Category Archives: Music

Remembering Edward Brown

September 15, 2024 Marianne Palmer 5 Comments

Today is a hard day as it reminds us all that it’s been a year since we lost you. A year? How is that even possible, when each day without you can feel like an eternity. I hope you know how much you are loved and dearly missed.

Edward C. Brown, of Sun City Center, FL, and formerly of New York, NY, passed away on September 15^th, 2023 at his home with his family by his side, a week before his 90th birthday.

Dad’s heart overflowed with kindness, gentleness, caring, giving, love, and humility.

I share with you now, a favorite song of Dad’s.

Marianne (Brown) Palmer
-30-

Remembering This Site’s Founding Father!!

The ever-pensive and always fair Edward Brown is more than a little deserving of some meaningful ink at this juncture! Though not one to ever call attention to himself, it’s now been exactly one year since we lost this accomplished broadcast journalist, news analyst and friend on September 15, 2023, a week before his 90th birthday.

When it came to getting it said, Ed was a master storyteller, respected by his colleagues, and his listeners and viewers in a nearly half-century career that took him from suburban radio stations on Long Island before he stepped up to New York’s WMCA for a half dozen years and a full decade at WNEW. His tenure at the latter was punctuated by AP and UPI awards, particularly for his commentaries on Watergate. In addition, he made appearances on WNEW Television’s “Ten O’clock News” as an analyst. His superb writing and commanding voice also led to Edward winning a network position as an analyst for NBC’s News and Information Service, a news broadcaster on NBC Radio and an important contributor to NBC Radio’s 1976 election coverage.

Before he and wife, Jean, moved to Florida, Ed did his final news anchoring and on-air writing at WCHL Radio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ed’s retirement years were spent in Sun City Center, Florida and it was there, at home, where the spotlight on his labor of love focused on WNEW1130.com. Yes, that is this very site where you are seeing this remembrance and a wholesome outpouring of stories tied to that once-prestigious New York Radio Station.

I am delighted to be among a small group of gifted, retired broadcasters who are privileged to write for this web site and can only hope this flashback would have passed muster with Ed and his daughter, Marianne, who is our Editor!

Bob Gibson

=======================

Audio, Gallery, Staff, Uncategorized

1957 Hit Parader featuring Julius La Rosa

September 2, 2024 Marianne Palmer 2 Comments

From Bill Diehl’s Magazine Rack

Julius La Rosa was hired as a disc jockey on WNEW in 1970. That’s when I got to know him while working as a newscaster on the station. Off the air Julie was great to know-personable and willing to talk

about his time with Arthur Godfrey when he was fired in 1953. Godfrey said later it was because Julie lacked humility, but what really angered ‘the old redhead’ was La Rosa had hired an agent, a big no-no-no because Godfrey wanted total control over his so-called ‘little Godfrey’s’.

Firing La Rosa backfired. Ed Sullivan immediately hired La Rosa for appearances on his “Toast of the Town.” During the summer of 1955, La Rosa had a three times a week TV series on CBS. In ’56 and ’57 he hosted summer shows as a seasonal replacement for Perry Como. Shortly after leaving Godfrey La Rosa had several hit records, including “Eh Compari” and “Domani.”

Domani 1955

Years later when I got to really know Julie we talked about his career and Godfrey. Julie said, “As an entertainer he was the best salesman in the world. I was a 20-yr-old kid in the Navy from Brooklyn and Godfrey gave me a golden opportunity to be on his shows. Happy memories? Are you kidding?! There was a year and a half of total and complete joy, I mean look at me ma, that kind of thing. I was doing what I had one day dreamed I would do.”

Julie told me that after the firing <he> met Godfrey in his office, “offered my hand in friendship and he rejected it.” Godfrey died in 1983 at 79. “Now that he’s gone,” said La Rosa, “I shall pray that he will rest in peace.” La Rosa said they met briefly once on Fifth Avenue walking in different directions. “I took his hand and said, you’re looking well, and he said thank you. And I said, you better watch it, or they’ll make an item of us.”

Audio, History, Music

The Ballad Of The Long Island Railroad

June 6, 2024 Marianne Palmer 4 Comments

The Ballad Of The Long Island Railroad Gene Klavan

Ballad Of The Long Island Railroad – Gene Klavan (1:11)

Gene Klavan’s “Ballad Of The Long Island Railroad” was first published here in 2013.

-ECB-

Music

Metromedia Radio

March 1, 2023 edwnew Leave a comment

Metromedia Radio

Music

A Meaningful Season

December 19, 2022 edwnew 1 Comment

Music

Uncle Pete & Louise & . . .

August 27, 2022 edwnew Leave a comment

Only A Tramp -Uncle Pete & Louise (3:01)

All and all, Uncle Pete and Louise’s song reflected scripture’s call to help the poor, to keep an open heart and open door. Some will hear that as doing good for goodness sake, others might calculate it as an insurance policy. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

How did Uncle Pete and Louise come to he heard on WNEW even though the station had not specially engaged them? For most of the economic hard times of the 1930’s, many radio stations were able to survive by sharing dial positions and airtime. WNEW, for example, came to be in February, 1934 when its owners, bought two New Jersey stations, WODA, Paterson and WAAM, Newark, where Uncle Pete’s program originated.

The stations were merged, and their licenses cancelled as new call letters, WNEW, took over the 1250 spot on the dial. WODA and WAAM, along with WHBI Newark, had shared airtime at 1250 kc. since the late 1920’s and WNEW continued to share air time with WHBI for another seven years. ECB

————–

(add) “The Engineers”

by Andy Fisher

As extensive as my list of “The Engineers” was in my last posting on wnew1130.com, it just began to list the personnel of the engineering department in the golden days of the 1960s. Here are others, whom I knew less well, but who were nevertheless essential parts of the engineering department:

Engineering Supervisors: Karl Neuwirth, Bill Schmidt

Engineers: Frank Dubiel, Howie Epstein, Ken Haile, Joe Palumbo, Eric Potts, Bird S. Coler Southern, George Speer, Steve Sullivan

Many, but not all, of these fine technicians worked at the transmitters — the AM transmitter in Kearny, the later AM transmitter in Carlstadt, and the FM transmitter on the 82nd floor of the Empire State Building — and rarely came to the Fifth Avenue studios. AF