1160 Club

At the height of his radio career, Dave Garroway hosted a late-night jazz program on WMAQ-AM in Chicago. It was one of the most important programs in the history of Chicago Jazz and is hard to over-rate in it's significance. He had a deep smooth voice and it matched his taste in music. He followed that with wild success in television. More here.

Garroway wasn't a Chicago local. He was born in Schenectady, NY in 1913. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and became a lab assistant. that didn't work out so he tried being a salesman. While pedaling books in New York he had a chance meeting with a woman who ran the pages at NBC. He signed up in 1938 and was running errands in no time. While there he attended NBC's school for announcers. It's been said that he graduated almost dead last in his class; 23rd in a class of 24.

After graduating in 1939, Garroway dumped his page gig got a job at KDKA-AM. He got a reputation there as a roving announcer. He did stories from hot air balloons, a U.S. Navy submarine in the Ohio River, and from inside a coal mine. But in 1941 like many others he enlisted in the Navy in WWII. . While stationed in Honolulu, he hosted a jazz radio show when off duty.

After he returned from WWII, Garroway became a DJ at WMAQ-AM. There he hosted a series of radio programs: The 1160 Club in 1946, the Dave Garroway Show in 1948, Reserved for Garroway in 1952, and Dial Dave Garroway from 1950 to 1953. In 1954 he started another program Fridays with Dave Garroway that ran into 1955. But it wasn't just broadcasting that made Garroway. He also hustled hard to organize jazz concerts, creating what's now described as a "Jazz Circuit" of local clubs in 1947. He brought jazz to a level of prominence in Chicago that it had in few other cities. From 1949 to 1954 he hosted Garroway At Large. a somewhat experimental TV variety program. NBC carried it live from Chicago. In 1951, he became the first host of NBC's Today Show which had had to co-host with a monkey. He stayed on until 1961 despite being bitten by the monkey. He went back to radio and hosted the NBC program Monitor.

He was voted the best DJ in America in Billboard magazine in 1948, 1949, and 1951. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But despite the success and accolades he suffered form depression. He shot himself  on July 21, 1982. He was 69 years old.

Daddy-O Daylie

Holmes "Daddy-O" Daylie had long career and one minor black radio first. He was the first African-American hosting a regularly scheduled radio show on a Chicago network owned and operated radio station. It has a couple qualifiers, but it counts. His radio career ran for almost 40 years, that requires no qualification. In Chicago his name is mentioned right alongside Jack L. Cooper, Al Benson and Sam Evans. Daddy-O first got on air at WMAQ in 1956. He was doing a late-night slot airing jazz and jive talk. More here. As Dempsey Travis once said, Daylie "was to rhyme what Michael Jordan was to basketball or what Redd Foxx was to comedy."

He was a Chicago transplant,born in Covington, Tennessee. He moved to Chicago in 1938 to live with an older brother. the kid had talent, he could rhyme, play piano, and play some basketball. He was even a Harlem Globetrotter.  Daylie ended up being "discovered" by a WMAQ legend, Dave Garroway, a newsman and big jazz fan. Garroway met Daylie tending bar at the El Grotto Supper Club in the Pershing Hotel in 1947. (One source says it was the Du Sable Hotel) Garroway told him that he should move his rhyming behind the microphone. By 1948 he had a show on WAIT-AM. By 1955 he was on WGN. More here.

It wasn't long before he started booking shows and doing a little A&R. He got the Ramsey Lewis trio their big break with Argo Records in 1956. He also discovered Nina Simone, and Gloria Lynne. He was a huge proponent of bebop. In 1958 Cannonball Adderly penned an ode to Daylie  "One for Daddy-O". That was probably his peak. He went back to WAIT-AM and while there picked a fight with MGM in 1955 over the movie Black Board Jungle. The name Daddy-O is used in the movie, and Daylie had trademarked it in 1948. MGM used the name in a derogatory way and he sued them for Libel asking for $700,000. It didn't go anywhere.

In the 1960s he was on 950 WAAF-AM doing mornings 9:00 AM to noon. In 1967 they changed calls to WGRT. He was cancelled in 1971, then reinstated shortly thereafter. Chicago missed him. They trimmed him back from 2 hours to 30 minutes. They said he talked too much. It was the only jazz morning show left in Chicago. It was old school, and Daylie was old school. In the early 1980s he moved to WJPC-AM which w2s owned by the publisher of Ebony Magazine. They aired a lot of R&B and gospel. Daylie held onto that until about 1986. He died in 2003 at the age of 82.