The Unlikely Radio Star: John Meaney's Broadcast Journey

With apologies to Roger Miller, "Saratoga County Star...that's what he are." This month on the Radio Split Ranch, I sit down down with veteran broadcaster John Meaney, because neither of us can stand up for a whole hour anymore. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Radio Split Ranch!
Hello and welcome once again to Radio Split Ranch, a monthly visit with the
Capital Region's great broadcasters of the past and sometimes present.
I'm Warren Garling when I'm not on the radio.
I've got another eye-opening conversation to share with you this month with

(00:21):
a veteran broadcaster who spent most of his career on the radio in Saratoga
County. But that's not the most interesting part of his story.
This seasoned pro says radio wasn't his first choice for a career.
He was never really bitten by the radio bug when he was young,
as many of our previous guests were.

(00:41):
And being a personality, per se, is not his favorite announcing gig.
I'll let the man himself explain. Enjoy my conversation with John Meany.
I haven't known this guy too long, but I know him well enough to know that he's
bitten as bad by this radio bug as most everybody I've interviewed so far.

(01:01):
John Meany, thank you for coming to the Radio Split Ranch. Well,
thank you for inviting me.
Now, having met you, what, only maybe three, four years ago, maybe?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not knowing much about your background. And you know what?
I haven't done a lot of research either, so I'm going to learn about you at
the same time that everybody else listening does.
Preparing for this, I learned a lot about it. Wow, I really did that sometime in my life.

(01:24):
Exactly. Well, we want to hear the whole truth, nothing but the truth,
and just have some fun along the way.
Because I know you enjoy this business as much as every other crazy person that's
sat where you're sitting.
So where did it bite you?
How old were you? You know, that's kind of funny because I'm not your typical radio announcer.

(01:45):
First of all, the bug did not bite me. Okay, okay.
Until much later in life. I was not one of those who, you know,
practiced with a mic or wanted to be on the radio like in my youth or in my teens.
Okay, interesting. My first introduction to radio was actually when I went to college.
Okay. I went to Ithaca College, great broadcast school. Oh, very nice.

(02:05):
I have a great niece there right now. All right.
She's a bomber, huh? I don't know if we want to say that these days, but we're proud.
And I was going there to be a television director. I did have that bug. Oh, interesting.
I am a, my fascination are buttons.
Lights and switches and you know that's what

(02:27):
radio was for me i was 11 years old and i said
oh can you imagine playing with all this equipment on top
of that i'm a little bit late when it
comes to the star trek era so those type of lights and switches didn't turn
me on okay but i was and i you know i television we had a little chance to do
it in in high school with doing camera work and we would tape the basketball

(02:50):
games or the football games and that's all i was Now, where was that?
At Saratoga Springs High School. So are you a local boy? I'm a Blue Street, and I stayed there.
Wow, yeah, you're still there. My only other place I ever lived was Ithaca,
New York, during those four years. How about that?
I don't know why, but it just— Well, there's nothing wrong with it.
My whole family, I have four siblings, and my mom and dad, and dad at the time,

(03:13):
all moved away. Oh, interesting.
Isn't that crazy? But I stayed home. So when I got into college,
I mean, my very first class was, okay, let's teach you how to use the radio
board and be on the radio.
And of course, I had my switches and knobs and old LPB board and things like
that. And I just like, this is really nice.

(03:34):
I like this. Cool, yeah. What I didn't realize was anything about my voice, except for one thing.
I did have a fascination with my voice when it came to public address announcing.
And I'll mention that a little bit on the side, because that is really actually
what I consider my forte.
And I'll tell you how in that. But so I had a little work with my voice,

(03:55):
but I never thought that television or radio that I would ever be in front of a microphone.
Phone interesting i didn't think it was mine so you were going to be behind
the scene absolutely and plus you know the
old you know couldn't be television because of this face at
least what i thought yeah i always tell people
my my mother told me i had the perfect face for radio it's

(04:15):
just a great line you know what we have and that's what
we are so anyway we you know i i enjoyed it and of course you do things in school
and the great thing about ithaca you start in in your freshman year and I was
like reading news or maybe I did a disc jockey shift for three hours once a
week or something like that. But I didn't really have the bug, you know.

(04:36):
Actually, you know, I got into television, got in right away,
a production assistant for our football broadcast and got into directing.
I was a great cameraman. I really was a good cameraman. People would use me
and in my sophomore year, the end of my sophomore year,
I was told to be the operator, or told, I was given the job as the operations
manager of the TV station. Nice. Very nice.

(04:59):
I really moved up the ladder. However, however, I was not the best student. And...
So I coasted. I did okay. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't failing or anything,
but I had certain requirements.
And in my sophomore year at finals week, I got strep throat and did not do well during finals week.
I passed everything, but I was down to, I don't know, just below the 2.5 for overall.

(05:24):
And I needed to have a 3.0. So the TV station said, you know,
why don't you work on your eardrums?
And I said, okay, I'll do that. Now, did you find that it was mostly the non-communications
classes that you're having the struggles with?
That's what happened to me. Just before we went on, Mike, I told you I wasn't much of a reader.
That's right. I was a great, you know, listener and things like that.

(05:46):
But I also wasn't a good writer.
Okay. I became a better writer later on.
As a matter of fact, the best class I ever took in college was in my senior
year, and it was freshman writing.
Interesting. But I learned how to write. Yeah, yeah. And that was a big thing for me.
Sure. So I guess they call it academic probation, but I wasn't in trouble,
like, you know, way down there with a failing class or anything.

(06:08):
So radio didn't know that I had this little probation.
Okay. So I went over to radio and they had two stations.
They have this wonderful album oriented rock station that, I mean,
it's actually well known in the college community for being a good radio station.
And if the guy, what was the, where were the calls there? W I C B.

(06:29):
Okay. Ithaca College Broadcast. Perfect.
And 92, I'm going to forget that one. Too many years ago.
But it's somewhere around 92. But we also had a carrier current station.
Yep. And that's a 106 VIC.
And that was more of a contemporary hit station.
That's where I all of a sudden started to excel.

(06:50):
I started doing the show, getting enthusiastic about it.
I had people around me that were, you know, really good and taught me how to
be good on the radio. so much so that I was the person I even hosted a top 40,
countdown okay that we had we had a producer that did
it you know board operator and i my my co-host is

(07:12):
a woman by the name or student by the name of
janet snyder okay and she's really big in buffalo by the way you could look
her up right now yeah she does pretty well but it was the two of us and you
know we did all the remote broadcasts and everything and i was given a certificate
at the end of my senior years and best on air so so i caught the bug so i had
it at least but I still wanted to go into television.

(07:34):
Okay. So I got through college, had a very nice career, and radio was a part
of it, but I still was not looking to go into radio. Okay.
Let me give you two other things that I forgot to mention. Okay.
This is the first important one. It was actually after my freshman year in 1982.
Yes, I'm that young to some of the group.

(07:57):
Well, my father opened up a restaurant with a partner in Saratoga Springs,
rings and the rotary would meet there.
And a member of that rotary was a guy by the name of Mark Karras.
Okay. Do you remember that name? I'm afraid I don't. He was actually the news director for WGY.
Okay. Okay. I had forgotten that. He, because he talked with,

(08:18):
and he played a very important role. And unfortunately he has passed.
Passed very young. I think he was only 55 or something like that. Oh yeah.
And, but he talked with my dad and got me an internship at WGY.
But I had a daytime job. I mean, so important. I was delivering produce for
10 hours a day or something like that, get myself filthy.
And then I would clean up and head down to Balltown Road.

(08:41):
Yeah. And it was at the time where Channel 6 and WGUI shared the newsroom.
So I got to meet so many of the people I loved growing up with.
And at the time, it was like almost everybody, Ernie Tetro, Ed Digg,
and Liz Bishop all working together.
And then there were some others. There's Yaf Lombardo was doing the sports. Remember him? Yes.

(09:03):
He has, his name has not been mentioned yet. You're the first one to mention
him. And Tim Welch was doing the show there.
And, but I was, we were over the GUI desk, you know, and I got to work with,
I'll mention the first name of the person that I just love in this business.
And he is, he was my mentor and to this day, one of my idols.

(09:24):
And he has one of the most marvelous voices and that's Peter Reif. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. with him every two nights a week. I would get down there and do that. And at the same time.
I got to also meet some others because it was my job to, you know,
rip the weather off the, and bring it down to Tom McCarthy, who was doing the afternoons at GY.

(09:48):
Yeah. And Tom Parker was over at WGFM. Sure. Yeah. You know,
John Sador, or John Daniels, you know, there.
Yeah. And Bob Cudmore would take over the contact show. There you go.
So that's where I got to meet him first.
Sure. And, you know, so some of those names were really, and I wasn't really
a starstruck person, but this, it was a fun time.
Oh, you're talking some terrific work with Peter Reif for a very short time when he was at WGY.

(10:14):
Good person, fun person, but also what a voice. Oh, yeah. And he was backed
up by actually another person with a good voice who's also gone.
I'm trying to get up to Jim Gagliardi. Are you trying to catch up to Jim's total
for dead people? It ain't going to work.
Fortunately, we lose people. And some of them are very young, age, Jeff Gluck.
Oh, yeah. I remember that name. Yeah, I do. So they were very kind to me.

(10:37):
They taught me a lot. Nice. You know, I would write the news.
But it was Mark Karros who really got me started with that. So that was an important part.
And then in my, right after my junior year, Mark Karros had moved to Saratoga
Springs to work for Kent Jones. W-K-A-J.
He was a general manager there. And so I've been working at this fruit company for six years.

(11:01):
I finally, I gave Mark a call and he was thrilled that I was interested in maybe
doing something for him.
And it was funny. He comes over to me and, or I go over to him over on West Avenue.
That's the building, you know, but that wasn't the building I was in for,
you know, afterward, but the original building.
And, you know, he wanted me to write some news stories and then he wanted me to read them.

(11:23):
And I was able to read them. And he goes, you know, John, I knew you could write
because, you know, he sort of, he and Peter Reeve taught me how to write.
But I didn't know you could read the news that well.
So he gave me a job for that summer. He had left.
And for the Christmas time after, you know, my senior year, I also worked for
them because it was right down the street.

(11:44):
So I had some history there. And of course, I got to know Kent Jones. There you go.
Usually I was just doing some news during the day. And we were also engineering,
or when I say engineering, we were taping reports from the Saratoga Racecourse
because we aired the races, a half-hour delay.
Yep. These days, you know, you don't need all that. Right.

(12:06):
And I was the one who put it all together. There you go. That would lead to
one of my favorite things that I ever did a little bit later on.
But I got to know Kent and, you know, a lot of the people there. Graduated from Ithaca.
I applied for a job right away in Binghamton as a TV director,
because that still was my first job. What you wanted to do, yeah.
So I went up a very large hill to their UHF station, WMGC, where a graduate

(12:32):
from two years before that had actually recommended me to be a director for
the weekend news and sports things.
And I was ready. Great place to start.
Yep. And they offered me the job. and but
but they were going to pay me 170 a week
and even that time that was low you
know especially for tv and going to a new place yeah but for tv i mean as i

(12:58):
said it's a uhf station true in the winter i don't know if you can get up there
so yeah so i thought about it but wasn't you know, too keen on it.
I actually took a trip to Cape Cod for the first time with my brother.
He had to get away from his girlfriend just some time off. He eventually married her, by the way.

(13:19):
So we just took a trip out there. And when I got back, I had a message from
Kent Jones and I never even, and he said he wanted me to work there full time
just because of my work doing there, you know, before.
And it was the same amount, 170 a week, but I could live at home.
You know, that was the big thing for that. Yeah.

(13:39):
When it comes to covering Saratoga County, the other papers are offsides.
Blow the whistle on those who think bigger newspapers provide sports fans with
all the local information everyone needs.
The other paper is bigger, so it must have more local information.
Strike one. The other paper covers a larger area, and we're part of that. Strike two.

(14:03):
Saratoga County is number one on other papers
priority list and strike three if you're
looking for sports news about your neighbors your local heroes the Saratogian
has more 86 percent more than the Gazette 84 percent more than the Record 87
percent more than the Times Union and 93 percent more than the Postar the Saratogian

(14:23):
covers more local sports than the other four combined to be exact.
When it comes to local sports, the Saratogian scores a touchdown.
The others land in the penalty box.
When it comes to covering Saratoga County, the Saratogian should be measured, not weighed.
And of course, I think you had mentioned this. I didn't know it was a regular

(14:43):
practice, but you know, I use my real name.
John Meany is my real name, but I had to use my real name because I also was
the son of Jim and Marsha Meaney, who were very socially active in Saratoga
Springs, so they were like, why is he using a different name?
So that's the name I've used with the exception of at one point I was Big John

(15:04):
Meaney, doing an overnight show.
So that's how, that's how I carried about.
And then I, I got to work for the, we
You know, the 900 signal and the 102.3 signal. There you go. In Saratoga Springs.
Students who participated in the summer art program at the Junior College of
Albany will display their artwork in the Best of Summer Art Show.
That will be on Thursday, July 31st from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gymnasium on the

(15:28):
College of Albany campus at 148 East Scotland Avenue in Albany.
The exhibit will be followed by a reception.
Both are free and open to the public. If you'd like more information,
call us, number 270-2246. That number again, 270-2246.
A message in the community interest from AM90-WKHA.
The Saratoga Capital Region weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms and

(15:51):
rain for the rest of tonight.
Currently, the barometer is at 29.93 and rising slightly. The winds are calm
and the current temperature is 70 degrees.
That's 70 degrees under cloudy skies in Saratoga Springs.
It's 24 past 5. Coming up, your chance to win Yankee tickets.
Stay tuned. Soon, here's music from Jackson Brown, In the Shape of a Heart,

(16:12):
on AMI-DWK-AJ, The Sound of Saratoga.
By the time I graduated, they were in their new building.
It was what we actually called the Newman E. Pete Waite Building.
He was the president of the Adirondack Trust. I remember the name.
Beautiful building. It was made for radio. And where was it?
It was also on West Avenue. Okay. Because that's where the earlier studio was. Sure, sure.

(16:36):
But it was a facility. It's now the place where my urologist is and my pulmonologist.
That's wild. So I love going in there. As a matter of fact, during the early
days of my marriage, about 20, 25 years ago, her doctor was in there.
I'll be darned. And she was in the old production studio, and the wallpaper
was still the same. Oh, my God.

(16:58):
But I worked for that group for, I say that group, I worked for that station
for seven years, still in 1992, from 85 to 92, but under three different owners.
Okay. The second owner was a combination of guys from Vermont. They came from St.
Albans, Vermont, John and David Kimmel, as well as Howard Ginsberg.

(17:20):
They didn't really stay in the market, so a lot of people don't know their names.
But what they did bring is they brought a young whippersnapper named Ken Benson,
who is still programming stations around the country.
I dare say around the world. Wow. Because the current person I work for,
who's from Great Britain, says that the radio station he worked at somewhere

(17:41):
in England, they have a picture of Ken Benson up on the wall. Oh, darn.
But he introduced us, first of all, to CDs.
Yes, I started with the records and the carts before then.
Right. And he turned it over where the 900 was the big thing,
the AM when I worked there, to make the FM now more.
Sure. So I worked for WQQY, 102WQ.

(18:04):
Boy, they were running out of call letters, obviously, when they named that
one. Well, they found a way. Wow.
He came from Howard Ginsburg, came from XXX up in Burlington.
Mm-hmm. So, yeah, QQY didn't. But, you know, we had fun, and it was hit radio
station, more than a hot AC, and, you know, fast-paced. You know what I love?

(18:24):
I mean, I just had so many calls for birthdays and I love wishing people happy
birthday. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do that right now. Somewhere in here.
Yesterday, I should say yesterday, I got a late call for somebody who was celebrating
a birthday yesterday and I did not wish this person a happy birthday.
And I'd like to do that now. Okay.
Even though the birthday was yesterday. All right. Happy birthday to Reagan Lovell.

(18:47):
Reagan. Who was 11 yesterday from Saratoga Springs. Happy birthday, Reagan.
So there you are. Oh, she had a nice day. I hope so too. You ready for the horoscopes? Huh?
Okay, well, I'll go away from the mic. I'll do them over here. Okay, sure. There.
Gemini, great success is possible in sales. I worked with some people that really...

(19:08):
The only person that came in at one point that has a name in the area is Ken McGrail.
Okay. He did the morning show for the FM for a while.
I did a lot with the AM, which was now standards band, stuff like that.
All right. And that was my first stint with a guy named Chris Martin.
There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And I would work later with him.

(19:30):
You know, we were connected at the hip for a lot of years. So,
you know, I love to go into all the deep, but you can't, you don't have enough
time, nor does anybody have enough.
The nice part about podcasts compared to radio and TV is there is,
well, there's no time limit, okay?
Some of these podcasts I've done are 45 minutes to an hour.

(19:53):
Others have turned into an hour and a half, you know? And the nice part about
it is wherever the conversation takes us, it takes us.
I'll let you do that. And I can always edit out the bad stuff later. Yes, the producer.
So, you know, and then the third group that would own it was a local salesperson
who a lot of people do know. His name was Bob Putnam.

(20:15):
And he bought the station from the Kimmel's and the Mr.
Ginsburg. And we kept sort of similar formats.
And then in 1992, things were falling, you know, falling apart.
They weren't doing as well. So they reduced my pay by $50 a week.
And that was not a blaming thing, but I took it as an opportunity.

(20:38):
Sure. And I said, you know what? First of all, remember, I didn't have the bug originally.
Sure, yeah. It followed me. But I decided, why don't I pick this time to leave
and figure out what I want to do next?
Allowing me to do that, I went on unemployment. Okay. So I went on unemployment for a year.
Wow. I did, you know, help some owners out, including the people that would

(21:03):
take over for Bob Putnam.
What happened was the FM station went from a hot adult contemporary to Z-Rock.
Okay. Are you familiar with that format? I don't remember. It was a syndicated,
and it was hard rock. Okay.
And we had some fun with it and everything. And they moved the FM studio-wise

(21:23):
to the show studios in Schenectady.
Okay. You know, I wondered because my old college buddy, Barry Sims,
came into town when the stations went into receivership, and he just recently
mentioned there were three stations involved there, and I only remembered the
two, you know, show stations.

(21:43):
And so now you're telling me one of those was from up there.
And this is 102.3, which of course is still around, but it was that move.
That caused WAS and then WQQY to change from a Saratoga Springs station to a Ballston Spa station.
I gotcha. Because they moved the sticks to the Wait Road in Clifton Park Tower.

(22:06):
So then that's where it stands today from what I understand.
Yeah. So since they were moving the studios and all they did was basically run
a tape that the satellite would activate, it really wasn't much to it.
But I picked that time to say that this was, you know, enough for me,
at least for the time being. Sure.
So I did some odds and end things, you know, look for work under unemployment and stuff like that.

(22:30):
And then things found me. The next thing I would do is the person that eventually
bought the station, the 900 AM station, was a guy named Bud Walker out of Highland,
New York, which is down near Poughkeepsie and New Paltz.
And so I helped him with, you know, getting things going. And he actually moved
the studio, including the LPB board that we used, under the tower,

(22:52):
which is right next to the high school on West Avenue, near where the old studio used to be.
Exactly where KAJ used to be. Absolutely. Yeah.
So I, and that association got me something a little later on.
But it was actually Jay Scott up in Glens Falls. Sure. Who has done magic.
Right. Down here in Albany. Yeah. Yeah, he worked for them for quite a while.

(23:14):
This is twice. He gave me a call, and I actually did not know him.
But apparently somebody had referred him. And I went up to Glens Falls to work for WENU. Okay.
And work for Jay doing the afternoon show.
And got to meet a few more people up in the Glens Falls area.
It's wonderful, you know, meeting different people.

(23:36):
Oh, sure. Some of them being reacquainted with. But I worked up there for a
little bit and doing some shows here and there and had some interesting things
go on, interesting automation for their AM with WSTL.
They would have seven carts. Yeah.
In sequential order. They just play them, seven carts, one after the other.

(23:58):
And your job was to fill the cart machines with new material.
So it'd be like one cart would be a song, a song, a liner, a song, a commercial.
But once they queued back up, you had to yank them out and put new stuff in the correct order. Wow.
I've worked with a few automation systems, but that was definitely the crudest.
And there was a little light in the FM studio while you're on the air that tells

(24:21):
you, oh, you're on the seventh cart, better go change your carts,
or we'll hear that song again. Crazy. It was a lot of fun.
Because originally, back at the WKAJ and WASM and stuff, I worked with a BE Control 16 operation.
That's one where the big reels open up and you have the cart carousels and everything.

(24:42):
And I learned to program that very well. So I got to learn some technical sides as well.
And all during that, I did lots of other things. I did sports.
I did news. You know, Peter had taught me a lot about news.
So, you know, people like the way I do the news, but I like just doing a little
bit of everything. Good.
So that's what I did. At the same time, Bud Walker also had a station.

(25:05):
Remember, he's the one who took over 900 with a station in Amsterdam.
And it was a country station and asked me to work there.
Okay. So for one month, just one month, it was like December 1st to January 1st.
I did the morning show and I, the only reason why I left that was Jay Scott
and the Don Heckman group and up in Glens Falls finally gave me a full-time

(25:29):
job doing, doing that afternoon on a regular basis plus sales.
And this was about 1993, 1994.
Gotcha. From there. Yeah.
I got a call from Ken McGrail again. Okay. In 1994, it was the spring of 1994,
say they're starting a new station in Saratoga Springs.
It's actually the 101.3 signal, the WSSV, which I did not work for.

(25:52):
And they're going to, they have a new owner, Peter Coughlin out of Rochester,
and they're going to call it 101.3, the jockey.
There you go. This is the first installment of the jockey. So we were up on the hill in Stillwater.
Oh, wow. There's an old Air Force site, and we were in a house right next door,
and we would broadcast from there. Beautiful.
We had nice boards and everything like that, and I'd do the afternoon show.

(26:15):
And I was going to bring up a name, and I'm not sure if you can remember her
name, but Ken McGrail and a guy named E.J.
Bombard, who was a good friend of Tom Hahn. Oh, I remember Tom.
I worked with Tom at the new school. Yeah.
He was doing the news. Ken McGrail was doing the morning.
And I'm thinking it's Beverly something. Do you remember?
Beautiful voice. Oh, boy. Just a marvelous voice. Yeah.

(26:37):
I won't come up with it, and I'm sorry about that. Yeah, but now you got my
brain going, because I do remember a Beverly, and now I'm trying to remember who it was.
And she would do the middays, I would do the afternoons, and then we'd close
up shop and let automation run overnight.
We moved that operation down to Malta, where a lot of people ended up through that ownership.

(26:58):
And worked for Peter Coughlin for a little while. We brought in some other people,
including a guy named Mike Flynn.
Hmm, okay. Our own Jim Steele in the business.
Yeah, yeah. And that's where I met Mike, and we just, we became,
we actually did, I think, shows together on three different stints.
Isn't that crazy? Yeah, including Star 101.3.

(27:19):
So, that's where I was. And then at one time, I just said, you know, this is enough.
Peter wanted me to do more sales, and I did have an issue. And that was...
I smoked for years and had some lung problems and you'd hear me coughing on the air. Oh boy.
He's having, he wanted me to tape everything. I said, you know what? That's enough.

(27:41):
So I left him and this was a 1996. Okay.
And that next month I was getting married. Oh geez. I'm one who was actually
unemployed the day he was. Oh no.
But I had a job lined up that was working with Bud Walker again.
Yeah. And that was in 1996, working at the 900 signal again.

(28:03):
But this time we were going to do big bands and standards.
And the actual studio was at the bottom of the tower on West Avenue.
Oh, literally. In the doghouse.
No bathroom there, by the way. Oh, no.
So I was from six to about eight o'clock every morning.
If I had to go to the bathroom, well, you know, just don't go near the tower.
But after 8 o'clock, I could go into the Spectrum or the cable company and use their bathroom.

(28:29):
So it was like that. And when there was a thunderstorm coming,
I'd actually put the automation on.
I'd go out to the parking lot, sit in my car as I watched the guide wires line
up. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wow.
So anyway. That's craziness. Well, you know, before we started recording here,
you mentioned to me that you were going to give John Gabriel a run for his money

(28:50):
on call letters. and we're not even anywhere near the end of your story and
I'm already, they're adding up.
You and I are going to be here after this is done coming up with a list and
you may have to stay the night.
And I will miss some, you know, but those were WBUG and WBGG.
Okay. And we went back to, did we go back to WKAJ? By the way,

(29:12):
WKAJ, we know where those call letters came from.
Right, right, Kimberly Ann Jones, the daughter. And she was in my high school class.
I'll be darned. I'm still in touch with her. I'll be darned.
As a matter of fact, I might reach out to her and just say that.
See, when I worked with Kent, for Kent, in the early 70s, she was not even a

(29:34):
teenager yet, I don't think. No. No, she was quite young.
Later, she had one stint. It was a short stint, but where she actually became
general manager of the station. I'll be darned. So she became my boss.
Well, her mom was the sales manager at KAJ when I was there.
She was working, yeah. Fran Jones.
Yeah. Yeah, that was the sad thing. She was, Kim was supposed to get married

(29:55):
Saturday, and Fran had passed the Sunday before.
Oh. And one of the saddest things is the flowers at the wake were the wedding.
So it was just one of those awful things. Yeah, that's terrible.
That's too bad. But there's some great memories there. So you're right.
There's been a lot of call letters and all. So the big thing happened while

(30:17):
I was working for Bud Walker for about two years. So it was 1998.
It got a call from Jay Scott again. Okay.
And he said he wants me to work for this guy named Ernie Anastas.
I know that name as well. Yeah. I'm going, who's that? Yeah. I have no idea.
So I didn't know who that was. Yeah. So we met up at the Queensbury Hotel and
with this Ernie Anastas and we were ready to go on board with a new thing.

(30:41):
They had taken over the 101.3 signal. I knew the building like the back of my
hand because I'd already been there. Yeah.
And Jay, I'm going, oh, Jay wants me to be his afternoon guy or wants me to.
No. No, he picked me out to be the morning show guy.
Wow. And I think Jay is one of the, you know, one of the guys that have worked
with it that does very well with prep work and putting things together.

(31:03):
But no, I became the morning man at Star 101.3.
By the way, I will say that I came up with that. Oh, there you go.
Ernie and I were talking afterwards at Pinnell's and I said,
how about Star 101.3? He goes, I like it.
Yeah. Cool. Ernie was an innovator. He was great. For those who don't know,
he's a longtime anchor, news anchor mostly, down in New York City.

(31:29):
He's worked for many, but he also worked with ABC.
He's been a host of Good Morning America at times and well-respected.
And there are some stories I had during there. There's one time that I'll never
forget. It was not a great time.
We were going to have a party up at Saratoga Lake, the whole crew,
and everybody's going to join each other.

(31:51):
Nice. And I brought my young son, who was only about three years old at the
time, and Ernie was coming up to join us, but he had to take a right at the
Berkshire Spur coming up the thruway from New York City.
Jfk jr's plane oh wow yes yes
oh wow that weekend yeah so that was
you know that was one of the stories but he also taught me a whole lot

(32:13):
he's a wonderful man still does some things i think
he does a a podcast or something along those lines positively ernie so he's
a great great person to be around nice glad i worked with him he brought in
a young guy scott collins okay who a lot of people knew because he was the son
of gene collins who used to run channel 10 okay i knew i knew I knew that name. Sure.

(32:34):
Yeah. Those connections would make for my favorite time in radio.
And that is Scott was able to bring in a lot of people to our little radio station
in Malta just to give it some oomph at times.
But during that time, I got the chance to work with, even manage.

(32:56):
I'll never forget when Bob Cudmore called me his boss during a presentation
once that I never thought I would meet.
Many people very much involved. Walt Adams.
Sure. Rick Mitchell. Sure. We did the show together. He taught me one of the
biggest things in my radio life, and that's how to prep.

(33:17):
And he was wonderful to work with. I worked with many different partners.
But on the AM side, we had the Star and the FM side.
On the AM side, we had Moon Radio.
And mostly Scott brought in some legends. Mm-hmm. Steve Fitz.
Yeah. Okay. Bob Cudmore, as we've mentioned. Yeah. I know I'm going to forget some.

(33:39):
But one of those, of course, became one of my best friends, and that's Dick Wood.
Oh, yeah. It was through Scott that he brought Dick Wood to do This Day in History.
And Dick and I became...
Such good friends, especially after he began a project called Jazz Tracks.
And we did a jazz show every week. I would run the board.

(34:01):
Here I was the operations manager there and the morning show guy,
but this was my favorite hour and a half every week.
Wow. And Dick and I just, such a rapport and so many stories of personal note
that, you know, I miss him.
And I actually had open heart surgery on his 90th birthday. Oh, wow.
He's calling me every day at the hospital. or I can't talk yet.

(34:23):
And my open heart surgery, by the way, was a valve replacement.
So it was sort of like, it wasn't something that happened, you know, other than that.
And Dick's 90th was covered by Channel 10 and then some other stations in town
because it was, you know, he was just a legend here in the area,
spent most of his career here.

(34:44):
And things about Dick is, you know, I called him a very good friend and all,
but I think a lot of people could call him a very good friend.
And he made everybody feel good. Yes, absolutely.
I'd go to lunch with him, and here I am, just this guy who, and people would
recognize him. Oh, sure, sure. Say, you're Dick Wood.
And he said, do you know John Meany?

(35:06):
And I thought, what a just a way. I miss him. He died a year later.
Just about on his 91st birthday.
And I could not even be at services because I developed COVID.
Oh, boy. But I have many, many memories, and I will talk about him forever. ever.
And he was part of our Louis lunch bunch that we talk about on this podcast a lot.
And, and I got the opportunity occasionally to pick him up at home and bring

(35:29):
him to the lunch when his wife would be working and, you know, doing her art.
And, and he just, the just so genuine and we, you could always count when we
knew Dick was going to be at the lunch, you could always count on full tables.
We, I mean, everybody wanted to be there.
They knew that they would hear a story or two that they'd heard three times
before, but he'd always come up with a new one as well and he was such a story

(35:53):
teller. Or at least a new take.
Oh yeah, exactly, exactly. And he was just such a.
A storyteller, and had so many that he could share.
And with his booming voice, especially in his later years, his hearing wasn't
terrific, so the whole restaurant would enjoy the stories.
And the younger folks might remember him as doing the quick response commercials.

(36:13):
Exactly. I don't know if you know the story of how that happened.
I don't know if we've talked about that on the podcast. He lived in Latham,
and one day he drove his car, and he drove through the back of his garage into his family room.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, God. And one of our connections in Saratoga said,
you ought to call quick response.
And Vince DiLorenzo and Dick became instant friends. So he, for years,

(36:38):
was the voice of quick response.
And just a beautiful man. I'll tell you one story about him,
only because, you know, as a personal note, he also had heart bypass surgery,
which, you know, some of our friends have had and everything.
And it takes a while to recover. But when he was recovered, my wife and I were
actually the first people invited to his house to have dinner.

(37:02):
What an honor. I mean, you know, he knows so many people.
But the funny thing is, I don't know if you ever met his wife.
You've probably met her. Briefly, yes.
She's got a wit all her own. Well, we're having dinner. My wife and I are opposite each other.
And Dick and his wife are opposite each other. Nice little candles on the thing.
And I think I mentioned, I said, you know, those are beautiful candles.
He says, Chris goes, yeah, but just you watch, Dix will be shorter than mine

(37:25):
by the end of the dinner conversation because he keeps yapping and yapping and
yapping and blowing on it.
So it was, anyway, so I got to meet a lot of great people and I,
you know, some of my love and many of them, you know, some of them are gone,
you know, with Steve Fitz. It was just a wonderful relationship.
And I know there are more, but I can't, oh, here's, here's one thing I will
say, you know, people, I was the last program director for Boom Boom. Brannigan. Seriously.

(37:52):
Okay. I do remember him. Yeah. We had our third signal there,
which we actually for a while called the sun.
Okay. And it's the 1240 signal, which a lot of our colleagues have worked at
one time or another. That's where I started.
Yeah. There we go. Yeah. Well, again, and so you know where the transfer.
Oh, yes. Sometimes it got underwater.
Yes. Very much so. Yep. Near the Rotterdam mall. Yep. He would track a show, a morning show.

(38:17):
Okay. Or a station we had. We had a lot of people tracking. And he'd record
like 1500 liners and then you'd rotate them and you seem like he was going live.
Sure, sure. A little story about that. He came into our studio one day, brought us donuts.
So we talked for a little bit. Rick Mitchell and I were doing the FM and he was doing his thing.

(38:37):
And it was just, I don't think a month later that he had a stroke.
Wow. His family called us up.
And said, could you keep it running? So, wow, he was no longer capable of being.
So, we kept his liners going, but it was under their request for those years.
And it wasn't until he passed that we finally had to take it off the air because everybody would know.

(38:59):
But what a legend he was, and I was so glad to at least be able to work with
him a little bit and meet him later in his life.
Probably the most mentioned name on this podcast of all that I've done,
because all of us seemed to not only listen to him growing up,
but determine this is what I'm going to do.

(39:19):
You know, I mean, I want to be like this guy.
He's fantastic. And yeah, and I mean, what a tribute to him that there are still,
you know, people on the air to this day in this market that,
you know, attribute their early love of radio and, you know,
DJing to this ultimate DJ.
Yeah. I mean, this guy just, once again, he just lived it, breathed it.

(39:39):
He did. If he wasn't on the air, he was doing a record hop somewhere, you know?
You know, his appearances were just as big as what he did.
Absolutely. Because of how he came to that event. Yes, yes. I mean, he was...
He was a showman. He was a showman. I mean, he really was. And so that was terrific.
Yeah. So Ernie Anastas eventually sold those stations to...

(40:02):
Joe Riley of the New York state broadcast. Yes.
Yes. He had a partner near of Patel and he also went in, I believe with Joe,
Joe Tardy. Oh, I know that name. Yep.
And, and I forgot his name, but the man who owns hippos or at the time did.
And so they came in and I had a year left because apparently there was a deal

(40:25):
made and Ernie, you know, said as part of the sale, you need to keep everybody for one year.
And one year later joe riley called
me into the office and said you know what need your services anymore
i'll be darned so i said let's try something else and eventually
i would end up doing procurement for empire state
college in saratoga springs and that's what i'm doing

(40:46):
to this day interesting however back in 2019
i was called to you know come back
at a new station that i'm actually can continue to
be on okay and it's we call it saratoga star
radio it's at star saratoga.com it's
not a strong signal but we're using the old am 1160 signal okay and 93.3 in

(41:08):
saratoga springs but it's mostly if you get it on your phone or your uh you
know through the the app then yeah the best way yeah i was doing the morning
show for like four years and then going to work at empire street. Oh boy.
And it was like, it got to be a lot. So this past February 29th,
I gave my notice and said, I just can't do it anymore.
But now I do a daily community calendar and I do a weekend show. So I'm still in there.

(41:31):
Gosh. Into an industry that I never.
That you didn't really. Wanted to get into. Wanted to do. Exactly. Isn't that something?
So I wanted to give you one more thing that happened. Just a.
It's a bragging thing. Okay.
As part of that stint, back at Star 101.3 for Anastas Media.
Of course, they had Moon Radio, which consisted of...

(41:55):
Standards, big bands, and things like this, which by this time I knew pretty well.
And we had our hot adult contemporary station of Star 101.3.
I did both morning shows.
And they were across the hall from each other. I would literally go back and forth. Seriously?
Back and forth. And that's one of the reasons why they called it Moon Radio,

(42:18):
because, oh, some celestial body.
I'll get it right half the time. And I really, people fascinate when I tell
them that I did it. Now, what year was this that you were doing that?
Can you remember what it was? It was before Rick came along. Okay.
That's absolutely crazy. Dave Bingham was doing the afternoon.
So, it must have been maybe around 2001, 2002. Okay. So, voice tracking was in by then.

(42:46):
Why weren't you just tracking one and doing the other five? No,
I would do almost that. I mean, both stations were being run by computers.
Okay, yeah. So I could stop it when I wanted to.
Because when would I do the voice tracking? That's true.
That's true. I might do, every once in a while I'll voice track something.

(43:08):
Yeah. Just a few liners just to say I can go another song or something.
I played around with all that stuff.
And with all this being said, Warren, okay, with all this being said.
That's what I went through with being on the air with
radio a lot of other things I did a lot of sports I did play-by-play for you
know everything going down now the lights will take over for light here at Mike

(43:30):
Bailey Field a good kick by Bonanno it hits the ground Matty Adele will make
this one right ahead oh and he's hit hard at the 20 yard line doesn't even get up to there,
ball's gonna be at the 18 yard line first and 10 for Stellartoga three sack
on offense two tight wide to the right.
Well, to the right-hand side goes Manny Avila, Rich Darling,

(43:51):
and Mike Nesbitt in the backfield. Now Nesbitt goes in motion.
They give to Darling on the pitch, follows his line, and gets up to the 20-yard
line. So a gain of about two.
Good tackle made by George Ruth and Jason Skimmerhorn. It was actually behind
the scenes that I found most fascinating.
I was always the operations manager because I understand some of the technology.

(44:13):
No, I was not an engineer near anything by any means as even some of our, uh.
In the, in the lunch, you know, much better than I am, but I can handle things technically.
And I did a lot of programming, some of those, you know, the new things where
we started out with playing the 45s and the carts and we got into where there's

(44:33):
nothing even on compact discs. Exactly. It's all in the computer.
It's, it's, it's mouse clicks, which is probably, and I think I've probably said this before.
It's one of the reasons why I don't miss it as much as I thought I would,
because it really was, I was going in and in an hour on a Saturday morning doing
my six hour Sunday shift.
And I was having more fun when I was doing that in, in, in up to 2020,

(44:58):
I was having more fun live on the air for 10 minutes with Joe Gallagher down
the hall at WGY than I was on TRY.
And, and there was a lot of show prep involved.
I would sometimes spend more time in the show prep than it took me to actually
record, you know, to voice track the show, you know, and I said,
what's wrong with this picture?
You know, something was getting out of it. So when it happened,

(45:20):
when I was one of, you know, thousands let go on the same day by iHeart,
I just, I took it in stride.
And within a few weeks, I said, you know, I'm not missing it.
But then again, within two years, I'm doing this because I, you know,
I do miss talking about it, talking with people about it.
So this is, this is the greatest retirement gig I've ever had.

(45:42):
I've loved listening to these things because I'm hearing people,
a lot of them that I knew or listened to,
and even some that I didn't, you know, I just, it was hard to be really knowing
what's going on in radio when you were doing it so much. It's true.
Yeah. Most of the stations I listened to were my own to make sure they were running.

(46:03):
There you go. You know, so So I missed out and plus, you know,
I'm so young compared to that, you know, I, I can only remember so far. Sure. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, I do remember getting up in the morning when I was in second grade,
listening Dick Shannon and Harry Downey and, and high agent on WGUI,
you know, with my dad and Dick Beach.

(46:24):
Listening for the schools to be closed. Yeah. Yeah.
That reminded me when we started at WKHA for Kent Jones, I was fascinated that
one of the things I had to do was to read the lunch menus for the day.
Now, you were still doing that?
You're still doing that. I did that. And in fact, if you listen to Bob Carroll's
podcast a couple of months ago, I was doing that with him at KHA in 1972, 73.

(46:49):
It's just fun that you can say that. I know it's corny and tacky.
Yeah, but small town radio is its own little thing, okay?
We used to do at KAJ, a lot of public affairs back in the day,
back before the rules changed.
You had to have a certain amount of news and public affairs.
So every Saturday morning, there was an hour, a live hour on KAJ where we interviewed local folks.

(47:16):
Folks in usually in politics sometimes in
business you know who got the most phone calls without
fail every time they were on the local
dog catcher animal control people
in saratoga the phones would go nuts people had questions up the yin yang but

(47:37):
you could have the mayor on and the phones would sit there and nothing would
happen you know i mean it just you know craziness But that's what small town
radio was and still is in some areas because,
you know, the big corporations haven't got them all yet.
And so some of the smaller stations and the smaller markets are still very much

(47:58):
live and they're serving their community, super serving their community.
They're the ones that I like listening to because I do like that type of radio.
It's not going to draw the large crowd.
No, it's not. There's just something to it. But when I was doing the morning
show for 102WQ, but I think it was for the AM station, on a regular basis,

(48:19):
we'd have the farm report.
It would only be like 10 minutes, but Joe Peck, who lives in the town of Saratoga, still around.
Now, Joe was doing it in 1972 when I was there. Was he really?
He was. And he would still bring them when I was there. He brought them in on cassette.
Yep. And it was the most god-awful audio you ever wanted to hear.
He was in his kitchen and it sounded like he was in the sink doing it,

(48:43):
you know, and it was like five minutes at 625 every morning and he was still
doing it when you were there. Yeah, he was. And you say he's still around.
Yes. He and his wife are, you know. I'll be darned. They're not farming as much
anymore and stuff like that.
And he became actually big into Toastmasters and we like to say WKAJ got him.

(49:04):
There you go. Absolutely.
Isn't that nuts? Wow. So there's a lot to that. You never know who you're going
to meet or what you're going to do through this.
And that's what's been so great about the podcast is we all have those little
stories that are just like, especially fascinating to us, but we hope people
find that, wow, you did that? Yeah.

(49:26):
I mean, and the crazy thing is, and I don't know, maybe there are people that
are serving somewhere else in the world, but according to my statistics from
mypodbean.com, the people that host me, they tell me where people are listening.
And mostly, obviously, it's the U.S. and Canada thrown in now and again.
But I'm finding that we've got listeners over in Europe all the time.

(49:49):
That's great. So, again, it must be, I would think, somebody either transplanted
from here that's living there.
Who knows? Could be John Gabriel's great-grandfather somewhere. I don't know.
But they are listening around the world to these things. Either that or they
just have a morbid curiosity about what American radio was and now is.

(50:11):
One of the things that I just hope, I wish we could convey, you know,
I've got two kids, they're 25 and 20 now, but, you know, they don't understand.
But I don't, you know, the problem is the kids these days will never know the
feeling of hearing your school called for a snow day. That's true.
By Don Witts or whoever it may be. And you don't have that anymore.

(50:32):
Or they're scrolling or they get a text to say you're off.
And how about the days when the local stations had jingles of the school's name?
You know, the Spartans of Burnt Hills. And you would just be thrilled to hear
that on there because you went to Burnt Hills High.
And there was another thing, another place I was going with that.

(50:52):
Oh, okay. So this is, again, with the sadness of things.
I'm working part-time at the Albany International Airport at the information
booth. Okay. Kind of gives me out of the house.
My wife loves that, you know, a couple of times a week and there's the,
uh, we're, we're now relocated right next door to Dunkin Donuts.
So there's this young lady just out of Oswego State. She just graduated.

(51:15):
And when we got to talking about what I did with my life, I said,
well, for most of it, I was a DJ on the radio.
She said, what's a DJ on the radio? And I just about lost the donut I was eating at the time.
Yeah. It's very, very scary that she didn't understand that terminology at the

(51:36):
age of 22. We're going to be in history books. Yeah.
You'll be able to find us. Yeah, exactly. Save your pictures. Yep, yep.
I've tried to keep most of these podcasts G-rated or PG-rated because I do want
my granddaughter, who's now 14, I do want her to listen someday and say,
oh, that's what Papa did.
That's why he has those microphones up in the den. And so I'm hoping it'll get there.

(52:01):
But yeah, I'm just trying to record the history of Capital Region broadcasting
as much as we can. And you just brought up a guy that has to sit where you're
sitting, or at least I'll try to get him on the phone.
Joe Riley absolutely has to be in on this. He's been through so much.
He has. Knowing what's going on all around. Yeah. And I don't know Joe well.
We've met a couple of times, but I'm going to get in touch. That's great.

(52:24):
And he'll be hopefully a future guest.
I think he would. He loves talking about the business.
I wish we had the opportunity to have parted in a different way.
We still wish each other a happy birthday on Facebook or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Really good. Yeah. No, one of the, one of the good guys in broadcasting
who, you know, goes to bat for broadcasters. Yes. Yeah. He has.

(52:47):
Years yeah yeah it's been great so wow what a
story john i had no idea you had all
that in your background i you know that's all i
got more but you don't want to hear you know we don't want part two yeah yeah
no absolutely but as i said earlier now we're going to sit here we're going
to try to write down i hope i have enough ink in the pen right down as many

(53:08):
call letters as we can come up with here and the nice part about it is nobody's
going to fact check so don't worry about And if you want to make a couple up, I mean,
QQY sounds made up to me. Yeah, it does.
But thank you so much for coming in and sharing this with us.
It's been fun reminiscing more than anything. Yeah.
It just brings out. And there's a part of me that says, did I really do that?

(53:31):
Was that really part of my life?
You get that a lot more. Oh, yeah. And it's nice to recall this to say, yeah, I did.
Well, I said to my wife just last week, I said, I don't know.
Who was the dummy that hired me to be a news director in, in,
you know, when I'm 22 years old, you know, I mean, it, it just,
to me made no, no sense whatsoever looking back at it now,

(53:53):
you know, but you know, it, it, it, it, it happened.
I wanted to tell you one more thing. And that is I did get the chance to direct TV.
Oh, good. So I just wanted to let you know that other dream didn't go by the wayside.
Okay. Actually did a lot of local basketball games for or a guy named Tony Izzo
out of a Boston spy, put it on the cable cast. And I was his director.

(54:15):
Excellent. The multi-camera thing. And however, I never told you about my forte. Okay.
And that is public address announcing. Oh, yes, yes. So for years I've been doing that.
So while I didn't have the radio bug when I was young, and I still, I mean, I enjoy it.
But, you know, some people are really fascinated with it. Public address announcing
is a different thing. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I've done very little of it. The football games, my senior year,

(54:39):
I was the voice from the booth over the Bernhill Spartans, you know, football field.
Yep. Where Dan DiNicola sat next to me. He was our, he was my English teacher
in high school and speech teacher.
And he thought I would enjoy this. He knew that I was already on the radio part-time.
It's still when I was in high school.
So my senior year, I sat next to him and all, all I remember is the first time I did.

(55:01):
And I'm doing, I'm basically, it was, it wasn't play by play.
It was just announcing, you know, who just carried the ball or where we are
now on the, well, the first touchdown my team gets, you know,
all my teammates and classmates are out on the, on the field,
you know, I'm jumping up and down.
In the booth and he grabs my arm pulls me back into the
seat and he said you're either going to announce this game up

(55:22):
here sitting down or you can go down and sit with your friends down
there but this is your job now you cannot be cheering your team on dandy nicola
told me that yeah so i had a good mentor too greg portray who would be the later
be the announcer for the the adirondack red wings oh there you go civic center
and i've been doing for 30 i'll be entering my 39th season,

(55:45):
as the basketball announcer for the Skidmore College Thoroughbreds.
Terrific. I'm in the Skidmore College Sports Hall of Fame. If you were to see
my physique, you go, what?
Good for you, John. So that has been my enjoyment.
And I had one time where I did a special football game in Saratoga Springs.
I actually did a series of them.
Bill Parcells was up in the booth and I'm announcing the game.

(56:07):
And I announced a lot like Bob Shepard, the Yankees and the Giants.
And of course he was with the Giants. And he goes, boy, we got another Bob Shepard on earth. Nice.
I have that on my resume. Well, there you go. I don't blame you.
I don't blame you. Now, here's the big question. All right.
I once announced a wrestling match. Have you ever done that?
Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. I did a lot of wrestling in high school.

(56:29):
Yeah, wrestling, and that's what it was. The coach came to me and said,
you know, we've got this tournament going on.
Can you be the announcer? I think I've done every sport.
There you go. Including gymnastics, which is the hardest. Yeah.
Because there's no crowd, you know, cheering things.
It's true. So if you mispronounce a name, everybody knows. Let me give you one
more story. I announced the Albany Firebirds, the original.

(56:51):
Okay, cool. At the Knickerbocker Arena, there were three people that were asked
to do it. One was the late Ed O'Brien.
And he did it first. Then Marcy Elliott was second.
I was the third one. I don't know where the connection came from,
but I did the game. They liked me so much that I did the fourth game.
So I got two in their first season. I really enjoy doing that.

(57:12):
I did a playoff basketball game even this year. So we're, you know, it's my love.
The big thing is I wish my voice had stayed stronger.
You know, you listen to some of our colleagues, they still got it.
Okay. Okay. One more. Can you top this? And this goes back to my KAJ days.
I did a remote broadcast and we actually did play by play.

(57:36):
A parade going through saratoga and
when they said wait a minute i said you we what
i'm i'm going to announce a parade on the radio yeah you're gonna it's a two-hour
show for the whole parade you're gonna stand there and and i said this is on
the radio you understand it's like you know and yeah so uh that that one stuck

(57:58):
with well they sold it somebody sold the broadcast so That's what happens.
You're going to do it whether you like it or not. I also had my favorite job,
and that was in 1985 when I first began.
I had told you I was an engineer as we broadcast the races from the Saratoga Race Course.
The next year, I got to do it at the track. Ooh.
And it was such a wonderful thing. You're there at the track way up there in the judges' booth.

(58:24):
Yeah, yeah. I had a switch that turned on Marshall Cassidy's mic.
Neat. For the station. Yeah. And sometimes I would turn it on just to listen to what he was doing.
We weren't broadcasting at the time. And you'd hear him call on the phone,
yes, I'd like a ham sandwich and a Coke, no ice. And I was like,
okay, there's an announcer.

(58:44):
But my famous story is where I was is if I were to take two big steps to the
left, there would be no photo finish because I'd be blocking the cameras.
That's how good this is. Wow, that's pretty good seating. Some of the things
you come by, some of the people you meet in this industry has been a lot of fun.

(59:05):
And I have not paid for a concert ticket.
Oh, wasn't it nice? Yeah. I remember those days.
And it's back. I used to be able to park in the press lot so that you didn't
have to leave with everybody else and take two hours getting home.
Exactly. Yeah. No, I remember those days very well. Very well.
Very nice. Well, once again, John, this is terrific. Terrific.

(59:26):
Thank you for sharing with us.
And you're welcome back at any time if you think of more stories you want to tell.
Well, I'll do them at the lunch table and we'll see if they'll bore the audience.
Yeah, see if we keep people out of their plates. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Take care, sir. Thank you again. Thank you very much.
Radio Split Ranch! For a guy who never set out to be a radio personality,

(59:48):
I think you'd have to agree John has done all right for himself and his many
legions of fans over 40-plus years.
Now, you'd think that by staying pretty much in one county for most of his radio
career, John would have very few call letters to add to our running total on our podcast.
But as you heard, between ownership changes and call letter changes,

(01:00:10):
he's racked up a considerable list. In fact, I believe he now leads all our
interviewees on total call letters he's spoken on the air. 18.
So that's going to pump up our running total to 333 stations by the 33 folks
that you've heard so far on the Radio Split Ranch.

(01:00:30):
So, as you check the list of veteran broadcasters I've had the pleasure to sit
down with over the last three years or so, have you noticed anyone missing?
Have you got a favorite that we haven't been able to corral yet?
Maybe it's someone who came through the market and moved on,
or that you worked with along the way. Whatever. I'm always looking for suggestions.
I still have my own personal list of about 20 people I hope to reach out to,

(01:00:54):
but that doesn't mean your choice is on my list.
So please, reach out with your suggestions. Either make a comment on our Facebook
page, or at my host page at podbean.com, or drop me a note, wgarling at aol.com.
On a personal note, this month marks 55 years since my first day on the radio,

(01:01:14):
so I thought it might be fun to share with you an air check from 35 years ago
when I marked my 20th anniversary with a special hour on the Great 98 WTRY.
Why that was on June 24th, 1989.
I remember asking my PD at the time, Walt Adams, if I could take an hour of
my regular weekly Saturday morning show to mark the occasion. He said, sure, why not?

(01:01:38):
So if you're up to it, give a listen. I won't bore you with the whole morning,
just the anniversary hour, which opens with me talking to veteran WTRY newsman Lou Tinney.
If this doesn't scare you away, maybe you'll even come back next month for some more time travel.
In the meantime, don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

(01:01:59):
WTRY for the Capital District. Okay, Lou, I'm going to put you on the spot here.
All right. Remember what you were doing 20 years ago today, the summer of 1969? 1969.
I most assuredly do remember what I was doing in the summer of 1969.
What were you doing? I was working at WTRY.
Hey, help out there. It's very funny. I worked here. I came to work for George

(01:02:19):
Lizotte in the summer of 1969, and I know they were playing music from the rock
festival down in Woodstock.
Woodstock. Oh, yeah. What more significant thing happened then?
Well, yours truly, on this very date 20 years ago, started in radio.
Oh, well. How about that? How about that? The old W-S-N-Y.
Yeah, and now 20 years later, look how far both of us are.

(01:02:42):
Music.
Chris Warren, W-T-R-Y, the old East Station.
And I know what song was playing at midnight, June 24th, 1969,
on W-S-N-Y, Schenectady.
This song right here, Joe Jeffrey Group. First song ever played on the radio.

(01:03:02):
My Pledge of Love. Little girl, little girl.
Music.
The oldie station, 98 WTRY, taking time to remember 1969, summertime,
when Joe Jeffrey was the first song I played on the radio, and this one was the second.
After that, I don't remember a thing. I'm surprised I remember that. I was so nervous.
Just got out of my junior year of high school, 16 years old,

(01:03:23):
on the radio, and having a grand time.
And 20 years later, I still enjoy this stuff.
Here's Junior Walker and the All-Stars. What does it take to win your love?
Jackie DeShannon on the oldie station 98 WTRY 914
a Saturday morning and we're reminiscing together
summer of 1969 my first year in radio

(01:03:45):
commercial radio I had a little radio station down in the basement you know
and didn't every disc jockey on the radio and I had fun with that but finally
wrangled a job on local radio as we mentioned earlier it was the old WSNY 1240
on the AM dial they're not there any longer it's a different radio station they
do different things and, you know, time does march on, except Lutini.
Lutini still works here, you know, I mean, that's just the way that works sometimes.

(01:04:05):
In any event, there were only a handful of number one songs that summer of 1969.
This song next had been number one for about five weeks as I entered the radio biz.
It was a big one for the Beatles. Get back.
Music.

(01:04:31):
District's oldies station. Beatles had just left the top spot with that song
when they released another one, The Ballad of John and Yoko, from the summer of 69.
Music.
The oldies station, 98 WTRY. And to show you how conservative things were back in 1969,

(01:04:53):
I mean, you know, they were, yes, marching in the streets and a lot of crazy
stuff was going on in the late 60s, but the radio station that I was working
for at the time could not play that song as you just heard it.
They really couldn't. The portion where it talks about Christ,
they had to flip the word around and play it backwards so they could get it on the air.
They didn't think the listeners at that time would take that song as it was actually produced.

(01:05:15):
And so things were quite different back then. We had some other songs that were
censored along the way, too, and maybe we'll get to those a little later on.
21 Minutes After 9, 921, a Saturday morning, we're thinking back and remembering
1969, summertime, 20 years ago when yours truly started in radio.
We had some great music that year. Still got Three Dog Night coming up.
Zager and Evans, you know what song that is, of course. The Archies, gotta play that.
It was number one for half the summer and more, so stick around with us.

(01:05:37):
We're going to check out Bob Kabachick's weekend weather forecast next.
To a very pleasant 71 degrees at WeatherWatch 98 WTRY. 20 years ago this week,
the three-day Newport 1969 Rock Festival began on June 20th,
wrapped up on the 23rd. That's why it was three days.

(01:05:58):
The 150,000 persons there saw Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Ike and Tina Turner,
Steppenwolf, Jethro Tull, the Rascals, the Birds, Johnny Winter,
and Booker T and the MGs, along with these guys right here.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, and they were in the top ten with Green River.
And you got it on the oldie station, 98 W-T-R-Y.

(01:06:19):
98 W-T-R-Y, a group that never had a number one song on the top 40.
Hard to believe the 25, 30 hits they had, and none of them went to number one.
Some of them got to number two. That's about as good as it got.
And that was from the summer of 69, as we remember back 20 years ago this date.
Here's Oliver from the biggest musical of the 1960s called Hair.

(01:06:40):
This is Good Morning Starshine. Lieutenant has news next at 930.
To hit you like good year.
Well, since you've already done the weather, and since all you're going to do
is just kind of sign off, let's talk about the summer of 69 news-wise.
You remember, of course, a lot of the happenings of that summer. Oh, yeah.
69 was a big year. We had, of course, the Vietnam War was still raging. Men dying in Vietnam.

(01:07:01):
Woodstock, you mentioned last hour. Okay, that was a biggie.
Just right here in our own backyard, they closed the New York State Thruway.
Right. And I believe there were like 400,000 people there, of course,
and great music that summer. That was, of course, in August.
Year of the Amazing Mets.
Oh, right, right, right.
On the World Series that year. And here's one for you, Lou.
On Monday morning, July 21st, 1969, if you spent a dime for the New York Times,

(01:07:25):
the front page headline was four words in the largest type they'd ever used.
Men walk on moon, it said. And the record we chose to play at the radio station
I was working at at the time kind of expressed the feelings of those who lived
through the turbulent 1960s.
Music.

(01:07:47):
1998, W.T.R.Y., and a song that actually made the charts a couple of times.
First time around, didn't do very well, but then about two years after that,
1967, it was first released.
In 1969, however, Brotherhood Week
was declared in 1969 by the National Conference of Christians and Jews,
and the group putting that together put that song, that actual record,
in every public service announcement they sent out to all the radio stations

(01:08:09):
to be read on the air about Brotherhood Week.
And lo and behold, they picked it up, and the radio stations started playing
it again, and it got into the top ten for the Youngbloods, Get Together.
Also happening back in the summer of 1969, besides Woodstock and besides Newport,
was another rock festival, this time in Toronto.
Happened on June 22nd. 50,000 people were there. They saw Steppenwolf,
the band, Procol Harem, and Chuck Berry, and these guys right here.

(01:08:32):
David Clayton Thomas with Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
The only station, 98WTRY. Blood, Sweat, and Tears from their first album with
David Clayton Thomas. They had had Child as Father to the Man or something like
that before that, but that was when David Clayton Thomas joined them.
And it was a hit in the summer of 69. That's what we're spotlighting this hour,
as we kind of remember my very first day on the radio.

(01:08:55):
Actually, it was at night. It was at midnight on June 24th, 1969.
And I went by the name of Jesse James at the time, worked at a radio station
where everybody had names from young American days. We had George Washington.
We had Paul Revere. We had Tom Jefferson. This is no lie.
I'm not kidding you. We were the young Americans. For a while,
they played fife and drum music behind us. Then I came on board,
16 years old. They gave me the name Jesse James.

(01:09:15):
We did away with all the fife and drum music, and we just played good old rock
and roll. We had a good time back then.
And some of the stuff that was going on TV-wise back in the summer of 69,
tell me if you remember this, on Saturday nights, starting at 7.30,
by the way, okay? That's when primetime started back in 1969.
On ABC, you could watch The Dating Game, followed by The Newlywed Game,
then Lawrence Welk, a one and a two, yes, and The Hollywood Palace on Saturday

(01:09:36):
nights. You used to have some great acts on there.
On CBS on Saturday nights, it was Jackie Gleason's show, My Three Sons,
Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Mannix at 10 o'clock.
On NBC, back in 1969 summertime, you saw The Andy Williams Show,
followed by Adam 12, and then Saturday Night at the Movies.
Other hit shows on the air back in 1969, well, The Smothers Brothers were canceled
that year after a couple of years with the show.

(01:09:58):
The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour slipped in in their place. Hee Haw began,
and it's still on in syndication.
So am I now when you stop and think about it. Flying Nun, It Takes a Thief,
The Brady Bunch, And my favorite, my favorite back in the summer of 69,
Jimmy Durante presents the Lennon Sisters Hour.
Yes, it was on Friday nights on ABC. I kid you not, as somebody used to say on TV.

(01:10:18):
But the show that I guess grabbed all the kids' attention back in 1969 or so
was a Saturday morning cartoon show called The Archies.
And they turned around and produced a number one song.
It was number one the summer of 69, Sugar Sugars.
Music.
I think Walt Adams, our fearless leader here at 98 WTRY for allowing me to have

(01:10:43):
some fun this hour. And remember 20 years ago when I first started in radio.
And it's been a lot of fun since then, of course. But I enjoy the oldies and
enjoy playing the stuff from back, of course, in the 60s when I was growing up.
And we have that. Not only was Sugar Sugar at the top spot for like five or
six weeks in the summer of 69. There's one other song that was number one during
that summer. We've got that one coming up next.
Thanks, Mom. You're welcome. Oh, the WTRY Weather Watch. 71 right now and Sunshine

(01:11:05):
at Weather Watch 98 WTRY. The Old East Station.
Music.
Out of the past W-T-R-Y.
Solid gold.
If woman can... The original Old East Station, 98 W-T-R-Y.
Say thanks for tripping down memory lane, as they say on the radio with me this

(01:11:26):
past hour. We had a lot of fun talking about the summer of 1969.
This song right here, again, from Hair, was super popular in the summertime
of 1969. We're going to leave you. Mike Edwards is coming up.
Music.