You’ll recognize the names in the subject of this post only if you live around Boston. Gary LaPierre, the morning man on WBZ 1030 AM, is the fourth major ‘BZ radio announcer that I can think of at the moment to retire since my family moved to Massachusetts when I was 13.
Carl DeSouze, Dave Maynard and the uniquely quirky Larry Glick all called it quits many years ago. I believe DeSouze is now deceased, but the voices of Maynard and Glick can still be heard from time to time as guests.
LaPierre’s last day on the air was Friday. At 64 he’s still in fine form, but he had coronary bypass surgery last year. A couple of years ago he was cornered into making the embarrassing admission that during the winter he was rattling off the school snow cancellation lists from his home in Florida.
I admire anybody who can make a lifelong career in the radio business, let alone become something of an institution in a major market. Gary LaPierre is a top-notch announcer who I enjoyed listening to, and he deserves a long and comfortable retirement.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/GaryLaPierre.mp3]The audio player has some of LaPierre’s farewell, and a three-minute tribute. Take note of the Acton and Acton-Boxborough (the regional junior and senior high) school cancellations. What a perk it was, going to a school that’s always first on the list!
Cost-cutting for sure, and most likely to prepare for a sale of the CBS radio stations.
why did they get rid of steve lavelle?
Sportscaster Gil Santos, who’s been on WBZ since 1966, just announced that he’s leaving the station at the end of January. Gil does the daily morning sports reports and said that the 3am drives into the studios this winter were getting to him and he decided to retire earlier than he had planned. You have to wonder if all of the recent layoffs may have also factored into his decision. Gil’s marvelous voice will still be heard doing the Patriots radio broadcasts for the foreseeable future, though.
Dave Maynard still shows up every fall (and spring?) on WBZ, doing commercials for “Gutter Helmet”, begging senior citizens to stop climbing ladders and risking their health in the pursuit of clean gutters! Peace of mind can be had after “Gutter Helmet” is installed.
I don’t know. Dave Maynard is occasionally heard on WBZ commercials, sounding somewhat variable, presumably due to medical condition and/or medication.
How is Dave Maynard doing these days? I used to love his show.
Hi Doug! I can understand Steve Leveille feeling that way. I was reading about Steve, Lavell (sp?) Dyett and 2 other hosts being unceremoniously dumped. Steve’s sub didn’t even know Steve was let go. He found out from a caller. So it seems WBZ isn’t much of an employer. I won’t be listening since when I’m up late I listen to the Old Time Radio on CHML 900 AM that’s on til 2AM. Then if awake(ned) after that I listen to CBC Radio Overnight (shortwave radio) on 1550 AM, or BBC World Service on WHYY 90.9 FM.
Based on LeVeille’s comments this week, he’s really taken the wind out of the sails of his fans efforts to have him reinstated, because I don’t think he wants to go back to nights on WBZ, or any other radio station.
Hi! Jean, the snow we were going to get is going to mix to rain AGAIN! It wasn’t like this when we were kids so I think the Urban Heat Island and the influence of the Washington, DC to NYC megalopolis (or as Benny Hill would say, sprawling “metrolopiss”) is changing our weather. It’s so over-developed in this area. Anyhoo-should we do Doug a favor and put our weather comments at the post “My Deployed Wife” and leave this space for Steve Leveille supporters? OK? 🙂 BRING STEVE BACK!
Joan, central PA has a pretty warm summer, subject to periodic droughts. This has been the nastiest winter we’ve had in some time. The forecasters always talk about the weather in terms of “everything north of I-80” (above the Applachians) and below (that’s us).
Hi! That’s what I mean, Jean. Southeast PA has 2 seasons: Summer and Summer Lite. Spring morphs into Summer and Fall and Winter morph into Summer Lite. Anyhow, keep showing your support for Steve Lavelle on the Steye sites and let’s hope WBZ comes to their senses! BRING STEVE BACK!
Wow! Glad I came over here. Wow. I’m up early to check the school cancellations and yes, they’re closed! So is Acton and the Acton-Boxboro Regional High School! (whonk-whonk-whonk). I can hear the fire horns bellowing in my mind.
Oddly, I had a dream last night where I was living with Dad and started crying to a complete stranger that I wanted to move back to New England where there were “four seasons.” Just as I typed that, the “tribute” tape above played Gary LaPierre reading the beginning of the school cancellations: “Acton, Acton-Boxboro … ” and I burst into tears. Gotta go collect myself. Sorry. Time waits for nobody, that’s for sure.
Some grass-roots campaigns developing:
http://www.bringbacksteve.com
http://bringbacksteve.blogspot.com
Steve Leveille has a webpage, “radiosteve.com,” but there doesn’t appear to be a way to contact him. Please write if anybody knows how.
Doesn’t WBZ care about its listening audience anymore especially us seniors who are usually awake between 1 and 4 a.m. We look forward to hearing the regulars calling in and all their pros and cons on current events. Bring Steve Lavelle back, WBZ, we miss and need him.
Just completed my WBZ web poll. Stated to them that I will boycott WBZ and all its sponsors until Steve Laveille is returned to his time slot. All of his fans should do the same thing.
I posted 30 seconds of the conversation that Jordan Rich had last night with Jon Grayson.
http://www.dograt.com/2009/01/05/wbozo-1030-am-bostons-dumb-idea/
I listened to a bit of Grayson’s show, and turned it off when he turned me off by promoting the call letters of the St. Louis station. The thought occurred to me that radios in St. Louis can probably receive WBZ at night. It’s all so strange. Did this decision come down from on high, or is WBZ management high on something and convinced of their own brilliance?
Correction: the station I heard Grayson mention was WCCO, in Minneapolis. Also, it seems last night was the premiere of “Overnight America” which until now I didn’t know. I’d assumed it was a long-standing program.
This is ridiculous. WBZ’s problems began when they ‘laid off’ their sensational sales manager, Mike Marcello, two years ago. Revenues began to slide, then the economy went bust. Some of the other overpaid sales managers are still there, as well as a VERY well paid GM. If their pay was in line with the market, there would have been NO layoffs whatsoever.
This so called powerhouse of a station now has canned programming on from 1am-5am. What a joke.
We’ll miss you Steve and hope your future is successful. Hopefully you’ll return locally and we can all enjoy you once again. Be safe and healthy my friend. Good luck to You; Diane; and Max
It’s definite that Steve LeVeille has been given the heave-ho at WBZ 1030 AM radio in Boston. I really enjoy listening to Steve LeVeille, and this news sucks, major league, big time.
In a semi-similar vein, Dave Granlund, the political cartoonist for the Metrowest (Framingham, MA) Daily News was laid off last May, but he’s back again. I hope LeVeille makes a similar return!
Hi All! That stinks that Steve LeVeille was let go! I listen to him at night sometimes when my insomnia hits and I’m going to miss him not being on there. It’s rare anymore that stations have their own host on and not some national show-and Steve was a plus for WBZ! Oy!
WHAT?? I hadn’t heard this. I’ve been really out of touch this vacation week. I hadn’t heard this. Steve was one of my lifelines, so to speak, when I was recuperating from eye surgery nine years ago. This is ridiculous. He’s perfect for the night shift.
I am so upset that Steve LaVelle has been let go from WBZ Radio. Has anyone of y ou heard!!!!…there will be some show replacing him on Sunday, Jan.4, 2009. We all must complain and hopefully find where he ends up.
STEVE LaVELLE– you are the best!!!
Hi! I listen to Jordan Rich when I can on WBZ and was just thinking about when Norm Nathan used to call pay phone numbers to see who he’d get ahold of. Sometimes the people who answered were a little inebriated, to say the least-but it was funny. On his show that BBC America carries, Graham Norton does that. He has a camera set up as well. When the new Dr. Who was a guest, they disguised a call box to look like a Tardis and asked the guy who answered if he’d seen Dr. Who’s call box anywhere, even though this box was blue, and call boxes are red, and the guy said no. So Graham had him and the box brought back to the studio on a forklift. He’s a nut.
Hi Doug! What I meant was the station didn’t fade in and out like some AM stations do at night. WBZ always was clear even on stormy and windy nights. In 1979 when we were having a heatwave I called a dj at an FM station in Dallas, Texas and told him what he was playing because he was coming in over our Philly FM station. He put me on the air and said his engineer would be going nuts! TX and OK stations were coming in and I’ll have to find my list. That was cool!
WBZ is a “clear channel” station. That doesn’t refer to the big corporation with that name, but the fact there is no other AM radio station in North America on the same frequency. Daytime reception can be good with a 50,000 watt clear channel station, but because AM signals bounce off the ionosphere at night, even at reduced nightime power WBZ carries much farther than PA.
.I was a listener of Norm Nathan for several years and loved his show. I live in PA and the reception was so clear. I’ll never forget hearing the morning news that he passed away in his sleep, and I could swear he had been on the air the night before. R.I.P. Norm!
I’ve never heard where Dave Maynard lived — but it wasn’t Maynard. 😉 I forget where our little “stay away from Stow” joke came from. The Kotilas lived there.
Larry Glick makes occasional appearances by phone on Steve Laveille’s overnight show on WBZ, but these days Glick sounds quite old. WBZ has a very good 64 kilobit Internet feed. How much longer can standard AM broadcast radio last?
I had no idea Gary stayed on till just now! Didn’t Dave Maynard live in the infamous Stow? (“Stay away from Stow!” I had terrible insomnia all through high school, so natch, I listened to Larry Glick.
I didn’t include the late Norm Nathan in that list because although he ended his career at WBZ, he had been all over the Boston AM radio dial prior to that. The late David Brudnoy — who I thought was a crackpot — was a longtime WBZ talk show host, but he wasn’t an announcer.