Category: New York Top 40 Radio

The Disc Jockey’s Disc Jockey

Dan Ingram, the greatest radio disc jockey of all time, has died. For anyone who loved Top 40 radio the way I did, the word “legendary” is inadequate to describe Big Dan’s career in the business. Getting home from school in Connecticut in the Sixties, I always looked forward to turning on the radio and hearing Ingram on Musicradio 77WABC in New York.

Dan Ingram, 1934-2018

Los Angeles had its big name jocks, but all of them aspired to working in television. Many succeeded, mostly hosting game shows, but in New York Ingram was all about radio. With his pitch-perfect voice and snappy patter, Dan was the master of medium.

This video has a classic Dan Ingram aircheck from 52 years ago today, in the summer of ’66, a time that was one of the happiest of my life.

https://youtu.be/j4bZnbfj5OY

Top 40 radio was over and done as the dominant format by the time I was working on-air at an AM station. Sometimes I can’t believe I actually did it, but I did, and it came easily to me, thanks to the inspiration of Dan Ingram and Bruce Morrow on WABC. Thankfully, Ingram’s old buddy and colleague Cousin Brucie is still here to entertain us on Sirius/XM radio.

P.S. This is a message I sent to my sisters:

Today’s extremely sad news is the passing of legendary DJ Dan Ingram, one of the big inspirations for me getting into the business. I still have dreams about sitting behind the mic and “working the board,” which was something Big Dan and Cousin Brucie didn’t have to do, because WABC had engineers taking care of that for them.

All of the songs played on WABC were on tape cartridges, by the way. They were transferred from 45’s immediately upon receipt, so the records wouldn’t develop “cue burn,” a phenomenon that I knew well myself from “slip cueing” records on the turntables at the station.

Here is an air check with Dan that, towards the end, features Ian Whitcomb’s big hit. Which reminds me, I need to do some audio editing of Ian wishing Liz well between songs a few months ago. I’m a sponsor of his online radio show.

P.P.S. Mark Evanier’s friend Ken Levine has an interesting Southern Californian take on Ingram at this link.

Hello Again, One Last Time

Herb Oscar Anderson passed away this morning. In the 1960’s HOA was the Morning Mayor of New York on 77 WABC, the legendary radio station that inspired me to get into the business.

Herb didn’t share an appreciation of Sixties youth culture and music with his fellow WABC jocks, in particular Cousin Brucie and Dan Ingram. His taste ran more to Lawrence Welk, but being a fan of the Lennon Sisters myself that’s fine with me, and I enjoyed hearing HOA every morning while getting ready for school.

Herb was the #1 morning DJ in New York when he decided to leave WABC in September, 1968. Harry Harrison was hired away from WMCA to take over the highly-coveted shift, and a month later my family moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts.

New Yorker, New Yorker

The only print magazine I still get in the mail is The New Yorker. Here are a couple of articles. First, Jeffrey Toobin’s excellent analysis of Antonin Scalia’s three decades on the supreme bench…

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/antonin-scalia-looking-backward

… and a retro piece, from 1965, about about the relationship between radio and Rock and Roll. It’s recommended by Herb Oscar Anderson, or HOA as he was known when he was the Morning Mayor on 77 WABC in the 1960’s.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/02/20/the-new-sound

A Kind of a Hush

Deep Purple’s recording of Joe South’s “Hush” is one of those songs that takes me back to powerful memories from a particular point in my life. “There’s a Kind of a Hush All Over the World” by Herman’s Hermits it wasn’t! I’d just finished an extremely difficult year in the 7th grade, and “Hush” really excited and grabbed me.

EVERYTHING WAS CHANGING SO FAST! Not just for me as a kid on the cusp of turning thirteen, but for the world. LBJ wasn’t running for re-election, MLK and RFK had been assassinated, etc. And to top it off, a month after “Hush” peaked on the charts my family up and moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts.

Jon Lord of Deep Purple has died. “Hush”, with Lord’s incredible keyboard sound, is one of the last songs that is indelibly associated in my mind with 77 WABC Musicradio in New York. It’s my assumption that Herb Oscar Anderson’s departure from WABC was due to songs like this one.

Rewound the years

You say you want oldies, but you’re tired of hearing the same songs over and over on your local station? You want the fun and surprises of hearing EVERYthing from the first 20 years of Pop-Rock music? You want Rewound Radio. Brought to you by the folks who run musicradio77, a tribute to the world’s greatest Top 40 radio station, 77 WABC in New York.

It’s a ’65-’74 no repeat Columbus Day weekend on Rewound Radio. They say “Turn it on and… Leave it on all holiday weekend!” and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Click here for a complete list of online listening options.

A Freed man

BBC Radio 2 has a Listen Again (podcast) documentary about pioneering Rock and Roll DJ Alan Freed. I was going to listen to just a few minutes and finish it later, but instead sat through the whole show in one sitting. I think it should be available until next week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pqb52/The_Inventor_of_Rock_and_Roll_The_Alan_Freed_Story/