Radio Hall of Fame can be a waiting game
The Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame has named 11 new inductees, including Dan Sorkin, Michael Krasny, Richard Gossett and John Mack Flanagan. Those four have something in common, beyond their upcoming inductions.
I mentioned all of them in a column about broadcasters deserving to be enshrined. That column ran more than four years ago.
Other names in that column got in sooner, including Bobby Ocean, Gil Haar, Barbara Taylor, Mike Sugerman, Dianne Nicolini, Hoyt Smith, Dusty Street, Norman Davis, Wes “Scoop” Nisker, Celeste Perry, Sam Van Zandt, Mike Pechner, Jane Morrison, Elma Greer, Bill Ruck, Jo Ann Wallace and Bill Weaver.
That’s pretty good, but it still leaves a sizable crowd in the hallway, waiting.
One of them, journalist/ commentator Larry Bensky, vented his frustration last year, after a fellow KSAN alum, Nisker, was voted in. Bensky, also known for his work on KPFA and NPR, wasn’t even nominated. While congratulating Nisker, he snarked: “How proud I am to now be left as the one and (I believe) only member of our radio generation NOT to have been tapped for the Hall of Fame! It takes a very special ingenuity to avoid me, after my 47 (!) years on the air, numerous awards local and national …”
I’m glad Bensky has been well-awarded. But he is not even close to being the only broadcaster of his generation remaining untapped. Taking only people from KSAN, I think of Raechel Donahue, Bob McClay, Stefan Ponek, Tony Pigg, Edward Bear, Peter Laufer, Larry Lee, Beverley Wilshire, Thom O’Hair, Ed Ely and more. Right or wrong, most halls of fame are popularity contests, with the spoils often going to the more contemporary: people on the air and on social media, able to promote themselves. That may not be “a very special ingenuity,” but it’s reality.
Soul, man: You never know where you’ll run into an interesting radio story. I know Paul August as a former Oakland High School teacher, and, not long ago, he sent me his book, “Mindworker: Maybeck,” about the adventures of four Catholic high school instructors.
Before teaching, in the mid’ 60s, August was in the music business briefly, as a record promoter who took new singles to radio stations and tried to get them played. “But much of it was an illusion,” he wrote.
“At KSOL, ‘The voice of the black community,’ I entered and saw a mild-mannered white guy at the studio controls with turntables spinning. ‘I’d like to see ‘Dr. Soul,’ ” I said.
“‘Yeah,’ said the blondhaired guy with a trimmed beard. ‘Just a minute.’
“I assumed this was the engineer and he’d introduce me to ‘Dr. Soul.’ Then he flipped a switch, leaned forward and growled into an overhead microphone: ‘Whoa, baby. ’Dis be Dr. Soul . ... Hold on. I’m gonna give y’all a soul injection. Oooo oooo eeee!’
“Then he turned to me and said, in a white voice: ‘Yes sir. How can I help you?’ “I was speechless.” Back in the day, I enjoyed “Dr. Soul’s” shtick — even called in for an on-air “soul injection” one evening — although I never heard him doing stereotypical dialect, like “Dis be …” But he was white. His name was Jimmy Witter, he was from Charlotte, N.C., was a rockabilly artist, and committed suicide in 1974. KSOL had several bona fide soul brothers, including Sly Stone, who did inventive DJ stints both on KDIA and KSOL.
Ch-ch-ch-changes: KNBR (680) has a new program director, as Jeremiah Crowe replaces Lee Hammer, who helped keep KNBR dominant for 12 years. Cumulus Media promoted Hammer to VP of sports play-by-play programming. Crowe is a former ESPN producer and assistant PD at rival KGMZ (“The Game” at 95.7) who joined Cumulus last year as PD for KNBR’s sister KTCT (1050) … “J.T. The Brick” has left “The Game,” where he had a twohour show. “Thanks for an EPIC run,” he tweeted, even though he was on only since last September … Laurie Roberts, veteran South Bay DJ and a Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer, is in pig heaven. Roberts, midday DJ on KPIG, the lovable free-form, countryleaning station out of Freedom, has been appointed operations manager. She replaces Frank Caprista, who’d been holding down the pork since 2007, when his wife, station founder Laura Ellen Hopper, died.
R.I.P.: Allan Newman, program director at KSFO during many of its golden years, died July 14 at age 90. “He suffered a stroke from which he could not recover,” said Donna McGuinn Newman, his wife of 37 years. Mr. Newman, who was inducted into the local Radio Hall of Fame in 2010, was at KSFO from 1962 to 1974, when it had all-star DJ lineups including Don Sherwood, Jim Lange, Jack Carney, Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins and Carter B. Smith. Mr. Newman hired, among others, Dan Sorkin, Terry McGovern, Gene Nelson and Bobby Dale. After losing his job (to a returning Sherwood), he became a teacher, counselor and hypnotherapist.
Right or wrong, most halls of fame are popularity contests, with the spoils often going to the more contemporary: people on the air and on social media.