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March 17, 2024

The Music Man, Bob with a few more words about the story

Gerald Barnell was the youngest of eight children who were raised on Amsterdam’s South Side where their father operated a grocery store and was one of the founders of Mount Carmel Church.

This Friday, March 22, 2024 "Kevin Hall"

Episode 430-Kevin Hall, author of a memoir on growing up in Ilion, New York-Ilion, My Childhood, My Memories Growing Up in a Bygone Era.

33 degrees a few clouds over The City of Amsterdam at 6:46AM-Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, March 18, 2024-A slight chance of snow showers before 7am, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers after 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 42. West wind 11 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Tonight A chance of snow showers, mainly before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27. Tuesday A slight chance of snow showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 41. Friday, Episode 430-Kevin is a young boy curious with the life around him and enjoying the many moments with his family and friends in his hometown of Ilion, New York.Follow Kevin from his ages of 6 through 13 and enjoy the many adventures as he explores his hometown. However, as he is to find out, sometimes there are consequences for this active boy’s actions, unexpected consequences not always anticipated by the young boy.

Amsterdam’s Music Man

By Bob Cudmore

   Amsterdam is well-known for music, even, back in the day, a Little Symphony Orchestra.  There were drum corps during and after World War II, a band based at Mohawk Carpet Mills directed by members of the Musolff family.

   The 13th Brigade Band played at Amsterdam social occasions. In 1902, that band along with the Maney and McNaughton Orchestra, played at the inaugural run of the trolley line to Hagaman. John A. Maney was in the orchestra. Also a photographer, Maney’s photos have become an essential record of life in early 20th century Amsterdam.

   On the country music side were Steve Lopuch’s Pals of the Saddle and Dusty Miller with his Colorado Wranglers. 

   Gerald Barnell was the youngest of eight children who were raised on Amsterdam’s South Side where their father operated a grocery store and was one of the founders of Mount Carmel Church.

   The family was from Italy.  The family name had been Anglicized from Baranello to Barnell.

   In 1915, brothers Angelo, Charles and Anthony organized Barnell's Concert Orchestra. The group played for Amsterdam’s well-to-do, performed at Saratoga casinos and the New York governor's mansion.

   The orchestra disbanded in 1922 when brother Anthony contracted a bone disease. 

   Soon the youngest Barnell organized Jerry Barnell and His Society Orchestra, playing local spots such as Jollyland amusement park.

   Gerald Barnell graduated from Amsterdam High in 1929 then earned a bachelor's degree at Ithaca College.  A talented violinist, he later did graduate work at the University at Albany, Syracuse University, Indiana University, Columbia University and Julliard.

   He taught for a year at Cazenovia Seminary and joined the Amsterdam schools in 1934. He served the local school system until 1973 as instrumental director, leading high school, junior high and elementary bands and orchestras.

   Barnell also performed with the Barnell Concert Orchestra and directed his own Union Orchestra. He was a member of Local 133 of the Professional Musicians Union.

   He married Antoinette Morini in 1940. When WCSS radio went on the air in 1947, Barnell produced a talent show, "Youth on Parade", and hosted the Sunday Italian show with Salvatore Morini.

   Barnell entertained children by making his violin sound like a bumblebee or train whistle. He had many private students, including popular guitarist and vocalist Rachelle Cotugno.

  In the 1950s, it was Barnell's inspiration to meld the co-ed high school band with female cheerleaders and baton-twirling majorettes whose signature number became "Lullaby of Birdland," with majorettes forming a kick line during halftime at football games reminiscent of the Radio City Rockettes.

   Today's majorette uniforms are still handmade from white corduroy for each individual, similar to the uniforms of Barnell’s day.  The majorettes still perform “Lullaby of Birdland.”

   After Barnell retired in 1973, he taught music education at the College of Saint Rose in Albany.  He died in 1998; his wife Antoinette died in 2001.

   They lived on Phillips Street. Barnell's son Jerry was a business educator at Schalmont High School in Rotterdam; the younger Barnell played bass drum in high school and college. Young Barnell's wife, Terri Mikolaitis, was an Amsterdam High majorette in the late 1950s.

   Patricia Mercadante Valiente, Barnell’s

great niece, served as choral director at Amsterdam High. Valiente noted that one of her great uncle’s accomplishments was organizing the first All County Music Festival in Montgomery County in 1956.

   Since Barnell's day, the high school band has been led by numerous individuals and performs in many notable locations.  Today, the musical group is known as the Amsterdam Marching Rams and includes majorettes and a flag team. The band was part of a segment seen on Oprah Winfrey’s national television show.

Monday, March 18, 2024

Mohawk Valley News The Daily Gazette, The Recorder News, The Leader-Herald and Nippertown. https://www.dailygazette.om/c

Dissolution of Fort Johnson causes wrinkle for would-be food trailer operators
Ashley Onyon The Recorder

March 15, 2024

Bill Simons

Friday, March 15, 2024-Episode 513-Actor Kirk Douglas died four years ago at age 103. Emeritus history professor Bill Simons from SUNY Oneonta has done extensive research on the life of Amsterdam native Kirk Douglas and tells the story of visiting the actor’s childhood home.

March 08, 2024

Charles Postel

....San Francisco State University history professor Charles Postel is author of Equality: An American Dilemma 1866-1896. In this edit of Episode 286, Postel compares three important social movements: Knights of Labor, Women’s Christian Temperance Union and farmers’ Grange.

March 01, 2024

Mark Silo

Friday, March 2, 2024-Episode 512- British colonist William Johnson “made his bones” by defeating a French army who attacked his army at Lake George in 1755. King George II made Johnson a baronet, “Sir” William Johnson. Parliament awarded Johnson 5,000 pounds. Historian Mark Silo tells the story with commentary from Old Fort Johnson site manager Scott Haefner.

February 23, 2024

Ghosts of Segregation

Episode 511-Photojournalist Richard Frishman and essayist and professor Dr. B. Brian Foster are authors of Ghosts of Segregation, a photojournalism collection depicting a visual history of segregation through buildings and landscapes where racism has left its mark.

February 16, 2024

Terry Golway

Former Albany Politico bureau chief Terry Golway is author of I Never Did like Politics: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America's Mayor, and Why He Still Matters. Golway tells the story of LaGuardia’s life through colorful episodes that relate to people today.

February 09, 2024

HighLights Edition 1-2024

Episode 509-Highlights Edition from 2023 and 2024 with excerpts from podcasts on Civil War volunteers from Saratoga, the story of Benedict Arnold, an ancient elephant tusk found in Maine and much more

February 02, 2024

Jerry Madden

Friday, February 2, 2024-Episode 508-Jerry Madden discusses his historical novel Steel Valley: Coming of Age in the Ohio Valley in the 1960s. Madden sets his story in Rust Belt in cities like Steubenville, Ohio, where steel mills have moved out.

January 12, 2024

Bruce Luyendyk

Bruce Luyendyk is a geologist and author of Mighty Bad Land, the story of his explorations of Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica in the 1990s, These explorations led to the discovery of a new continent, named Zealandia.

January 05, 2024

Gary Hoyle

Gary Hoyle is author of Mystery Tusk, the story of a 12,000 year old woolly mammoth tusk found in a manmade pond in Maine in 1959. Plus the chronicle of an African elephant, Old Bet, shot and killed in the early 1800s in Maine.

December 29, 2023

Chris Carola

Chris Carola, a former Albany based Associated Press reporter who lives in Saratoga Springs, talks to Bob about the Civil War’s 77th New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

December 22, 2023

Amy Godine

....The Black Woods by Amy Godine chronicles the history of Black pioneers in New York's northern wilderness. From the late 1840s into the 1860s, they migrated to the Adirondacks to build farms and to vote. On their new-worked land, they could meet the $250 property requirement New York's constitution imposed on Black voters in 1821, and claim the rights of citizenship.

December 15, 2023

Jack D. Warren Jr.

Friday, December 15, 2023-Episode 503- Jack Warren is author of FREEDOM: The Enduring Importance of the American Revolution. Freedom is a look into British America, the Revolutionary War, the birth of a new nation, what freedom means, and how the events of the past are important even today.

December 08, 2023

Jack Kelly

Friday, December 8, 2023-Episode 502-Jack Kelly is author of God Save Benedict Arnold. Arnold committed treason. Yet he was more than a turncoat—Kelly argues Arnold’s achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era.

December 01, 2023

Tim Keogh

Friday, December 1, 2023-Episode 501-Tim Keogh, author of In Levittown's Shadow: Poverty in America's Wealthiest Postwar Suburb. Keogh found that attics, basements, and sheds housed the poor during the suburban boom that followed World War II.

November 24, 2023

Dana Cudmore

Friday, November 24, 2023-Episode 500-Dana Cudmore, author of Farming with Dynamite. Before the introduction of concrete in the early 1900s, cut stones were used to build impressive structures such as churches, public buildings and homes. Cudmore documents more than 30 stone quarries across Schoharie County where dynamite was used to get large stones from the land.

November 17, 2023

Cosby Gibson/Tom Staudle/World Songs

Friday, November 17, 2023-Episode 499-Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle with songs from Hanukkah, Kwanza and other year end holidays.

November 10, 2023

Jim Kaplan

Friday, November 10, 2023-Episode 498-Jim Kaplan on Revolutionary War General Horatio Gates. American commander in the key victory over the British in the Battle of Saratoga, Gates’ reputation suffered at the end of the war. He later moved to New York City and helped elect Thomas Jefferson as President in 1800.

November 03, 2023

Focus on History #3 for 2023

Several topics from Bob Cudmore’s Focus on History newspaper column: Amsterdam NY’s connection to Piscotta, Italy; carper mill tales; union Leader Leonora Barry. Plus an interview with Phillip Malcolm Bowler about his ancestors’ brewery in Amsterdam.

October 20, 2023

David Pietrusza

Friday, October 20, 2023-Episode 496-David Pietrusza with a guided tour of organized crime in the 1920s in New York City, Gangsterland.

October 06, 2023

David Brooks

Friday, October 6, 2023-Episode 495-David Brooks with an insightful look at the 115th New York Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War. The regiment was composed of men from Montgomery, Fulton, Saratoga and Hamilton Counties. Commanded by Simeon Sammons the troops went to war from Fonda. Brooks is a member of the board of the Fulton County Historical Society.

September 29, 2023

HighLights Edition 5

Episode 494-Highlights edition #5-Christopher Gorham with the story of FDR aide Anna Rosenberg; Gregg Ficery tracing the origin of the National Football League; Scott Shane chronicling the life of Thomas Smallwood, an African American who named the Underground Railroad and interviews from the 2015 Fort Plan Museum conference on the American Revolution.

September 22, 2023

Scott Shane

Episode 493-Scott Shane, author of Flee North- A forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery’s borderland. The book traces the life of Thomas Smallwood, an African American who named the Underground Railroad.

September 15, 2023

Charles Yaple

Friday, September 15, 2023-Episode 492-Episode 493-Charles Yaple, Professor Emeritus at SUNY Cortland, has written Jacob’s Land, a history of his immigrant family in New York State in the 1700s. Yaple has also written The Tree of Us following men, from Richford, New York, including John D. Rockefeller, once the world’s richest man, and Gurdon Wallace Wattle, a friend to five U.S. presidents.
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