Speaker 1: Well, w I am Gary Jeff Walker, and it all
Speaker 1: begins now. It started when I was six years old
Speaker 1: and got my first transistor radio nine volture for Christmas,
Speaker 1: and it opened up this incredible world of music and
Speaker 1: magical voices coming through the airwaves and right into my
Speaker 1: brain for better or for worse. This is where my
Speaker 1: journey started that made me, at the age of seven
Speaker 1: years old, want to be on the radio someday. And
Speaker 1: the disc jockeys who saved radio with the advent of
Speaker 1: television in the nineteen fifties and sixties are the ones
Speaker 1: that I emulated most. And we have three of those
Speaker 1: gentlemen featured tonight in interviews from the past year. Great
Speaker 1: American history on the radio. It's something I love and
Speaker 1: these are guys again that I ultimately respect, that I've
Speaker 1: had the great opportunity to do interviews with over the
Speaker 1: last calendar year or so. Tonight, we will start with
Speaker 1: a true National Radio Hall of Famer. He was inducted
Speaker 1: last November and I had the chance to speak with
Speaker 1: him just before it all came down. Well deserved. A
Speaker 1: man who worked at some of the biggest radio stations
Speaker 1: in America, started in Detroit, but you'll hear the whole
Speaker 1: story if you just tune in. Another one of his
Speaker 1: compatriots from satellite radio also will be featured on this
Speaker 1: show tonight. Next hour, we'll be talking to Shotgun Tom Kelly.
Speaker 1: And if you're not aware of the name or the person,
Speaker 1: what an accomplished guy who spent his life in radio
Speaker 1: mostly on the West Coast, but pat Saint John Shotgun Tom.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of tonight's show, the eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock hour, we'll be featuring a man who go by
Speaker 1: the name of John Records land Decker, and Records is
Speaker 1: truly his middle name from his mom's side. He's one
Speaker 1: of the people that further encouraged me by listening to
Speaker 1: them to get into this business that I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be a part of for more than forty
Speaker 1: four years now. And John Landecker will close up the
Speaker 1: show tonight. It was an interview that I always wanted
Speaker 1: to have because I grew up hearing John Records land
Speaker 1: Decker on WLS in Chicago when I lived in the
Speaker 1: Chicago area as a kid, and then later on as
Speaker 1: a teenager when John Records land Decker was on at night,
Speaker 1: and that big signal that eighty nine on the AM
Speaker 1: dial signal was blasting out across to America, and you
Speaker 1: will hear the origins of something called boogie check. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar, well it's a great primer on what
Speaker 1: I grew up with listening to. If you are familiar, Ah,
Speaker 1: what a treat. Some of your favorites are coming up
Speaker 1: tonight too as we count down to twenty twenty five, So,
Speaker 1: without any further ado, after the break, my interview with
Speaker 1: Pat Saint John on his way to the National Radio
Speaker 1: Broadcasters Hall of Fame, a disc jockey that helps save
Speaker 1: the medium, and he's coming up next on the Nightcap
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve seven hundred WLW. It would suck if
Speaker 1: I was in a coma because I'd miss Mike McConnell.
Speaker 2: If you were in a coma, you probably wouldn't care
Speaker 2: about the weather and traffic.
Speaker 3: But he'd missed the news and sports and.
Speaker 2: The investment news and all those McConnell last starting your
Speaker 2: day getting the latest word at a healthy dose of
Speaker 2: my infects you is Mike mcconald's charm makes you feel good.
Speaker 4: No coma's for me. I want McConnell. So tune in
Speaker 4: and get the goodness you deserve.
Speaker 5: Coma free is.
Speaker 3: The way to be if you love Mike McConnell.
Speaker 6: Mike McConnell tomorrow morning at bye on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: The holidays are a blast.
Speaker 1: Was in flame, throwing wats here in the heart of
Speaker 1: the Midwest out to America at night. And I have
Speaker 1: looked forward to this conversation for a long time. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you, Gary Jeff Walker checking in, by
Speaker 1: the way, I will tell you that this is one
Speaker 1: of the harder interviews to do. When you really have
Speaker 1: such an admiration for somebody you're talking to, you're worried
Speaker 1: that in the middle of a question it's going to
Speaker 1: come out, well what about the boof? And I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm kind of at that point when I was thinking
Speaker 1: about talking.
Speaker 4: To this guy. He is one of my radio heroes.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been on the radio somewhere for forty three years,
Speaker 1: and I still get starstruck when I talk to the
Speaker 1: people that I admire the most in this business. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make him blush or make him
Speaker 1: feel bad. He says himself that he's tired of talking
Speaker 1: about his own story, but I wanted to take a
Speaker 1: few minutes out tonight. We have a segment here that
Speaker 1: we do occasionally called American History on the radio. When
Speaker 1: we were doing it to relate to certain big events, news
Speaker 1: events that happened before the advent of TV and how
Speaker 1: radio played an important role. And then we got into
Speaker 1: some of the local radio stars that people connected with
Speaker 1: on a regular basis here in Cincinnati and around the Midwest.
Speaker 4: And so now we're going national.
Speaker 1: I guess the host of the Pat Saint John Show
Speaker 1: on sirius XM sixties Gold.
Speaker 4: Yes, I am a subscriber. I hope my boss didn't
Speaker 4: hear that.
Speaker 1: Also for forty two years in New York City and
Speaker 1: started out when I did, I mean I was nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, right out of what I call thirteenth grade
Speaker 1: junior college, and that my first professional radio job in
Speaker 1: June nineteen eighty. Pat goes back to the seventies in
Speaker 1: Detroit and CKLW in Toronto. Pat Saint John, good after it,
Speaker 1: good evening, and how are you.
Speaker 7: I'm doing great, Gary, Jeff. That's a pretty nice build
Speaker 7: up there, pretty nice.
Speaker 8: I know.
Speaker 1: I hope nobody's disappointed at the end. But and I
Speaker 1: know they won't be My listeners will not be.
Speaker 9: Pat.
Speaker 1: The first thing I was gonna ask you about because
Speaker 1: it kind of parallels. This is the only thing that
Speaker 1: parallels are two careers. You've been a lot more successful
Speaker 1: than me in our forty plus years on the air
Speaker 1: or almost fifty now, but we both started. We both
Speaker 1: started at like eighteen nineteen years old.
Speaker 7: That's right. And I was going to say, as far
Speaker 7: as success goes, hey, man, if you're doing what you
Speaker 7: love to do, and I know you are, you know,
Speaker 7: then we're then we're the same on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what when did you get the first bug? I
Speaker 1: got bit by the radio bug when I was about
Speaker 1: seven years old listening to these great DJs out of
Speaker 1: Chicago on WLS and WCFL.
Speaker 7: What was it for you, Pat, Well, for me, it
Speaker 7: was about the same age when I started getting records
Speaker 7: when I was six or seven and I was listening
Speaker 7: to the radio in Detroit stations like w x y
Speaker 7: Z and w k and R and then c KOW,
Speaker 7: which is in Windsor, by the way, not Toronto.
Speaker 4: Right, I know?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: See that was that was that fanboy thing that came
Speaker 4: back to bite me.
Speaker 7: Well, that would have been too long of a commute
Speaker 7: for me, you know. I then, you know, listening to
Speaker 7: the to the radio and collecting rock and roll records.
Speaker 7: It never occurred to me that I could actually do
Speaker 7: that on the radio. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 7: And it wasn't until I was in high school when
Speaker 7: they when they came out with a radio station at
Speaker 7: the high school in Southfield, Michigan. Southfield is just north
Speaker 7: of Detroit, and it was a ten lot FM station.
Speaker 7: And I used to go down to the hallway and
Speaker 7: look through the glass and see these students doing these
Speaker 7: radio shows. And I listened to him and I go, well,
Speaker 7: I can do better than that. And so I asked
Speaker 7: how would I get involved. They put me in touch
Speaker 7: with the with the teacher who was the manager of
Speaker 7: the station, and he told me, he said, yeah, I
Speaker 7: think I could use you. I didn't have any of
Speaker 7: the classes or anything, but he made me. He said, well,
Speaker 7: you've got to have a third.
Speaker 10: Class FCC license, all right.
Speaker 7: So I went and I took the test and I
Speaker 7: got it, and the last half of my senior year
Speaker 7: I got on the radio. I was able to get
Speaker 7: on this station. It had about a five mile radius,
Speaker 7: but it was still real. In fact, the radio station.
Speaker 7: I think you'll find this interesting. This was like the
Speaker 7: first year of the radio station. It was w s HJ.
Speaker 7: That stood for Southfield High JS, which was the name
Speaker 7: of the you know, the team the sports teams there, sure.
Speaker 8: And.
Speaker 7: That radio station. I wasn't part of it, but the
Speaker 7: teacher was, and he was able to convince the manager
Speaker 7: of the Who that we were this radio station in
Speaker 7: Detroit and we'd love to host a concert, and they
Speaker 7: said yeah, and on Thanksgiving this was before this was
Speaker 7: a few months before I actually started, but we actually
Speaker 7: had the Who in our high school gymnasium. And this
Speaker 7: was in this was Thanksgiving eve eve in sixty seven,
Speaker 7: and the Who played our played our gymnasium, with the
Speaker 7: first group being a local group in Detroit called the
Speaker 7: Unrelated Segments. The second group were the amboy Dukes and
Speaker 7: then the Who, and they were the DJs from Ckow
Speaker 7: who introduced them. So it was it was fascinating. But anyway,
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 1: Trying to get my job off the will you hoodwink
Speaker 1: the Who and to play in your high school, you know,
Speaker 1: and he got the Duke, So you had Ted Nugent, right,
Speaker 1: was part of the Boy Dukes at the time.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, uh uh, it was rock and good Night.
Speaker 8: But anyway, all of that.
Speaker 7: Was happening while I was going, well, maybe I could
Speaker 7: do this and then I'll try to make a long
Speaker 7: story short here. And I was dating a girl. This
Speaker 7: is just out of high school. And I was dating
Speaker 7: a girl and her father knew the general manager of
Speaker 7: w I think it was w q x R. It
Speaker 7: was a classical radio station in Detroit. He set up
Speaker 7: an interview with me. And I went down and and
Speaker 7: you know what, my my mom said, well, you know
Speaker 7: you're going on an interview like this, you got to
Speaker 7: have a suit and tie. She took me out, got
Speaker 7: me a suit. You know. I went down. I drove
Speaker 7: down to downtown Detroit to the station, went in and
Speaker 7: when I told the secretary, I have an appointment with
Speaker 7: so and so. You know, I didn't know anything about
Speaker 7: classical music. Didn't matter to me. I just wanted to
Speaker 7: get in on the radio.
Speaker 8: Sure and so I.
Speaker 7: Said, I'm here. I've got an appointment with mister so
Speaker 7: and so. She says, do you have a first class
Speaker 7: FCC license? And I said, no, I've got a third
Speaker 7: class you know, a first class would enable you to
Speaker 7: open up a piece of equipment and go inside and
Speaker 7: fix it. There was no way I could do that,
Speaker 7: and so she said, I'm sorry. Our announcers have to
Speaker 7: have first class licenses because they do double duty. I
Speaker 7: never even got to see the guy. Never even got
Speaker 7: to see the guy. So I'm pretty you know, I'm
Speaker 7: pretty disappointed. I get back in the car. I'm driving
Speaker 7: down East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, and on the left
Speaker 7: is this great, big marquee, like a theater marquee of
Speaker 7: radio station WWW known as W four.
Speaker 8: Right, I'm driving.
Speaker 7: Past this thing, and I'm going, well, I don't know,
Speaker 7: I'm dressed for an interview. I made a left hand turn,
Speaker 7: drove into the parking lot, walked into the place, asked
Speaker 7: that secretary do you have any openings for announcers. She says, well,
Speaker 7: I don't know. We might hold on and she calls
Speaker 7: the program director. He comes downstairs and says, come on.
Speaker 7: He gives me a tour of this place. Now, W
Speaker 7: four at that time was a beautiful music station. Okay,
Speaker 7: so that's getting closer. It was automated, which means there
Speaker 7: was just a wall of real to reel recorders and
Speaker 7: all of this stuff in my you know, and my
Speaker 7: jaw dropped and I'm going, man, look at this. Well,
Speaker 7: he gives me some copy off the off the off
Speaker 7: the wire and said, here, make me a tape. He says,
Speaker 7: because we need we do need somebody. So I borrowed
Speaker 7: a cassette recorder and a and a microphone from a
Speaker 7: friend of mine. I talked the news, I did this thing.
Speaker 7: I drove it down and handed it to him, and
Speaker 7: by the following weekend he hired me. And I worked
Speaker 7: the overnight show, doing hourly news headlines, weather forecasts, and
Speaker 7: doing commercials. And I made two fifty an hour. That's
Speaker 7: two dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I mean very similar to what I was
Speaker 1: making my first job. And I was, you know, reading
Speaker 1: news and doing the DJ thing and going to school
Speaker 1: board meetings to take notes for the local news department.
Speaker 4: And it was all minimum wage.
Speaker 7: Pat Yeah, well, I mean this was probably lit. I
Speaker 7: don't know, it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all.
Speaker 7: I was doing what I wanted to do. So now
Speaker 7: I'm on the all night show. All of these little
Speaker 7: news headlines and weather things, they were all pre recorded
Speaker 7: you'd record them, then you'd feed them. You'd put the
Speaker 7: reel to reel on that machine and it would actually
Speaker 7: it would actually air a little bit later when the
Speaker 7: automation told it to go to that particular Sure. So,
Speaker 7: because I had all this time on my midnight to
Speaker 7: eight am shift, I was bringing my I was bringing
Speaker 7: my own forty fives in and I started making tapes
Speaker 7: for CKLW, which was which was the number one station
Speaker 7: in Detroit, even Toledo. You know, this is in Windsor.
Speaker 7: And it was a like you say, a fifty thousand
Speaker 7: want powerhouse that reached you know, half the country at night.
Speaker 7: So I did that and started sending these tapes to CKLW,
Speaker 7: and I never got They always said to me, well,
Speaker 7: we don't have anything right now, but we'll keep your
Speaker 7: we'll keep your tape on file.
Speaker 4: Yeah sure, the old brush off, Yeah.
Speaker 7: The old brush off. But I sent a few tapes
Speaker 7: over there and had pretty much given up when one
Speaker 7: day they got a new program director. The guy called
Speaker 7: me and said we might have something for you. We've
Speaker 7: got we've got would you you know, could you could
Speaker 7: you come over for lunch?
Speaker 11: Uh?
Speaker 7: Yeah? So I went over there. I had lunch with him.
Speaker 7: His name was Jim O'Brien and Dick smythe who was
Speaker 7: the program He was the news director. And now I'm eighteen. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 7: this is a fifty thousand watch channel. That's the number
Speaker 7: one channel. And they offered me three nights a week
Speaker 7: doing the overnight show, two days a week driving around
Speaker 7: the c K marrow getting news actualities, and one night
Speaker 7: a week actually pulling a news shift. And I was
Speaker 7: like and and he offered me one hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: dollars a week.
Speaker 4: How about that?
Speaker 7: Now that was good money. But because I was used
Speaker 7: to talking to the DJs, you know, on the phone,
Speaker 7: I call the hit line and all of this this
Speaker 7: before I get there, and they told me that the
Speaker 7: union minimum, the after minimum, was two hundred dollars a week,
Speaker 7: which is ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So one night I'm on the air and the union
Speaker 7: steward comes in. He worked at CKLWTV. It was all
Speaker 7: in one building, and he said, how's it going, you know,
Speaker 7: and I'm going, oh, this is this is doing great?
Speaker 7: He said, you know, taking care of you. The JI
Speaker 7: get a thing. I said, yeah, I'm getting one hundred
Speaker 7: and fifty bucks a week. He said, huh. He said, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 7: they can't do that. You're gonna get two hundred dollars
Speaker 7: a week. That's the minimum. I'll take care of this. Well,
Speaker 7: the program director wasn't happy.
Speaker 4: No, no doubt.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, but that was the union minimum. So
Speaker 7: now I'm getting ten thousand dollars a year. My mom
Speaker 7: and dad said, there's no way they're going to pay
Speaker 7: you that kind of money.
Speaker 8: But they did.
Speaker 7: And you know what, I was rolling in the dough
Speaker 7: at that time, Well, rolling in the dough.
Speaker 4: I don't know what, go ahead, please, I was.
Speaker 7: Just gonna say, I mean, I don't know. And years ago,
Speaker 7: I mean a couple of years after that, I heard
Speaker 7: an air check in myself and it scared me because
Speaker 7: and I said, why in the world would they hire me?
Speaker 7: Because when I went in there, I had never had
Speaker 7: other than five months on the high school station. I'd
Speaker 7: never been really a DJ. When I had made those tapes,
Speaker 7: Gary Jeff, I, I like, I wrote down everything that
Speaker 7: the DJs said on the air, so that I would
Speaker 7: have the proper format, I would have the terminology, I
Speaker 7: would have all of that. That's part of why I
Speaker 7: got Why I got hired, I think because they could
Speaker 7: see I knew the format. But at the same time,
Speaker 7: when I heard this air check on myself, I went,
Speaker 7: why did they hire me? I was awful because what
Speaker 7: I was doing was copying the other DJs, so I
Speaker 7: would be going two oh clock, Oh big ag, and
Speaker 7: I'm like, it's the greatest thing I ever learned was
Speaker 7: to kind of be yourself.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, and to this day, I don't like hearing recordings
Speaker 7: of myself. I can't stand it.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 4: I listened to those early cassettes Pat.
Speaker 1: Of me at ten ten WHI n the voice of
Speaker 1: Sumner County Gallaton, Tennessee, And it's the same effect. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what was I doing? And today it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I would really like a few more minutes
Speaker 1: with you. Do you have any any more time at all?
Speaker 7: Pat?
Speaker 1: I want to talk about New York, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about what you're doing now, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the Hall of Fame, because oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is huge.
Speaker 4: Pat.
Speaker 1: Saint John is our guest into the next segment here
Speaker 1: in the Nightcap, and uh, this is what I've been
Speaker 1: looking forward to a long time because I'm a fan,
Speaker 1: and you you don't get to talk to your your
Speaker 1: your faves a lot, even at.
Speaker 4: Even at my level.
Speaker 1: So we'll we'll break and we'll come back more with
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer Radio Hall of Famer Pat Saint John
Speaker 1: from Sirius XM here on the Nightcap on seven hundred
Speaker 1: w l W stay Put.
Speaker 6: News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred w l W, Cincinnati.
Speaker 12: Many across the globe already into the New y with
Speaker 12: the nine thirty report, I'm Shawn Gallagher breaking now the
Speaker 12: world continuing to ring in twenty twenty five, which will
Speaker 12: happen soon here in the Eastern time zone. Celebrations already
Speaker 12: underway at Times Square in New York.
Speaker 13: Revelers in New York City are gathering in Times Square
Speaker 13: getting ready to watch the ball drop and ring in
Speaker 13: twenty twenty five. Herbert and his wife Susanna flew in
Speaker 13: from Vienna, Austria.
Speaker 3: One point on the bucket list was some times Throotble.
Speaker 13: Officials say there are more than a million people in
Speaker 13: total packing into Times Square this year, taking in musical
Speaker 13: acts from Rita, Aura, Carrie Underwood, TLC, and others. Mike Debuski,
Speaker 13: ABC News New York.
Speaker 12: Now the latest traffic in weather together and right now
Speaker 12: taking a look at the major interstates and highways.
Speaker 6: No new accidents now the late news forecast from a
Speaker 6: train heating and cooling weather center on news radio seven
Speaker 6: hundred wl's job as.
Speaker 14: Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher
Speaker 14: in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early
Speaker 14: parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
Speaker 14: door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at
Speaker 14: times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day,
Speaker 14: but it will be a little bit above freezing and
Speaker 14: thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies getting chilli overnight
Speaker 14: into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue
Speaker 14: the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday
Speaker 14: to Friday. From your severe weather station, I'm nine first
Speaker 14: wanting media rollins just Brandon Spinner. News radios seven hundred wlw.
Speaker 12: RD are still showing rainshower activity for most of our
Speaker 12: Try state, seeing some dry spots in Butler, Warren and
Speaker 12: also some parts of Clinton County, even seeing some snow
Speaker 12: mixing in parts of southeast Indiana, mainly in Dearborn and
Speaker 12: Franklin Counties are current temperature thirty nine degrees. Ohio State
Speaker 12: Highway Patrol this New Year's he was looking out for
Speaker 12: those behind the wheel who may be under the influence.
Speaker 12: Three fatal accidents occurred during the New Year's reporting period
Speaker 12: last year in the state due to drunk or impaired driving,
Speaker 12: while two hundred and eighty arrests were impaired driving were made.
Speaker 12: Highway Patrol is urging anyone who who believes they see
Speaker 12: a suspected impaired driver to call Pound six seven to seven.
Speaker 12: Come Friday, the new Congress will be sworn in. President
Speaker 12: Douk Trump his voice to support for current House Speaker
Speaker 12: Mike Johnson to retain the gabble, but others in the
Speaker 12: GOP don't feel the same way, wanting change.
Speaker 15: In a series of posts on the X platform Monday,
Speaker 15: Northern Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey says he will not support
Speaker 15: keeping Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House, comparing Johnson
Speaker 15: to Paul Ryan, saying that the GOP lost its majority
Speaker 15: two years after Ryan became speaker, and Massey says he
Speaker 15: doesn't want history to repeat itself.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 15: I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of
Speaker 15: Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well
Speaker 15: as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan end quote. He's
Speaker 15: calling on his fellow Republicans to join him. I'm Jack Crumley,
Speaker 15: News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 12: Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow named the AFC Offensive Player of
Speaker 12: the Week after Saturday's overtime win against the Broncos, in
Speaker 12: which he threw for four hundred and twelve yards in
Speaker 12: three touchdowns. Bengals now getting ready to face the Steelers
Speaker 12: on Saturday night. They need a win and also some
Speaker 12: help to make the playoffs. They'll need the Dolphins and
Speaker 12: Broncos to both lose Sunday. Burrow on the big Week
Speaker 12: eighteen matchup in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 10: M time he played divisional opponent's a big game and
Speaker 10: this one is no different.
Speaker 3: Means a lot to.
Speaker 13: The city, to the organization, to the owners, coaches, players,
Speaker 13: and this is a big game for our season as well.
Speaker 12: The Steelers, meanwhile, can still win the AFC North. The
Speaker 12: Ravens would have to lose earlier in the afternoon to
Speaker 12: the Browns and then Pittsburgh would have to win. Kickoffrom
Speaker 12: Acrasher Stadium Saturday night, eight o'clock here on the Big
Speaker 12: One College Basketball, it was Xavier picking up a big
Speaker 12: ninety four to seventy two win. It's intas Center Overseat
Speaker 12: and Haul this afternoon is their first Big East win.
Speaker 12: The Musketeers will be at Georgetown Friday night to bop
Speaker 12: at eight here on the Big One. Meanwhile, tenth Brank
Speaker 12: Kentucky with a eighty eight to fifty four win over
Speaker 12: Brown at Rapperina. The quarterfinals of the College football Playoff
Speaker 12: getting underway tonight, as the start of the third quarter
Speaker 12: has Penn State leading Boise State seventeen to seven in
Speaker 12: the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. On New Year's Day,
Speaker 12: a triple header As Texas and Arizona State will face
Speaker 12: off in the Peach Bowl at one o'clock, then at
Speaker 12: Ohio State and Oregon and the Rose Bull at five,
Speaker 12: then eight forty five. I've at Notre Dame in Georgia
Speaker 12: in the Sugar Bowl, fighting for that last spot in
Speaker 12: the semi finals. Our next update is at ten o'clock.
Speaker 12: I'm Sean Gallagher's Radio seven hundred w l W s The.
Speaker 10: Richter and Phillips Jeweler's countdown to twenty twenty five, voted
Speaker 10: best place to buy your engagement ring since eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: The New Year is hours away seven hundred d w
Speaker 3: l W Big one.
Speaker 4: Wesley Financial Group is not a law firm.
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Speaker 11: I will send you a timeshare Ectionit information kit, absolutely free,
Speaker 11: explaining how the timeshare industry works and your options for cancelation.
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Speaker 15: Call eight hundred five two two fifty seven hundred eight
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Speaker 4: I'm got a safe turn in the cigarettes looking for
Speaker 4: a premium smoke? Then welcome to the world of Alcopol Cigars,
Speaker 4: where we're keeping you real using only premier. Your radio that.
Speaker 1: I started out with as a birthday or Christmas gift
Speaker 1: in late nineteen sixty six, the Great thing about transistor radios,
Speaker 1: and if you were alive and well at the time,
Speaker 1: I think you can still get them as novelty items
Speaker 1: today is that they ran on nine volt batteries. And
Speaker 1: the way you would check and make sure your nine
Speaker 1: volt battery was good or not was to take the
Speaker 1: two the positive and negative prongs on the end of
Speaker 1: the nine volt battery and rub them against your wet
Speaker 1: tongue if you've got to spark a nice little shock treatment.
Speaker 1: The battery was good if there was nothing when you
Speaker 1: put your toe. So I guess my first French kiss
Speaker 1: was of a nine volt battery, checking to see if
Speaker 1: it still had power.
Speaker 4: Sorry if that's too graphic for you, but.
Speaker 1: Anyway, with the ninefold battery firmly emplaced in my six
Speaker 1: transistor ge portable transistor radio, I've got my ear piece in.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to part two of the interview with Radio
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer Pat Saint John.
Speaker 4: Now on the nightcap. Oh but yes I can.
Speaker 1: Part two of our interview with Radio Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: Pat Saint John just announced he was going to be
Speaker 1: inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. With an
Speaker 1: incredible class of people. There's no doubt about that. Among them,
Speaker 1: one of them that I personally knew was Jerry House
Speaker 1: from Nashville, from WSIX, and I worked for a short
Speaker 1: period of time in between full time jobs at ninety
Speaker 1: eight W six when Jerry House was doing mornings there.
Speaker 1: So you know, I listened to one Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: and I worked with another one of them in this
Speaker 1: year's class.
Speaker 7: So I'll lucky meeting him at the at the induction ceremony.
Speaker 7: That's really cool.
Speaker 4: He probably will not remember me.
Speaker 1: I was just doing weekends and spot stuff for the station,
Speaker 1: but I'd been in the market a long time before
Speaker 1: that show. Jerry House so inventive, so funny he had.
Speaker 1: He actually co wrote a number one song called the
Speaker 1: Little Rock I think, yes, while he was there in
Speaker 1: the music city.
Speaker 4: So Pat Uh.
Speaker 1: After Detroit, you move on to New York, the biggest
Speaker 1: market in the country, and you stay on New York
Speaker 1: radio for over forty years and become a fixture at
Speaker 1: places like WPLJ and later WCBSFM. Tell me about a
Speaker 1: little bit about the New York days.
Speaker 7: Pat with WNW FM in the middle there for about
Speaker 7: eleven years. Yeah, it was really great. You know, when
Speaker 7: I left Detroit. I well, actually I worked at wri
Speaker 7: IF in Detroit, which was the ABC owned and operated
Speaker 7: channel there. This is when I was getting where my
Speaker 7: head was going, was into the FM stuff, you know,
Speaker 7: I was getting into the album cuts and digging that.
Speaker 7: So I got into classic rock and so I was
Speaker 7: at WRIF when they offered me the job in New York. Luckily,
Speaker 7: the ratings were good in Detroit and they offered me
Speaker 7: this gig, which I originally turned down because I was
Speaker 7: just getting I thought, starting to get known in Detroit,
Speaker 7: my hometown. But yeah, they convinced me to come. My wife,
Speaker 7: who was my girlfriend, and at the time we decided
Speaker 7: we went, you know what, we're going to be together forever.
Speaker 7: Why don't we'd do it? And so we got married.
Speaker 7: So I moved to New York. Started in April of
Speaker 7: seventy three. I worked about four weeks there, flew home
Speaker 7: on a Friday, got married on a Saturday, flew back
Speaker 7: on Sunday, and we were there forty two years.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's it's wonderful if you've got somebody
Speaker 1: that cares about you with you going, you know, to
Speaker 1: the Big Apple and oh, I mean.
Speaker 7: She's been my you know, she's been my partner, my
Speaker 7: better half, as they say, She's helped me through all
Speaker 7: these decisions. In this past May, we just celebrated our fiftieth.
Speaker 4: Wedding Anima, congratulations, so thank you.
Speaker 7: So you know that was amazing. You wonder where does
Speaker 7: the time go, because it just it's I don't know
Speaker 7: how I got here. I mean, I'm still nineteen in
Speaker 7: my head, you know, and it just it goes by
Speaker 7: so quickly. But you know, we've had a we had
Speaker 7: a oneonderful run when I was and the reason I
Speaker 7: left New York and at that time I was I
Speaker 7: was working for Serious XM already that last station that
Speaker 7: I was at. Now this is before CBSFM, which I
Speaker 7: did just for fun while I got hired at Serious XAM,
Speaker 7: which started off as CD Radio. I started there in
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety eight, believe it or not. I was one
Speaker 7: of the first eight employees. And you know, everybody went,
Speaker 7: who's going to pay for radio?
Speaker 8: Not?
Speaker 7: You know who's going to do this, but you know,
Speaker 7: but I believed in it sounded like a good deal.
Speaker 7: So anyway, this October, I'll celebrate twenty five years here
Speaker 7: on satellite radio. When I started the satellites weren't even.
Speaker 4: Up yet, simply amazing.
Speaker 1: I've been on WLW now for twenty six and a
Speaker 1: half years with a Saturday morning show, Good You, Thank You,
Speaker 1: and I know what it's like to become ensconced and
Speaker 1: be one of those people that you know, people have
Speaker 1: appointment listening. They tune in specifically to hear certain things
Speaker 1: that they know you're going to do. And I do
Speaker 1: the same thing with you on the birthdays on your
Speaker 1: afternoon show on Sirius XM sixties Gold. I always want
Speaker 1: to hear the birthdays because I mean, that's how I
Speaker 1: start my Saturday morning show at five point thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning. I do you know, historical or as I
Speaker 1: like to say, historical hysterical notes and people tied to
Speaker 1: this particular date in history, including but not limited to these,
Speaker 1: And we do that. But I've done that for years
Speaker 1: and some people may think it's corning, but it's something
Speaker 1: that I do. It's something you do and something I
Speaker 1: tune in specifically for from Pat Saint John on.
Speaker 7: Your Well It's just one of those things that people
Speaker 7: like to hear it or it gives you, It gives
Speaker 7: me a chance when I say somebody's birthday to get
Speaker 7: into you know, to play something from them that you
Speaker 7: might not even normal here on a regular basis. And
Speaker 7: it's just, uh, you know, it's one of those things
Speaker 7: to uh, to entertain folks, you know, where where our
Speaker 7: job is kind of to to entertain in between the
Speaker 7: records if we can. And I think that uh, you know,
Speaker 7: sharing the music, sharing the love for uh, for all
Speaker 7: this and for and for radio whatever. It's a it's
Speaker 7: a it's a really good thing. It's a personal medium.
Speaker 7: It's a communication business. And it's like you know, even
Speaker 7: for you know, a talk show. You can you can
Speaker 7: read the internet and read newspapers or whatever, but when
Speaker 7: you're connecting with a real human being, I think, uh,
Speaker 7: you know that's always been.
Speaker 8: The beauty of radio.
Speaker 4: Well, no, that's the magic of ready.
Speaker 1: That's the whole trick is one to one communication and
Speaker 1: you do it so well, and it's all about it's
Speaker 1: all about you when I'm talking. It's it's not about y'all,
Speaker 1: it's not about hey everybody, it's it's about you.
Speaker 7: And it's a one on one.
Speaker 1: It's one to one communication when it's done right and
Speaker 1: you do it right, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I love listening to you. Of all of them, of
Speaker 1: all of the people you have interviewed Pat Saint John
Speaker 1: through your career, famous folks, musicians and the like. Was
Speaker 1: there anybody that just surprised you like you you well,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect that. Was there something like that that
Speaker 1: happened in any of the times that, Yeah, being in
Speaker 1: New York and stuff, you met them all because they're
Speaker 1: all in the biggest city in the country.
Speaker 4: When they tend to America or whatever, Yeah, they all come.
Speaker 7: So I mean over the years, I mean I have
Speaker 7: interviewed well, with the exception of John Lennon, the Beatles,
Speaker 7: the Stones, the Who since they played my high.
Speaker 4: School, Yes, since they played your high.
Speaker 7: School and they actually, uh they actually remembered it or
Speaker 7: they said they did it anyway, And I have I
Speaker 7: brought in my high school yearbook when I was going
Speaker 7: to talk to them, and there's a picture of Keith's drum.
Speaker 7: Well this was Pete and and Keith and they both
Speaker 7: signed it. They both autographed the uh my high school yearbooks.
Speaker 8: So that my favorite interview.
Speaker 7: Well, I have a couple of them. James Taylor was one.
Speaker 7: He was just so sweet Leon Russell. I'm the biggest
Speaker 7: fan of Leon Russell anywhere. He he was just he
Speaker 7: was just the greatest. And to have him on my
Speaker 7: show with his keyboard playing, playing anything, he was great.
Speaker 7: I mean surprising. You asked for surprising, and that might
Speaker 7: be Keith Richards. And the reason that was so surprising
Speaker 7: was he was just so down to earth. He was
Speaker 7: just you know, I met Mick Jagger and it was like, Hi,
Speaker 7: how are you see it? But Keith was just like
Speaker 7: a normal person, you know, he was just like friendly
Speaker 7: and he was just you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: He was just very very laid back and very just yeah.
Speaker 7: Very kindness. Can be no star treatment at all, no,
Speaker 7: nothing like that. Just just a conversationalist and that was cool.
Speaker 7: So that might have been a surprise.
Speaker 4: I think the.
Speaker 1: Biggest one for me. The biggest surprise was the day
Speaker 1: that Poco reformed back in the mid eighties. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember they actually had a top forty
Speaker 1: hit call it Love or whatever, but was the original
Speaker 1: members of Poco, which of course included Jimmy Messina and
Speaker 1: Randy Meisner.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I knew that they might come by for an interview
Speaker 1: because we had him at a concert. This is when
Speaker 1: I was in Nashville to headline our fireworks show that
Speaker 1: we had downtown. We had a couple of those a year,
Speaker 1: and we always had a big headliner well that in
Speaker 1: Felix Cavalery. I got to sing on stage with Good
Speaker 1: Loving with Felix Cavalery at one of those shows. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Randy Meisner and Jim Messina walk in. Jim Messina's got
Speaker 1: his acoustic guitar and they break into your mamadome dance
Speaker 1: and then they did take it to the limit right
Speaker 1: in front of me acoustic and Randy Meisner's hitting all
Speaker 1: those notes. But yeah, you know, to be fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to have these opportunities, we're very, very lucky people, both
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 8: You bet, you bet.
Speaker 4: There's no question.
Speaker 7: Like we said right at the beginning of this, I mean,
Speaker 7: we're doing what we always wanted to do. Not everybody
Speaker 7: gets to do well they always wanted to do in life,
Speaker 7: and you and I are doing that.
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you real quick before we get
Speaker 4: to the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Pat Saint John American History on the
Speaker 1: radio on the Night Camp on a Monday night on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLW. So, Pat, your kids, your grandkids, chasing Sienna,
Speaker 1: we've we've kind of we've become very very obviously you
Speaker 1: love them very much, but we've become very attached to
Speaker 1: hearing them occasionally on your Saturday night request show or
Speaker 1: occasionally on your afternoon show on Sirius XM. What do
Speaker 1: they think about that as it become pass say for
Speaker 1: them to go Grandpa needs us again?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, they you know, even even teenagers today, they
Speaker 7: don't know so much about radio, you know, which is
Speaker 7: kind of sad. But you know, my kids, my grandkids there,
Speaker 7: Sienna is six and Chase just turned ten, and Chase
Speaker 7: has been on the radio with me since he was two,
Speaker 7: since since as soon as we moved out here to
Speaker 7: San Diego. So they just kind of take it in stride.
Speaker 7: They understand it because they'll hear me on the radio,
Speaker 7: and but they're they're cool with it. But I don't
Speaker 7: think they have any aspirations that this this is what
Speaker 7: they want to do. Well, they haven't figured that out yet,
Speaker 7: but but yeah, they take it in stride, and you know,
Speaker 7: and I say, hey, can we do something? And they're
Speaker 7: always pretty good about it, you know.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, So the Radio Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: A good friend of mine who does some segments with
Speaker 1: me on my Saturday morning show, we do a rock
Speaker 1: and roll Archie out segment.
Speaker 4: On a talk show on AM, which was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: We get to play great portions of some great songs
Speaker 1: and he tells the stories. His name is Jim Lebarbara.
Speaker 1: They call him the Music Professor. He's in the Ohio
Speaker 1: Broadcast Hall of Fame and among the top fifty top
Speaker 1: forty DJs of all time and one other survey.
Speaker 4: But anyway, we do that and.
Speaker 1: It's fun because I still because I started in music
Speaker 1: radio and I still get to do the music DJ
Speaker 1: part in that little segment. But all of the segues
Speaker 1: and the themes that you do so well that I
Speaker 1: just marvel at. I mean, as a as a listener.
Speaker 1: I'm also somebody in the business and I appreciate greatness.
Speaker 1: And I hear that on a regular basis from Pat
Speaker 1: Saint John and it's just you and back to and
Speaker 1: back to.
Speaker 4: Nobody's going to pay to listen to radio. I thought
Speaker 4: the same thing.
Speaker 1: Everybody's going, well, you know, Gary, Jeff, they got satellites.
Speaker 1: Now there's all this competition. I said, nobody's gonna pay
Speaker 1: for freaking radio. What are you talking about? And here
Speaker 1: I am doing it. So I mean, did you expect
Speaker 1: the nod from the Radio Hall of Fame the induction?
Speaker 7: Uh no, not really, you know, I was. I was
Speaker 7: nominated last year and didn't get in, And when I
Speaker 7: found out I was nominated, of course I was, you know,
Speaker 7: I was hoping for that.
Speaker 4: I was sure.
Speaker 7: I thought it was thought it was cool. When I
Speaker 7: didn't get in, I sort of I was okay with that.
Speaker 7: I thought, you know, I didn't do this to win
Speaker 7: on I've never won an award ever, and I you know,
Speaker 7: certainly didn't have that as a goal, So you know,
Speaker 7: I was, I was actually fine with it. On the
Speaker 7: other hand, this year, when I was nominated again, that
Speaker 7: was my attitude, all right, I mean, I get in again.
Speaker 7: But then I did, and it was a nice surprise.
Speaker 7: I must say. I'm I'm happy about that. I wonder
Speaker 7: if I'm I don't know, it's it's kind of I
Speaker 7: don't know to think I'm going to be in that
Speaker 7: Hall of Fame with you know, Dick Clark and Alan
Speaker 7: Freed and Wolfman Jackets like, that's a that's a headshaker
Speaker 7: to me, you know. Oh yeah, but I'm you know,
Speaker 7: I'm I'm I'm happy about it. I can't lie.
Speaker 4: No happy about it.
Speaker 1: And you're right, we don't, none of us, I don't
Speaker 1: think get into the business to win awards or to
Speaker 1: be lauded in some kind of you know radio mausoleum.
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't think about it in those terms.
Speaker 1: I got into radio because I was thrilled by the
Speaker 1: magic of those voices coming through the airwaves at night.
Speaker 4: Especially those those big voices and w ls.
Speaker 1: You know, then they kind of had their condescending lilt,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of fun when you're a seven
Speaker 1: eight year old kid to listen to these voices of God.
Speaker 4: Talking down to people.
Speaker 1: But but I got into it because number one, I
Speaker 1: was so passionate about it.
Speaker 4: It's all I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And number two, I figured I could make some make
Speaker 1: enough money to live and meet some chicks.
Speaker 4: And I did all of that.
Speaker 7: Yeah right, right, Yeah, that was that was part of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, meet girls, man, come on, Oh.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so true. Well, you know what, we're just we're
Speaker 7: lucky to still be doing this. Yester all of these
Speaker 7: years and to still have that passion, to still have
Speaker 7: that drive, to still have that that uh, that excitement
Speaker 7: that you're going to be going on the air.
Speaker 1: People always people ask me, and I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: to ask this, you know, well, I mean, are you
Speaker 1: ever gonna hang it up? And I go, why, I mean,
Speaker 1: unless I have to, unless they force me to.
Speaker 4: No, I'm never gonna retire.
Speaker 7: No, you know what, as long as we can do
Speaker 7: this and feel like we're doing a good job, we're
Speaker 7: going to keep on doing it.
Speaker 8: I have no.
Speaker 7: Plans to retire at all. It'll I will be going
Speaker 7: as long as I can, and I know you will
Speaker 7: be too, and we can do future interviews, you know,
Speaker 7: ten twenty thirty years down the line.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. I'll just have to make sure I don't
Speaker 1: drop my teeth in the middle of the conversation. Pat
Speaker 1: Saint John, thank you so much for making my night man,
Speaker 1: and I'll be listening to you.
Speaker 7: Gary Jeff, thank you. I mean it an it's an
Speaker 7: honor to be asked to do this, and it's great
Speaker 7: to be on the air. And you'd be sure to
Speaker 7: if you've told them. Thank your management for allowing me.
Speaker 8: To be on your show.
Speaker 4: No, I don't tell him anything.
Speaker 8: Pat.
Speaker 1: It's better better to ask forgiveness than permission. Believe me,
Speaker 1: take care.
Speaker 7: That's a great well. I enjoyed our conversation.
Speaker 1: For sure, all right man, Thanks so much, Pat, Saint
Speaker 1: John on the nightcap. I don't know if you enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: but I loved it as a fan. We'll continue in moments.
Speaker 1: I'm seven hundred WL.
Speaker 3: Scott's flowing here with a quick reminder for you.
Speaker 16: If you missed part of my show, you can still
Speaker 16: listen to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app and hear
Speaker 16: what you miss is. Heaven only knows why you missed
Speaker 16: part of my show, and I don't know. I suppose
Speaker 16: there's legit reasons like fell to a coma, or you
Speaker 16: had to run to the store for emergency grapes, you
Speaker 16: know whatever.
Speaker 4: Just be sure to hit up my podcast and let
Speaker 4: me know you care.
Speaker 3: Just in time for the night New.
Speaker 1: Year's Eve, the special Nightcap, the last nightcap of the year,
Speaker 1: mind you, and it's our focus on American history on
Speaker 1: the radio this past year. Another one of the interviews
Speaker 1: that I was fortunate enough to line up and have
Speaker 1: on the ear was with a guy who's on serious ExM.
Speaker 4: You'll hear that.
Speaker 1: But he's also got a star on the Hollywood Walk
Speaker 1: of Fame, not everybody had.
Speaker 4: I don't have one of those. You have one of those,
Speaker 4: Not that it matters.
Speaker 1: Sure, he was releasing a new book this past year,
Speaker 1: which we talked about, and his career spans TV and
Speaker 1: radio in southern California like nobody else. Maybe great voice,
Speaker 1: one of those voices that inspire you to try and
Speaker 1: sound like them, and you never do because you're not them.
Speaker 1: Shotgun Tom Kelly joins us in the next segment, and
Speaker 1: for this hour, I really enjoyed doing that. I thought
Speaker 1: it was one of the better interviews I've done with anybody.
Speaker 1: You be the judge, but it's coming right up next
Speaker 1: as we count you down for the last couple of
Speaker 1: hours of twenty twenty four here on seven hundred WLWA.
Speaker 2: You got two types of people in America, hopeful, positive
Speaker 2: Americans and negative elitist America hating butt wipes.
Speaker 4: Why would anyone want to be a negative butt wipe?
Speaker 2: They need to sit down and listen to Bill Cunningham
Speaker 2: to cure them of their butt wipe ways.
Speaker 4: The American Bill loves America. He gives me hope for America.
Speaker 4: He makes me feel better about America.
Speaker 3: He loves America as much as I do.
Speaker 2: I know butt wife America, Bill Cunningham Tomorrow at twelve
Speaker 2: noon on seven hundred WLW. Run a business and not
Speaker 2: thinking about radio? Think again, Because more people are listening
Speaker 2: to the radio on iHeart today than they did twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, and only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more
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Speaker 2: listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify
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Speaker 2: customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus only Ihear
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Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 3: The holidays are a blast, but the financial hate, I.
Speaker 4: Said, Shotgun.
Speaker 1: It's another episode of American history on the radio on
Speaker 1: the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW and tonight one of
Speaker 1: the great voices and American radio history joins us.
Speaker 4: Another one of those.
Speaker 1: I'd like to celebrate the people and the events and
Speaker 1: the music that makes radios such as special media, and
Speaker 1: we definitely have one of those to start the program
Speaker 1: this evening. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk
Speaker 1: of Fame. He is a regular about this time at
Speaker 1: night on sixties Gold on Sirius XM. Legendary disc jockey
Speaker 1: Shotgun Tom Kelly joins us.
Speaker 4: Hello, Shotgun, how are you.
Speaker 8: Oh Gary, I'm doing great. I love being on seven
Speaker 8: hundred WUL.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 1: I love hearing you say seven hundred w l W
Speaker 1: in your inivitable style.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 8: Hey. You know I got to tell you. I just
Speaker 8: came from I get my nails done, and I'm a
Speaker 8: very sanitary guy, and I was talking to my managurist
Speaker 8: and there was a lady getting her hair done there
Speaker 8: and she overheard me saying that I was going to
Speaker 8: be on w LW. She goes, no, No, that's seven
Speaker 8: hundred WLW. Evidently she said she lived in Indianapolis and
Speaker 8: she used to listen. That was the station that really
Speaker 8: used to come in and that was her station. Man,
Speaker 8: how about that?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's a powerhouse.
Speaker 1: I just can't believe that you're out in LA and
Speaker 1: you're sitting next to a lady. And first, first and foremost,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that you got your nails done for this.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 8: I really appreciate it to be listen, nothing's nothing but
Speaker 8: the best for you.
Speaker 9: Gary.
Speaker 1: You know you realize this as a radio all right,
Speaker 1: So I shotgun Tom Kelly.
Speaker 17: Uh.
Speaker 1: I want to again the voice and everybody can hear
Speaker 1: this incredible set of pipes.
Speaker 4: You got on you man.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: And that was the first thing, the first thing that
Speaker 1: we we recognize and hear about you, the first time
Speaker 1: we hear you. But I want to go back to
Speaker 1: your roots. The book, the new book is all I
Speaker 1: want to do is play the hits and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to reading it when I get a copy, and
Speaker 1: I plan on getting a copy.
Speaker 8: So, but.
Speaker 4: I want to go back to four.
Speaker 1: You were in radio and I'm sure you detail some
Speaker 1: of these stories in the book, but let's wet the
Speaker 1: whistle of the audience a little bit here. What our
Speaker 1: beaks was some early Tom Kelly information. I will first
Speaker 1: tell you that I got bit with the radio bug
Speaker 1: when I was about six or seven years old and
Speaker 1: got my first transmitter back in the transistor. Rather, I
Speaker 1: didn't get my first transmitter until I was about in
Speaker 1: the sixth grade, and I built one of those FM
Speaker 1: transmitters that went about.
Speaker 4: Two hundred and fifty feet.
Speaker 1: But anyway, my first transistor is probably in they the
Speaker 1: Winner of nineteen sixty seven, and we were living in
Speaker 1: suburban Chicago at the time, and I was listening to
Speaker 1: all these great voices on eighty nine WLS and WCFL
Speaker 1: and Fred Winston, fred Winston and Larry lu Jack and
Speaker 1: then later John Landecker, who's still on the radio. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a godsend to be on the radio all
Speaker 1: these years later, when you know, people like me were
Speaker 1: kids and now we're the old timers. But so, where
Speaker 1: did you first get bit with the radio bug?
Speaker 4: Tom Kelly?
Speaker 8: You know, that's very interesting, Garret, because that is exactly
Speaker 8: my story. You were a little younger than I was,
Speaker 8: but my mother was a big radio fan, and she,
Speaker 8: you know I was. I was born and raised in
Speaker 8: San Diego, California. What a great place. And I was
Speaker 8: ten years old. I came home from school. I went
Speaker 8: to Saint johnaan Across Catholic School in Lemon Grove, and
Speaker 8: my mom was listening to KOGO, which is an iHeart
Speaker 8: station and a big powerful station in San Diego. And
Speaker 8: so she was listening to a guy by the name
Speaker 8: of Frank Thompson. He was on the air all mobile,
Speaker 8: you know, on remote in the Kogo mobile studios, and
Speaker 8: so he was interviewing people. My mom heard that, and
Speaker 8: so she said, Tommy, there's a man on the radio,
Speaker 8: his name is Frank Thompson on kog O, putting people
Speaker 8: on the air. Why don't you get on your bike
Speaker 8: and you ride down there. Maybe he'll put you on
Speaker 8: the air. So I didn't know if I wanted to
Speaker 8: be and radio. We're not at ten years old, but
Speaker 8: I wrote my bike down there, and I looked in
Speaker 8: the window. Gary, you can appreciate this. I looked in
Speaker 8: the window and I saw two turntables and then microphone
Speaker 8: and he was talking into what. There was a speaker
Speaker 8: outside and I was absolutely mesmerized, and so I was
Speaker 8: looking at him and he says, well, this is Frank
Speaker 8: Thompson on kog Oh, there's a young man looking through
Speaker 8: the window here of the Kogo mobile studio. Come in here,
Speaker 8: young man. What's your name? My name is Tom. What's
Speaker 8: good to go to? Tom? I go to Saint johnath
Speaker 8: Across Catholic School. Well, Tom, here's four tickets to see
Speaker 8: the lat Birds when they come to Westgate Park. And
Speaker 8: I went home. My mom heard me on the radio.
Speaker 8: What a thrill? And then I built my own little
Speaker 8: radio station. That was how it started, Gary La T Birds.
Speaker 4: There's a throwback. There's a blast from the past.
Speaker 1: I remember the roller I remember the roller Derby too, baby.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was hoping you'd break that up. Remember that
Speaker 8: they used to pull each other's hair as they go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Roller Derby was one of the first things I ever
Speaker 1: saw on a UHF TV station was Roller Derby and
Speaker 1: the La T Birds were playing Chicago. I forget even
Speaker 1: what the Chicago's team was, but they were playing at
Speaker 1: the roller rink in Hammond, Indiana, and I was just
Speaker 1: a little kid about the same time I was getting
Speaker 1: interested in radio.
Speaker 4: So you had those early sparks.
Speaker 1: Were there any other guys that you listened to on
Speaker 1: the radio when you were young that you kind of
Speaker 1: emulated and you wanted to be like Tom?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Well, first of all, I followed Frank Thompson around.
Speaker 8: He was the guy that would he was most most
Speaker 8: accessible because he'd be in that cogo mobile unity and
Speaker 8: that was easy to get into, as you know, you
Speaker 8: just kept a little kid, just kept walk into a
Speaker 8: radio station. Especially. He worked for a AMFM TV facility
Speaker 8: they called Broadcast City, and it was owned by time
Speaker 8: Life Broadcast at that time, very class the organization. So
Speaker 8: the only access I had was him and that trailer,
Speaker 8: And so I followed him around, and of course he
Speaker 8: had this great voice, and I kind of imitated him
Speaker 8: when I did my little my little radio station in
Speaker 8: my bedroom. Yeah, and I always wanted to be like
Speaker 8: Frank Thompson, you know. And by the way, Frank Thompson
Speaker 8: was a Canadian I found out, and he was educated
Speaker 8: at Long Greens Radio School Lauren Green before he got
Speaker 8: did the dance, but Anson he was he had a
Speaker 8: radio school. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah, And when you can hear that and
Speaker 1: you want to talk about fantastic voices.
Speaker 4: Lord Green was just amazing.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: The song Ringo just.
Speaker 8: It all, just one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: It tells you every thing you need to know about
Speaker 1: the vocal talents of one Lauren Greed.
Speaker 8: And you want to say, what that guy am for breakfast?
Speaker 4: No question?
Speaker 8: But anyway, Yeah, so Frank Thompson I admired. He became
Speaker 8: a friend and then a friend of the family. Later
Speaker 8: on Frank got out of the disc jockey thing and
Speaker 8: he worked in Seattle at kJ R and Seattle It,
Speaker 8: became a news director and so he was a news guy,
Speaker 8: you know when I at the end of his life,
Speaker 8: but he was very respected up there. So you asked
Speaker 8: some of the other people that I used to listen
Speaker 8: to in San Diego. Yeah, I used to love my
Speaker 8: favorite disc jockey, and now now I wanted to go
Speaker 8: any radio station that I could look at. And there
Speaker 8: was a station at seventh and ash k c b Q,
Speaker 8: which I eventually got a job at later on, and
Speaker 8: you could watch the disc jockey's on the air on
Speaker 8: the second floor. So I used to love to watch,
Speaker 8: uh Seamus Patrick O'Hara. And then of course there.
Speaker 9: Was this who Jackson.
Speaker 4: He wasn't Irish, was he?
Speaker 8: Uh? He may have been, but he was a He
Speaker 8: was a great jock. And of course Happy Hair in
Speaker 8: the morning. I think Happy Hair worked in Cleveland at
Speaker 8: one time about that Uh did a morning show. Anyway,
Speaker 8: there was There was so many disc jockeys on that
Speaker 8: station that I admired. And of course I can actually
Speaker 8: see them. To go down at seventh and Ash look
Speaker 8: up there in the second floor and watch them do
Speaker 8: their show. Now, this is interesting. Uh. They had there's
Speaker 8: the They had a mirror on the ceiling so you
Speaker 8: can see the disc jockey turn the dobs. It looked
Speaker 8: like I was looking at a spaceship. That board was
Speaker 8: so incredible, you know what I'm talking about. And I
Speaker 8: always had the Neil Ross, who's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 8: He he co wrote my book as a matter of fact. Uh,
Speaker 8: and him and I would would be at seventh and
Speaker 8: Aunt watching these guys and we'd say to each other, God,
Speaker 8: we'd love to be able to work that board. And
Speaker 8: eventually Neil Ross and myself in our adult life, got
Speaker 8: hired at Casey BQ and we got to run the
Speaker 8: same board Gary, and I mean, what a what a
Speaker 8: throw that is. And by the way, the picture uh
Speaker 8: uh uh. There's a story the lady, and this is
Speaker 8: in my book. The lady. Her name is Phyllis. She
Speaker 8: was in choice. She was a receptionist, but more than
Speaker 8: a receptionist, she was a security guard. So anyway, I
Speaker 8: would go up there and said, uh, ma'am, my name
Speaker 8: is Tom and I'm doing a report in school and
Speaker 8: I can't get a good picture of the disc jockey
Speaker 8: on the air. Is there any way on getting the
Speaker 8: studio just for a moment to take the picture? She goes, no, Son,
Speaker 8: if you want your picture, you have to take it
Speaker 8: from the street. Well, I was a little forlorn, and
Speaker 8: then I saw this guy coming up and I noticed
Speaker 8: it was Scotty Day. He was the midday guy. But
Speaker 8: what I can't but I didn't realize he was the boss.
Speaker 8: He was the program director of Casey BQ. So I
Speaker 8: told him the story. He said, you're doing a report,
Speaker 8: said well, follow me. So we went up there and
Speaker 8: Phyllis was sitting at the desk and Scotty Days said, Phillis,
Speaker 8: I'm going to take this young man into the studio
Speaker 8: and you should have seen the look on her face.
Speaker 8: She was there's the most angry look I've ever seen
Speaker 8: on a woman in my life. It was almost scary.
Speaker 8: Who well, anyway, yeah, So I got into the studio
Speaker 8: and I had my little brownie camera. It was filled
Speaker 8: with slide film and I had, you know, a flash
Speaker 8: cube and all that stuff. So I only had one
Speaker 8: shot left. And so I got back and the guy
Speaker 8: on the air was Bill Bishop, who became the voice
Speaker 8: of Judge Judy later on, but he was on the
Speaker 8: airs of disc Jockey. And I went back and I
Speaker 8: took that picture of that incredible control board and Bill Bishop,
Speaker 8: and I had that picture in my pool hall blown
Speaker 8: up thirty by thirty. I mean, you get asked Art Volo,
Speaker 8: you know America's best radio friend. Yeah, and he'll tell
Speaker 8: you about that. And that picture is in the book,
Speaker 8: taken when I was twelve years old. And also there
Speaker 8: was another picture of me at that board, taken when
Speaker 8: I was an adult. Worton at KCBQ.
Speaker 1: How did you piece together your own little radio station,
Speaker 1: your little home radio station.
Speaker 4: How'd that come about?
Speaker 8: Oh? Well, you know, listen to this, Gary, this is
Speaker 8: very interesting. I wanted to be on the air. I
Speaker 8: wanted people to hear me. So I had speaker extensions
Speaker 8: out into the patio my mom and dad, and they
Speaker 8: were listening to me, and that was cool, but I
Speaker 8: wanted to do something better. So my friend Tom Brown,
Speaker 8: this is in the book, by the way, all I
Speaker 8: want to do is play the hits available on Amazon
Speaker 8: Aaron Barnes and Noble. I wanted a string speaker wire
Speaker 8: from my bedroom to my friend across the street, Tom Brown,
Speaker 8: And so I did. I went over the telephone pole.
Speaker 8: I mean I didn't climb up there. I threw it
Speaker 8: up there and I got into his He had a radio,
Speaker 8: a clock radio, and I saw these the speaker, and
Speaker 8: I just tapped, just hooked the wires up to the speaker,
Speaker 8: and my bedroom looked like it was coming out of
Speaker 8: a rail radio but the radio was off. So anyway,
Speaker 8: I had one listener, and so I was broadcasting from
Speaker 8: my bedroom to Tom's bedroom. And one night I decided,
Speaker 8: and by the way, I put the switch on there.
Speaker 8: So when he wanted to listen to real radio, when
Speaker 8: you do that, so one night I wanted to do
Speaker 8: an all night show. So he was at summer camp,
Speaker 8: and he forgot to, you know, flick the switch off.
Speaker 8: And at midnight little shotgun Tom Tom Irwin at that time,
Speaker 8: no ladies and gentlemen, the greatest shits onors, you know.
Speaker 8: And so anyway, I woke his entire family up. His
Speaker 8: dad came on and tried to turn off the knob.
Speaker 8: It wouldn't go off, and he tried to unplug the radio.
Speaker 8: Still wouldn't go off. So he picked up the radio
Speaker 8: and it broke the connection. Well is that a weird story,
Speaker 8: but it's in the book. And so I got frustrated
Speaker 8: with that idea. And you mentioned something, Gary, You said
Speaker 8: that you had a transmitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we built a little I was in this program
Speaker 1: at the end of sixth grade. It was for kids.
Speaker 1: It was actually summer school that we wanted to go
Speaker 1: to because we had special interests and we had good
Speaker 1: enough grades that they let us go to this six
Speaker 1: week summer school and one of them was a radio class,
Speaker 1: and they gave us all of the components to build
Speaker 1: a little FM transmitter. It broadcast about two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty and I was doing my own little broadcast and
Speaker 1: it was fun soldering it together and putting it together.
Speaker 4: But anyway, what we're going to say, Tom.
Speaker 8: Oh, Well, what I was going to say is I
Speaker 8: had a friend of mine who said he had a
Speaker 8: transmitter that he was going to sell me for five bucks.
Speaker 8: So he built the transmitter on a cigar box. And
Speaker 8: this guy, Wes Owen is his name. He was very,
Speaker 8: very smart, and he still is to this day. But anyway,
Speaker 8: Wes knew everything about electronics. So he built this transmitter
Speaker 8: that broadcast on eight p forty on the AM dial
Speaker 8: and sold it to me for five bucks, set out
Speaker 8: of power supply, and I brought it into my room
Speaker 8: and now I'm actually on the air, Gary on the
Speaker 8: air at eight forty am. And so my mom and
Speaker 8: dad would come in and say, look at our son.
Speaker 8: He's staying out of trouble. He's not the stealing stuff
Speaker 8: out of stores. He's got this wonderful hobby. Well what
Speaker 8: they didn't realize, Gary, is I wasn't committing local crime.
Speaker 8: I was committing federal.
Speaker 1: Five I will stop right there. We'll stop right there, shotgun,
Speaker 1: Tom Kelly. All I want to do is play the
Speaker 1: hits as the book, and we'll be back with part
Speaker 1: two of the interview on American history. On the radio,
Speaker 1: actually on the radio on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 6: News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
Speaker 18: Now two and a half hours away from twenty twenty five.
Speaker 18: What the ten thirty re parts, I'm Ley Mawin breaking Now.
Speaker 18: What you hear is the New Year's celebration in Paris, France.
Speaker 18: Here in the eastern part of the United States, we're
Speaker 18: counting down the time until twenty twenty five begins with
Speaker 18: a new year that means new construction projects across the
Speaker 18: Tri State o Dotts Kathleen follow shared that the Norwood
Speaker 18: Lateral project would be completely finished by June twenty twenty five,
Speaker 18: with reservicing and rehabilitation still needed on the tiny stretch
Speaker 18: between Paddock Road that's State Route four and I seventy five.
Speaker 18: Reconfiguration of the I seventy five southbound ramp to westbound
Speaker 18: I seventy.
Speaker 3: Four needs finishing touches like resurfacing.
Speaker 18: The big one is Phase eight of the Mill Creek
Speaker 18: Expressway project, which is replacing three railroad bridges and the
Speaker 18: tracks over I seventy five, State Round five sixty two
Speaker 18: and Prosser Avenue. The big back bridge work is scheduled
Speaker 18: to finish mid March, depending on the delivery of the
Speaker 18: steel girders from Bowling Green, Kentucky. With design work on
Speaker 18: the Brent Spence Bridge project still being worked on. That's
Speaker 18: the only project. Fuller couldn't confirm if work would start
Speaker 18: in the new year. Now the latest traffic and whether
Speaker 18: together we have a crash on US Route fifty East
Speaker 18: at Chambers. This is towards the Ohio Indiana state line,
Speaker 18: inside the two seventy five loop. It is still open,
Speaker 18: but you are going to expect some lane closures as
Speaker 18: you approach.
Speaker 6: The lates forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather
Speaker 6: Center on News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 14: Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher
Speaker 14: in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early
Speaker 14: parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
Speaker 14: door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at
Speaker 14: times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day,
Speaker 14: but it will be a little bit above freezing and
Speaker 14: thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies, getting chilly overnight
Speaker 14: into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue
Speaker 14: the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday
Speaker 14: to Friday. From your severe Weather station, I'm nine first
Speaker 14: Warning Media rollind Just Brandon Spinner News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 18: Still plenty of rain to go around south west Ohio
Speaker 18: and northern Kentucky. Some of it is snow in the
Speaker 18: northmost part of Butler County. In the southern Preble County
Speaker 18: and mcgoverery County. Scenes of snow and around Dayton heading
Speaker 18: to western Green County, Bellbrook, Beaver Creek, Fairbarn that area.
Speaker 18: Right now, it's thirty nine degrees with light rain falling
Speaker 18: in the two seventy five Loop. Puerto Rico's Governor Pedro
Speaker 18: Pierre Lucy receiving a call from President Joe Biden today
Speaker 18: on the massive power outage affecting nearly the entire island.
Speaker 18: With more is ABC's Victor Oquendo.
Speaker 19: Nearly all of Puerto Rico ringing in the new year
Speaker 19: in the dark, an island wide blackout affecting more than
Speaker 19: a million customers. Power outages have become common, with a
Speaker 19: blackout like this is rare. Lumah Energy, the private company
Speaker 19: that handles transmission and distribution of electricity, saying they're working
Speaker 19: to restore power quickly and getting the medical center in
Speaker 19: San Juan's Hospital back online within hours.
Speaker 18: Earlier here on news radio seven hundred WOW in the week,
Speaker 18: you heard about the nearly one million chickens depopulated somewhere
Speaker 18: in Dark County. Now, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources
Speaker 18: Division of Wildlife suspects dead wild birds across nine Ohio
Speaker 18: counties might test positive for the bird flu One of
Speaker 18: those nine is Warren County. Several dead Canadian geese trumpeter
Speaker 18: Swan's and one mallard being tested with the ODNR presuming
Speaker 18: they will test positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza three O.
Speaker 18: Our nearby counties with these birds include Auglace County, Mercer County,
Speaker 18: and Montgomery County, all northrom the Miami Valley, Ohioan's Covery Port.
Speaker 18: Sick or dead wild birds suspected of having the bird
Speaker 18: flew to eight hundred ninety four five thirty five forty three,
Speaker 18: or visit Wildohio dot gov. Our next update is at
Speaker 18: eleven i'mleymowin news Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: Less than ninety minutes until the ball drops or the
Speaker 1: walleye drops in Port Clinton or whatever you've got in
Speaker 1: your specific area. We beam out at night. It signifies
Speaker 1: the changing of the guards. A new year, Happy new year.
Speaker 1: Gary Jeff Walker with you on seven hundred WLW, continuing
Speaker 1: my conversation with the great superstar, Hollywood Walker, star, author
Speaker 1: and radio legend Shotgun Tom Kelly.
Speaker 4: Here's part two.
Speaker 20: They lie in boothills, all for the West, the outlaws,
Speaker 20: the gunslingers, the bit of the kids, and wise say
Speaker 20: a fellow like the cow that shot Bill Hiccock in
Speaker 20: the back. There's always one like that, and every time
Speaker 20: of history. Sure most of them were vomits, but every
Speaker 20: once in a while and one of them I may
Speaker 20: have lived a man.
Speaker 1: We talked about Louren Green and Ringo in our first segment.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Shotgun Tom Kelly, who has the same
Speaker 1: kind of voice as Lauren Green did. Why God, He's
Speaker 1: a monster American history on the radio. Shotgun Tom is
Speaker 1: our guest for the rest of this hour, and we're back.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, Tom about your dad because
Speaker 1: in Tom's new book, all I want to do is
Speaker 1: play the hits out now on Amazon and anywhere you
Speaker 1: buy books about his career in his life. You talk
Speaker 1: a lot about your dad, who was a train engineer
Speaker 1: back in the day, and there's stories in the book
Speaker 1: like the one you're gonna kind of share with us.
Speaker 4: Now, tell me about your dad.
Speaker 8: Yeah, dad was a locomotive train engineer for the Santa
Speaker 8: Fe in San Diego. And I remember Dad came home
Speaker 8: and he said, this actor they had a film crew
Speaker 8: there and they wanted Now this is later on in
Speaker 8: the in the late fifties, and this actor, Dad had
Speaker 8: to get on his knees and bring the F seven,
Speaker 8: which is the war bonnet, the red war Bonnet, a
Speaker 8: beautiful engine into San Diego. And so the film crew
Speaker 8: from the television station was filming that had this guy
Speaker 8: get off. He was portrayed as an engineer, so he
Speaker 8: got he was an actor, but he got off the
Speaker 8: F seven Santa Fe engine and walked into the depot
Speaker 8: and then they cut and turns out he was my
Speaker 8: favorite children's show host. His name was Johnny Downs. He
Speaker 8: used to be Johnny of Our Gang, and so for
Speaker 8: years as a kid, I used to watch him on
Speaker 8: the air and I used to say, Hey, my dad
Speaker 8: is Johnny Downs's engineer. He portrayed an engineer. See, so
Speaker 8: just like engineer Bill in La. But yeah, my dad
Speaker 8: told me that story, and he told me another story.
Speaker 8: He got the nod to be the engineer on the
Speaker 8: presidential train to bring the President of the United States
Speaker 8: into San Diego, picked him up in Los Angeles, came
Speaker 8: to San Diego, and then my dad hates crowds. He
Speaker 8: looked out one side of the engine and there were
Speaker 8: thousands of people waiting to hear the president and see him.
Speaker 8: He looked out the other side and there was nobody Gary,
Speaker 8: nobody there. So this was my dad's job, was done
Speaker 8: his This is his opportunity to get out of there.
Speaker 8: He grabbed his grip, he got off the engine, and
Speaker 8: he was making his way to his car as fast
Speaker 8: as possible, and this guy stopped him. He said, I've
Speaker 8: been with these fobs all day. You're the engineer, aren't you.
Speaker 8: And my dad said, yes, mister President, I am. It
Speaker 8: was Harry Truman. Wow in nineteen forty eight. Yeah, So anyway,
Speaker 8: my dad walked about one hundred yards with Harry and
Speaker 8: then the Secret Service got ahold of him. He bitted
Speaker 8: my dad goodbye, and then he spoke to the people.
Speaker 8: But you know, my dad told that story and it
Speaker 8: was one of his favorites. And I said, I'd love
Speaker 8: to meet a president someday. So my congressman got me
Speaker 8: the job of doing the MC job for a president
Speaker 8: who came to San Diego. And I did. And so
Speaker 8: he says, I have an idea. Why don't you you
Speaker 8: know your trademark ranger at You don't have a smoke
Speaker 8: of the bear hat that I wear because I did
Speaker 8: children's television for seventeen years locally here in San Diego
Speaker 8: and on my syndicated show Words of Poppin' was syndicated
Speaker 8: around the country and I won two Emmys for that show.
Speaker 8: But anyway, the hat is a traditional thing that I've
Speaker 8: had in my career, and so I wanted to meet
Speaker 8: a president. So anyway, Duncan Hunter, my congressman made it happen.
Speaker 8: I went to the White House and this is all
Speaker 8: in the book. It's a deeper story in the book.
Speaker 8: But anyway, we're waiting outside the Oval office. Gary White
Speaker 8: House staff member comes in to tell us and by
Speaker 8: the way, that hallway outside the Oval, it's not that big. Anyway,
Speaker 8: he said, Duncan shotgun the president is better to see you.
Speaker 8: So we go in the Oval office. The president is
Speaker 8: behind the resolute desk. He gets up from the resolute
Speaker 8: desk and he walks over to the shell bookcase. Well, Gary,
Speaker 8: he knows my name. He said, well, Shotgun, I understand
Speaker 8: that you were the MC and kept the people entertained
Speaker 8: why they're waiting for me in San Diego. And I said, yes,
Speaker 8: mister President, I did. And I bring you my trademark
Speaker 8: ranger hat, and I hope you'll put it on. And
Speaker 8: he goes, well, he put it on. It was President
Speaker 8: Ronald Reagan left in the book.
Speaker 4: That's a great Reagan impression. You do that really? Well?
Speaker 8: Uh, oh, well, a little way. Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan,
Speaker 8: his son is friend of mine. And when you get
Speaker 8: a copy, you get a stamp. It's not really the
Speaker 8: president's signature. But in the book if you look, uh
Speaker 8: in the book, all I want to do is play
Speaker 8: the hits available on Amazon and Barnesanoble dot com.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 8: If you go in there, you will see, uh, the
Speaker 8: president's signature. Michael Reagan went to his dad in Santa
Speaker 8: Barbara and actually had him sign that's actually his signature,
Speaker 8: and it's not a stamp. I value that.
Speaker 4: That's phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Because of your dad's involvement with trains, You've had a
Speaker 1: continuing lifelong love of trains, haven't you.
Speaker 8: Tom Oh. Absolutely. But the problem is when I was
Speaker 8: a kid, I was I came home from the train
Speaker 8: store and I said, Dad, I'd like to have a
Speaker 8: train set, and he goes nothing doing son, I worked
Speaker 8: sixteen hours a day. I don't want to see them
Speaker 8: when I come home. So anyway, and so maybe now
Speaker 8: as an adult, I had somebody else build my train
Speaker 8: layout twenty five thousand dollars Lloyd's Layouts of Los Angeles.
Speaker 8: They do a marvelous job. And I've got a downtown
Speaker 8: area residential area. I've got four industrial areas plus a
Speaker 8: yard and the hero in the downtown area. I've always
Speaker 8: wanted this because I've never seen another train layout with
Speaker 8: an AM FMTV station right downtown. And I had a tower, yeah,
Speaker 8: tower for the big tower, you know, not the one
Speaker 8: like WLWS, which is a standing tower, but it's a
Speaker 8: tower on my layout, and yeah, I have lots of
Speaker 8: fun with it. And if any of your listeners are
Speaker 8: ever in San Diego, I'm going to run trains every
Speaker 8: Wednesday from one to four and they can come out
Speaker 8: to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum very near the
Speaker 8: world famous San Diego Zoo, and they could see me
Speaker 8: run trains and I get to visit with them. On
Speaker 8: my show on Sirius XM sixties old Channel seventy three,
Speaker 8: I've mentioned that and I've had lots of people come out.
Speaker 8: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: I bet you have.
Speaker 1: What was your first radio job, Tom, very first.
Speaker 8: First radio Yeah, the very first one. I was sixteen
Speaker 8: years old. I was hanging around a radio station in
Speaker 8: the week and then the weekend guy was the program
Speaker 8: director of this FM station now Gary. As you know,
Speaker 8: FM back in nineteen sixty six was like a background
Speaker 8: music thing. AM was the big deal, and if you
Speaker 8: want to really wanted to be on a big station,
Speaker 8: you had to be on an AM station like KCBQ,
Speaker 8: like KGB, like will W You know I love those
Speaker 8: call letters man. Anyway, So I got a job at
Speaker 8: an FM station on the weekends on Sunday because nobody
Speaker 8: wanted Nobody wants to work Sunday. So George Manning, who
Speaker 8: was working weekends at radio station KDO, where I made
Speaker 8: my little tapes for my bootleg station Anyway, he said,
Speaker 8: how would you like to do Sunday Morning at kPr. I.
Speaker 8: I said I'd love that. So I was sixteen years
Speaker 8: old and I got my first job on the air
Speaker 8: Sunday morning playing jazz Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mandez and Brazil
Speaker 8: sixty six. That's how I remember. It was sixty six,
Speaker 8: and then of course we stopped down at eight o'clock.
Speaker 8: I did a children's radio show, which remember I've always
Speaker 8: wanted to be a children's show oh sometime in my career,
Speaker 8: and I got that because I was I did Words
Speaker 8: of Poppin', which is a word game show for kids.
Speaker 8: McGraw hill owned that the show and I went for
Speaker 8: five years. And then I did the KUSI Kids Club
Speaker 8: with the cartoons and everything for about twelve years here
Speaker 8: in San Diego. So that was my first kid show
Speaker 8: on radio, and it was when I was sixteen.
Speaker 4: So what made you so interested in doing children's programming?
Speaker 8: Well, you've got to realize we all have heroes. Frank
Speaker 8: Thompson was my radio hero, and Johnny downs was my
Speaker 8: television hero because my dad was Johnny Downes's engineer on
Speaker 8: that show.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, and.
Speaker 8: He was so good. He was so great. Johnny Downs was,
Speaker 8: and I talk about him in the book because Johnny
Speaker 8: and I were both in for an audition for this
Speaker 8: Words of Poppin' show. And I walk in and I said, Johnny,
Speaker 8: are you here to audition? He said, yes, I am.
Speaker 8: I said, well, listen, I'm going to get out of here.
Speaker 8: You're going to do Words of Pop and I'm going
Speaker 8: to watch every Saturday. He said, you have just as
Speaker 8: much right to audition as I do. So he gave
Speaker 8: me a cup of coffee out of his thermous and
Speaker 8: he walked in, did his audition, and he came back
Speaker 8: out and he says, Shotgun, congratulations. I hope you do
Speaker 8: your best. So I went in and did my audition
Speaker 8: for Words of Poppin' and then I left. And I
Speaker 8: knew Johnny was going to get the job. I just
Speaker 8: knew it because he had the experience. And so I
Speaker 8: didn't hear from the people for weeks. All of a sudden,
Speaker 8: I got a phone call from the producer. You got
Speaker 8: the job. I said, wait a minute, you got the
Speaker 8: wrong guy, Johnny Downs. You need to hire him. He said, no,
Speaker 8: you related more to the kids than Johnny did. And
Speaker 8: so I did that show for five years, and that
Speaker 8: story is also in the book What.
Speaker 1: A Feather in Your Cap To actually supersede your childhood
Speaker 1: television host hero and take a child that's incredible, Tom.
Speaker 8: Well, that's happened again, because you know what, I got
Speaker 8: the job at k Earth one O one in Los Angeles.
Speaker 8: The real Don Steele. We all remember there. The real
Speaker 8: Don Steele's voice is used in the movie Once upon
Speaker 8: a Time in Hollywood. I'm Burial dolds Field. Right, you
Speaker 8: know when when Brad Pitt gets in the car and
Speaker 8: he turns on the ignition, that's the ninety three k
Speaker 8: h J. I'm Burial dolds Field. Here we go.
Speaker 10: You know that that's his voice.
Speaker 8: That's so anyway, when he passed away, and he was
Speaker 8: one of my radio heroes. I loved the real Don
Speaker 8: Steele and Wolfman Jack. I became friends with Wolfman Jack,
Speaker 8: but I only met the real Don Steele three. How
Speaker 8: was that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, when he passed away? Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: Well, when he passed away, Frank, they had the memorial
Speaker 8: and Mike Phillips, the program director, was looking for somebody
Speaker 8: to succeed the real Don Steele. He told me this,
Speaker 8: He said, he closed the door of his office and
Speaker 8: he said a prayer and he said, God, please help
Speaker 8: me find the right guy. And there was a whisper
Speaker 8: that came into his mine.
Speaker 9: Shot done dumb.
Speaker 8: And he called me and he hired me, and I
Speaker 8: was there for twenty years.
Speaker 1: That's amazing now, and you talk about what a couple
Speaker 1: of great radio legends to have, as you know, as
Speaker 1: friends and successors or whatever you succeed them, the real
Speaker 1: Don Steele and Wolfman Jack.
Speaker 4: What was Robert like in person?
Speaker 8: Robert was a good friend mine before I came to
Speaker 8: ca Earth. He was We used to watch sixty minutes,
Speaker 8: and we after the sixty minutes, we always used to,
Speaker 8: you know, talk about it after the show. I was
Speaker 8: so anyway, I guess I was out after sixty minutes
Speaker 8: one time and he called my house and my wife
Speaker 8: Linda entered the phone. She said hello, and he says,
Speaker 8: they oh thiss r W. Margan is shotgun there? No,
Speaker 8: he's not well, tell him. Rob called and she said, okay, Bob, No, no,
Speaker 8: Bob lives here. He hated to be called Bob. It
Speaker 8: was always Robert W. Morgan. But anyway, No, he was
Speaker 8: a he was a good guy.
Speaker 9: He was.
Speaker 8: He was firm, he was eccentric. H he but but
Speaker 8: to me he was a good guy. But some people
Speaker 8: aggravated him and and I guess he.
Speaker 1: Got a wrest Well, when I said Robert, I meant
Speaker 1: wolfman Jack because his real name was first name was
Speaker 1: Robert Smith, Bob Smith.
Speaker 8: Yeah, oh yeah, but that's also in the book.
Speaker 17: Uh.
Speaker 8: By the way, my book has got happiness, but it's
Speaker 8: got ups and downs. Sure, there's some things in my
Speaker 8: life that happened that I'm not too proud of. And
Speaker 8: uh uh my house got raided by the police. That's
Speaker 8: in the book. Uh. And it was because I did
Speaker 8: these tonight shows. I built a tonight show said wait
Speaker 8: before Kramer in my garage and very professionally done, had
Speaker 8: a crew, and I had the Sheriff of San Diego
Speaker 8: County the chief of police, and I played Ed McMahon
Speaker 8: and so we did this show and it was a
Speaker 8: cult favorite of both departments after seven years. There were
Speaker 8: some murders that happened here in San Diego of prostitutes,
Speaker 8: and so they thought the police was going to, you know,
Speaker 8: defend their officers. They thought an officer killed this prostitute.
Speaker 8: So they took it away from the local police department
Speaker 8: and the state Attorney General formed a homicide task force
Speaker 8: and they raided my house. Gary and in the front. Now,
Speaker 8: I was doing the kids show over at TUSI at yeah,
Speaker 8: and the front. You know, I've always wanted to be
Speaker 8: on the front page of the paper, above the fold.
Speaker 8: The headline was seven hundred and fifty tapes seized in
Speaker 8: murdered probe. Anyway, a lot of the reporters were coming out.
Speaker 17: And you know, yeah, hey, by the way, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 17: they Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rogers said that he one
Speaker 17: of the dead prostitutes was on the.
Speaker 8: Show, and that was a lie. So that's why they
Speaker 8: rated the house. We got.
Speaker 1: We have two minutes, Tom, right around two minutes, and
Speaker 1: I want to hear about the Hollywood the Star and.
Speaker 4: The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Shotgun Tom Kelly has a star.
Speaker 1: And radio people don't don't get radio people don't get stars.
Speaker 8: No, they don't like giving them to radio field. But
Speaker 8: I had to wait for mine. But you know, Robert W.
Speaker 8: Morgan had a star, the real Don Steele had a star.
Speaker 8: So k Earth was really the radio station of the
Speaker 8: rock stars for disc jockeys. So anyway, I got rejected
Speaker 8: the first year, the second year, but then the third
Speaker 8: year I got my star and I asked Stevie Wonder
Speaker 8: to be my speaker, and he was there along with
Speaker 8: Art Levo and Johnny Mathis and my program director, Johnny
Speaker 8: Ka he was also a speaker, and thousands of people,
Speaker 8: I mean, maybe I shouldn't say thousands. Hundreds of people
Speaker 8: showed up, including Radio's best friend Art Bolo. He was
Speaker 8: there to pare.
Speaker 1: There you go two mentions. Art got two mentions. That's perfect.
Speaker 1: The book is all I want to do is play
Speaker 1: the hits. And he has been doing it successfully and
Speaker 1: supersedingly successfully now for decades and decades and decades. The
Speaker 1: one and only Shotgun Tom Kelly from Sirius XM's sixties
Speaker 1: Gold our guest on American History on the radio, and Tom,
Speaker 1: it's been such a pleasure. And I know we could
Speaker 1: go on like this for hours, but unfortunately.
Speaker 8: Yeah we can.
Speaker 4: That's the time.
Speaker 8: With Garry, you are such a big time guy. I
Speaker 8: am just delighted to be on your show because you've
Speaker 8: had Pat Saint John, You've had Flash Stolps, and now
Speaker 8: you've got me. Thank you thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 4: The shotgun on the nightcap we continue.
Speaker 3: When do you like to listen to Scott's Loan?
Speaker 15: I love to listen to Slooney when I'm at my
Speaker 15: cubicle because I couldn't care less about my job.
Speaker 13: If I see someone smiling at work, I instantly know
Speaker 13: they're listening to Slowey.
Speaker 1: Because everyone else looks like they're on prison work details.
Speaker 4: I listened to Slony when I was in prison.
Speaker 13: Did you really a bunch of us would drink the
Speaker 13: hooch we made in our toilets and have a sloony party?
Speaker 3: Slooney and toilet booze might be fun. Scott's loan Cloney Yes,
Speaker 3: toilet drinks.
Speaker 21: No Tomorrow morning at nine on seven hundred WLW, and
Speaker 21: check out his podcast on the Free iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 18: Just in time for the New Year, the new and
Speaker 18: improved Free iHeartRadio App is finally here.
Speaker 3: It's everything you love about radio in the punt and.
Speaker 1: Closer and closer to twenty twenty five with every minute
Speaker 1: that passes. It's the Nightcap Great American History on the
Speaker 1: Radio on New Year's Eve, focusing on some of my
Speaker 1: favorite interviews with my favorite radio personalities from the past year.
Speaker 1: And this is a guy I never thought i'd be
Speaker 1: able to get. He's doing talk radios somewhere, I think
Speaker 1: in Chicago at WGN.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we cover that.
Speaker 1: But in the heyday of AM Top forty radio, there
Speaker 1: were no stars bigger in the nineteen seventies than a
Speaker 1: man they called He called Chawn Records Land Decker, and
Speaker 1: Records is truly his middle name.
Speaker 4: Always got a kick out of that listening to him.
Speaker 1: The great voice is still alive on the Nightcap tonight
Speaker 1: in an exclusive interview that he was kind enough to
Speaker 1: do going back a few months ago. So, without any
Speaker 1: further ado, after the break, my interview on American history
Speaker 1: on the radio on New Year's Eve once again with
Speaker 1: John Records Land Decker coming up here on seven hundred
Speaker 1: w LW.
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, in the enchaned forest, the princess is calling for
Speaker 6: help with blinding speed.
Speaker 3: Our heroes Eddie and Rocky.
Speaker 1: Rush to her, aid.
Speaker 3: Princess, that's wrong?
Speaker 4: Are you hurt?
Speaker 18: Now?
Speaker 3: You think dope? I've done went dead while I was
Speaker 3: listening to the podcast of your show.
Speaker 4: No problem, just charge your phone.
Speaker 3: I don't charge phones. I'm a princess here use my phone.
Speaker 3: Then hang on a minute for these pictures of women's feet.
Speaker 3: Eddie and Rockie. Give your day a fairy tale, ending.
Speaker 22: Tomorrow afternoon at three one seven hundred WLWRT.
Speaker 2: Run a business and not thinking about radio, think again,
Speaker 2: because more people are listening to the radio on iHeart
Speaker 2: today than they did twenty years ago, and only iHeart
Speaker 2: broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social,
Speaker 2: any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok.
Speaker 2: Think radio can help your business? Think iHeart streaming, podcasting,
Speaker 2: and radio. Let us show you at iheartadvertising dot com.
Speaker 2: That's iheartadvertising dot com.
Speaker 3: Men, the new year is here, and if you're like
Speaker 3: many of us, you're going to make a resolution to
Speaker 3: improve your health. But if you're feeling sluggish and low energy,
Speaker 3: if you're sleep patterns are off, if you've.
Speaker 10: Been thick words saying up the phone on me, oh
Speaker 10: that's easy, w l' boogie check.
Speaker 9: Hey, mister wizard, I'm calling him the name of justice.
Speaker 10: About a month ago, I called me a monkey out
Speaker 10: of you on the phone. So if you say the
Speaker 10: right magic.
Speaker 8: Word, how did you make a muggy out of me?
Speaker 10: I said something wrong.
Speaker 6: So if you say the right word, you'll make a
Speaker 6: monkey out of me.
Speaker 8: I want to make a monkey out of you.
Speaker 6: Go Banana.
Speaker 1: That is some of the craziness that was known as
Speaker 1: boogie check, an invention of one John Records Land Decker
Speaker 1: when he was on eighty nine WLS in Chicago. That's
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy seven. Today, John Records Land Decker is
Speaker 1: a national radio treasure and he is nightly doing a
Speaker 1: talk show on seven to twenty WGN back in the
Speaker 1: Windy City. And this is American history on the radio
Speaker 1: on the night cap. John Records, and Records is truly
Speaker 1: your middle name, Land Decker. It's such a pleasure to
Speaker 1: sit down and talk with you for a few moments.
Speaker 10: Well, thank you very much for having me on. I
Speaker 10: appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Oh Man.
Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of told you, but I'll
Speaker 1: tell the audience that as a kid growing up in
Speaker 1: suburban Chicago, we lived in Donners Grove in Napersville from
Speaker 1: like sixty five to seventy one. Now, you hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: a WLS at that point, but when I got my
Speaker 1: first transistor radio, I think it was seven years old.
Speaker 1: WLS was locked as long as I was able to
Speaker 1: have the radio on or the nine volt battery didn't
Speaker 1: wear out, and my parents didn't find out. I was
Speaker 1: listening in my bedroom with the thing underneath my pillow,
Speaker 1: says past my bedtime, and I heard all these great
Speaker 1: voices and just a commanding presence of the jocks of
Speaker 1: that day. And it was not just WLS, it was
Speaker 1: WCFL there. The top forty radio wars in Chicago were
Speaker 1: absolutely insane with the contesting and the money that was
Speaker 1: being paid to the talent and the fight over the talent.
Speaker 1: You got there in what seventy three or seventy four
Speaker 1: to WLS.
Speaker 4: John when we were so.
Speaker 1: I got there, yeah, And so anyway, I was still
Speaker 1: hooked on WLS when we moved away, and of course
Speaker 1: with that big booming signal like seven hundred WLW has
Speaker 1: big booming signal on WLS. I could hear it in
Speaker 1: suburban Saint Louis when we moved there, and then to
Speaker 1: even to Nashville, Tennessee in Middle Tennessee, and I would
Speaker 1: listen late at night and I would hear you, and
Speaker 1: I heard boogie check, and it so influenced me in
Speaker 1: my radio career later that I started trying to copy
Speaker 1: it as crazy as it was. So what was the
Speaker 1: what was the origin of the boog.
Speaker 9: First of all?
Speaker 10: First of all, I want to say that it's a
Speaker 10: great honor to be on WLW because it's one of
Speaker 10: the great radio stations in American history. And it also
Speaker 10: is part of my current situation where I only appear
Speaker 10: on radio.
Speaker 9: Stations and have three call letters.
Speaker 10: So I wanted I wanted to make it clear, all right,
Speaker 10: where did boogie check come from?
Speaker 9: If there was a real place that.
Speaker 10: It came from, you know, some thought out, well thought
Speaker 10: out plan, I let you know, But it was a
Speaker 10: totally spontaneous experience on the air. I guess this sort
Speaker 10: of starts with the fact that the term let's boogie
Speaker 10: was a spying expression at the time. Yeah, it was
Speaker 10: being printed on T shirts and other items of apparel
Speaker 10: and being used and as lying and so you've got
Speaker 10: that as a bass, that term boogie that is floating around. Okay, Well,
Speaker 10: AM radio stations have played top forty rock music at
Speaker 10: that time. I had a reputation of repeating the same
Speaker 10: songs over and over and over again. And that's because
Speaker 10: they repeated the same songs over and over and over again,
Speaker 10: and I was on at night and I got really
Speaker 10: tired of that. I was just you know, if you
Speaker 10: heard them once in a while, it was okay, but
Speaker 10: if you were there every time they repeated, it became irritating.
Speaker 9: So you've got that going on.
Speaker 10: Then we had a one of our air personalities was
Speaker 10: named j J. Jeffrey, and he had a mustache, and
Speaker 10: he was dating and before he would go out on
Speaker 10: a date, he would do what he called a sixty
Speaker 10: second booger check, in which he would look in the
Speaker 10: mirror and see if there were any nasal deposits on
Speaker 10: his upperlip area. Well, one night, don't ask me how.
Speaker 10: I have no idea, because it just spontaneously occurred. All
Speaker 10: of that came together as the sixty second bookie check.
Speaker 10: I started answering the phone live on the air at WLS.
Speaker 10: I had no idea what a boogie check meant. It
Speaker 10: didn't mean anything. You could interpret it, I suppose any
Speaker 10: way you wanted to, if you were like a twelve
Speaker 10: year old listener. And it just went on from there.
Speaker 10: No One, as far as I knew, no one used
Speaker 10: Top forty or rock radio in that manner. Prior to
Speaker 10: to that. I mean, they took phone calls to the
Speaker 10: extent that you could hear a request or a dedication,
Speaker 10: But this was none of that. This was just random
Speaker 10: chaos going up and down the telephone line, live on
Speaker 10: the air, just reacting to whatever I ran into. And
Speaker 10: it seemed to be something that I could do pretty well.
Speaker 10: And that's pretty much it. There's no grand design design
Speaker 10: to it, well.
Speaker 1: You know, and it doesn't occur to me that it
Speaker 1: would be a thing that you put a lot of
Speaker 1: thought into.
Speaker 4: But that was the beauty, no.
Speaker 8: Thought into it.
Speaker 10: Not only that's one of the reasons I loved it.
Speaker 10: It didn't require any thought, didn't require any preparation, you know,
Speaker 10: I just did it.
Speaker 1: No, they would call and they would be stupid, and
Speaker 1: you would be rude and hang up on them. And
Speaker 1: the idea was for listeners hearing this, and what's a
Speaker 1: booky check anyway?
Speaker 8: Exactly so.
Speaker 4: But it was like almost like bull riding.
Speaker 1: If you could stay on eight seconds until the bell,
Speaker 1: you could win, right.
Speaker 9: I've never heard that analogy, but that's great. Yeah, I
Speaker 9: guess so.
Speaker 4: But it inspired me boogie check.
Speaker 1: Hearing that as a teenager and tweeer inspired me til
Speaker 1: later on in my radio career do this game? I
Speaker 1: used to play at multiple stations that I've been on,
Speaker 1: called what is it? And I didn't have an answer
Speaker 1: for what it was. But when I got a creative enough,
Speaker 1: whacky enough phone call and they exactly it, it's this,
Speaker 1: and they'd go through some rambling dissertation about what it is,
Speaker 1: and I say, you're.
Speaker 4: Right, I can't believe you nailed it. That's great.
Speaker 1: But that was all because of listening to John Records,
Speaker 1: Landecker and Boogie.
Speaker 8: Check you know there.
Speaker 10: Over the years, people have said to me, how did
Speaker 10: you splice all those phone calls together?
Speaker 9: And the reason we didn't. They were always one hundred
Speaker 9: percent live on delay.
Speaker 10: Rather, there was never any kind of pre taping at all.
Speaker 10: The only concession that was ever made to the callers
Speaker 10: was the fact in the beginning WLS had no delay
Speaker 10: system because no one took any phone calls alive on
Speaker 10: a rock station. So the big f got put out
Speaker 10: over the airwaves. I mean, the SEC at the time
Speaker 10: said something like, you know, do whatever you can to
Speaker 10: keep these obstanities off the air. Well, you know what,
Speaker 10: once they're on, they're on. I mean, you can't bring
Speaker 10: them back. And once that spread around that that had
Speaker 10: happened in the rape vine of the Chicago teen community,
Speaker 10: that they had heard the big F on WLS the
Speaker 10: night before the place exploded with phone calls, and the
Speaker 10: engineering had department Engineering department had to devise the first
Speaker 10: very crude delay system that allowed bookie check would be
Speaker 10: on the air. You'd go into the delay system for
Speaker 10: the for the phone calls and for the bit and
Speaker 10: then come out of it at the end. Nowadays it's
Speaker 10: all digital and everybody's on delay pretty much all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, from when they installed the
Speaker 1: digital transmitter here at seven hundred years ago. Uh, that
Speaker 1: added an extra delay to the system. But there is
Speaker 1: a delay dump system that we in the talk studio
Speaker 1: and in the producer's room. There are giant red buttons
Speaker 1: that just say dump exactly, and I rarely imagine.
Speaker 10: Yeah, if you can imagine, there was none of that. Yeah, nothing,
Speaker 10: There was no delay system whatsoever, and so something had
Speaker 10: to be devised. And instead of telling me that I
Speaker 10: couldn't do it, which you know, might have been one
Speaker 10: management reaction, they were totally behind it. And I think
Speaker 10: that's another thing that's very important to note here is
Speaker 10: that the program director at the time, John Garan, and
Speaker 10: the general manager Marty Greenberg. You know, I never asked
Speaker 10: them for permission to do this. I just went and
Speaker 10: did it, and they saw how popular it was immediately,
Speaker 10: and they totally supported it.
Speaker 8: I mean, they had our.
Speaker 10: Jingle company Jam Jingles, Record Boogie Check Jingles in there.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 10: They allowed people the air, personalities on the air to
Speaker 10: do whatever sort of came to mind as long as
Speaker 10: it didn't cross the lines of I suppose good taste
Speaker 10: or threatened the license of the radio station. So I mean,
Speaker 10: I think that's important to note is that the programming
Speaker 10: and the management of that radio we're totally into it.
Speaker 8: Which is unusual.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very very I'll tell you. As a talk
Speaker 1: show host, I'm very very when I'm talking about anything
Speaker 1: that's cultural or political. I am very far right. Why
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say far right. I mean, I haven't blown
Speaker 1: up any buildings or anything, but thank god, yeah, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: and don't intend to. But whatever the subject matter is,
Speaker 1: whether it's been COVID nineteen, vaccines, or anything else that
Speaker 1: I have talked about and taken a stand, no one
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia or here in the building has ever said Gary, Jeff,
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 4: You can't do that.
Speaker 1: So I understand having the freedom and it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what it is, John, If you have the freedom to
Speaker 1: express a thought or to do something that you think
Speaker 1: you need to do for you and your audience, then
Speaker 1: if you've got the green light to do that, you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't ask permission either, Like you said, it's
Speaker 1: always better to ask forgiveness and permission.
Speaker 4: And I haven't had have.
Speaker 10: Not you know, this wasn't there was no there was
Speaker 10: nothing political, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: I understand.
Speaker 1: I was just giving you an illustration of the same
Speaker 1: kind of the same kind of acquiescence by management, of
Speaker 1: letting the jock or the air talent be the air
Speaker 1: talent that they are.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 9: I understand, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I do. So.
Speaker 1: I mean to have that kind of freedom though, it
Speaker 1: allows for some fantastic radio and you know, you look
Speaker 1: back on it now and it just for me, it
Speaker 1: brings back a well spring of childhood memories. Over Labor
Speaker 1: Day weekend, something called rewound radio and that was on
Speaker 1: iHeart too. Had had just hours and hours and hours
Speaker 1: of programming from WLS and WCFL back in the heyday,
Speaker 1: from the time I started listening in the late sixties
Speaker 1: up through your era and up till like seventy eight
Speaker 1: or seventy nine. They had all of these great voices
Speaker 1: that I remember as a kid listening. One of the
Speaker 1: things I loved about that era and that market and
Speaker 1: that particular radio station growing up with it was not
Speaker 1: only the great voices, but there was a level of
Speaker 1: condescension there.
Speaker 4: That was just amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, and they weren't mean necessarily to the listener,
Speaker 1: but you know, it kind of had a voice of
Speaker 1: God effect. And and listening to the boogey check, I
Speaker 1: hear you though, iniquities shall be punished by pounding.
Speaker 10: Wait, that's something that was specifically, that was specifically put
Speaker 10: in there when somebody that was the was that the
Speaker 10: delay system, Yes, that was used to cover up the obscenity.
Speaker 9: That was That was Bill Price, our production.
Speaker 10: Director, and we had him cut a number of these
Speaker 10: very short bow as you know, a.
Speaker 9: Violated the world's taste, and that played when.
Speaker 10: That replaced the obscedity or the off pollo remark that
Speaker 10: had been on the air. So that's where that came
Speaker 10: from that was what that was used for, you know.
Speaker 10: And I want to say something else about w ELLS
Speaker 10: at that time. One of the keys to its huge
Speaker 10: success was the fact that everybody got along so well,
Speaker 10: and you know, the lineup of their personalities appeared on
Speaker 10: each others shows. We had a great time on and
Speaker 10: off the air. We had sort of a prime directive,
Speaker 10: which was that the radio station was there as a
Speaker 10: tool for our amusement and as a way. You know
Speaker 10: that we didn't have anything to do with the listener
Speaker 10: per se, but it certainly did in the fact that
Speaker 10: the people who listened would always.
Speaker 9: Say, you guys, ound like you were just having.
Speaker 10: A great time, and that's because we were. You were
Speaker 10: And I think that, you know, transmits itself out to
Speaker 10: the listener and they pick up on that and they
Speaker 10: want to be a part.
Speaker 9: Of that, you know.
Speaker 10: And I've never been at a station that had that
Speaker 10: kind of camaraderie before or since. And we still as
Speaker 10: a group maintain connections. It's quite amazing. Quite frankly.
Speaker 1: Well, in speaking of the staff, what was Larry Lujack like.
Speaker 4: John.
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 10: I love Larry lu Jack. He was a great guy.
Speaker 10: He had this on air persona being sarcastic, and he
Speaker 10: was one of the hardest working people I'd ever met.
Speaker 10: He was at the station hours and hours and hours
Speaker 10: going over newspapers and what was called wire copy at
Speaker 10: the time, which from unit president of National Associated Press.
Speaker 10: He was dedicated to his craft and it was just
Speaker 10: a great guy to be around.
Speaker 9: He was fun.
Speaker 8: We all loved him, and.
Speaker 10: That wasn't his persona on the air so much, but
Speaker 10: because it was a bit of an act, but it
Speaker 10: worked very well for him and he was really well liked.
Speaker 10: I'll tell you a brief, brief story.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's here's what I want to do, John, I
Speaker 1: want to take a break and come back and do
Speaker 1: another segment if you'll indulge me, and you can tell
Speaker 1: this is what they call in the business folks, a tease.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear funny Larry Lujack story from John
Speaker 1: Records Landecker and Records is truly his middle name. One
Speaker 1: of the broad is one of the broadcasting legends of
Speaker 1: my life. For certain, It's American history on the radio,
Speaker 1: and it continues after the break on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 6: News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati.
Speaker 18: What state's new medical marijuana legalization forcing a certain dilemma? Well,
Speaker 18: The eleven thirty reports, I'm lee mawin breaking now starting
Speaker 18: at mednight, Kentuckians have a choice medical marijuana or the firearms.
Speaker 18: Reporting from our sister station in Louisville, whas John Shannon.
Speaker 23: According to a statement from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
Speaker 23: and Firearms, any person who uses marijuana, regardless of whether
Speaker 23: his or her state has passed legislation legalizing it for
Speaker 23: medical purposes, is an unlawful user of a controlled substance
Speaker 23: and is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition under federal law.
Speaker 23: Matthew Bradscher, with the Kentucky branch of the National Organization
Speaker 23: of the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says people who own
Speaker 23: firearms and want to use medical marijuana need to be
Speaker 23: aware of the risks of continuing to own guns.
Speaker 22: They definitely need to be aware of the risks. You know,
Speaker 22: if you lie on the forum, it's federal perjury and
Speaker 22: if you get caught with it, it could be a
Speaker 22: time a jail up to ten years.
Speaker 23: Bratcher says gun dealers could also be charged for knowingly
Speaker 23: selling firearms to medical marijuana cardholders and users. I'm John Shannon.
Speaker 18: Now the latest traffic and weather together. We still have
Speaker 18: that crash reporting on US fifty at Chambers. This is
Speaker 18: near the underpass of I two seventy five. As you
Speaker 18: head towards Indiana going south, the roads remain open.
Speaker 3: Just prepare for that.
Speaker 18: We also have a disabled vehicle in the right shoulder
Speaker 18: I seventy one I seventy five north towards the Donaldson
Speaker 18: Highway exit.
Speaker 3: That is not slowing anything down. Just something to watch now.
Speaker 6: The latest forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather
Speaker 6: Center on News Radio seven hundred wl W as.
Speaker 14: Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher
Speaker 14: in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early
Speaker 14: parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
Speaker 14: door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at
Speaker 14: times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day,
Speaker 14: but it will be a little bit above freezing and
Speaker 14: thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies, getting chilly overnight
Speaker 14: into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue
Speaker 14: the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday
Speaker 14: to Friday. From here severe weather station I'm nine first
Speaker 14: warning media rollinds just Brandon Spinner News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight degrees in Cincinnati.
Speaker 18: Still plenty of rain in Claremont, Brown Warren, South Green County,
Speaker 18: Western Clinton County, and southeastern Montgomery County. A little bit
Speaker 18: of snow leading the cell in Brown County, and some
Speaker 18: patches closing up in western Claremont County. At green light
Speaker 18: of the seven million dollar grant to start devil ring
Speaker 18: the former Seers store at Coleraine Township's Northgate Mall. The
Speaker 18: abandoned store, with its parking lot set on nearly thirteen
Speaker 18: acres of unused potential. It's currently owned by the Hamilton
Speaker 18: County Land Bank and an entity of the Port of
Speaker 18: Greater Cincinnati Development Authority. Colraine Township Developer Director David Miller
Speaker 18: told The Cincinnati Business Warrior the bulldozers aren't running yet,
Speaker 18: but it's close, while also noting how clean and easy
Speaker 18: the path will be to tear it down. The Northgate
Speaker 18: Mallseers closed down in twenty eighteen. A Tuesday morning fire
Speaker 18: sets a food processing plant back fifty thousand dollars in
Speaker 18: damages happening on the Coalk Foods Plan on Port Union Road.
Speaker 18: After seven o'clock, first responders found the fire in a
Speaker 18: second floor mechanical room. The facility sprinkler system deployed, limiting
Speaker 18: the blaze to that room. Crews from Fairfield, Springdale, Westchester,
Speaker 18: and Liberty Township knocked the fire down in about twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: No injuries reported.
Speaker 18: A faulty motor is expected to be the culprit of
Speaker 18: the blaze. Employees returned to work once things settled down.
Speaker 18: We are just about twenty six minutes away from twenty
Speaker 18: twenty five and security is high.
Speaker 3: In Times Square, a.
Speaker 5: Million people are packing the streets despite rain in the forecast.
Speaker 5: While officials say there's no specific threat, they remain on
Speaker 5: high alert. All the security though in no way dampening
Speaker 5: spirits on this big night.
Speaker 13: I think it's gonna be amazing, Super excited and want
Speaker 13: to do this for a while actually, and now I
Speaker 13: got the chance to do it.
Speaker 5: Police are monitoring the celebrations with drones, canine units and
Speaker 5: thousands of officers. Officers are also searching into the subway system,
Speaker 5: where today a passenger was left in critical condition after
Speaker 5: being pushed onto the tracks south of Times Square.
Speaker 4: A suspect is in custody.
Speaker 3: That's ABC's Aaron Katski.
Speaker 18: That's our last newscast of twenty four. Our next update
Speaker 18: in the new year at midnight. I'mley Mawen. Who's Radio
Speaker 18: seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
Speaker 4: It's the Marketer's Report Today.
Speaker 3: Kate Cronin, Chief brand Officer of Maderna tells us about the.
Speaker 1: Advantage history on the radio. On the nightcap on seven
Speaker 1: hundred WLW.
Speaker 4: That's a lengthy title. John.
Speaker 1: When we last were talking before the break, you were
Speaker 1: going to tell me a Larry Lujack story from those
Speaker 1: classic vintage days at WLS Radio in Chicago, So please continue, sir.
Speaker 10: Well, this isn't a story like that has a set up,
Speaker 10: the middle and a punchline. But I'll tell you what
Speaker 10: it was, Okay. I came to WLS and seventy two.
Speaker 10: I came there from Philadelphia. I was a very young kid.
Speaker 10: Larry was already there. In one of our little conversations
Speaker 10: back in our little DJ offices. The discussion was, I've
Speaker 10: got to be about Elvis and the Beatles, and I said,
Speaker 10: you know, I really liked the Beatles. I mean, Elvis
Speaker 10: is okay, you know, but I really liked the Beatles. Well, anyway,
Speaker 10: Larry was a huge Elvis fan. And he goes, you
Speaker 10: don't know nothing about music, you Philadelphia fill in the blank?
Speaker 8: All right. Yeah.
Speaker 10: So years passed, a few years past, and Elvis dies
Speaker 10: in the afternoon, and I'm at the station in Larry
Speaker 10: is and I say, God, he's.
Speaker 8: Got to know this.
Speaker 9: He wants to know this. This is important. So this
Speaker 9: isn't on the air or anything.
Speaker 10: So I Calledarry at home and I talked to his wife, Judy,
Speaker 10: and I say, Judy.
Speaker 9: It's John Landecker.
Speaker 10: I got to talk to Larry Eldsteine and she goes, well,
Speaker 10: he's Larry's taken a nap. And I said, well, because
Speaker 10: he was the morning guy, right, so and so I said, well,
Speaker 10: I think he would want to know.
Speaker 9: He goes, he goes okay.
Speaker 8: And Larry gets on the phone. Yeah, what is it, Larry.
Speaker 9: It's a land Decker at the station Elvis died.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm taking a nap.
Speaker 8: We expect me to do about it?
Speaker 9: Click? Okay.
Speaker 10: Then thirty maybe twenty five thirty years later, the anniversary
Speaker 10: of Elvis's death I'm doing afternoons on what became WLSSM,
Speaker 10: and I had.
Speaker 8: His phone number from whore.
Speaker 9: He was living in Texas, and I called him up
Speaker 9: and I go.
Speaker 8: Larry, you're on the air.
Speaker 10: He goes, yes, mostly informed people. Well, you put him
Speaker 10: out of the air, too bad, Larry. I want to
Speaker 10: tell you that I wanted to remind you know, thirty
Speaker 10: years ago Altemus died and he just absolutely broke up,
Speaker 10: like hysterical, and he goes a people, that's his story,
Speaker 10: and he launches into this whole recap over the incident
Speaker 10: that I just related to you. And and it was
Speaker 10: funnier the second time around because the first time it
Speaker 10: didn't happen on the air, right, So, and maybe it's not,
Speaker 10: you know, like an hysterical thing that happened with Larry, but.
Speaker 9: Let's just say it sort of.
Speaker 10: Encapsulates his personality and how actually he was totally approachable
Speaker 10: and had a great sense of humor.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you and I have both interviewed the legendary shotgun
Speaker 1: Tom Kelly this summer because he's got a book out.
Speaker 4: But I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you
Speaker 4: the same.
Speaker 1: Kind of questions I asked Shotgun Tom and you probably
Speaker 1: inquired of this as well when you talk to him.
Speaker 1: What inspired you to be in radio in the first place, John,
Speaker 1: What was the.
Speaker 9: That's a good question. I think a part of it
Speaker 9: has to do with being.
Speaker 8: Around when.
Speaker 10: Radio at that time still had what we would call
Speaker 10: entertainment programming, before the era of rock and roll. We're
Speaker 10: talking like somewhere in the fifties where you could hear
Speaker 10: I mean I was really young, but you could hear
Speaker 10: people I don't even need to names mean anything good,
Speaker 10: anybody anymore like Arthur god for you would have a
Speaker 10: variety show with singers, and you could hear drama like
Speaker 10: The Lone Ranger and Sky King, and you could hear
Speaker 10: comedy shows and things like that.
Speaker 8: And at the same.
Speaker 10: Time, my dad, who was a professor at the University
Speaker 10: of massip it was blind. So I'm getting like psychological now,
Speaker 10: and in retrospect, I feel that that had something to
Speaker 10: do with my interest in radio, because of course my
Speaker 10: father couldn't see, so therefore television. We were the last
Speaker 10: people on the block to have a TV. But he
Speaker 10: would get all of his information from the radio. And
Speaker 10: I was a boy scout and so little Christmas reuse
Speaker 10: from door to drawer and raised a certain amount of
Speaker 10: money and the money that I wanted to do with
Speaker 10: my money, and we went down to an electronics store
Speaker 10: and I wanted to buy a six transistor radio.
Speaker 8: You know, you mentioned your nine vote battery earlier.
Speaker 10: And there was a channel ester six transistor AM only
Speaker 10: radio that costs thirty six bucks.
Speaker 9: Back in that day. That was a lot of money.
Speaker 10: And I only had like sixteen seventeen dollars, and my
Speaker 10: parents matched.
Speaker 8: It and brought the radio home and my.
Speaker 10: Father listened to his newscasts on that radio that night.
Speaker 10: I was just totally into radio from the get go.
Speaker 10: I pretended I had a radio station in my how
Speaker 10: am I?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 9: My bedroom?
Speaker 4: Did we all do that? We all did?
Speaker 9: We all did that?
Speaker 10: We all that I was talking.
Speaker 9: I was talking to Tom shotgun Toime. He did that too.
Speaker 8: I think we all did that, and.
Speaker 10: You know, And then I was in high school. I
Speaker 10: went to University of Michigan High School, which was run
Speaker 10: by the University of Michigan School of Education.
Speaker 9: It no longer exists, but.
Speaker 10: They were open to suggestion and I had a political
Speaker 10: science teacher named Mylon Marriage and instead of doing a
Speaker 10: term paper, I was allowed to do a term tape
Speaker 10: or I actually made a recording of something. And also
Speaker 10: at the time, my girlfriend, her aunt was a quote
Speaker 10: unquote woman's editor of a local AM station there in
Speaker 10: ann Arbor, and she got me in to see the
Speaker 10: program director one afternoon and I went out there and
Speaker 10: it was this station that was on a dirt road
Speaker 10: across from a dairy farm in Saline, Michigan. And I
Speaker 10: walked in and talked to the guy who was on
Speaker 10: the area, went into the during a record. He went
Speaker 10: in and got a bunch of turned out to be
Speaker 10: wire copy of the news and he gave it to me.
Speaker 9: He said, go into that room and when that light comes.
Speaker 8: On, read this stuff.
Speaker 10: And he made a bit out of the fact that
Speaker 10: there was a local high school kid that was there
Speaker 10: who wanted to get into radio. And that was basically
Speaker 10: the beginning.
Speaker 8: That was it.
Speaker 10: I started going out to that station after school. I
Speaker 10: was hired as a janitor for a dollar fifteen an hour.
Speaker 10: They had one rock and roll show on the air
Speaker 10: during the week Saturday mornings a month until noon. I
Speaker 10: joined that show as a newsman. One thing leads to
Speaker 10: another and another and another, and I never left the
Speaker 10: business since then.
Speaker 8: And that was it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I attended the thirteenth grade at Volunteer State Community College
Speaker 1: in Gallaton, Tennessee, for the radio program.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and did not fit.
Speaker 1: I was making straight a's in school, but it didn't
Speaker 1: matter once I had the job. After a month internship
Speaker 1: at the local station, I was done with school. I
Speaker 1: had achieved my objective. I was just going to go
Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, and that's what happened with me.
Speaker 10: You know, you said that you currently are like right
Speaker 10: wing commentator and broadcasting.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I don't know about righting, but okay, but you know
Speaker 9: Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh is the guy that inspiredired me, made me
Speaker 1: want to get into talk radio out of music radio.
Speaker 10: Well, anyway, before Rush Limbaugh was Russia Limbaugh, he was
Speaker 10: a jacket k.
Speaker 9: Q V in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 10: And one day at my house in Chicago, I picked
Speaker 10: up the phone and it's him, and I have no
Speaker 10: idea where he got my number, and he was calling
Speaker 10: me to see if I had any advice on how to.
Speaker 8: Be a disc jockey.
Speaker 10: And I didn't remember this, but I saw him at
Speaker 10: a like a I think he was being inducted into
Speaker 10: the Hall of Fame Radio Hall of Fame or.
Speaker 9: Something, and he said that he had called and that.
Speaker 10: I was eating a salad and that's what he remembered
Speaker 10: of that whole experience. But you know, he started out
Speaker 10: in rock radio. You started out in rock radio. My
Speaker 10: tenure as a talk show host is only like four years, and.
Speaker 9: That's a w g N.
Speaker 10: And I specifically stay away from any political or issue
Speaker 10: oriented content.
Speaker 4: Just you don't want to want.
Speaker 8: I just don't want.
Speaker 10: I just I just don't want to get into it
Speaker 10: with anybody. I can't change anybody's mind. Nobody's going to
Speaker 10: change my mind. We've got so much the visit divisiveness already.
Speaker 10: Everybody knows what they think.
Speaker 9: They're not going to believe anything, and nobody will believe anything.
Speaker 9: I would try to make them believe anyway.
Speaker 10: Oh no, you know, and it makes it easier for
Speaker 10: me because I'm a people pleaser.
Speaker 1: Well this is this is John, This is exactly why
Speaker 1: I love doing interviews like this because it is a
Speaker 1: political has nothing it has to do with with an
Speaker 1: interest that I have. And my whole thing is if
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in a topic, I can make the
Speaker 1: audience interested in it and make it.
Speaker 9: Well, that's true, true, you're right, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean, no, I love not, but I'm just
Speaker 1: when it comes time to tackle certain topics and I
Speaker 1: don't get into those people. I just tell them the
Speaker 1: way I feel it may be in my opinion. My
Speaker 1: opinion may be controversial, and that may be why I'm
Speaker 1: considered right wing by some people. So I guess I
Speaker 1: may have given you the wrong idea there.
Speaker 10: Well, no, no, I think having You know, if I
Speaker 10: had strong opinions that I wanted other people to hear,
Speaker 10: I would do that. But it's just not a part
Speaker 10: of my and I may have a strong opinion on something,
Speaker 10: but it's just not a part of my broadcast nature.
Speaker 8: To be doing that.
Speaker 10: And you know, I'm not a shock jock either, and
Speaker 10: so it's sort of this sort of old not old fashioned,
Speaker 10: but I guess traditional approach to a talk radio show
Speaker 10: where it's safe, we try to be humorous, informative. Obviously,
Speaker 10: is something big is happening, sure, uh, news wise or whatever,
Speaker 10: we get to it. But other than that, it's I
Speaker 10: originally came out and talked called it a radio oasis
Speaker 10: because I came on ironically in the middle of COVID,
Speaker 10: and that's all you heard about. And then and then
Speaker 10: it was also the political run up to the election,
Speaker 10: and we all remember how what that felt like. And
Speaker 10: so I just, you know, I just stayed away from it.
Speaker 10: My daughter says, Dad, you got a job during COVID.
Speaker 8: I said, yeah, I know. It's sort of weird, isn't it.
Speaker 10: And you know, we had the ability to do and
Speaker 10: you know this too, radio programs that originate not from
Speaker 10: the studio but from our homes and things like that.
Speaker 10: And it was a long time before I ever went
Speaker 10: into the w G and studios simply because of the
Speaker 10: whole COVID situation.
Speaker 8: And it was a very turbulent time.
Speaker 9: I mean just just like every day felt like.
Speaker 10: There was nothing but doom and gloom all day long.
Speaker 10: So I came on and like, you know, we're not
Speaker 10: doing that now. And initially it was. I got to
Speaker 10: tell you, it was very successful. I mean I had
Speaker 10: some rating periods that were and for a nighttime AM station,
Speaker 10: I was like fifth in the market, and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4: That's incredible in that market.
Speaker 10: Well I don't think I don't think it's like that anymore.
Speaker 10: Things are drastically changed, and the station has changed a
Speaker 10: few things. But the great thing about WGN is that
Speaker 10: it's owned by next Star Media and next Star Media,
Speaker 10: we are the only radio station that Next Star Media owns.
Speaker 10: They were on a bunch of TV stations, but we're
Speaker 10: it so the only child. Yes, we're the only child,
Speaker 10: and we get treated like that.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 1: John Records Landecker is our guest on the Nightcap American
Speaker 1: History on the Radio. And I guess what was your
Speaker 1: first big job, John, big money job, big market, because
Speaker 1: you worked everywhere. You worked in Toronto, I guess you
Speaker 1: worked in Philadelphia.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the big break. Let's call it that, because I
Speaker 10: suppose the money at the time was good, but it
Speaker 10: wouldn't be anything anybody would like.
Speaker 9: That's their eyes at now.
Speaker 10: I was a senior at Michigan State University and I
Speaker 10: was majoring in Communication Arts, and little did I know
Speaker 10: that there were these two radio officionados, Dave Alberry and
Speaker 10: Jim Donahue, who were students and loved radio, and they
Speaker 10: were recording my show at night on this local station
Speaker 10: in East Lansing, Michigan or Lansing, Michigan called WILS.
Speaker 9: While I was going to Michigan.
Speaker 10: State and there was a disc jockey at CKOW and
Speaker 10: Detroit named Mike Rivers, and that was a huge station.
Speaker 10: And he got a job offer to go to WIBG.
Speaker 8: In Philadelphia, and they had.
Speaker 10: An opening at that radio station. And Albury and Donahue
Speaker 10: had sent him a aircheck of me, a recording which he
Speaker 10: took with him, and he played this for his program director,
Speaker 10: guy named Paul Drew.
Speaker 9: And I got a phone.
Speaker 10: Call out of nowhere saying, hey, we'd like to fly
Speaker 10: you in for a job interview. Now I'm married, I
Speaker 10: had a kid, I'm a senior in college.
Speaker 9: My father is.
Speaker 10: A professor, my mother is a social worker graduate. They
Speaker 10: happened to be out of the country on what was
Speaker 10: a sabbatical in Germany. My in laws one went to
Speaker 10: MIT in Harvard, the other one went to Bassard. The
Speaker 10: idea that I would drop out of college was something
Speaker 10: I never thought of in my wildest dreams. But I
Speaker 10: talked to my professors. I talked to my in laws.
Speaker 10: My professor said, you know, you've got like a half
Speaker 10: a year left.
Speaker 9: This is exactly what you would be looking for in
Speaker 9: six months or whatever.
Speaker 10: Go for it. So I did. And it was terror
Speaker 10: in the beginning because I got this job and the
Speaker 10: guy who ran the station said, we're changing her name
Speaker 10: to Scott Walker, and I'm like, what's going on here?
Speaker 10: And this was a very tightly run, strict, no wiggle
Speaker 10: room format, and I was not very good, to be
Speaker 10: honest with you, I was surprised I wasn't fired. They
Speaker 10: hired me to be on from nine to midnight. That
Speaker 10: got switched to midnight to six, six nights a week.
Speaker 10: Then they put me on noon to three. Then the
Speaker 10: station was sold and that's where things changed. It was
Speaker 10: sold the buckle we broadcasting. They came in with an
Speaker 10: air personnality named Joey.
Speaker 9: Reynolds and it went.
Speaker 10: It went from super tight to anarchy overnight, and I
Speaker 10: went back to being John Records Landecker on the air,
Speaker 10: and we gave the big top forty station in Philadelphia,
Speaker 10: WFIL a huge run for its money, and words spread
Speaker 10: w LS Chicago.
Speaker 8: About what was going on.
Speaker 9: And then I got a call.
Speaker 10: From WLS saying would you send in an air check?
Speaker 9: And that was that.
Speaker 10: So and initially the experiences at Philadelphia was horrible. I
Speaker 10: mean I literally broke down in tears at a motel
Speaker 10: I was staying at while we made the well my family.
Speaker 9: Was going to come.
Speaker 10: I'm like, what did I get myself into? I can't
Speaker 10: do this.
Speaker 4: But it helped, it helped lead into now.
Speaker 9: Yeah, obviously Yeah.
Speaker 1: It Records is truly his middle name. And I wish
Speaker 1: we had more time to talk about that. Put our
Speaker 1: times up and I just.
Speaker 10: Let me say that that is my mother's maiden name.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent, John Records Land actor Land Decker on American
Speaker 1: history on the radio. And we'll in honor of the
Speaker 1: boogie check, we'll play a little boogie. We'll play a
Speaker 1: little boogie music out.
Speaker 8: Yeah, a little.
Speaker 4: Cool in the gang. John, thank you so much.
Speaker 9: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: It's the night Cabinet continues on seven hundred w.
Speaker 10: L W.
Speaker 4: Meeting.
Speaker 21: This one of our show is because you look a
Speaker 21: little too much like a wanted serial killer.
Speaker 3: Don't worry.
Speaker 21: You can get the podcast of our shows and here
Speaker 21: what you miss check them out on the iHeartRadio ass
Speaker 21: justin for the new year, the new and improved free
Speaker 21: iHeartRadio app is finally here.
Speaker 3: It's everything you love about radio in the Palmiers.
Speaker 1: My friends will just about do it for this show
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty four. Very happy New Year to you
Speaker 1: and yours. I hope it is a safe and prosperous one,
Speaker 1: and I hope to talk to you many many more
Speaker 1: nights to come here in this slot, at least on
Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday nights from nine to twelve. Looking forward
Speaker 1: to a few new changes to the nightcap starting next
Speaker 1: Monday night. Until then, break out the hats and hooters.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year.
Speaker 6: News, Traffic and Weather. News Radio seven hundred l J Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: Happy New Year's Day listeners. So what's open?
Speaker 18: Later today with the midnight report in the first one
Speaker 18: of twenty twenty five, I'm Ley Mawin breaking now it's
Speaker 18: to start the new year, So what's open. It's a
Speaker 18: federal holiday, so banks, mail services, government offices, and garbage
Speaker 18: pickup will not happen. Your garbage pickup will be pushed
Speaker 18: back a day. Most Walmart locations will open for New
Speaker 18: Year's Day. Some Kroger stores might close early, however, and
Speaker 18: most of their pharmacies are set to shut by five.
Speaker 18: Target will open today, but some locations might call it
Speaker 18: a day early. Aldi Trader Joe's, Costco, and Sam's Club
Speaker 18: will not open today. Most Walgreens will stay dark. Wednesday,
Speaker 18: CBS will open for limited hours. However, as always, it's
Speaker 18: best practice to call the store or service you need
Speaker 18: to check on their hours.
Speaker 3: Now the latest traffic and weather together.
Speaker 18: The accident on US Route fifty by Chambers underneath the
Speaker 18: I two seventy five Highway has been cleared, so for
Speaker 18: the first time in twenty twenty five, we can say
Speaker 18: you're looking good Cincinnati.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 21: The latest forecast from the No Feared Dentist Weather Center
Speaker 21: Advance Dentistry.
Speaker 3: The thought of the dentist making you a nervous wreck,
Speaker 3: We're here for you. No Fear Dentist dot Com.
Speaker 14: Scattered showers and flurries through the overnights. Temperatures really drop,
Speaker 14: dropping into the low thirties overnight, right around freezing and
Speaker 14: thirty two degrees, and we'll stay chilly throughout New Year's
Speaker 14: Day as well, thirty seven degrees for a high temperature.
Speaker 14: As we ring in twenty twenty five, mostly cloudy skies
Speaker 14: and a few flurries as well. Partly cloudy on Thursday,
Speaker 14: Chili to start twenty six, then up to thirty six
Speaker 14: and then overnight in a Friday equipper system brings us
Speaker 14: a chance at snowshowers early From your Severe Weather station,
Speaker 14: I'm nine first Warning Media rollin just Brandon Spinner News
Speaker 14: Radios seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Most of the rain is breaking up.
Speaker 18: We still have big patches on Clinton County, eastern Warren County,
Speaker 18: northeastern Claremont County. A little snow mixed into Claremont County
Speaker 18: as well, and Brown County, but most of the Tri
Speaker 18: State is now dry.
Speaker 3: It's thirty eight degrees.
Speaker 18: Ava's Yard offering a reward of three thousand dollars for
Speaker 18: information leading to the arrest of two thieves happening Christmas Day.
Speaker 3: Jack's used a