Clap For The Wolfman

In 1969, I was sailing back to the Continental United States in the Fall. It was the worst year of my military life. A collision at sea between the HMS Melbourne and our own Frank E. Evans had taken 74 souls on the Evans, including 3 brothers from Nebraska, the worst family loss since the Sullivan brothers died on the Juneau in 1944.
I was standing out on a catwalk on my ship, at night with a radio I had bought the year before at an auction house in Long Beach. I was scanning the dial trying to pick up and broadcasts from the mainland, and I was barely even picking up static when all of a sudden a song was playing. I had no idea where it was coming from, so I listened...and waited. The announcer came on. " Hey Baby, you got the Wolfman right here on XERB radio wit cha" I knew I was almost home. Nobody had more fans then than the Wolfman.
Sure, till American Graffiti was released, most folks thought he was black, and virtually nobody on the East coast ever heard of him, but if you were in or around Los Angeles, you listened to the 500,000 watt XERB out of Mexico, and the man with that voice.
In 1985, I spent a week in Los Angeles with Howard Stern, and got to meet this guy. His name was Robert Smith, and he was dressed up like Waylon Jennings, complete with this huge cowboy hat. He wrapped his arms around my wife as I told him the story of me hearing him out at sea. He said, " Dats a nice story man, I'm glad you told me". A friend of mine videoed this encounter, and it has become a lasting memory in our home.
Recalling me meeting with him made me think about some of the people I have met or just spoke with on the phone. People I never would have encountered but for the fact I did a radio show. There were dozens and dozens of entertainers and just plane folks that graced the airwaves of Western Mass . Some were known around the world. Some were completely whacked out.
There were those that I interviewed and it turned out that I was the last interview they ever did. Dennis Day was one of them.
He was in Holyoke for the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in 1987, and I met him in an old folks home one morning in Holyoke. As I never prepared anything for any interview I ever did, I just clicked the cassette recorder on and went to with him for about 15 minutes. Most of the conversation centered around the Jack Benny Show, and a touching story about Eddie Anderson not being allowed to stay in a New York Hotel because he was black. Benny was ballistic, and Eddie was allowed to stay when Benny was finished with the hotel staff.
Dennis marched in the parade that Sunday, but something happened to him before the parade ended. He was admitted to a New York Hospital, and died shortly thereafter. He was a kind man with an ever present twinkle in his eye.
In the late 90's, Mel Torme was coming to Springfield for a concert. I had him on the air the day before, and Ella Fitzgerald came up in the conversation.
I had met Ella 30 thousand feet up in the air somewhere over the country, spoke to her briefly, and kissed her hand. Torme said she was his neighbor and SHOULD go to see her, but at that time, she had lost her legs to illness, and he didn't want to see her that way. He never got the chance. He did the concert, got very ill, and died not long after.
The good news is, not everybody died right after they had contact with me. I interviewed some amazing people, many were people I really admired. Some of the best were: Noel Stookey, or Paul from Peter Paul and Mary. He has a farm in New Hampshire (?) and invited me there, but I never went. Andy Griffith, who is the same person we all know from TV. Frankie Laine, an icon I spoke with personally a few times at home. Johnny Tillotson, Tommy Roe, and Tommy James, all rockers from the 60's, all with no ego whatsoever. Tommy James told the story of how the name Mony Mony came to be. It was the initials on a building in New York, and stands for Mutual of New York. You can see what he saw at the time in the movie Midnight Cowboy. Then there was Jimmy Jones. The Handy Man. His other big hit was Good Timing. This one is so special because of his tales of growing up to be a black singer in those days. Movie writers couldn't come up with what these good people had to endure, and still do.
I had the Amazing Kreskin on the air one day. Somehow we got to talking about lasagna, and as my wife Linda is a cooking genius, she made a tray of it for him that we gave him back stage after the show. He was a great guy. There were a lot of others, and then there were those that were just regular folks, ( sort of ), that had a story to tell. One of those was Elizabeth Tajnian, the Nut Lady. I had read an article about her somewhere, and that she had even been on the Carson show. She had a museum in Connecticut dedicated to the "nut". Not me, not some goofy person, but specifically filberts, cashews, et. al. The spooky thing about her was that she was serious about it, and was convinced that nuts were ALIVE!!! THEY'RE ALIVE!! (insert Twilight Zone music here) She had penned the National Anthem to the nut and sang it on the air. People thought about this for days on the air.
I had an interesting conversation with a man who wanted to get into the record books as the first human flashbulb by strapping hundreds of flashbulbs, ( remember flashbulbs?), and setting them off all at once. Never found out how he made out..
Then there was the guy who got hold of some moon pictures, sent me copies and I had him on the air as he told me where to look on these photos to see things like houses, cranes and foundations that somebody was building there. I guess everybody needs a hobby.
There were times when I just couldn't get somebody to hang up, so I recorded a studio cart of static to use when it was needed. I recorded a needle scratching the paper label of a record and it sounded just like static. The first time I used it was the day Jerry Mathers, The Beaver called. Probably the worst interview I ever was involved with. This guy wouldn't talk, and the odd thing was at that time he was doing a radio talk show somewhere. I would ask him something, and all he would say was "yup" or "nope", and after five minutes of this, out came the static, that he heard down the line too, and I apologized and hung up. Now the guy calls back. Same deal with the conversation, and mysteriously, the static came back.
There were those I wanted to get on the air, but was never successful. Jimmy Stewart, but he wrote a letter to me thanking him for the request. Bill Cosby who lives about 20 miles from me. Never got an answer, but I know these folks are busy, and besides most of them are famous and no longer need radio to get out to the masses. At the top of my list, of all of the people I could speak with in the world, my biggest regret is not being able to do an interview with my idol. Sammy Davis Jr. I was driving a lumber truck one day in Connecticut when I head the news that Sammy and Jim Henson had both died. Another memory of where I was when.... There has never been a performer like him, and I had a million questions, now mostly forgotten, that I wanted to ask him.
When 1999 turned into 2000, I guess it was inevitable somebody would come up with the question, " Who was the greatest performer of the 20th century?" When I first heard that, I immediately thought, no question about it, Sammy was. So the masses voted. It was Elvis. ELVIS? All right, I liked his music, and sure, I wanted to look like him, but entertainer of the century?
Elvis could sing, that's a given. He was in 30 some odd forgettable movies, and he played piano and a little guitar. He was around about 20 years.
Lets look at Sammy. Oh yeah, he could sing, and he could dance like lightning. He was a brilliant actor on film and on stage. He played trumpet, and piano, and the drums like Ginger Baker. He did impressions and impersonations, and he was spectacular at it. He was a comedian. He was everything an entertainer wants to be, but can't be, and he had to do it all with a handicap. We had him for over 60 years. But Elvis was entertainer of the century. What's wrong with this picture?
Jim Brickman came into the studio one day when I was at WMAS. I saw him on the FM side of the station in the studio doing an interview, and got him to come over to the AM side where I was on the air. I was playing his music in the format at that time, but the FM side wasn't. He was a great guy, and in order to show his appreciation for the interview, he sent the FM folks a brick. Sort of a trademark for Jim, I guess. Just a brick with his name on it.. I never got a brick, Yes, it still hurts, but I will get over it someday. See, fewer and fewer people are listening to AM stations any more, but FM is big now, and just the reverse of what it was 40 years ago, so I guess a little audience doesn't deserve a brick any more. In the days of the Wolfman, on AM radio, he would have received an entire wall. You just couldn't not clap for the Wolfman. I'm so glad I got to meet him . He was one of those radio characters that fade slowly away day by day.
To all of those people who spent time with me on the airwaves, as Ed Nackey, owner of Ed Nackey Chevrolet in Holyoke used to say at the end of his commercials on WREB radio, " Thanks Folks."