Well, w I am Gary Jeff Walker, and it all begins now. It started when I was six years old and got my first transistor radio nine volture for Christmas, and it opened up this incredible world of music and magical voices coming through the airwaves and right into my brain for better or for worse. This is where my journey started that made me, at the age of seven
years old, want to be on the radio someday. And the disc jockeys who saved radio with the advent of television in the nineteen fifties and sixties are the ones that I emulated most. And we have three of those gentlemen featured tonight in interviews from the past year. Great American history on the radio. It's something I love and these are guys again that I ultimately respect, that I've had the great opportunity to do interviews with over the
last calendar year or so. Tonight, we will start with a true National Radio Hall of Famer. He was inducted last November and I had the chance to speak with him just before it all came down. Well deserved. A man who worked at some of the biggest radio stations in America, started in Detroit, but you'll hear the whole story if you just tune in. Another one of his compatriots from satellite radio also will be featured on this show tonight. Next hour, we'll be talking to Shotgun Tom Kelly.
And if you're not aware of the name or the person, what an accomplished guy who spent his life in radio mostly on the West Coast, but pat Saint John Shotgun Tom. And then at the end of tonight's show, the eleven o'clock hour, we'll be featuring a man who go by the name of John Records land Decker, and Records is
truly his middle name from his mom's side. He's one of the people that further encouraged me by listening to them to get into this business that I've been lucky enough to be a part of for more than forty four years now. And John Landecker will close up the
show tonight. It was an interview that I always wanted to have because I grew up hearing John Records land Decker on WLS in Chicago when I lived in the Chicago area as a kid, and then later on as a teenager when John Records land Decker was on at night, and that big signal that eighty nine on the AM dial signal was blasting out across to America, and you will hear the origins of something called boogie check. If you're not familiar, well it's a great primer on what
I grew up with listening to. If you are familiar, Ah, what a treat. Some of your favorites are coming up tonight too as we count down to twenty twenty five, So, without any further ado, after the break, my interview with Pat Saint John on his way to the National Radio Broadcasters Hall of Fame, a disc jockey that helps save the medium, and he's coming up next on the Nightcap New Year's Eve seven hundred WLW. It would suck if I was in a coma because I'd miss Mike McConnell.
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The holidays are a blast.
Was in flame, throwing wats here in the heart of the Midwest out to America at night. And I have looked forward to this conversation for a long time. But I will tell you, Gary Jeff Walker checking in, by the way, I will tell you that this is one of the harder interviews to do. When you really have such an admiration for somebody you're talking to, you're worried that in the middle of a question it's going to
come out, well what about the boof? And I'm just I'm kind of at that point when I was thinking about talking.
To this guy. He is one of my radio heroes. You know.
I've been on the radio somewhere for forty three years, and I still get starstruck when I talk to the people that I admire the most in this business. And I'm not trying to make him blush or make him feel bad. He says himself that he's tired of talking about his own story, but I wanted to take a few minutes out tonight. We have a segment here that
we do occasionally called American History on the radio. When we were doing it to relate to certain big events, news events that happened before the advent of TV and how radio played an important role. And then we got into some of the local radio stars that people connected with on a regular basis here in Cincinnati and around the Midwest.
And so now we're going national.
I guess the host of the Pat Saint John Show on sirius XM sixties Gold.
Yes, I am a subscriber. I hope my boss didn't hear that.
Also for forty two years in New York City and started out when I did, I mean I was nineteen years old, right out of what I call thirteenth grade junior college, and that my first professional radio job in June nineteen eighty. Pat goes back to the seventies in Detroit and CKLW in Toronto. Pat Saint John, good after it, good evening, and how are you.
I'm doing great, Gary, Jeff. That's a pretty nice build up there, pretty nice.
I know.
I hope nobody's disappointed at the end. But and I know they won't be My listeners will not be.
Pat.
The first thing I was gonna ask you about because it kind of parallels. This is the only thing that parallels are two careers. You've been a lot more successful than me in our forty plus years on the air or almost fifty now, but we both started. We both started at like eighteen nineteen years old.
That's right. And I was going to say, as far as success goes, hey, man, if you're doing what you love to do, and I know you are, you know, then we're then we're the same on that.
Yeah, what when did you get the first bug? I got bit by the radio bug when I was about seven years old listening to these great DJs out of Chicago on WLS and WCFL.
What was it for you, Pat, Well, for me, it was about the same age when I started getting records when I was six or seven and I was listening to the radio in Detroit stations like w x y Z and w k and R and then c KOW, which is in Windsor, by the way, not Toronto.
Right, I know?
Yeah?
See that was that was that fanboy thing that came back to bite me.
Well, that would have been too long of a commute for me, you know. I then, you know, listening to the to the radio and collecting rock and roll records. It never occurred to me that I could actually do that on the radio. I didn't even think about that. And it wasn't until I was in high school when they when they came out with a radio station at the high school in Southfield, Michigan. Southfield is just north of Detroit, and it was a ten lot FM station.
And I used to go down to the hallway and look through the glass and see these students doing these radio shows. And I listened to him and I go, well, I can do better than that. And so I asked how would I get involved. They put me in touch with the with the teacher who was the manager of the station, and he told me, he said, yeah, I think I could use you. I didn't have any of the classes or anything, but he made me. He said, well, you've got to have a third.
Class FCC license, all right.
So I went and I took the test and I got it, and the last half of my senior year I got on the radio. I was able to get on this station. It had about a five mile radius, but it was still real. In fact, the radio station. I think you'll find this interesting. This was like the first year of the radio station. It was w s HJ. That stood for Southfield High JS, which was the name of the you know, the team the sports teams there, sure.
And.
That radio station. I wasn't part of it, but the teacher was, and he was able to convince the manager of the Who that we were this radio station in Detroit and we'd love to host a concert, and they said yeah, and on Thanksgiving this was before this was a few months before I actually started, but we actually
had the Who in our high school gymnasium. And this was in this was Thanksgiving eve eve in sixty seven, and the Who played our played our gymnasium, with the first group being a local group in Detroit called the Unrelated Segments. The second group were the amboy Dukes and then the Who, and they were the DJs from Ckow who introduced them. So it was it was fascinating. But anyway, I was.
Trying to get my job off the will you hoodwink the Who and to play in your high school, you know, and he got the Duke, So you had Ted Nugent, right, was part of the Boy Dukes at the time.
Oh yeah, uh uh, it was rock and good Night.
But anyway, all of that.
Was happening while I was going, well, maybe I could do this and then I'll try to make a long story short here. And I was dating a girl. This is just out of high school. And I was dating a girl and her father knew the general manager of w I think it was w q x R. It was a classical radio station in Detroit. He set up an interview with me. And I went down and and you know what, my my mom said, well, you know you're going on an interview like this, you got to
have a suit and tie. She took me out, got me a suit. You know. I went down. I drove down to downtown Detroit to the station, went in and when I told the secretary, I have an appointment with so and so. You know, I didn't know anything about classical music. Didn't matter to me. I just wanted to get in on the radio.
Sure and so I.
Said, I'm here. I've got an appointment with mister so and so. She says, do you have a first class FCC license? And I said, no, I've got a third class you know, a first class would enable you to open up a piece of equipment and go inside and fix it. There was no way I could do that, and so she said, I'm sorry. Our announcers have to have first class licenses because they do double duty. I never even got to see the guy. Never even got to see the guy. So I'm pretty you know, I'm
pretty disappointed. I get back in the car. I'm driving down East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, and on the left is this great, big marquee, like a theater marquee of radio station WWW known as W four.
Right, I'm driving.
Past this thing, and I'm going, well, I don't know, I'm dressed for an interview. I made a left hand turn, drove into the parking lot, walked into the place, asked that secretary do you have any openings for announcers. She says, well, I don't know. We might hold on and she calls the program director. He comes downstairs and says, come on. He gives me a tour of this place. Now, W four at that time was a beautiful music station. Okay,
so that's getting closer. It was automated, which means there was just a wall of real to reel recorders and all of this stuff in my you know, and my jaw dropped and I'm going, man, look at this. Well, he gives me some copy off the off the off the wire and said, here, make me a tape. He says, because we need we do need somebody. So I borrowed a cassette recorder and a and a microphone from a friend of mine. I talked the news, I did this thing. I drove it down and handed it to him, and
by the following weekend he hired me. And I worked the overnight show, doing hourly news headlines, weather forecasts, and doing commercials. And I made two fifty an hour. That's two dollars and fifty cents.
Oh no, I mean very similar to what I was making my first job. And I was, you know, reading news and doing the DJ thing and going to school board meetings to take notes for the local news department.
And it was all minimum wage.
Pat Yeah, well, I mean this was probably lit. I don't know, it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all. I was doing what I wanted to do. So now I'm on the all night show. All of these little news headlines and weather things, they were all pre recorded you'd record them, then you'd feed them. You'd put the reel to reel on that machine and it would actually it would actually air a little bit later when the
automation told it to go to that particular Sure. So, because I had all this time on my midnight to eight am shift, I was bringing my I was bringing my own forty fives in and I started making tapes for CKLW, which was which was the number one station in Detroit, even Toledo. You know, this is in Windsor. And it was a like you say, a fifty thousand want powerhouse that reached you know, half the country at night.
So I did that and started sending these tapes to CKLW, and I never got They always said to me, well, we don't have anything right now, but we'll keep your we'll keep your tape on file.
Yeah sure, the old brush off, Yeah.
The old brush off. But I sent a few tapes over there and had pretty much given up when one day they got a new program director. The guy called me and said we might have something for you. We've got we've got would you you know, could you could you come over for lunch?
Uh?
Yeah? So I went over there. I had lunch with him. His name was Jim O'Brien and Dick smythe who was the program He was the news director. And now I'm eighteen. Okay, yeah, this is a fifty thousand watch channel. That's the number one channel. And they offered me three nights a week doing the overnight show, two days a week driving around the c K marrow getting news actualities, and one night
a week actually pulling a news shift. And I was like and and he offered me one hundred and fifty dollars a week.
How about that?
Now that was good money. But because I was used to talking to the DJs, you know, on the phone, I call the hit line and all of this this before I get there, and they told me that the union minimum, the after minimum, was two hundred dollars a week, which is ten thousand dollars a year.
Yeah.
So one night I'm on the air and the union steward comes in. He worked at CKLWTV. It was all in one building, and he said, how's it going, you know, and I'm going, oh, this is this is doing great? He said, you know, taking care of you. The JI get a thing. I said, yeah, I'm getting one hundred and fifty bucks a week. He said, huh. He said, no, no, no, no, no, they can't do that. You're gonna get two hundred dollars
a week. That's the minimum. I'll take care of this. Well, the program director wasn't happy.
No, no doubt.
Yeah, you know, but that was the union minimum. So now I'm getting ten thousand dollars a year. My mom and dad said, there's no way they're going to pay you that kind of money.
But they did.
And you know what, I was rolling in the dough at that time, Well, rolling in the dough.
I don't know what, go ahead, please, I was.
Just gonna say, I mean, I don't know. And years ago, I mean a couple of years after that, I heard an air check in myself and it scared me because and I said, why in the world would they hire me? Because when I went in there, I had never had other than five months on the high school station. I'd never been really a DJ. When I had made those tapes, Gary Jeff, I, I like, I wrote down everything that the DJs said on the air, so that I would have the proper format, I would have the terminology, I
would have all of that. That's part of why I got Why I got hired, I think because they could see I knew the format. But at the same time, when I heard this air check on myself, I went, why did they hire me? I was awful because what I was doing was copying the other DJs, so I would be going two oh clock, Oh big ag, and I'm like, it's the greatest thing I ever learned was to kind of be yourself.
Yeah.
So, and to this day, I don't like hearing recordings of myself. I can't stand it.
Oh.
I listened to those early cassettes Pat.
Of me at ten ten WHI n the voice of Sumner County Gallaton, Tennessee, And it's the same effect. It's like, oh my god, what was I doing? And today it's like, you know, I would really like a few more minutes with you. Do you have any any more time at all?
Pat?
I want to talk about New York, and I want to talk about what you're doing now, and I want to talk about the Hall of Fame, because oh yeah, this is huge.
Pat.
Saint John is our guest into the next segment here in the Nightcap, and uh, this is what I've been looking forward to a long time because I'm a fan, and you you don't get to talk to your your your faves a lot, even at.
Even at my level.
So we'll we'll break and we'll come back more with Hall of Famer Radio Hall of Famer Pat Saint John from Sirius XM here on the Nightcap on seven hundred w l W stay Put.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred w l W, Cincinnati.
Many across the globe already into the New y with the nine thirty report, I'm Shawn Gallagher breaking now the world continuing to ring in twenty twenty five, which will happen soon here in the Eastern time zone. Celebrations already underway at Times Square in New York.
Revelers in New York City are gathering in Times Square getting ready to watch the ball drop and ring in twenty twenty five. Herbert and his wife Susanna flew in from Vienna, Austria.
One point on the bucket list was some times Throotble.
Officials say there are more than a million people in total packing into Times Square this year, taking in musical acts from Rita, Aura, Carrie Underwood, TLC, and others. Mike Debuski, ABC News New York.
Now the latest traffic in weather together and right now taking a look at the major interstates and highways.
No new accidents now the late news forecast from a train heating and cooling weather center on news radio seven hundred wl's job as.
Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day, but it will be a little bit above freezing and thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies getting chilli overnight into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday to Friday. From your severe weather station, I'm nine first wanting media rollins just Brandon Spinner. News radios seven hundred wlw.
RD are still showing rainshower activity for most of our Try state, seeing some dry spots in Butler, Warren and also some parts of Clinton County, even seeing some snow mixing in parts of southeast Indiana, mainly in Dearborn and Franklin Counties are current temperature thirty nine degrees. Ohio State Highway Patrol this New Year's he was looking out for those behind the wheel who may be under the influence.
Three fatal accidents occurred during the New Year's reporting period last year in the state due to drunk or impaired driving, while two hundred and eighty arrests were impaired driving were made. Highway Patrol is urging anyone who who believes they see a suspected impaired driver to call Pound six seven to seven.
Come Friday, the new Congress will be sworn in. President Douk Trump his voice to support for current House Speaker Mike Johnson to retain the gabble, but others in the GOP don't feel the same way, wanting change.
In a series of posts on the X platform Monday, Northern Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey says he will not support keeping Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House, comparing Johnson to Paul Ryan, saying that the GOP lost its majority two years after Ryan became speaker, and Massey says he doesn't want history to repeat itself.
Quote.
I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan end quote. He's calling on his fellow Republicans to join him. I'm Jack Crumley, News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week after Saturday's overtime win against the Broncos, in which he threw for four hundred and twelve yards in three touchdowns. Bengals now getting ready to face the Steelers on Saturday night. They need a win and also some help to make the playoffs. They'll need the Dolphins and Broncos to both lose Sunday. Burrow on the big Week eighteen matchup in Pittsburgh.
M time he played divisional opponent's a big game and this one is no different.
Means a lot to.
The city, to the organization, to the owners, coaches, players, and this is a big game for our season as well.
The Steelers, meanwhile, can still win the AFC North. The Ravens would have to lose earlier in the afternoon to the Browns and then Pittsburgh would have to win. Kickoffrom Acrasher Stadium Saturday night, eight o'clock here on the Big One College Basketball, it was Xavier picking up a big ninety four to seventy two win. It's intas Center Overseat and Haul this afternoon is their first Big East win. The Musketeers will be at Georgetown Friday night to bop
at eight here on the Big One. Meanwhile, tenth Brank Kentucky with a eighty eight to fifty four win over Brown at Rapperina. The quarterfinals of the College football Playoff getting underway tonight, as the start of the third quarter has Penn State leading Boise State seventeen to seven in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. On New Year's Day, a triple header As Texas and Arizona State will face off in the Peach Bowl at one o'clock, then at Ohio State and Oregon and the Rose Bull at five,
then eight forty five. I've at Notre Dame in Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, fighting for that last spot in the semi finals. Our next update is at ten o'clock. I'm Sean Gallagher's Radio seven hundred w l W s The.
Richter and Phillips Jeweler's countdown to twenty twenty five, voted best place to buy your engagement ring since eighteen ninety six.
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I started out with as a birthday or Christmas gift in late nineteen sixty six, the Great thing about transistor radios, and if you were alive and well at the time, I think you can still get them as novelty items
today is that they ran on nine volt batteries. And the way you would check and make sure your nine volt battery was good or not was to take the two the positive and negative prongs on the end of the nine volt battery and rub them against your wet tongue if you've got to spark a nice little shock treatment. The battery was good if there was nothing when you put your toe. So I guess my first French kiss was of a nine volt battery, checking to see if it still had power.
Sorry if that's too graphic for you, but.
Anyway, with the ninefold battery firmly emplaced in my six transistor ge portable transistor radio, I've got my ear piece in. Let's listen to part two of the interview with Radio Hall of Famer Pat Saint John.
Now on the nightcap. Oh but yes I can.
Part two of our interview with Radio Hall of Famer Pat Saint John just announced he was going to be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. With an incredible class of people. There's no doubt about that. Among them, one of them that I personally knew was Jerry House from Nashville, from WSIX, and I worked for a short period of time in between full time jobs at ninety eight W six when Jerry House was doing mornings there.
So you know, I listened to one Hall of Famer and I worked with another one of them in this year's class.
So I'll lucky meeting him at the at the induction ceremony. That's really cool.
He probably will not remember me.
I was just doing weekends and spot stuff for the station, but I'd been in the market a long time before that show. Jerry House so inventive, so funny he had. He actually co wrote a number one song called the Little Rock I think, yes, while he was there in the music city.
So Pat Uh.
After Detroit, you move on to New York, the biggest market in the country, and you stay on New York radio for over forty years and become a fixture at places like WPLJ and later WCBSFM. Tell me about a little bit about the New York days.
Pat with WNW FM in the middle there for about eleven years. Yeah, it was really great. You know, when I left Detroit. I well, actually I worked at wri IF in Detroit, which was the ABC owned and operated channel there. This is when I was getting where my head was going, was into the FM stuff, you know, I was getting into the album cuts and digging that. So I got into classic rock and so I was
at WRIF when they offered me the job in New York. Luckily, the ratings were good in Detroit and they offered me this gig, which I originally turned down because I was just getting I thought, starting to get known in Detroit, my hometown. But yeah, they convinced me to come. My wife, who was my girlfriend, and at the time we decided we went, you know what, we're going to be together forever. Why don't we'd do it? And so we got married. So I moved to New York. Started in April of
seventy three. I worked about four weeks there, flew home on a Friday, got married on a Saturday, flew back on Sunday, and we were there forty two years.
Well, I mean, it's it's wonderful if you've got somebody that cares about you with you going, you know, to the Big Apple and oh, I mean.
She's been my you know, she's been my partner, my better half, as they say, She's helped me through all these decisions. In this past May, we just celebrated our fiftieth.
Wedding Anima, congratulations, so thank you.
So you know that was amazing. You wonder where does the time go, because it just it's I don't know how I got here. I mean, I'm still nineteen in my head, you know, and it just it goes by so quickly. But you know, we've had a we had a oneonderful run when I was and the reason I left New York and at that time I was I was working for Serious XM already that last station that I was at. Now this is before CBSFM, which I did just for fun while I got hired at Serious XAM,
which started off as CD Radio. I started there in nineteen ninety eight, believe it or not. I was one of the first eight employees. And you know, everybody went, who's going to pay for radio?
Not?
You know who's going to do this, but you know, but I believed in it sounded like a good deal. So anyway, this October, I'll celebrate twenty five years here on satellite radio. When I started the satellites weren't even.
Up yet, simply amazing.
I've been on WLW now for twenty six and a half years with a Saturday morning show, Good You, Thank You, and I know what it's like to become ensconced and be one of those people that you know, people have appointment listening. They tune in specifically to hear certain things that they know you're going to do. And I do the same thing with you on the birthdays on your
afternoon show on Sirius XM sixties Gold. I always want to hear the birthdays because I mean, that's how I start my Saturday morning show at five point thirty in the morning. I do you know, historical or as I like to say, historical hysterical notes and people tied to this particular date in history, including but not limited to these, And we do that. But I've done that for years and some people may think it's corning, but it's something
that I do. It's something you do and something I tune in specifically for from Pat Saint John on.
Your Well It's just one of those things that people like to hear it or it gives you, It gives me a chance when I say somebody's birthday to get into you know, to play something from them that you might not even normal here on a regular basis. And it's just, uh, you know, it's one of those things to uh, to entertain folks, you know, where where our job is kind of to to entertain in between the records if we can. And I think that uh, you know, sharing the music, sharing the love for uh, for all
this and for and for radio whatever. It's a it's a it's a really good thing. It's a personal medium. It's a communication business. And it's like you know, even for you know, a talk show. You can you can read the internet and read newspapers or whatever, but when you're connecting with a real human being, I think, uh, you know that's always been.
The beauty of radio.
Well, no, that's the magic of ready.
That's the whole trick is one to one communication and you do it so well, and it's all about it's all about you when I'm talking. It's it's not about y'all, it's not about hey everybody, it's it's about you.
And it's a one on one.
It's one to one communication when it's done right and you do it right, and that's one of the reasons I love listening to you. Of all of them, of all of the people you have interviewed Pat Saint John through your career, famous folks, musicians and the like. Was there anybody that just surprised you like you you well,
I didn't expect that. Was there something like that that happened in any of the times that, Yeah, being in New York and stuff, you met them all because they're all in the biggest city in the country.
When they tend to America or whatever, Yeah, they all come.
So I mean over the years, I mean I have interviewed well, with the exception of John Lennon, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who since they played my high.
School, Yes, since they played your high.
School and they actually, uh they actually remembered it or they said they did it anyway, And I have I brought in my high school yearbook when I was going to talk to them, and there's a picture of Keith's drum. Well this was Pete and and Keith and they both signed it. They both autographed the uh my high school yearbooks.
So that my favorite interview.
Well, I have a couple of them. James Taylor was one. He was just so sweet Leon Russell. I'm the biggest fan of Leon Russell anywhere. He he was just he was just the greatest. And to have him on my show with his keyboard playing, playing anything, he was great. I mean surprising. You asked for surprising, and that might be Keith Richards. And the reason that was so surprising was he was just so down to earth. He was just you know, I met Mick Jagger and it was like, Hi,
how are you see it? But Keith was just like a normal person, you know, he was just like friendly and he was just you know, I don't know.
He was just very very laid back and very just yeah.
Very kindness. Can be no star treatment at all, no, nothing like that. Just just a conversationalist and that was cool. So that might have been a surprise.
I think the.
Biggest one for me. The biggest surprise was the day that Poco reformed back in the mid eighties. I don't know if you remember they actually had a top forty hit call it Love or whatever, but was the original members of Poco, which of course included Jimmy Messina and Randy Meisner.
Yeah, and I didn't know.
I knew that they might come by for an interview because we had him at a concert. This is when I was in Nashville to headline our fireworks show that we had downtown. We had a couple of those a year, and we always had a big headliner well that in Felix Cavalery. I got to sing on stage with Good Loving with Felix Cavalery at one of those shows. But yeah, yeah,
Randy Meisner and Jim Messina walk in. Jim Messina's got his acoustic guitar and they break into your mamadome dance and then they did take it to the limit right in front of me acoustic and Randy Meisner's hitting all those notes. But yeah, you know, to be fortunate enough to have these opportunities, we're very, very lucky people, both of us.
You bet, you bet.
There's no question.
Like we said right at the beginning of this, I mean, we're doing what we always wanted to do. Not everybody gets to do well they always wanted to do in life, and you and I are doing that.
I wanted to ask you real quick before we get to the Hall of Fame.
We're talking to Pat Saint John American History on the radio on the Night Camp on a Monday night on seven hundred WLW. So, Pat, your kids, your grandkids, chasing Sienna, we've we've kind of we've become very very obviously you love them very much, but we've become very attached to hearing them occasionally on your Saturday night request show or occasionally on your afternoon show on Sirius XM. What do they think about that as it become pass say for them to go Grandpa needs us again?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, they you know, even even teenagers today, they don't know so much about radio, you know, which is kind of sad. But you know, my kids, my grandkids there, Sienna is six and Chase just turned ten, and Chase has been on the radio with me since he was two, since since as soon as we moved out here to San Diego. So they just kind of take it in stride. They understand it because they'll hear me on the radio,
and but they're they're cool with it. But I don't think they have any aspirations that this this is what they want to do. Well, they haven't figured that out yet, but but yeah, they take it in stride, and you know, and I say, hey, can we do something? And they're always pretty good about it, you know.
Okay, all right, So the Radio Hall of Fame.
A good friend of mine who does some segments with me on my Saturday morning show, we do a rock and roll Archie out segment.
On a talk show on AM, which was kind of cool.
We get to play great portions of some great songs and he tells the stories. His name is Jim Lebarbara. They call him the Music Professor. He's in the Ohio Broadcast Hall of Fame and among the top fifty top forty DJs of all time and one other survey.
But anyway, we do that and.
It's fun because I still because I started in music radio and I still get to do the music DJ part in that little segment. But all of the segues and the themes that you do so well that I just marvel at. I mean, as a as a listener. I'm also somebody in the business and I appreciate greatness. And I hear that on a regular basis from Pat Saint John and it's just you and back to and back to.
Nobody's going to pay to listen to radio. I thought the same thing.
Everybody's going, well, you know, Gary, Jeff, they got satellites. Now there's all this competition. I said, nobody's gonna pay for freaking radio. What are you talking about? And here I am doing it. So I mean, did you expect the nod from the Radio Hall of Fame the induction?
Uh no, not really, you know, I was. I was nominated last year and didn't get in, And when I found out I was nominated, of course I was, you know, I was hoping for that.
I was sure.
I thought it was thought it was cool. When I didn't get in, I sort of I was okay with that. I thought, you know, I didn't do this to win on I've never won an award ever, and I you know, certainly didn't have that as a goal, So you know, I was, I was actually fine with it. On the other hand, this year, when I was nominated again, that was my attitude, all right, I mean, I get in again. But then I did, and it was a nice surprise.
I must say. I'm I'm happy about that. I wonder if I'm I don't know, it's it's kind of I don't know to think I'm going to be in that Hall of Fame with you know, Dick Clark and Alan Freed and Wolfman Jackets like, that's a that's a headshaker to me, you know. Oh yeah, but I'm you know, I'm I'm I'm happy about it. I can't lie.
No happy about it.
And you're right, we don't, none of us, I don't think get into the business to win awards or to be lauded in some kind of you know radio mausoleum.
I mean, we don't think about it in those terms.
I got into radio because I was thrilled by the magic of those voices coming through the airwaves at night.
Especially those those big voices and w ls.
You know, then they kind of had their condescending lilt, and that was kind of fun when you're a seven eight year old kid to listen to these voices of God.
Talking down to people.
But but I got into it because number one, I was so passionate about it.
It's all I wanted to do.
And number two, I figured I could make some make enough money to live and meet some chicks.
And I did all of that.
Yeah right, right, Yeah, that was that was part of it.
Yeah, sure, meet girls, man, come on, Oh.
Yeah, so true. Well, you know what, we're just we're lucky to still be doing this. Yester all of these years and to still have that passion, to still have that drive, to still have that that uh, that excitement that you're going to be going on the air.
People always people ask me, and I'm sure you get to ask this, you know, well, I mean, are you ever gonna hang it up? And I go, why, I mean, unless I have to, unless they force me to.
No, I'm never gonna retire.
No, you know what, as long as we can do this and feel like we're doing a good job, we're going to keep on doing it.
I have no.
Plans to retire at all. It'll I will be going as long as I can, and I know you will be too, and we can do future interviews, you know, ten twenty thirty years down the line.
Right exactly. I'll just have to make sure I don't drop my teeth in the middle of the conversation. Pat Saint John, thank you so much for making my night man, and I'll be listening to you.
Gary Jeff, thank you. I mean it an it's an honor to be asked to do this, and it's great to be on the air. And you'd be sure to if you've told them. Thank your management for allowing me.
To be on your show.
No, I don't tell him anything.
Pat.
It's better better to ask forgiveness than permission. Believe me, take care.
That's a great well. I enjoyed our conversation.
For sure, all right man, Thanks so much, Pat, Saint John on the nightcap. I don't know if you enjoyed it, but I loved it as a fan. We'll continue in moments. I'm seven hundred WL.
Scott's flowing here with a quick reminder for you.
If you missed part of my show, you can still listen to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app and hear what you miss is. Heaven only knows why you missed part of my show, and I don't know. I suppose there's legit reasons like fell to a coma, or you had to run to the store for emergency grapes, you know whatever.
Just be sure to hit up my podcast and let me know you care.
Just in time for the night New.
Year's Eve, the special Nightcap, the last nightcap of the year, mind you, and it's our focus on American history on the radio this past year. Another one of the interviews that I was fortunate enough to line up and have on the ear was with a guy who's on serious ExM.
You'll hear that.
But he's also got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, not everybody had.
I don't have one of those. You have one of those, Not that it matters.
Sure, he was releasing a new book this past year, which we talked about, and his career spans TV and radio in southern California like nobody else. Maybe great voice, one of those voices that inspire you to try and sound like them, and you never do because you're not them. Shotgun Tom Kelly joins us in the next segment, and for this hour, I really enjoyed doing that. I thought it was one of the better interviews I've done with anybody.
You be the judge, but it's coming right up next as we count you down for the last couple of hours of twenty twenty four here on seven hundred WLWA.
You got two types of people in America, hopeful, positive Americans and negative elitist America hating butt wipes.
Why would anyone want to be a negative butt wipe?
They need to sit down and listen to Bill Cunningham to cure them of their butt wipe ways.
The American Bill loves America. He gives me hope for America. He makes me feel better about America.
He loves America as much as I do.
I know butt wife America, Bill Cunningham Tomorrow at twelve noon on seven hundred WLW. Run a business and not thinking about radio? Think again, Because more people are listening to the radio on iHeart today than they did twenty years ago, and only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. Think radio can help your business? Think iHeart streaming, podcasting, and radio. Let us show you
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The holidays are a blast, but the financial hate, I.
Said, Shotgun.
It's another episode of American history on the radio on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW and tonight one of the great voices and American radio history joins us.
Another one of those.
I'd like to celebrate the people and the events and the music that makes radios such as special media, and we definitely have one of those to start the program this evening. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is a regular about this time at night on sixties Gold on Sirius XM. Legendary disc jockey Shotgun Tom Kelly joins us.
Hello, Shotgun, how are you.
Oh Gary, I'm doing great. I love being on seven hundred WUL.
I love it.
Oh.
I love hearing you say seven hundred w l W in your inivitable style.
Thank you.
Hey. You know I got to tell you. I just came from I get my nails done, and I'm a very sanitary guy, and I was talking to my managurist and there was a lady getting her hair done there and she overheard me saying that I was going to be on w LW. She goes, no, No, that's seven hundred WLW. Evidently she said she lived in Indianapolis and she used to listen. That was the station that really used to come in and that was her station. Man, how about that?
Oh, it's a powerhouse.
I just can't believe that you're out in LA and you're sitting next to a lady. And first, first and foremost, I can't believe that you got your nails done for this.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it to be listen, nothing's nothing but the best for you.
Gary.
You know you realize this as a radio all right, So I shotgun Tom Kelly.
Uh.
I want to again the voice and everybody can hear this incredible set of pipes.
You got on you man.
Uh.
And that was the first thing, the first thing that we we recognize and hear about you, the first time we hear you. But I want to go back to your roots. The book, the new book is all I want to do is play the hits and I'm looking forward to reading it when I get a copy, and I plan on getting a copy.
So, but.
I want to go back to four.
You were in radio and I'm sure you detail some of these stories in the book, but let's wet the whistle of the audience a little bit here. What our beaks was some early Tom Kelly information. I will first tell you that I got bit with the radio bug when I was about six or seven years old and got my first transmitter back in the transistor. Rather, I didn't get my first transmitter until I was about in the sixth grade, and I built one of those FM transmitters that went about.
Two hundred and fifty feet.
But anyway, my first transistor is probably in they the Winner of nineteen sixty seven, and we were living in suburban Chicago at the time, and I was listening to all these great voices on eighty nine WLS and WCFL and Fred Winston, fred Winston and Larry lu Jack and then later John Landecker, who's still on the radio. I mean, it's it's a godsend to be on the radio all these years later, when you know, people like me were
kids and now we're the old timers. But so, where did you first get bit with the radio bug?
Tom Kelly?
You know, that's very interesting, Garret, because that is exactly my story. You were a little younger than I was, but my mother was a big radio fan, and she, you know I was. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. What a great place. And I was ten years old. I came home from school. I went to Saint johnaan Across Catholic School in Lemon Grove, and my mom was listening to KOGO, which is an iHeart
station and a big powerful station in San Diego. And so she was listening to a guy by the name of Frank Thompson. He was on the air all mobile, you know, on remote in the Kogo mobile studios, and so he was interviewing people. My mom heard that, and so she said, Tommy, there's a man on the radio, his name is Frank Thompson on kog O, putting people on the air. Why don't you get on your bike and you ride down there. Maybe he'll put you on the air. So I didn't know if I wanted to
be and radio. We're not at ten years old, but I wrote my bike down there, and I looked in the window. Gary, you can appreciate this. I looked in the window and I saw two turntables and then microphone and he was talking into what. There was a speaker outside and I was absolutely mesmerized, and so I was looking at him and he says, well, this is Frank Thompson on kog Oh, there's a young man looking through the window here of the Kogo mobile studio. Come in here,
young man. What's your name? My name is Tom. What's good to go to? Tom? I go to Saint johnath Across Catholic School. Well, Tom, here's four tickets to see the lat Birds when they come to Westgate Park. And I went home. My mom heard me on the radio. What a thrill? And then I built my own little radio station. That was how it started, Gary La T Birds.
There's a throwback. There's a blast from the past.
I remember the roller I remember the roller Derby too, baby.
Yeah, I was hoping you'd break that up. Remember that they used to pull each other's hair as they go.
Yeah, that's great.
Roller Derby was one of the first things I ever saw on a UHF TV station was Roller Derby and the La T Birds were playing Chicago. I forget even what the Chicago's team was, but they were playing at the roller rink in Hammond, Indiana, and I was just a little kid about the same time I was getting interested in radio.
So you had those early sparks.
Were there any other guys that you listened to on the radio when you were young that you kind of emulated and you wanted to be like Tom?
Yeah? Well, first of all, I followed Frank Thompson around. He was the guy that would he was most most accessible because he'd be in that cogo mobile unity and that was easy to get into, as you know, you just kept a little kid, just kept walk into a radio station. Especially. He worked for a AMFM TV facility they called Broadcast City, and it was owned by time
Life Broadcast at that time, very class the organization. So the only access I had was him and that trailer, And so I followed him around, and of course he had this great voice, and I kind of imitated him when I did my little my little radio station in my bedroom. Yeah, and I always wanted to be like
Frank Thompson, you know. And by the way, Frank Thompson was a Canadian I found out, and he was educated at Long Greens Radio School Lauren Green before he got did the dance, but Anson he was he had a radio school. Did you know that?
Oh yeah, Yeah, And when you can hear that and you want to talk about fantastic voices.
Lord Green was just amazing.
You know.
The song Ringo just.
It all, just one of my favorites.
It tells you every thing you need to know about the vocal talents of one Lauren Greed.
And you want to say, what that guy am for breakfast?
No question?
But anyway, Yeah, so Frank Thompson I admired. He became a friend and then a friend of the family. Later on Frank got out of the disc jockey thing and he worked in Seattle at kJ R and Seattle It, became a news director and so he was a news guy, you know when I at the end of his life, but he was very respected up there. So you asked some of the other people that I used to listen to in San Diego. Yeah, I used to love my favorite disc jockey, and now now I wanted to go
any radio station that I could look at. And there was a station at seventh and ash k c b Q, which I eventually got a job at later on, and you could watch the disc jockey's on the air on the second floor. So I used to love to watch, uh Seamus Patrick O'Hara. And then of course there.
Was this who Jackson.
He wasn't Irish, was he?
Uh? He may have been, but he was a He was a great jock. And of course Happy Hair in the morning. I think Happy Hair worked in Cleveland at one time about that Uh did a morning show. Anyway, there was There was so many disc jockeys on that station that I admired. And of course I can actually see them. To go down at seventh and Ash look up there in the second floor and watch them do their show. Now, this is interesting. Uh. They had there's the They had a mirror on the ceiling so you
can see the disc jockey turn the dobs. It looked like I was looking at a spaceship. That board was so incredible, you know what I'm talking about. And I always had the Neil Ross, who's a good friend of mine. He he co wrote my book as a matter of fact. Uh, and him and I would would be at seventh and Aunt watching these guys and we'd say to each other, God,
we'd love to be able to work that board. And eventually Neil Ross and myself in our adult life, got hired at Casey BQ and we got to run the same board Gary, and I mean, what a what a throw that is. And by the way, the picture uh uh uh. There's a story the lady, and this is in my book. The lady. Her name is Phyllis. She was in choice. She was a receptionist, but more than
a receptionist, she was a security guard. So anyway, I would go up there and said, uh, ma'am, my name is Tom and I'm doing a report in school and I can't get a good picture of the disc jockey on the air. Is there any way on getting the studio just for a moment to take the picture? She goes, no, Son, if you want your picture, you have to take it from the street. Well, I was a little forlorn, and then I saw this guy coming up and I noticed
it was Scotty Day. He was the midday guy. But what I can't but I didn't realize he was the boss. He was the program director of Casey BQ. So I told him the story. He said, you're doing a report, said well, follow me. So we went up there and Phyllis was sitting at the desk and Scotty Days said, Phillis, I'm going to take this young man into the studio and you should have seen the look on her face. She was there's the most angry look I've ever seen on a woman in my life. It was almost scary.
Who well, anyway, yeah, So I got into the studio and I had my little brownie camera. It was filled with slide film and I had, you know, a flash cube and all that stuff. So I only had one shot left. And so I got back and the guy on the air was Bill Bishop, who became the voice of Judge Judy later on, but he was on the airs of disc Jockey. And I went back and I took that picture of that incredible control board and Bill Bishop, and I had that picture in my pool hall blown
up thirty by thirty. I mean, you get asked Art Volo, you know America's best radio friend. Yeah, and he'll tell you about that. And that picture is in the book, taken when I was twelve years old. And also there was another picture of me at that board, taken when I was an adult. Worton at KCBQ.
How did you piece together your own little radio station, your little home radio station.
How'd that come about?
Oh? Well, you know, listen to this, Gary, this is very interesting. I wanted to be on the air. I wanted people to hear me. So I had speaker extensions out into the patio my mom and dad, and they were listening to me, and that was cool, but I wanted to do something better. So my friend Tom Brown, this is in the book, by the way, all I want to do is play the hits available on Amazon Aaron Barnes and Noble. I wanted a string speaker wire from my bedroom to my friend across the street, Tom Brown,
And so I did. I went over the telephone pole. I mean I didn't climb up there. I threw it up there and I got into his He had a radio, a clock radio, and I saw these the speaker, and I just tapped, just hooked the wires up to the speaker, and my bedroom looked like it was coming out of a rail radio but the radio was off. So anyway, I had one listener, and so I was broadcasting from my bedroom to Tom's bedroom. And one night I decided, and by the way, I put the switch on there.
So when he wanted to listen to real radio, when you do that, so one night I wanted to do an all night show. So he was at summer camp, and he forgot to, you know, flick the switch off. And at midnight little shotgun Tom Tom Irwin at that time, no ladies and gentlemen, the greatest shits onors, you know. And so anyway, I woke his entire family up. His dad came on and tried to turn off the knob. It wouldn't go off, and he tried to unplug the radio. Still wouldn't go off. So he picked up the radio
and it broke the connection. Well is that a weird story, but it's in the book. And so I got frustrated with that idea. And you mentioned something, Gary, You said that you had a transmitter.
Yeah, we built a little I was in this program at the end of sixth grade. It was for kids. It was actually summer school that we wanted to go to because we had special interests and we had good enough grades that they let us go to this six week summer school and one of them was a radio class, and they gave us all of the components to build
a little FM transmitter. It broadcast about two hundred and fifty and I was doing my own little broadcast and it was fun soldering it together and putting it together.
But anyway, what we're going to say, Tom.
Oh, Well, what I was going to say is I had a friend of mine who said he had a transmitter that he was going to sell me for five bucks. So he built the transmitter on a cigar box. And this guy, Wes Owen is his name. He was very, very smart, and he still is to this day. But anyway,
Wes knew everything about electronics. So he built this transmitter that broadcast on eight p forty on the AM dial and sold it to me for five bucks, set out of power supply, and I brought it into my room and now I'm actually on the air, Gary on the air at eight forty am. And so my mom and dad would come in and say, look at our son. He's staying out of trouble. He's not the stealing stuff
out of stores. He's got this wonderful hobby. Well what they didn't realize, Gary, is I wasn't committing local crime. I was committing federal.
Five I will stop right there. We'll stop right there, shotgun, Tom Kelly. All I want to do is play the hits as the book, and we'll be back with part two of the interview on American history. On the radio, actually on the radio on seven hundred WLW.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
Now two and a half hours away from twenty twenty five. What the ten thirty re parts, I'm Ley Mawin breaking Now. What you hear is the New Year's celebration in Paris, France.
Here in the eastern part of the United States, we're counting down the time until twenty twenty five begins with a new year that means new construction projects across the Tri State o Dotts Kathleen follow shared that the Norwood Lateral project would be completely finished by June twenty twenty five, with reservicing and rehabilitation still needed on the tiny stretch between Paddock Road that's State Route four and I seventy five.
Reconfiguration of the I seventy five southbound ramp to westbound I seventy.
Four needs finishing touches like resurfacing.
The big one is Phase eight of the Mill Creek Expressway project, which is replacing three railroad bridges and the tracks over I seventy five, State Round five sixty two and Prosser Avenue. The big back bridge work is scheduled to finish mid March, depending on the delivery of the steel girders from Bowling Green, Kentucky. With design work on the Brent Spence Bridge project still being worked on. That's the only project. Fuller couldn't confirm if work would start
in the new year. Now the latest traffic and whether together we have a crash on US Route fifty East at Chambers. This is towards the Ohio Indiana state line, inside the two seventy five loop. It is still open, but you are going to expect some lane closures as you approach.
The lates forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather Center on News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day, but it will be a little bit above freezing and thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies, getting chilly overnight into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday to Friday. From your severe Weather station, I'm nine first Warning Media rollind Just Brandon Spinner News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Still plenty of rain to go around south west Ohio and northern Kentucky. Some of it is snow in the northmost part of Butler County. In the southern Preble County and mcgoverery County. Scenes of snow and around Dayton heading to western Green County, Bellbrook, Beaver Creek, Fairbarn that area. Right now, it's thirty nine degrees with light rain falling
in the two seventy five Loop. Puerto Rico's Governor Pedro Pierre Lucy receiving a call from President Joe Biden today on the massive power outage affecting nearly the entire island. With more is ABC's Victor Oquendo.
Nearly all of Puerto Rico ringing in the new year in the dark, an island wide blackout affecting more than a million customers. Power outages have become common, with a blackout like this is rare. Lumah Energy, the private company that handles transmission and distribution of electricity, saying they're working to restore power quickly and getting the medical center in San Juan's Hospital back online within hours.
Earlier here on news radio seven hundred WOW in the week, you heard about the nearly one million chickens depopulated somewhere in Dark County. Now, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife suspects dead wild birds across nine Ohio counties might test positive for the bird flu One of
those nine is Warren County. Several dead Canadian geese trumpeter Swan's and one mallard being tested with the ODNR presuming they will test positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza three O. Our nearby counties with these birds include Auglace County, Mercer County, and Montgomery County, all northrom the Miami Valley, Ohioan's Covery Port. Sick or dead wild birds suspected of having the bird flew to eight hundred ninety four five thirty five forty three,
or visit Wildohio dot gov. Our next update is at eleven i'mleymowin news Radio seven hundred WLW.
Less than ninety minutes until the ball drops or the walleye drops in Port Clinton or whatever you've got in your specific area. We beam out at night. It signifies the changing of the guards. A new year, Happy new year. Gary Jeff Walker with you on seven hundred WLW, continuing my conversation with the great superstar, Hollywood Walker, star, author and radio legend Shotgun Tom Kelly.
Here's part two.
They lie in boothills, all for the West, the outlaws, the gunslingers, the bit of the kids, and wise say a fellow like the cow that shot Bill Hiccock in the back. There's always one like that, and every time of history. Sure most of them were vomits, but every once in a while and one of them I may have lived a man.
We talked about Louren Green and Ringo in our first segment. We're talking with Shotgun Tom Kelly, who has the same kind of voice as Lauren Green did. Why God, He's a monster American history on the radio. Shotgun Tom is our guest for the rest of this hour, and we're back. I wanted to ask you, Tom about your dad because in Tom's new book, all I want to do is play the hits out now on Amazon and anywhere you
buy books about his career in his life. You talk a lot about your dad, who was a train engineer back in the day, and there's stories in the book like the one you're gonna kind of share with us.
Now, tell me about your dad.
Yeah, dad was a locomotive train engineer for the Santa Fe in San Diego. And I remember Dad came home and he said, this actor they had a film crew there and they wanted Now this is later on in the in the late fifties, and this actor, Dad had to get on his knees and bring the F seven, which is the war bonnet, the red war Bonnet, a beautiful engine into San Diego. And so the film crew from the television station was filming that had this guy
get off. He was portrayed as an engineer, so he got he was an actor, but he got off the F seven Santa Fe engine and walked into the depot and then they cut and turns out he was my favorite children's show host. His name was Johnny Downs. He used to be Johnny of Our Gang, and so for years as a kid, I used to watch him on the air and I used to say, Hey, my dad is Johnny Downs's engineer. He portrayed an engineer. See, so
just like engineer Bill in La. But yeah, my dad told me that story, and he told me another story. He got the nod to be the engineer on the presidential train to bring the President of the United States into San Diego, picked him up in Los Angeles, came to San Diego, and then my dad hates crowds. He looked out one side of the engine and there were thousands of people waiting to hear the president and see him. He looked out the other side and there was nobody Gary,
nobody there. So this was my dad's job, was done his This is his opportunity to get out of there. He grabbed his grip, he got off the engine, and he was making his way to his car as fast as possible, and this guy stopped him. He said, I've been with these fobs all day. You're the engineer, aren't you. And my dad said, yes, mister President, I am. It was Harry Truman. Wow in nineteen forty eight. Yeah, So anyway, my dad walked about one hundred yards with Harry and
then the Secret Service got ahold of him. He bitted my dad goodbye, and then he spoke to the people. But you know, my dad told that story and it was one of his favorites. And I said, I'd love to meet a president someday. So my congressman got me the job of doing the MC job for a president who came to San Diego. And I did. And so
he says, I have an idea. Why don't you you know your trademark ranger at You don't have a smoke of the bear hat that I wear because I did children's television for seventeen years locally here in San Diego and on my syndicated show Words of Poppin' was syndicated around the country and I won two Emmys for that show. But anyway, the hat is a traditional thing that I've had in my career, and so I wanted to meet a president. So anyway, Duncan Hunter, my congressman made it happen.
I went to the White House and this is all in the book. It's a deeper story in the book. But anyway, we're waiting outside the Oval office. Gary White House staff member comes in to tell us and by the way, that hallway outside the Oval, it's not that big. Anyway, he said, Duncan shotgun the president is better to see you. So we go in the Oval office. The president is behind the resolute desk. He gets up from the resolute desk and he walks over to the shell bookcase. Well, Gary,
he knows my name. He said, well, Shotgun, I understand that you were the MC and kept the people entertained why they're waiting for me in San Diego. And I said, yes, mister President, I did. And I bring you my trademark ranger hat, and I hope you'll put it on. And he goes, well, he put it on. It was President Ronald Reagan left in the book.
That's a great Reagan impression. You do that really? Well?
Uh, oh, well, a little way. Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan, his son is friend of mine. And when you get a copy, you get a stamp. It's not really the president's signature. But in the book if you look, uh in the book, all I want to do is play the hits available on Amazon and Barnesanoble dot com.
Uh.
If you go in there, you will see, uh, the president's signature. Michael Reagan went to his dad in Santa Barbara and actually had him sign that's actually his signature, and it's not a stamp. I value that.
That's phenomenal.
Because of your dad's involvement with trains, You've had a continuing lifelong love of trains, haven't you.
Tom Oh. Absolutely. But the problem is when I was a kid, I was I came home from the train store and I said, Dad, I'd like to have a train set, and he goes nothing doing son, I worked sixteen hours a day. I don't want to see them when I come home. So anyway, and so maybe now as an adult, I had somebody else build my train layout twenty five thousand dollars Lloyd's Layouts of Los Angeles. They do a marvelous job. And I've got a downtown area residential area. I've got four industrial areas plus a
yard and the hero in the downtown area. I've always wanted this because I've never seen another train layout with an AM FMTV station right downtown. And I had a tower, yeah, tower for the big tower, you know, not the one like WLWS, which is a standing tower, but it's a tower on my layout, and yeah, I have lots of
fun with it. And if any of your listeners are ever in San Diego, I'm going to run trains every Wednesday from one to four and they can come out to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum very near the world famous San Diego Zoo, and they could see me run trains and I get to visit with them. On my show on Sirius XM sixties old Channel seventy three, I've mentioned that and I've had lots of people come out. It's amazing.
I bet you have.
What was your first radio job, Tom, very first.
First radio Yeah, the very first one. I was sixteen years old. I was hanging around a radio station in the week and then the weekend guy was the program director of this FM station now Gary. As you know, FM back in nineteen sixty six was like a background music thing. AM was the big deal, and if you want to really wanted to be on a big station, you had to be on an AM station like KCBQ, like KGB, like will W You know I love those
call letters man. Anyway, So I got a job at an FM station on the weekends on Sunday because nobody wanted Nobody wants to work Sunday. So George Manning, who was working weekends at radio station KDO, where I made my little tapes for my bootleg station Anyway, he said, how would you like to do Sunday Morning at kPr. I. I said I'd love that. So I was sixteen years old and I got my first job on the air Sunday morning playing jazz Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mandez and Brazil
sixty six. That's how I remember. It was sixty six, and then of course we stopped down at eight o'clock. I did a children's radio show, which remember I've always wanted to be a children's show oh sometime in my career, and I got that because I was I did Words of Poppin', which is a word game show for kids. McGraw hill owned that the show and I went for five years. And then I did the KUSI Kids Club with the cartoons and everything for about twelve years here
in San Diego. So that was my first kid show on radio, and it was when I was sixteen.
So what made you so interested in doing children's programming?
Well, you've got to realize we all have heroes. Frank Thompson was my radio hero, and Johnny downs was my television hero because my dad was Johnny Downes's engineer on that show.
Oh wow, and.
He was so good. He was so great. Johnny Downs was, and I talk about him in the book because Johnny and I were both in for an audition for this Words of Poppin' show. And I walk in and I said, Johnny, are you here to audition? He said, yes, I am. I said, well, listen, I'm going to get out of here. You're going to do Words of Pop and I'm going to watch every Saturday. He said, you have just as
much right to audition as I do. So he gave me a cup of coffee out of his thermous and he walked in, did his audition, and he came back out and he says, Shotgun, congratulations. I hope you do your best. So I went in and did my audition for Words of Poppin' and then I left. And I knew Johnny was going to get the job. I just knew it because he had the experience. And so I didn't hear from the people for weeks. All of a sudden, I got a phone call from the producer. You got
the job. I said, wait a minute, you got the wrong guy, Johnny Downs. You need to hire him. He said, no, you related more to the kids than Johnny did. And so I did that show for five years, and that story is also in the book What.
A Feather in Your Cap To actually supersede your childhood television host hero and take a child that's incredible, Tom.
Well, that's happened again, because you know what, I got the job at k Earth one O one in Los Angeles. The real Don Steele. We all remember there. The real Don Steele's voice is used in the movie Once upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm Burial dolds Field. Right, you know when when Brad Pitt gets in the car and he turns on the ignition, that's the ninety three k h J. I'm Burial dolds Field. Here we go.
You know that that's his voice.
That's so anyway, when he passed away, and he was one of my radio heroes. I loved the real Don Steele and Wolfman Jack. I became friends with Wolfman Jack, but I only met the real Don Steele three. How was that?
Yeah, when he passed away? Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Well, when he passed away, Frank, they had the memorial and Mike Phillips, the program director, was looking for somebody to succeed the real Don Steele. He told me this, He said, he closed the door of his office and he said a prayer and he said, God, please help me find the right guy. And there was a whisper that came into his mine.
Shot done dumb.
And he called me and he hired me, and I was there for twenty years.
That's amazing now, and you talk about what a couple of great radio legends to have, as you know, as friends and successors or whatever you succeed them, the real Don Steele and Wolfman Jack.
What was Robert like in person?
Robert was a good friend mine before I came to ca Earth. He was We used to watch sixty minutes, and we after the sixty minutes, we always used to, you know, talk about it after the show. I was so anyway, I guess I was out after sixty minutes one time and he called my house and my wife Linda entered the phone. She said hello, and he says, they oh thiss r W. Margan is shotgun there? No, he's not well, tell him. Rob called and she said, okay, Bob, No, no,
Bob lives here. He hated to be called Bob. It was always Robert W. Morgan. But anyway, No, he was a he was a good guy.
He was.
He was firm, he was eccentric. H he but but to me he was a good guy. But some people aggravated him and and I guess he.
Got a wrest Well, when I said Robert, I meant wolfman Jack because his real name was first name was Robert Smith, Bob Smith.
Yeah, oh yeah, but that's also in the book.
Uh.
By the way, my book has got happiness, but it's got ups and downs. Sure, there's some things in my life that happened that I'm not too proud of. And uh uh my house got raided by the police. That's in the book. Uh. And it was because I did these tonight shows. I built a tonight show said wait before Kramer in my garage and very professionally done, had a crew, and I had the Sheriff of San Diego County the chief of police, and I played Ed McMahon and so we did this show and it was a
cult favorite of both departments after seven years. There were some murders that happened here in San Diego of prostitutes, and so they thought the police was going to, you know, defend their officers. They thought an officer killed this prostitute. So they took it away from the local police department and the state Attorney General formed a homicide task force and they raided my house. Gary and in the front. Now, I was doing the kids show over at TUSI at yeah,
and the front. You know, I've always wanted to be on the front page of the paper, above the fold. The headline was seven hundred and fifty tapes seized in murdered probe. Anyway, a lot of the reporters were coming out.
And you know, yeah, hey, by the way, yeah, anyway, they Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rogers said that he one of the dead prostitutes was on the.
Show, and that was a lie. So that's why they rated the house. We got.
We have two minutes, Tom, right around two minutes, and I want to hear about the Hollywood the Star and.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Shotgun Tom Kelly has a star.
And radio people don't don't get radio people don't get stars.
No, they don't like giving them to radio field. But I had to wait for mine. But you know, Robert W. Morgan had a star, the real Don Steele had a star. So k Earth was really the radio station of the
rock stars for disc jockeys. So anyway, I got rejected the first year, the second year, but then the third year I got my star and I asked Stevie Wonder to be my speaker, and he was there along with Art Levo and Johnny Mathis and my program director, Johnny Ka he was also a speaker, and thousands of people, I mean, maybe I shouldn't say thousands. Hundreds of people showed up, including Radio's best friend Art Bolo. He was there to pare.
There you go two mentions. Art got two mentions. That's perfect. The book is all I want to do is play the hits. And he has been doing it successfully and supersedingly successfully now for decades and decades and decades. The one and only Shotgun Tom Kelly from Sirius XM's sixties Gold our guest on American History on the radio, and Tom, it's been such a pleasure. And I know we could go on like this for hours, but unfortunately.
Yeah we can.
That's the time.
With Garry, you are such a big time guy. I am just delighted to be on your show because you've had Pat Saint John, You've had Flash Stolps, and now you've got me. Thank you thank you, thank you, Thank you.
The shotgun on the nightcap we continue.
When do you like to listen to Scott's Loan?
I love to listen to Slooney when I'm at my cubicle because I couldn't care less about my job.
If I see someone smiling at work, I instantly know they're listening to Slowey.
Because everyone else looks like they're on prison work details.
I listened to Slony when I was in prison.
Did you really a bunch of us would drink the hooch we made in our toilets and have a sloony party?
Slooney and toilet booze might be fun. Scott's loan Cloney Yes, toilet drinks.
No Tomorrow morning at nine on seven hundred WLW, and check out his podcast on the Free iHeartRadio App.
Just in time for the New Year, the new and improved Free iHeartRadio App is finally here.
It's everything you love about radio in the punt and.
Closer and closer to twenty twenty five with every minute that passes. It's the Nightcap Great American History on the Radio on New Year's Eve, focusing on some of my favorite interviews with my favorite radio personalities from the past year. And this is a guy I never thought i'd be able to get. He's doing talk radios somewhere, I think in Chicago at WGN.
Yeah, we cover that.
But in the heyday of AM Top forty radio, there were no stars bigger in the nineteen seventies than a man they called He called Chawn Records Land Decker, and Records is truly his middle name.
Always got a kick out of that listening to him.
The great voice is still alive on the Nightcap tonight in an exclusive interview that he was kind enough to do going back a few months ago. So, without any further ado, after the break, my interview on American history on the radio on New Year's Eve once again with John Records Land Decker coming up here on seven hundred w LW.
Meanwhile, in the enchaned forest, the princess is calling for help with blinding speed.
Our heroes Eddie and Rocky.
Rush to her, aid.
Princess, that's wrong?
Are you hurt?
Now?
You think dope? I've done went dead while I was listening to the podcast of your show.
No problem, just charge your phone.
I don't charge phones. I'm a princess here use my phone. Then hang on a minute for these pictures of women's feet. Eddie and Rockie. Give your day a fairy tale, ending.
Tomorrow afternoon at three one seven hundred WLWRT.
Run a business and not thinking about radio, think again, because more people are listening to the radio on iHeart today than they did twenty years ago, and only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. Think radio can help your business? Think iHeart streaming, podcasting, and radio. Let us show you at iheartadvertising dot com. That's iheartadvertising dot com.
Men, the new year is here, and if you're like many of us, you're going to make a resolution to improve your health. But if you're feeling sluggish and low energy, if you're sleep patterns are off, if you've.
Been thick words saying up the phone on me, oh that's easy, w l' boogie check.
Hey, mister wizard, I'm calling him the name of justice.
About a month ago, I called me a monkey out of you on the phone. So if you say the right magic.
Word, how did you make a muggy out of me?
I said something wrong.
So if you say the right word, you'll make a monkey out of me.
I want to make a monkey out of you.
Go Banana.
That is some of the craziness that was known as boogie check, an invention of one John Records Land Decker when he was on eighty nine WLS in Chicago. That's from nineteen seventy seven. Today, John Records Land Decker is a national radio treasure and he is nightly doing a talk show on seven to twenty WGN back in the Windy City. And this is American history on the radio on the night cap. John Records, and Records is truly
your middle name, Land Decker. It's such a pleasure to sit down and talk with you for a few moments.
Well, thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Oh Man.
And you know, I kind of told you, but I'll tell the audience that as a kid growing up in suburban Chicago, we lived in Donners Grove in Napersville from like sixty five to seventy one. Now, you hadn't gotten a WLS at that point, but when I got my first transistor radio, I think it was seven years old. WLS was locked as long as I was able to have the radio on or the nine volt battery didn't
wear out, and my parents didn't find out. I was listening in my bedroom with the thing underneath my pillow, says past my bedtime, and I heard all these great voices and just a commanding presence of the jocks of that day. And it was not just WLS, it was WCFL there. The top forty radio wars in Chicago were absolutely insane with the contesting and the money that was being paid to the talent and the fight over the talent. You got there in what seventy three or seventy four to WLS.
John when we were so.
I got there, yeah, And so anyway, I was still hooked on WLS when we moved away, and of course with that big booming signal like seven hundred WLW has big booming signal on WLS. I could hear it in suburban Saint Louis when we moved there, and then to even to Nashville, Tennessee in Middle Tennessee, and I would listen late at night and I would hear you, and I heard boogie check, and it so influenced me in my radio career later that I started trying to copy
it as crazy as it was. So what was the what was the origin of the boog.
First of all?
First of all, I want to say that it's a great honor to be on WLW because it's one of the great radio stations in American history. And it also is part of my current situation where I only appear on radio.
Stations and have three call letters.
So I wanted I wanted to make it clear, all right, where did boogie check come from?
If there was a real place that.
It came from, you know, some thought out, well thought out plan, I let you know, But it was a totally spontaneous experience on the air. I guess this sort of starts with the fact that the term let's boogie was a spying expression at the time. Yeah, it was being printed on T shirts and other items of apparel and being used and as lying and so you've got that as a bass, that term boogie that is floating around. Okay, Well, AM radio stations have played top forty rock music at
that time. I had a reputation of repeating the same songs over and over and over again. And that's because they repeated the same songs over and over and over again, and I was on at night and I got really tired of that. I was just you know, if you heard them once in a while, it was okay, but if you were there every time they repeated, it became irritating.
So you've got that going on.
Then we had a one of our air personalities was named j J. Jeffrey, and he had a mustache, and he was dating and before he would go out on a date, he would do what he called a sixty second booger check, in which he would look in the mirror and see if there were any nasal deposits on his upperlip area. Well, one night, don't ask me how. I have no idea, because it just spontaneously occurred. All of that came together as the sixty second bookie check.
I started answering the phone live on the air at WLS. I had no idea what a boogie check meant. It didn't mean anything. You could interpret it, I suppose any way you wanted to, if you were like a twelve year old listener. And it just went on from there. No One, as far as I knew, no one used Top forty or rock radio in that manner. Prior to to that. I mean, they took phone calls to the extent that you could hear a request or a dedication,
But this was none of that. This was just random chaos going up and down the telephone line, live on the air, just reacting to whatever I ran into. And it seemed to be something that I could do pretty well. And that's pretty much it. There's no grand design design to it, well.
You know, and it doesn't occur to me that it would be a thing that you put a lot of thought into.
But that was the beauty, no.
Thought into it.
Not only that's one of the reasons I loved it. It didn't require any thought, didn't require any preparation, you know, I just did it.
No, they would call and they would be stupid, and you would be rude and hang up on them. And the idea was for listeners hearing this, and what's a booky check anyway?
Exactly so.
But it was like almost like bull riding.
If you could stay on eight seconds until the bell, you could win, right.
I've never heard that analogy, but that's great. Yeah, I guess so.
But it inspired me boogie check.
Hearing that as a teenager and tweeer inspired me til later on in my radio career do this game? I used to play at multiple stations that I've been on, called what is it? And I didn't have an answer for what it was. But when I got a creative enough, whacky enough phone call and they exactly it, it's this, and they'd go through some rambling dissertation about what it is, and I say, you're.
Right, I can't believe you nailed it. That's great.
But that was all because of listening to John Records, Landecker and Boogie.
Check you know there.
Over the years, people have said to me, how did you splice all those phone calls together?
And the reason we didn't. They were always one hundred percent live on delay.
Rather, there was never any kind of pre taping at all. The only concession that was ever made to the callers was the fact in the beginning WLS had no delay system because no one took any phone calls alive on a rock station. So the big f got put out over the airwaves. I mean, the SEC at the time said something like, you know, do whatever you can to keep these obstanities off the air. Well, you know what, once they're on, they're on. I mean, you can't bring
them back. And once that spread around that that had happened in the rape vine of the Chicago teen community, that they had heard the big F on WLS the night before the place exploded with phone calls, and the engineering had department Engineering department had to devise the first very crude delay system that allowed bookie check would be on the air. You'd go into the delay system for the for the phone calls and for the bit and
then come out of it at the end. Nowadays it's all digital and everybody's on delay pretty much all the time.
Oh yeah, I mean yeah, from when they installed the digital transmitter here at seven hundred years ago. Uh, that added an extra delay to the system. But there is a delay dump system that we in the talk studio and in the producer's room. There are giant red buttons that just say dump exactly, and I rarely imagine.
Yeah, if you can imagine, there was none of that. Yeah, nothing, There was no delay system whatsoever, and so something had to be devised. And instead of telling me that I couldn't do it, which you know, might have been one management reaction, they were totally behind it. And I think that's another thing that's very important to note here is that the program director at the time, John Garan, and the general manager Marty Greenberg. You know, I never asked
them for permission to do this. I just went and did it, and they saw how popular it was immediately, and they totally supported it.
I mean, they had our.
Jingle company Jam Jingles, Record Boogie Check Jingles in there.
You know.
They allowed people the air, personalities on the air to do whatever sort of came to mind as long as it didn't cross the lines of I suppose good taste or threatened the license of the radio station. So I mean, I think that's important to note is that the programming and the management of that radio we're totally into it.
Which is unusual.
Well, I'm very very I'll tell you. As a talk show host, I'm very very when I'm talking about anything that's cultural or political. I am very far right. Why I wouldn't say far right. I mean, I haven't blown up any buildings or anything, but thank god, yeah, right, exactly,
and don't intend to. But whatever the subject matter is, whether it's been COVID nineteen, vaccines, or anything else that I have talked about and taken a stand, no one from iHeartMedia or here in the building has ever said Gary, Jeff, don't do that.
You can't do that.
So I understand having the freedom and it doesn't matter what it is, John, If you have the freedom to express a thought or to do something that you think you need to do for you and your audience, then if you've got the green light to do that, you know. And I don't ask permission either, Like you said, it's always better to ask forgiveness and permission.
And I haven't had have.
Not you know, this wasn't there was no there was nothing political, no, no, no.
I understand.
I was just giving you an illustration of the same kind of the same kind of acquiescence by management, of letting the jock or the air talent be the air talent that they are.
You know what I mean.
I understand, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I do. So.
I mean to have that kind of freedom though, it allows for some fantastic radio and you know, you look back on it now and it just for me, it brings back a well spring of childhood memories. Over Labor Day weekend, something called rewound radio and that was on iHeart too. Had had just hours and hours and hours of programming from WLS and WCFL back in the heyday, from the time I started listening in the late sixties up through your era and up till like seventy eight
or seventy nine. They had all of these great voices that I remember as a kid listening. One of the things I loved about that era and that market and that particular radio station growing up with it was not only the great voices, but there was a level of condescension there.
That was just amazing.
I mean, and they weren't mean necessarily to the listener, but you know, it kind of had a voice of God effect. And and listening to the boogey check, I hear you though, iniquities shall be punished by pounding.
Wait, that's something that was specifically, that was specifically put in there when somebody that was the was that the delay system, Yes, that was used to cover up the obscenity.
That was That was Bill Price, our production.
Director, and we had him cut a number of these very short bow as you know, a.
Violated the world's taste, and that played when.
That replaced the obscedity or the off pollo remark that had been on the air. So that's where that came from that was what that was used for, you know. And I want to say something else about w ELLS at that time. One of the keys to its huge success was the fact that everybody got along so well, and you know, the lineup of their personalities appeared on each others shows. We had a great time on and off the air. We had sort of a prime directive, which was that the radio station was there as a
tool for our amusement and as a way. You know that we didn't have anything to do with the listener per se, but it certainly did in the fact that the people who listened would always.
Say, you guys, ound like you were just having.
A great time, and that's because we were. You were And I think that, you know, transmits itself out to the listener and they pick up on that and they want to be a part.
Of that, you know.
And I've never been at a station that had that kind of camaraderie before or since. And we still as a group maintain connections. It's quite amazing. Quite frankly.
Well, in speaking of the staff, what was Larry Lujack like.
John.
Well?
I love Larry lu Jack. He was a great guy. He had this on air persona being sarcastic, and he was one of the hardest working people I'd ever met. He was at the station hours and hours and hours going over newspapers and what was called wire copy at the time, which from unit president of National Associated Press. He was dedicated to his craft and it was just a great guy to be around.
He was fun.
We all loved him, and.
That wasn't his persona on the air so much, but because it was a bit of an act, but it worked very well for him and he was really well liked. I'll tell you a brief, brief story.
Okay, here's here's what I want to do, John, I want to take a break and come back and do another segment if you'll indulge me, and you can tell this is what they call in the business folks, a tease. We're going to hear funny Larry Lujack story from John Records Landecker and Records is truly his middle name. One of the broad is one of the broadcasting legends of my life. For certain, It's American history on the radio, and it continues after the break on seven hundred WLW.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati.
What state's new medical marijuana legalization forcing a certain dilemma? Well, The eleven thirty reports, I'm lee mawin breaking now starting at mednight, Kentuckians have a choice medical marijuana or the firearms. Reporting from our sister station in Louisville, whas John Shannon.
According to a statement from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, any person who uses marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation legalizing it for medical purposes, is an unlawful user of a controlled substance and is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition under federal law.
Matthew Bradscher, with the Kentucky branch of the National Organization of the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says people who own firearms and want to use medical marijuana need to be aware of the risks of continuing to own guns.
They definitely need to be aware of the risks. You know, if you lie on the forum, it's federal perjury and if you get caught with it, it could be a time a jail up to ten years.
Bratcher says gun dealers could also be charged for knowingly selling firearms to medical marijuana cardholders and users. I'm John Shannon.
Now the latest traffic and weather together. We still have that crash reporting on US fifty at Chambers. This is near the underpass of I two seventy five. As you head towards Indiana going south, the roads remain open.
Just prepare for that.
We also have a disabled vehicle in the right shoulder I seventy one I seventy five north towards the Donaldson Highway exit.
That is not slowing anything down. Just something to watch now.
The latest forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather Center on News Radio seven hundred wl W as.
Much colder temperatures on the way overnight as we usher in twenty twenty five, rain and snow dwindling into early parts of Wednesday morning, with a few flurries out the
door on Wednesday. We may see a wintry mixed at times throughout the day on Wednesday or New Year's Day, but it will be a little bit above freezing and thirty seven degrees and mostly cloudy skies, getting chilly overnight into Thursday down into the mid twenties and will continue the cold spell into the weekend with snow chances Thursday to Friday. From here severe weather station I'm nine first warning media rollinds just Brandon Spinner News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Thirty eight degrees in Cincinnati.
Still plenty of rain in Claremont, Brown Warren, South Green County, Western Clinton County, and southeastern Montgomery County. A little bit of snow leading the cell in Brown County, and some patches closing up in western Claremont County. At green light of the seven million dollar grant to start devil ring the former Seers store at Coleraine Township's Northgate Mall. The abandoned store, with its parking lot set on nearly thirteen
acres of unused potential. It's currently owned by the Hamilton County Land Bank and an entity of the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority. Colraine Township Developer Director David Miller told The Cincinnati Business Warrior the bulldozers aren't running yet, but it's close, while also noting how clean and easy the path will be to tear it down. The Northgate
Mallseers closed down in twenty eighteen. A Tuesday morning fire sets a food processing plant back fifty thousand dollars in damages happening on the Coalk Foods Plan on Port Union Road. After seven o'clock, first responders found the fire in a second floor mechanical room. The facility sprinkler system deployed, limiting the blaze to that room. Crews from Fairfield, Springdale, Westchester, and Liberty Township knocked the fire down in about twenty minutes.
No injuries reported.
A faulty motor is expected to be the culprit of the blaze. Employees returned to work once things settled down. We are just about twenty six minutes away from twenty twenty five and security is high.
In Times Square, a.
Million people are packing the streets despite rain in the forecast. While officials say there's no specific threat, they remain on high alert. All the security though in no way dampening spirits on this big night.
I think it's gonna be amazing, Super excited and want to do this for a while actually, and now I got the chance to do it.
Police are monitoring the celebrations with drones, canine units and thousands of officers. Officers are also searching into the subway system, where today a passenger was left in critical condition after being pushed onto the tracks south of Times Square.
A suspect is in custody.
That's ABC's Aaron Katski.
That's our last newscast of twenty four. Our next update in the new year at midnight. I'mley Mawen. Who's Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
It's the Marketer's Report Today.
Kate Cronin, Chief brand Officer of Maderna tells us about the.
Advantage history on the radio. On the nightcap on seven hundred WLW.
That's a lengthy title. John.
When we last were talking before the break, you were going to tell me a Larry Lujack story from those classic vintage days at WLS Radio in Chicago, So please continue, sir.
Well, this isn't a story like that has a set up, the middle and a punchline. But I'll tell you what it was, Okay. I came to WLS and seventy two. I came there from Philadelphia. I was a very young kid. Larry was already there. In one of our little conversations back in our little DJ offices. The discussion was, I've got to be about Elvis and the Beatles, and I said, you know, I really liked the Beatles. I mean, Elvis is okay, you know, but I really liked the Beatles. Well, anyway,
Larry was a huge Elvis fan. And he goes, you don't know nothing about music, you Philadelphia fill in the blank?
All right. Yeah.
So years passed, a few years past, and Elvis dies in the afternoon, and I'm at the station in Larry is and I say, God, he's.
Got to know this.
He wants to know this. This is important. So this isn't on the air or anything.
So I Calledarry at home and I talked to his wife, Judy, and I say, Judy.
It's John Landecker.
I got to talk to Larry Eldsteine and she goes, well, he's Larry's taken a nap. And I said, well, because he was the morning guy, right, so and so I said, well, I think he would want to know.
He goes, he goes okay.
And Larry gets on the phone. Yeah, what is it, Larry.
It's a land Decker at the station Elvis died.
Yeah, I'm taking a nap.
We expect me to do about it?
Click? Okay.
Then thirty maybe twenty five thirty years later, the anniversary of Elvis's death I'm doing afternoons on what became WLSSM, and I had.
His phone number from whore.
He was living in Texas, and I called him up and I go.
Larry, you're on the air.
He goes, yes, mostly informed people. Well, you put him out of the air, too bad, Larry. I want to tell you that I wanted to remind you know, thirty years ago Altemus died and he just absolutely broke up, like hysterical, and he goes a people, that's his story, and he launches into this whole recap over the incident
that I just related to you. And and it was funnier the second time around because the first time it didn't happen on the air, right, So, and maybe it's not, you know, like an hysterical thing that happened with Larry, but.
Let's just say it sort of.
Encapsulates his personality and how actually he was totally approachable and had a great sense of humor.
You know.
Yeah, you and I have both interviewed the legendary shotgun Tom Kelly this summer because he's got a book out.
But I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you the same.
Kind of questions I asked Shotgun Tom and you probably inquired of this as well when you talk to him. What inspired you to be in radio in the first place, John, What was the.
That's a good question. I think a part of it has to do with being.
Around when.
Radio at that time still had what we would call entertainment programming, before the era of rock and roll. We're talking like somewhere in the fifties where you could hear I mean I was really young, but you could hear people I don't even need to names mean anything good, anybody anymore like Arthur god for you would have a variety show with singers, and you could hear drama like The Lone Ranger and Sky King, and you could hear comedy shows and things like that.
And at the same.
Time, my dad, who was a professor at the University of massip it was blind. So I'm getting like psychological now, and in retrospect, I feel that that had something to do with my interest in radio, because of course my father couldn't see, so therefore television. We were the last people on the block to have a TV. But he
would get all of his information from the radio. And I was a boy scout and so little Christmas reuse from door to drawer and raised a certain amount of money and the money that I wanted to do with my money, and we went down to an electronics store and I wanted to buy a six transistor radio.
You know, you mentioned your nine vote battery earlier.
And there was a channel ester six transistor AM only radio that costs thirty six bucks.
Back in that day. That was a lot of money.
And I only had like sixteen seventeen dollars, and my parents matched.
It and brought the radio home and my.
Father listened to his newscasts on that radio that night. I was just totally into radio from the get go. I pretended I had a radio station in my how am I?
You know?
My bedroom?
Did we all do that? We all did?
We all did that?
We all that I was talking.
I was talking to Tom shotgun Toime. He did that too.
I think we all did that, and.
You know, And then I was in high school. I went to University of Michigan High School, which was run by the University of Michigan School of Education.
It no longer exists, but.
They were open to suggestion and I had a political science teacher named Mylon Marriage and instead of doing a term paper, I was allowed to do a term tape or I actually made a recording of something. And also at the time, my girlfriend, her aunt was a quote unquote woman's editor of a local AM station there in ann Arbor, and she got me in to see the program director one afternoon and I went out there and it was this station that was on a dirt road
across from a dairy farm in Saline, Michigan. And I walked in and talked to the guy who was on the area, went into the during a record. He went in and got a bunch of turned out to be wire copy of the news and he gave it to me.
He said, go into that room and when that light comes.
On, read this stuff.
And he made a bit out of the fact that there was a local high school kid that was there who wanted to get into radio. And that was basically the beginning.
That was it.
I started going out to that station after school. I was hired as a janitor for a dollar fifteen an hour. They had one rock and roll show on the air during the week Saturday mornings a month until noon. I joined that show as a newsman. One thing leads to another and another and another, and I never left the business since then.
And that was it. Yeah.
I attended the thirteenth grade at Volunteer State Community College in Gallaton, Tennessee, for the radio program.
Exactly, and did not fit.
I was making straight a's in school, but it didn't matter once I had the job. After a month internship at the local station, I was done with school. I had achieved my objective. I was just going to go from there. Yeah, and that's what happened with me.
You know, you said that you currently are like right wing commentator and broadcasting.
Yeah.
I don't know about righting, but okay, but you know Rush Limbaugh.
Yeah, oh, Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh is the guy that inspiredired me, made me want to get into talk radio out of music radio.
Well, anyway, before Rush Limbaugh was Russia Limbaugh, he was a jacket k.
Q V in Pittsburgh.
And one day at my house in Chicago, I picked up the phone and it's him, and I have no idea where he got my number, and he was calling me to see if I had any advice on how to.
Be a disc jockey.
And I didn't remember this, but I saw him at a like a I think he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame Radio Hall of Fame or.
Something, and he said that he had called and that.
I was eating a salad and that's what he remembered of that whole experience. But you know, he started out in rock radio. You started out in rock radio. My tenure as a talk show host is only like four years, and.
That's a w g N.
And I specifically stay away from any political or issue oriented content.
Just you don't want to want.
I just don't want.
I just I just don't want to get into it with anybody. I can't change anybody's mind. Nobody's going to change my mind. We've got so much the visit divisiveness already. Everybody knows what they think.
They're not going to believe anything, and nobody will believe anything. I would try to make them believe anyway.
Oh no, you know, and it makes it easier for me because I'm a people pleaser.
Well this is this is John, This is exactly why I love doing interviews like this because it is a political has nothing it has to do with with an interest that I have. And my whole thing is if I'm really interested in a topic, I can make the audience interested in it and make it.
Well, that's true, true, you're right, right, yeah.
So I mean, no, I love not, but I'm just when it comes time to tackle certain topics and I don't get into those people. I just tell them the way I feel it may be in my opinion. My opinion may be controversial, and that may be why I'm considered right wing by some people. So I guess I may have given you the wrong idea there.
Well, no, no, I think having You know, if I had strong opinions that I wanted other people to hear, I would do that. But it's just not a part of my and I may have a strong opinion on something, but it's just not a part of my broadcast nature.
To be doing that.
And you know, I'm not a shock jock either, and so it's sort of this sort of old not old fashioned, but I guess traditional approach to a talk radio show where it's safe, we try to be humorous, informative. Obviously, is something big is happening, sure, uh, news wise or whatever, we get to it. But other than that, it's I originally came out and talked called it a radio oasis because I came on ironically in the middle of COVID,
and that's all you heard about. And then and then it was also the political run up to the election, and we all remember how what that felt like. And so I just, you know, I just stayed away from it. My daughter says, Dad, you got a job during COVID.
I said, yeah, I know. It's sort of weird, isn't it.
And you know, we had the ability to do and you know this too, radio programs that originate not from the studio but from our homes and things like that. And it was a long time before I ever went into the w G and studios simply because of the whole COVID situation.
And it was a very turbulent time.
I mean just just like every day felt like.
There was nothing but doom and gloom all day long. So I came on and like, you know, we're not doing that now. And initially it was. I got to tell you, it was very successful. I mean I had some rating periods that were and for a nighttime AM station, I was like fifth in the market, and I'm like, oh.
That's incredible in that market.
Well I don't think I don't think it's like that anymore. Things are drastically changed, and the station has changed a few things. But the great thing about WGN is that it's owned by next Star Media and next Star Media, we are the only radio station that Next Star Media owns. They were on a bunch of TV stations, but we're it so the only child. Yes, we're the only child, and we get treated like that.
That's great.
John Records Landecker is our guest on the Nightcap American History on the Radio. And I guess what was your first big job, John, big money job, big market, because you worked everywhere. You worked in Toronto, I guess you worked in Philadelphia.
Yeah, the big break. Let's call it that, because I suppose the money at the time was good, but it wouldn't be anything anybody would like.
That's their eyes at now.
I was a senior at Michigan State University and I was majoring in Communication Arts, and little did I know that there were these two radio officionados, Dave Alberry and Jim Donahue, who were students and loved radio, and they were recording my show at night on this local station in East Lansing, Michigan or Lansing, Michigan called WILS.
While I was going to Michigan.
State and there was a disc jockey at CKOW and Detroit named Mike Rivers, and that was a huge station. And he got a job offer to go to WIBG.
In Philadelphia, and they had.
An opening at that radio station. And Albury and Donahue had sent him a aircheck of me, a recording which he took with him, and he played this for his program director, guy named Paul Drew.
And I got a phone.
Call out of nowhere saying, hey, we'd like to fly you in for a job interview. Now I'm married, I had a kid, I'm a senior in college.
My father is.
A professor, my mother is a social worker graduate. They happened to be out of the country on what was a sabbatical in Germany. My in laws one went to MIT in Harvard, the other one went to Bassard. The idea that I would drop out of college was something I never thought of in my wildest dreams. But I talked to my professors. I talked to my in laws. My professor said, you know, you've got like a half a year left.
This is exactly what you would be looking for in six months or whatever.
Go for it. So I did. And it was terror in the beginning because I got this job and the guy who ran the station said, we're changing her name to Scott Walker, and I'm like, what's going on here? And this was a very tightly run, strict, no wiggle room format, and I was not very good, to be honest with you, I was surprised I wasn't fired. They hired me to be on from nine to midnight. That got switched to midnight to six, six nights a week. Then they put me on noon to three. Then the
station was sold and that's where things changed. It was sold the buckle we broadcasting. They came in with an air personnality named Joey.
Reynolds and it went.
It went from super tight to anarchy overnight, and I went back to being John Records Landecker on the air, and we gave the big top forty station in Philadelphia, WFIL a huge run for its money, and words spread w LS Chicago.
About what was going on.
And then I got a call.
From WLS saying would you send in an air check?
And that was that.
So and initially the experiences at Philadelphia was horrible. I mean I literally broke down in tears at a motel I was staying at while we made the well my family.
Was going to come.
I'm like, what did I get myself into? I can't do this.
But it helped, it helped lead into now.
Yeah, obviously Yeah.
It Records is truly his middle name. And I wish we had more time to talk about that. Put our times up and I just.
Let me say that that is my mother's maiden name.
Excellent, excellent, John Records Land actor Land Decker on American history on the radio. And we'll in honor of the boogie check, we'll play a little boogie. We'll play a little boogie music out.
Yeah, a little.
Cool in the gang. John, thank you so much.
My pleasure.
It's the night Cabinet continues on seven hundred w.
L W.
Meeting.
This one of our show is because you look a little too much like a wanted serial killer.
Don't worry.
You can get the podcast of our shows and here what you miss check them out on the iHeartRadio ass justin for the new year, the new and improved free iHeartRadio app is finally here.
It's everything you love about radio in the Palmiers.
My friends will just about do it for this show and twenty twenty four. Very happy New Year to you and yours. I hope it is a safe and prosperous one, and I hope to talk to you many many more nights to come here in this slot, at least on Monday and Tuesday nights from nine to twelve. Looking forward to a few new changes to the nightcap starting next Monday night. Until then, break out the hats and hooters. Happy New Year.
News, Traffic and Weather. News Radio seven hundred l J Cincinnati.
Happy New Year's Day listeners. So what's open?
Later today with the midnight report in the first one of twenty twenty five, I'm Ley Mawin breaking now it's to start the new year, So what's open. It's a federal holiday, so banks, mail services, government offices, and garbage pickup will not happen. Your garbage pickup will be pushed back a day. Most Walmart locations will open for New Year's Day. Some Kroger stores might close early, however, and most of their pharmacies are set to shut by five.
Target will open today, but some locations might call it a day early. Aldi Trader Joe's, Costco, and Sam's Club will not open today. Most Walgreens will stay dark. Wednesday, CBS will open for limited hours. However, as always, it's best practice to call the store or service you need to check on their hours.
Now the latest traffic and weather together.
The accident on US Route fifty by Chambers underneath the I two seventy five Highway has been cleared, so for the first time in twenty twenty five, we can say you're looking good Cincinnati.
Now.
The latest forecast from the No Feared Dentist Weather Center Advance Dentistry.
The thought of the dentist making you a nervous wreck, We're here for you. No Fear Dentist dot Com.
Scattered showers and flurries through the overnights. Temperatures really drop, dropping into the low thirties overnight, right around freezing and thirty two degrees, and we'll stay chilly throughout New Year's Day as well, thirty seven degrees for a high temperature. As we ring in twenty twenty five, mostly cloudy skies
and a few flurries as well. Partly cloudy on Thursday, Chili to start twenty six, then up to thirty six and then overnight in a Friday equipper system brings us a chance at snowshowers early From your Severe Weather station, I'm nine first Warning Media rollin just Brandon Spinner News Radios seven hundred WLW.
Most of the rain is breaking up.
We still have big patches on Clinton County, eastern Warren County, northeastern Claremont County. A little snow mixed into Claremont County as well, and Brown County, but most of the Tri State is now dry.
It's thirty eight degrees.
Ava's Yard offering a reward of three thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of two thieves happening Christmas Day.
Jack's used a