Interracial Host and Co-Host

I came across a quote from Ahmet Ertgun that sent me thumbing through my radio history books for attribution:

"The hot show in New York in those days - the two hot shows - were Willie and Ray - Willie Bryant and Ray Carroll, and the Symphony Sid Show..."

The quote was in the context of Alan Freed but of the other two shows mentioned I only knew one. Symphony Sid was Sid Torin. But who were Willie and Ray? Ray Carroll was the first white DJ to co-host a program with a black DJ. He started out co-hosting with another white jazz man Symphony Sid on WMCA. I think ray was at WWRL prior to that.  Ray and Sid paired up for just a year in 1947.  Bryant was already the emcee at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem which is how he got his nickname. He appeared in a couple films. In 1946, CBS hired him as the first black host of a network radio program, "Night Life. By then Ray Carroll was already on WMCA with Sid. Sid Hired Bryant to flip records.  Ray and Willie started their program together that February and stayed at it for 6 years on 1480 WHOM-AM. In 1952 they added a second program together on WOV. Sometimes it aired live from Birdland.

Willie Bryant was born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago. He did vaudeville tours tap dancing with the Whitman Sisters, and later the Chocolate Revue with Bessie Smith. He played the Shim Sham Club in Harlem with Leonard Reed where they invented the dance, the Shim Sham. In 1934 he put together his first band, The Wilie Bryant Orchestra. Between 1935 and 1938 they cut 26 sides mostly for Victor and Bluebird. They were truly excellent. Give it a listen here. 

Their program was cancelled in April of 1954 by the VP of WHOM, Charles Bolton. Bryant said it was the first time he'd been booted from a job in 30 years. He described the firing as political. Bolton denied it but he was the same guy that later that month very publicly "banned" some slightly risque songs from the station playlist. At the time WHOM was actively pursuing a license from the FCC for UHF TV license. They had first applied for channel 31 in 1952. They abandoned in in April 1954. Maybe Bolton was feeling some pressure about his Interracial program? Maybe it was because Alan Freed had just hit town and White DJs playing R&B were just safer.

Ray just went back to WMCA and was hosting an R&B program, "Night Watch" by May of 1954. Like any career his had peaked, he'd already been in radio 20 years. In 1957 he moved to WICC-AM in Bridgeport, CT to host a morning program. By the early 1970s he was hosting an interview program called "Sounding Board" on 1450 WNAB-AM in Bridgeport, CT. Bryant tried to move into television he was already negotiating terms but it wasn't until 1949 his program debuted. He hosted "Uptown Jubilee" a Tuesday night black variety show on CBS-TV.  It was short-lived. In 195, he got another network radio show, ABC's "Rhythm on Radio. He bought a bar in the Bronx. None of that lasted either. He moved to California and did a little more radio on KSAN and KALI. He died in 1964. More here.

WICC

Radio has so many firsts. Every station clamors to be the first at something. The first on air, the first licensed, the first 24 hour operation, the first music program, the first DJ etc. WICC is the first station in Southern Connecticut. It's also one of the first stations in Connecticut as a whole signing on for the first time in 1926. It's call letters stands for Industrial Capital of Connecticut, which was actually true 60 years ago. [Today it's nothing to brag about.]

Connecticut is a largely rectangular state sharing Long Island sound with New York, then is boxed in by Rhode Island and Massachusetts. It's North/South orientation is narrow in respect to it's East/West measurement. It's hard to define a portion of CT as southern, but Bridgeport will do.


600 WICC-AM still maintains studios in both Bridgeport and New Haven in Southern Connecticut. Over the years they've been affiliates for The Yankee Network, The Colonial Network, The Columbai Broadcasting System (CBS), The NBC Blue Network, and the Mutual Broadcasting System. In it's early days, WICC broadcast from several different frequencies including 1060 kHz, 1400 kHz, 1130kHz, 1190 kHz and 1430 kHz. They didn't' move to the 600 kHz position until 1930. Until WCAC-AM in Storrs, shut down in 1935, WICC operated as a share-time.

My favorite bit of WICC history is that the worlds most over-sexed movie-star had a radio show there. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bob Crane.

The Very Naughty Bob Crane

** Updated in 2025

Before we talk about radio I want to acknowledge that Bob Crane was not a entirely a good person. Some people might say he was naughty, others might be more specific and say deviant or perhaps even a peccant serial philanderer. Today he's called a sex addict. We are not going to get into what he did, or was accused of doing. It'd get this little blog a Google ban. But the fact is, he was a seriously dirty dude. But we're going to focus on radio.

He was born Robert Edward Crane in 1928. He started out as an announcer on 1480 WLEA-AM. It was his first radio gig, but it was in Hornell, New York over 230 air miles form his new wife Ann Terzian, in Stamford, CT. Bob toughed it out, at 1480 WLEA living at the YMCA until he could score a better gig at 1120 WBIS-AM (now WPRX-AM) in Bristol, Connecticut. He bailed on then quickly for a better gig as the morning man at 600 WLIZX-AM in Bridgeport. He stayed there over six years. In 1951, WLIZ purchased WICC and Bob's program moved to the new stick. But he left for a gig Boston, MA at WEEI-AM. He left in 1956 only at the beckoning of the CBS radio network.

CBS gave him the morning show at 1070 KNX-AM in Hollywood. Soon it was the number one rated morning show in Los Angeles. He was known locally as "the king of the airwaves" If you've ever heard an air check, he' was really good on air. [LINK] His guests included Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Bob Hope, Jayne Mansfield, and Frank Sinatra. But while number one in his slot, he still was really number two overall behind Dick Whittinghill at 710 KMPC-AM. The two arch rivals were actually friendly and Crane filled in for Dick for a few weeks two decades later in July of 1972. It's interesting that Whittinghill's 1976 autobiography Did You Whittinghill This Morning? makes no reference to Crane at all. (That's probably because of his ...extra circulars.) More here.

It was only in 1965 that be was offered the starring role in "Hogan's Heroes" and became a television star.  In 1974, after years of TV he actually snubbed an offer for a new radio gig. He even had his own eponymous show for 14 whole episodes in 1975. After that his status as a regular at strip joints and discos got him blackballed from Disney, and probably other quarters. The poor performance of the movie Superdad in 1973 kept him out of yet more lead rolls. 

He spent the rest of his career doing dinner theater and making guest appearances. He filed a few TV pilots that went nowhere. In 1976, he made a guest appearance on WICC for their 50th anniversary. He was down but not out. But in 1978 he was found bludgeoned to death in an Arizona hotel room; he was fifty years old. His friend John Henry Carpenter was tried for the murder but was acquitted.