In this week’s Programming To Win column, Robby Bridges begins an epic project: to list his top 40 Top 40 radio personalities of all time. Who makes the cut? Bridges reveals five of his choices and gives us a bit of a history lesson as well.
By: Robby Bridges
Robby Bridges
In the more than five years that I’ve been contributing to this column here in FMQB I’ve been kicking around an idea I’ve wanted to explore and this is the column in which I’m going to try. I’m sure, like me, you watch and enjoy the television countdowns of the “100 greatest movies,” “10 best beaches,” “Saddest Love Song Videos” and so on; you likely love to do “Interactive 9 @,” saved old AT40 episodes on vinyl that you board op’d early in your career and collect Joel Whitburn books. Heck, I still enjoy Dave’s Top Ten list and get bummed out the nights he rests it! So it has seemed a natural idea to explore who might be on a coveted list in OUR business: the top 40 greatest top 40 personalities of all time. How would such a list be compiled? What would the criteria be? And once it was, would there be common traits, styles or techniques we could all think about and study? Well what follows is based solely on my own observations as a vigorous student of radio talent past, present and future. I made a check list 1) Longevity and legacy 2) Audience reach 3) Innovation 4) Uniqueness of presentation; next I wrote down a list of 217 possible candidates I could think of that just had to be at least in contention and assigned them points in each of those categories 5 being highest and the those with the highest scores made my top 40. Now I’d like to see this list realized with an actual tally from industry professionals and then the results presented as a documentary. Perhaps someday it will; until then I thought this would be a fun exercise and I welcome your emails as to whom you’d include and how you’d score them and why and I encourage you to do the same with your jocks and colleagues. Hollywood is always celebrating its past and radio ought to do the same as we move into the future.
So with out further ado, the envelopes please…here are some excerpts from my list:
1) A daily audience in the millions, a career in the nation’s number one market that spanned nearly 50 years and a unique and unequalled wit in his delivery… there could be no one other than one man on top of this list, and its Dan Ingram. Born in New York in 1934, Dan grew up in a house where his parents always played music and his respect and passion for the construction of a song began there. With an understanding and comfort with any beat, Dan was free to use his sense of humor, vocabulary and subtle observations on everything from politics to the everyday of life on display with the music as his guide. Momentum; as Dan paid his dues around suburban New York, New Haven, St Louis, Dallas and eventually to his place at 77 WABC from 1961-1982, it was momentum that he created always knowing exactly how to command his listener’s attention and always assuming they were as sophisticated as he was…and being correct. He continued to display this skill hosting a national countdown, working at WKTU, WCBS-FM and voicing commercial ad campaigns. Big Dan, perhaps fundamentally, understood what he called “second person singular”, a direct intimate one on one conversation with his listener. So even if there were 6 or 7 million tuned in, Dan was a man on stage with a lone spotlight speaking to an empty theatre but for one. Whether he playfully poked fun at your favorite song, told you about a product you’d no need to buy or punctuated a lyric with his famous jock shout “Daaaan Ingram” you knew he was doing it just to make you smile. This is why Dan Ingram is not only the greatest top 40 jock of the top 40 radio era, but mine and your kimosabe always.
2) It’s been said before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything; and the man who first played one of his songs on the radio was not only responsible for changing the path of popular music by exposing his groundbreaking music (and that of countless others from Jerry Lee Lewis to Johnny Cash) but his brash style, rapid speech patterns and catch phrases, request and dedication calls, manic pacing and even use of sound effects are the foundation upon which every disc jockey that followed built whether they knew it or not. Not a small legacy for a good ol’ boy from Tennessee named Dewey Phillips. Born in 1926, Phillips couldn’t seem to find his calling until he fell in love with the combination of hillbilly and rhythm/blues music that could be heard along Beale Street in Memphis. Dewey immediately had a keen sense of a record that would hit and shared his passion for them on the air every evening. He rhymed; he playfully used clips of Red Skelton and sfx records; he took requests and made dedications to businesses and local high schools; he introduced records talking over their opening notes and howling right up the vocal on WHBQ through the 1950s. He died a mere 42 years old and friends suggested “had he known how big he was he may have lost his ability to be Dewey Phillips”. His story has been fictionalized into a Broadway musical and his legacy is not only in Elvis but in just about every basic element of top 40 radio’s presentation.
3) The Cleveland Cavaliers named their mascot, Moondog, after him (his theme from the start was “Blues For A Moondogger”; his life has been portrayed on film, screen and stage (all of which he conquered himself); he was the first personality to do what we could today call a top 40 radio show in the nation’s largest media market of New York and he is widely credited with coining the phrase “Rock and Roll” but more than this he connected with the audience by telling them why they should care and what they should know about the songs he played, Alan Freed was only half right when he said “they may stop me but they won’t stop rock and roll”; no one has ever done either. Freed found his knack for playing the hits in Akron, moved to Cleveland’s powerhouse WJW and eventually to New York, most notably WINS. Freed made certain there was a constant urgency and unique polish when he spoke. Blessed with a deep, rich voice and a commanding yet accessible delivery, Freed was much like a curator at a record shop exposing you to artists he knew you’d like…and he rarely took up much of your time to do it before you were on to the next record. If Phillips had been to top 40 radio what Trouve’ was to the automobile, Freed was its Henry Ford, “Mr. Rock and Roll”.
4) There is a reason when George Lucas reflected back on what it meant to be a teenager in writing “American Graffiti” he fondly recalled the idea of a voice on a radio that seemed to coming from someplace far away, belonging to a magical, mysterious being whose identity you didn’t know but whom entertained and played your favorite hit records; as you snuggled under the covers with a transistor radio at your ear or cruised town playing the stereo with your friends this strange character was there too leaving you to wonder whom or what he really was…many have created alter ego personas (notably men like “Mad Daddy” Pete Meyers who came before and is also on this list) , many have disguised their voice or spoken unlike a normal human behind a microphone, but yet there is only one Wolfman we clap for..Bob Smith, Wolfman Jack. Born in Brooklyn in 1938, the man who would become the Wolf worked around the south before creating the persona that would make him famous on 500K watt border stations XERF and XERB and then in LA and of course New York at WNBC. Despite being larger than life and most certainly unforgettable, Wolfman Jack was like the crazy best buddy every knows. Troops in Vietnam requested Wolf on Armed Forces radio, in cities large and small later in his career, people came out to see him appear; and while he conquered television with “Midnight Special” it was always on radio where his infectious enthusiasm to entertain held attention during live commercial reads, prank phone bits and of course playing tunes. If there were ever a top 40 party animal, it is the Wolf, Wolfman Jack.
5) In the newly chartered PPM world radio now exists, there is that rare personality who seems to rise above the rules that apply to others in achieving loyal audiences and massive ratings. Were he alive to today, the man who consulted Dick Clark’s airplay on “Bandstand”, broke artists like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson on the East Coast and was instrumental in helping to build and nurture his community through the Civil Rights movement would be one of those performers..Georgie Woods. Georgie was Philadelphia through and through; while he didn’t bring the showman ship of a Jocko Henderson or the playful glee of a Dick Biondi (both of whom grace our list) to his program, Georgie’s show really began when he wasn’t on the air at all. Woods was fundamental in encouraging inner city youth to continue their education, blue collar workers of all colors and creeds to be proud and stand up for their rights and in so doing appeared at numerous fundraisers, groundbreakings and even chartered a bus to take listeners to see Martin Luther King Jr’s speech on the Washington mall in 1963. So when Georgie Woods came on the airwaves at stations like WHAT and WDAS, he was simply speaking to more people in the community than he could when he was giving back on its streets; and when people heard Georgie share a song, talk about a cause or raise a thought, they knew he was sincere and it was well worth their listening to him speak. A rare personality indeed was Georgie Woods.
Stay tuned………….
Robby Bridges is host of the Ride Home Show on WEBE-FM Bridgeport, CT. He is also President of BBOR Productions, developing and marketing syndication, music and production pieces nationally. Previously Bridges has worked in various capacities at WCTK/Providence, Z100/New York, Q102/Philadelphia, WODS and Mix 98.5/Boston and elsewhere in New England. Robby can be reached at 203-333-9108 or bridges@bborproductions.com
