Category: 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.

FM’s static-filled history

I have just purchased a new book called “The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age,” about a subject that interests me greatly. The relationship of the brilliant engineer Edwin Armstrong and David Sarnoff, the CEO of RCA. Sarnoff saw the potential of radio broadcasting that was made possible by Armstrong’s AM circuit wizardry, and used it to build the mighty NBC network. He failed, however, to see the significance of Armstrong’s invention of FM, to the point where the FCC had to force Sarnoff into accepting FM for TV sound.

It’s a classic modern tragedy of an independent inventor being crushed by a giant corporation. Keeping in mind that Sarnoff also rolled over Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of all-electronic television, I do not yet know if the book’s author, Scott Woolley, sees Sarnoff as having been completely in the wrong. Based upon a segment on last Friday’s Marketplace, I get the impression that Woolley might favor the view that Armstrong should have accepted reality and given up the fight.