In his latest Programming To Win column, Robby Bridges gives us “Part Deux” in his ongoing series of Top 40’s Top 40. Who are the next radio legends to make Bridges’ list of the greatest Top 40 jocks of all time? He counts down #6 – #10 this week
Robby Bridges
By: Robby Bridges
Yes, I went with “part deux” as opposed to “part two” or “volume II” as a nod to our pal Charlie Sheen’s filmography. Has Charlie given you as many a great topical promo idea and show rap as he has our staff here at WEBE? Duh, winning! I digress but, suspect, it’s that sort of topical fun that drove a recent study showing radio listening has gone up, yes I said up, in the past five years. Despite the array of new media options, radio holds its own and then some. So let’s celebrate and hopefully embrace a mantra of mine “you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. So here is an excerpt from part one of my on going project of Top 40’s Top 40:
In six 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 reaches
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 those with the highest scores made my top 40. This list includes only personalities who made their mark in top 40 radios; while Howard Stern, Paul Harvey, Ralph Emery and many others are among the most noteworthy personalities, this list is exclusive to top 40 deejays! 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. (1-5 were respectively: Dan Ingram, Dewey Phillips, Alan Freed, Wolman Jack and Georgia Woods) So with out further ado, the envelopes please…here are some excerpts from my list:
6.) Legend has it one evening in 1953, youthful station owner Todd Storrs walked into a smokey bar and took notice that he was hearing the same few songs again and again over the course of the evening; in fact, the patrons were selecting the most popular songs in the country at that moment in time and playing them over and over again without tire. Storrs implemented a radio format based on this concept and top 40 radios was born; Gordon McClendon’s stations did the same at around the same time “Your Hit Parade” was a hit on both radio and television and Billboard Magazine inched away from its multiple chart system to what it dubbed the “Hot 100” beginning in 1958. From the “Silver Dollar Survey” to the “Boss 30′ radio would find ways to present and showcase its biggest songs. And then in 1970 one of Law’s hottest jocks (most notably on KRLA) debuted a program that eventually aired on more than a thousand stations, American Top 40. “From coast to coast and around the world…” Casey Kasem was heard on top 40’s biggest stations counting down the top 40 records on Billboard’s chart, offering stories behind the artists and their songs while of course, making long distance dedications. With his pleasant and unique delivery, Kasem, a Detroit native born in 1932 traveled the USA playing the hits everywhere from Cleveland to Buffalo to San Francisco before landing in Hollywood, where he’d co-create the landmark radio “countdown” and the gold standard of top 40 weekend programming for nearly 30 years under his watch, “feet on the ground and reaching for the stars.”
7.) Ask anyone in the radio/records industry worth their salt to do an impression of him and you’ll get back a mimic of the trademark vocal patter with a hint of Southern drawl and touch of melodrama. Were this a list of Top 40’s Top 40 program directors, he may very well have topped the list as the style of top 40 radio station he created when he launched New York’s Z100 in 1983 was largely the reinvention of not only other top 40 stations worldwide but impacted every format on the dial in one way or another. However, Michael Scott Shannon is the man whose brand of morning radio show reinvented the wheel and inspired every show of every genre that followed. Born an Army brat, Shannon hit the air at 17 in North Carolina and traveled the south, landing in Memphis, Nashville and Atlanta. He would eventually be heard in Washington DC and Los Angeles on “Pirate Radio” (and of course nationwide on “Rockin America” and the “True Oldies Channel”) but it was at Q105 in Tampa that he created the Morning Zoo format. While nearly impossible to imagine now, morning radio on top 40 usually featured a host weaving music and personality in between service elements; a few adventurous stations experimented with the idea of a duo in morning drive. Shannon turned top 40 on its ear as “Zoo Master” introducing a cast of characters and a team of players to the air. From song parodies to phone “scams”, celebrity interviews to oft copied features like the “Horriblescopes” and the “Community Bulletin Board” no one had heard anything quite like the big, take no prisoners morning show Scott Shannon developed in Tampa and brought to New York City, where it catapulted Z100 to the top spot in the ratings in 74 days. Nearly 30 years later, Shannon’s unique morning format is still earning him millions of daily listeners at New York’s WPLJ as he competes against a host of other area show all using his own “Zoo” concept against him.
8.) The media loves to throw the term “shock jock” around every time a radio host pulls an outrageous stunt, makes a jarring remark or generally misbehaves on the air. Top 40 had its share of outlandish hosts before and after John Donald Imus, but none quite so captivating and talked about. After all, it’s not the everyday personality who walks into the National Broadcasting Company’s flagship station in New York and from under the brim on his cowboy hat introduces Reverend Billy Sol DeHargis after mock ordering 1500 hamburgers as a phone prank. Imus, a California native, was nearly 30 before launching his radio career in the late 1960s and eventually landing in at 66 WNBC. His deep, gravel voice, disdain for everything from “nitwits” of the world to his own sponsors and mocking of everything status quo resonated with the come of age baby boomers who craved entertainment of a more mature top 40 radio host than the pimple cream variety they’d grown up with and Imus delivered. Over the last 20 + years he’s been best known as a talk show host, Don Imus was the first top 40 jock to shock in between the records unlike any that had come before.
9.) It’s evening and Brooklyn native Bruce Meyerowitz is a 21 year old kid thrilled to be back in his native New York City playing hit records on top 40 powerhouse 1010 WINS, well aware of the prestige of his position and anxious to make his mark. He’s spent the past year in Bermuda (he’d gone there after college just to get experience) and lucked out making it back to New York. He’s adopted the surname “Morrow” and is an excitable jock trying out “the Big M” as a moniker, aware that on a station famous for Alan Freed and Muarry the K (both of whom on this list) he’d better make a name for himself. In the middle of Bruce’s evening radio program he’s startled when a somewhat disheveled elderly woman somehow makes her way past his board operator and the reception desk into the studio. Bruce, startled, but always polite and affable asks if he can help her with something and she replies, “Hey cousin, you got a dime?” Bruce appeased and showed the woman out; it wasn’t until he was on the subway home later that evening when it hit him and the Cuz debuted the next evening. Also appearing in Miami and on several New York stations from WCBS to WABC, Cousin Brucie was the antithesis of the hip, slick, fast talking jocks that appeared in every era of top 40 radio’s history. Brucie was loveable, thoughtful, talked about the neighborhoods, businesses, high schools of the city as if he were a part of everyone; he spoke about the songs and contests he played like a sitter would remind a child to brush their teeth with great enthusiasm and zeal but absolute authenticity. New York may easily be the most cynical and gruff city in the world, but Cousin’ Brucie managed to melt its heart every time he sat before a microphone, because after all, he’s family.
10.) “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed…” The high pitched voice singing is both shrill and contagious, floating in between hit records as it blankets the central United States from the Windy City of Chicago on 50,000 watt clear channel, WLS. It’s the voice of the self described “Wild Eyed ‘Trailian” who at one point, was rumored to be the most fired disc jockey in America. His antics ranged not only from singing over the air but to regularly poking fun at management, giving shaving lessons to his teenage listeners and talking about Italian food. Dick Biondi was clearly passionate about life and in love with the music he played; as goofy and silly as he could be there was an underlying intensity when you listened to Biondi, and 60% of the available Chicago audience did every night. While he also appeared on WKBW in Buffalo and in sunny Myrtle Beach, Chicago has embraced him for 50 years as one of their own. Most remarkable, while there was certainly no top 40 host before like him and many since sight him as a prime influence, no one has ever been able to sound quite like him…Biondi is in a class all his own.
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
