Glenn Crespo, who put in fifteen years with WNEW, died July 24 in Newark, NJ of a heart attack.  He was 64.  The first notice was received here that day from Bob Gibson.

. . . when I returned to ‘NEW for a second tour of duty in the early 80s he was then the head desk assistance in our newsroom.  He went on to be an award-winning, on-air newsman, news director and traffic reporter in the New York market.  He was an easy-going, well-informed friend and colleague who loved to talk about his affinity for horror and sci-fi films.

Bob sent a link to the site of WBGO, one of the stations for which Glenn worked.

http://wbgo.org/post/respected-and-award-winning-wbgo-news-anchor-glenn-crespo-dies-64#stream/0

A note from Andy Fisher,  posted originally on the New York Broadcasting History Board:

Glenn Crespo’s untimely death ends a career that began more than 40 years ago. Glenn joined WNEW News as a desk assistant in 1977 and quickly established himself as indispensable. He was a calming force in a newsroom that could often be chaotic. He stood up to the bullies and the self-absorbed stars. He lifted the spirits of those fortunate enough to work on his shifts, and he was even a great asset to the FM station’s charity softball team. We lost touch after I decamped for NBC, but he went on to much greater things. Not very many people in any field get to work with someone of Glenn Crespo’s caliber, and I am supremely fortunate that I did. His passing is a great loss, and my deepest condolences go to his loved ones.   Andy

A note from Mike Eisgrau — I had been following Glenn’s travails for almost two weeks before his death. Maureen Conway, a former WNEW DA, now a  producer/writer for Fox News, alerted me to both his heart attack and his stroke. She visited him in the hospital in Elizabeth, New Jersey but he was in bad shape. She had hoped to go there again—but that did not happen.  For several years Glenn and I had been e-mailing and trying to get together when I was up north but that never happened.  He was devastated by the death of his girlfriend from cancer. I’ll never know, but I’ve had a feeling he’d almost lost the will to live.  Anyway let him rest in peace—he went out of this world with many friends and a very good reputation.  Mike

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Here’s a photo and some information received from Glenn  and published here on October 6, 2012

“I found a picture of Bruce Charles, myself, another Desk Assistant Mary Ellen Kowalski and, if you look close on the left side, fill -in reporter Randy Place.  This was taken after we moved to 3rd Avenue and must have been in the early 1980’s.”

In response, we asked Glenn to send a few lines about his time at WNEW and where it led, which turned out to be an impressive string of call letters including the new, all news WNEW in Washington, D.C.

“I was  (at WNEW, New York) from  January 1977 through September of 1991, starting as a desk assistant, hired by Jim Gordon.  From 1978 through 1980, I was a weekend anchor at WFAS in White Plains.  I continued as a desk assistant at WNEW and then, under Mike Prelee, began doing sports reports in 1986 and weekend anchor shifts in addition to anchoring news on the NY Giants football network. I free-lanced for AM and FM until AM went off the air. . . My time at WNEW was a great learning experience, working with Bob Hagen, Bruce Charles, Charles Scott King, Andy Fisher, Mike Eisgrau and Peggy Stockton. There were many major news stories covered during my time there, “Son of Sam,” The Northeast Blackout, the helicopter crash on the Pan Am Building, hijackings, presidential elections, the First Gulf War, the Battle for the Falkland Islands, the blizzard of 1977, transit strikes, the murder of John Lennon, the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and the Challenger disaster, to name a few.

 After the news department was “downsized” in 1991, I worked two years for WXPS in Hawthorne New York as the morning anchor, co-host and News Director.I also free-lanced for WHUD, WFAS, WBLS, WFAN during this time. Went to WJUX in Dumont New Jersey in 1993, where I worked as the afternoon anchor and moved to WVNJ in Teaneck as the News Director and anchor in 1995.  In 1997 I joined Shadow Traffic and remained there for 10-years doing traffic on WINS and news on WQCD.

 In 1997 I began freelancing for the Wall Street Journal Radio Network and continued to do so off and on there until I was hired full-time in 2012 doing overnight reports for Dow Jones Radio on the Wall Street Journal Network, WCBS and WNEW (in Washington D.C.).

 The WNEW (New York) News Department was a very interesting, volatile, action-packed place to work.  A lot of different personalities thrown together.  But at the end of the day, getting the news on the air was what mattered and getting it right was what mattered.  The business has changed so much since then with sensationalism, character assassinations and speculations now being the norm. I will always treasure my years working in the WNEW News Department.”

This feature was first published here, February 2, 2010

Mary Lou Williams — “Roll ‘Em”

To read more about Mary Lou Williams, click on red headline below

Mary Lou Williams — Rutgers

Most of the feature below was published here on June 9, 2012. 

Next time you’re in Hollywood, stroll over to the north  side of the 6300 block of Hollywood Blvd., and you’ll come to the spot where they put a star on the Walk of Fame for the ol’ spotted dog, Jim Lowe.  A lifetime devoted to American popular music is what put it there, and for giving radio broadcasting a good name in the years he was on  the air.

You’ll  find, below,  a recorded conversation Jim had with Doug Miles on WSRQ in Sarasota, FL eight years ago,  on  June 4, 2004,  followed by a David Hinkley story in The New York Daily News, from November 10, 2004, about a month after Jim retired, having conceded that “it is,” as he often said,  “later than it’s ever been.” E.B.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXn5JjiWwL4

That said, it was never easy to put the show together or find stations to carry it in a radio world that mostly acts as if music started with the Beatles. But Lowe did it for six years, when he could have been relaxing in retirement at his Long Island home, just because he still liked it. “The show was a labor of love,” he says. “When it became a labor, it was time to end it.”

Born in Springfield, Mo., Lowe didn’t come to New York as a crusader. He came as a songwriter and singer who in late 1955 had a hit with “Close the Door,” then a bigger one – a No. 1, in fact – with “Green Door.” He cut some songs his later fans might think odd, including “Maybelline,” and he had almost as big a hit as Jim Reeves with the melancholy “Four Walls.”

It was also noted that he had a great radio voice, and by 1962 he was doing Saturday nights at NBC Radio’s “Monitor.” A year later he joined WNEW-AM, doing the “Milkman’s Matinee” and “Jim Lowe’s New York,” which featured listener quizzes on esoteric facts. He returned to “Monitor” from 1969 to 1973, then bounced back to WNEW-AM, where he revived “Jim Lowe’s New York,” did a spell on the evening shift and in 1982 became program director.

Neither he nor anyone else could save the station, which finished its own run in 1992. So Lowe, like others, took to focusing on the music.”If all we do is keeping playing ‘In the Mood,’ we’ll end up in a museum,” he said. So he looked for new music that reflected the classic sound and style, and therefore could blend with the old. That’s the music he listens to at home these days, he says, and that’s what “Jim Lowe and Friends” was about. It carried the torch and helped to pass it.

One of those who picked it up, Jonathan Schwartz of WNYC and XM Satellite Radio, has known Lowe since the ’60s and says Lowe’s retirement, while well-earned, saddens him. “Jim Lowe, or ‘Mr. Broadway,’ is one of the passionate champions of the American Songbook,” says Schwartz. “He is a dedicated friend of craft: He was born with the knowledge that ‘home’ does not rhyme with ‘alone.’ ”                                             photos added by WNEW1130

In 1953, Jim composed and recorded “Gambler’s Guitar” for Mercury Records.

KSPR – Jim Lowe

New material will begin appearing on this site before the end of July.  The feature below was first published here Jan. 31, 2012

Art Ford and the Night Visitor

The watercolor (above) by Tom Saunders is based on the  photo (below) published in Arnie Passman’s book, “The Deejays,”* But, the woman in the painting is not the woman in the photo.  Explanation, below.

 As WNEW’s first Station Manager, Bernice Judis often dropped in on shows at any time of the day or night. In the photo above, she is seen during an after-midnight visit to “The Milkman’s Matinee” when it was hosted by Art Ford. (1942-1954) In an e-mail to long-time friend, and ‘NEW alum, ABC’s Bill Diehl, Saunders explained: “I read that Bernice Judis was the manager who fired Art Ford for playing too much ‘jazz and international’ music, so I purposely eliminated her and put in a blond groupie instead.” Saunders identified correctly the cause of Ford’s firing, but not his executioner. Judis retired from WNEW in 1954 after 20 years with the station, and about four years before Ford got word while in Europe in April, 1958, that his services were no longer desired.

Continue reading Second Time Around # 1 →

Edward R. Murrow – April 15, 1945 – CBS – Buchenwald