one of the staples of am radio, WOR-AM, 710 on the dial in nyc, has passed away.
to a radio station, being purchased by the conglomerate clear channel is a fate worse than death.
john gambling in the morning for near 85 years on the radio is certainly notable.
WOR_(AM) history
in the late 50s and early 60s, and generations before, radio was once a big factor in our lives. portable radios became popular, and with the advent of the tiny transistor and earphones, they would fit under any pillow.
my 2 favorite radio programs were, and still are, monologist humorist jean shepherd's nightly half hour shows in the late 50s -early 60s, on WOR, followed by the midnight to 6am talk show, long john nebel.
shep was the finest monologist ever. night after night he, with nary a note, spun, the most fantastic and believable yarns, with a great deal of truth mixed in. each show ended with his cadence speeding, trying to fit in more and more.... shep's works did not translate well to public broadcasting or film. a notable jean shepherd formance was 'the clown' with charles mingus in the album 'the clown.'
i have heard 6 hour long john hows with not 1 commercial interruption.
john went down the dial to wnbc, and they cut him up and quartered him. it just wasn't the same.
they began a tradition with me. to this day, there is always an am radio playing somewhere in the house whenever i go to sleep, but there will never be another jean shepherd, long john nebel, nor will it be tuned to wor-am
RIP WOR.
LINKS TO SHEP ARCHIVES
thanks to an organissimo forum contributor, pete c., we now have links to a multitude of shep programs.
gene shepherd broadcast archives
2 comments:
Remember Gene White, I think his name was, and the many years on WMAN?
me not robot
geno was a great frequenter of the elms tavern.
he had about only 4 regular boring callers and would never take a stand on anything.
one of the highlights for him was getting to cover the state scholastic wrestling championships in columbus for about 20 years, when wman was a radio station.
are there any atheist talk shows with followings. long john nebel often had as a 5 hour guest madelaine murray o'haire. she was brilliant, with a very sharp tongue, a very sharp cookie, one of the sharpest debaters i've ever heard. i wish you could have heard some of those shows.
my first girlfriend (30 years my senior and married) was an atheist.
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