Hi Ed,
I’m sorry to have to end the year on a very sad note, but I wanted to let you know that Bob Jones passed away yesterday.
He had been battling non-hodgkins lymphoma for awhile.
I thought you might want to put something up on the WNEW AM 1130 web site about Bob’s passing.
Hope all is well with you & best wishes for the new year.
Jeffrey Williams 12-30-12
Milkman’s Matinee Opening with Bob Jon es. Click on link below
Rudy Ruderman, during his more than 20 years at WNEW, held quite a few different jobs, sometimes a few of them at the same time. NY Daily News Radio & TV writer Val Adams took note of this in an April 29, 1973 column, (below) prompting from WNEW GM George Duncan, a note to Rudy that years later would surface when R.R. rescued files from some cardboard boxes that had been sent adrift in a basement flood.
Those fuzzy lines cut and pasted from Adams’ column read as follows: “Rudy Ruderman, already financial editor and drama critic for WNEW, received a new appointment as news director. Maybe triple threat Rudy can give lessons to poor George Duncan, whose only title at WNEW is general manager.”
But, what did GM Duncan mean by “Goodbye”? Was Ruderman fired? No, that would come later. Rudy would be fired about eleven months later on April Fools’ Day, 1974. His successor, Dick Stapleton, would be fired a year later on April Fools’ Day, 1975. Now, back to the memo . . .as Rudy explains.
“I think all Duncan (left) meant was a cute response to Val Adams’ ‘triple threat Rudy’ line. Not only did he not imply a threat to me by saying “goodbye,” but a year later, after (new GM Carl) Brazell told me to fire and not replace all the editors, I resigned in protest. Then George, who was Metromedia President by that time, called me to say “Don’t quit, Rudy! Wait a week, and we’ll fire you, so you can get severance pay and qualify for unemployment insurance.”
George Duncan had been promoted to President of Metromedia Radio Division, after about two years as GM of WNEW-AM, following his immensely successful turn as GM of WNEW-FM between 1968 and 1971. He was replaced as the AM GM by Carl Brazell, (right) who was replaced as News Director by Ruderman, which gets us back to the memo one more time. Rudy R. goes on to say he was out of work for four months, then . . .
“. . .then, suddenly, my successor, Dick Stapleton, hired me to replace the vacationing Andy Fisher on the overnight newscaster shift Christmas week, then to do weekend mornings, and Bill Scott gave me weekend overnights at WINS, and Bob Kimmel hired me as a producer at NBC Radio net. From there, as you know, I moved over to NBC’s NIS (News and Information Service) as Business Correspondent when Bob Dallos left. Among my most satisfying memories there was working with you and Cameron Swayze. I also remember getting a heart attack on Ash Wednesday in ’77, a couple of months before the all-news network went kaput.”
NBC’s NIS, sadly, did go kaput, but R.R., happily, did not. E.C.B.
George Duncan photo by Claude Hall
Carl Brazell photo by Dan Barrett
The Modernaires, over the years, certainly got a lot of air-play on WNEW. Beginning in the 1930’s, the group recorded under different names with several orchestras, and were featured on three recorded versions of “The Milkman’s Matinee” (two with Charlie Barnet and one with Les Brown) and two versions of the “Make Believe Ballroom” (Charlie Barnet and Glenn Miller.) Here’s when and how they got to be the Matinee’s signature voices.
On All Night
It doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere what theme music was first used by the original WNEW Milkman, Stan Shaw, when he went on the air in 1935, (2:00 a.m.-7:00 a.m.) but within a few months he was opening with a Charlie Barnet original, “Milkman’s Matinee,” released in 1936, with the vocal by the Barnet Modern-Aires.
Milkman’s Matinee – Charlie Barnet Orch. Modern-Aires-RCA Bluebird http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyZqL5WchvA
Barnet wrote in his autobiography that he hired the singers away from the Ozzie Nelson Band when they were still a trio known as “The Wizards of Ozzie.” Before that, the group, with a fondness for puns, was known as “Don Juan, Two and Three,” and before that, when Harold Dickinson (lead and second tenor), Bill Conway (baritone) and Chuck Goldstein (tenor) were Buffalo high school buddies, they called themselves “The Three Weary Willies.” Ralph Brewster joined the group in 1937, and Paula Kelly in 1941. By then, they’d been singing for a couple years, with the Glenn Miller band.
In 1937, Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven came out with a new version of “Milkman’s Matinee with a vocal by Edith Wright, and featuring solos by Pee Wee Erwin and Johnny Mince.
Tommy Dorsey Clambake Seven-MCA Coral Records http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4DDR9Ypxqw
Stan Shaw must have made good use of the Dorsey recording, because in 1939, Barnet was back with a new customized theme, “Stay Up Stan, The All-Night Record Man.”
Stay Up Stan, The All Night Record Man – Charlie Barnet Orch. Modern-Aires – Bluebird RCA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OukDF-eCOes
When Art Ford took over the Matinee in 1942, he played the Charlie Barnet “Matinee” theme, but switched in 1944 to Woody Herman’s recording of “Milkman, Keep Those Bottle Quiet,” from the movie “Broadway Rhythm,” returning later to the Barnet recording. When Ford left the show in 1954 to do daytime duty on WNEW and was succeeded overnight by Jack Lazare, the Matinee show had still another version of the theme music, this one by the Les Brown band, with vocal by the renamed Modernaires. When Al Jazzbeaux Collins played Milkman, during the 1970’s, the second recording he played every night, right after the opening theme, in order to establish the show’s jazz credentials, was Count Basie’s “Blues In Hoss’ Flat.” The Les Brown theme lasted through the remainder of the Matinee’s on-and-off-again life.
E.C.B.
The Newsday story posted below, published on Dec. 2, 1992 was made available to WNEW1130.com by former CNN Anchor, Dave Michaels.
By Paul D. Colford
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
New York, Dec. 2 —WNEW-AM / 1130 the 58-year old outlet for the music of Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Mel Torme and America’s greatest songwriters, died today after a long illness marked by financial losses, anemic rating, schizophrenic programming and the dismissal of practically every personality who made it special.
The end for the long-deposed monarch of New York stations came at 10 a.m. when singer Tony Bennett was to help The New York Times Co. convert WQEW, at 1560 AM, into a new haven for pop standards.
TO BE FAIR, the ghost of WNEW will limp along for another week or so with music-by-day and Larry-King-by-night before a new owner completes its purchase of the station and launches a 24-hour business format on 1130 AM. But the death watch that continued through management twists and ownership turns in recent years effectively ended this morning with the sign-on of its successor.
The startup of WQEW is a happy ending for those New York listeners who would have lacked an outlet for Gershwin and Bennett. At the same time, the demise of WNEW-AM has prompted wistful recollections of a once-great station.
“There’s been a great deal of gnashing of teeth in recent years because WNEW really occupied a special place in people’s psyche,” said WOR general manager Bob Bruno, who was WNEW’s program director in the mid-1970’s. “This wasn’t just another radio station. It represented culture, sophistication, and people felt like they were with the stars when they listened to the personalities who played the music. As a listener, you got to be on the inside.”
Generations of listeners got their first taste of the great composers, bands and vocalists from WNEW-AM. Indeed, they were hooked on the station’s sounds even after television became the dominant entertainment medium.
Bloomberg Communications Inc., the buyer that will install the business format, is paying nearly $13.6 million for what was worth an estimated $25 million in 1962. In that year, the station raked in more than $7.1 million in advertising, tops in the nation, and took the unprecedented step of dropping its national ad representative. Instead, the story goes, the station’s own sales people would come in, hang up their coats and simply start taking sponsors’ calls at 9:00 am.
WNEW hatched the idea of a disc jockey when staff announcer Martin Block started to play records during breaks in the station’s 1935 coverage of the Lindberg-kidnapping trial of Bruno Hauptman. Soon afterward, he presented records in an afternoon theater of the mind that was called “The Make-Believe Ballroom.” This writer’s mother recalls coming home from high school with her girlfriends, pushing the dining-room table against the well and dancing to the tunes of Glenn Miller and Sammy Kaye that Block had on his turntables. His style at the microphone was so warm and intimate that my grandfather, a hard-to-impress Irish railroad man, would say, “Open up the door because that fella’s coming right in.”
From 1946 to 1963, Dee Finch and Gene Rayburn enlivened mornings with “Anything Goes,” poking fun at their commercials from time to time. Gene Klavan, a master of voices and inspired anarchy, then worked alongside Finch before going it alone in 1969. The popular William B. Williams, who sounded so casual that he might have been hosting “The Make Believe Ballroom” stretched out in bed, was champion and pal of the singer he called “Francis” and “Chairman of the board.” Ted Brown, he of the cornball jokes and insatiable girl hunger, stood in amusing contrast to the intellectual Jonathan Schwartz, a former rock jock, who brought a freewheeling FM sensibility to the AM station, when he started doing weekend shows in 1971 — shows that he will now host on WQEW.
In news coverage, too, WNEW set the standard. In 1942, WNEW was believed to be the first station to break for hourly newscasts as prepared by the broadcast desk of the Daily News. In 1958, the station ended its association with the tabloid and spent lavishly to staff a homegrown news department with 13 reporters and rewrite men — a number that would more than double in time and seem all the more remarkable when viewed in today’s news-stingy radio times. WNEW’s own reporters went to Africa to interview Albert Schweitzer, they roamed the South to size up the civil rights movement, they broadcast from Vatican Square and Cape Canaveral. Reid Collins, Ike Pappas, Edward Brown and Jim Gordon were among those who told their stories on the hour and half-hour.
As late as the mid-1980’s, a listener could still sample the sophistication that was WNEW’s trademark. Ratings had declined from the glory years, as they had for all AM music stations, but WNEW averaged a respectable 3 share (percent) of the New York audience by remaining true to the American songbook. At no cost, a listener could relax in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at midday and watch Williams do live broadcasts alongside Keely Smith and other great singers who weren’t born yesterday. If it was Matinee Day, a visit to Charley O’s at Shubert Alley would find “Mr. Broadway,” afternoon disc jockey Jim Lowe, chatting it up with Cleo Laine and other performers, or persuading the great Sylvia Syms to get up and hush the house with her songs. Schwartz and resident pianist Tony Money would bring Julie Wilson, Helen Merrill, Maureen McGovern and other cabaret stars into the studio for still more conversation and live vocals.
But the mid-80’s also was the beginning of the end. In 1986, billionaire John W. Kluge sold WNEW and eight other radio stations owned by his Metromedia Inc. for $285 million. Almost immediately afterward, the buyers, burdened with debt, slashed all but the morning newscasts, canceled the live shows and broke up the music late at night with a syndicated talk program featuring psychologist Toni Grant. An evening sports program seemed even more glaringly out of place, and Steve Allen was paid a pile to do a talkative daytime broadcast that evolved into an inside joke among him and his friends.
Lowe, who was dismissed in 1987 after a total of two decades with WNEW, said from his home in the Hamptons that the new management was unwilling to enhance and protect the station’s 3 share and created the hodgepodge in a bid for revenues that alienated the core audience. “If you’re going to play Chinese bells on the air, that’s fine, but you’ve got to do it for twenty four hours,” he said.
Ratings weakened and WNEW was acquired in 1988 by investor Robert f. X. Sillerman, who then sold half to Westwood One Inc., based in Culver City, Calif. With an aging audience and meager ad revenues outside of the station’s New York Giants broadcasts, Westwood management became little more than a caretaker. It fired supervisors, disc jockeys and, finally, Mike Eisgrau, the last newsman, in what seemed an obvious effort to stem losses and make the payroll lean enough to attract a buyer. The spring rating ranked WNEW a dismal 20th with a 2 share, so that the August announcement of Bloomberg’s purchase signaled an end to the patient’s misery. Sillerman conceded that WNEW was not making money. He added, “It was acquired when there was a little more optimism about its future.”
In the end, The New York Times Co., which owns WQEW, wanted nothing from the “estate” of WNEW. No records, no call letters, no jingles. Only Schwartz. “It really is an American radio tragedy, because it’s symptomatic of what has happened to the industry over the last two decades,” Bruno, of WOR, said: “The owner-operators have gotten out of the business and a lot of the product is slowly being eaten alive…Now, this thing is being buried.”
——
Editor’s Note: Here is Wikipedia’s account of how the end came.
WNEW was put up for sale in `99`, and Bloomberg L.P. purchased station for $13.5 million shortly after. In the period before the format change, the airstaff was given an opportunity to say goodbye, culminating on December 10 and December 11, 1992, when the station had one big farewell show. During this farewell show, the airstaff reflected and talked very deeply about the loss of WNEW. The show would end at about a quarter after 8 p.m. on the 11th, as Mark Simone signed off for the last time with the entire current and many living former airstaffers at his side. WNEW joined NBC Talknet in progress followed by Larry King as usual.
Then after Larry King, beginning at 2 a.m. Saturday morning and throughout that day WNEW would simulcast WYNY, and would continue for the next three days. The station broke away for Giants’ Football, Talknet, and Larry King. On December 15, the sale of WNEW to Bloomberg became final, and the station continued simulcasting WYNY until 4 p.m. Then, after airing the Perry Como Christmas Special, shows from Talk Net, and the first hour of Larry King (cutting it off a few minutes before midnight), the station would sign off forever at 11:59 p.m. As the station signed off, they abruptly ended Larry King and the pre-recorded voice of Director of Engineering Alan Kirschner went on and stated “At this time 1130 WNEW New York will leave the air forever…Thanks for your support over the years…This is WNEW, New York”. At the transmitter site, engineer Rene Tetro then turned off the transmitter for two minutes, changing the program feed during that period to the new feed from the Bloomberg offices. The station signed back on the air at 12:01 a.m. with the callsign WBBR. The station would then simulcast WQEW, which was a standards station that had just signed on some two weeks earlier. The simulcast would continue until January 4, 1993, when WBBR’s business news format debuted.
TV Guide pages of August 17 and August 24, 1957 are the latest of Bill Diehl’s Flea-Market-Finds. (It would be about 12 years before a LaRosa show was first heard on WNEW.)
The TV Guide review notes that Julie “retained several of Como’s production staff.” In addition to those mentioned, Julie had already “retained” Perry’s secretary, Rory, as Mrs. LaRosa. They’ve been married more than 56 years.
The TV Guide review notes that Julie “retained several of Como’s production staff.” In addition to those mentioned, Julie had already “retained” Perry’s secretary, Rory, as Mrs. LaRosa. They’ve been married more than 56 years.
Celebrities, over the years, looked forward to vacations taken by WNEW personalities, because it often meant a chance for them to sit in and spin a few records. Buddy Hackett, for one, once worked a week for William B. Williams. Other celebrity DJ’s included Dinah Shore, Milton Berle, Mitch Miller and Sarah Vaughn. Listed below are celebs who got up in the middle of the night for a couple of weeks in 1969 to work a shift for the vacationing Gene Klavan. WNEW’s PD Dom Quinn, whose memo announced the lineup of replacements was, himself, replaced permanently just two months later. (See Billboard item beneath list.)
Thanks to Bill Diehl for digging out the Quinn memo.
April 12, 1969
The big surprise of the industry was the shifting of Dom Quinn from his job as program director to be just-a-deejay on the talk side of WMCA: Jack Thayer is consulting WMCA and the indication is that he may swing the former all rock station all the way to talk. Jack Spector and Ed Baer were the first deejays to go. Thayer, incidentally, knew Quinn from several frequencies ago.
Dave Pounds, who’d been assistant program director of WNEW in New York, has been upped to program director, and singer Julius LaRosa has been hired as 1-4 p.m. air personality. Dick Summers has resigned. . . No sooner than the strike is over at WNEW and WNEW-FM, than the Los Angeles Metromedia station gets its turn with executives flying in to handle the air personalities chores from all other stations, same as they did in New York.
Jack Thayer, who joined WNEW sales in 1959, and years later moved away, retuned in 1979 as GM.
Ray Rice — As a terrified newbie in July of 1967, I offered my first newscast at midnight. (Jingle) “Here’s the time…” “It’s 12:05, time for Dick Shephard and the Milkman’s Matinee”. He welcomed me warmly on the air and afterwards in the studio he was so gracious. I sweated through that first night and some others through the Newark riots and so many events now barely remembered. But, Dick was a wonderful guy, a great radio host and a memory that has resurfaced time and again in looking to those fantastic years and people at the Big W.
Marty Wilson — Dick and I kind of worked together at WEVD in the 1970’s. He was working afternoons and I was doing “Jazz Through The Night” from a studio in my Upper East Side apartment. We spoke a couple of times and he encouraged me to take a shot at a job at WNEW. Much later, after I moved to Florida, I was invited to partake in “Radio Lunch.” Dick was one of the participants and he made a point of telling me how happy he was that I finally got the job. Lunch was great…lots of funny stories. Just last week I was thinking of him and when we’d have another get together.
Peter Vann — Back in the 90′s when I was spinning the records at the original Jukebox Radio, Dick sat in for me while I was on jury duty. Later, he would come to visit me in my studio. He had many great stories and was a delight to speak with. I truly enjoyed his company.
Nick Mariolis — God rest Dick Shepard. We Also enjoy his music.
Russ Perrine — Bill . . I also knew Dick from our time together t WEVD-FM. He did the only standards format on FM (circa.1980) and we sold the show out. But Dick was so much more than a DJ….we flew in his plane, went to dinner at trade-out restaurants, talked endlessly about radio….he mentioned you often from WNEW days. He did an ad-lib commercial for Broadway Joe’s on 46th street that ran 4 minutes + which I have on a CD that I will treasure forever! I am proud to say that Dick Shepard was the only person that I loved in NY radio. I only wish ol’ Shep could read all these comments….he really was shy and embarrassed by having people hype him when he was alive.
I arrived at WNEW in early 1967 and worked the overnight, often with Shep on “The Milkman’s Matinee.” We had lots of time to chat and I mentioned that my marriage was over and I was single again. Dick didn’t miss a beat and had to tell our audience that I was now one of New York’s most eligible bachelors. WNEW’s signal was really big at night and a few days later I got a letter in the mail from a woman in Maine with a picture of her, her mother and two children. The letter said “Mr.Diehl, if you’ll pay my travel expenses, (and my mother’s) I’ll be happy to come to New York to meet you.” I sent note back saying thanks but that wasn’t going to happen. Dick was the consummate professional. It was a pleasure working with him at the Big W.
Dick was a tremendous talent and a friend. He entertained millions for decades on WNEW. And oh what a salesman. I especially loved his commercials for Air France.
Dick was the DJ on whose show I did my first part-time WNEW newscast. I was trying to move from writer/editor to newscaster, and Dick’s unfailing encouragement was a big part of that. He was gone when I finally made the move in 1974, but he knew how much that encouragement meant to me.
His departure from WNEW was the central event in the greatest story of bad timing I have ever heard. Al Wasser was the morning editor and, as a loyal WGA artist, was rarely seen on the premises after noon. One afternoon he came in to pick up his paycheck, and saw Shep standing in the hallway. “Hey, Shepard,” he cracked in his usual brusque way. “They haven’t fired you yet?” Dick smiled the faintest of smiles. “They just did, Al,” he said quietly. And they had!
Sad news about Dick. Of course my story goes back to two days before I started at WNEW News in 1967. Saturday, June 25th. I had just driven in from Chicago. Before I went to my apartment in Forest Hills, I went up to the second floor studios at 565 5th Avenue and 46th Street to see what my new surroundings would be like. In a hallway outside the studio I met Shepard. He warmly welcomed me to my new job as reporter/editor and we had a nice chat. As I left I said “Well, Gene, it has been a pleasure meeting you and I look forward to working with you and other folks in my new job.” His face turned sour and I was on his s… list for a long time. Frankly, I’d never heard of Dick Shepard—only Gene Shepard.
Let them both rest in peace.
It is difficult to comprehend how long I actually knew Dick Shepard. But I can tell you I was on the air with him…I flew through the air with him…and I shot plenty of breeze with him.
Dick Shepard was a large teddy bear…with a generous heart. When I was a young, part-time news guy at WNEW for Shepard’s show, Dick actually took a crazy chance and generously invited me to take the mike and repeat one of my silly off-mike comments to him ON THE AIR! Of course I never forgot that (fortunately he probably did!) We flew in his plane together.
He really WAS a helluva pilot. (I thought better than he was a driver!) When we landed at various airports in New Jersey and the Poconos it turns out he seemed to know even more people in the aeronautics circuit than in the restaurant realm. (Every time I bumped into Dick and Judy having dinner it was in the company of no fewer than nearly a dozen people.) Dick invited me into three of his homes…and brought me into the N.Y. Friars Club.
He could tell more stories than anyone I ever knew…and knew more stories than I…(which made it very difficult for me to sneak in one of mine that he didn’t already know). Happily, one of those stories was HIS being at MY wedding!
The times we spent together at Hemlock Farms in PA., including a memorable celebration of his 80th birthday at the humble Boat House were delightful…as was Dick’s more costly Sapphire Bombay Gin which he insisted was the more preferable to the plain Bombay, although he couldn’t really say why.
To say Dick Shepard WILL be missed sounds awfully cliche but it is more than that…because it is less than the truth. When Dick isn’t at Hemlock at his Canoe Drive place to me to drop by…; when the Shepard’s aren’t at dinner and I’m not vying for the next story…; when old “Shepard, Richard A witcha” ain’t on the air, whether it be WNEW, WPAT, WABC or WNYC, there’s gonna be a void, a vacuum, an empty place.
Dick Shepard is ALREADY missed.
By Bob Gibson
Veteran New York broadcaster Dick Shepard is gone.
Better known to his legion of listeners on WNEW at different times in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s as Shepard Richard A, Dick passed away Monday after being hospitalized in south Florida for a week. His wife of nearly 65 years, Judy, told me he was taken to the hospital in Boynton Beach on Tuesday, October 9th after complaining of not feeling well.
Dick. who also worked at WABC Radio in the late 50s and during part of 1960. also appeared as a commercial, on-camera announcer on some ABC Television game shows in the 50s, and was a busy voice-over talent during parts of five decades in New York.
Sadly Dick and I just got together to celebrate his 90th birthday early last month and Ed Brown was in the process of posting a picture and a story about that when he was alerted to Dick’s passing.
A photo arrived the other day from Glenn Crespo, at one time a WNEW News desk assistant. His caption:
“I found a picture of Bruce Charles, myself, another Desk Assistant Mary Ellen Kowalski and, if you look close on the left side, fill -in reporter Randy Place. This was taken after we moved to 3rd Avenue and must have been in the early 1980’s.”
In response, we asked Glenn to send a few lines about his time at WNEW and where it led, which turned out to be an impressive string of call letters including the new, all news WNEW in Washington, D.C.
“I was (at WNEW, New York) from January 1977 through September of 1991, starting as a desk assistant, hired by Jim Gordon. From 1978 through 1980, I was a weekend anchor at WFAS in White Plains. I continued as a desk assistant at WNEW and then, under Mike Prelee, began doing sports reports in 1986 and weekend anchor shifts in addition to anchoring news on the NY Giants football network. I free-lanced for AM and FM until AM went off the air. . . My time at WNEW was a great learning experience, working with Bob Hagen, Bruce Charles, Charles Scott King, Andy Fisher, Mike Eisgrau and Peggy Stockton. There were many major news stories covered during my time there, “Son of Sam,” The Northeast Blackout, the helicopter crash on the Pan Am Building, hijackings, presidential elections, the First Gulf War, the Battle for the Falkland Islands, the blizzard of 1977, transit strikes, the murder of John Lennon, the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and the Challenger disaster, to name a few.
After the news department was “downsized” in 1991, I worked two years for WXPS in Hawthorne New York as the morning anchor, co-host and News Director.I also free-lanced for WHUD, WFAS, WBLS, WFAN during this time. Went to WJUX in Dumont New Jersey in 1993, where I worked as the afternoon anchor and moved to WVNJ in Teaneck as the News Director and anchor in 1995. In 1997 I joined Shadow Traffic and remained there for 10-years doing traffic on WINS and news on WQCD.
In 1997 I began freelancing for the Wall Street Journal Radio Network and continued to do so off and on there until I was hired full-time in 2012 doing overnight reports for Dow Jones Radio on the Wall Street Journal Network, WCBS and WNEW (in Washington D.C.).
The WNEW (New York) News Department was a very interesting, volatile, action-packed place to work. A lot of different personalities thrown together. But at the end of the day, getting the news on the air was what mattered and getting it right was what mattered. The business has changed so much since then with sensationalism, character assassinations and speculations now being the norm. I will always treasure my years working in the WNEW News Department.”