and the music, and you can imagine if you were writing the music how you might have scored it and see how you think he did.

And then immediately after that, we’ll got to optical sound, the real commercial with the narration, and you’ll see how it played.

He did four commercials for Quaker Oats company, three of them for dog food. This is from 1959
:

[Jim Voegeli, as an aside]

That’s one well trained dog.

[replay of the same commercial with narration as well as music]

[Narrator]

Now a word about one of their many fine products, Ken-L Meal.

[Narrator]

Does the dog in your life have a personality all his own? Does he seem to understand your moods? Is he sad when you’re sad? Happy when you’re happy? Does he come to you when he needs help? Does he appreciate what you do for him? Is he fond of you just because you’re you? Do you feed him Ken-L Meal? New concentrated Ken-L Meal. When you pour on water, concentrated Ken-L Meal bursts into meaty goodness. Looks like ground beef. For meat red Ken-L Meal is real meat meal with meat aroma, meat flavor. Come and get it. Get protein and energy in every bite. The concentrated goodness of Ken-L Meal. And what about the dog in your life? Is he as healthy and happy as you can make him? Do you feed him Ken-L Meal? New concentrated Ken-L Meal?

So, that probably – I – I don’t know where that was shot. I’m presuming Hollywood. That dog was one heck of a well-trained dog.

[laughter]

And very nicely put together, I thought.

But he did at least the music for five CENCO educational films.

[photo of a galaxy in a star field]

These were films from CENCO Scientific Company of Chicago. So, they made microscopes and laboratory equipment for high schools, colleges, and laboratories. A big name. And anyhow, they sponsored educational films on science matters. And this is from 1962, part of his film score for a film called Outer Space.

[gentle instrumental music]

And it goes on. That’s actually one of my favorite pieces of music of his. I just love that.

So, back at WHA, 1970, the National Center for Audio Experimentation was founded. Here’s a picture with Karl Schmidt –

[photo of the back of a postcard with audio engineers recording in a station wagon]

– on the left, doing the directing of a production being taped in a station wagon. And my father, on the right, with the tape machine recording it. And Jay Fitz, one of the act – the actress. And I don’t know the name, you can see it in the little – I don’t know the gentleman, but an actor reading the script.

So, in between them is Herman. That was the – the name they had for their microphone mount that my father was involved helping to design. Now, the Germans actually developed binaural stereo, and a lot of the rigs just had a Styrofoam head with – with the microphone sticking out. So, this was a little bit of an adaptation. But the purpose here was to record it as if it was how you were hearing it, if you were in that setting, and then you’d play back and listen on headphones. And it’s very realistic. In fact, I’m kind of surprised with all the earbuds and things that today there isn’t more binaural stereo done. Of course, radio production, we don’t really have plays anymore and things like this. Maybe that’s part of the reason. But it’s very realistic stereo and a wonderful thing.

And here’s a picture of him –

[photo of Don Voegeli, Karl Schmidt and John Tiedeman in the control room of Radio Hall]

– with John Tiedeman from the B.B.C. and Karl Schmidt in control room A at Radio Hall doing an N.C.A.E. production.

[photo of a quote about Don Voegeli by Karl Schmidt]

We asked Karl about one year ago, Karl Schmidt wrote this for our project, and unfortunately, I talked with him last Christmas and said: “Karl, let us send you the part that we’re duplicating, a draft CD.” And he said: “Jim, don’t worry, I plan to be around for some time to come.” And unfortunately, he died this April. But he wrote this for our project:

“Best friend, admired artist. “We have been together professionally and personally for more than 50 years, but more than that, we have been in sync too long to split now. You are still in my vicinity playing softly on the keyboard. We were together when your first child died, together when my first child died, when our kids were born, when we helped found NPR. We lived our lives together then and now. ”

So, what I want to tell you about is just, again, come back to the theme of how close people were who worked at WHA. They – it was like a small family. And my father had friendships with many of the people here, including Karl, a lifelong friend.

In reference to losing the kids, I’ll just tell you my father did have a rough life. My parents lost their first two children. Donna from leukemia at the age of two and a half and Bobby at the age of five while he was having a hernia repair surgery at UW Hospital. Somehow the anesthesia took him. And then my mother, Jean, died when I was 10 and she was 44. She had been very ill for the four years preceding that, and so from the age of her being 40 my father had to really take on both parental roles and became – had to do a lot of extra duties at home.

And then, later, a second, another wife, Anne, died from cancer. And in addition, he suffered from ankylosing spondylitis from when he was in his 20s. Now, the onset of that is quite painful, but you’ve seen people who are hunched over, and their spine has fused. And that’s ultimately what took his life when he fell in – fell, and he died in 2009 from his back shattering. So, this is a reference that Karl made to that.

This is back to 1970.

[photo of Don Voegeli at a Putney synthesizer]

The B.B.C., a- a – someone – Desmond Briscoe had come to do a seminar at WHA that people from any public station were invited to attend on sound effects. And he brought this little Putney synthesizer. There’s actually two stories: He either brought it or the university bought it for that purpose. But what I always heard was he brought it. Didn’t want to spend the money to ship it back because he was traveling through the US. And, anyhow, the university got this little Putney synthesizer.

My father then went out and bought the keyboard and started to do some music for N.C.A.E. productions. And some of – on our collection we have a couple of those pieces that we attribute to N.C.A.E. productions.

In 1971, newly formed National Public Radio came to him and asked him to do a theme, and he used this little synthesizer and an 8-track tape machine to come up with the first theme. Now, mind you, both this and the Moog synthesizer, which I’ll show you a little later, they were monophonic instruments. You could play a chord on the keyboard, but you’d only get the lowest note. So, you had to layer note by note with a multitrack tape machine. The tape machine did almost all that work. You had to play one note at a time and then build a chord, you’d have three passes with the tape machine. So, very labor-intensive effort. And I’ll tell you more about the second theme in a minute and how long that took.

[lively synthesizer music]

So, that theme was actually used for five years until 1976.

He did a lot – he did a whole music package. So, lots of buttons and bridges, and we have those. National Public Radio has gotten rid of almost all that but luckily, we found another source and we have some of that.

[photo of a teletype to Don Voegeli from the Programming Director of N.P.R.]

And this is just a nice message from Linda Wertheimer thanking him and telling him that-

this is a teletype. This is how you communicated back then, for all of us email and texting junkies.

– but anyhow, this was the little theme for All Things Considered for Consumer. And I’ve recommended that Kevin McKinley for On Your Money use this, but it hasn’t gone anywhere so far.

[lively synthesizer music with the sound of old cash drawers opening]

So, that was done with that little Putney. And he did a lot of these bridges and – and sent whole music package buttons, most of them cheery and upbeat. This is one of my favorites, and, David, I know you like this one too, called Echoing. So, it’s a little longer. It’s one minute, and I think to save time I’ll probably play you only 30 seconds. This is typical of something to bridge between two pieces on a news show.

[gentle synthesizer music]

[photo of some of Don Voegelis music sheets]

And I’m just going to move on, it repeats, to save some time here.

This is the score he wrote for the second theme, the theme that is used today. So, if you take both the first theme and the theme used today, that’s 45 years that his themes have been the signature for All Things Considered.

He wrote, we believe, the bridge –

[return to the photo of Dons music sheets]

– which is the latter piece. You can’t see very well on this, but he wrote the main piece on one form of stationary, and he wrote the bridge later. He was very proud of the bridge. Later in an interview with Neal Conan on – on N.P.R. some years into his retirement he just said he was really pleased how the bridge turned out.

Now this was originally done using this equipment. Oh, I’ve got to play you – I’m sorry, I’m going to play it to you, and I’ll show you the equipment in a minute. It took two and a half weeks layering up each note to get to this.

[beeping]

That’s supposed to be a radio signal to introduce it.

[lively synthesizer music]

So, I’ll play you the bridge and one other version in a minute. You’ll hear that.

This is what the Electrosonic Studio turned into with a Moog synthesizer.

[Photo of Don Voegeli at a Moog synthesizer]

Again, still only a – a – a monophonic instrument, however. So, he then had an 8 – 16-track tape machine from a 10 and had to do all that layering. Again, that took two and a half weeks just to do, to get all the notes in for that piece that he did.

This is a photo just before he retired in 1982.

[photo of the logo for N.P.R.s All Things Considered]

So here is an orchestral version. He then had others do arrangements. And this is his own last arrangement of the All Things Considered theme, and I’ll play a little bit more of it. He’s playing electric piano, and you’ll hear the bridge that he liked so much.

[lively instrumental music]

[Jim Voegeli]

Here’s the bridge in the middle, right here.

[lively instrumental music continues]

[Jim Voegeli]

And he did a lot of production music, so, you know, he had the Electrosonic Studio for eight years. They came out with 26 records, 17 were of his own music, and then he had nine done by other musicians, which was sent out to public radio and television stations.

This was back when copyright laws made it very expensive to use commercial music for public broadcasters. So, this is part of the way to help stations do productions. And these – this music is still valid. We – we only have half of the electronic music, the tapes in existence. So, we – a lot of it’s been lost, but we have enough and it’s part of our – our – our new collection and it’s still available to any public broadcaster that wants to use it.

He did a signature for Minnesota Public Radio, he did a signature for American Public Media, and he did two that Voice of America used as top of the hour signatures. And if you tuned in in 1974, this is what you might hear at the top of the hour to signal that it’s the Voice of America.

[photo of a 5 cent Voice of America stamp]

[Don Voegelis rendition of “Yankee Doodle”]

[Jim Voegeli]

Their theme is obviously Yankee Doodle. So, you know that. And today you’ll still hear them using that. This is the version from 1977.

[return of the Voice of America stamp photo]

[Another version of Don Voegelis “Yankee Doodle”]

[Jim Voegeli]

And 96% to 97% of all public radio and television stations used his production music during these years, so. But this was kind of a special treat that the V.O.A. wanted to use it as well.

Well, here he is probably in one of his happier moments jamming with friends.

[photo of Don Voegeli in a four-piece band]

To the left, just over my father, is Ralph Hanson, a dear friend of his who is an attorney in town. Ken Ohst is playing drums and looks smiling, as is Ralph. And then that’s Bob Homme playing clarinet. And Bob has a lot of history with Wisconsin Public Television. He created The Friendly Giant in 1958, took it to the C.B.C. in Canada where it aired for over two decades. He was given the highest civilian award shortly before his death and – the Order of Canada Award. So, he is known by every Canadian above the age, I’m going to guess, 40, 35 maybe even. That was rebroadcast for many years.

[Jim Voegeli]

In fact, it used to be, in – when I went to a conference in Toronto, across the – the road was the C.B.C. new studios, and I went in their museum. The very first thing you used to see was the set for The Friendly Giant. So, they’re very proud of it.

Here he is with – in retirement –

[photo of Don Voegeli and Kermit the Frog]

– with one of his favorite friends, Kermit the Frog. And he never, you know, despite his considerable talents, I think one of the things that I appreciate most about him is it never went to his head. He didn’t come home and talk about his music. I loved it, but I – I just had that interest.

[Jim Voegeli]

But, Julie, I think you’ll agree, he was pretty much silent when he came home. It just – it was his job. He had had so much adversity in his life that he didn’t take it too seriously, but he liked doing it. And the – the other thing that amazes me is how upbeat most of his music is despite the kinds of tragedies that he went through. I mean, he could have – if it had been me, I don’t know, I might have shut down and, you know, become not very pleasant to be around if I had had all those bad things happen to me.

He was humble. I was recently asked in a podcast: “Tell me about him.” And I would say this: He was humble. David Brooks has a new book out, The Road to Character, and he talks about how today, unfortunately, we’re so much the me first society. But back then, humility was a key thing that people sought to be. And he was that. He was very humble, down to earth. He was kind to people.

[return to the photo of Don and Kermit]

I remember hearing many times from people how kind he was to people of all walks of life. He really believed in equality. The Southern Poverty Law Center was one of the organizations he gave money to.

He loved humor, though. And this is another thing that maybe saved him from the brink with all of the tragedies.

[Jim Voegeli]

And he valued family and friends, and he had many lifelong friends. Here’s a picture of him painted by Madison artist Dorothy Bausch –

[photo of a painting of Don Voegeli by Dorothy Bausch]

– at UW Hospital and Clinics playing the piano that I mentioned earlier. He did that in his volunteer years.

[photo of Don Voegeli writing music]

So, I’m going to close with one last song clip. This is him in 1978 in the Electrosonic Studio. And what I’m playing for you is something we found and confirmed from broadcast airchecks.

In 1975, on New Year’s Eve, All Things Considered closed its program playing this piece of music to wish people a Happy New Year.

[lively instrumental music]

[Jim Voegeli]

So, thank you.

[applause]

[David Null, Director, UW-Madison Archives and Records Management]

Hi, I’m David Null from the UW-Madison Archives. I just want to say a couple of things about the archival collection that we have on Don Voegeli.

I first met Jim about three and a half years ago when he got in touch with the University Archives and the Mills Music Library and the radio station here, other people, to see what we might have about his father and what we might have to – that he could digitize, that we could preserve. And so, he came down to Madison, we got together, we started looking at things. We had quite a bit of material –

[photo of Don Voegeli memorabilia at the UW-Madison Archives]

– photographs of his father, and also some media from our collections on WHA. Jim also had a lot of other things. So, you can see from this slide material that he and the family donated to the University Archives that include albums, cassette tapes, other types of material, paper materials. We’re continuing to add to this collection.

[David Null]

Jim brought some more things with him today so, and we will continue to add to the collection as time goes by. This all led up to the four-CD set that we just came out with a month or so ago.

[photo of the cover art packaging of the Don Voegeli 4-CD Set]

There are copies of this by the door, if you want to take one when you go out. If other people want copies who are seeing this later, you can contact the UW Archives. We’d be happy to send you as many copies as you’d like.

It’s really great sound, and it’s got really good liner notes, extensive liner notes. Jim has spent a huge amount of time and a not insubstantial amount of money trying to make sure he has the best copies available that he could find of the music. And he’s spent a lot of time, as he said, with Pavek trying to make sure that they clean the music up, that they got the best possible versions that you could get.

[David Null]

And that’s not a cheap or easy or fast thing to do. I always say people think digitization should be fast, cheap, and easy, and it’s none of those things if you do it well.

It also takes time and effort to preserve this because we will preserve MP3 files, which we will give to people or just to play. We will preserve WAV files as high-resolution files, which are often as much as 10 times the size of an MP3 file. And we’ll keep the physical media also. So, we’ll be preserving a lot of different types of material for the collection.

These are some copies. Jim’s been doing versions of CDs for a long time –

[photo of Jim Voegelis CDs of his fathers music]

– trying to find the best things that he could and get them done.

[photo of the different media the music is on: LP, cassette, CD, reel-to-reel tapes}

This is another example of the types of materials you deal with when you’re dealing with audio. So, we had albums, we had cassette tapes, we had reel to reel tapes in different sizes. The thing in the brown wrapper is a 16-inch transcription disk. We have 7,000 of them. Many of them are WHA recordings. Those – there’s a machine at Mills Music Library that can digitize them. It’s on its last legs. They asked for money to buy a new machine, a refurbished machine, which costs $6,000 to – we’re looking at potential grant funding to digitize some of the School of the Air and College of the Air materials that we get asked for quite a bit.

[David Null]

But you’re looking at a lot of different types of material and you’re looking at some of it’s easier to digitize, to take care of. The others, audio tapes, sometimes they’re great, sometimes they fall apart while you’re running them through the machine. And everybody’s stopping making machines. Just finding machines anymore is difficult for much of this material.

So, it’s not a simple process to do the types of preservation that Jim’s been interested in doing. This is just another –

[photo of three of Don Voegelis album covers]

– I like some of the album covers that – for Don’s music. Again, most of these were gifts from Jim and the family.

[photo Don Voegeli from the top of the program]

And we’d like to leave you with the last clip that we’re going to be doing, which was recorded in this studio in 1980.

[David Null]

It’s called For Kim, which was Jim’s daughter, Kim. And so, we would like to leave you with that piece.

[return of the photo of Don Voegeli]

[gentle piano music]

[applause]