BOSTON RADIO: 1920-2010 by Donna Halper is a must read

 Boston Radio:: 1920-2010 (Images of America Series)

BOSTON RADIO: 1920-2010
Author: Donna L. Halper

ISBN: 9780738574103

# of Pages: 128
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
On Sale Date: 02/21/2011

I saw this book at the Harvard Coop last night and it is a trip back into time when radio was a much bigger part of our daily life than it is today.

When I was a teenager I would listen to stations like WMEX and WBZ as often as I could and for sports WHDH was the home of the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. DJ's such as Arnie Ginsberg, Bruce Bradley, Dick Summer and others became 'close' friends. In sports I would live and die listening to Curt Gowdy, Ned Martin (Red Sox) Fred Cusick and Bob Wilson (Bruins) and Johnny Most (Celtics).

I learned so much listening to talk shows from hosts such as Jerry Williams, Bob Kennedy, Steve Fredricks and Jim Westover. Talk radio then was not filled with the hate that we have today. A host may not agree with a caller but they would debate them rationally.

Book Description:
Boston's radio history begins with pioneering station 1XE/WGI, one of America's first radio stations, and includes the first station to receive a commercial license, WBZ; the first FM radio network, W1XOJ and W1XER; and one of the first news networks, the Yankee News Service. Nationally known bandleaders like Joe Rines and Jacques Renard were first heard on Boston radio, as was one of the first weathercasters, E. B. Rideout. The city has been home to a number of legendary announcers, such as Bob and Ray, Arnie Ginsburg, Dick Summer, Dale Dorman, and Charles Laquidara; talk show giants like Jerry Williams and David Brudnoy; and sports talkers like Eddie Andelman and Glenn Ordway. Many Boston radio personalities, such as Curt Gowdy, "Big Brother" Bob Emery, Don Kent, and Louise Morgan, found fame on television but first established themselves on Boston's airwaves. Since 1920, Boston radio has remained vibrant, proving that live and local stations are as important as ever.

The pictures I have added are from various internet sources but if they bring back memories then you MUST buy this book. A big thanks to Donna Halper who obviously loves radio and the history behind it.


Jerry Williams WMEX - WBZ - WRKO

Larry Glick WMEX - WBZ - WHDH

WBZ lineup 1967

Bob and Ray WHDH 1950

Jess Cain WHDH

Norm Nathan WHDH - WBZ

The Sports Huddle - WUNR -WBZ - WEEI - WHDH
Jim McCarthy, Eddie Andleman, Mark Witkin

Johnny Most - The VOICE of the Celtics

Glenn Ordway WITS, WRKO, WEEI

WBZ Music Survey 1965

WMEX Music Survey 1966

WRKO Music Survey January 1968

Ken Mayer WBOS-WUNR WO9-8989


WBCN 1968-2009

Why don't we get sportscasters like that anymore?

It was announced yesterday that 30 year sports anchor and WBZ-TV will be parting ways and it is the end of an era.

Steve Buckley in the Herald gives Lobel a nice sendoff.

Bob almost got fired on his first night when he ran this brawl during a Bruins game and the Bruins back then said a station could not show fights.



I miss his old Sports Spotlight days which used to run every Thursday night on the 11 PM newscast.





He will be missed.

Also shown the door was Joyce Kulhawik the long time entertainment reporter.

Here is Joyce interviewing the then unknown Conan O'Brien before his first show on NBC in 1993


Also in 1993 she looked back at some great events she had covered for the station


and how she helped cover the last night of CHEERS on Beacon Hill along with Liz Walker

Hey Channel 4 - you are in ALLSTON not Brighton!

Watching the news on Channel 4 Saturday morning the weather person just mentioned in passing that it was snowing at their BRIGHTON studio.

News flash Channel 4....1170 Soldiers Field Road is in ALLSTON ( I think )

Boston neighborhoods have always been a little fuzzy on the borders. Take the example of Faulkner Hospital which depending on who you talk to could be in Jamaica Plain, Roslindale or West Roxbury. The hospital has chosen not to offend anyone and gives their address as Boston MA 02130 which the post office says is Jamaica Plain.

For decades I have had spirited debates with life long residents of Allston at where exactly the border with Brighton is and if you talk to 100 people you will get 100 different answers. Everybody agrees that Allston begins on Commonwealth Ave at the BU Bridge going west but then it gets murky. Harvard Avenue is Allston as is Union Square but as you head west on either Cambridge St or North Beacon it really gets fuzzy. Some think the border is Everett St which runs from North Beacon St to Soldiers Field Road


View Larger Map

Then others claim that along the river any part of Boston that is directly across from Cambridge is part of Allston. However the KMart on Western Avenue just west of Everett St is listed as Brighton.

Most agree that the post office and not the city made the boundary when years ago they set up mail zones numbered 34 and 35.

Getting back to what set me off on this is Channel 4 saying their Brighton studio. Channel 68 is right next door to them and they consider themselves Allston and the Harvard athletic complex is also considered Allston though if Harvard thought they could get away with it, they would move the river and make it all Cambridge.

Now it is also murky on the eastern end between Packard's Corner and the BU Bridge as those addresses along Commonwealth are in the zip code 02215 and they calls themselves Boston. However most historical accounts of Braves Field ( now Nickerson ) always referred to it as the ballpark located in Allston.

Then the most famous use of the 02134 zip code was the song happily sung for years on ZOOM but WGBH would never admit they were in Allston and it was always Boston 02134. ( and with their move to Brighton they have kept the 02134 mailing address even though they are now in 02135. )

The debate continues......

The man who 'discovered' the Dave Clark Five

Over the weekend we learned of the death of Mike Smith, the lead singer of the Dave Clark Five who passed away just 12 days before the group was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The DC5 was popular in the UK but still unknown in the US in 1964. The Beatles first showed up on US TV in December of 1963 on the Jack Parr show on NBC by film from London but with the country still reeling from the death of President Kennedy it didn't make an impression. (except that Ed Sullivan saw it and decided to book them live 2 months later )

Watching The Beatles explode in America was a Boston disc jockey at WBZ by the name of Bruce Bradley.

Bradley recalled to The Harvard Crimson in 1966 that WBZ's music commitee that he was on had thrown a Beatles record into the trash 5 months before they exploded.

Bradley recalls with a slightly pained laugh that the music committee "threw 'She Loves You' in the waste basket" in June, 1963 -- missing the chance to get on the Beatles' bandwagon five months before they revolutionized rock 'n' roll in America.

He would not make the same mistake again. Bradley came across a couple of singles by the Dave Clark Five and started playing them heavily on his popular show at night. Bradley was not only popular in Boston but also across most of the eastern United States as WBZ reached into 38 states and most of Eastern Canada. WBZ was unique in those days where the DJ's had major imput into what was played which was was almost unheard of after the Payola scandals a few years before. With WBZ aboard the other major stations in North America such as WABC, WLS, WKBW, CKLW and others started playing the DC5 as well.

WBZ was a special radio station back in the 60's. While it played Top 40 it treated their young audience with respect. After dinner they had a talk show hosted by Bob Kennedy that made you think and learn. Kennedy would go on to Chicago and become extreme popular before cancer claimed him in the mid 1970's. Overnight you had Dick Summer who introduced millions to music they could not hear anywhere else.

Nobody seems to know what happened to Bruce Bradley. he later became a talk show host in St Louis but was last hear about 10 years ago.

BZ would soon fade as a Top 40 station as WRKO came along in 1967 with a tighter format and the kids all flocked to it. However WBZ had a signal that they could play polka music for 24 hours and still be highly rated. Today they are news by day and talk at night and can still be heard in most places east of the Mississippi River.

To millions who have never been to Boston the station represents us. They have never failed the city in that calling.