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With donations trickling in today, we're almost at the 30% mark. We still have a ways to go before I can make the bills. But thanks to you, and to your friends and the people you've told about Newstalgia to, we're slowly getting there. Many thanks to all of you who have donated and left kind words. I'm here because you're here, and I'll keep being here as long as I can, hopefully bringing you sounds you may not be familiar with or have forgotten all about. So whatever you can do, whatever you can donate - there is no sum too small that doesn't help chip away at this crisis. We can make it. My deepest appreciation to you all.

The name Florent Schmitt doesn't ring many bells these days. A prolific composer and respected critic, Schmitt composed some 150 works, ranging from instrumental and chamber pieces to Ballets and Orchestral works.

But out of that 150 compositions, only a tiny fraction have ever been recorded, let alone performed, since their premiers.

While still tackling the mountain of French Radio transcriptions from the 1940's and 1950's, I ran across Oriane et le Prince d'amour, which I don't think has ever been recorded commercially. This performance comes by way of a broadcast concert given by The French National Orchestra, conducted by the legendary Jean Martinon. Since none of these transcriptions have recording dates on them, my best guess is it comes from the 1956-1957 period.

Someone else you may not be familiar with, or someone you are, but may not be familiar with this piece.

In any case, enjoy and (cross fingers) we'll be back next week.

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Update: With a mass outpouring of donations and kind words overnight, we've come within a few hundred dollars of our goal. We'll end the fundraiser after today and give what we have to the building owners and hopefully the crisis will be over tomorrow. I can't begin to express my gratitude and admiration for all of you who have made donations. Your contributions have all made a huge difference and I am so blown away by the responses. It is sometimes difficult to know, working on posts all day and usually with only the computer screen as an audience, to tell if any of the historic materials I've been offering these last few years have been seen or have been of any help to anyone. The past 10 days of this fundraiser have proven there are a lot of you out there and that makes this decades-long quest for archiving and preserving history completely worth it. I'll be here as long as you're here. If you are still interested in making a contribution, I'm still in heavy appeal-mode for the rest of the day. As always, any amount you feel comfortable with is enormous to me. My deepest and most heartfelt thanks to you all.

This May Day in 1961 had ominous tones for the future - although at the time it didn't sound that way. The news for this day was the crisis in Southeast Asia, specifically the dispute between Laos and Cambodia. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia had proposed a 14 nation Political Conference to the King of Laos in an effort to diffuse the situation. The proposal was rejected and Sihanouk then called for ceasefire talks to begin.

Meanwhile, President Kennedy was being apprised of the situation in South Vietnam via a recently concluded Military fact finding mission to the area.

On the Domestic front - Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges was quoted as saying the Communist Economic offensive was a matter of grave concern to the Free World, with obvious hints towards the situation in Latin America. Elsewhere - it was reported the Unemployment figures in the U.S. were regarded as "intolerable" by Capitol Hill.

On an upbeat note - Scientists at Cape Canaveral were weighting weather conditions for a scheduled launch of he first manned-Space flight by the U.S. - the flight was slated to go on May 2nd, if all signs were good.

And Jordan's King Hussein announced via Radio Aman that he was engaged to "the woman of his dreams" - a commoner who also happened to be the daughter of a British Army Officer. Hussein also added that yes, she was a Muslim - so not to worry.

And that's what this May 1st was mostly about in 1961 as reported by NBC News On The Hour.

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(Prince LaLa -publicity shot in 1962 - and you thought musicians were a bit quirky now . . . . )

It occurred to me that I've been spending a little too much time of late over at MySpace and not enough time digging through my own vaults for music you may have missed out on the first time around. Music that wound up influencing a lot of musicians throughout the world just by its sheer originality and audacity.

One of those artists came by way of New Orleans. Prince LaLa recorded precious little before his untimely death in 1963 at the age of 27 from a drug overdose. I'm sure we could go into overtime with "might have been" scenarios on, not only him, but a lot of musicians of the time who met premature deaths at the hands of "accidents", and Prince LaLa was no different.

This was his first single, She Put The Hurt On Me. It's presented here for the first time in honest-to-god STEREO, so that should cause a few fans to hyperventilate. Even if it was in mono off a scratchy 45, it would still be pretty sensational.

And a nice way to kick the week off.