The Midnight Jamboree WEVD (part 2)

Gene King, left. very camera shy.

In 2012 I wrote an article about the Midnight Jamboree which debuted on 1300 WEVD-AM in 1936. I did not expect I would need to write a Part 2 at the time. I used the sources I had available at the time and it felt fairly complete. A recent comment from a reader [HERE] pointed out that personal letters between Ev Suffens (stage name for Raymond Nelson) and writer Ayn Rand, describe Suffens as the host of Midnight Jamboree. The problem is that multiple sources also name Gene King as the host. Someone on the internet was wrong, and it might be me; so I revisited the subject.

Back in 2012 I rarely cited sources. It seemed unnecessary with informal writing like a blog.  It was my readers questions (and even researchers questions) which drove me to cite sources initially for my own use. I think my original source was the Arnold Passman book The DeeJays. [SOURCE] It does not specifically say that King is the host but Passman refers to the program as Gene King's; full apostrophe S. In 1942 the Ohio state University Monthly [SOURCE] specifically stated:

"...[King] started announcing for WEVD, became after a time, chief announcer and conducted the tremendously popular "Midnight Jamboree," New York's all-night recorded music program, to which an estimated 300,000 turned for nocturnal entertainment."

The Chief Announcer claim is corroborated in the 1939 Radio Annual. [SOURCE] The book Music in the Air also lists him as the host. "New York contemporaries of Symphony Sid included Gene King, whose Midnight Jamboree on WEVD (Eugene V. Debs) featured
current bands and vocalists..." [SOURCE]

Gene King, probably U. Ohio grad pic

The earliest I can place King by citation, at WEVD, was August of 1937. He's named, alongside Bill Resnick as station staff in an issue of Billboard. [SOURCE] This aligns pretty well with the date from that Ohio State publication stating that he was in Spain "..when the Franco revolt broke out..." that would be July 1936. That's a good source but I had more.  The UC Law Journal of Race and Economics [SOURCE] mentioned King at WEVD in a foot note referencing a New York Daily News article in November of 1939. Maybe the most important citation I found is Broadcasting Vol. 19, No. 8 of October 1940 [SOURCE] which specifically states:

"Gene King has resigned as conductor of the daily program Jamboree on WEVD, New York, from midnight to 4 a.m. to preside over a daily record series on WOR, Newark, entitled Danceland, which started Oct. 14, 3-3:30 p.m"

 

So it's clear that Gene King was the host of the Midnight Jamboree for a period of time, starting in 1936 and ending in 1940. But we also know the program ran into 1942, so clearly King was not the only host. Was he the first? 

The first Ayn Rand letter to Ev Suffens is dated April 6th. [SOURCE] Notably this is before King returned from Europe. Dismuke.org cites this as well. [SOURCE] But the answer is back in those Ayn Rand letters. In her June 10th letter [SOURCE] she complains about the new announcer of the Midnight Jamboree. She does not name him, but does criticize his playing of Jazz. (Gasp!)  So Ed Suffens was only the host prior to June of 1936. How much earlier did the program begin?

The Daily Worker reported the radio schedule of WEVD, WEAF, WOR, WABC, and WJZ daily from 1924 through 1936. So in reviewing those schedules, we can say with confidence that February 20th, 1936 was the first episode of the Midnight Jamboree. [SOURCE] Prior to that time, the midnight slot was held by a dance program, and usually preceded by an opera program. Ev Suffens was only host from February to June of 1936, a period of about 6 months. 

The DJ name Ev Suffens only appears rarely outside in the letter of Ayn Rand. The name appears in Variety in October of 1933 as the former director of the Provincetown Playhouse, then launching a drama and Opera studio. [SOURCE]. Then in the 1938 Radio Annual he's listed as the chief announcer at WEVD. [SOURCE] He seems to stop using the name after that. But a Raymond E. Nelson starts directing TV programs in the early 1940s and that may be him. That Ray Nelson later became the VP of the NTA film network. 

But who then was hosting the Midnight Jamboree after King left in 1940? There is a little disambiguation. There was a Gene King at KCTO in Columbia, LA in the late 1960s and another at WPCH in 1932. [SOURCE] Neither of these is our Gene King. King went on to WOR, and then WCOP as reported in Part 1. After King left the program, it's profile declined significantly. You might think it ended but for two references... 

One of the last references to the Midnight Jamboree was in a September 1942 issue of Broadcasting Magazine. [SOURCE] It does not name the host. It's also mentioned in Radio Daily. [SOURCE] They both probably got the same press release for Carl Post's piano gig on the show. But a 1941 issue of Billboard lists the host as David Niles.

 "Those stayer-uppers who tune into Station WEVD here for the nightly dance music kicks offered by the titularly swing-tinted Midnight Jamboree must think they have the wrong wave-length, unless they're used to the clever introduction given the show by its conductor, David Niles, who is also the station's chief announcer."

I had thought that was the end of it but a 1958 issue of Downbeat lists the show still on air. [SOURCE] The formerly 4-hour weeknight program had become just a 3-hour Sunday special. In1947, Ernest Tubb's Midnite Jamboree on WSM had overshadowed it, absconding with the name. David Niles obituary in the New York times [SOURCE] states that he started his career on WMCA in 1933 after a career in the stage and silent movies. He was the chief announcer at WEVD for 37 years. Sources confirm his presence at the station well into the 1960s. Billboard describes him as the News Director in 1966. [SOURCE]

You can hear Niles voice on a transcription disc from 1948. [LINK] Billboard confirms Niles was the Jamboree host, as early as 1940. [SOURCE]  Note that it's absent from this radio schedule [LINK] which otherwise places Niles on a talk program.  I suspect he took the Jamboree over from King directly. But there could have been a gap, and the earliest reference I can cite is this very critical July 1941 quote in Variety. [SOURCE]

"Manhattan has five stations on the air 'till 4 a.m., WHOM, WHN, WEVD, WNEW and WOR. After four o'clock just WNEW and WOR fight it out; WHN quits at three. But it plays the loudest records, positively. If a disk is just wild that's not enough for WHN, it's got to be frantic... Sunday nights David Niles (WEVD) has New York to himself from three to four. And what does he do with it? Nothing. Davey ought to change that maudlin paragraph Introducing his final 15-minutes in which he 'rests, relaxes, and reminisces.' Hear it twice and it starts to take on a comedy angle, But Davey must like it because he serves it regularly at 3:45."

It seem like Suffens started the Midnight Jamboree, and Gene King built it into a popular jazz-inflected program. Then Niles went back to a very mellow classical playlist. Rand would have been pleased but apparently popular listeners were not.

DJ AJ Fritz

 

Lehigh radio host Alfred Henry Fritzinger Jr., known to many as AJ Fritz. He was the host of the rock radio show “FritzRocks” that began in 1996 on 91.3 WLVR-FM where he won the annual Lehigh Valley Music Award for Best College/Community Radio Personality six consecutive times. More here. 

His program also appears to have been broadcast on WMUH at least in 2023 and 2024 according to Spinitron. At WLVR Fritz had the title "Chief Operator" an unusual title. In 2016 the Radio & cable Industry Guide listed him more simply as Station Manager. Back in 2015 The Lehigh Bulletin [SOURCE] quoted Fritzinger:

“Most college radio stations are run by outside entities, and many college radio stations have sold their licenses... he lifeblood of this station is our students.”

The history of WLVR-FM goes back to 1946, when it was affiliated with the Lehigh student newspaper, The Brown and White. That campus paper, and many other local publications ran Fritzinger's obituary. In 2014 he oversaw tower improvements and a power increase at WLVR from 33 to 200 watts. That increase may not sound like much but it changed the station from a local Bethlehem/Allentown station to one that reached distant suburbs. 170 Meters HAAT can do that.

Born in 1957 in the Lehigh valley, he spent his 20s living in Brooklyn, NY and working at Goldman Sachs.  Fritzinger was on air at the Bethlehem radio stations 1100 WGPA-AM in the 1980s and 96.5 WZZO-FM in the mid-‘90s. But what he was quoted most often about was WLVR. 

 

Fritzinger is a relatively uncommon surname, but I've never found a single trade magazine that mentioned his name, not at WZZO or WGPA or anywhere really other than WLVR. But you can see his Surname in Leigh High School year books from the 1930s. His family has been in the area a long time. Perhaps a distant relative, George Fritzinger owned a dozen radio stations on the west coast including KKOB, KAZN and KFAC. [SOURCE] But I really do hope he's related to George H. Fritzinger, who worked at the "Telediphone Department" under Thomas Edison in the 1930s. [SOURCE]

Fritzinger was a liver transplant recipient in 2013 and died December 31st, 2024.  A memorial was held at Fearless Fire Co. #14 Mach 29th 2026. [LINK]  He was only 67. His family asked that donations be made to The Gift of Life House. [LINK]

 

Sherrif Tom Owen's Cowboys on WMT

 

June 18th, 1953 - Eldora, IA

The first thing you might notice about Tom Owen's Cowboy's is that their leader, and namesake is at least 20 years older than the rest of the group. I'll get to that in a moment. Their first appearance in the Radio Guide is in December of 1938. The 15-minute show aired M-F in the morning. Different Radio Guides have them at 10:45, 11:00 and 11:15 depending, but all times CST. In the 1940s their slot moved around, and they began playing the "WMT News" Program on Wednesdays at 1:45 exclusively. In 1941 they moved around and played more Noon and 1:00 slots, playing a 15 minute spot before :Voice of Iowa News." Joe Doakes appears to have taken the news/music role.

Most of what I know about the line up of Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys' starts with three post cards which have hand notes identifying the members. None of them have been mailed, so we have no dates attached to any of the three. But I have some dating conjecture... Let's start with that short discography:

Label	Sides	Year
Mercury	A New Ten Gallon Hat / You Can't Cry Over My Shoulder	1946
Mercury	Down By The Railroad Tracks / The Freight Train Blues	1946
Mercury	Don't Say You Love Me If You Don't / Baby You Done Flubbed Your Dub With Me	1946
Dome	Down In The Sweetheart Valley / Hey! Hey! Ioway Polka	1948
Mercury	Just Because / My Darling Tell Me True	1948
Dome	I Send Back Your Letters / The Trouble With Me Is You	1949
Mastertone	Man, Man, What A Band / The Cowboy's Dream	????

Their entire known discography consists of seven 78s all released between 1946 and 1949. Some of their 78's attribute song writers, but none that were definitively written by band members. Even the Owen behind (W-1010-A) "Man, Man What A Band" is Harry Y. Owen. That disc is interesting. It is also one of the few items in their historiography which lacks a WMT logo, and Tom Owen lacks the title Sheriff. I suspect it's their first release, and that it came early in the WMT radio program because Mastertone was a local Des Moines, IA label. It did credit some players: Chuck & Johnny on side A and Jim, Chuck & Johnny on side B. So I believe those three belong to the original line up.

But Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys' had a few different line ups. The image above looks like Tom (calling), Charles "Chuck" Youtzy (trumpet), Mibs Allen (drums), Johnny Lyons (accordion), Harold "Bub" Goodwick (clarinet), and Jim Pye (bass).  It's similar to the below pose but the bass drum head is different as is the line up. It look more like a candid than a pose because of the gap between Tom and Jim.

The line up below is Tom (calling), Jerry (accordion), Don Wachal (Clarinet), Mibs Allen (drums), Johnny Kettleson (guitar), Bub (trumpet) and Jim (bass).  Supposedly at some point Leo Greco played accordion. (I've added surnames where possible) More here. Tom Owen's sheriff costume was really just a suit and a badge but sometimes he wore two holsters on his hips with pistols.

I found another image (below) with a line up that looks like Tom, Chuck, Don Wachal, Mibs, Bub Goodwick, Gene and Jim. There's also one of them piled in a wagon: Tom, Chuck, Don, Mibs, Bub, Johnny, Jim and Don...  I take this horse carriage promo picture to be the latest one. The band is wearing monogrammed chaps. More here. In January of 1946 they got a write up in Billboard claiming they were booked solid for all of 1946. 

This phenomenal gent was Sheriff Tom Owen and His Cowboys, a six-piece band that does a business which makes other combos envious. Playing in a 100 -mile radius of Cedar Rapids, IA., where the cowboys play a daily program on Station WMT, the band is the hottest thing for box-office receipts to hit the territory. The band will gross $72,000 for 1945 plays 1,400 - 1,600 consistently...

Billboard went on to explain they play the old-time music of 25 years ago with a zip to it, westerns, Hillbilly and some modern. By Modern he means 1940s country. That's a funny thought, today we'd call it all country oldies. Tom Owen's career apparently goes back to WLS where he was a square dance caller where he worked for 13 years. The trio recorded 8 sides in Gennett’s studio, in Richmond, Indiana on February 1926.

Artist biographies are often embellished but Tom Owens recorded previously was the Tom Owen's WLS Barn Dance Trio which whom he recorded 7 discs in 1926 and 1927. [SOURCE] The members of that band are poorly documented but Tom Owen is a given, and Tommy Dandurand is credited as the fiddler player on most of them, something musicologists grant is possible. Those discs were issued on Silvertone, Challenge and Gennett. One article about the WLS Barn Dance Trio reports that Tom Owen is from Missouri.

I don't think that's Tom Own's only bands.  One Gennett discography reports that the band uses the name Uncle John Harvey’s Old Time Dance Orchestra on Herwin. [SOURCE]  I also found an image where Tom Owen is posed next to a group with a bass drum painted with the logo for "Tom Owen's WLS Entertainers." I also found a few Gennetts with the name Tom Owen's Barnstormers, a newspaper listing Tom Owen's Cornhuskers. I think that's the band with Matt Hickey. It's all probably the same group, more or less affiliated with the WLS Barn Dance. (discography below) More here.

The WLS Barn Dance was only debuted on April 19, 1924. So Tom Owen was a very early figure. For his start the book Exploring Roots Music by Nolan Porter told the story. "As a listener that night, I remember that a request went out for a square dance caller and the announcer reported: "Tom Owen, a hospital worker, telephoned that he used to call dances down home in Missouri and he'll be right over." Such things did happen in those early days of radio. The story is canonized in the 1969 book Prairie Farmer and WLS by James Evans.

The Daily Iowan 10-10-1952

The National Barn Dace website lists Tom among the early stars. "Early stars of the National Barn Dance included Tommy Dandurand, Tom Owens, Chubby Parker, Pie Plant Pete, Walter Peterson, Rube Tronson and Cecil & Ethel Ward among others." [SOURCE] You wouldn't think a square dance caller was such a big deal but they were re-creating a type of music which was already considered old-timey. As the Barn Dance Trio Tom Owen's recorded the below. You can see the later three are re-releases.

Richard Peterson in the book Creating Country Music claimed that Square dance calling only constituted part of the WLS Barn Dance radio program from 1924 to 1929. That could have also been the end of Tom Owen on the program but a 1935 issue of Radio Guide suggests Tom Owen was still on air. We know he was at WMT in late 1938 so instead of a gap there may even be an overlap.

Label	Sides	Year
Silvertone	Ocean Waves / Kings Head	1926
Silvertone	Stoney Point / Buffalo Girls	1926
Silvertone	Buckwheat Batter / The Irish Washerwoman	1926
Silvertone	Hell On The Wabash / McLeod's Reel	1926
Gennett	Stoney Point / Ocean Waves	*1926
Gennett	Buckwheat Batter / Hell On The Wabash	*1926
Challenge	Ocean Waves / Buffalo Girls	*1927
Herwin	Buckwheat Batter / Hell On The Wabash	????

In 1949 Tom Owen appeared with Pat Barrett, aka Uncle Ezra, Bradley Kincaid, Malcolm Clair, and Joe Kelly to celebrate the 25th birthday of the WLS Barn Dance. In September 1952 Feedstuffs (a trade newspaper for the feed industry" listed Tom Owen and his Cowboys playing an industry event. Then he appeared again in 1952 for it's 28th birthday alongside Ford Rush and Glenn Roswell. In 1952 there's an ad for a dance Tom Owen's Cowboys are playing, it refers to their 16th WMT anniversary. That'd put their start in 1936 or 1937. This may even overlap with Tom's time touring with his Entertainers in 1937 as a "WLS artist" but probably no longer on the air at the Barn Dance.

Tom Owen died in 1956. Variety wrote "Tom Owens, 63 bandleader who headed a western music group known as Tom Owens's Cowboys died May 27th in Cedar Rapids, IA after a long illness. He joined radio station WMT, Cedar Rapids, in 1937 and continued with that outlet until his illness. Surviving are his wire, daughter and son." The Cowboys had been on WMT for about 20 years. Owen's radio tenure included at least another 10+ years  at WLS.

Arlington Heights Herald, 07-29-1932

In January and February of 1958 Sponsor and Broadcasting magazine carried an ads for a country special on WMT, Noontime RFD, which lists Tom Owen's Cowboys. But there the trail ends. Some ads for that Noontime RFD program co-branded Owen and Johnny Kettleson. The group photo no longer includes Owen but they kept his name at least on the print ads. 

Johnny Kettleson played with his own band from the early 1950s into the early 1970s. Their short-lived accordionist Leo Grecco started Leo & The Pioneers, which eventually became the Leo Greco band. He broke into television and started his own WMT-AM radio program on Sunday mornings "Variety Time" which ran for decades. Charles "Chuck" Youtzy might have become an electric utility worker at Jo-Carroll Electric. Harold ‘Bub’ Goodwick had previously been in the Glen Victoria Band and he left Tom Owen's  Cowboys in 1949. In 1952 he started Bub and His Boys in Illinois with his brother Donovan. He continued to perform until his death in 1991. Like with Tom Owen, his band carried on for another few years. [SOURCE] 

But in a strange kind of serendipity Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys were mentioned in Billboard in 1995. Mercury released a 50th anniversary Country music box set which included 73 artists who recorded between 1945 and 1995. The first name was Sheriff Tom, the last name was Shania Twain. What a mismatched  pair of bookends.

Joe Gould was not a DJ

I was reading the book Here Is New York by E.B. White. This was published in 1949, he had already written Stewart Little, but it's that's before Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). On page 11 is a single sentence that is all too interesting.  

"I am.. thirty-six blocks from the spot where historian Joe Gould kicked a radio to pieces in full view of the public..."

Most outlandish stories are only true if you squint a little. But an article in Art Forum about Alice Neel seemed to corroborate it. [SOURCE]  It adds a little context but we still don't know where, when or why it happened. Gould lived from 1889 to 1957. Other than that it happened before 1949 we know very little at this point.

"His mother died and left him some money and he bought a radio and smashed it on the curb. He bought a typewriter and smashed that too."

Gould's own history provides very little by way of a timeline. His arrival in New York is prior to the existence of commercial radio. By 1952 Gould was mostly infirm and unable to break apart a radio with a bat sledgehammer or any other contrivance. In between he was a feral bohemian, living on ketchup and beer to paraphrase one account. The periodical Our Time described the incident as well, but in similar terms, only adding motive.

Some of it he used in a personal protest against the trend of social progress in the United States —he went into a radio shop, bought a big shiny new wireless set, dragged it into Sixth Avenue and there kicked it into pieces. This gesture has so far had little effect on the trend of "progress" in any country ...Joe Gould contentedly kicking his radio to bits in the middle of the street might move us, stirring a little sympathy and some surprise . For that matter any glimpse of another's private world is strange.

It's well documented that Gould was a denizen of Washington Square. It's worth mentioning that Sixth Avenue is a block West of Washington Square Park.  Joe Gould first set foot in Greenwich Village, in 1916 or 1917. Radio was still an experimental pursuit of hobbyists. He was a a very eccentric bohemian, probably was autistic, and possibly insane. On his rare uptown excursions from Greenwich Village, you could sometimes find Gould in the main Reading Room of the New York Public Library. Here, Gould took prolific notes in what he described as an Oral History of the World. The problem was as Joseph Mitchell would reveal in 1965 in his book Joe Gould's Secret, that the Oral History book didn't exist. 

The Bridgewater Review (Vol 25, Issue #2)  also described the radio smashing incident. [SOURCE] This version invokes a different motive and changes the venue again. Now it's not the curb, it's Washington Square, and this time he has a bat. 

"Another antic, considered performance art by some later 20th century scholars, involved his smashing radios with a baseball bat in Washington Square as a protest against capitalism during the Depression."

If we go back to the E.B. White account, White is situated in midtown, at an unnamed hotel. The date is uncertain but clearly prior to it's publication in 1949. By his own telling he was then 36 blocks away. He could have meant from Washington Square. The boundaries of Midtown are not very defined. The northern border is always central park, 58th street. But the southern boundary is anywhere from 14th to 34th street. So that's unhelpful. The brilliant Diana Rosenthal Roberson identified the venue as the Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street. It's still there today. [SOURCE] With that confirmed, I count 37 blocks, 36 gets him to 8th Street and Waverly Pl. Maybe he counted Bryant Park as one block. 

Roberson herself politely rates the incident slightly better than apocryphal. Who knows? Looking for some chronology I reexamined E.B. White's tale where he lists off a series prior events in Manhattan. Some of the events were in the distance past like the hanging of Nathan Hale but also one from 1937; Hemingway slapping Max Eastman. Note that White exaggerated that account, the slap becomes a punch. He also exaggerated Gould's role as a historian but he may not have known that in 1949. 

Back to Joseph Mitchell. In 1965 he also repeats he story. But here Mitchell repeats it alongside a parable from Max Gordon, the proprietor of the Village Vanguard Club. Gordon explains that Gould was a bohemian, and basically felt "miserable" having money, he just spent it. Then came another version of the story.

"While Gould was spending his inheritance, he did one things that satisfied him deeply. He bought a big, shiny radio and took it out on Sixth Avenue and kicked it to pieces." 

If you believe the inheritance version of the story I'm sorry to report, Gould's genealogy is unhelpful. His mother was Amanda Evelyn Gould (née Vroom) and his father Dr. Clarke Storer Gould. His father died in 1919. His father's obituary clearly states that he leaves behind "...a wife, a son, Joseph F. Gould, a daughter, Miss Hilda P Gould and a brother, Junius B. Gould of Boston." [SOURCE] It is not known when his mother was born or died. Historians claim his mother was born about 1862 and was married in 1888 at the age of 25. She would have been about 57 when her husband died. The actuarial tables tell us she probably died in the next 10-15 years which roughly lines up with a data from another, very different version of the tale. The Village Voice Reader, published in 1962 tells the most detailed version of the tale. 

 "Someone told a story about how Joe Gould had once won a television set in a jingle contest he had entered. He had given the Minetta Tavern, on MacDougal Street, as his address. Joe was in the tavern when the contest people called to confirm the address, and he asked them to deliver it there that afternoon. When the set arrived, Joe asked that it be set down on the sidewalk in front of Minetta's. Then he went to a garage across the street to borrow a sledgehammer. The presentation was made with a little ceremony, and Joe went Wham!, smashing the set to smithereens." 

Here we have a new venue and a somewhat more certain time frame. Prohibition ended in 1933. Minetta Tavern opened in 1937.  It was a popular stop for many writers of the day, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Eugene O'Neill, Lucien Carr, E.E. Cummings, and Dylan Thomas. The bar re-opened in 2009 and is still located at 113 Macdougal Street. That's a block south of the park and a block east of Sixth Avenue. It's still the right neighborhood. If you are wondering, TV sets became much more common after WWII, though there were retail models even in the 1930s. 

This story was clearly well mythologized even in Gould's own lifetime. Normally I favor the the most contemporary account, but that's the E.B. White version and it's short on details. The Village Voice account has the most details but it came only after his death in 1957 and among those details, the 1937 date is iffy because it's the same year the tavern opened. Where was Gould drinking before 1937? We do not know. His name is so synonymous with Minetta Tavern it makes a likely venue for the incident.  In the Mythbusters sense of the word, I'll grant it's plausible. Believe what you like. 

DJ Dopey Duncan

 

Born in 1920, Luther W. Gehringer was better known as “Dopey Duncan.” His career spanned four decades as a Pennsylvania radio personality, musician, comedian and entertainer. I discovered him through a 90-minute cassette I found in a box of mixed used tapes. It was marked "WXKW Dopey Duncan with the date 5-27-1990" on the front. I quickly learned that this program aired only a few weeks after his death. [SOURCE] There isn't a single word online about this program. My copy may be the only one, or the only copy left. My theory is that it may have belonged to one of those folks in that studio 35 years ago, probably now deceased. 

I have digitized and uploaded that digital audio HERE. 

From the library of Jose Fritz

At the time of the recording, 1470 WXKW-AM was part of the HGF Media Group which included: WLSH-AM, Lansford; WMIM-AM, Mt. Carmel; WKHL-AM, Salladasburg; WSPI-AM, Shamokin;  WMGH-AM, Tamaqua; and WXKY-AM/WQXA-FM, York. The radio program was a special, but the host said that the Country Hall of Fame show was ongoing, weekly. The host introduced himself as "Old Cactus Ed" and in the studio with him were friends of Dopey Duncan: Les Baer, Paul Galgon, and Ken Happel. He goes on to include  station management like  Chris Collier, PD, Harold G. Fulmer III the station owner, Bob "Monk" Rabenold GM, and Rick Musselman GM of the HGF Media group who suggested they put the special together.  

The tape label further lists the names Ed Baumer and Sammy Anderson. Edwin G. Baumer did mid-days at WXKW through at least 2007 closing out a 35 year radio career. Ed was best known as “Cactus Ed” on WXKW. He also worked at WZZO, WKAP, WEEU, WRFY, WHUM, WGPA, WSAN, and WHOL. Likewise, Sammy Anderson was both staff and a guest, he was their station manager back in the 1970s. He knew Duncan personally and in 1992 the Morning Call newspaper stated that they were both "part of the golden era" of WKAP. Sammy started out as a newscaster in Erie and Lancaster, and then moved to radio starting at WNAR in Norristown. Over 5 decades he worked at WSAN, WAEB, WEZV, WKAP and WXKW. Sammy the station manager when WXKW changed to a country format in 1977 when the station was still owned by Rust Communications. Famously from 1998-2000, Sammy was host of “The Sinatra Hours” on WKAP. At one point Sammy also had an afternoon call-in show there called “What’s on Your Mind?”

A little disambiguation: The station we now call WSAN, and was WXKW in 1990 was WKAP from 1995–2006. This gets confusing in this story because the "original" WKAP we will discuss here was 1320 AM, also in Allentown, PA. Today it's 1320 WTKZ-AM, but the station signed on in 1947 a 1,000 watt daytimer on 1580. It held the WKAP calls from 1947–1994 and is the station these people mean when they speak of WKAP. When Les Baer talks about doing mornings with Duncan for 18 years, he's describing 1954 - 1972 at that station. A 1958 issue of Broadcast cites their program as Hooper Rating as #1 in the market. In the mid fifties Paul Galgon did an afternoon show together called the Cross Roads store. That lasted 3-4 years. Gehringer ultimately spent about 24 years on WKAP. It may feel incongruous but in the 1950s WKAP was an MOR station which in 1972, flipped to Adult Contemporary.

Gehringer was born and raised in Allentown, PA and according to his obituary, Duncan's singing career began in 1941. One blog claimed that he performed on WSAN Barn Dance in 1939. I can't corroborate that claim, or even the existence of that show, but he would have been 19 years old. In character he wore a recognizable costume: a checkered suit, big goofy hat, string bow tie and trademark oversized yellow shoes. His obituary describes his live weekly broadcasts from a ranch mock up in Dorney Park's Castle Gardens in South Whitehall Township. He took stage dunking an oversized doughnut in an oversized cup; a vaudevillian trope. It's not said in most bios but Duncan served in WWII in the U.S. Army's 124th Horse Cavalry in Burma. That was probably 1942 - 1945. Merrill's Marauders started their activity in 1943. They were so effective that all the soldiers of Merrill's Marauders were each awarded the Bronze Star. There is something important here to be said about his psychology but I'm not qualified to say it.

Despite the 1941 start date, the earliest print references to Dopey Duncan appear in 1945 after his return from WWII.  In May of that year The Chronicle newspaper describes him as a "Show Clown" performing alongside the Ozark Mountaineers. Another account has him as the stage comic for Willis Meyers, that's probably Willis's his Bar X Ranch Boys 1947-ish. Meyers also performed with "His Swing Band" in the 1940s. (That'd be Western Swing of course.)

By 1947 Gehringer was his own headliner performing with a band as Dopey Duncan and the Top Hands. Thought one ad in 1947 instead refers to Dopey Duncan and "His Gang." These may not have been very formal groups as later that month he performed with "his Melody Rangers." In those ads he played dinner events, Outdoor markets and carnivals every month. By 1948 the group name seems to have settled on Top Hands. His first known appearance in a trade magazine was in Cash Box in February of 1952. In a March of Dimes Radio event Dopey Duncan is listed from WKAP. [SOURCE]

"From 9:00 P.M. to the early hours of the morning, deejays alternated on stage with their turntables, spinning disks to the joy of over 2,000 dancers. In sequence, the following jockeys appeared: Paul Galgon, WKAP; Syd Paul, WHOL; Clem Walters, WAEB; Dopey Duncan, WKAP; Marshall Cleaver, WKAP; Ted Weider, WHOL; Art Getz, WSAN; Betty Lou George and Vern Craig,- WKAP; and Tom Early and Joe Prentiss, WAEB. For a two-hour period, three of the. Allentown stations carried the d.j. proceedings direct from the ballroom."

The tape opens with some oldies. The first song on the tape is "Riding Down to Santa Fe" and dates to 1946, sourced from a transcription. Les Baer gives the band members as Dick Layton, Kenny Happel, Norm Arlen, Art Martin, Ralph "Spoony" Spohn. I think Spoony is the same fellow who played fiddle for Uncle Jack & Mary Lou back in 1939, and sometimes performed with the Sleepy Hollow Ranch Gang. He may or may not have played with them on the Hayloft Hoedown at WFIL. The second song on the tape is from 1947, "Will You Be My Darling." The line up was Dick Layton, Kenny Happel, Art Martin, Spooney Spawn on fiddle and Bill Foscht (sp) on accordion. (Pardon any errors on these names, some of these folks are obscure and there's no way to confirm spelling.) Later on the tape were modern solo acoustic recordings, mostly gospel tunes. 

But back to that tribute broadcast for a bit. WXKW started out as WSAN-AM today but had the WXKW calls from 1985 to 1995. It claims to be the oldest station in the Lehigh Valley; which at the very least means it's one Dopey would have known, if not performed on.  The station has it's roots in two predecessors. The first signed on as WCBA on May 24th, 1923 initially broadcasting out of Heimbach's Kaumagraph Repair Shop. At the time they broadcast at just 5 watts on 1070 kHz. Two years later they relocated to 1180 kHz. WSAN received its first license on June 30, 1923, issued to the Allentown Radio Club for 10 watts on 1310 kHz

In 1927 WCBA and WSAN had to share time on 1350 KHz. Together they moved to 1500 kHz and then 1440 kHz and eventually 1470 in 1941. They were hopelessly twinned.  In early 1937, an application was filed to formally consolidate the two stations under the WSAN call sign with the two stations sharing stock in the owning company WSAN, Inc. Dopey may have been on FM in the 1940s. In 1947, WSAN-FM was added, originally on 95.9, then moved to 99.9 but it was deleted in 1956. I believe that station was a simulcast in most of that era. It became WKAP in 1995.

Gehringer appears in the Morning call News paper in 1955 singing, and telling jokes but in an article written in Pennsylvania Dutch, which I can tell you... is very confusing for Google Translate. It thinks it's in Luxembourgian, but it's sort of readable. His morning show with Les Baer was called “Two on the Sunny Side.” The Morning call newspaper claims that ran for 18 years. By the mid 1960s Dopey was doing live broadcasts on Sunday mornings of a brunch radio show from the locally renowned Walp's Restaurant on Route 22, it later moved to  911 Union Blvd in Allentown, PA.  The restaurant closed in 1998.

Who's Who in Television and Radio #5 (1955)

Malvern records released a few 45s with Dopey in the 1960s. His one self-produced LP was recorded live from Walps Restaurant. [SIDE A] and [SIDE B] That record definitely went through multiple pressings. More here. He also had an undated 8-Track released, it has 3 tracks of comedy and 3 songs on the 4th track. It was also probably self released. The American Heart Association released a 90-minute Dopey Duncan tape as a fundraiser in 1991. A description of that tape reports that it was recordings of his old 1950s WKAP program. Apparently that's quite rare now. [SOURCE].

Gehringer semi-retired to Eustis, FL in 1977, at the age of 57 and began playing locally. He survived a stroke in 1986 and was partially paralyzed, which he mostly recovered from. In 1988 Dopey gave a speech at a roast. His closing statement from that event closes out the tape. You can see that video here, and the associated blog post here. He didn't revisit his material from the fifties. Instead he performed new material and had a whole stand up routine about being elderly and living the retired life in Florida. He even talked about his stroke, and recovery. 

Despite those serious moments the recording is utterly hilarious. He even does some Pennsylvania Dutch. But he says nothing about WKAP. So while it's not rich with radio history, it's a real taste of why Duncan was so popular in his day.  He died in 1990 at the age of 77, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound seated in his backyard. I almost skipped that part but you can hear in the voices of his friends something that remained otherwise unsaid. All his peers passed on over the next 20 years. Ralph "Spoony" Spohn died in 2001 [SOURCE]. Sammy Anderson died in 2002 [SOURCE]. Les Baer died in 2015 [SOURCE], Paul Galgon Sr. in 2001, and Ken Happel in 2019. Ed Baumer died in 2021 [SOURCE].