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 BrownEd & Jean
Edward C. Brown, of Sun City Center, FL, and formerly of New York, NY, passed away on September 15th, 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.
The Family of Edward Brown
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!
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
Bill Diehl & Julius La Rosa
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.”
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.”
Bill Diehl, seen above with Julie in a late 90’s conversation, sent word today(1/2/14) by phone that Julie, on his 84th birthday, is recovering from a fractured ankle. “Otherwise,” says Julie, “I’m in OK health.” Says Bill, “I reminded him that my wife, Lorry, met his wife, Rory, back in the 1950’s when Rory was Perry Como’s secretary, and Lorry was president of the Perry Como fan club in New York.(and Julie was Perry’s summer TV replacement.) Julie recalled that when he told Como that he was engaged to Rory and gave her a ring and they’d soon be married, Julie quoted Perry as saying, ‘you (bleep), now you’ve taken my wonderful secretary.’ Julie and Rory have been married 57 years”
Most of you will recognize the studioin the picture on the front of my new book, “Staying Happy, Healthy, And Hot.” Some of you will remember when the guy in the picture looked like that. But only if you remember WNEW from when “head shots” were all black and white, 8 x 10 glossies. It was an appropriate picture for the front of a fun book about being happy, because there was never a happier time in my life than the night that picture was taken.
Let me explain: I’m from Bay Ridge. My folks gave me a “portable” radio for Christmas when I was about 8. I don’t think I turned it off ‘till Easter. It was a magic box full of music and voices. The music was made by people with names like Frank, and Ella, and “The Count,” and “The Singing Rage.” The voices belonged to people named Gene Klavan, Dee Finch, William B. Williams, Ted Brown, Al Collins, and Art Ford.
The magic box immediately spoke to me. “Shazam!” it said. And instantly, I changed from a stickball kid dreaming of playing in Dodger Blue, to a disc jockey in training. The training went on for quite a while. About 30 years to be fairly exact.
WBZ BOSTON
I was on the air at one of America’s premier radio stations, WBZ in Boston, when the studio phone lit, and the station’s receptionist said, “Somebody by the name of Nat Asch wants to talk to you.” Nat was the Program Director at WNEW-FM. I heard him say, “George Duncan and I would like you to come down and do an audition for us.” I grabbed both eyelids and finally got them pulled down, forced my voice down an octave, and with my most professional diction, I think I said something like, “Gezornenplatz.”
Gene Klavan & Dee Finch photo: Radio/TV Magazine
The audition must have gone well, because I became the first morning man on WNEW-FM. And I will never forget that first morning. 6:30 AM – the studio door opens, and Gene Klavan walks in. “Welcome to the staff” he says. I find myself shaking the hand of one of the guys who shook me out of bed each morning since I was a kid. 7:00 AM – the studio door opens, and Dee Finch walks in. “Welcome and lots of luck, kid” he says. I am semi ready for that, and I manage to say something terribly clever : “Thank you Sir…Mr. Finch… Dee… lighted to meet you.”
WBW photo: WNEW
At 9:30 AM – the studio door opens, a bright golden light shines down from heaven, a Norman Luboff choir sings, the tectonic plate under Fifth Avenue shifts, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a vision that looks exactly like what God would look like if he were a disc jockey. William B. Williams. He strides in, sticks out his hand to shake mine, and in that crackly bass-baritone rumble that he uses all the time except when he’s doing national TV commercials, he says, “Hi kid. Welcome to the staff. You sound fine.” I am not ready for that. But I am determined that I’m not going to fall back on my Gezornenplatz again either. I immediately engage my sub-conscious editor, which is able to make some kind of actual human verbal response the substance of which has, in the intervening decades, faded quietly into literary oblivion.
It really was a reasonable response, although I must admit that I was momentarily confused at the time as to whether the appropriate ritual was to shake Willie’s hand, or just kiss his ring. As I recall I said something like “Thank you.” But then my sub-conscious editor went into shock and off line, and I think I kept saying, “Oh thank you. Oh thank you” for the next five or six minutes.
I don’t know when the all female lineup ended. When I got to WNEW-FM the station had been into the “Classic Rock” format for a while. All except for Klavan and Finch. I suspect the all female cast went out. . . except for Alison, who moved from mornings to all nights. . .and then they got around to hiring me to do mornings. I only did the morning show for a few months. Zacherly replaced me.
Art Ford photo: WNEW
Dave Croniger had asked me if I wanted to move over to AM and do the Milkman’s Matinee. Me…the Bay Ridge Stick Ball Kid, was going to try to follow the vocal chords of the smoothest ad lib air personality on the planet. . . Art Ford. . . I don’t remember him ever bruising his phrasing. It was amazing phrasing. (Editor’s note: Art Ford hosted the Matinee between 1942 and 1954. Dick Summer’s immediate predecessor in 1968 was Marty O’Hara.) It was shortly after that when Newsday sent a reporter and photographer to do a story on me, and the picture on the front of the book was taken. So now you know why an old black and white picture is on the front cover of my new book, called “Staying Happy, Healthy And Hot.” There was never a happier time in my life than the night that picture was taken.
About three weeks after the article was published, Billboard Magazine reported that I had “resigned.” I didn’t resign. Julius LaRosa was hired to do afternoons, and the station moved the entire lineup back one shift. There wasn’t any place to move me, except to weekends. And I had a family to support. That wasn’t going to work financially.
I had a good reputation in Boston from my time at WBZ, so Mac Richmond hired me to program his station, WMEX. That lasted two years. I’m not an office/executive kind of guy. And I wanted to come home to New York again. The morning show at WPLJ opened up, and they were kind enough to hire me. Some folks at NBC Network took an interest, and offered me a slot on Monitor. Another offer I couldn’t refuse. But WPLJ was owned by ABC, and they weren’t having any of it. NBC understood the financial problem, and gave me the overnight slot on WNBC to go along with Monitor.
I was fired from WNBC in a purge that replaced the entire staff. I did a few years as the morning drive guy at WPIX during the “Love Songs” era. Then they went fake jazz, and they told me they “didn’t want any Dick Summer radio.” I don’t know how to do any other kind of radio. So when Harry and Charles Binder offered me the Communications Director job with their Social Security Disability practice, I signed up. It has been a hugely successful venture.
Along with the 9 to 5, I’ve been producing spoken word CD’s, doing a weekly blog and podcast and now we’ve got the book. It has been a wonderful run…this radio thing…a long and very satisfying career. WNEW was probably the shortest part of it. But WNEW was my station growing up in Bay Ridge. And having the honor of saying those call letters on the air was, as the song says, “The thrill of it all.”
Marty became interested in broadcasting at a very young age. His parents surprised with him with tickets to be in the Peanut Gallery on the “Howdy Doody Show.” He spent more time looking at the cameras, mike booms, and production staff than he did at Buffalo Bob and the puppets!
A few years later he took the tour of NBC Radio and was hooked. In junior high school he became a member of the Cousin Brucie Fan Club and would visit the WABC studios on West 66th Street. He then worked for Bruce backstage at Palisades Amusement Park.
After enrolling at City College he majored in cutting class to work at the college radio station where he became Assistant Station Manager and hosted a number of shifts.
Symphony Sid (early 1970's)
In 1968 he got a job at WEVD as a summer and part time engineer. In addition to learning how to understand commercials in 16 languages, he met Symphony Sid. One night at a remote from the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn, Sid became a little “under the weather.” He turned to Marty and said, “You finish the show, I’m going home.” Marty then moved to the other side of the glass. He became a staff announcer, and when Sid retired, Sid gave him his record collection and later Marty hosted his own show, “Jazz Through The Night,” at times broadcasting from his Upper East Side apartment in a studio he built.
After leaving WEVD, he worked briefly at WHLI with the “Music Of Your Life” format.
During the “Jazz Through The Night” years he met Bob Jones, who was on the air at WNEW. Bob convinced PD Jim Lowe to give him an audition. The audition consisted of, “Here’s a reel of tape, there’s the studio, there’s the record library, do an hour.”
He was hired as the weekend host of the ”Milkman’s Matinee” and shortly thereafter became the full time Milkman following in the footsteps of a number of great hosts. He introduced a number of features during that time including an audience participation novelty called “It Could Be Verse” where listeners would try to guess what song was playing just by listening to the verse. Ted Brown enjoyed his style and insisted that Marty be his vacation substitute.
In 1987 Marty also conceived the idea for a syndicated program, “A Moment Of Musical History”, a daily feature, that was heard nationally and is still on the air as of this writing in 2012!
After leaving WNEW, he and a college buddy of his bought a station in New Haven, Connecticut, which he ran for nine years. After selling the station he joined the staff of “Jukebox Radio,” doing afternoons and then middays.
Now he concentrates on doing voice-overs and producing commercials for a variety of clients and agencies from his own studio in sunny South Florida.
