the girl of my dreams

In the 1940s the American public had a love affair with the radio. The average American could get commercials, adventure serials, Roosevelt’s fireside chats, and the latest jazz and big band hits all in the comfort of his own living room. He could also, if he wished, grab a piece of wire and a fistful of tinfoil and tap into the airwaves himself, broadcasting to his friends and neighbors. Enthusiasm for the medium caused small radio stations to spring up all over the continent. Sonny Williamson of Kansas City built his station from the ground up, starting in the late 1930s. By the middle of the next decade, he was broadcasting from his home base in a dusty Missouri garage to over 200,000 households. But his station was just a flyspeck on the map until the day he overheard Martin Jones, a homeless Kansas City man, singing to a cat in an alleyway. Spellbound by Jones’s velvety voice, Williamson invited Jones into his studio to sing his lament for the radio audience. Jones, drunk but coherent, decided to sing a song he had written called “The Girl Of My Dreams.” After his performance, the station’s phone was buzzing with requests for more. When he discovered that Jones had written a whole musical drama around “Girl,” Williamson assembled a cast of singers to perform Jones’s show right there on the radio. It was a smash, and Williamson hoped it would sparked a whole new genre of radio entertainment: the Broadcast Musical. Williamson paid Jones and the cast two dollars a night and dinner to regularly appear and perform the show. He tried to coax other musicals out of Jones, but after only a month, Jones showed up less and less. Rumors were that he had secretly begun recording a record for RCA. After Jones disappeared completely, people waited hopefully to see if anything would be released. Nothing surfaced. Depressed and missing his only star, Williamson sold his studio and gave up show business, saying he would never find another talked life old Magic Marty.

Vocals: Michael Johnson
Piano: Michael Johnson
Drums: Derrick Trost
Bass: Nate Halloran
Trumpet: Cory Gray

Recorded in 2002 at Type Foundry in Portland, OR. Engineered and mixed by Adam Selzer. Mastered by Michael Johnson and Chad Crouch.