Sound recorder Phil Gries is passionate about the audio of television's past. On reel-to-reel tape he has the sound of Roger Maris hitting his record-breaking 61st home run, interviews with Marilyn Monroe and Steve McQueen, and Johnny Carson's early "Tonight Shows."
It all started in 1958 when Gries, at age 15, hooked up his high-fidelty tape recorder to the speaker of his television set and pressed "record." When the VCR rendered his recording method obsolete in 1980, his collection numbered 8,500 shows and 13,000 hours. It holds many of what Gries believes to be the only recordings of many programs, as the networks erased their recordings to make way for the new. He shares some of these historic sounds with Lost and Found Sound.
Produced by Art Silverman
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