Scott Shannon

that I worked for is having some financial problems. Their stock went from six bucks down to thirty cents in the past year or two, and uh, it just was time to move on, and so I retired from the CBSFM Morning Show here in New York. I have other projects that I work on with the same people. So I have a syndicated radio show it's four hours every weekend,

and I have a that's a classic hit show. And then I have a worldwide oldies network called the True Oldies Channel, and it features music from the sixties and seventies. I'm a I'm a big fan of oldies. I've collected him for years, and uh, I'm pretty knowledgeable and the stories of of days gone by, an artists gone by. Okay, well, we ever see you in the morning again. That's a possibility. It's a good possibility. I probably will do it again. I've been doing it for forty eight years. I mean

it's pretty hard just to walk away. Um. Most baseball players, if they could, they would keep playing. Same with Tom Brady. If he can play to a you know, a decent level, he'll keep playing. So you say, a big expert on the sixties and seven DS, do you start with the British Invasion de and with disco? What's really your area of expertise. My my whale house is fifty nine through sixty four. I know the Beatles and uh and, but I really concentrate on the early inductees into the Rock

and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm talking about Buddy Holly, who I'm a big fan of and uh. I think one of the top ten Buddy Holly uh personalities in the world. Maybe because I've got every record he ever recorded, every book that was ever written. I found him very fascinating because he was the first artist that actually could play his own music, sing his own music, and write his own music. That was not that was not something that happened back then. You had all the songwriters that

wrote the songs for the stars. Elvis never really wrote a song in his entire life. Okay, I'm just a little younger than you are. I certainly remember the early sixties, but it exploded with the British invasion. Terms of my radio listening other than the baseball games, how did you first hear Buddy Holly? Um? I was. I was a young guy, and uh, I was more into athletics. I was played football and at a mediocre level, and baseball at at a slightly higher level. But there was just

something about rock and roll music that attracted me. Um I remember, I remember the first time I saw the Beatles on television like everybody else, and I certainly have recordings of the first time Elvis was ever on television, and uh, I remember the day I found out that

Buddy Holly died. And I had a Schwin bicycle and I worked as a I worked as a newspaper boy and a caddy at a golf course, and I'd ride my Schwinn bicycle down to the local electronics store that had a record section, and every week I would buy three or four forty fives and take them back. That's how I started my collection and at that time, you only had Hit Parader magazine and there was no you know, an American bandstand, and I would watch that religiously, but

you really didn't know anything about the artist then. You really didn't know anything about how the songs were done. And as I got older, you know, I bought albums and I would actually read the back of the album while I listened to the music. You know, Fabian album, Bobby Ryde Dell. I was also into R and B. Hank Ballard in the midnighters, and I thought Chubby Checker was very talented. I don't know why he's not in

the Hall of Fame. You know, he revolutionized the world at dance, and he also had about fifteen songs that charted, and he gives an amazing life performance. But do you remember the first time you heard Buddy Holly? Um, I guess it. I guess it was Peggy Sue. I mean, I kind of went backwards with Buddy Holly the first time. I was so into him. At that time, I was working in Los Angeles at Casablanca Records, and uh, you know,

I love Buddy Holly. And I got a call from Wolfman Jack, who I knew because he worked over for Bob Wilson Radio and Records. He shared an office there and the dope would walk through the ceilings all over the rest of the Radio and Records. I fit there, but he called me, hey, chatting, I'm going to Clear Lake, Ioway, don't you like Buddy Holly, don't you I'm MCing the Buddy Holly Reunion Joe and uh, I, oh, I'm going with you. Let's go. And he gave me his flight

information and I went with him. And that was the very first Buddy Holly reunion celebration. People came from all over Europe. I mean, there were so many Europeans in there because he was so big then. And we had uh, I think Freddie Cannon was there, Jimmy Clant was there, some of these older artists and the crickets were there. And there was a guy named John gold Rosen and John was the first person to write a book about

Buddy Holly. And I sat with him in the front row and and that was, you know, just just one of the greatest nights of my life. And it was in the in the ballroom there, the clear Le Guowa Ballroom, and it was so funny because it's so many of these people that I talked to were there the night that Buddy Holly played his last show. I actually drove from the clearly the Surf ballroom right. I took the

same route that Buddy Holly took at midnight. There was about four ft of snow on the ground, and we went right past the airport where he got into that plane and flew off in the plane crash and that was it. And of course I've been to that crash site several times. Now. It sounds like I'm, you know, like a music geek, but that just you know, I was just such a big Buddy Holly fan on the and uh and moved on. I mean, but I think he was such a trend setter and such a star

in the world of rock and roll. He would have still been probably active at least recording if he if he hadn't have died. What's your favorite, Buddy Holly saul Um, I like, oh boy, all of my love and all of my kissing. You don't know what you've been missing, old boy. But he had. He had so many great songs, and I think a great example of his ability is if you listen to his music today, it's still brings authentic,

It's still it's still there, It's still got something. I mean, it's an amazing thing that there's so many people around the world that's still have discovered Buddy Ali in two and you go back and you you study his library and you just it's amazing what he could do. The songs, well all writes beautiful song. Um he had, he did rock and roll, he did country, he did beautiful ballots. It is an amazing, amazing person. And if you've seen the whole of Graham Show, I have not. I that

I don't. I'm not fond of that whole. I don't think it's gonna last. You don't see it. You don't see it sticking. Did you go to one? Yeah? I did see it. But tell me why you thought it wouldn't stick. Um, I just see, Well they've they've done other artists, and you don't. You don't see that. They're not hanging a down there still not out there? Are they? I don't know. I mean it was a double feature header with Roy Orbison and Buddy and uh Orbison doesn't

move much, so there's nothing there. They have Buddy bouncing around. It's good for about a song after that, it's like you have a live band. You're listening to it, you know. I remember the first time I went to a rock and roll concert. I grew up in the Midwest and

my father was in the service. But in my embryo, my rock and roll embryo years, I was living in Indianapolis and they have like a downtown circle and one of those big you know those old theaters with the with the pillars when you go in and you walk up the red carpet stairs. They only got one freaking screen. And uh, and I have my mom dropped me off and it was a Dick Clark Caravan of stars and it was a made buddy was not on the bill,

but a net foond Cello was. And I'll tell you what, she looked pretty good to this nine or ten or eleven year old guy. However old I was with, I don't however old I was, I don't even remember at the time. And Frankie Avalon was on the show, and uh, and a guy from England by the name of Cliff Richard who went on to fame and fortune, but at that time he only had one song out called Living Doll, which the flip side is a great song called apron Strings. It's a rockabilly song. I'm in the I love the

field of rockabilly. But it was so cool because he had on a white suit and bob when he pulled out the handkerchief on the jacket and he laid it on the on the floor of the stage and he knelt down so he didn't get his his knee uh dirty and the white pants of that suit got myself a cry and talk and sleeping or living out. He only sang one song and then he took off and our came Lloyd Price that Lloyd Price's orchestra would back

them all up. And that was man. I went home that night and that's all I thought about, was watching that rock and roll show. And remember back then they used the sound system in the theater. And then fast forward a few years, I went to the Indianapolis fair Grounds by myself to see the Beatles and that was so cool, man. And I mean it was weird because people don't know that back then they didn't have those big show cod sound systems. They didn't have the light show,

they didn't have they didn't have anything. Their guitars into their amplifiers. You couldn't hear a damn thing. And plus I'm standing on a middle chair was outside that they did an indoor show at the Colosseum there. Then they did the out or show and the girls are all screaming and I'm trying to hear the Beatles sing. And they had the Righteous Brothers open up. And I've always been a big Righteous Brothers fan. This was long before

Phil Spector got ahold of them. And they were doing Little Latin Loopie Lou and Coco Joe and all those great songs that were on the the original label. I can still see it going around on my record player. Man, and uh it was. It was just a great night once again. Went home at trouble going to sleep because I saw the Beatles. And later later on I went to see here. I went to see Paul McCartney at Madison Square Garden and I'm thinking, man, it's been a

long time, buddy, but welcome back. Okay, let's go back to the fifties. In the seventies, the oldiet station played the fifties, but as time has gone on, the oldie stations have played subsequent decades the sixties, the seventies and the eighties. Are the fifties gonna survive or the pre Beatles stuff? Is that going to survive? Like people say that Elvis's merch sales are going down because his audience is dying off, So you gotta take on all that. Yeah,

well the audience, I mean, that's just saying that. The better example is Doo Wop. I mean it's very I don't go to a Doop concert because it makes me feel so terrible looking around to see the people in the wheelchairs and the oxygen tanks and all that. I mean, God bless him. But and that's some music. A lot of New Yorkers and people from New Jersey and that surrounding up and down the East coast. That's what they

grew up with. You can do one of those shows down in Florida right now and you get you get, you know, a pretty good crowd, and you know, you you see in the still of the night and a lot of a lot of these performers are just not around anymore. They're not with us. But that's that's that's a that's a demarcation line, you know that that's a

borderline there. And then you get into the American Bandstand, people like Fabian and Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell and all those people that all of a sudden came to a screeching all the minute Ed Sullivan. But the Beatles on, I mean, that was that was it. I can't tell you how many people, how many stars that I've interviewed over the years on the radio, Bob, and I said, well, what was your inspiration? And I tell you what, there's

only two lines. One when I saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show, and I put my damn violin down, or I got rid of my piano teacher and I got a guitar. Or the rest of them came when it started when they saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan. So Ed Sullivan started so many people into the music because they got them going. So did you ever pick up an instrument? Never have I tried to learn a guitar, But I don't have to pay. I'm a d d uh. I'm gonna loved him. Been a you know, a performer.

Unfortunately I can't sing and I can't play, so I decided to be a DJ instead, you know. Okay, So the fifties acts what are two other acts from the fifties that need to be pushed into the public eye other than Buddy Holly. Um she um, it's not. It's the early sixties, but I was the early sixties. Fine, pre Beatles, Yeah, pre Beetles. I don't. I don't. Elm is stuck with me, but in a different way. You know. You look at Buddy Holly, and Buddy Hollywood was inspired

by Elvis. There's a great picture of Buddy in the dressing room where Elvis had been performing in his little town there in Texas. And there's there's not any other artists that I really feel. I mean, I gotta with Chuck Berry. Uh, Jerry Lee Lewis, but he didn't really move me as much as Chuck Berry. I've also got just about everything that he recorded, and uh, I thought he was phenomenal, and I studied that. You know, you look at Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoler. Those two guys

were also very influential in in that period of time. Okay, there are many people The Beatles came along and they said no, so you obviously with a Beatles fan, but how about all your friends and when the music change and the British invasion came in and you said all those left all those acts were left behind. Was that

fine with you? Or were you angry? I wasn't angry at all because the Beatles, you know, I actually had I remember I had had to buy two copies of the Meet the Beatles album because I actually wore the first one out. I'm almost like, I hate to say it, but like I felt the threatened my masculinity that I was like a female. And then love with the Beatles. I just thought they were so great. Un listen, I loved every every song on the Meat the Beatles album.

I went out and got that early stuff because they did a couple of albums and they had singles out too. Before the folks at Capitol Records, the president there screwed the whole thing up and didn't want to sign him. His wife didn't like him. Right, introducing the Beatles on VJ the great album I Love Absolutely Right and the Uh Love Me Do p s I Love You single

but Holly Records absolutely at the Yellow label. Remember exactly, man, when you and then you grow up around Hartford, and I grew up in fear Field, which is in between Bridgeport and Westport. So it's New York radio. But you listen. You didn't listen to pop ever. Yeah, I did listen to pop ever, but listen to my what are they call them salad years. I was more of a w ABC guy. The Hipper people were ten ten wins, w

m C A in and out. Not that you didn't rotate the doll on your transistor a little bit, but you know, cousin Brucey. You know, listen. I could go on and but how about the rest of the British Invasion acts? Everybody from Jerry and the pacemakers to the Herman. Herman said, were you in or was it just the Beatles? And that was a Stones guy too. I remember when I first got the first Rolling Stones album and I found out was I have. I was also an R and B fan. I loved rockabilly and R and B.

I think those two are they're kind of intertwined. I don't know, because of the beat. I loved the beat, the rockabilly beat, and the songs like high Heels Sneakers by Tommy Tucker. I'm really hard. There's some stuff in there. They're just watched me. I would like. I said, I was a big, a big fan of you know, I mess excuse me, I left Little Richard out of my favorite from the fifties. That guy was a monster, what a star. You know, his band, the Upsetters, never gets

enough credit. But he was just a nut about having the right artist, the right instrumental players in there. And some of those guys were like Fats Domino. He paid a lot of attention to his band. When he went on the road, he had like eight or nine scorn players. Nobody took that many horn players on the road. Those are great, Little Richard, that guy was a monster. Now did you spend time with Richard and the rest of the people from that era, anybody who was alive that

you didn't meet? I never met Little Richard. Now I'm thinking about it. No, I don't think I did. I met. I m c a couple uh oldie shows with UH with Chuck Berry. One was very funny because he hadn't been paid yet. He was playing in the Metal Lands arena there and UH then he hadn't been paid yet, so he sat down on a metal chair with his guitar in front, over to the right part of the stage, and the promoter asked me to go on and introduce it.

So I'm up there and I'm going, ladies and gentlemen, this all the thing, Happy birthday that happened to be his birthday to Chuck Berry. And I said in after we did that, he's smiling at me, watching me, and so I go and now, ladies and gentlemen, get ready with the man that gave us such great songs as Johnny Be Good and the Promised Land and Back in the USA in deep feeling rock and roll music. And I'm reeling all these off and he's going like, come on, man,

give me more, give me more. And I go on back and any boy, and I start doing the B sides of the singles, and he's happened to his knee, and I think I went through the thirty titles, and the crowd was laughing him because they knew I'm trying to get him up on the stage. And finally he got up and he brought up a guitar and he kind of gave me and he shoved me off the stage and he started playing. But what he was famous for it was all these kids that he never took

a band with it. He never brought his own musicians. He uh, he would just did the kids and meat. They get there about three o'clock in the afternoon, all waiting for Juck Barry, and there was no Chuck Mary. So they would go back in the dress room and

wait till he got there, and they only gonna rehearse Chunk. Now, you stand behind me and follow what I'd do, and he would get up there and he'd start playing, and they had they but luckily all these kids played that, you know, these garage bands played his music in their gigs. So when he got up there, they tried to follow him,

but nothing. There's a famous scene in that movie about him where he's uh the playing and it's kind of like some B B footage and Eric Clapton's up there and they're doing a song like rock and roll music or one of his blue song Deep Feeling maybe, and Chuck stops Eric he's playing that song right, and he says, Chuck, I'm playing it just like you recorded it. He said, I don't do it that way no more. Very just Eric throws his hands and says okay, because he hardly

ever does one of his songs. He hardly ever did one of his songs like he recorded it. He would just push the envelope and do it different, play it long. Sometimes he leaved the great songs out, but he could write. That guy was so intelligent and it was just he was another monster. Definitely one of that, I would say, one of the most important people in rock and roll. What do you think of the Stones version and not

fade Away? All right? It was okay, I like some of I like some of you know when they did time Is on My Side, which was an old blue song that they picked up. That early stuff was really good. There was a fellow, It was a fellow that I was nuts about, a guy by the name of Arthur Alexander. You ever heard of him, of course, and he made put out some records on Apple. He uh. He was the only guy that ever had his music covered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and yet

he died broke. He was working as a bellhop in a hotel I think it was up in Cleveland, Ohio, and he wrote that song Anna you know that by the course I introducing the Beatles album yep. And he also wrote you Better Move On, which is a just a wonderful piece of music. You tell me I'm not the man you're worthy of. You better move on. And uh as a great song. That was the Stones that Jagger does that He's never done it for years, but it was on one of his albums. Just a great song.

So you're living in Indianapolis, what's it like when you're growing up? As my father was in the service. So I went to I don't know, sixteen to eighteen different high schools. I'm not high schools, but schools period. Because we moved around. I lived in Tacoma, Washington, lived in San Diego, lived in East Saint Louis, Illinois. That was a thrilled there here many East St. Louis once just a mess. St. Louis. We lived in Detroit. Uh lived

underneath the Ambassador Bridge. There was a little army post there called Fort Wayne. I was there, Uh, Indianapolis, We lived in u or else in Georgia. Everywhere. We moved around constantly. I was one of the first places that I remember was my dad was in the Osaka and Japan. We lived there and uh, and then I just it wasn't a great childhood. The music that was my that was my my pressure, you know, my my safety valve.

I just loved the music, and the rest of the stuff was not that great about about the time I was for some reason, by the time I was in high school, I figured I had enough knowledge and I just left und' graduate hit the road. Okay before you get there. You know, usually army bratts can a get along with everybody and be there good alone. How are you? I'm good alone. It was just pretty you know, when

you go to school. You know, back then, schools weren't as as accepting their clicks because you know, they all live in the same neighborhood and everybody. You know, I didn't really have any friends, and I was pretty shy because you mean, you don't know anybody, You don't hang out with anybody here and out, you know, an outcast basically. And I was always new because my big problem was, uh,

my parents. We were raised Catholic, and when we moved we couldn't always get in a Catholic school, so I would be in a public school, and then when the semester hit, I could transfer over, so that made it worse. I went from one school I didn't know anybody though another school where I didn't know anybody. For God's sakes, I still I have like one or two friends for my childhood. That's it. I don't know anyone, have anybody else. Okay, how did you decide to drop out? What your parents say?

They didn't say anything. I didn't tell them. I left in the middle of the night. I had an old Chrysler fifty three Chrysler convertible and it was like nineteen sixty two sixty three, and I had like forty dollars. And uh. The thing about it was back then when someone was a missing person, they put out a three st three state alerts. I went to the library and I took a little compass and I figured out how far I could get away in the time before they were discovered that I was out of you know, going

I had. I got up early to go to I worked at the Indiana Gun Club. I thought they call a trap boy. I would pick that would hold the clicker and fire the ducks out there they would shoot anyway, let's beyond. I don't know why I got into that, but I just took off, and uh I wound up in Hot Springs, Arkansas because it was three states away. Okay, And then you did what. I got a job at Oscar's bakery. Say. I was going to go off and be a DJ, but then I figured out that I didn't.

I didn't stop to think that I had to eat and find a place to live. I forgot about that part, Bob. So I wound up just doing odd jobs, you know, and I got to know people. I would sleep on someone's couch or you know, made a girl, and you know, I just I just made it. I don't I don't know how I did it. But then I found out that in Little Rock there was a some of my friends would go to Little Rock on Saturday because they had a TV show called Steve Show where you could dance.

Is like a little Arkansas version of American Bandstand. I think Bill Clinton used to go there, left I saw it. I saw a documentary on this show, and he talked about watching it on TV. It was just all over Arkansas and this this this jockey would pretend he was Dick Clark and we danced there. And I got another job at the Dennis Laboratory. I was riding around on a on a motor cycle, well, motor scoot. I guess I should say it sounds more macho to say motorcycle.

But basically it was a motor scooter with a big box on the back of I have would pick up the teeth that were you know, the impressions and the teeth and go deliver them. And I would ride by the local radio station and look in the window and see the DJ working and thinking that's I need to be on that side of the glass and not this side, looking at him and uh. And I eventually weaseled my way in there and started until learn how to be a DJ? And how long till you made contact with

your parents? I waited, will be a year to let them for my mother. I didn't give a rat's ass that my dad was upset, but we didn't have a very good relationship. But my mother I called her and told her I was okay. About a year into you know when you in those days, a month seemed like a year. You know, so much happened to me. I got a I could I could write a whole book on just three years of my life. You know. Okay, so you got inspired to be a DJ when you

look through the glass in Arkansas? Well, I started in Indianapolis because they also had the same thing. There was a w I F E radio here. I say that you can tell him a professional, W I f e Indianapolis And uh, I would stand there and watch, you know. So I wasn't getting anywhere in Indianapolis, so I WM I hit the road. I read this book called On the Road by Jack Carroll Whack, and UH, as a man, this is this is great. That's me right there. I could do that. And it turned out it warn't is

romantic because he made it sound in his book. So ultimately you go into the service how long after you leave home? And how he decided to do that. I got drafted. I didn't. I didn't decide to do it. They decided to take me. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me because I was I was developing into a nightclub guy, and I go see these bands who were in the nightclubs and hang out with people and if I really fell in with some

bad characters at that time. And I got my draft notice and I said, oh my god, this is the end of my life. But that basically save me from probably a life of decadence. I don't you know, the things just I just wasn't where I needed to be at that time. But I got in the Army, and it taught me discipline and organization. And the problem was, in order to make a living when you're on your own, you have to be in a big city so you can stay lost, no one can track you down and

all that. When you go in the service. That exposed me for the first time to small towns and you could walk right up to the radio station and hang out in there with the control board guy in the DJ. And that's when I started. While I was in service. Okay, but you were in the service. Vietnam was starting off at the end of it. Chest the end of it, it was still going on, but I was at the tail in, and uh, somehow I managed to avoid going.

By that time, we knew it was a bad deal to go because I was at Fort Benning, I'm sorry, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and uh, and these guys were all shipping out because they were running out of It was towards the end, and we were losing so many young kids. It wasn't even funny. They were just shipping them out. A lot of people don't realize this, but at that point they were short of people. So instead of eight weeks basic training, they gave you four or five weeks and a i T, which is advanced

individual training. You're supposed to get ten weeks or something like that, and they cut that in half. So by the time you get you learned how to shoot a rifle if you're on a rifle range at the army base. But when you're out in a monsoon with rain coming down and people shooting at you, you're not so good at it. And that's what happened. I mean, they were just they were shoveling people over there, right and left. It weren't coming home. So you're in the army for

two years, two years, and you don't believe me. By the time I got out, though, I had my I had experienced in radio. Now this was radio because the different towns you were in or in the Armed forces, radio, not the enforce, a different towns. I was in two different towns. I was a DJ in UH in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then they transferred me to Columbus, Ohio. By that time, I was rocking and rolling, I was going, I knew what I'm well kind of what I was doing.

I sound like hell And that's where I started to develop my radio personality there and uh in uh Fort Benning in Georgia, which is Columbus, but our studio was over in Phoenix City, which is not the kind of place you want to hang out in too much. You know, he's okay, so you get out of the army, and

then where do you start? I got discharge and when I as while I was getting out in processing myself, I called a fella because I read I met a another guy who was an established radio program director who happened to be visiting our station. I said, I'm getting ready to get out of service, and uh, do you know anybody that might need a DJ? And he said, yeah, you should call Bernie Deppman down him. Won't be all Alabama, w A B B. I said, he needs a disc jockey.

He's always looking for a disc jockey. Because it was one of those feeder systems. You go there and you work for eight or nine months, when you you know, when you got a good tape, you'd send it out. And he didn't have people who lasted that long. So I, uh, I wrapped up a little tape, sent it to him and waited two weeks and I called down there, I said, Mr Deppman, this is Scott Channon. I'm up here in Columbus on Columbus, Georgia. I sent you a tape. I

listened to your tape. Yeah, I think I could use you. I said, you can. He said, yeah, I think I got a job for you. I said, okay, Uh, when can I start? He said, well, whenever you can get here. I said, how far is it? He said, we're about twelve hours. I said, I'll be there tomorrow. Is that. Aren't you gonna ask me how much you're gonna make? I said, you can tell me when I get there. And how much? Was it? Hundred and twelve dollars a week?

And what year are we in? Nineteen sixty eight? In the sixty nine Super Shan was on the radio mobile Alabama w A B B fourteen eighty. I was rocking man. Now, Scott Shannon is the name on your birth certificate or radio name? That's a that's for both. Okay, okay, I had a different I had a different last name at the time, but I switched that I hadn't legally changed

early on. Last name was M M O O R. E. Moore more that I could have been a DJ Michael Moore My my uh my maiden name is Michael, Michael Scott. I go by the middle of this out in the middle. So how did you come up with Shannon? I was reading Billboard magazine. There was a guy up in Buffalo named Tom Shannon. It was a good disc jockey, and I said, well, he's not gonna mind if I borrow that name. So that's where I got it. But I did that very early in life. I actually found out.

I asked a guy, how do you how did you change your name? And he told me, and it's pretty simple to do. They do it in Hollywood all the time. So you're in mobile and what's that like? Um, I didn't care. I was on the radio I changed. I had. My radio name was super Shan. I was the fastest mouth in the South, Super Shan on the radio. Yo leet a fast mouth in the South. By bla bla

bla blay and go like that. And I only said about I had about I had written down on cards things I heard other DJ say and I own I didn't. I couldn't come up with any ad libs at the time. I would just say the same thing over and over, you know, but I would shuffle the cards. I wouldn't say that. No one would notice it was the same stuff. And how long did you last in Mobile? Uh? Year a year and a half had a big contest called super Shan We'll die for your school. That it was.

It's like, you know you're right in I want Supershan to die from my school. I'll come to your school. I'll bring a band and we'll do a concert. And uh, I'll come and host the concert at your school. We had like ten thousand entries and there was a band They're called Wet Willie. They were just getting started and later on they became pretty popular. They to keep on smiling right on Capricorn Records. You know the lead single, correct Capricorn Records. I just heard from the lead singer

like a month ago. He's got a new album. But in any event, you're in Mobile. He's found he's sounded like Mick Jagger back then. He's got a great voice. The band only needed a little bit of better material in my eyes, not that I want to get into with his family, but so you know that this is a stepping stone. How do you get from Mobile to your next gig? I had I bought a briefcase. There

was a store back then called Wolco. It was Woolworth, but it was like a best Buy or something, you know, that's not that big, but back then it was pretty big. And I bought a plastic suitcase, I mean a plastic briefcase, sorry, And I got a copy of UM this magazine called Broadcasting Magazine, and I cut out they had a list of the top one hundred markets in the country, and I taped that inside the lid of the briefcase where

I kept all my DJ to stuff. You know, I have my head bones and I had little notes that I had borrowed, and uh and and I circled mobile and it was down there like one twelve, and I looked all the way up at Number one was New York, number two was l A, and number three was Chicago. Now I never dreamed I get up in those places, but I didn't want to move up to like the fifties. You So I got a call from Memphis, Tennessee, and they said, we're looking for a nighttime DJ how about you.

I said that'd be good, that'd be a good idea. I might be right up there. W MPs and uh and I I left. I gave two weeks notice and this time I'm rolling in the cash a hundred and sixty a week man. And uh, I loved Memphis because

I was such a music fan. I used to hang out at Stax Records and that's where I met That's where I met the drummer from the drummer from Booker T and the MG's um the local nightclub and hang out where Ronnie Millsap who was a rock and roll singer then when later became a country singer, he was the nightclub band. I would hang out in that place, ran into b J. Thomas. Memphis was I loved it because it was all about music. Steve Cropper, I see him all the time. Um, I got to know Isaac

Hayes there. I got to know his partner David Porter, who's still with us. And it's just phenomenal, phenomenal. One night I was I worked for the people who owned the radio station and owned bay Or Aspirin, and it was plow and they made uh, you know, I made prescription drugs and all that. But they wouldn't they were really tight ask they wouldn't let me have, you know, person to answered the phone. I had it got to answer the phone and be my assistant. When you've got

two lines, they're all ringing, you can't answer there. So one night the front door we're only like on the third floor. One night the front doorbelt had a little buzzer up there, and uh, this guy said, I said, can I help you? Said, yeah, I'm a singer. I'm out from the San Francisco. I was over to Sun Records. They have a warehouse and he was buying some forty five's there. He said, I got a new record out. Can I come by and play it for you? And he I said, well, I guess yeah, what's your name?

He said, John Fogerty. I go down and I remember they had a big glass. I take the elevator on, put on it and got it the beat. I ran downstairs and I put the key in the bottom of the door and opened it up. And he had a girlfriend with him, Eskimo girl, I believe, and uh, and they came on up and I liked him, and I didn't interview him. I didn't know how to interview people. Then. Uh, that's a weak point of my development. Took me a while.

And uh. He brought this song called susie Q and he was staying at the at the Memphis Holiday Day in on the Mississippi River, and as I recall, he had written this song and it kind of inspired him when he was staying in that hotel Proud of Mary. I don't think he wrote it there, but he said he got the inspiration, and I don't know. A few months later, I got a real too reel. I'll still I wish I had have saved it. And he recorded that song and he sent it to me and asked,

what do you think about it? I put it on the I put it on the recorder there and I played it back on the air and where he got he said, you can't play it. Yeah, we're not finished with it. I thought it was done, but it was not done though. That was and just I just had a wonderful time there. Sometime I got off at midnight. I was on seven to midnight. Sometimes uh Isaac and David Porter would come by and pick me up. And they're a big Cadillac because they were songwriters, but they

weren't singers. And one night we were at a night club and there's a group called the short Cuts. They had they were integrated. They had a black singer and a couple other guys that were white and black, which is unusual at that time. And we would go there and and sometimes Isaac would drink too much or smoked too much weed in a car on the way over, and he would get up and sit behind him and B three and just start singing. He won that good

of a singer. But what he did one night he played this song called by the Time I Get the Phoenix. He liked that song by Glenn Campbell, and he started playing it, but he didn't sing the lyrics. He started telling a story and he played it for about twenty minutes. The band finally just got down and left because he just got playing. And and when he got done, I said, you know, you ought to record that, Isaac, And he goes record what I said, that song you did by

the Time You Get the Phoenix. That's a good song, he said. I don't remember one day I did. I'm sorry, man. So I never rode home with him. I always got a cab because they were they beat two stone to get me home. But um, I remember I called the guy Jim, who ran Stax Records at the time, and I said, you know, Isaac Hayes has got a song you ought to record. He said, Isaac doesn't sing. I said, he can sing. He's what is it? I said, by the time I get the Phoenix. Well he went ahead.

He recorded him that I think that night, and uh, Isaac kind of duplicated what he's sang in the bar. There's one. The bar was one of those places up on top of the Holiday Inn where it goes around, you know, and then you really get dizzy. But it turned out to be. The album was called Hot Buttered Soul, and uh, one side, one complete side was that long with him rambo in the same way he did on

that stage. And uh, you know, he's one of the few people who remembered that I helped him and his when he was a songwriter, because Jim Stewart, who you know, was the CEO of Stax Records, didn't know he could sing. And Uh, Isaac later became a DJ here in New York and actually um thanked me on the radio. He gave me credit for starting his career, and I went, like, no one ever does that. You know, it's never you know,

they did it themselves most of the time. But that was just one of the many crazy stories that has happened to me over the years. So how long did you last in Memphis? Two years? Man? Maybe m almost two years? And then I went to Nashville and that's that's where I got to be a program director. Well how did you get to Nashville and how did you

become the program Well? Uh, in that in those days, the record guys who promoted you, and I'm sure you met a few, and the guys, the guys all knew me because I was the music director of the station there in Memphis and in in Nashville, I mean in Mobile, and I got to know those guys. And they told this guy, the guy who ran the number one station in Nashville lost his nighttime guy got think he got he had He had a teenage modeling agency and uh, let's just say things went south on him a couple

of a couple of photo sessions. He was his own photographer and uh and you don't say yeah, so I'll leave that one alone. But it didn't work out so well. They needed to get somebody in there, and they heard super Shan was good. Some of the record guys that told this guy about me, and he hired me to take me in there. He was also our program director, and I said, I'll never forget. He had one of those blue metal desks with a kind of fake wood top on it. And I'm sitting there and I said,

how much does this job pay? Mr? Sullivan? He said it pays. I don't know, maybe not, I don't know what. He said, six hundred dollars a month. I went, how much is that a week? But I never I never got paid about a month before. That was something new, So whatever it was, I forget what it was, but it was. I think it was something like a hundred eighty dollars a week, whatever it was. And man, I

was rolling. And Uh. That's and then when he decided to go into the concert promotion business, they promoted me to be the program director. And that's when I because I immersed myself in the world of radio. I just I knew. I knew because I loved it and I listened to radio. I knew what people liked. In my own head. I go by what I liked, and I figured everybody liked the same thing I liked. And uh, and at that time, Uh, they started this radio station out in l A called k h J, and that

is UH was done. By a guy named Bill Drake, who, as I thought, was a genius, and I paid a guy I've ran somehow ran into a guy in Nashville who was related to one of the engineers out there, and I called him and I said, could you send me some tapes? And I actually paid him a few bucks each month to send me, uh tapes of the real Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan and uh and that I could you know, listen to and be inspired by. And so I've been a program director basically for forty

years of my career. He and, uh, yeah, okay, you're in Nashville, how long? And we're after Nashville. After Nashville, I went to Atlanta, Georgia as the program direct From then on, I was like, if you ever watched the show when you're a kid called Have Gun Will Travel? I had readings and yeah, I was pallet in the station in Nashville had an incredible reputation. We were number one, and when I was in Mobile, I had like a seventy two share of listeners at night, which was unheard

of at that time. And then I went to Nashville, and then from there I went to Atlanta Georgia, and I had a pretty good reputation as a gun slinger, you know, on them. Um, the I got into a little I guess a tip with the manager of that station, and they went from eight to number one, tied for number one with WUS, another big station there, and the guy fired me, and I thought that was the end of my life, I mean, my career. And I was

just so bummed out. I actually cried that night the guy fired me, and the ratings came out two days later and that's when we went to number one. And Uh, A friend of I was friends with a guy named Bob Wilson who started radio and Records, which was the bible of the music business and the radio business at that time. How did you know Bob Wilson. Um, he would come to town and see me and I would give me my ideas. You know this, we're just friends. I don't know, because he did interviews with me and

have ran my picture all the time. That was important because you know, other people in the business would see your picture and think you're a big shot. No, I just knew Bob Wilson. So you're crying. You call Bob Wilson in l A and Bob Wilson says, come out here right now and work for me. And that's how

I got to know what man Jack was. He was also in that same office, and U I started a thing called street Talk, which was like a gossip column of people things people were doing, the pictures and all that, and uh, I did that for quite some time, and I traveled with Kiss, and uh one of my best friends was a fellow named Charlie Minor was also in the music business. We started together. I knew him from Atlanta, and UH, well that's why we hit me. We would be at Mr Chiwd's or the Merry Go Round or

all these places. And I just never really other than you know, with the guys and Kiss and Donna Summer and got to know her a little bit and her manager and other bands there. But I just never felt comfortable a in Los Angeles and be outside of radio. So I did, like I didn't like two and a half years in in the record business, and I enjoyed it. I had fun, you know, and uh, but then I got a friend of mine called me and said, I'm leaving my job in d C. They need a program director.

Would you like to come? I said, I'll fly in there and talk to the guy. So and then I went back into radio. Okay, wp g C, Washington, d C. Okay. Other than l A, well, maybe you're living in all these different places. How is that affecting your personal life? M I didn't worry about that. I was in love with radio. I had had a girlfriend in Nashville, and uh, we decided we should be married. And she decided, I think the problem is he's She said, you love radio

more than you love me. I said, you're right, and that was my that was my my wife radio. Everything else was it was just scenery. And you know, when you're a big shot on the radio, you're famous. Did you feel that? I mean, you're working alone inside the dark, But everybody liked that, though Bob, I thought that I just enjoyed being in that room. That was a great way. The reason I got in and that I got attracted

to radio because I saw a Billboard magazine. I would buy it at the record store, and I noticed that they had these little rooms when they broadcast from and you could talk to all of these people, but you didn't have to see him. And I thought I was kind of a very I don't know self involved person. I didn't didn't have a girlfriend when I was a kid because my father was too strict. I didn't really I didn't have a girlfriend until I was like sevent eighteen years old. Uh, it was all of a sudden,

girls like it because you're on the radio. They can't get a rock star. So I didn't get a DJ. So it was just different all of a sudden. I didn't, you know, I couldn't. I couldn't fanom it, phantom it. I just it was a different world. But it came second to radio. That was my whole existence, the music and the actual function of being on the radio. I loved it, and that to this day, I still love doing it. Okay, are you a social guy? If I say, oh, we're gonna go hang out, it's gonna be some people.

You're gonna say yes, You're gonna say no, I'd rather stay home. I'd rather stay home. Okay, So you go to d C is the p D. Then what happens, Uh? I got fired again the the owner that the owner didn't think I was a good DJ and wouldn't let me on the air, and so the station. The station was already number one, but I made it number one R and uh, we got in an argument. He didn't think the death of John Lennon was a big deal.

I overreacted by playing all Lennen music in the morning show, and he said, and he called the hotline and said, you got what are you doing there? Man? You're screwing up our station. And said, oh, you haven't heard. Yeah, I heard John Lennon's dead, but you're overreacting. And he hung up on me. So a few days later, I took People Magazine, Newsweek and Time Magazine and I walked into his office and I laid him across the disk. I said, Mr Potter, you got to call these people.

They're overreacting. Two weeks later I was unemployed. Were you crying this time? No? I didn't cry about that one. I wanted away from that asshole. But within two weeks I had another job. And Uh, by that time, I had, you know, a good enough reputation were as a pro Graham and I have gun will travel, I had, I moved. I wanted to get a job at that time that that let me do the morning show because this guy didn't let me on the air. So when he fired me, I couldn't stay in d C and I and I

had a girl that I liked. At that point, I didn't want to leave d C. But I chose once again shows radio. But I figured, if I was a big morning radio star and you fire me, I just go across the street and then kick your ass. And so I decided I was going to be a morning DJ, and I wanted to find a station that would let me be a morning DJ, and that was in Tampa, Okay. I certainly remember in the mid sixties it was about the evening DJ. Right when did it become about the

morning DJ in the I believe in the seventies. In the seventies, the morning radio panel started to come back. When I was a kid, my dad would drive me around and I used to listen to the Breakfast Club out of Chicago, and I always thought that was cool. They were just and they would just beat, they just talked to people, and they had a band and they would band would play and all that. It was on w l S in Chicago. I think it was Don

McNeil's Breakfast Club and it was on a network. I thought that was cool, and so I always thought about that having a morning show where you could just talk about things and have calls and people come in and and I kind of built this thing called the Morning Zoo, and it was based on the Breakfast Club. And I grew up with listen to my dad's in the back seat of my dad's station wagon, or in a mix of Saturday Night Live, which was already on the air,

then doing skits and funny things. When you're in Tampa, do you go justice the DJ or you the p D two both. That's where I found my niche the morning show and being a program director best fun. As soon as you land in Tampa, you start right away with the breakfast club idea, or you work up to it. Well, I met with a guy that was already doing the morning show, a great personality named Cleveland Wheeler. He thought I was going to fire him, and uh Asa, no,

I want you to know. I want to work with you so I can learn how to be a morning DJ. And I said, I got some ideas. I will run and past you. And I shared my whole thing about the personality and the phone calls and the skits and the parody songs and all that. He said, I'm in man. I mean he did voices and and I had a great laugh, and that's very important when you're doing the

morning show. And uh, and the station had fallen out of the top because had come petition come in there and they wanted to get back to number one because they were a losing money and be you know, like number ten in the market. So within sixty days we were back to number one and had this was the rage. I mean, the Morning Zoo was the biggest thing that ever hit Tampa and St. Petersburg and we had a big signal, so we had a lot of listeners and it was huge, and the word got out of what

we were doing. And like an idiot, I never I never thought about copyrighting or anything like that, trademarket or anging like that. I just was radio. And then the company that I worked for had me fly to Houston and put the same show on in Houston with some other people and we did that. So and then I was like, I don't know, to three years in Tampa and that's okay, before you before you leave Tampa, how did you do side to name at the Morning Zoo or how did that become the name? Um, I don't

really know. I didn't want to call it. I wanted something different. I wanted to be I wanted to be was that an interrupt or whatever they call that, the disruptor? And I wanted it to be different from anything else on the radio. So we had like a cast of five people. We had a guy in the air, traffic guy with personality. We had a newsgirl that Pat Brooks was over here. She was great. And we had had

a kid that was our intern, ninety Mike. We called him because he listened to the other station, night Rock, and nobody ever talked about other radio stations, and they, you know, that was forbidden. And we talked about everybody, talked about the mayor of the city, and talked about the other DJs and that worked over there, and made fun of people and it was just just a good time time radio show. And it caught on and they heard about it. Did you play any records? Oh yes,

we did. You know, we could have easily not played records, but we played three or four records an hour, okay, And then New York comes to call it. That's it. New York came a calling, and I transferred that same show up to New York. A different people who a little bit slower. First, there's a documentary which came out earlier in the year, and I'm not blowing smoke up your grass, but I couldn't turn it off. Usually these documentaries run watchable. It was really well done, the story

of Z one. How did the documentary come to be? Um, all my friends, you gotta write a book, you gotta write a book, You gotta write a book. And I just don't have it in the um. I just don't have the everybody that I've ever talked to that I decided to write a book, it was a bit you know. They they got started, it was okay, but then you get through the middle of it, and then you put it away for a while, and then you never get around to finish it, and and and unfortunately already took

the money. So you gotta put some crap together and put it out. You know, my friend Elvis Durant wrote a book, and I won't get into detail, but he it turned out, you know, he didn't turn out as well as he wanted it to. And it was successful, but it just you know, he just kind of like in the middle of it said, oh boy, which I wouldn't have gotten into this, but my wife decided. My wife, Trish decided, who I met in Tampa, by the way, decided that instead of a book, wonn't you just make

a documentary? They're getting pretty popular now and so that's how it came about. And who paid for it? Uh, we did, along with Elvis Durant. He was one of our invest There's him and as manager. There's just four people. And now that it's done, what do you think about it? I was happy we did it, you know, I thought it was it's it was all. It's a lot of people um use it. It's almost like a instruction manual

on what to do and in creativity. And I think it's also important to note that it's the result of someone hiring you and leaving you alone to do what you do and and it worked out pretty well. Okay, So how did you meet Trician Tampa? And how did she end up going to New York whereas before everybody was left behind? But she wasn't one of my DJs. Bob I met her. She worked at the High and she was in um in charge of publicity and hospitality.

And one morning they brought by a breakfast for the morning zoo people would always find out some way to get on there. And so that they were opening a new hotel and they brought breakfast to us. And she was an attractive blonde. She was involved in a relationship at that time, and uh, let's just say that I didn't I had had nothing to do with the unraveling of the relationship, but we were friendly, and uh, when it unraveled, I called her and, man, I feel bad.

I know you're bummed out and everything. How about we go to Longboat Key for the weekend? Almost hung up? She's not why are you crazy there? She's a conservative lady and U And then when I got the call, they go to New York. You want to want to go with me? Are you nuts? Were not married? I'm not moving in with you. That's how that went. So we worked at out eventually and we got married. And the rock you never had any kids? Right? They had one child, one daughter? Okay, And how old is she today?

You know what it's You know she's on a turney bob. Well, yeah, at least she's off the payroll, right, Yes, yeah, she's a great, good kid. Okay. So the movie depicts in case people listening want to check it out, but it was really good. I will admit that it kind of shocked me. First of all, I met ken Lean when he's working for Daniel Glass at Chrysalis. Must be kay, I didn't know that he started with you. And the other thing is really a different era. I remember that

era whatever. But just to set the scene, it's basically, it's a alright station. It's it's the Caucus, New Jersey, it's nowhere, and it's you know, tell us how you just what they pitched and how you decided to do it. They didn't pitch much. They just said you want to come and build a radio station. I said, yeah, if it's the top forty station, I'll do it. I said, okay, it could be a Top fourt They was still research and I said, I only do Top forty and U and uh. We came up with the name and they

basically let me alone. They really did. I mean, as you see in the movie, there's a couple of encounters in the beginning. And then I was ready to go back to Tampa because Mr Maltz, who was the president of the company and the owner, promised me I would have a Rolls Royce radio station. And during the construction

of the building and the studios. It turns out I getting a Volkswagen and uh we had a uh we put a stop on things, but the temporary halt, well we got that worked out and he went ahead and kept his promise. And nothing to do with money. It just was about the quality of the actual studio. And uh the engineer had just that was in charge of the project just wasn't building it the way it should have been built. And it eventually was built the way it should have been built. Do you remember how many

watts that station at enough? Okay, well, how far away could it reach at nighttime or whatever? Well, it's not a nighttime is is a a product of an A M station. FM signals the same all the time. It covered the entire tri state area. Once you put the we called that the p shooter when we first signed on it only you know, basically was heard in New Jersey and for about I don't know, three weeks, and then we put it up on the top of the Empire State Building and blew the roof off. The sucker.

You had a lot of violent, uh terminology in the construction of the station. I wanted it to sound like New York. But I didn't want it to sound like any New York radio station. The format was easy. We played one black record, one white record, one black record, one white white record, and uh, and that didn't go by the color of the skin. It went to the appeal of the sound of the song. If you understand what I mean, I think you do. And uh. And then then we hired this jockeys who were not from

New York. We brought in all new people and uh. We kept it. That's what I call sledgehammer radio. Just pounded. You know, you had to listen. You didn't want to miss any thing. The morning show every day had something else going on. We talked to people and it didn't sound It was not polished or professional. It was meant to be like an earworm and wanted to sound like nothing that had ever been on the air in New York sounded like. We would get called people would say,

what is this? What do you mean? What? What kind of station is if we never heard anything like this before. You know, we talked about other radio stations, We talked about other personalities and other radio stations, and that was taboo back then. People didn't do that the way it's portrayed in the movie is the pieces are in place, but you don't start climbing the readings until you become aggressive. You know, there's putting up stickers, certain other campaigns, you know,

put up a poster in your window. So how important is this from emotional marketing building a station? As one of the Gary Fisher, the manager at the time, said it was the first viral campaign that he'd ever seen. It was viral before there was viral, and uh, it just was word of mouth. That's how that's how it was built, word of mouth. And uh, like I said, like you saw in the movie, everybody else that the critics, all who put it the other stations laughed at it

because it didn't sound like New York. It didn't sound polished. It was just a different animal. And uh, you know there's some of the terminology, you know, like get out of a way, and it was aggressive from the top of the Empire State Building. Well that's a point in the movie. Everybody broadcasts from the top of the bob. Nobody said it. Okay, if you had done no marketing whatsoever, which is all depicted in the movie with the station still have been as successful. No, no, no, way. It

was an attitude. They didn't the listeners, didn't the people our customers, so to speak, they didn't look at that. They didn't regard that as marketing. That was just Z one hundred. That was the zoo, That was the people that that they loved. They a lot of people grew up with that radio station. It was it was. It was really like the heartbeat of New York and still is to this day. It's still a big, big factor

in music and marketing. Okay, in some businesses you know all your competitors and other businesses, you only know the people you work with. You come up, you disrupt, to what degreed, you end up knowing the infrastructure of New York Radio. No, I hadn't. I had not. I didn't know a him about New York or New York Radio. It was a radio station. It was almost like I described it to our team as this is a pirate station,

like the pirates station that took Europe in England. We're we're off shore, we're out here in the swamp in New Jersey, and we're broadcasting to that country right there, New York. And that's how it was. We really didn't go after as you see in the movie. We didn't go after the five boroughs. We went after New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester. That was it. Connecticut too. I kind of got your baffle there, done it. Yeah, the station goes from what number hundred to number one that

we were probably like night or something like that. Roque then just depicted in the movie like all hell breaks, lose your celebrity. You're on all these shows, tell us about that when I was not ready for that. I've never wanted to do television, even though I've done quite a bit over the years. It's not my favorite medium. I enjoy radio. I enjoy sitting in a room with a microphone talking to people. I like that. That's what

I like to do. And uh, laughing having it's enjoyable to me, it's not work and uh and that you know, all of a sudden, I'm on Oprah and we're on Regius all the time, and you know, in Time magazine and all this, and it just wasn't comfortable to me. It's not it's not I mean, I did it, but it was part of the jobs part, you know, the important part to me was communicating a microphone to people. Well, at this point, with all that attending publicity. You became

a celebrity, and how did you like that? Good or bad? It is fine. It just comes with the territory. I mean, I'm not I don't I enjoy it. Maybe you know, you get your your flu shot before anybody or something like that. I don't know, it doesn't. It's I love doing what I do, and then that's it. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not shirking. I'm not throwing the jacket of celebrity hood off. It's not the most important thing in my life. Okay, so you're doing the station.

You're talking about all these poor paying gigs before this, When do you start making money? I started making money in Tampa, and uh that was that was probably the beginning of it. I never really whenever. I'm not like a money monger and it's nights. I live in a nice house, I drive a nice car. I can do what I want, you know, but I still buy a lotto tickets. You know. I'm just are you good with your money? My wife is I'm not tricius. Okay, okay,

you're on You're at one. Then you leave for l A. How do you decide to leave that was I was up for Marina Gos, I was up for the contract signing, and they wanted to give me stock, and I wanted I really didn't want stock in the company. I don't want to be in that area. So along came the opportunity to move to California and build. Really was what attracted me was to build a news station. Pirate radio, well certainly in terms of marketing every but he was

aware of Pirate Radio in Los Angeles. But the ratings did not match the success of Z one. How did you feel about that? I didn't feel good, but I felt like we did a good job entering the marketplace. There were some other um there were some other factors that were involved that Number one, I was overpaid. Number two paid the owner paid too much for the actual facility. Also, so they ran into a problem with the banks. And uh, we got it. We got almost two years out of it.

It was the last couple of rating books were fine. You know. One of the problems is you got to remember too guns and Roses fell apart, and that was the crux that was the center of the radio station. You know, you can't make a living playing warrant and some of these other groups that we had at that time, hair bands. But I don't make any excuses for it. It It didn't work. And should you know, if you had to do it over again, anything you can think of,

you have done differently. Uh, probably been making I probably would have made it more top forty centered with that same Pirate image. I mean there's people who still love that station, and they had they had a website devoted to it, and I still get mailed from people, you know, like emails from people who enjoyed the station and remember it. Okay, it ends at Pirate how soon? And how do you

end up back in New York? I came right back and started at another station in New York when we're it was a little bit more adult than Z one, and that did very well. We were like number one females and uh, it didn't have the same pizzas, but it was a good, solid, successful radio station, a big money maker for the company ABC TV Radio and what you have in the morning. I'm living in l A, so I don't really know. We were very successful in the morning. It was like the I think one of

the top two or three radio morning shows. So it was a zoo like concept. At Mellower. You know, it was it was. It was more of a US, a two man show. It was a comedy and we did phone scams where you know, we called people up and put them on and all that kind of thing. But it was, it was, it was. It was a successful project. There's no doubt. We did it for twenty one years. So I would say it went pretty well. And how did you how did that end? It ended? How did it in? Oh? I got stabbed in the back by

my partner, That's how it ended well? Said, it's all public. Who is your partner? His name was Todd petting Gill that he wants In his defense, he wanted the show. He thought he could do it better by himself, and it didn't work out that way. And how soon before you ended up at CBS two weeks Okay, let's go back. You start Morning Zoo Howard Stern and comes up with a show where there's a lot of talking. What do you think of Stern show? I always have always been

a Howard fan. Unfortunately he hasn't always been a Scott fan because I happened to be, you know, up against him, and he's he didn't he didn't mow me down like he's done many many other competitors. And now we're on speaking basis friends of sorts. You know, he doesn't, he doesn't really, Uh, he's not. He's not a guy who runs around with other guys. You know. He pretty much stays on his own lane. And would you call yourself a guy who runs with other guys? Are just more

than Howard, A little more than Howard. Yeah, I get out a bit more than he does. I think most people get out of little a bit more than he does. Right, And how do you end up doing syndicated shows? Um? They were just offered to me. And I do as much radio as I can. I do a lot of different things. I have an oldies network called the True Oldies Channel, and I told you that that each of

the sixties, mostly the sixties and some seventies. And I do a Classic Hits weekend show that's on k Earth in Los Angeles and of course on my station here in New York. And then I also do voice over. I uh, the voice of Sean Hannity's network six and seventies stations. I introduced him and certain little sweepers and things like that. Production And how did you meet Sean Unity.

We were in the same building. He started out with ABC and I worked for ABC when we at b LJ, And uh, he's one of the uh finest guys that I know, is very easy to work with and mental. A lot of people don't seem to care for him on a political basis, but in him and I get along time. Well, he's not tourious, no choices. Right away, everybody says he's a great guy from every every spectrum of the political sphere. I would do anything for him and he's great. Okay, how about the issue that he's

known for a particular political viewpoint? Is it that you align with that or your friends with them or what? I'm friends with him, But I mean, we certainly don't. Uh you know, we don't discuss you know, I would lean more that way than the other way if I had to pick a lane. But he doesn't care that I'm you know, I'm the announcer, I'm the voice over guy. He doesn't he didn't try to uh preach to me. Let's put it that way or whatever. We're friends and

we discuss golf and other things. How good a golfer? Are you mediocre? How often you play five days a week. Okay, when you were on the radio, we're still on the radio on the radio. What's your daily schedule? I get up at three fifteen, I'm in the city. At five, five am, I do show prep. M go on there at six. We're off at nine, and if it's nice out, I t off around ten fifteen, ten thirty, and then I come back and record in the afternoon and early evening. Okay, Look,

where do you live. I'm not asking for the street address, but generally speaking, no, in Westchester County. I'm not a city guy. And you're a member of a club there, so you can play golf. You have your regular but you have your regular buddies. It's not like. It's not like I play with everybody. I play with anybody and everybody, you know. I'm just I don't like playing with the I play with. I don't play with the same people all the time. And do you play for money? Very little? Okay?

So you come back and record stuff, and then when do you leave again the next morning? No? No, no, when do you leave the studio after you come back to record stuff. I'm in my studio now, in my house. Okay, let me ask a question. So, when you're on CBS right now, are you broadcasting from the city or from your house the city? Okay, after you play golf, you go back to your whole studio. And when would you be finished with show prep normally in your home studio six?

And what time do you go to bed? You know, there's a whole life in the evening that do you ever feel like people might say, let's go to dinner or something? He said, when I'm going to bed at eight thirty Friday night, Friday night, Saturday night, we go out if we have to, well, you know, oftentimes don't. And how late would you go to bed on Friday and Saturday? Oh man, really late, like ten and getting up at three fifteen for all these years, how much of a grind does that? Uh? You never get used

to it, that's it. But I like it because it frees up my day. I haven't programmed and uh probably ten years my program my own products and my own shows. But I don't pro I don't. Radio programming was an art and now it's a business. We'll tell me you go a little go a little deeper. Um. The trouble started with Bill Clinton when he freed radio owners so they can have multi stations. When they could have a

cluster of stations in the market. And that's when companies, hedge funds and big big money got involved in radio. It was like what three three big major owners. Now it's just completely different. I like that when there was one station, one boss, and you're the you're the program director, your DJs worked there, and all the concentration was on that product and we were there to serve the community.

And you know, that's it. Now you if one station gets a contest or a promotion, the other people bitch about it, and it's it's a different world. It's a different it's not fun, okay. So in the old days before the Telecommunications Act of maybe that was part of that where they rolled up the stations allowed them to what was the key to programming a station? Well, you start with the music, and then you go with the personalities, and then you go with the production elements around it.

You try to create a sound of that station. I never really built a station that was a copy of the other one. The morning show from Tampa was similar to the one in New York, but it wasn't a carbon copy. There was a different and people, different vibe and the same thing. UM Tampa was a completely different radio station overall. It was more of an adult top forty station, even though we had teens who listen. We're number one in teens, number one in plus, number one

eighteen to twenty four. But in New York we focus more on a younger audience and the parents who of those kids. And one point in the movie is that the stars come to do press in Manhattan that at first don't want to come to the caucus. Didn't have cabs back then, cabs would not come to New Jersey and do it. Madonna got her boyfriend, a disc jobi named jelly Bean, to bring her over to the station. Well, that is all depicted in the movie about she's banging

the door to have you played holiday? Were you the one interacting with her. She's known as being aggressive, and I don't mean that with any connotation to what degrees or success based on that aggression. It's a great, great deal of her success. It was a major component because she never took no for an answer. You have to admire her for that. The most important thing was her success in the minute she arrived here in New York, city.

She was driven, he was driven, and you were the You were the first to play Holiday at first major station to add it, I believe I think Katie, you might have been playing it a little bit. It's all depicted that she's coming to the door. She's coming to the door. Ultimately, I wasn't the primary contact at that time. If somebody wasn't happy with the answers they were getting from my music director, they could see me, and that was her demand. I want to talk who else? Who

makes up the decisions? But she knew by that time when don't know, they knew who I was, and she she wanted that record on Z one h it because it was the hot station at the time. Did you know she was Madonna at that point? In just another woman coming to your door? She was you know, she was not Madonna yet. I mean she called her name was Madonna, but you know she was a nightclub animal. And how did people ultimately start coming to the caucus when the ratings came out We didn't have to buy

our own music anymore. They showed up, They showed up big. It was But the reason it was so important is that we were like the number one music we we broke songs when we played a song that the rest of the stations, not the rest of them, but a lot of stations around the country would be in flu wents by our playlist. Okay, and anybody you haven't met that you'd like to meet, The ones that I that I would like to meet are no longer here. John

Lennon never interviewed him. I talked to George Ringo, Paul several times. Interview Jagger Keith great interview. Not really, I don't. I'm fine. Would you? Is this all professional or any of these people you're regular friends with. I don't have any show bid they're not friends. I mean, it's a big difference between show biz friends and friends, and these leave me. I know so many guys in radio and in in in publications and television, they really get confused.

They think these are their real friends. They lose their job and see how often they hang out with you, you know, never they know you can't you know what, I don't. I don't hang out. Do you do you have civilian friends I've got I've got a friend of mine. I got a friend of mine who's a musician, but

we're not friends for that purpose. He played. He's in Billy Joel's band and you know, a wonderful guy and we do things, have dinner once in a while, and he plays gigs whenever he's around if I need him. You know, he's plays for a children's hospital every year we do a show. But he's a friend, friend, He just happens to do that for a living. Is that how you met him through Billy's man? Okay, you were talking to Doug, our engineer earlier, and you said you

got your board from Rush Limbaugh. Do I have that right? So how did that come to happen? He worked in the same building with us in ABC. Also he got he was he was before Sean and he would come in my office and just talk about music. We didn't talk politics. He you know, he was a discjoct he but he actually when he built his home, uh down in Palm Beach, he had like a radio station with turntables and he had it. He loved music. He was

a big music fan. He would sit and talk seventies of late sixties music, beatles music, his favorite songs and uh it just he he was a nice guy. I had no problem with him whatsoever. He was a very shy person. And okay, the radio landscape is radically different the way from what it used to be. Certainly AM ruled in the sixties seventies FM, Oh, there was still pop AM. Then Top forty went to FM in the eighties, and then we had the breakthrough of political talk radio.

You know, first, to what degree to the twenty two minutes of commercials eighteen to twenty two minutes of commercials hurt terrestrial radio killed him? Yeah, didn't didn't kill them, but it fatally injured them. It was trendic. You know. If there wouldn't have been that, that complete reversal of the radio station is supposed to serve the community and you can only have one or two at the very most.

That that came down from the government, I don't think the success of Serious x M would have been what it is today. I mean, we just radio just played right into the hands of anybody else. They took over the music, not just Serious XM, but all the other streaming services. Just that's it. We killed ourselves. Okay, So when you were running the eight eighties, how many minutes of commercials did you have? An hour? Really eight minutes ten in the morning? Ate the rest of the day.

What is the future of music radio commercial terrestrio. I can't say it's bright. I think it's I think radio is gonna have to become more of a more dependent on spoken word and personalities and content. So you think that's gonna happen? And what is it gonna look like? I don't know what it's gonna look like. I don't know when it's going to happen, but it certainly is beginning to happen now it's been going on. I mean, you know these subscriptions, the Serious x M have gone up.

Look at the all the streaming services. Were you ever approached by Serious XM? No? No, if they approach you, would you be interested, I'd be interested. Yeah, i'd be I'd be I talked to him. That's radio, okay. And what's your view of serious XM? Um, it's not. The stations aren't programmed as well as some stations, you know. I don't think the stations are programmed as well as they could be now. And I certainly grew up and you grew up in the air whereas radio was king.

Is there any way to make radio king anymore? Or we live in such an on demand culture can't happen. I I think you've got the answer there. It's an on demand culture, and I don't you know, it may survive for longer, but I don't think it's gonna grow unless something comes along this revolutionary and I doubt if that's going to happen. And how did you end up being part of Neil Young's journey through the past? God's sakes. I was working in Nashville and I happen to know

this guy named Elliott Maser. I don't know where I met him or how I knew him, but I knew him, and he was helping Neil do a movie. As I recalled this a long time ago, and I'm a I'm a baby DJ super Shan on the air in Nashville, Tennessee, and we get a call on the request line that Neil Young wants to come by and do an interview. I said, oh, okay, so I got a I had an intern and uh he went, and you were on the way. We'll be there in a half an hour.

It's a Friday night, and the kid goes and lets him in the front door, but there's a film crew with him. They didn't mention that, and this is in the This is in the seventies when they had those great big cameras. There were two of them, and he's got his girlfriend with him at the time. That girl that played Oh God, Diary of the Mad Housewife, Now that was a movie she was in. She was a girl lived in the attic. Right, it was a diagram Madhousewife. Yeah,

that was the movie. Okay, I forget all about it. But I didn't know that it was his girlfriend. I thought it was his wife. I remember, I screwed that up and he left his wife and was carry Terry Snodgress. That's it, That's who it was. Man reached back there. So they walked into the control room and I had no idea what was going on, and he just started rolling and I interviewed him and played some contemplates, some cuts from his album. Uh that was played some Buffalo

Springfield that he sang on and uh. The interview wasn't very good, but it went out live on a Friday night and h Elliott said, could you play that again tomorrow night? So we shoot some scenes of them listening to it in their hotel room. I said, okay, And on Saturday also they picked me up and I took

him around Nashville for some shooting points. We went out to the local drag strip, and I remember being in the car with him and I was in the front seat him and carrying the back seat, and they were smoking a big bat joint and I didn't I didn't partake. I had the window down because I was more of a juicer then and uh, we went to the drag strip. I said, come over here, this would be a good shot.

We had a one camera shoot going. And they had some uh some guys there with a car and there's a two black guys that were in the car and they were getting ready to drag to run it. But he said, yeah, and you know, looked at it. Why this car said look at the name on the tail fin. Oh yeah, Mr Soul, which is a song that it took him a second to realize why. I was telling you need to stand over here. But it is to get it, you know. I was trying to suggests a

scene for the movie, you know. And uh and and then uh, that night we we edited the interview down and in the film, him and Carrier in their hotel room listening to a Mickey Mouse plastic radio interviewing them and they're smoking a big joint and that's in the movie and flat flash flash forward years later. I was at the at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Hotel and I went into the bathroom to relieve myself and he walks in. He's at the

unial next to me. He says, how's it going, Scott. I had not seen him since the seventies in Elle, and I'm going I'm fine. I couldn't cut out. Hellly knew I was that. That was me that remember we did them. He's going to a Remember we did that movie together in Nashville. I forgot all about it. You're right, but they put my picture on the album. It was a fold open album. It was a stiff album and a stef movie. But that was my first chance to

be in the movies. It was fun. Now we were starting your your big fan of the pre Beatles fifties music, and you talk about programming top forty stations after the classic rock era. We are you a fan of that FM rock? Are you a fan of these new music? Are really you're a fan of the oldies. I like I like music period. I like there's some great country music. I'm nuts about. I like Blake Shelton song and I I like a lot of country songs. I like a

song with a hook. I'm not really good. The first time I ever heard the first time I've ever heard Benny and the Jets, I didn't understand that it was good. But I wouldn't even played it anyway. And then after about ten spins, I got it many many many in the Jets, but I didn't get it at first. I'm more of a pop guy, you know. I like the Beatles. My favorite Beatles album is Meet the Beatles. But you know, most no one says that Serjian Pepper's Let It Be

or whatever. Well, my favorite in America's Beatles in England, uh, the Beatles for Sale. It's got every little thing and no reply whatever. If that's the one I lost. Rubber Soul it was pretty hot too. I thought that was a good album. I like Rubber Solo a lot. Listen, they're all good, and I certainly you know in my life as time going on has really penetrated. Any other couple of other inside radio stories you want to share

with us, I'm done. I'm talked out. At six thirty I gotta go to bed, so okay, then I'll ask you one last question. Will you be remembered? Do you think? And do you care? I really don't care. I did what I want to do and I'm still doing what I love to do. And um, I don't think anything. I don't think people get remembered much anymore. I mean, you know, when someone famous dies, man, they you know, they play their records for a couple of weeks and

kind of fades out. Unfortunately, that's the way the world goes. Everybody. You know, there's something new that takes the attention away right away. Well, I'm gonna let you go to sleep. I was at the end of my time anyway. And Scott, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me in my audience. Well, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Well, I could analyze why, but I'll just accept that as

it is. So because you know, you're you're, you're, you're dangerously precise in a lot of areas, and that it was. You know, I read your stuff. I read you when you're upset, I read you when you're not a fan, and you know you go up and down, and then you're lovable and make me cry thinking about some of the when you bring back the memories of the summer camps and all that kind of stuff. I enjoy your writing and uh you have a marvelous uh sphere of

experience and thoughts. Now you're gonna make me cry. Now you're just you know, I like it, and you're smart enough to list the complaint letters when they go, Man, it's it's a it's a good world and you're finally figuring out a way to monetize it. Absolutely. But on that note, we're gonna call it a day. Scott, thanks for the time. Until next time, it's Bob left Sex