Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Scott Shannon
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Cents Podcast.
- 0:13Speaker 1: My guest today is legendary DJ and program director, the
- 0:17Speaker 1: one and only Scott Shannon. Scott. Good to have you
- 0:20Speaker 1: on the podcast. Nick Fan, longtime reader and sometimes a listener.
- 0:26Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. Okay, you recently left the CBS Morning Show.
- 0:31Speaker 1: What went on there? I haven't left it yet. I
- 0:34Speaker 1: announced that I was going to leave it. The company
- 0:38Speaker 1: that I worked for is having some financial problems. Their
- 0:42Speaker 1: stock went from six bucks down to thirty cents in
- 0:46Speaker 1: the past year or two, and uh, it just was
- 0:49Speaker 1: time to move on, and so I retired from the
- 0:54Speaker 1: CBSFM Morning Show here in New York. I have other
- 0:59Speaker 1: projects that I work on with the same people. So
- 1:02Speaker 1: I have a syndicated radio show it's four hours every weekend,
- 1:07Speaker 1: and I have a that's a classic hit show. And
- 1:11Speaker 1: then I have a worldwide oldies network called the True
- 1:16Speaker 1: Oldies Channel, and it features music from the sixties and seventies.
- 1:22Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a big fan of oldies. I've collected
- 1:25Speaker 1: him for years, and uh, I'm pretty knowledgeable and the
- 1:29Speaker 1: stories of of days gone by, an artists gone by. Okay, well,
- 1:34Speaker 1: we ever see you in the morning again. That's a possibility.
- 1:38Speaker 1: It's a good possibility. I probably will do it again.
- 1:41Speaker 1: I've been doing it for forty eight years. I mean
- 1:43Speaker 1: it's pretty hard just to walk away. Um. Most baseball players,
- 1:48Speaker 1: if they could, they would keep playing. Same with Tom Brady.
- 1:51Speaker 1: If he can play to a you know, a decent level,
- 1:54Speaker 1: he'll keep playing. So you say, a big expert on
- 1:58Speaker 1: the sixties and seven DS, do you start with the
- 2:02Speaker 1: British Invasion de and with disco? What's really your area
- 2:06Speaker 1: of expertise. My my whale house is fifty nine through
- 2:10Speaker 1: sixty four. I know the Beatles and uh and, but
- 2:14Speaker 1: I really concentrate on the early inductees into the Rock
- 2:19Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm talking about Buddy Holly,
- 2:23Speaker 1: who I'm a big fan of and uh. I think
- 2:26Speaker 1: one of the top ten Buddy Holly uh personalities in
- 2:31Speaker 1: the world. Maybe because I've got every record he ever recorded,
- 2:35Speaker 1: every book that was ever written. I found him very
- 2:38Speaker 1: fascinating because he was the first artist that actually could
- 2:43Speaker 1: play his own music, sing his own music, and write
- 2:47Speaker 1: his own music. That was not that was not something
- 2:50Speaker 1: that happened back then. You had all the songwriters that
- 2:53Speaker 1: wrote the songs for the stars. Elvis never really wrote
- 2:56Speaker 1: a song in his entire life. Okay, I'm just a
- 3:01Speaker 1: little younger than you are. I certainly remember the early sixties,
- 3:04Speaker 1: but it exploded with the British invasion. Terms of my
- 3:07Speaker 1: radio listening other than the baseball games, how did you
- 3:11Speaker 1: first hear Buddy Holly? Um? I was. I was a
- 3:15Speaker 1: young guy, and uh, I was more into athletics. I
- 3:20Speaker 1: was played football and at a mediocre level, and baseball
- 3:25Speaker 1: at at a slightly higher level. But there was just
- 3:29Speaker 1: something about rock and roll music that attracted me. Um
- 3:33Speaker 1: I remember, I remember the first time I saw the
- 3:36Speaker 1: Beatles on television like everybody else, and I certainly have
- 3:40Speaker 1: recordings of the first time Elvis was ever on television,
- 3:44Speaker 1: and uh, I remember the day I found out that
- 3:47Speaker 1: Buddy Holly died. And I had a Schwin bicycle and
- 3:52Speaker 1: I worked as a I worked as a newspaper boy
- 3:55Speaker 1: and a caddy at a golf course, and I'd ride
- 3:58Speaker 1: my Schwinn bicycle down to the local electronics store that
- 4:03Speaker 1: had a record section, and every week I would buy
- 4:07Speaker 1: three or four forty fives and take them back. That's
- 4:09Speaker 1: how I started my collection and at that time, you
- 4:12Speaker 1: only had Hit Parader magazine and there was no you know,
- 4:16Speaker 1: an American bandstand, and I would watch that religiously, but
- 4:21Speaker 1: you really didn't know anything about the artist then. You
- 4:24Speaker 1: really didn't know anything about how the songs were done.
- 4:27Speaker 1: And as I got older, you know, I bought albums
- 4:32Speaker 1: and I would actually read the back of the album
- 4:34Speaker 1: while I listened to the music. You know, Fabian album,
- 4:39Speaker 1: Bobby Ryde Dell. I was also into R and B.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Hank Ballard in the midnighters, and I thought Chubby Checker
- 4:46Speaker 1: was very talented. I don't know why he's not in
- 4:49Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. You know, he revolutionized the world
- 4:52Speaker 1: at dance, and he also had about fifteen songs that charted,
- 4:58Speaker 1: and he gives an amazing life performance. But do you
- 5:01Speaker 1: remember the first time you heard Buddy Holly? Um, I
- 5:05Speaker 1: guess it. I guess it was Peggy Sue. I mean,
- 5:09Speaker 1: I kind of went backwards with Buddy Holly the first time.
- 5:14Speaker 1: I was so into him. At that time, I was
- 5:18Speaker 1: working in Los Angeles at Casablanca Records, and uh, you know,
- 5:23Speaker 1: I love Buddy Holly. And I got a call from
- 5:25Speaker 1: Wolfman Jack, who I knew because he worked over for
- 5:28Speaker 1: Bob Wilson Radio and Records. He shared an office there
- 5:33Speaker 1: and the dope would walk through the ceilings all over
- 5:36Speaker 1: the rest of the Radio and Records. I fit there,
- 5:39Speaker 1: but he called me, hey, chatting, I'm going to Clear Lake, Ioway,
- 5:44Speaker 1: don't you like Buddy Holly, don't you I'm MCing the
- 5:47Speaker 1: Buddy Holly Reunion Joe and uh, I, oh, I'm going
- 5:52Speaker 1: with you. Let's go. And he gave me his flight
- 5:55Speaker 1: information and I went with him. And that was the
- 5:57Speaker 1: very first Buddy Holly reunion celebration. People came from all
- 6:02Speaker 1: over Europe. I mean, there were so many Europeans in
- 6:05Speaker 1: there because he was so big then. And we had uh,
- 6:09Speaker 1: I think Freddie Cannon was there, Jimmy Clant was there,
- 6:13Speaker 1: some of these older artists and the crickets were there.
- 6:16Speaker 1: And there was a guy named John gold Rosen and
- 6:19Speaker 1: John was the first person to write a book about
- 6:24Speaker 1: Buddy Holly. And I sat with him in the front
- 6:27Speaker 1: row and and that was, you know, just just one
- 6:30Speaker 1: of the greatest nights of my life. And it was
- 6:33Speaker 1: in the in the ballroom there, the clear Le Guowa Ballroom,
- 6:38Speaker 1: and it was so funny because it's so many of
- 6:42Speaker 1: these people that I talked to were there the night
- 6:46Speaker 1: that Buddy Holly played his last show. I actually drove
- 6:50Speaker 1: from the clearly the Surf ballroom right. I took the
- 6:54Speaker 1: same route that Buddy Holly took at midnight. There was
- 6:58Speaker 1: about four ft of snow on the ground, and we
- 7:01Speaker 1: went right past the airport where he got into that
- 7:04Speaker 1: plane and flew off in the plane crash and that
- 7:08Speaker 1: was it. And of course I've been to that crash
- 7:11Speaker 1: site several times. Now. It sounds like I'm, you know,
- 7:15Speaker 1: like a music geek, but that just you know, I
- 7:19Speaker 1: was just such a big Buddy Holly fan on the
- 7:22Speaker 1: and uh and moved on. I mean, but I think
- 7:25Speaker 1: he was such a trend setter and such a star
- 7:30Speaker 1: in the world of rock and roll. He would have
- 7:33Speaker 1: still been probably active at least recording if he if
- 7:37Speaker 1: he hadn't have died. What's your favorite, Buddy Holly saul Um,
- 7:43Speaker 1: I like, oh boy, all of my love and all
- 7:45Speaker 1: of my kissing. You don't know what you've been missing,
- 7:48Speaker 1: old boy. But he had. He had so many great songs,
- 7:51Speaker 1: and I think a great example of his ability is
- 7:57Speaker 1: if you listen to his music today, it's still brings authentic,
- 8:04Speaker 1: It's still it's still there, It's still got something. I mean,
- 8:07Speaker 1: it's an amazing thing that there's so many people around
- 8:10Speaker 1: the world that's still have discovered Buddy Ali in two
- 8:15Speaker 1: and you go back and you you study his library
- 8:19Speaker 1: and you just it's amazing what he could do. The songs,
- 8:23Speaker 1: well all writes beautiful song. Um he had, he did
- 8:27Speaker 1: rock and roll, he did country, he did beautiful ballots.
- 8:31Speaker 1: It is an amazing, amazing person. And if you've seen
- 8:36Speaker 1: the whole of Graham Show, I have not. I that
- 8:41Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not fond of that whole. I don't
- 8:44Speaker 1: think it's gonna last. You don't see it. You don't
- 8:46Speaker 1: see it sticking. Did you go to one? Yeah? I
- 8:49Speaker 1: did see it. But tell me why you thought it
- 8:51Speaker 1: wouldn't stick. Um, I just see, Well they've they've done
- 8:55Speaker 1: other artists, and you don't. You don't see that. They're
- 8:59Speaker 1: not hanging a down there still not out there? Are they?
- 9:02Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it was a double feature
- 9:05Speaker 1: header with Roy Orbison and Buddy and uh Orbison doesn't
- 9:10Speaker 1: move much, so there's nothing there. They have Buddy bouncing around.
- 9:14Speaker 1: It's good for about a song after that, it's like
- 9:16Speaker 1: you have a live band. You're listening to it, you know.
- 9:22Speaker 1: I remember the first time I went to a rock
- 9:24Speaker 1: and roll concert. I grew up in the Midwest and
- 9:28Speaker 1: my father was in the service. But in my embryo,
- 9:31Speaker 1: my rock and roll embryo years, I was living in
- 9:34Speaker 1: Indianapolis and they have like a downtown circle and one
- 9:39Speaker 1: of those big you know those old theaters with the
- 9:42Speaker 1: with the pillars when you go in and you walk
- 9:44Speaker 1: up the red carpet stairs. They only got one freaking screen.
- 9:48Speaker 1: And uh, and I have my mom dropped me off
- 9:52Speaker 1: and it was a Dick Clark Caravan of stars and
- 9:56Speaker 1: it was a made buddy was not on the bill,
- 9:59Speaker 1: but a net foond Cello was. And I'll tell you what,
- 10:02Speaker 1: she looked pretty good to this nine or ten or
- 10:05Speaker 1: eleven year old guy. However old I was with, I
- 10:08Speaker 1: don't however old I was, I don't even remember at
- 10:11Speaker 1: the time. And Frankie Avalon was on the show, and uh,
- 10:15Speaker 1: and a guy from England by the name of Cliff
- 10:18Speaker 1: Richard who went on to fame and fortune, but at
- 10:22Speaker 1: that time he only had one song out called Living Doll,
- 10:25Speaker 1: which the flip side is a great song called apron Strings.
- 10:28Speaker 1: It's a rockabilly song. I'm in the I love the
- 10:31Speaker 1: field of rockabilly. But it was so cool because he
- 10:35Speaker 1: had on a white suit and bob when he pulled
- 10:39Speaker 1: out the handkerchief on the jacket and he laid it
- 10:41Speaker 1: on the on the floor of the stage and he
- 10:44Speaker 1: knelt down so he didn't get his his knee uh
- 10:47Speaker 1: dirty and the white pants of that suit got myself
- 10:51Speaker 1: a cry and talk and sleeping or living out. He
- 10:56Speaker 1: only sang one song and then he took off and
- 10:59Speaker 1: our came Lloyd Price that Lloyd Price's orchestra would back
- 11:03Speaker 1: them all up. And that was man. I went home
- 11:06Speaker 1: that night and that's all I thought about, was watching
- 11:09Speaker 1: that rock and roll show. And remember back then they
- 11:13Speaker 1: used the sound system in the theater. And then fast
- 11:19Speaker 1: forward a few years, I went to the Indianapolis fair
- 11:23Speaker 1: Grounds by myself to see the Beatles and that was
- 11:29Speaker 1: so cool, man. And I mean it was weird because
- 11:34Speaker 1: people don't know that back then they didn't have those
- 11:38Speaker 1: big show cod sound systems. They didn't have the light show,
- 11:42Speaker 1: they didn't have they didn't have anything. Their guitars into
- 11:48Speaker 1: their amplifiers. You couldn't hear a damn thing. And plus
- 11:52Speaker 1: I'm standing on a middle chair was outside that they
- 11:55Speaker 1: did an indoor show at the Colosseum there. Then they
- 11:59Speaker 1: did the out or show and the girls are all
- 12:02Speaker 1: screaming and I'm trying to hear the Beatles sing. And
- 12:05Speaker 1: they had the Righteous Brothers open up. And I've always
- 12:08Speaker 1: been a big Righteous Brothers fan. This was long before
- 12:11Speaker 1: Phil Spector got ahold of them. And they were doing
- 12:15Speaker 1: Little Latin Loopie Lou and Coco Joe and all those
- 12:18Speaker 1: great songs that were on the the original label. I
- 12:23Speaker 1: can still see it going around on my record player. Man,
- 12:26Speaker 1: and uh it was. It was just a great night
- 12:30Speaker 1: once again. Went home at trouble going to sleep because
- 12:33Speaker 1: I saw the Beatles. And later later on I went
- 12:37Speaker 1: to see here. I went to see Paul McCartney at
- 12:40Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden and I'm thinking, man, it's been a
- 12:43Speaker 1: long time, buddy, but welcome back. Okay, let's go back
- 12:47Speaker 1: to the fifties. In the seventies, the oldiet station played
- 12:51Speaker 1: the fifties, but as time has gone on, the oldie
- 12:55Speaker 1: stations have played subsequent decades the sixties, the seventies and
- 13:00Speaker 1: the eighties. Are the fifties gonna survive or the pre
- 13:04Speaker 1: Beatles stuff? Is that going to survive? Like people say
- 13:07Speaker 1: that Elvis's merch sales are going down because his audience
- 13:13Speaker 1: is dying off, So you gotta take on all that. Yeah,
- 13:16Speaker 1: well the audience, I mean, that's just saying that. The
- 13:19Speaker 1: better example is Doo Wop. I mean it's very I
- 13:23Speaker 1: don't go to a Doop concert because it makes me
- 13:25Speaker 1: feel so terrible looking around to see the people in
- 13:29Speaker 1: the wheelchairs and the oxygen tanks and all that. I mean,
- 13:33Speaker 1: God bless him. But and that's some music. A lot
- 13:36Speaker 1: of New Yorkers and people from New Jersey and that
- 13:39Speaker 1: surrounding up and down the East coast. That's what they
- 13:42Speaker 1: grew up with. You can do one of those shows
- 13:45Speaker 1: down in Florida right now and you get you get,
- 13:48Speaker 1: you know, a pretty good crowd, and you know, you
- 13:51Speaker 1: you see in the still of the night and a
- 13:53Speaker 1: lot of a lot of these performers are just not
- 13:56Speaker 1: around anymore. They're not with us. But that's that's that's
- 14:00Speaker 1: a that's a demarcation line, you know that that's a
- 14:03Speaker 1: borderline there. And then you get into the American Bandstand,
- 14:08Speaker 1: people like Fabian and Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell and
- 14:12Speaker 1: all those people that all of a sudden came to
- 14:14Speaker 1: a screeching all the minute Ed Sullivan. But the Beatles on,
- 14:18Speaker 1: I mean, that was that was it. I can't tell
- 14:21Speaker 1: you how many people, how many stars that I've interviewed
- 14:25Speaker 1: over the years on the radio, Bob, and I said, well,
- 14:28Speaker 1: what was your inspiration? And I tell you what, there's
- 14:32Speaker 1: only two lines. One when I saw Elvis Presley on
- 14:36Speaker 1: the Ed Sullivan Show, and I put my damn violin down,
- 14:39Speaker 1: or I got rid of my piano teacher and I
- 14:42Speaker 1: got a guitar. Or the rest of them came when
- 14:45Speaker 1: it started when they saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan.
- 14:49Speaker 1: So Ed Sullivan started so many people into the music
- 14:52Speaker 1: because they got them going. So did you ever pick
- 14:55Speaker 1: up an instrument? Never have I tried to learn a guitar,
- 14:59Speaker 1: But I don't have to pay. I'm a d d uh.
- 15:02Speaker 1: I'm gonna loved him. Been a you know, a performer.
- 15:05Speaker 1: Unfortunately I can't sing and I can't play, so I
- 15:08Speaker 1: decided to be a DJ instead, you know. Okay, So
- 15:12Speaker 1: the fifties acts what are two other acts from the
- 15:16Speaker 1: fifties that need to be pushed into the public eye
- 15:21Speaker 1: other than Buddy Holly. Um she um, it's not. It's
- 15:27Speaker 1: the early sixties, but I was the early sixties. Fine,
- 15:31Speaker 1: pre Beatles, Yeah, pre Beetles. I don't. I don't. Elm
- 15:36Speaker 1: is stuck with me, but in a different way. You know.
- 15:39Speaker 1: You look at Buddy Holly, and Buddy Hollywood was inspired
- 15:43Speaker 1: by Elvis. There's a great picture of Buddy in the
- 15:47Speaker 1: dressing room where Elvis had been performing in his little
- 15:50Speaker 1: town there in Texas. And there's there's not any other
- 15:56Speaker 1: artists that I really feel. I mean, I gotta with
- 16:00Speaker 1: Chuck Berry. Uh, Jerry Lee Lewis, but he didn't really
- 16:05Speaker 1: move me as much as Chuck Berry. I've also got
- 16:08Speaker 1: just about everything that he recorded, and uh, I thought
- 16:12Speaker 1: he was phenomenal, and I studied that. You know, you
- 16:14Speaker 1: look at Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoler. Those two guys
- 16:17Speaker 1: were also very influential in in that period of time. Okay,
- 16:24Speaker 1: there are many people The Beatles came along and they
- 16:28Speaker 1: said no, so you obviously with a Beatles fan, but
- 16:32Speaker 1: how about all your friends and when the music change
- 16:35Speaker 1: and the British invasion came in and you said all
- 16:36Speaker 1: those left all those acts were left behind. Was that
- 16:39Speaker 1: fine with you? Or were you angry? I wasn't angry
- 16:42Speaker 1: at all because the Beatles, you know, I actually had
- 16:46Speaker 1: I remember I had had to buy two copies of
- 16:50Speaker 1: the Meet the Beatles album because I actually wore the
- 16:53Speaker 1: first one out. I'm almost like, I hate to say it,
- 16:57Speaker 1: but like I felt the threatened my masculinity that I
- 17:02Speaker 1: was like a female. And then love with the Beatles.
- 17:05Speaker 1: I just thought they were so great. Un listen, I
- 17:07Speaker 1: loved every every song on the Meat the Beatles album.
- 17:11Speaker 1: I went out and got that early stuff because they
- 17:13Speaker 1: did a couple of albums and they had singles out too.
- 17:16Speaker 1: Before the folks at Capitol Records, the president there screwed
- 17:20Speaker 1: the whole thing up and didn't want to sign him.
- 17:22Speaker 1: His wife didn't like him. Right, introducing the Beatles on
- 17:26Speaker 1: VJ the great album I Love Absolutely Right and the
- 17:32Speaker 1: Uh Love Me Do p s I Love You single
- 17:36Speaker 1: but Holly Records absolutely at the Yellow label. Remember exactly, man,
- 17:43Speaker 1: when you and then you grow up around Hartford, and
- 17:47Speaker 1: I grew up in fear Field, which is in between
- 17:50Speaker 1: Bridgeport and Westport. So it's New York radio. But you listen.
- 17:54Speaker 1: You didn't listen to pop ever. Yeah, I did listen
- 17:57Speaker 1: to pop ever, but listen to my what are they
- 18:00Speaker 1: call them salad years. I was more of a w
- 18:03Speaker 1: ABC guy. The Hipper people were ten ten wins, w
- 18:09Speaker 1: m C A in and out. Not that you didn't
- 18:11Speaker 1: rotate the doll on your transistor a little bit, but
- 18:15Speaker 1: you know, cousin Brucey. You know, listen. I could go
- 18:18Speaker 1: on and but how about the rest of the British
- 18:20Speaker 1: Invasion acts? Everybody from Jerry and the pacemakers to the Herman.
- 18:25Speaker 1: Herman said, were you in or was it just the Beatles?
- 18:29Speaker 1: And that was a Stones guy too. I remember when
- 18:32Speaker 1: I first got the first Rolling Stones album and I
- 18:36Speaker 1: found out was I have. I was also an R
- 18:39Speaker 1: and B fan. I loved rockabilly and R and B.
- 18:42Speaker 1: I think those two are they're kind of intertwined. I
- 18:46Speaker 1: don't know, because of the beat. I loved the beat,
- 18:49Speaker 1: the rockabilly beat, and the songs like high Heels Sneakers
- 18:53Speaker 1: by Tommy Tucker. I'm really hard. There's some stuff in there.
- 18:59Speaker 1: They're just watched me. I would like. I said, I
- 19:01Speaker 1: was a big, a big fan of you know, I
- 19:05Speaker 1: mess excuse me, I left Little Richard out of my
- 19:09Speaker 1: favorite from the fifties. That guy was a monster, what
- 19:14Speaker 1: a star. You know, his band, the Upsetters, never gets
- 19:19Speaker 1: enough credit. But he was just a nut about having
- 19:24Speaker 1: the right artist, the right instrumental players in there. And
- 19:28Speaker 1: some of those guys were like Fats Domino. He paid
- 19:31Speaker 1: a lot of attention to his band. When he went
- 19:34Speaker 1: on the road, he had like eight or nine scorn players.
- 19:37Speaker 1: Nobody took that many horn players on the road. Those
- 19:41Speaker 1: are great, Little Richard, that guy was a monster. Now
- 19:46Speaker 1: did you spend time with Richard and the rest of
- 19:48Speaker 1: the people from that era, anybody who was alive that
- 19:51Speaker 1: you didn't meet? I never met Little Richard. Now I'm
- 19:55Speaker 1: thinking about it. No, I don't think I did. I met.
- 19:58Speaker 1: I m c a couple uh oldie shows with UH
- 20:02Speaker 1: with Chuck Berry. One was very funny because he hadn't
- 20:06Speaker 1: been paid yet. He was playing in the Metal Lands
- 20:09Speaker 1: arena there and UH then he hadn't been paid yet,
- 20:13Speaker 1: so he sat down on a metal chair with his
- 20:18Speaker 1: guitar in front, over to the right part of the stage,
- 20:22Speaker 1: and the promoter asked me to go on and introduce it.
- 20:25Speaker 1: So I'm up there and I'm going, ladies and gentlemen,
- 20:28Speaker 1: this all the thing, Happy birthday that happened to be
- 20:30Speaker 1: his birthday to Chuck Berry. And I said in after
- 20:33Speaker 1: we did that, he's smiling at me, watching me, and
- 20:36Speaker 1: so I go and now, ladies and gentlemen, get ready
- 20:39Speaker 1: with the man that gave us such great songs as
- 20:41Speaker 1: Johnny Be Good and the Promised Land and Back in
- 20:45Speaker 1: the USA in deep feeling rock and roll music. And
- 20:49Speaker 1: I'm reeling all these off and he's going like, come on, man,
- 20:52Speaker 1: give me more, give me more. And I go on
- 20:55Speaker 1: back and any boy, and I start doing the B
- 20:58Speaker 1: sides of the singles, and he's happened to his knee,
- 21:01Speaker 1: and I think I went through the thirty titles, and
- 21:06Speaker 1: the crowd was laughing him because they knew I'm trying
- 21:09Speaker 1: to get him up on the stage. And finally he
- 21:12Speaker 1: got up and he brought up a guitar and he
- 21:14Speaker 1: kind of gave me and he shoved me off the
- 21:16Speaker 1: stage and he started playing. But what he was famous
- 21:21Speaker 1: for it was all these kids that he never took
- 21:26Speaker 1: a band with it. He never brought his own musicians.
- 21:31Speaker 1: He uh, he would just did the kids and meat.
- 21:35Speaker 1: They get there about three o'clock in the afternoon, all
- 21:37Speaker 1: waiting for Juck Barry, and there was no Chuck Mary.
- 21:41Speaker 1: So they would go back in the dress room and
- 21:43Speaker 1: wait till he got there, and they only gonna rehearse Chunk. Now,
- 21:48Speaker 1: you stand behind me and follow what I'd do, and
- 21:51Speaker 1: he would get up there and he'd start playing, and
- 21:54Speaker 1: they had they but luckily all these kids played that,
- 21:58Speaker 1: you know, these garage bands played his music in their gigs.
- 22:04Speaker 1: So when he got up there, they tried to follow him,
- 22:07Speaker 1: but nothing. There's a famous scene in that movie about
- 22:11Speaker 1: him where he's uh the playing and it's kind of
- 22:15Speaker 1: like some B B footage and Eric Clapton's up there
- 22:20Speaker 1: and they're doing a song like rock and roll music
- 22:23Speaker 1: or one of his blue song Deep Feeling maybe, and
- 22:26Speaker 1: Chuck stops Eric he's playing that song right, and he says, Chuck,
- 22:35Speaker 1: I'm playing it just like you recorded it. He said,
- 22:38Speaker 1: I don't do it that way no more. Very just
- 22:44Speaker 1: Eric throws his hands and says okay, because he hardly
- 22:49Speaker 1: ever does one of his songs. He hardly ever did
- 22:53Speaker 1: one of his songs like he recorded it. He would
- 22:57Speaker 1: just push the envelope and do it different, play it long.
- 23:01Speaker 1: Sometimes he leaved the great songs out, but he could write.
- 23:05Speaker 1: That guy was so intelligent and it was just he
- 23:09Speaker 1: was another monster. Definitely one of that, I would say,
- 23:13Speaker 1: one of the most important people in rock and roll.
- 23:16Speaker 1: What do you think of the Stones version and not
- 23:18Speaker 1: fade Away? All right? It was okay, I like some
- 23:22Speaker 1: of I like some of you know when they did
- 23:25Speaker 1: time Is on My Side, which was an old blue
- 23:28Speaker 1: song that they picked up. That early stuff was really good.
- 23:32Speaker 1: There was a fellow, It was a fellow that I
- 23:36Speaker 1: was nuts about, a guy by the name of Arthur Alexander.
- 23:40Speaker 1: You ever heard of him, of course, and he made
- 23:42Speaker 1: put out some records on Apple. He uh. He was
- 23:47Speaker 1: the only guy that ever had his music covered by
- 23:50Speaker 1: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and yet
- 23:56Speaker 1: he died broke. He was working as a bellhop in
- 24:01Speaker 1: a hotel I think it was up in Cleveland, Ohio,
- 24:05Speaker 1: and he wrote that song Anna you know that by
- 24:08Speaker 1: the course I introducing the Beatles album yep. And he
- 24:11Speaker 1: also wrote you Better Move On, which is a just
- 24:14Speaker 1: a wonderful piece of music. You tell me I'm not
- 24:18Speaker 1: the man you're worthy of. You better move on. And
- 24:23Speaker 1: uh as a great song. That was the Stones that
- 24:25Speaker 1: Jagger does that He's never done it for years, but
- 24:28Speaker 1: it was on one of his albums. Just a great song.
- 24:38Speaker 1: So you're living in Indianapolis, what's it like when you're
- 24:40Speaker 1: growing up? As my father was in the service. So
- 24:45Speaker 1: I went to I don't know, sixteen to eighteen different
- 24:49Speaker 1: high schools. I'm not high schools, but schools period. Because
- 24:52Speaker 1: we moved around. I lived in Tacoma, Washington, lived in
- 24:56Speaker 1: San Diego, lived in East Saint Louis, Illinois. That was
- 24:59Speaker 1: a thrilled there here many East St. Louis once just
- 25:05Speaker 1: a mess. St. Louis. We lived in Detroit. Uh lived
- 25:09Speaker 1: underneath the Ambassador Bridge. There was a little army post
- 25:12Speaker 1: there called Fort Wayne. I was there, Uh, Indianapolis, We
- 25:17Speaker 1: lived in u or else in Georgia. Everywhere. We moved
- 25:20Speaker 1: around constantly. I was one of the first places that
- 25:23Speaker 1: I remember was my dad was in the Osaka and Japan.
- 25:29Speaker 1: We lived there and uh, and then I just it
- 25:34Speaker 1: wasn't a great childhood. The music that was my that
- 25:37Speaker 1: was my my pressure, you know, my my safety valve.
- 25:42Speaker 1: I just loved the music, and the rest of the
- 25:44Speaker 1: stuff was not that great about about the time I
- 25:48Speaker 1: was for some reason, by the time I was in
- 25:50Speaker 1: high school, I figured I had enough knowledge and I
- 25:53Speaker 1: just left und' graduate hit the road. Okay before you
- 25:58Speaker 1: get there. You know, usually army bratts can a get
- 26:04Speaker 1: along with everybody and be there good alone. How are you?
- 26:08Speaker 1: I'm good alone. It was just pretty you know, when
- 26:11Speaker 1: you go to school. You know, back then, schools weren't
- 26:15Speaker 1: as as accepting their clicks because you know, they all
- 26:20Speaker 1: live in the same neighborhood and everybody. You know, I
- 26:23Speaker 1: didn't really have any friends, and I was pretty shy
- 26:26Speaker 1: because you mean, you don't know anybody, You don't hang
- 26:29Speaker 1: out with anybody here and out, you know, an outcast basically.
- 26:33Speaker 1: And I was always new because my big problem was, uh,
- 26:37Speaker 1: my parents. We were raised Catholic, and when we moved
- 26:41Speaker 1: we couldn't always get in a Catholic school, so I
- 26:43Speaker 1: would be in a public school, and then when the
- 26:46Speaker 1: semester hit, I could transfer over, so that made it worse.
- 26:50Speaker 1: I went from one school I didn't know anybody though
- 26:53Speaker 1: another school where I didn't know anybody. For God's sakes,
- 26:57Speaker 1: I still I have like one or two friends for
- 27:00Speaker 1: my childhood. That's it. I don't know anyone, have anybody else. Okay,
- 27:05Speaker 1: how did you decide to drop out? What your parents say?
- 27:08Speaker 1: They didn't say anything. I didn't tell them. I left
- 27:12Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. I had an old
- 27:15Speaker 1: Chrysler fifty three Chrysler convertible and it was like nineteen
- 27:20Speaker 1: sixty two sixty three, and I had like forty dollars.
- 27:25Speaker 1: And uh. The thing about it was back then when
- 27:29Speaker 1: someone was a missing person, they put out a three
- 27:32Speaker 1: st three state alerts. I went to the library and
- 27:35Speaker 1: I took a little compass and I figured out how
- 27:37Speaker 1: far I could get away in the time before they
- 27:40Speaker 1: were discovered that I was out of you know, going
- 27:42Speaker 1: I had. I got up early to go to I
- 27:45Speaker 1: worked at the Indiana Gun Club. I thought they call
- 27:48Speaker 1: a trap boy. I would pick that would hold the
- 27:51Speaker 1: clicker and fire the ducks out there they would shoot anyway,
- 27:56Speaker 1: let's beyond. I don't know why I got into that,
- 27:59Speaker 1: but I just took off, and uh I wound up
- 28:02Speaker 1: in Hot Springs, Arkansas because it was three states away. Okay,
- 28:07Speaker 1: And then you did what. I got a job at
- 28:10Speaker 1: Oscar's bakery. Say. I was going to go off and
- 28:13Speaker 1: be a DJ, but then I figured out that I didn't.
- 28:17Speaker 1: I didn't stop to think that I had to eat
- 28:22Speaker 1: and find a place to live. I forgot about that part, Bob.
- 28:26Speaker 1: So I wound up just doing odd jobs, you know,
- 28:31Speaker 1: and I got to know people. I would sleep on
- 28:33Speaker 1: someone's couch or you know, made a girl, and you know,
- 28:37Speaker 1: I just I just made it. I don't I don't
- 28:39Speaker 1: know how I did it. But then I found out
- 28:42Speaker 1: that in Little Rock there was a some of my
- 28:46Speaker 1: friends would go to Little Rock on Saturday because they
- 28:48Speaker 1: had a TV show called Steve Show where you could dance.
- 28:52Speaker 1: Is like a little Arkansas version of American Bandstand. I
- 28:57Speaker 1: think Bill Clinton used to go there, left I saw it.
- 29:00Speaker 1: I saw a documentary on this show, and he talked
- 29:05Speaker 1: about watching it on TV. It was just all over
- 29:08Speaker 1: Arkansas and this this this jockey would pretend he was
- 29:11Speaker 1: Dick Clark and we danced there. And I got another
- 29:15Speaker 1: job at the Dennis Laboratory. I was riding around on
- 29:19Speaker 1: a on a motor cycle, well, motor scoot. I guess
- 29:23Speaker 1: I should say it sounds more macho to say motorcycle.
- 29:26Speaker 1: But basically it was a motor scooter with a big
- 29:29Speaker 1: box on the back of I have would pick up
- 29:31Speaker 1: the teeth that were you know, the impressions and the
- 29:34Speaker 1: teeth and go deliver them. And I would ride by
- 29:36Speaker 1: the local radio station and look in the window and
- 29:39Speaker 1: see the DJ working and thinking that's I need to
- 29:42Speaker 1: be on that side of the glass and not this side,
- 29:45Speaker 1: looking at him and uh. And I eventually weaseled my
- 29:50Speaker 1: way in there and started until learn how to be
- 29:53Speaker 1: a DJ? And how long till you made contact with
- 29:56Speaker 1: your parents? I waited, will be a year to let
- 30:01Speaker 1: them for my mother. I didn't give a rat's ass
- 30:04Speaker 1: that my dad was upset, but we didn't have a
- 30:06Speaker 1: very good relationship. But my mother I called her and
- 30:11Speaker 1: told her I was okay. About a year into you
- 30:14Speaker 1: know when you in those days, a month seemed like
- 30:18Speaker 1: a year. You know, so much happened to me. I
- 30:21Speaker 1: got a I could I could write a whole book
- 30:24Speaker 1: on just three years of my life. You know. Okay,
- 30:28Speaker 1: so you got inspired to be a DJ when you
- 30:30Speaker 1: look through the glass in Arkansas? Well, I started in
- 30:34Speaker 1: Indianapolis because they also had the same thing. There was
- 30:38Speaker 1: a w I F E radio here. I say that
- 30:41Speaker 1: you can tell him a professional, W I f e
- 30:46Speaker 1: Indianapolis And uh, I would stand there and watch, you know.
- 30:51Speaker 1: So I wasn't getting anywhere in Indianapolis, so I WM
- 30:54Speaker 1: I hit the road. I read this book called On
- 30:56Speaker 1: the Road by Jack Carroll Whack, and UH, as a man,
- 31:01Speaker 1: this is this is great. That's me right there. I
- 31:04Speaker 1: could do that. And it turned out it warn't is
- 31:08Speaker 1: romantic because he made it sound in his book. So
- 31:13Speaker 1: ultimately you go into the service how long after you
- 31:16Speaker 1: leave home? And how he decided to do that. I
- 31:18Speaker 1: got drafted. I didn't. I didn't decide to do it.
- 31:21Speaker 1: They decided to take me. And that was the best
- 31:25Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to me because I was I
- 31:28Speaker 1: was developing into a nightclub guy, and I go see
- 31:34Speaker 1: these bands who were in the nightclubs and hang out
- 31:37Speaker 1: with people and if I really fell in with some
- 31:40Speaker 1: bad characters at that time. And I got my draft
- 31:44Speaker 1: notice and I said, oh my god, this is the
- 31:46Speaker 1: end of my life. But that basically save me from
- 31:51Speaker 1: probably a life of decadence. I don't you know, the
- 31:54Speaker 1: things just I just wasn't where I needed to be
- 31:58Speaker 1: at that time. But I got in the Army, and
- 32:00Speaker 1: it taught me discipline and organization. And the problem was,
- 32:07Speaker 1: in order to make a living when you're on your own,
- 32:12Speaker 1: you have to be in a big city so you
- 32:14Speaker 1: can stay lost, no one can track you down and
- 32:17Speaker 1: all that. When you go in the service. That exposed
- 32:21Speaker 1: me for the first time to small towns and you
- 32:25Speaker 1: could walk right up to the radio station and hang
- 32:28Speaker 1: out in there with the control board guy in the DJ.
- 32:31Speaker 1: And that's when I started. While I was in service. Okay,
- 32:36Speaker 1: but you were in the service. Vietnam was starting off
- 32:39Speaker 1: at the end of it. Chest the end of it,
- 32:42Speaker 1: it was still going on, but I was at the
- 32:44Speaker 1: tail in, and uh, somehow I managed to avoid going.
- 32:49Speaker 1: By that time, we knew it was a bad deal
- 32:51Speaker 1: to go because I was at Fort Benning, I'm sorry,
- 32:56Speaker 1: Fort Bragg in North Carolina and uh, and these guys
- 33:00Speaker 1: were all shipping out because they were running out of
- 33:04Speaker 1: It was towards the end, and we were losing so
- 33:07Speaker 1: many young kids. It wasn't even funny. They were just
- 33:10Speaker 1: shipping them out. A lot of people don't realize this,
- 33:13Speaker 1: but at that point they were short of people. So
- 33:17Speaker 1: instead of eight weeks basic training, they gave you four
- 33:22Speaker 1: or five weeks and a i T, which is advanced
- 33:25Speaker 1: individual training. You're supposed to get ten weeks or something
- 33:29Speaker 1: like that, and they cut that in half. So by
- 33:32Speaker 1: the time you get you learned how to shoot a
- 33:34Speaker 1: rifle if you're on a rifle range at the army base.
- 33:38Speaker 1: But when you're out in a monsoon with rain coming
- 33:41Speaker 1: down and people shooting at you, you're not so good
- 33:44Speaker 1: at it. And that's what happened. I mean, they were
- 33:47Speaker 1: just they were shoveling people over there, right and left.
- 33:50Speaker 1: It weren't coming home. So you're in the army for
- 33:55Speaker 1: two years, two years, and you don't believe me. By
- 33:59Speaker 1: the time I got out, though, I had my I
- 34:02Speaker 1: had experienced in radio. Now this was radio because the
- 34:07Speaker 1: different towns you were in or in the Armed forces, radio,
- 34:10Speaker 1: not the enforce, a different towns. I was in two
- 34:13Speaker 1: different towns. I was a DJ in UH in Fayetteville,
- 34:17Speaker 1: North Carolina, and then they transferred me to Columbus, Ohio.
- 34:21Speaker 1: By that time, I was rocking and rolling, I was going,
- 34:25Speaker 1: I knew what I'm well kind of what I was doing.
- 34:27Speaker 1: I sound like hell And that's where I started to
- 34:31Speaker 1: develop my radio personality there and uh in uh Fort
- 34:35Speaker 1: Benning in Georgia, which is Columbus, but our studio was
- 34:38Speaker 1: over in Phoenix City, which is not the kind of
- 34:42Speaker 1: place you want to hang out in too much. You know,
- 34:45Speaker 1: he's okay, so you get out of the army, and
- 34:47Speaker 1: then where do you start? I got discharge and when
- 34:51Speaker 1: I as while I was getting out in processing myself,
- 34:56Speaker 1: I called a fella because I read I met a
- 35:00Speaker 1: another guy who was an established radio program director who
- 35:04Speaker 1: happened to be visiting our station. I said, I'm getting
- 35:07Speaker 1: ready to get out of service, and uh, do you
- 35:09Speaker 1: know anybody that might need a DJ? And he said, yeah,
- 35:12Speaker 1: you should call Bernie Deppman down him. Won't be all Alabama,
- 35:16Speaker 1: w A B B. I said, he needs a disc jockey.
- 35:20Speaker 1: He's always looking for a disc jockey. Because it was
- 35:22Speaker 1: one of those feeder systems. You go there and you
- 35:25Speaker 1: work for eight or nine months, when you you know,
- 35:27Speaker 1: when you got a good tape, you'd send it out.
- 35:29Speaker 1: And he didn't have people who lasted that long. So I, uh,
- 35:35Speaker 1: I wrapped up a little tape, sent it to him
- 35:38Speaker 1: and waited two weeks and I called down there, I said,
- 35:40Speaker 1: Mr Deppman, this is Scott Channon. I'm up here in
- 35:44Speaker 1: Columbus on Columbus, Georgia. I sent you a tape. I
- 35:47Speaker 1: listened to your tape. Yeah, I think I could use you.
- 35:49Speaker 1: I said, you can. He said, yeah, I think I
- 35:52Speaker 1: got a job for you. I said, okay, Uh, when
- 35:55Speaker 1: can I start? He said, well, whenever you can get here.
- 35:58Speaker 1: I said, how far is it? He said, we're about
- 36:00Speaker 1: twelve hours. I said, I'll be there tomorrow. Is that.
- 36:04Speaker 1: Aren't you gonna ask me how much you're gonna make?
- 36:07Speaker 1: I said, you can tell me when I get there.
- 36:12Speaker 1: And how much? Was it? Hundred and twelve dollars a week?
- 36:17Speaker 1: And what year are we in? Nineteen sixty eight? In
- 36:20Speaker 1: the sixty nine Super Shan was on the radio mobile
- 36:25Speaker 1: Alabama w A B B fourteen eighty. I was rocking man. Now,
- 36:31Speaker 1: Scott Shannon is the name on your birth certificate or
- 36:35Speaker 1: radio name? That's a that's for both. Okay, okay, I
- 36:41Speaker 1: had a different I had a different last name at
- 36:43Speaker 1: the time, but I switched that I hadn't legally changed
- 36:46Speaker 1: early on. Last name was M M O O R. E.
- 36:52Speaker 1: Moore more that I could have been a DJ Michael
- 36:55Speaker 1: Moore My my uh my maiden name is Michael, Michael Scott.
- 37:02Speaker 1: I go by the middle of this out in the middle.
- 37:04Speaker 1: So how did you come up with Shannon? I was
- 37:07Speaker 1: reading Billboard magazine. There was a guy up in Buffalo
- 37:10Speaker 1: named Tom Shannon. It was a good disc jockey, and
- 37:13Speaker 1: I said, well, he's not gonna mind if I borrow
- 37:15Speaker 1: that name. So that's where I got it. But I
- 37:18Speaker 1: did that very early in life. I actually found out.
- 37:22Speaker 1: I asked a guy, how do you how did you
- 37:23Speaker 1: change your name? And he told me, and it's pretty
- 37:25Speaker 1: simple to do. They do it in Hollywood all the time.
- 37:29Speaker 1: So you're in mobile and what's that like? Um, I
- 37:33Speaker 1: didn't care. I was on the radio I changed. I had.
- 37:38Speaker 1: My radio name was super Shan. I was the fastest
- 37:41Speaker 1: mouth in the South, Super Shan on the radio. Yo
- 37:46Speaker 1: leet a fast mouth in the South. By bla bla
- 37:48Speaker 1: bla blay and go like that. And I only said
- 37:51Speaker 1: about I had about I had written down on cards
- 37:55Speaker 1: things I heard other DJ say and I own I didn't.
- 37:58Speaker 1: I couldn't come up with any ad libs at the time.
- 38:01Speaker 1: I would just say the same thing over and over,
- 38:03Speaker 1: you know, but I would shuffle the cards. I wouldn't
- 38:06Speaker 1: say that. No one would notice it was the same stuff.
- 38:09Speaker 1: And how long did you last in Mobile? Uh? Year
- 38:14Speaker 1: a year and a half had a big contest called
- 38:17Speaker 1: super Shan We'll die for your school. That it was.
- 38:22Speaker 1: It's like, you know you're right in I want Supershan
- 38:25Speaker 1: to die from my school. I'll come to your school.
- 38:27Speaker 1: I'll bring a band and we'll do a concert. And uh,
- 38:30Speaker 1: I'll come and host the concert at your school. We
- 38:34Speaker 1: had like ten thousand entries and there was a band
- 38:37Speaker 1: They're called Wet Willie. They were just getting started and
- 38:41Speaker 1: later on they became pretty popular. They to keep on
- 38:44Speaker 1: smiling right on Capricorn Records. You know the lead single,
- 38:47Speaker 1: correct Capricorn Records. I just heard from the lead singer
- 38:51Speaker 1: like a month ago. He's got a new album. But
- 38:54Speaker 1: in any event, you're in Mobile. He's found he's sounded
- 38:57Speaker 1: like Mick Jagger back then. He's got a great voice.
- 39:00Speaker 1: The band only needed a little bit of better material
- 39:02Speaker 1: in my eyes, not that I want to get into
- 39:03Speaker 1: with his family, but so you know that this is
- 39:07Speaker 1: a stepping stone. How do you get from Mobile to
- 39:09Speaker 1: your next gig? I had I bought a briefcase. There
- 39:13Speaker 1: was a store back then called Wolco. It was Woolworth,
- 39:17Speaker 1: but it was like a best Buy or something, you know,
- 39:20Speaker 1: that's not that big, but back then it was pretty big.
- 39:23Speaker 1: And I bought a plastic suitcase, I mean a plastic briefcase, sorry,
- 39:28Speaker 1: And I got a copy of UM this magazine called
- 39:32Speaker 1: Broadcasting Magazine, and I cut out they had a list
- 39:36Speaker 1: of the top one hundred markets in the country, and
- 39:39Speaker 1: I taped that inside the lid of the briefcase where
- 39:44Speaker 1: I kept all my DJ to stuff. You know, I
- 39:47Speaker 1: have my head bones and I had little notes that
- 39:50Speaker 1: I had borrowed, and uh and and I circled mobile
- 39:54Speaker 1: and it was down there like one twelve, and I
- 39:57Speaker 1: looked all the way up at Number one was New York,
- 40:02Speaker 1: number two was l A, and number three was Chicago.
- 40:07Speaker 1: Now I never dreamed I get up in those places,
- 40:11Speaker 1: but I didn't want to move up to like the fifties.
- 40:13Speaker 1: You So I got a call from Memphis, Tennessee, and
- 40:16Speaker 1: they said, we're looking for a nighttime DJ how about you.
- 40:22Speaker 1: I said that'd be good, that'd be a good idea.
- 40:23Speaker 1: I might be right up there. W MPs and uh
- 40:28Speaker 1: and I I left. I gave two weeks notice and
- 40:32Speaker 1: this time I'm rolling in the cash a hundred and
- 40:35Speaker 1: sixty a week man. And uh, I loved Memphis because
- 40:42Speaker 1: I was such a music fan. I used to hang
- 40:45Speaker 1: out at Stax Records and that's where I met That's
- 40:48Speaker 1: where I met the drummer from the drummer from Booker
- 40:54Speaker 1: T and the MG's um the local nightclub and hang
- 40:58Speaker 1: out where Ronnie Millsap who was a rock and roll
- 41:01Speaker 1: singer then when later became a country singer, he was
- 41:05Speaker 1: the nightclub band. I would hang out in that place,
- 41:08Speaker 1: ran into b J. Thomas. Memphis was I loved it
- 41:11Speaker 1: because it was all about music. Steve Cropper, I see
- 41:14Speaker 1: him all the time. Um, I got to know Isaac
- 41:18Speaker 1: Hayes there. I got to know his partner David Porter,
- 41:22Speaker 1: who's still with us. And it's just phenomenal, phenomenal. One
- 41:28Speaker 1: night I was I worked for the people who owned
- 41:32Speaker 1: the radio station and owned bay Or Aspirin, and it
- 41:35Speaker 1: was plow and they made uh, you know, I made
- 41:38Speaker 1: prescription drugs and all that. But they wouldn't they were
- 41:41Speaker 1: really tight ask they wouldn't let me have, you know,
- 41:44Speaker 1: person to answered the phone. I had it got to
- 41:46Speaker 1: answer the phone and be my assistant. When you've got
- 41:49Speaker 1: two lines, they're all ringing, you can't answer there. So
- 41:53Speaker 1: one night the front door we're only like on the
- 41:56Speaker 1: third floor. One night the front doorbelt had a little
- 42:00Speaker 1: buzzer up there, and uh, this guy said, I said,
- 42:04Speaker 1: can I help you? Said, yeah, I'm a singer. I'm
- 42:07Speaker 1: out from the San Francisco. I was over to Sun Records.
- 42:11Speaker 1: They have a warehouse and he was buying some forty
- 42:14Speaker 1: five's there. He said, I got a new record out.
- 42:16Speaker 1: Can I come by and play it for you? And
- 42:19Speaker 1: he I said, well, I guess yeah, what's your name?
- 42:21Speaker 1: He said, John Fogerty. I go down and I remember
- 42:27Speaker 1: they had a big glass. I take the elevator on,
- 42:29Speaker 1: put on it and got it the beat. I ran
- 42:31Speaker 1: downstairs and I put the key in the bottom of
- 42:34Speaker 1: the door and opened it up. And he had a
- 42:35Speaker 1: girlfriend with him, Eskimo girl, I believe, and uh, and
- 42:40Speaker 1: they came on up and I liked him, and I
- 42:42Speaker 1: didn't interview him. I didn't know how to interview people. Then. Uh,
- 42:47Speaker 1: that's a weak point of my development. Took me a while.
- 42:50Speaker 1: And uh. He brought this song called susie Q and
- 42:55Speaker 1: he was staying at the at the Memphis Holiday Day
- 43:00Speaker 1: in on the Mississippi River, and as I recall, he
- 43:06Speaker 1: had written this song and it kind of inspired him
- 43:09Speaker 1: when he was staying in that hotel Proud of Mary.
- 43:12Speaker 1: I don't think he wrote it there, but he said
- 43:15Speaker 1: he got the inspiration, and I don't know. A few
- 43:18Speaker 1: months later, I got a real too reel. I'll still
- 43:21Speaker 1: I wish I had have saved it. And he recorded
- 43:24Speaker 1: that song and he sent it to me and asked,
- 43:26Speaker 1: what do you think about it? I put it on
- 43:28Speaker 1: the I put it on the recorder there and I
- 43:31Speaker 1: played it back on the air and where he got
- 43:33Speaker 1: he said, you can't play it. Yeah, we're not finished
- 43:35Speaker 1: with it. I thought it was done, but it was
- 43:37Speaker 1: not done though. That was and just I just had
- 43:41Speaker 1: a wonderful time there. Sometime I got off at midnight.
- 43:44Speaker 1: I was on seven to midnight. Sometimes uh Isaac and
- 43:49Speaker 1: David Porter would come by and pick me up. And
- 43:51Speaker 1: they're a big Cadillac because they were songwriters, but they
- 43:55Speaker 1: weren't singers. And one night we were at a night
- 44:00Speaker 1: club and there's a group called the short Cuts. They
- 44:03Speaker 1: had they were integrated. They had a black singer and
- 44:06Speaker 1: a couple other guys that were white and black, which
- 44:09Speaker 1: is unusual at that time. And we would go there
- 44:12Speaker 1: and and sometimes Isaac would drink too much or smoked
- 44:16Speaker 1: too much weed in a car on the way over,
- 44:19Speaker 1: and he would get up and sit behind him and
- 44:22Speaker 1: B three and just start singing. He won that good
- 44:26Speaker 1: of a singer. But what he did one night he
- 44:29Speaker 1: played this song called by the Time I Get the Phoenix.
- 44:32Speaker 1: He liked that song by Glenn Campbell, and he started
- 44:35Speaker 1: playing it, but he didn't sing the lyrics. He started
- 44:37Speaker 1: telling a story and he played it for about twenty minutes.
- 44:41Speaker 1: The band finally just got down and left because he
- 44:44Speaker 1: just got playing. And and when he got done, I said,
- 44:49Speaker 1: you know, you ought to record that, Isaac, And he
- 44:52Speaker 1: goes record what I said, that song you did by
- 44:57Speaker 1: the Time You Get the Phoenix. That's a good song,
- 45:01Speaker 1: he said. I don't remember one day I did. I'm sorry, man.
- 45:06Speaker 1: So I never rode home with him. I always got
- 45:08Speaker 1: a cab because they were they beat two stone to
- 45:13Speaker 1: get me home. But um, I remember I called the
- 45:17Speaker 1: guy Jim, who ran Stax Records at the time, and
- 45:21Speaker 1: I said, you know, Isaac Hayes has got a song
- 45:24Speaker 1: you ought to record. He said, Isaac doesn't sing. I said,
- 45:28Speaker 1: he can sing. He's what is it? I said, by
- 45:32Speaker 1: the time I get the Phoenix. Well he went ahead.
- 45:36Speaker 1: He recorded him that I think that night, and uh,
- 45:40Speaker 1: Isaac kind of duplicated what he's sang in the bar.
- 45:44Speaker 1: There's one. The bar was one of those places up
- 45:46Speaker 1: on top of the Holiday Inn where it goes around,
- 45:48Speaker 1: you know, and then you really get dizzy. But it
- 45:51Speaker 1: turned out to be. The album was called Hot Buttered Soul,
- 45:56Speaker 1: and uh, one side, one complete side was that long
- 46:00Speaker 1: with him rambo in the same way he did on
- 46:02Speaker 1: that stage. And uh, you know, he's one of the
- 46:06Speaker 1: few people who remembered that I helped him and his
- 46:11Speaker 1: when he was a songwriter, because Jim Stewart, who you know,
- 46:16Speaker 1: was the CEO of Stax Records, didn't know he could sing.
- 46:19Speaker 1: And Uh, Isaac later became a DJ here in New
- 46:22Speaker 1: York and actually um thanked me on the radio. He
- 46:26Speaker 1: gave me credit for starting his career, and I went, like,
- 46:29Speaker 1: no one ever does that. You know, it's never you know,
- 46:32Speaker 1: they did it themselves most of the time. But that
- 46:35Speaker 1: was just one of the many crazy stories that has
- 46:39Speaker 1: happened to me over the years. So how long did
- 46:41Speaker 1: you last in Memphis? Two years? Man? Maybe m almost
- 46:48Speaker 1: two years? And then I went to Nashville and that's
- 46:52Speaker 1: that's where I got to be a program director. Well
- 47:02Speaker 1: how did you get to Nashville and how did you
- 47:04Speaker 1: become the program Well? Uh, in that in those days,
- 47:09Speaker 1: the record guys who promoted you, and I'm sure you
- 47:12Speaker 1: met a few, and the guys, the guys all knew
- 47:16Speaker 1: me because I was the music director of the station
- 47:19Speaker 1: there in Memphis and in in Nashville, I mean in Mobile,
- 47:23Speaker 1: and I got to know those guys. And they told
- 47:25Speaker 1: this guy, the guy who ran the number one station
- 47:29Speaker 1: in Nashville lost his nighttime guy got think he got
- 47:33Speaker 1: he had He had a teenage modeling agency and uh,
- 47:41Speaker 1: let's just say things went south on him a couple
- 47:44Speaker 1: of a couple of photo sessions. He was his own
- 47:47Speaker 1: photographer and uh and you don't say yeah, so I'll
- 47:51Speaker 1: leave that one alone. But it didn't work out so well.
- 47:54Speaker 1: They needed to get somebody in there, and they heard
- 47:56Speaker 1: super Shan was good. Some of the record guys that
- 47:58Speaker 1: told this guy about me, and he hired me to
- 48:01Speaker 1: take me in there. He was also our program director,
- 48:05Speaker 1: and I said, I'll never forget. He had one of
- 48:07Speaker 1: those blue metal desks with a kind of fake wood
- 48:11Speaker 1: top on it. And I'm sitting there and I said,
- 48:14Speaker 1: how much does this job pay? Mr? Sullivan? He said
- 48:18Speaker 1: it pays. I don't know, maybe not, I don't know what.
- 48:21Speaker 1: He said, six hundred dollars a month. I went, how
- 48:27Speaker 1: much is that a week? But I never I never
- 48:31Speaker 1: got paid about a month before. That was something new,
- 48:34Speaker 1: So whatever it was, I forget what it was, but
- 48:36Speaker 1: it was. I think it was something like a hundred
- 48:39Speaker 1: eighty dollars a week, whatever it was. And man, I
- 48:43Speaker 1: was rolling. And Uh. That's and then when he decided
- 48:46Speaker 1: to go into the concert promotion business, they promoted me
- 48:51Speaker 1: to be the program director. And that's when I because
- 48:54Speaker 1: I immersed myself in the world of radio. I just
- 48:58Speaker 1: I knew. I knew because I loved it and I
- 49:02Speaker 1: listened to radio. I knew what people liked. In my
- 49:06Speaker 1: own head. I go by what I liked, and I
- 49:08Speaker 1: figured everybody liked the same thing I liked. And uh,
- 49:13Speaker 1: and at that time, Uh, they started this radio station
- 49:17Speaker 1: out in l A called k h J, and that
- 49:21Speaker 1: is UH was done. By a guy named Bill Drake, who,
- 49:25Speaker 1: as I thought, was a genius, and I paid a
- 49:29Speaker 1: guy I've ran somehow ran into a guy in Nashville
- 49:34Speaker 1: who was related to one of the engineers out there,
- 49:37Speaker 1: and I called him and I said, could you send
- 49:39Speaker 1: me some tapes? And I actually paid him a few
- 49:42Speaker 1: bucks each month to send me, uh tapes of the
- 49:45Speaker 1: real Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan and uh and
- 49:50Speaker 1: that I could you know, listen to and be inspired by.
- 49:54Speaker 1: And so I've been a program director basically for forty
- 49:58Speaker 1: years of my career. He and, uh, yeah, okay, you're
- 50:04Speaker 1: in Nashville, how long? And we're after Nashville. After Nashville,
- 50:07Speaker 1: I went to Atlanta, Georgia as the program direct From
- 50:11Speaker 1: then on, I was like, if you ever watched the
- 50:14Speaker 1: show when you're a kid called Have Gun Will Travel?
- 50:19Speaker 1: I had readings and yeah, I was pallet in the
- 50:23Speaker 1: station in Nashville had an incredible reputation. We were number one,
- 50:27Speaker 1: and when I was in Mobile, I had like a
- 50:31Speaker 1: seventy two share of listeners at night, which was unheard
- 50:35Speaker 1: of at that time. And then I went to Nashville,
- 50:37Speaker 1: and then from there I went to Atlanta Georgia, and
- 50:42Speaker 1: I had a pretty good reputation as a gun slinger,
- 50:45Speaker 1: you know, on them. Um, the I got into a
- 50:49Speaker 1: little I guess a tip with the manager of that station,
- 50:54Speaker 1: and they went from eight to number one, tied for
- 50:58Speaker 1: number one with WUS, another big station there, and the
- 51:02Speaker 1: guy fired me, and I thought that was the end
- 51:06Speaker 1: of my life, I mean, my career. And I was
- 51:09Speaker 1: just so bummed out. I actually cried that night the
- 51:11Speaker 1: guy fired me, and the ratings came out two days
- 51:15Speaker 1: later and that's when we went to number one. And Uh,
- 51:19Speaker 1: A friend of I was friends with a guy named
- 51:21Speaker 1: Bob Wilson who started radio and Records, which was the
- 51:26Speaker 1: bible of the music business and the radio business at
- 51:30Speaker 1: that time. How did you know Bob Wilson. Um, he
- 51:34Speaker 1: would come to town and see me and I would
- 51:35Speaker 1: give me my ideas. You know this, we're just friends.
- 51:38Speaker 1: I don't know, because he did interviews with me and
- 51:41Speaker 1: have ran my picture all the time. That was important
- 51:44Speaker 1: because you know, other people in the business would see
- 51:47Speaker 1: your picture and think you're a big shot. No, I
- 51:49Speaker 1: just knew Bob Wilson. So you're crying. You call Bob
- 51:53Speaker 1: Wilson in l A and Bob Wilson says, come out
- 51:56Speaker 1: here right now and work for me. And that's how
- 51:59Speaker 1: I got to know what man Jack was. He was
- 52:01Speaker 1: also in that same office, and U I started a
- 52:06Speaker 1: thing called street Talk, which was like a gossip column
- 52:10Speaker 1: of people things people were doing, the pictures and all that,
- 52:14Speaker 1: and uh, I did that for quite some time, and
- 52:17Speaker 1: I traveled with Kiss, and uh one of my best
- 52:21Speaker 1: friends was a fellow named Charlie Minor was also in
- 52:24Speaker 1: the music business. We started together. I knew him from Atlanta,
- 52:27Speaker 1: and UH, well that's why we hit me. We would
- 52:30Speaker 1: be at Mr Chiwd's or the Merry Go Round or
- 52:33Speaker 1: all these places. And I just never really other than
- 52:39Speaker 1: you know, with the guys and Kiss and Donna Summer
- 52:42Speaker 1: and got to know her a little bit and her
- 52:44Speaker 1: manager and other bands there. But I just never felt
- 52:48Speaker 1: comfortable a in Los Angeles and be outside of radio.
- 52:55Speaker 1: So I did, like I didn't like two and a
- 52:59Speaker 1: half years in in the record business, and I enjoyed it.
- 53:03Speaker 1: I had fun, you know, and uh, but then I
- 53:06Speaker 1: got a friend of mine called me and said, I'm
- 53:08Speaker 1: leaving my job in d C. They need a program director.
- 53:12Speaker 1: Would you like to come? I said, I'll fly in
- 53:14Speaker 1: there and talk to the guy. So and then I
- 53:16Speaker 1: went back into radio. Okay, wp g C, Washington, d C. Okay.
- 53:24Speaker 1: Other than l A, well, maybe you're living in all
- 53:27Speaker 1: these different places. How is that affecting your personal life?
- 53:34Speaker 1: M I didn't worry about that. I was in love
- 53:37Speaker 1: with radio. I had had a girlfriend in Nashville, and uh,
- 53:43Speaker 1: we decided we should be married. And she decided, I
- 53:47Speaker 1: think the problem is he's She said, you love radio
- 53:51Speaker 1: more than you love me. I said, you're right, and
- 53:55Speaker 1: that was my that was my my wife radio. Everything
- 53:59Speaker 1: else was it was just scenery. And you know, when
- 54:05Speaker 1: you're a big shot on the radio, you're famous. Did
- 54:09Speaker 1: you feel that? I mean, you're working alone inside the dark,
- 54:13Speaker 1: But everybody liked that, though Bob, I thought that I
- 54:16Speaker 1: just enjoyed being in that room. That was a great way.
- 54:19Speaker 1: The reason I got in and that I got attracted
- 54:22Speaker 1: to radio because I saw a Billboard magazine. I would
- 54:25Speaker 1: buy it at the record store, and I noticed that
- 54:28Speaker 1: they had these little rooms when they broadcast from and
- 54:30Speaker 1: you could talk to all of these people, but you
- 54:32Speaker 1: didn't have to see him. And I thought I was
- 54:35Speaker 1: kind of a very I don't know self involved person.
- 54:43Speaker 1: I didn't didn't have a girlfriend when I was a
- 54:45Speaker 1: kid because my father was too strict. I didn't really
- 54:49Speaker 1: I didn't have a girlfriend until I was like sevent
- 54:53Speaker 1: eighteen years old. Uh, it was all of a sudden,
- 54:57Speaker 1: girls like it because you're on the radio. They can't
- 55:01Speaker 1: get a rock star. So I didn't get a DJ.
- 55:04Speaker 1: So it was just different all of a sudden. I didn't,
- 55:06Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't. I couldn't fanom it, phantom it.
- 55:12Speaker 1: I just it was a different world. But it came
- 55:15Speaker 1: second to radio. That was my whole existence, the music
- 55:21Speaker 1: and the actual function of being on the radio. I
- 55:25Speaker 1: loved it, and that to this day, I still love
- 55:28Speaker 1: doing it. Okay, are you a social guy? If I say, oh,
- 55:32Speaker 1: we're gonna go hang out, it's gonna be some people.
- 55:34Speaker 1: You're gonna say yes, You're gonna say no, I'd rather
- 55:36Speaker 1: stay home. I'd rather stay home. Okay, So you go
- 55:41Speaker 1: to d C is the p D. Then what happens, Uh?
- 55:47Speaker 1: I got fired again the the owner that the owner
- 55:51Speaker 1: didn't think I was a good DJ and wouldn't let
- 55:54Speaker 1: me on the air, and so the station. The station
- 55:58Speaker 1: was already number one, but I made it number one
- 56:01Speaker 1: R and uh, we got in an argument. He didn't
- 56:05Speaker 1: think the death of John Lennon was a big deal.
- 56:07Speaker 1: I overreacted by playing all Lennen music in the morning show,
- 56:11Speaker 1: and he said, and he called the hotline and said,
- 56:15Speaker 1: you got what are you doing there? Man? You're screwing
- 56:17Speaker 1: up our station. And said, oh, you haven't heard. Yeah,
- 56:20Speaker 1: I heard John Lennon's dead, but you're overreacting. And he
- 56:23Speaker 1: hung up on me. So a few days later, I
- 56:28Speaker 1: took People Magazine, Newsweek and Time Magazine and I walked
- 56:33Speaker 1: into his office and I laid him across the disk.
- 56:35Speaker 1: I said, Mr Potter, you got to call these people.
- 56:39Speaker 1: They're overreacting. Two weeks later I was unemployed. Were you
- 56:45Speaker 1: crying this time? No? I didn't cry about that one.
- 56:48Speaker 1: I wanted away from that asshole. But within two weeks
- 56:52Speaker 1: I had another job. And Uh, by that time, I had,
- 56:56Speaker 1: you know, a good enough reputation were as a pro
- 57:00Speaker 1: Graham and I have gun will travel, I had, I moved.
- 57:04Speaker 1: I wanted to get a job at that time that
- 57:08Speaker 1: that let me do the morning show because this guy
- 57:11Speaker 1: didn't let me on the air. So when he fired me,
- 57:13Speaker 1: I couldn't stay in d C and I and I
- 57:16Speaker 1: had a girl that I liked. At that point, I
- 57:19Speaker 1: didn't want to leave d C. But I chose once
- 57:22Speaker 1: again shows radio. But I figured, if I was a
- 57:25Speaker 1: big morning radio star and you fire me, I just
- 57:28Speaker 1: go across the street and then kick your ass. And
- 57:33Speaker 1: so I decided I was going to be a morning DJ,
- 57:35Speaker 1: and I wanted to find a station that would let
- 57:38Speaker 1: me be a morning DJ, and that was in Tampa, Okay.
- 57:45Speaker 1: I certainly remember in the mid sixties it was about
- 57:49Speaker 1: the evening DJ. Right when did it become about the
- 57:53Speaker 1: morning DJ in the I believe in the seventies. In
- 57:57Speaker 1: the seventies, the morning radio panel started to come back.
- 58:02Speaker 1: When I was a kid, my dad would drive me
- 58:05Speaker 1: around and I used to listen to the Breakfast Club
- 58:09Speaker 1: out of Chicago, and I always thought that was cool.
- 58:13Speaker 1: They were just and they would just beat, they just
- 58:18Speaker 1: talked to people, and they had a band and they
- 58:20Speaker 1: would band would play and all that. It was on
- 58:23Speaker 1: w l S in Chicago. I think it was Don
- 58:26Speaker 1: McNeil's Breakfast Club and it was on a network. I
- 58:30Speaker 1: thought that was cool, and so I always thought about
- 58:33Speaker 1: that having a morning show where you could just talk
- 58:37Speaker 1: about things and have calls and people come in and
- 58:40Speaker 1: and I kind of built this thing called the Morning Zoo,
- 58:44Speaker 1: and it was based on the Breakfast Club. And I
- 58:48Speaker 1: grew up with listen to my dad's in the back
- 58:50Speaker 1: seat of my dad's station wagon, or in a mix
- 58:54Speaker 1: of Saturday Night Live, which was already on the air,
- 58:56Speaker 1: then doing skits and funny things. When you're in Tampa,
- 59:01Speaker 1: do you go justice the DJ or you the p
- 59:03Speaker 1: D two both. That's where I found my niche the
- 59:08Speaker 1: morning show and being a program director best fun. As
- 59:13Speaker 1: soon as you land in Tampa, you start right away
- 59:16Speaker 1: with the breakfast club idea, or you work up to it. Well,
- 59:19Speaker 1: I met with a guy that was already doing the
- 59:21Speaker 1: morning show, a great personality named Cleveland Wheeler. He thought
- 59:24Speaker 1: I was going to fire him, and uh Asa, no,
- 59:29Speaker 1: I want you to know. I want to work with
- 59:31Speaker 1: you so I can learn how to be a morning DJ.
- 59:33Speaker 1: And I said, I got some ideas. I will run
- 59:36Speaker 1: and past you. And I shared my whole thing about
- 59:40Speaker 1: the personality and the phone calls and the skits and
- 59:43Speaker 1: the parody songs and all that. He said, I'm in man.
- 59:47Speaker 1: I mean he did voices and and I had a
- 59:49Speaker 1: great laugh, and that's very important when you're doing the
- 59:52Speaker 1: morning show. And uh, and the station had fallen out
- 59:57Speaker 1: of the top because had come petition come in there
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: and they wanted to get back to number one because
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: they were a losing money and be you know, like
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: number ten in the market. So within sixty days we
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: were back to number one and had this was the rage.
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: I mean, the Morning Zoo was the biggest thing that
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: ever hit Tampa and St. Petersburg and we had a
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: big signal, so we had a lot of listeners and
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: it was huge, and the word got out of what
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: we were doing. And like an idiot, I never I
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: never thought about copyrighting or anything like that, trademarket or
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: anging like that. I just was radio. And then the
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: company that I worked for had me fly to Houston
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: and put the same show on in Houston with some
- 1:00:49Speaker 1: other people and we did that. So and then I
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, to three years in Tampa
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: and that's okay, before you before you leave Tampa, how
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: did you do side to name at the Morning Zoo
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: or how did that become the name? Um, I don't
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: really know. I didn't want to call it. I wanted
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: something different. I wanted to be I wanted to be
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: was that an interrupt or whatever they call that, the disruptor?
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: And I wanted it to be different from anything else
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: on the radio. So we had like a cast of
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: five people. We had a guy in the air, traffic
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: guy with personality. We had a newsgirl that Pat Brooks
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: was over here. She was great. And we had had
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: a kid that was our intern, ninety Mike. We called
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: him because he listened to the other station, night Rock,
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: and nobody ever talked about other radio stations, and they,
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: you know, that was forbidden. And we talked about everybody,
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: talked about the mayor of the city, and talked about
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: the other DJs and that worked over there, and made
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: fun of people and it was just just a good
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: time time radio show. And it caught on and they
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: heard about it. Did you play any records? Oh yes,
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: we did. You know, we could have easily not played records,
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: but we played three or four records an hour, okay,
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: And then New York comes to call it. That's it.
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: New York came a calling, and I transferred that same
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: show up to New York. A different people who a
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: little bit slower. First, there's a documentary which came out
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: earlier in the year, and I'm not blowing smoke up
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: your grass, but I couldn't turn it off. Usually these
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: documentaries run watchable. It was really well done, the story
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: of Z one. How did the documentary come to be? Um,
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: all my friends, you gotta write a book, you gotta
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: write a book, You gotta write a book. And I
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: just don't have it in the um. I just don't
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: have the everybody that I've ever talked to that I
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: decided to write a book, it was a bit you know.
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: They they got started, it was okay, but then you
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: get through the middle of it, and then you put
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: it away for a while, and then you never get
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: around to finish it, and and and unfortunately already took
- 1:03:11Speaker 1: the money. So you gotta put some crap together and
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: put it out. You know, my friend Elvis Durant wrote
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: a book, and I won't get into detail, but he
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: it turned out, you know, he didn't turn out as
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: well as he wanted it to. And it was successful,
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: but it just you know, he just kind of like
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: in the middle of it said, oh boy, which I
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten into this, but my wife decided. My wife,
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: Trish decided, who I met in Tampa, by the way,
- 1:03:42Speaker 1: decided that instead of a book, wonn't you just make
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: a documentary? They're getting pretty popular now and so that's
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: how it came about. And who paid for it? Uh,
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: we did, along with Elvis Durant. He was one of
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: our invest There's him and as manager. There's just four people.
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: And now that it's done, what do you think about it?
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: I was happy we did it, you know, I thought
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: it was it's it was all. It's a lot of
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: people um use it. It's almost like a instruction manual
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: on what to do and in creativity. And I think
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: it's also important to note that it's the result of
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: someone hiring you and leaving you alone to do what
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: you do and and it worked out pretty well. Okay,
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: So how did you meet Trician Tampa? And how did
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: she end up going to New York whereas before everybody
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: was left behind? But she wasn't one of my DJs.
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: Bob I met her. She worked at the High and
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: she was in um in charge of publicity and hospitality.
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: And one morning they brought by a breakfast for the
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: morning zoo people would always find out some way to
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: get on there. And so that they were opening a
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: new hotel and they brought breakfast to us. And she
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: was an attractive blonde. She was involved in a relationship
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: at that time, and uh, let's just say that I
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: didn't I had had nothing to do with the unraveling
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: of the relationship, but we were friendly, and uh, when
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: it unraveled, I called her and, man, I feel bad.
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: I know you're bummed out and everything. How about we
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: go to Longboat Key for the weekend? Almost hung up?
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: She's not why are you crazy there? She's a conservative
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: lady and U And then when I got the call,
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: they go to New York. You want to want to
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: go with me? Are you nuts? Were not married? I'm
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: not moving in with you. That's how that went. So
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: we worked at out eventually and we got married. And
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: the rock you never had any kids? Right? They had
- 1:06:09Speaker 1: one child, one daughter? Okay, And how old is she today?
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: You know what it's You know she's on a turney bob. Well, yeah,
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: at least she's off the payroll, right, Yes, yeah, she's
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: a great, good kid. Okay. So the movie depicts in
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: case people listening want to check it out, but it
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: was really good. I will admit that it kind of
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: shocked me. First of all, I met ken Lean when
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: he's working for Daniel Glass at Chrysalis. Must be kay,
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: I didn't know that he started with you. And the
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: other thing is really a different era. I remember that
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: era whatever. But just to set the scene, it's basically,
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: it's a alright station. It's it's the Caucus, New Jersey,
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: it's nowhere, and it's you know, tell us how you
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: just what they pitched and how you decided to do it.
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: They didn't pitch much. They just said you want to
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: come and build a radio station. I said, yeah, if
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: it's the top forty station, I'll do it. I said, okay,
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: it could be a Top fourt They was still research
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: and I said, I only do Top forty and U
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: and uh. We came up with the name and they
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: basically let me alone. They really did. I mean, as
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: you see in the movie, there's a couple of encounters
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: in the beginning. And then I was ready to go
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: back to Tampa because Mr Maltz, who was the president
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: of the company and the owner, promised me I would
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: have a Rolls Royce radio station. And during the construction
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: of the building and the studios. It turns out I
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: getting a Volkswagen and uh we had a uh we
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: put a stop on things, but the temporary halt, well
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: we got that worked out and he went ahead and
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: kept his promise. And nothing to do with money. It
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: just was about the quality of the actual studio. And
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: uh the engineer had just that was in charge of
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: the project just wasn't building it the way it should
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: have been built. And it eventually was built the way
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: it should have been built. Do you remember how many
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: watts that station at enough? Okay, well, how far away
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: could it reach at nighttime or whatever? Well, it's not
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: a nighttime is is a a product of an A
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: M station. FM signals the same all the time. It
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: covered the entire tri state area. Once you put the
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: we called that the p shooter when we first signed
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: on it only you know, basically was heard in New
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: Jersey and for about I don't know, three weeks, and
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: then we put it up on the top of the
- 1:09:04Speaker 1: Empire State Building and blew the roof off. The sucker.
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: You had a lot of violent, uh terminology in the
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: construction of the station. I wanted it to sound like
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: New York. But I didn't want it to sound like
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: any New York radio station. The format was easy. We
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: played one black record, one white record, one black record,
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: one white white record, and uh, and that didn't go
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: by the color of the skin. It went to the
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: appeal of the sound of the song. If you understand
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: what I mean, I think you do. And uh. And
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: then then we hired this jockeys who were not from
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: New York. We brought in all new people and uh.
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: We kept it. That's what I call sledgehammer radio. Just pounded.
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: You know, you had to listen. You didn't want to
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: miss any thing. The morning show every day had something
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: else going on. We talked to people and it didn't
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: sound It was not polished or professional. It was meant
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: to be like an earworm and wanted to sound like
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: nothing that had ever been on the air in New
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: York sounded like. We would get called people would say,
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: what is this? What do you mean? What? What kind
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: of station is if we never heard anything like this before.
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: You know, we talked about other radio stations, We talked
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: about other personalities and other radio stations, and that was
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: taboo back then. People didn't do that the way it's
- 1:10:39Speaker 1: portrayed in the movie is the pieces are in place,
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: but you don't start climbing the readings until you become aggressive.
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: You know, there's putting up stickers, certain other campaigns, you know,
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: put up a poster in your window. So how important
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: is this from emotional marketing building a station? As one
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: of the Gary Fisher, the manager at the time, said
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: it was the first viral campaign that he'd ever seen.
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: It was viral before there was viral, and uh, it
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: just was word of mouth. That's how that's how it
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: was built, word of mouth. And uh, like I said,
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: like you saw in the movie, everybody else that the critics,
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: all who put it the other stations laughed at it
- 1:11:31Speaker 1: because it didn't sound like New York. It didn't sound polished.
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: It was just a different animal. And uh, you know
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: there's some of the terminology, you know, like get out
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: of a way, and it was aggressive from the top
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: of the Empire State Building. Well that's a point in
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: the movie. Everybody broadcasts from the top of the bob.
- 1:11:57Speaker 1: Nobody said it. Okay, if you had done no marketing whatsoever,
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: which is all depicted in the movie with the station
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: still have been as successful. No, no, no, way. It
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: was an attitude. They didn't the listeners, didn't the people
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: our customers, so to speak, they didn't look at that.
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: They didn't regard that as marketing. That was just Z
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: one hundred. That was the zoo, That was the people
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: that that they loved. They a lot of people grew
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: up with that radio station. It was it was. It
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: was really like the heartbeat of New York and still
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: is to this day. It's still a big, big factor
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: in music and marketing. Okay, in some businesses you know
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: all your competitors and other businesses, you only know the
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: people you work with. You come up, you disrupt, to
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: what degreed, you end up knowing the infrastructure of New
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: York Radio. No, I hadn't. I had not. I didn't
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: know a him about New York or New York Radio.
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: It was a radio station. It was almost like I
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: described it to our team as this is a pirate station,
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: like the pirates station that took Europe in England. We're
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: we're off shore, we're out here in the swamp in
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: New Jersey, and we're broadcasting to that country right there,
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: New York. And that's how it was. We really didn't
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: go after as you see in the movie. We didn't
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: go after the five boroughs. We went after New Jersey,
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: Long Island and Westchester. That was it. Connecticut too. I
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: kind of got your baffle there, done it. Yeah, the
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: station goes from what number hundred to number one that
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: we were probably like night or something like that. Roque
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: then just depicted in the movie like all hell breaks,
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: lose your celebrity. You're on all these shows, tell us
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: about that when I was not ready for that. I've
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: never wanted to do television, even though I've done quite
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: a bit over the years. It's not my favorite medium.
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: I enjoy radio. I enjoy sitting in a room with
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: a microphone talking to people. I like that. That's what
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: I like to do. And uh, laughing having it's enjoyable
- 1:14:33Speaker 1: to me, it's not work and uh and that you know,
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm on Oprah and we're on
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: Regius all the time, and you know, in Time magazine
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: and all this, and it just wasn't comfortable to me.
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: It's not it's not I mean, I did it, but
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: it was part of the jobs part, you know, the
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: important part to me was communicating a microphone to people. Well,
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: at this point, with all that attending publicity. You became
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: a celebrity, and how did you like that? Good or bad?
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: It is fine. It just comes with the territory. I mean,
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: I'm not I don't I enjoy it. Maybe you know,
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: you get your your flu shot before anybody or something
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: like that. I don't know, it doesn't. It's I love
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: doing what I do, and then that's it. I mean,
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not shirking. I'm not throwing the
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: jacket of celebrity hood off. It's not the most important
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: thing in my life. Okay, so you're doing the station.
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: You're talking about all these poor paying gigs before this,
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: When do you start making money? I started making money
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: in Tampa, and uh that was that was probably the
- 1:15:58Speaker 1: beginning of it. I never really whenever. I'm not like
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: a money monger and it's nights. I live in a
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: nice house, I drive a nice car. I can do
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: what I want, you know, but I still buy a
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: lotto tickets. You know. I'm just are you good with
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: your money? My wife is I'm not tricius. Okay, okay,
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: you're on You're at one. Then you leave for l A.
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: How do you decide to leave that was I was
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: up for Marina Gos, I was up for the contract signing,
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: and they wanted to give me stock, and I wanted
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: I really didn't want stock in the company. I don't
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: want to be in that area. So along came the
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: opportunity to move to California and build. Really was what
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: attracted me was to build a news station. Pirate radio,
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: well certainly in terms of marketing every but he was
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: aware of Pirate Radio in Los Angeles. But the ratings
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: did not match the success of Z one. How did
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: you feel about that? I didn't feel good, but I
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: felt like we did a good job entering the marketplace.
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: There were some other um there were some other factors
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: that were involved that Number one, I was overpaid. Number
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: two paid the owner paid too much for the actual facility. Also,
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: so they ran into a problem with the banks. And uh,
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: we got it. We got almost two years out of it.
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: It was the last couple of rating books were fine.
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: You know. One of the problems is you got to
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: remember too guns and Roses fell apart, and that was
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: the crux that was the center of the radio station.
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: You know, you can't make a living playing warrant and
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: some of these other groups that we had at that time,
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: hair bands. But I don't make any excuses for it. It
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: It didn't work. And should you know, if you had
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: to do it over again, anything you can think of,
- 1:18:16Speaker 1: you have done differently. Uh, probably been making I probably
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: would have made it more top forty centered with that
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: same Pirate image. I mean there's people who still love
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: that station, and they had they had a website devoted
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: to it, and I still get mailed from people, you know,
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: like emails from people who enjoyed the station and remember it. Okay,
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: it ends at Pirate how soon? And how do you
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: end up back in New York? I came right back
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: and started at another station in New York when we're
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: it was a little bit more adult than Z one,
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: and that did very well. We were like number one
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: females and uh, it didn't have the same pizzas, but
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: it was a good, solid, successful radio station, a big
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: money maker for the company ABC TV Radio and what
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: you have in the morning. I'm living in l A,
- 1:19:15Speaker 1: so I don't really know. We were very successful in
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: the morning. It was like the I think one of
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: the top two or three radio morning shows. So it
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: was a zoo like concept. At Mellower. You know, it
- 1:19:27Speaker 1: was it was. It was more of a US, a
- 1:19:30Speaker 1: two man show. It was a comedy and we did
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: phone scams where you know, we called people up and
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: put them on and all that kind of thing. But
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: it was, it was, it was. It was a successful project.
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: There's no doubt. We did it for twenty one years.
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: So I would say it went pretty well. And how
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: did you how did that end? It ended? How did
- 1:19:53Speaker 1: it in? Oh? I got stabbed in the back by
- 1:19:56Speaker 1: my partner, That's how it ended well? Said, it's all public.
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: Who is your partner? His name was Todd petting Gill
- 1:20:04Speaker 1: that he wants In his defense, he wanted the show.
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: He thought he could do it better by himself, and
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: it didn't work out that way. And how soon before
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: you ended up at CBS two weeks Okay, let's go back.
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: You start Morning Zoo Howard Stern and comes up with
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: a show where there's a lot of talking. What do
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: you think of Stern show? I always have always been
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: a Howard fan. Unfortunately he hasn't always been a Scott
- 1:20:36Speaker 1: fan because I happened to be, you know, up against him,
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: and he's he didn't he didn't mow me down like
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: he's done many many other competitors. And now we're on
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: speaking basis friends of sorts. You know, he doesn't, he
- 1:20:55Speaker 1: doesn't really, Uh, he's not. He's not a guy who
- 1:20:59Speaker 1: runs around with other guys. You know. He pretty much
- 1:21:02Speaker 1: stays on his own lane. And would you call yourself
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: a guy who runs with other guys? Are just more
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: than Howard, A little more than Howard. Yeah, I get
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: out a bit more than he does. I think most
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: people get out of little a bit more than he does. Right,
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: And how do you end up doing syndicated shows? Um?
- 1:21:25Speaker 1: They were just offered to me. And I do as
- 1:21:28Speaker 1: much radio as I can. I do a lot of
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: different things. I have an oldies network called the True
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: Oldies Channel, and I told you that that each of
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: the sixties, mostly the sixties and some seventies. And I
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: do a Classic Hits weekend show that's on k Earth
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and of course on my station here
- 1:21:48Speaker 1: in New York. And then I also do voice over.
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: I uh, the voice of Sean Hannity's network six and
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: seventies stations. I introduced him and certain little sweepers and
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: things like that. Production And how did you meet Sean Unity.
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: We were in the same building. He started out with
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: ABC and I worked for ABC when we at b LJ,
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: And uh, he's one of the uh finest guys that
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: I know, is very easy to work with and mental.
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: A lot of people don't seem to care for him
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: on a political basis, but in him and I get
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: along time. Well, he's not tourious, no choices. Right away,
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: everybody says he's a great guy from every every spectrum
- 1:22:37Speaker 1: of the political sphere. I would do anything for him
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: and he's great. Okay, how about the issue that he's
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: known for a particular political viewpoint? Is it that you
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: align with that or your friends with them or what?
- 1:22:49Speaker 1: I'm friends with him, But I mean, we certainly don't.
- 1:22:52Speaker 1: Uh you know, we don't discuss you know, I would
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: lean more that way than the other way if I
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: had to pick a lane. But he doesn't care that
- 1:23:03Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm the announcer, I'm the voice over guy.
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: He doesn't he didn't try to uh preach to me.
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: Let's put it that way or whatever. We're friends and
- 1:23:13Speaker 1: we discuss golf and other things. How good a golfer?
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: Are you mediocre? How often you play five days a week. Okay,
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: when you were on the radio, we're still on the
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: radio on the radio. What's your daily schedule? I get
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: up at three fifteen, I'm in the city. At five,
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: five am, I do show prep. M go on there
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: at six. We're off at nine, and if it's nice out,
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: I t off around ten fifteen, ten thirty, and then
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: I come back and record in the afternoon and early evening. Okay, Look,
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: where do you live. I'm not asking for the street address,
- 1:23:58Speaker 1: but generally speaking, no, in Westchester County. I'm not a
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: city guy. And you're a member of a club there,
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: so you can play golf. You have your regular but
- 1:24:10Speaker 1: you have your regular buddies. It's not like. It's not
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: like I play with everybody. I play with anybody and everybody,
- 1:24:18Speaker 1: you know. I'm just I don't like playing with the
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: I play with. I don't play with the same people
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: all the time. And do you play for money? Very little? Okay?
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: So you come back and record stuff, and then when
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: do you leave again the next morning? No? No, no,
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: when do you leave the studio after you come back
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: to record stuff. I'm in my studio now, in my house. Okay,
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: let me ask a question. So, when you're on CBS
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: right now, are you broadcasting from the city or from
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: your house the city? Okay, after you play golf, you
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: go back to your whole studio. And when would you
- 1:25:03Speaker 1: be finished with show prep normally in your home studio six?
- 1:25:10Speaker 1: And what time do you go to bed? You know,
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: there's a whole life in the evening that do you
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: ever feel like people might say, let's go to dinner
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: or something? He said, when I'm going to bed at
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: eight thirty Friday night, Friday night, Saturday night, we go
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: out if we have to, well, you know, oftentimes don't.
- 1:25:33Speaker 1: And how late would you go to bed on Friday
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: and Saturday? Oh man, really late, like ten and getting
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: up at three fifteen for all these years, how much
- 1:25:44Speaker 1: of a grind does that? Uh? You never get used
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: to it, that's it. But I like it because it
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: frees up my day. I haven't programmed and uh probably
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: ten years my program my own products and my own shows.
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: But I don't pro I don't. Radio programming was an
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: art and now it's a business. We'll tell me you
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: go a little go a little deeper. Um. The trouble
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: started with Bill Clinton when he freed radio owners so
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: they can have multi stations. When they could have a
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: cluster of stations in the market. And that's when companies,
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: hedge funds and big big money got involved in radio.
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: It was like what three three big major owners. Now
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: it's just completely different. I like that when there was
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: one station, one boss, and you're the you're the program director,
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: your DJs worked there, and all the concentration was on
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: that product and we were there to serve the community.
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: And you know, that's it. Now you if one station
- 1:27:05Speaker 1: gets a contest or a promotion, the other people bitch
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: about it, and it's it's a different world. It's a
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: different it's not fun, okay. So in the old days
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: before the Telecommunications Act of maybe that was part of
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: that where they rolled up the stations allowed them to
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: what was the key to programming a station? Well, you
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: start with the music, and then you go with the personalities,
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: and then you go with the production elements around it.
- 1:27:40Speaker 1: You try to create a sound of that station. I
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: never really built a station that was a copy of
- 1:27:48Speaker 1: the other one. The morning show from Tampa was similar
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: to the one in New York, but it wasn't a
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: carbon copy. There was a different and people, different vibe
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: and the same thing. UM Tampa was a completely different
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: radio station overall. It was more of an adult top
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: forty station, even though we had teens who listen. We're
- 1:28:16Speaker 1: number one in teens, number one in plus, number one
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty four. But in New York we focus
- 1:28:23Speaker 1: more on a younger audience and the parents who of
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: those kids. And one point in the movie is that
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: the stars come to do press in Manhattan that at
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: first don't want to come to the caucus. Didn't have
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: cabs back then, cabs would not come to New Jersey
- 1:28:44Speaker 1: and do it. Madonna got her boyfriend, a disc jobi
- 1:28:50Speaker 1: named jelly Bean, to bring her over to the station. Well,
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: that is all depicted in the movie about she's banging
- 1:28:57Speaker 1: the door to have you played holiday? Were you the
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: one interacting with her. She's known as being aggressive, and
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: I don't mean that with any connotation to what degrees
- 1:29:09Speaker 1: or success based on that aggression. It's a great, great
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: deal of her success. It was a major component because
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: she never took no for an answer. You have to
- 1:29:20Speaker 1: admire her for that. The most important thing was her
- 1:29:25Speaker 1: success in the minute she arrived here in New York, city.
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: She was driven, he was driven, and you were the
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: You were the first to play Holiday at first major
- 1:29:40Speaker 1: station to add it, I believe I think Katie, you
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: might have been playing it a little bit. It's all
- 1:29:45Speaker 1: depicted that she's coming to the door. She's coming to
- 1:29:47Speaker 1: the door. Ultimately, I wasn't the primary contact at that time.
- 1:29:53Speaker 1: If somebody wasn't happy with the answers they were getting
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: from my music director, they could see me, and that
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: was her demand. I want to talk who else? Who
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: makes up the decisions? But she knew by that time
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: when don't know, they knew who I was, and she
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: she wanted that record on Z one h it because
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: it was the hot station at the time. Did you
- 1:30:16Speaker 1: know she was Madonna at that point? In just another
- 1:30:19Speaker 1: woman coming to your door? She was you know, she
- 1:30:22Speaker 1: was not Madonna yet. I mean she called her name
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: was Madonna, but you know she was a nightclub animal.
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: And how did people ultimately start coming to the caucus
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: when the ratings came out We didn't have to buy
- 1:30:38Speaker 1: our own music anymore. They showed up, They showed up big.
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: It was But the reason it was so important is
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: that we were like the number one music we we
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: broke songs when we played a song that the rest
- 1:30:54Speaker 1: of the stations, not the rest of them, but a
- 1:30:56Speaker 1: lot of stations around the country would be in flu
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: wents by our playlist. Okay, and anybody you haven't met
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: that you'd like to meet, The ones that I that
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: I would like to meet are no longer here. John
- 1:31:14Speaker 1: Lennon never interviewed him. I talked to George Ringo, Paul
- 1:31:19Speaker 1: several times. Interview Jagger Keith great interview. Not really, I don't.
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: I'm fine. Would you? Is this all professional or any
- 1:31:30Speaker 1: of these people you're regular friends with. I don't have
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: any show bid they're not friends. I mean, it's a
- 1:31:37Speaker 1: big difference between show biz friends and friends, and these
- 1:31:42Speaker 1: leave me. I know so many guys in radio and
- 1:31:45Speaker 1: in in in publications and television, they really get confused.
- 1:31:49Speaker 1: They think these are their real friends. They lose their
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: job and see how often they hang out with you,
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: you know, never they know you can't you know what,
- 1:32:00Speaker 1: I don't. I don't hang out. Do you do you
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: have civilian friends I've got I've got a friend of mine.
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: I got a friend of mine who's a musician, but
- 1:32:13Speaker 1: we're not friends for that purpose. He played. He's in
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: Billy Joel's band and you know, a wonderful guy and
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: we do things, have dinner once in a while, and
- 1:32:21Speaker 1: he plays gigs whenever he's around if I need him.
- 1:32:24Speaker 1: You know, he's plays for a children's hospital every year
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: we do a show. But he's a friend, friend, He
- 1:32:29Speaker 1: just happens to do that for a living. Is that
- 1:32:32Speaker 1: how you met him through Billy's man? Okay, you were
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: talking to Doug, our engineer earlier, and you said you
- 1:32:39Speaker 1: got your board from Rush Limbaugh. Do I have that right?
- 1:32:44Speaker 1: So how did that come to happen? He worked in
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: the same building with us in ABC. Also he got
- 1:32:51Speaker 1: he was he was before Sean and he would come
- 1:32:55Speaker 1: in my office and just talk about music. We didn't
- 1:32:57Speaker 1: talk politics. He you know, he was a discjoct he
- 1:33:00Speaker 1: but he actually when he built his home, uh down
- 1:33:04Speaker 1: in Palm Beach, he had like a radio station with
- 1:33:08Speaker 1: turntables and he had it. He loved music. He was
- 1:33:11Speaker 1: a big music fan. He would sit and talk seventies
- 1:33:16Speaker 1: of late sixties music, beatles music, his favorite songs and
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: uh it just he he was a nice guy. I
- 1:33:24Speaker 1: had no problem with him whatsoever. He was a very
- 1:33:26Speaker 1: shy person. And okay, the radio landscape is radically different
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: the way from what it used to be. Certainly AM
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: ruled in the sixties seventies FM, Oh, there was still
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: pop AM. Then Top forty went to FM in the eighties,
- 1:33:47Speaker 1: and then we had the breakthrough of political talk radio.
- 1:33:52Speaker 1: You know, first, to what degree to the twenty two
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: minutes of commercials eighteen to twenty two minutes of commercials
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: hurt terrestrial radio killed him? Yeah, didn't didn't kill them,
- 1:34:05Speaker 1: but it fatally injured them. It was trendic. You know.
- 1:34:12Speaker 1: If there wouldn't have been that, that complete reversal of
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: the radio station is supposed to serve the community and
- 1:34:21Speaker 1: you can only have one or two at the very most.
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: That that came down from the government, I don't think
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: the success of Serious x M would have been what
- 1:34:32Speaker 1: it is today. I mean, we just radio just played
- 1:34:36Speaker 1: right into the hands of anybody else. They took over
- 1:34:40Speaker 1: the music, not just Serious XM, but all the other
- 1:34:44Speaker 1: streaming services. Just that's it. We killed ourselves. Okay, So
- 1:34:50Speaker 1: when you were running the eight eighties, how many minutes
- 1:34:53Speaker 1: of commercials did you have? An hour? Really eight minutes
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: ten in the morning? Ate the rest of the day.
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: What is the future of music radio commercial terrestrio. I
- 1:35:08Speaker 1: can't say it's bright. I think it's I think radio
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: is gonna have to become more of a more dependent
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: on spoken word and personalities and content. So you think
- 1:35:21Speaker 1: that's gonna happen? And what is it gonna look like?
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: I don't know what it's gonna look like. I don't
- 1:35:25Speaker 1: know when it's going to happen, but it certainly is
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: beginning to happen now it's been going on. I mean,
- 1:35:33Speaker 1: you know these subscriptions, the Serious x M have gone up.
- 1:35:37Speaker 1: Look at the all the streaming services. Were you ever
- 1:35:42Speaker 1: approached by Serious XM? No? No, if they approach you,
- 1:35:47Speaker 1: would you be interested, I'd be interested. Yeah, i'd be
- 1:35:51Speaker 1: I'd be I talked to him. That's radio, okay. And
- 1:35:55Speaker 1: what's your view of serious XM? Um, it's not. The
- 1:36:01Speaker 1: stations aren't programmed as well as some stations, you know.
- 1:36:09Speaker 1: I don't think the stations are programmed as well as
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: they could be now. And I certainly grew up and
- 1:36:16Speaker 1: you grew up in the air whereas radio was king.
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: Is there any way to make radio king anymore? Or
- 1:36:22Speaker 1: we live in such an on demand culture can't happen.
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: I I think you've got the answer there. It's an
- 1:36:30Speaker 1: on demand culture, and I don't you know, it may
- 1:36:33Speaker 1: survive for longer, but I don't think it's gonna grow
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: unless something comes along this revolutionary and I doubt if
- 1:36:41Speaker 1: that's going to happen. And how did you end up
- 1:36:45Speaker 1: being part of Neil Young's journey through the past? God's sakes.
- 1:36:49Speaker 1: I was working in Nashville and I happen to know
- 1:36:53Speaker 1: this guy named Elliott Maser. I don't know where I
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: met him or how I knew him, but I knew him,
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: and he was helping Neil do a movie. As I
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: recalled this a long time ago, and I'm a I'm
- 1:37:06Speaker 1: a baby DJ super Shan on the air in Nashville, Tennessee,
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: and we get a call on the request line that
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: Neil Young wants to come by and do an interview.
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: I said, oh, okay, so I got a I had
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: an intern and uh he went, and you were on
- 1:37:27Speaker 1: the way. We'll be there in a half an hour.
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: It's a Friday night, and the kid goes and lets
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: him in the front door, but there's a film crew
- 1:37:37Speaker 1: with him. They didn't mention that, and this is in
- 1:37:40Speaker 1: the This is in the seventies when they had those
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: great big cameras. There were two of them, and he's
- 1:37:47Speaker 1: got his girlfriend with him at the time. That girl
- 1:37:50Speaker 1: that played Oh God, Diary of the Mad Housewife, Now
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: that was a movie she was in. She was a
- 1:37:58Speaker 1: girl lived in the attic. Right, it was a diagram Madhousewife. Yeah,
- 1:38:05Speaker 1: that was the movie. Okay, I forget all about it.
- 1:38:08Speaker 1: But I didn't know that it was his girlfriend. I
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: thought it was his wife. I remember, I screwed that
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: up and he left his wife and was carry Terry Snodgress.
- 1:38:20Speaker 1: That's it, That's who it was. Man reached back there.
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: So they walked into the control room and I had
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: no idea what was going on, and he just started
- 1:38:29Speaker 1: rolling and I interviewed him and played some contemplates, some
- 1:38:33Speaker 1: cuts from his album. Uh that was played some Buffalo
- 1:38:40Speaker 1: Springfield that he sang on and uh. The interview wasn't
- 1:38:44Speaker 1: very good, but it went out live on a Friday
- 1:38:47Speaker 1: night and h Elliott said, could you play that again
- 1:38:52Speaker 1: tomorrow night? So we shoot some scenes of them listening
- 1:38:55Speaker 1: to it in their hotel room. I said, okay, And
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: on Saturday also they picked me up and I took
- 1:39:02Speaker 1: him around Nashville for some shooting points. We went out
- 1:39:06Speaker 1: to the local drag strip, and I remember being in
- 1:39:09Speaker 1: the car with him and I was in the front
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: seat him and carrying the back seat, and they were
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: smoking a big bat joint and I didn't I didn't partake.
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: I had the window down because I was more of
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: a juicer then and uh, we went to the drag strip.
- 1:39:25Speaker 1: I said, come over here, this would be a good shot.
- 1:39:27Speaker 1: We had a one camera shoot going. And they had
- 1:39:30Speaker 1: some uh some guys there with a car and there's
- 1:39:34Speaker 1: a two black guys that were in the car and
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: they were getting ready to drag to run it. But
- 1:39:41Speaker 1: he said, yeah, and you know, looked at it. Why
- 1:39:44Speaker 1: this car said look at the name on the tail fin.
- 1:39:49Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Mr Soul, which is a song that it
- 1:39:53Speaker 1: took him a second to realize why. I was telling
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: you need to stand over here. But it is to
- 1:39:58Speaker 1: get it, you know. I was trying to suggests a
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: scene for the movie, you know. And uh and and
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: then uh, that night we we edited the interview down
- 1:40:08Speaker 1: and in the film, him and Carrier in their hotel
- 1:40:12Speaker 1: room listening to a Mickey Mouse plastic radio interviewing them
- 1:40:18Speaker 1: and they're smoking a big joint and that's in the
- 1:40:20Speaker 1: movie and flat flash flash forward years later. I was
- 1:40:27Speaker 1: at the at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- 1:40:30Speaker 1: at the Waldorf Hotel and I went into the bathroom
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: to relieve myself and he walks in. He's at the
- 1:40:40Speaker 1: unial next to me. He says, how's it going, Scott.
- 1:40:46Speaker 1: I had not seen him since the seventies in Elle,
- 1:40:51Speaker 1: and I'm going I'm fine. I couldn't cut out. Hellly
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: knew I was that. That was me that remember we
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: did them. He's going to a Remember we did that
- 1:41:01Speaker 1: movie together in Nashville. I forgot all about it. You're right,
- 1:41:05Speaker 1: but they put my picture on the album. It was
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: a fold open album. It was a stiff album and
- 1:41:11Speaker 1: a stef movie. But that was my first chance to
- 1:41:14Speaker 1: be in the movies. It was fun. Now we were
- 1:41:16Speaker 1: starting your your big fan of the pre Beatles fifties music,
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: and you talk about programming top forty stations after the
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: classic rock era. We are you a fan of that
- 1:41:31Speaker 1: FM rock? Are you a fan of these new music?
- 1:41:34Speaker 1: Are really you're a fan of the oldies. I like
- 1:41:36Speaker 1: I like music period. I like there's some great country music.
- 1:41:40Speaker 1: I'm nuts about. I like Blake Shelton song and I
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: I like a lot of country songs. I like a
- 1:41:49Speaker 1: song with a hook. I'm not really good. The first
- 1:41:52Speaker 1: time I ever heard the first time I've ever heard
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: Benny and the Jets, I didn't understand that it was good.
- 1:41:59Speaker 1: But I wouldn't even played it anyway. And then after
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: about ten spins, I got it many many many in
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: the Jets, but I didn't get it at first. I'm
- 1:42:08Speaker 1: more of a pop guy, you know. I like the Beatles.
- 1:42:13Speaker 1: My favorite Beatles album is Meet the Beatles. But you know,
- 1:42:18Speaker 1: most no one says that Serjian Pepper's Let It Be
- 1:42:22Speaker 1: or whatever. Well, my favorite in America's Beatles in England, uh,
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: the Beatles for Sale. It's got every little thing and
- 1:42:32Speaker 1: no reply whatever. If that's the one I lost. Rubber
- 1:42:34Speaker 1: Soul it was pretty hot too. I thought that was
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: a good album. I like Rubber Solo a lot. Listen,
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: they're all good, and I certainly you know in my
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: life as time going on has really penetrated. Any other
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: couple of other inside radio stories you want to share
- 1:42:49Speaker 1: with us, I'm done. I'm talked out. At six thirty
- 1:42:55Speaker 1: I gotta go to bed, so okay, then I'll ask
- 1:42:58Speaker 1: you one last question. Will you be remembered? Do you think?
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: And do you care? I really don't care. I did
- 1:43:08Speaker 1: what I want to do and I'm still doing what
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: I love to do. And um, I don't think anything.
- 1:43:14Speaker 1: I don't think people get remembered much anymore. I mean,
- 1:43:17Speaker 1: you know, when someone famous dies, man, they you know,
- 1:43:21Speaker 1: they play their records for a couple of weeks and
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: kind of fades out. Unfortunately, that's the way the world goes. Everybody.
- 1:43:30Speaker 1: You know, there's something new that takes the attention away
- 1:43:34Speaker 1: right away. Well, I'm gonna let you go to sleep.
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: I was at the end of my time anyway. And Scott,
- 1:43:42Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking the
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: time to talk to me in my audience. Well, I
- 1:43:46Speaker 1: enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Well,
- 1:43:49Speaker 1: I could analyze why, but I'll just accept that as
- 1:43:52Speaker 1: it is. So because you know, you're you're, you're, you're
- 1:43:57Speaker 1: dangerously precise in a lot of areas, and that it was.
- 1:44:01Speaker 1: You know, I read your stuff. I read you when
- 1:44:04Speaker 1: you're upset, I read you when you're not a fan,
- 1:44:07Speaker 1: and you know you go up and down, and then
- 1:44:10Speaker 1: you're lovable and make me cry thinking about some of
- 1:44:14Speaker 1: the when you bring back the memories of the summer
- 1:44:17Speaker 1: camps and all that kind of stuff. I enjoy your
- 1:44:19Speaker 1: writing and uh you have a marvelous uh sphere of
- 1:44:25Speaker 1: experience and thoughts. Now you're gonna make me cry. Now
- 1:44:30Speaker 1: you're just you know, I like it, and you're smart
- 1:44:34Speaker 1: enough to list the complaint letters when they go, Man,
- 1:44:39Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a good world and you're finally
- 1:44:42Speaker 1: figuring out a way to monetize it. Absolutely. But on
- 1:44:46Speaker 1: that note, we're gonna call it a day. Scott, thanks
- 1:44:49Speaker 1: for the time. Until next time, it's Bob left Sex