Art Hellyer is Not Dead

Art Hellyer, said in a 1993 interview on 97.1 WNIB that he wasn't really a DJ he just "played music as a fill between commercials." Hellyer was a mainstay of Chicagoland radio starting back in the 1940s and lasting for five decades. His zany off-beat humor was part of what shaped our modern radio gestalt bridging the gap between guy s like J. Aku Head Pupule and the modern morning zoo. He was on air at WGN, WJOL, WLS, WMAQ, WJJD, WOPA, WIND, WAIT, WOWO, WCFL, WBBM and certainly others. His biography The Hellyer Say is not to be skipped. 

His first show was on WKNA in Charleston, WV in 1947 interviewing auto salesmen.  Despite behaving like Art Hellyer, he was not fired from that job. (In his book he actually devotes a whole chapter to what he was not fired for.) It was a theme in his career. His zany behavior got him ratings. WBBM famously fired him over a dress-code violation and then re-hired him. As he told the Chicago Tribune in 1996 more simply that he got fired "a lot."

"...I counted 14 times. It may have been more than that... I always said every one of my battles was over creative control. I wanted to be creative, and they wanted control."

It's hard to say which of his programs was the most important to his career as several of them held the number one slot in one decade or another. In the 1950s his program The Art Hellyer Show aka the Morning Madcap on 1000 WCFL-AM, again on 780 WBBM with his Supper Club shows in the '60s while also doing mornings at WAIT, Then again on WLS-FM in the '70s until they went progressive rock in 1969. He was number one again on 1160 WJJD-AM in the '80s. His time at WOPA straddles some of that doing WOPA Art Hellyer's Memory Lane in the mid sixties.

What probably got his career going the most was his time on on WCFL. There he was given carte blanche for the first time in his career and he more or less ran amok. He offended big sponsors, like Coca-Cola and General Motors but the listeners loved it.  In he did spend a few serious on air. He advocated for the seat belts in cars in the 1950s and in 1960 spent time explaining to listeners the importance of the then brand new Polio vaccine to quiet the anti-vaccination nuttters. In 2011 he made another come back of sorts and began Internet radio station Party 934. Not bad for a guy that one quipped that "...the average life of a disc jockey in Chicago is three years."

Sisters of the Skillet

On CBS Ed East and Ralph Dumke were called the Quality Twins. But that was only in 1937 and 1938.  Before that they were players in the Charlie Davis Orchestra. But earlier they were also known as the Sisters of the Skillet, from a routine they did. They were vaudevillians who had toured the Keith- Orpheum circuit and made the jump to radio like many others. They're easily listed among other famous Hoosiers

They started out on WGN-AM in 1928 where their Sisters of the Skillet routine was popular. (some sources put their start as early as 1920) It was a parody of home maker programs. The schtick worked like this. Ed and Ralph would get an audience of real house wives (or at least cronies playing real housewives) then instead of actual useful advice they'd dispense absurd and nonsensical advice. It went over so well they got to guest on the Rudy Valee program.

In the Summers when regular fare often took a hiatus they were often tagged for a fill-in season. They appeared on both NBC Blue, CBS. They were sponsored sometimes by Knox gelatin, Lava soap, Crisco, Armour, and Kellogg cereals among others. They did shows in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening until they ended their run as a duo in 1938.

After the split Ed East found work as an announcer on the radio quiz show in 1938 on a quiz show called "Askit Basket." He followed that up hosing "Name It And It's Yours" on NBC. In 1939 he and his wife Polly started a variety morning program on WJZ, "Breakfast in Bedlam." It later called "Ladies Be Seated."  There are a couple known recordings of this program cataloged here. The program continued in various morning time slots until 1945.

Across town Ed's former partner Ralph played minor characters in a number of dramas, and eventually landed on Studio X at WEAF-AM. They were both in morning slots by 1941 turning the former partners into competitors. Ralph really moved from there into film. He appeared in 35 films as a supporting actor from 1948 to 1961. East also appeared in 3 films between 1949 and 1951.  By then Dumke was already appearing on TV programs like I Love Lucy.

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.

Cliff Arquette's Wild Boat Ride.

Let us consider the legend of  Cliff Arquette. It is said that at one time, he was performing regularly at 13 different daily radio shows at different 13 stations in the Chicago market. Furthermore that he was traveling from one studio to another by way of motorboats along the Chicago River which passed through its downtown. The claim seems to originate in an old issue of Coronet Magazine. But is it true?

He began as a bit-part funny-man hailing from Toledo, OH. He started out doing a vaudeville routine with Lolly Gookins called Cliff and Lolly Nuts of Harmony. He developed a character called Charley Weaver, who was a hapless folksy old man. It caught on. (He later got into a cross-dressing bit that was big for a time.) An issue of Popular Science from 1938 called him a "Radio Comedian" noting that he was playing more than 50 parts in various NBC radio programs. That's a nice early and reliable print source, but it cites no programs or stations!

Below is a partial list of programs he appeared on. I got some from the Radio Gold Index, more from the Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning. I cant' confirm it, but many of those NBC programs were performed at WBCN, the Chicago NBC affiliate. To be honest I can't find 13 programs happening concurrently in the Chicago metro but there are more enough a few to bear this out. His uncredited appearances are surely far greater.

• WGN - Cliff and Lolly, 1933
• WISN - Myrt and Marge, 1933 -? 
• NBC - The Fred Astaire (Packard) Show, 1934-1937
• KECA - Hollywood Spotlight, 1935
• NBC - Edgar A. Guest, 1935-1941
• WMAQ - Fibber McGee and Molly, 1936-1954
• NBC Blue - The Jack Benny (Jell-O) Program, 1938
• NBC Blue - The Rudy Vallee (Fleischmann's Yeast ) Hour, 1939
• NBC Blue - Avalon Time, 1939-1941
• NBC Blue - Frank Watanabe and The Honorable Archie, 1939-1940
• ABC - Point Sublime, 1940-1948
• NBC Blue - I Love a Mystery, 1942?
• Mutual - The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, 1943-1953
• NBC - The Lifebuoy Show, 1943
• ABC - Glamour Manor, 1944-1945
• NBC - The Dick Haymes (Autolite) Show, 1944-1948
• ABC - Ellery Queen, 1948
• CBS - My Home Town, 1949
• The Dave Willock and Cliff Arquette Show, 1950
• CBS - Lum and Abner Show, 1950
• CBS - The Harold Peary Show, 1951

There is a stretch in his career when he was clearly based in the Chicago area. It starts in 1933 or earlier and running until about 1938 when his career clearly became more mobile. The Chicago river hugs Wacker Drive right through the heart of the city, splitting into the north and south branches at Orleans Street. In that era WGN was in the Drake Hotel on Lakeshore Drive. 14 blocks north of the river—but only two if you boated out and around to the Lake Michigan side. WISN however, is up in Milwaukee. It's a trip not directly traversed by any river route, nor in a time frame allowing one to appear on multiple shows per day.

But WMAQ moved to 400 West Madison in 1928 (today 2 North Riverside Plaza) and that location is 1 block off Wacker drive following the south branch. As of 1935 downtown Chicago had at least 8 commercial radio stations: WCRW, WMAQ, WENR, WGN, WBCN, WBBM, WGES, WHFC, WKBI, and WSBC. WGES was on 2400 W. Madison Street in that era, and the NBC Tower at 454 N. Columbus Drive. I have to say... this at least appears plausible.

Harold Kayes Mailorder Network

It's almost unthinkable now. In 1950 WGN-AM just handed over night programming to Harold Kaye Mailorder service. The company was very real,  Kay was a former exec from the Olian Ad Agency. the company even appears in the 1950 and 1951 Broadcasting yearbooks simply as "Mail Order Network." According to a 1949 Billboard article they had 50 stations on board. They provided up to 35 hours of programming per week, and were on stations as big as WOR-AM in New York. The "network" was linked by transcription, but provided programming, advertising copy and sponsors. They were headquartered at 1440 Broadway, in New York. The book The Deejays by Arnold Passman described it somewhat grandly:

"So in the fall of 1949, WGN, Chicago, shocked the industry by turning over its midnight-5 A.M. hours to Harold Kaye's Mail Order Network. With Erv Victor spinning pop and hillbilly records between the "per inquiry" spots, plastic Jesus radio, with six pitches per hour, was spewed from WGN's superengineered, wide-ranging, 50-kilowatt mountaintop, where big bands had been beamed to the nation just a few years earlier."

 Their first produced program was "Big Joe," hosted by Joe Rosenfield which was carried by 710 WOR-AM. His program ran from 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM from 1949 to 1954. Joe went on to host Big Joe's Happiness Exchange on 770 WABC-AM in 1959. How long his WOR program was involved with Kaye is unclear. More here. The aforementioned Uncle Erv Victor was a country music DJ formerly of KMOX, where he had been since at least 1946. He left for WGN in September that year. The program ran overnights, 1:00 AM to 6:00 AM, syndicated on 56 stations.  One of them was KHJ-AM. The mail order network had previously claimed to have 50 affiliates with stations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Buffalo, Rochster and New Orleans. I count 15 cities in that list. With 50 affiliates that is either a lot of double coverage or a lot of omitted stations, or a gross over-estimation. The article went to some pains not to name the stations, describing wattage and market but not the call sign... almost as if there were some shame attached...

It was said that NAB didn't like the precedent, but WGN wasn't a member so there wasn't much they could do. For Harold Kaye results were great. the huge coverage area of WGN parlayed into more orders from more customers in more markets. It was the QVC of it's day and as programming it bordered on repugnant, but the sales numbers didn't lie. But in 1951 Kaye told Billboard that his similar programming on TV was "headed for the junk pile."  Kaye credited the two-month drop to "the current economic squeeze, public resentment of phony claims and inferior merchandise, and the fact that mail-order pitches are no longer a novelty to TV audiences." Unsurprisingly Kaye shows up as the new TV department head at the Dorland Ad Agency in June of 1951. I can't be certain that it's the same Harold Kaye... but it fits the story.

Bachelor's Children

Bachelor's Children was a radio soap operate booming out from WGN-AM in Chicago. It started in 1935 and became syndicated on CBS in 1936 with Old Dutch Cleanser as sponsor. In 1941 NBC picked it up and it continued until 1946, with Colgate as the new sponsor. It went back to CBS in 1942 and was sponsored by Wonder bread; somehow without irony. 

Bess Flynn wrote a story line synopsis that was published in 1939 as a skinny little hardback edition. the contents are unspeakably melodramatic and even maudlin, but it's a soap opera, that's par for the course. The concept is that the lead character, Dr. Rob graham adopts the two daughters of his deceased army buddy—hijinks ensue. The dedication page bears the following text:

"This story of "Bachelors Children" is dedicated to the radio audience of America by the makers Old Dutch Cleanser in the interest of better cleaning. The loyalty and friendly interest of this great audience is evidenced by the thousands of letters we have received. We trust that "Bachelors Children" will entertain you in the future as it has in the past, and that Old Dutch Cleanser will merit your continued use."

(Even for ad copy of the day it's pretty stiff.) Bess Flynn was the creator and main writer for the series. Writers like Bess are total unknowns now. But on WGN back in the 1930s she was a prolific writer. Bess acted on and wrote for the radio soap operate "Painted Dreams" that ran from 1930 to 1943 on WGN, where she played the part of Mother Moynihan. She was also with the short-lived soap opera "Life Begins" which ran on CBS in 1940 and 1941, playing the part of Martha Webster.  Not that "Bachelor's Children" was her first gig. She was Tilda-the-Maid on the program "The Gumps" a 15-minute, WGN program that ran for several seasons between 1931 and 1937. It too was syndicated on CBS. She wrote another serial "We Are Four" in which her son was cast. While that series ran just 2 years (1935 - 1937) he went on to star in "All American Boy." [that's Bess below]

 What was special about Bachelor's Children for Bess Flynn, was that she created it and was the lead writer and it was a huge success. She appears in the book The A to Z of American Radio Soap Operas by Jim Cox. He describes her as "a skillful writer and versatile radio actress." Her career took off because of Irna Phillips. Phillips had a dispute with the owners at WGN over her rights to the series "Painted Dreams". When Phillips left the station, Bess Flynn took over writing, directing and playing the lead role. She died in 1976 at the age of 92.

Nocturnal Nighthawks

The story starts with the Coon-Sanders Original Kansas City Nighthawks.  The orchestra began broadcasting in 1922 on WDAF-AM. At the time they were a share time on 730 AM with WHB-AM. They were broadcast live from the Muehlebach Hotel, which still exists today. More here. The group started in 1919, as the Coon-Sanders Novelty Orchestra.  There's nothing racial about the name, Mr. Coon is Carleton Coon and Sanders is pianist Joe Sanders. They took the name Nighthawks because their program aired late at night an approach they took around the country with them on tour in 1924. They first played in Chicago on KYW-AM. More here.

The group left Kansas City for the first time in 1924 for a three-month engagement in a roadhouse in Chicago. WBBM specialized in local, live programming, including a station promotion called the "Nutty Club." With over a million listeners in the US and Canada wiring, phoning or writing in for membership, it was clear that Program Director Charlie Garland, aka "Colonel Nut," and his crew had something good going.Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, who were named as the official "Nutty Club" orchestra. I'll quote teh St. Petersburg times from 1927...

"...the Nutty Club of WBBM, the Stewart-Warner Air theater known from coast-to-coast for its "Cuckoo Signal" and the other is the orchestra that has made insomnia a famous indoor sport —Coon-Sanders Original Kansas City Nighthawks. Under an arrangement just completed this orchestra is to broadcast exclusively over WBBM by remote control from the Blackhawk Grill; Chicago. It will be heard during the three weekly sessions of the Nutty Club, which start at midnight Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday Nights."

They actually played quite regularly on WBBM and were syndicated coast to coast on CBS after 1928. A 1926 news article described them as playing nightly there at 8:00 PM and again from 11:00 PM to Midnight Tuesdays and Thursdays. the band recorded a large number of sides for Victor, and at lease a few furtively for Vocalion. In 1928 Henry Sellinger made them an offer to bring their late night shindig over to WGN-AM. For the next twenty years they performed at the the Blackhawk Restaurant live on that Chicago Tribune radio station. More here.

In 1932 Carelton Coon came down with a jaw infection and died. He was only 38 years old. Joe Sanders tried to keep the band together, but failed. He started his own group and stayed in music until his death in 1965. The band is celebrated annually at the The Coon Sanders Nighthawks Fans' Bash in in Huntington, WV. Why it's not held in Kansas City or Chicago... I have no idea.

The Wax And Needle Club!

The Wax and Needle Club ran for about two years. DJ Bill Evans ran this top 10 count down show of sorts. The station was 1000 WCFL-AM and the program was a half hour program that aired at 7:30 PM on weekdays running after a sports program and followed by a live concert in Grant Park. In 1949 it was preceded by news and followed by news and a serenade. A June issue of Billboard from 1948 describes the program cynically but with some detail:

" ...Bill Evans, the Wax and Needle Club, WCFL, reports a good mail pull on his quiz disk gimmick in which he invited teen-agers to submit the reasons why they'd like to guess the title of a different quiz disk on his show each night. Evans interviews the youngster and, if he can identify the disc, he receives a special Bill Evans album of current pops..."

Let me state for the record now that DJ Bill Evans is not the jazz pianist Bill Evans. Accept no substitutions. Which Bob Evens he was remains unconfirmed.  My theory is that our Bill Evans is the one that was on 720 WGN-AM for years. [more here]. It was the right place at the right time, and it's very rare a market will allow two DJs to use the same name at the same time. My "evidence" is a 1948 advertisement in Billboard listing both WGN and WCFL net to Bill Evans name.

If I'm right, he was running the Bill Evans' Show 6:30 AM to 8:00 AM weekday mornings as early as 1953. A 1955 issue of Billboard put the start of his career as 1943 which works with the timeline as well. His morning program was re-named "Morning Reveille" and ran into the 1950s. His career started in Duluth, Minnesota. Teasingly his 1995 obit confirms that and at least two other stations. "After leaving WGN-AM, he purchased a radio station in Ames, Iowa. He later sold it and bought one in Lakeland, Fla."  I confirmed in a 1958 issue of Radio Daily-Television daily that the station in Ames was 1430 KASI-AM. Interestingly they also state he quit 560 WIND-AM that same year... so we must add more to the resume.

As successful as these early teen target programs were, they also didn't fit the format of the era. Program Directors from the 1940s didn't know what to do with direct audience engagement. For them, getting fan letters was the full extent of quantifiable success... unless you showed up in the Crosley ratings. Call in shows were relatively new. Teens as a marketing demographic were strictly a post-WWII phenomena. They were totally unprepared. I found a few winners of his polls:  Peggy Lee, Herbie Fields, Eddy Howard, and Mel Torme, This was no hot jazz or R&B program. This was safe, wholesome, harmless, homogenized white pop.  Just marketing to teens was edgy enough back then.

Schmaltz In The Air

Art Kassel did not start out in radio, he just got there in a hurry. He began in Chicago playing in dixieland bands around 1923.  It was a struggle. Eventually he found his way into playing "sweet" ballroom dance music. It was pure schmaltz. There's no other word for it. It was not the music of a serious musician, as it tended to bore real jazz men. But it paid well.

He started his own ballroom dance band in 1926. His orchestra started playing the venetian room of the Southmoor Hotel in Chicago. That was significant. Ballrooms were a good gig, but hotels were a regular paycheck. In 1928 his band began playing at the Metropole Hotel.  (This venue was also the headquarters for Al Capone.) In 1929 he broke into radio. His own Castles in the Air program debuted live at Al Tearney's Grand Auto Inn.  It was at Grand Boulevard and 35th street on the South Side of Chicago.This was a live broadcast for WBBM. 

That attention got them a gig at a bigger venue before the end of 1929.  They were playing at the Terrace Casino room of the Morrison Hotel, still on WBBM. In 1930 they moved to the even bigger place, the Walnut Room at The Bismark Hotel. But I feel the need to remind you that the music was lame. In his book That Toddlin' Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras, Charles Sengstok described the situation thus:

"Since most dance bands sounded alike in those days the challenge for an orchestra broadcasting frequently from one dance venue or another was to develop a special sound that would quickly identify it to listeners.  bands introduced theme songs and tag lines The Musical Gems Of Ray Pearl" or "Art Kassel And His Kassels In The Air." But more than that, they hired arrangers to give their music a distinctive sound, which often resulted in music with more style than substance."

In 1933 they were playing twice a day on 670 WMAQ-AM; once at 7:15 and again after 12:30 PM. That show was carried on the NBC Red Network. In the 1940s they moved the show to The Aragon Ballroom and WGN-AM carried the program. Then on tour in 1940 they did a set of shows on WOR-AM. On December 22nd, 1944 they returned to the Bismark Hotel still live, but still with WGN-AM. But that was just home base, they toured every year not taking a break until 1952, that's 25 consecutive years. In that time it's also worth noting that one of his vocalists, Billy Leach had his own radio career that took off.  I'll have to write about him another day.

In 1951 Art moved to Encino California where he appeared for two years with a new orchestra on a local television program, The Gloria Hart Show. He never went back to radio. He died in 1965 of cancer.

Uncle Ezra's Radio Station

Uncle Ezra P. Watters didn't really have a radio station. There was no E-Z-R-A in any FCC record. But Ezra did have a radio show, more than one actually. He began as a character on the WLS National Barn Dance. On his own program he had a fictional radio station. It was described as a powerful 5-watt stick down in Rosedale, the friendly little city. The character was played by Patrick Barrett and former vaudeville man born back in 1887. That made him 41 When the barn dance debuted. The WLS National Barn Dance first started in 1928 broadcasting on Saturday nights from the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. It was a small program in the beginning but it's popularity grew until it was a nightly 5-hour country music jamboree. Ezra closed out each episode with a folksy routine. The show was picked up by NBC in 1933 for national distribution. In 1946 they moved to ABC. Distribution was killed in 1957, and the live portion of the program ended. the decline began sharply. It moved to WGN-AM when WLS flipped to Top -40. It was finally canceled in 1968. More here.

Uncle Ezra had a strange fame beyond the WLS National Barn Dance program. He was on the cover of Radio Guide. He published a book of hick poetry titled "Howdy Ev'Vybuddy". In 1936, the Lincoln Theater in Lincoln, IL celebrated its 13th anniversary with a stage show featuring Uncle Ezra and his Hoosier Hot-Shots from WLS and the National Barn Dance. In 1940 Life Magazine wrote up the hayseed humor of WLS and singled out Uncle Ezra:

"A phenomenon in the brief perspective of radio history is the ever popular, ever-corny, National Barn Dance... With it's cracker-Barrel Characters, Uncle Ezra, the Arkansas Woodchopper, the Hoosier Hotshots-and it's slapstick rural hijinks. The Barn Dance typifies the success story of WLS..."

In the 1940 the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company sponsored a program called Uncle Ezra's Radio Station. It ran out of WMAQ and was carried by the NBC Red network. The program ran three days a week Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 7:15 PM. It was only a 15 minute slot, btu it ran for over 4 years. You can read a sample script here.

He died in died in 1959, before the barn dance was canceled, but after it was cut from the big networks. He was 72.

Randy Michael's forbidden words

I tried to resist touching this but I loathe micromanagement. It's the unwelcome creative outlet for frustrated MBAs. After reading the news I knew that Randy Michaels is running amok. It's not Orwellian.. it's more Monty Pythonian. He issued a list of 119 words and phrases that must never again be uttered within the confines of of 720 WGN-AM.

When executive management wanders off the reservation into programming... something has gone very very wrong. There is an org chart. Use it. If your programmers and producers aren't doing the job - fire them. Hire new ones. Do not hallucinate that you can do the job of any and every subordinate. When you've blown an 8 million dollar buy out the next thing to do is obvious start tinkering with the News style book. Micheals used to be a shock jock back in the 1980s... some people just cant let go of the attention. Not that this is his only ham-handed blunder.. just the most recent.

That complete list of forbidden words is as follows:

Flee, Good News, Bad News, Laud, seek, Two to one margin, Yesterday, Youth, 5 a.m. in the morning, After the break, After these commercial messages, Aftermath, All of you, Allegations, Alleged, Area residents, As expected, At risk, At this point in time, Authorities, Auto accident, Bare naked, Behind bars, Behind closed doors, Behind the podium, Best kept, secret, Campaign trail, Clash with police, Close proximity, Complete surprise, Completely, destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished, Death toll, Definitely possible, Diva, Down in, Down there, Everybody, Eye Rack (Iraq) , Eye Ran (Iran), False pretenses, Famed, Fatal death, Fled on foot, Folks, Giving 110%, Going forward, Gunman, lone gunman, Guys, Icon, In a surprise move, In harm’s way, In other news, In the wake of, Incarcerated, Informed sources say, Killing spree, Legendary, Lend a helping hand, Literally, Lucky to be alive, Manhunt, Marred, Medical hospital, Mother of all____, Motorist, Moot point, Near miss, No brainer, Officials, Our top story tonight, Out there, Over in____, Pedestrian, Perfect storm, Perished, Perpetrator, Plagued, Really, Reeling, Reportedly, Seek, Senseless murder, Shots rang out, Shower activity, Sketchy details. Some (meaning about)Some of you, Sources say, Speaking out, Stay tuned, The fact of the matter, Those of you, Thus, time for a break, To be fair, Torrential rain, Touch base, Under fire, Under siege, Underwent surgery, Undisclosed, Undocumented alien, Unrest, Untimely death, up there, utilize, Vehicle, We’ll be right back, Welcome back, * Welcome back everybody, We’ll be back, Went terribly wrong, We’re back, White stuff, World class, You folks

The binaural Emory Cook

For a number of years, Emory Cook was considered a truly exceptional audio engineer. He was born and raised in Albany, NY and attended Cornell University. He worked for the Audio Engineering Department at Western Electric. He was a strong proponent of binaural sound, an inventor and audiophile. He once described binaural sound thusly:

"Stereophonic recording differs from Binaural in that the microphone placements are selected for loudspeaker reproduction. Binaural properly applies to a two-channel system designed for headphone reproduction. It thus requires the use of two channels fed by microphones spaced about seven inches apart."

Those magic 7 inches represent the average distance between a pair of normal human ears. it's the founding idea behind binaural sound. It is supposed to put the listeners perspective sonically where the sounds on the recording or broadcast originated. I consider it a subtype of stereo sound. Stereo sounds being if nothing else.. at least less specific. More here.

It's strange, but binaural sound actually predates stereo. In 1881 Clement Ader installed pairs of carbon mics on a Paris opera stage for telephone subscribers to listen in. How is this separate from the evolution of stereo? It's not. They're inextricably linked. Every step in the evolution of stereo sound can also be claimed by the evolution of binaural sound. The only difference is snobbery. There is a gri-gri quality to binaural sound that stereo lacks. But let's get back to Emory. There was a lot of gri-gri to him as well.

Emory created a record player with two needles meant to play records with two parallel grooves. He founded Cook records in 1949 and eventually put out more than a hundred binaural LPs. His plant was based in Stamford Connecticut. Emory was using his personal brand recognition to hype a series of binaural LPs: Sounds of the Sea, Nightmare in the Mosque, Speed the Parting Guest. He demonstrated them at the Worlds Fair. They're all over eBay now for the kitsch.

But there were also radio broadcasts were live like Toscanini, WQXR string quartet and the Godina opera hour. But this was 1952. stereo sound was entirely new in broadcasting. WQXR was achieving "stereo" by using it's using its AM and FM stations towers as separate Left and Right audio channels. Was it stereo, was it binaural? I don't distinguish a difference. Binaural enthusiast will tell you this was the first binaural broadcast. I think it's bunk. In 1925, on 5XX the BBC had broadcast stereo with the Left channel on medium wave and the right channel on long wave. That's 27 years before WQXR. WGN-AM and WGNB-FM did the same thing in 1952 just a few months before WQXR. All they're beating their chests over is microphone positioning in the source audio. It's bunk; clever bunk, but bunk nonetheless.
The irony is that in the process of supporting the bunk idea of binaural audio the very educated and clever Cook actually made other developments. He made microphone and amplifier improvements that made it possible to record audio above 20,000 cycles, he even developed a process to press vinyl in a powdered form to reduce surface noise. Previous to this they were always pressed starting with a preheated puck of vinyl, a technique based on shellac 78s. He called the new technique “microfusion.” Sadly it didn't catch on.

Emory Cook died in 2002 at the age of 89. Emory donated his master tapes, patents, and papers to the Smithsonian Institution in 1990. Obit here.

Lum and Abner

Lum and Abner were a comedy duo in the 1930s. Their fame has largely outlived their affiliates, and the men who played the characters. They began as a black face act locally at the University of Arkansas, they became a nationally syndicated program of great renown. But for some reason they are rarely grouped in with other golden era programs.



The general store that appears in the above film actually exists now as the Lum and Abner Museum. Chester Lauck and Norris Goff knew each other since childhood. They attended U of Arkansas together and even joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity together. They decided to try to get a job together at KTHS-AM in Hot Springs, AR but before the audition decided to drop the black face routine and do a hillbilly bit instead. It was something in the spirit of Amos & Andy but with decidedly more rural flair. PD Campbell Arnoux signed them for one 15 minute program each week. Their gig at KTHS went so well that after just a few weeks they got picked up by NBC for syndication. NBC even got them a national sponsor, Quaker Oats. When the Quaker contract expired, the duo picked up Ford as a new sponsor and broadcast just on WBAP and WFAA out of Dallas and Ft. Worth. In those days they were considered separate markets. More here.

NBC didnt' treat them well and In 1934 Horlick's Malted Milk because their new sponsor and the program moved to WCCO in Minneapolis and were heard on the station alone. When the station joined the Mutual Broadcasting System they picked up WXYZ in Detroit and Chicago's WGN-AM. In 1940 Alka-Seltzer became the sponsor and in 1944 they left MBS for ABC. which had only just ceased to be the NBC Blue network. The Keystone Broadcasting System recorded their programs for stations not directly connected to ABC. In 1948 they became a half-hour comedy series sponsored by Post Cereal. More here.
Those keystone network recordings are why we have recordings of Lum and Abner today. In 1948 they moved over to CBS where their program ran until 1950. the show ended in 1953. By then they were already on the big screen. They made 7 movies by the 1950s. My personal favorite bits are when Lum & abner start a radio station a plot that stretched over 3 15-minute episodes. You can download the Boxcars Oldtime radio podcast here.

America Radio Warblers

I rejected the idea at first. I was at an antique store somewhere near Galesburg IL. On a shelf of 78s was a book called America Radio Warblers. On the cover was a drawing of a bird in a cage with the tag line "The Original Feathered Stars of the Air." Had there been a radio show of bird songs? Yes there had been.

From 1937 to 1952 the Mutual Broadcasting system carried the 15 minute program Sunday afternoons. Organist Preston Sellers played and was "accompanied" by 10 trained canaries. The program was sponsored by birdseed and pet shops. Hartz Mountain was an early sponsor. Hatz's name is actually on some versions of the recordings. It was Arthur C. Barnett (of Barnett Advertising) that brought the act to the recording studio. Barnett made a record that supposedly trained canaries to sing and to talk. It was just a recording of birds tweeting. It was called "How to Teach Your Parakeet to Talk." He had a thing for birds.


Preston Sellers was the WGN organist. If you look at this schedule from 1948 Sellers is just playing the organ to fill time randomly through the day. But it was a fine hybrid Wurlitzer-Kimball organ and people liked it enough. Organ music was common and even popular in the 1940s. WENR had a similar fill-in organist schedule. Sellers was also the organist at the State-Lake Theatre in Chicago playing organ for both stage and screen. He and his wife Edna performed as a husband-and-wife team at the Oriental theatre ias recently as 1972. This page leads me to belive he is deceased. Barnett brought Preston Sellers together with his troops of birds to WGN-AM. The program was picked up by MBS and carried coast-to-coast.

Barnett had the 78s re-released in 1951 as a set of 45s. 1952 MBS transformed from Cooperative network to corporate network. The birds got the hook. Sellers went back to theatre. Barnett added a partner to his advertising firm and it became Weston-Barnett Advertising. The State-lake Theatre became an RKO Movie house then was closedin 1958, gutted and is now the home of WLS-TV. The fate of the birds remains unknown.

Teentimers Club

NBC carried this little known show from 1946 through 1949. The program was aimed at teenage listeners hence the name "Teentimers." It debuted in 1946 running on Saturday mornings on WGN. The program sported appearances by Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, Louis Jordan, Lionel Hampton, Les Brown, Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey, and Cab Calloway. This was dance music. There are actually some 16-inch transcription discs known to exist of at least the Ellington performances. It was also carried on AFRS.
By the time WWi ended, Johnny Desmond was a sergeant and had sung for Gene Krupa and Glenn Miller. He came back and did some variety shows for NBC. But he also started recorded for RCA Victor and became a teen idol. In 1946 NBC pounced on him, they paid him $500 a week to sing on Teentimers.

But it was one of a number of these 1940s radio programs trying to reach teenagers which at the time were coming into their own as a market. 1450 WWDC-AM had a program called 'Teentime revue" and "Teentime requests." 980 WRC-AM had Teentimer's Show. Another program ABC's Teen Town was hosted by Dick York (yes that guy from Bewitched.) That program actually changed it's name to Junior Junction to avoid brand confusion. Spending for juvenile-focuses radio shows increased between 1941 and 1951 from $600 thousand to $7 million. Holy crap. that's an increase of 11,6667% More here.

The Radio Trafficopter !

Leonard Baldy was a Chicago native and veteran of World War II. Baldy became a minor celebrity pioneering the use of the radio trafficopter and the radar gun. One of those has become a useful staple of the New talk station during rush hour all over America. The other a pox upon the lead-footed. More here.

He wasn't' the first cop in a trafficopter. In 1964 the National Research Council had already released a study on the effectiveness of trafficopters. But Officer Baldy was the first to really take it to radio. He gained was the first patrolman in the United States to experiment with the radar gun. the year was 1954. With it be also became the first police officer in the world to write a ticket for speeding using a radar device. In was on Chicago station WGN-AM where he made live traffic reports from the sky. He actually did demonstrations of the device on Television that same year. More here.

After his death, he was elected to the National Police Hall of Fame and had his badge number retired. In 2007 the city of Chicago memorialized him renaming a street "Leonard Baldy Way". In 2006, his son, Tim Baldy, published a biography entitled Chicago's Finest.

But he wasn't the only trafficopter man in radio land. Radio station 970 WEBR-AM took to the air in 1959 . Their Jack Sharpemade traffic reporting into a broadcast news staple. In 1967 1410 KQV-AM sent traffic reporter, Mr. Bob Harvey into the air. He became "Captain Bob" for and made regular trafficopter reports. But a year after that Officer Baldy did when his trafficopter crashed into a suburban Chicago intersection. In 1971, over a decade the city of Chicago had a trafficoptercrash. Officer Irv Hayden died instantly, but the trafficopter lives on.

The Scopes Monkey trial on WGN

720 WGN-AM went on air for the first time in March of 1925. By mid summer they were a nationally renowned media outlet. It was a decent station with a good coverage area, emanating from Chicago an important urban center. But it was their press coverage of a single event that made them what they are.

They've made a half dozen movies of the Scopes trial because there was no news footage of it. The trial predated television of course, but radio was there. From July 13th to August 21st WGN provided live coverage of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" directly from the courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee.

Quin A. Ryan (pictured) provided some reporting and a sort of play-by-play and engineer Paul Neal set up the microphones. Quin went on to become the general manager of WGN in 1930, and a columnist for the tribune. He was a sports fanatic, doing play-by-play for the Cubs and White Sox from the more traditional setting of a press box for decades. More Here.

The project cost them over $1,000 a day just for the telephone line fees from AT&T. WGN got special permission to arrange the courtroom around the microphones to make the broadcast possible. Listeners across the midwest tuned in and heard their calls; many for the first time. On one hot day the Judge Raulston moved the trial outside to escape the stagnant indoor heat. On the lawn, the jury itself was able to listen to themselves on the radio.

Down the street 22 Western Union telegraph operators distributed the information the old-fashioned way to papers across the country. Two movie companies filmed parts of the trial for news reels. All of them oblivious to the fact that an entirely new dynamic was beginning that day.

AM on the FM

The FCC has been turning over a new leaf as of late. No longer do these pesky "rules" obstruct things. Now just a couple well placed phone calls to senators, and representatives with a few well-timed campaign donations and you too can have a rule-defying Special Temporary Authorization (STA).

Cross-band translation is not permitted by the FCC's rules. There has been some debate for the last few years abotu changing this, but as of bnow, it is illgal for an FM stick to have an Am translator and vice versa. None-the-less certain stuffed shirts in the beltway have been working their mojo down at the FCC and getting around the rules. Here are two examples.

1. This first waiver was assisted by actions of House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt [R] of South Carolina. On Jan. 31, 2007, the FCC issued an STA to Our Three Sons Broadcasting, licensee of WRHI-AM, Rock Hill, SC. This STA permits the AM station to rebroadcast its signal in Rock Hill, NC on 94.3 with an FM translator W232AX. STA posted here in pdf.

2. Murfreesboro, Tennessee based WGNS-AM was the first AM station in America to receive a federal waiver to expand its reach into the FM band legally. By adding two FM booster frequencies it now reaches all of Rutherford County. On March 1, WGNS began transmitting from both 100.5 FM and 101.9 FM along with its regular frequency at 1450 AM. The station claims this is to improve the reach of their emergency broadcasts. really it's a competative move enabled by none other than Bush appointee FCC director Deborah Taylor-Tate, Murfreesboro, TN native. The ladies can be good ol' boys too.

Of course there was another unrelated but far more defiant STA only a few weeks ago. In June of 2006 the FCC raided an illegal station on 100.3 in Tonopha Nevada. Rod Moses, owner of Radio Goldfield Broadcast Inc received a very Special STA from the FCC. It allowed him not only to avoid fines, and jail and seizure of his hardware but also to get back on the air. This time it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pressured the FCC.

Where is this all going? softer rules, no rules at all? Rules only for those without friends in high places? Who knows, but it aint gonna be pretty.

WOMEN in RADIO (pt. 6 BONUS)

Irna Phillips earned the title “Queen of the Soap Operas.”

Born in Chicago in 1901, youngest of ten children, legend has it that Phillips endured her poverty-stricken, lonely childhood by reading and concocting elaborate lives for her dolls. In college she tried her hand at acting. But as they say (those that can, do. Those that can't...)

So she turned to teaching. After graduation, she taught in Missouri and Ohio for several years before returning to Chicago. She fell into a job at There she fumbled her way into a job at WGN doing voice-over. She got lucky and after a few months she was asked her to write a daily program "about a family."

That program became "Painted Dreams" and debuted in October 1930. It has since been recognized as the radio's first soap opera. Phillips wrote and perfromed in the program until 1932 when she left WGN over an ownership dispute. It was a big fight, She wanted WGN to get the program syndicated. Topted not to. It was a power struggle. The ability of the program to seell product was proven. Apparently her boss found her threatening... When they refused Phillips took them to court claiming the show as her own property. Terms of the dispute were settled and sealed... (When Painted Dreams emerged from the courts and was purchased by CBS. )

She crossed the street to WMAQ. There she created "Today's Children" which aired for seven years, and was massive hit on NBC radio ...because WMAQ was ready to syndicate from mthe get go! At WMAQ making money mattered more than personal crap. [somebody at WGN wasn't confident enough in their masculinity] It was followed by a strong of other successfull radio dramas: The Guiding Light in 1937, The Road of Life in 1938, The Right to Happiness in 1939.

She had to give up acting to full-time radio wirting. She had also sold the shows to national networks. She got famous. In 1949 Phillips created the first serial broadcast on a major television network, These Are My Children. The show, tanked. It ran on NBC for only a month.

Phillips returned to TV in 1952 with The Guiding Light in 1952, with The Brighter Day following in 1954. These shows did great. She had learned how to write for the new media. The Guiding Light (later shortened to Guiding Light) remains on the air to this day, making it the longest running program in broadcast history.

However, she has long been known as "hard to work with"
-Phillips fired lead actress Helen Wagner because Phillips said she did not like the way she poured coffee.
-Phillips also fired actor John Beal from Another World one episode because she "didn't like the way he looked
-She demanded her actors, even the stars never go by their real names in public.
-She has also been rumored to have driven some of her stars into thearapy and nevervous breakdowns.

...she's also been called a raving bitch... but she made history but so has synvia Rhone. When a woman makes history in a man's world maybe they need to push a little hard. She retired from soaps completely in 1973 and died later that year. Ever the control freak, Irna had requested that her family not write an obituary upon her death

Recollections of Irna in her final months can be found in Harding Lemay's 1980 memoir, Eight Years in Another World.