Dick Biondi’s family has announced that he died last week, on June 26, at age 90. On February 23, 1963, Biondi was the first American DJ to play a Beatles record, a full year before they came here. Biondi was on WLS in Chicago, home of VJ, the only record label that wanted the Beatles.
https://www.beatle.net/biondi-announcing-please-please-me/
Biondi’s passing will make Sunday’s showing of a new documentary about his life bittersweet.
Three days from now, July 6, Tom “DJ” Hanks returns to Boss Radio 66. Three days after that, he’ll have his 67th birthday.
Rewound Radio is playing Musicradio WABC airchecks from the ’60’s and 70’s for its Memorial Day Weekend programming.
As I have said here many times, WABeatleC was the sound of my childhood in Connecticut. Listening to WABC was my inspiration for wanting to work in radio when I grew up.
After my family moved to Massachusetts, I listened to WRKO in Boston on my bedside GE AM radio. Here are some RKO airchecks from my peak years of listening to the station, before buying my first stereo and tuning the Pioneer SX-440 receiver to WBCN FM. At one point, a bit of a commercial with WABC’s Dan Ingram can be heard.
This morning, Tom Hanks will be wearing a mortarboard at Harvard’s commencement ceremonies.
https://www.harvard.edu/in-focus/celebrating-the-class-of-2023/
Video of Tom’s speech will certainly be available later, but until then he can be heard today at 1 PM ET, wearing his DJ cap on Boss Radio 66.
Here’s a convenient player to use.
I spotted Tom Hanks on Turner Classic Movies last night, and hoped TCM would post the video, which they have done.
Tom’s return to his DJ identity on Boss Radio 66 has been rescheduled from this Tuesday, to Thursday at 1 PM EDT.
Tom Hanks is scheduled to return to the Boss Radio 66 mic on May 23 at 1 PM ET. From this picture I expect we’ll be hearing some — yay! — summer Surf music.
Tom’s latest side hustle is novel writing. Following the old adage “write what you know about,” Hanks certainly knows the movie business. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece was released a couple of days ago, and it’s on my Kindle Paperwhite. Here’s a sneak peek.
