Jack Palvino

Jack Palvino was a popular Rochester radio personality for 40 years, first as host of an AM morning show and then as part-owner of FM station WVOR.

Known as “Smilin’ Jack,” the Rochester native joined WBBF (950 AM) in the late 1950s and was the morning deejay there until 1978. Then, he helped revolutionize local FM radio as part of an ownership group that bought WVOR (100.5 FM) and turned it into the top station in town.

As an emcee, Palvino introduced to Rochester audiences everyone from Ronald Reagan to Mickey Mantle. He once had a private concert by the Beach Boys before the band was given the OK to go onstage here.

The radio career wouldn’t have happened if his parents — who wanted him to become a lawyer — had their way. Palvino was attending law school at the University at Buffalo when the radio bug bit.

“I was in the law library on a Saturday night, looking up legal cases,” he said from his Rochester home in late December. “All my radio friends …were having a wonderful time heading off to a ‘record hop.’ I thought, ‘I belong with them. I love radio.’ And I still do.”

Convincing his parents wasn’t easy. His brother, Larry, himself a lawyer, helped break the news.

WBBF: January 11, 1967. Part I.

“They were about ready to shoot me,” Palvino said with a laugh. “But they said, ‘If you really want to join the crazy world of radio, we’ll support you.’ Rock and roll was just hitting at the time.”

The first stop was at WSAY, a station that used to operate at 1370 AM. Palvino performed under various on-air names like “Jerry Jack,” “Mac Maguire” and “Tommy Thomas.” All the deejays did the same, Palvino said. The station owner wanted the deejays to be interchangeable, in case someone didn’t show up or one of the deejays moved on.

He got hired at WGVA in Geneva and worked there until WBBF called in 1958. AM radio dominated the airwaves, and WBBF was Rochester’s most popular station.

“BBF was bigger than life, this little 1,000-watt station,” Palvino said. “BBF played Top 40 in a tight rotation, 24 hours a day, pumping out the top music.”
Jack Palvino is seen last month in his Rochester home.

“Palvino in the Morning” became huge with its comedy edge. Don Ariano, the show’s longtime engineer, recorded one-liners from comedians like Jonathan Winters and Don Rickles and tried to crack Palvino up.

WBBF: January 11, 1967. Part II.

“He threw ’em at me at 6 in the morning. He kept me on my toes,” Palvino said.

The music legends he met include Ray Charles, the Supremes and perhaps most memorably, Jimi Hendrix. Palvino was on the air when President Kennedy was killed. The station manager, Bob Kieve, immediately switched to classical music, and for the next three days, Palvino said, WBBF played no commercials, just somber music.

Most of the time was much more upbeat. Palvino referred to radio as “Theater of the Mind,” and his morning show included bits like “The Last Contest” and promotions like “The Chicken Man.”

Palvino joined WVOR shortly after he left WBBF in December 1978. As part of the station’s ownership team, the Lincoln Group, he served as vice president/general manager but went back on the air as the morning man before long.

“I was the cheapest option we could find,” he said with a chuckle. He wound up doing that for several years until signing off for good to concentrate on the behind-the-scenes business.

FM radio in the late 1970s was primarily limited to niche musical formats, Palvino said. WVOR officials chose to become “a full-fledged AM (style) station with news, business reports and live personalities on the air 24 hours a day,” Palvino wrote in his book, On the Air/My Life in Radio.

The format worked and WVOR moved to the top of the radio ratings.

“We transplanted AM features to the FM dial,” Palvino said. “Then, people followed us, big time.”

During his career, Palvino met plenty of VIPs, including several presidents. Jimmy Carter was a guest on the morning show in 1977 and requested an Allman Brothers tune. Ronald Reagan was campaigning for re-election in 1984; Palvino introduced him at a rally at the War Memorial and remembered Reagan as “ramrod straight, good posture.” George H.W. Bush was at a fundraiser at the Burgundy Basin Inn and told Palvino, “Never forget, this is the greatest country in the world.”

The Lincoln Group eventually owned several other stations, including WHAM (1180 AM), before it was sold in 1997.

Palvino remains heavily involved with St. John Fisher College. The college created the Jack Palvino Communication/Journalism Hall of Fame in his honor, and Palvino established a scholarship that aids two communication/journalism students each year.

He was elected to the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2015, and to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

As of 2016, Palvino and his wife, Joyce, have been married 55 years. The family includes three children and eight grandchildren. The “crazy world of radio” that his parents feared turned out pretty well.

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Jim Michaels

Jim behind the mic at KCBC. [ LISTEN ] (6:52)

James Michael VerHoef was born in Spencer, Iowa March 4, 1942. On Fathers Day 1945 when Jim was three years old the family went to a picnic at Lake Okoboji. When they got there everybody got out of the car and Jim said, "Daddy I can't walk!" It took two week to diagnose that he had polio.

After three years in the hospital in Sioux City Jim went through a couple of years of crutches, braces, operations and rehabilitation. When Jim was 8 years old, Ben Sanders and Mason Dixon at KICD Radio in Spencer took him on a March of Dimes tour of ballrooms around northwest Iowa.

Jim's radio career began right there when he began reading kids books on the air. A fellow named Tom Shumate and his wife hosted. Little Jim would read and they would give him a sign like cutting their throat and then he would stop at the next period. The sponsor was Redmond Shoe Store with Buster Brown and his dog Tag.

The VerHoef family moved to Des Moines in 1952. Jim entered a DJ contest at KIOA. The station was located in the old Onthank Building at 10th and Mulberry. Jim came in third.. In 1960 he competed in another DJ contest on KSO with Dick Vance and Bobbi, the Sweater Girl. Phil Thomas won and Jim came in 2nd, Mel Ott came in third. Phil got a full time gig and Jim got weekends with Mel also joining the staff. Jim later went to radio school at Brown Institute in Minneapolis, met his future wife Judi, who was in his same home room at North High School though they never dated in high school. Judi graduated from Brown and went to work in St. Cloud Minnesota and Jim ended up doing weekends there. When Jim graduated, he joined KWKY in Des Moines, with Smokey Smith and Irish Davis. In 1962, he went to KDFI in Wichita, Kansas. KDFI was actually the first country station to use rock jocks in a country format. The ratings were very good.

Here's a small slice of how Jim sounded at KIOA on August 18, 1966. [ LISTEN ] (4:39)

Jim got married in Wichita and then moved back to Des Moines. He then went back to KSO as Big Brother Bill Bailey. Dic Youngs and Jim became life long friends at that time. Jim then went to KBAB in Indianola. He had been there about a year when he got a call from Peter McLane at KIOA.

Michael's behind the KIOA mic on June 21, 1967. [ LISTEN ] (11:33)

This is a segment of the first hour of the Jim Michael's program on a typical Wednesday night.

Jim Michaels joined KIOA in 1963 as a Good Guy and remained there until 1970. He was honored to be named " Bill Gavin Music Director of the Decade 1960-1970 in small and medium markets." A real highlight in Jim's career was a Hooper Rating while doing nights at KIOA that showed him with about a "63 share."

Jim went to KSO for one rating period, and then went to WMIN in Minneapolis. After some success and one brutally cold, blizzard filled winter he talked with Peter McLane after KIOA had just purchased KYNA 93.3FM. It later became KIOA-FM, then KMGK and Jim programmed it until 1976.

While working there he was very involved in the Iowa Jaycees. He was President in Urbandale, and in 1976-1977, was the Iowa State Jaycee President. he was then hired by the United States Jaycees and moved to Indianapolis and later to their national headquarters in Tulsa, Ok. While in Tulsa, Jim was Operations Manager of KELI, station Manager at KMYZ, and air talent at KVOO. He left the U.S. Jaycees and went to work for KIX - 104 in Fayetteville AR where he was very successful with the ratings.

Then, it was back to Ames and he worked for Bob Bunce at KEZT, until going to work as Executive Director of the Iowa Jaycees. The United States Jaycees rehired him and he moved back to Tulsa, and that is where Jim and his family call home to this day.

In 1998 Jim started his own business doing background employment checks. In 1999, Jim Michaels was inducted into the Iowa Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Desmoines Broadcasting.

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Joel Sebastian

Joel Sebastian began his radio career in his native Detroit at station WXYZ. He moved to Chicago in 1966, after working at stations in Dallas, TX New Haven, CN, and Los Angeles, California.

From the 60s to the mid-1980's, he had been a disc jockey and morning on-air personality at eight Chicago radio stations, including WCFL, WLS, WGN, and WMAQ.

Here's an aircheck from Joel's final program on WXYZ in 1964. [ LISTEN ] (20:56) "Four years of memories in four hours."

He began his Chicago career at WCFL as a talkative morning disc jockey. He would open each show with the greeting ``Good morning Chicago, baby, while playing Jack Jones` rendition of ``My Kind of Town.``

Joel Sebastian along with J.J. Jeffrey (first show) on 89 WLS-AM in Chicago some time in November of 1971.

Included are tons of early 70s commercials and those awesome WLS Jingles! J.J. Jeffrey would go on to station ownership later in his career. WLS would go on to number one status later that year. [ LISTEN ] (17:48)

Joel worked at WIND in 1975.

Here's Joel again at WLS recorded between October 17, 1970 and April 12, 1971. [ LISTEN ] (1:07:14)

Mr. Sebastian performed a variety of radio roles, reflecting both the wide range of his abilities and the whimsical nature of the business. He was program director at WCFL, rock DJ at several stations and in the late 70s, an all-night classical music show host at WGN.

LAST WLS SHOW
February 26 1972
[ LISTEN ](41:00)

He survived a purge at WMAQ when the station switched to country music in 1975. Most of the on-air staff, including Mr. Sebastian, was fired. But he was rehired a short time later as production chief and weekend DJ.

In 1983 he stopped at a station in New York City, before returning to Chicago, joining WJMX.

Here's a treat. It's the 45 rpm record of "Blue Cinderella", sung by Joel Sebastian on Miracle Records in 1961. [ LISTEN ] (2:08)

Sebastian passed away in January 1986, from complications of pneumonia, at the age of 53.

WHERE DID JOEL WORK? Here is the list: WXYZ, KYW, WCFL, and WLS.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: WLS History, Motor City Radio Flashbacks.

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Tony Taylor

Coupled with great on-air audience ratings at WQXI, participation in so many outside promotions involving the general public helped to cement William Wahl aka Tony Taylor's name in the audiences’ memories. In his eight years at "Quixie", in addition to his on-air and commercial work, he became Production Director.

After an extremely successful ten-odd years away from Atlanta, when WGST was sold by GA Tech, the new owners did a survey to determine the most recognizable radio names in Atlanta. Tony and Bobby Harper were the names most remembered and their offer was sufficient to bring Tony back to Atlanta.

While away from Atlanta, Tony was successful in the 12-3 slot at WOR-FM. He moved to Metromedia’s WIP in Philadelphia where he was named the Bill Gavin Program Director of the Year in 1969. Metromedia transferred him to their Los Angeles station, KLAC. After about a year, he was lured back to New York and WNBC. He also became the youngest NBC staff announcer, at the time, and was a host of the highly regarded program MONITOR on the NBC radio network.

In addition to on-air work, he also established himself as an in-demand voice for national advertisements. Upon return to Atlanta, and WGST, he resumed his voice work, becoming the first commercial spokesman for Home Depot, among other major companies. This led to the creation of Taylor and Associates, a boutique advertising agency that had, among it accounts, the leading Mercedes Benz dealer until his retirement in December 2006.

Tony passed away on June 18, 2017.

Tony “The Tiger” Taylor, at WQXI on April 1, 1965 [ LISTEN ] (27:55)

It’s April Fools’ Day and Taylor says someone’s playing a trick since he can’t get the Beatles in for an encore performance… actually the record seems to not wanna play at the start of this aircheck but he gets it working with a perfect talkup. You’ll hear plenty of classic commercials and Taylor’s top 5 countdown.

Taylor again, this time at WOR-FM in New York some time in 1969.
[ LISTEN ] (44:06)

Lots of Bill Drake and the format that was slightly modified to reflect the New York “Big Town Sound”. Still, it’s tempting to hear ’93 KHJ’ in your head when these jingles play! This was Drake’s answer to ABC’s “All Americans” on 77 WABC.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame.

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Ron Britain

Ron was only 14 years old when he hosted a teen show called "High Varieties" in Louisville. This was during a different era in radio. It was one of those old time radio shows performed in a huge studio with a script and full orchestra, and he went by his real name Ron Magel.

Ron got his first big break in Cincinnati. Right after he was hired, someone suggested he change his name. A meeting with the Program Director Jim Lightfoot ensued. At that time Ron drove a Jaguar, and dressed like an Englishman. Lightfoot suggested let's go with "Britain." From that point on the name took off.

WCFL March 11, 1970

In Cincinnati, Britain leased a supper club that seated a huge crowd. He had a big banner with the Union Jack British flag, and did record hops, that were a huge hit. At one point Ron had 72% of the Cincinnati listening audience.

On this aircheck, you'll hear WIND's oldies format branded as "#1 Music" which began in the summer of 1971 and lasted until 1974. Britain was at WIND from 1970 to 1974.

He was doing mornings when he left in March 1974. As for WIND, the station evolved into a mostly news-talk format by the end of the decade. September 1, 1971 featuring Ron Britain and Bob DelGiorno on WIND. [ LISTEN ] (59:00)

Ron was affectionately known as King Bee, a nickname that originated in Cincinnati. Ron had numerous teen clubs, and he couldn't stand it when the kids called him Mr. Britain and they didn't feel comfortable calling him Ron, so they started calling him King Bee. He liked it, and started using it himself.

Ron was a big fish in a small pond in Cincinnati, but he really wanted to go to New York. He had a few interviews in New York, and he told them how hot he was in Cincinnati. He had a great audience, and a hit record, "Are We Going to Wail Tulu", and they said "That's great. You should stay in Cincinnati."

Ron had a brother in law who worked in radio in Cleveland, and he called him up, because he figured that if he made it in Cleveland, they'd take him in New York. He did make it there, but New York didn't call. Chicago did.

January 28, 1967

Ron and the WCFL crew

Britain flew up to Chicago and met with the folks at WCFL. He knew Chicago was a great radio town, and maybe this is where he should go. Ken Draper, the guy who hired Britain, and Jim Runyan drove him into the city. All these lights were lit along Michigan Avenue, and was told that they decorated the city just for him. Britain took the job, but he was scared.

He was intimidated by a place that had so much talent, like Jim Runyan and Joel Sebastian. He was so scared when he went on the air the first time, he didn't know what to do. He was using squeaky toys, when he got a note from Ken Draper. The note said "We hired Ron Britain not Pinky Lee." And of course, he was right.

Britain had a long chat with Joel Sebastian about it, and Joel wanted him to play a tape of what he used to do. Joel listened to the tape, and asked why he didn't continue to do that sort of thing. Getting advice from someone like Joel Sebastian gave Britain the confidence he needed. So, he started out with a few sound effects, fanfare, and crowd noise. After that, Britain was off and running.

Britain created a show called Ron Britain's Subterranean Circus, which was really cutting edge at the time. It all began when he went over to Mercury Records in London in 1966, to produce a follow up to the hit song Winchester Cathedral. While there, he was told about this guy who was the next great thing. His name was Jimi Hendrix. Britain met him and they hung out. He was selling records, but even though he was an American, he wasn't getting played on the radio in the U.S.

Returning to the States, Britain asked CFL permission to play a few songs that were selling but weren't getting airplay, like Hendrix. Britain thought they only let him do it because they figured if they gave him the Subterranean Circus, they wouldn't have to give him a raise. And they were right.

Pip and Britain

It's the Fall of 1967 and Ron is on the air on WCFL. Airmate Barney Pip follows. [ LISTEN ] (31:49)

It aired on Sunday's, and it was recorded in a little production studio. The first week Britain did it, it didn't sound right. It sounded like he was making fun of the music by playing all of his sound effects, and he didn't want to do that because he loved the music so much. The next week Britain used a Ravi Shankar music bed as the backdrop, and that sounded much better. It fit the tone of the show. He just talked about the music, and why he loved it.

Britain had Frank Zappa on the show once, and he was scared to death of him. But he turned out to be the nicest guy in the world. Most of the people Ron had on were really nice, with a few exceptions. Van Morrison was one. Britain confessed he didn't know what planet Morrison was from. Another was Doug Engle from Iron Butterfly. Ron said he didn't know if he was stupid, or if he was just pretending to be, but they didn't click at all.

Many of the others were great. Blood Sweat and Tears was fabulous. Janis Joplin was great. The guys in the band Chicago used to listen to him when they were practicing on Rush Street. It was a wild time.

Britain also did a few shows with the Beatles, and hung out with them a few times. He introduced them on stage. After the show, he was looking for something of theirs to sell. Remember they were selling everything they touched in those days, even the sheets they slept on. So Ron went on stage and thanked the audience for coming out, when he saw that Ringo had left his drumsticks on the stage. He put them in his pocket and gave them away on the air the next night.

Britain stated many times that he was heavily influenced by the Marx Brothers. They were always his favorite.

He jocked at leading stations such as WSAI and WKRC Cincinnati, WHK Cleveland, KCMO Kansas City, WCFL, WIND, WJMK, WTMX, WLUP and WLS-FM Chicago. His last radio stop was WRLL "Real Oldies", a short-lived nostalgia station that also featured Chicago legends Tommy Edwards, Larry Lujack, Scotty Brink, and Jerry G. Bishop.

Ron Britain took his own life on October 25, 2020. He was 86. Friends said Britain was inconsolable after losing his wife and constant companion of 62 years. Helen Louise 'Peach' Magel, 83, died October 19th after falling ill at home.

WHERE DID RON WORK? Here is the list: WHAS, WINN, WKAY, WIEL, WLBS, WSAI, WHK, WCFL, WIND, KCMO, WLS-FM, WKRC, WCFL, WJMK, WTMX, and WRLL.

Some materials appearing on this page were originally published at the following: Airchexx, Rock Radio Scrapbook, Chicago Radio Spotlight.

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Bud Ballou

Dudley "Bud" Ballou was an American disc jockey and radio personality active for fifteen years on several commercial radio stations during the 1960s and 1970s. Bud was easily Syracuse's most popular evening disc jockey of all time.

Ballou was born on December 11, 1942 and raised in Liverpool, New York, a suburb of Syracuse. His father was Leslie G. Ballou, and he had a brother, James.

After a stint as an electronics technician at Western Electric in Syracuse, Ballou began his radio career as disc jockey at WOLF in 1962. With Ballou's help WOLF enjoyed a majority share of Syracuse radio listeners in 1963 and 1964. In 1964 he moved to WNDR radio. He also hosted a black-and-white television version of "The Bud Ballou Show" on WNYS-TV, channel 9, originating from the station's Shoppingtown studios in DeWitt, which premiered on February 8, 1965.

The "Bud Ballou Show" combined the hit songs of the day, local bands, and top national recording acts that toured the area. Freddie and the Dreamer (I'm Telling You How), The Shangri-las (Leader of the Pack) were just a few worth mentioning. His TV show, the Beatles, the British Invasion and his eminence popularity led to offers from larger radio markets.

The KBTR Crew

c.1971

Ballou left Syracuse for KBTR in Denver, Colorado in 1966, and in 1967 he departed for Buffalo's WKBW Radio AM 1520 a 50,000 watt giant, to replace Joey Reynolds. As an April Fool's Day stunt in 1967, Ballou hosted one shift on WPOP, trading places with another DJ.

Here's 24 year old Bud Ballou on WKBW Radio in Buffalo some time in 1967. [ LISTEN ] (14:01) WKBW sounded much different in ’67 than a couple of years later in the 70s.

Ballou moved to the Boston area in 1968 appearing on WMEX until 1971 and then moving to WVBF in Framingham until 1976. During this period he was an avid hockey fan who sometimes watched games even while broadcasting.

Beatle Hour airing on WNDR [ LISTEN ], WMEX in December, 1969
[ LISTEN ], WMEX Summer of 1970 [ LISTEN ], WMEX in December, 1970
[ LISTEN ] and one more WMEX cut with Bud in 1969. [ LISTEN ] (13:42)

Confusingly, a different ex-WOLF disc jockey from the Syracuse area named Howie Castle used "Bud Ballou" as his professional name while working for Radio Caroline in Europe in late-1967 and early-1968.

Ballou died April 15, 1977 at age 34 of a massive stroke at Leonard Morse Hospital in South Natick. After his passing Ron Robin and WVBF produced a special "Tribute To Bud Ballou". It featured some of his favorite songs as well as rare airchecks of WKBW and one of his first shifts on WOLF (1/14/62). It aired Sunday evening April 17, 1977. [ LISTEN ]

He was laid to rest in Fulton, New York. He was survived by his wife, the former Kasia Rondomanski of Fulton, and four children.

Some materials used in this article were originally published by the following: Airchexx, The WOLF 1490 Tribute Site.

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John Zacherle

Zacherle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 26, 1918. He was the youngest of four children of George a bank clerk, and his wife Anna who was a homemaker. He grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, where he went to Germantown High School.

After graduating, Zacherle enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned an English degree in 1940. He enlisted in the Army at the start of World War II and served in England, Italy and North Africa with the Quartermaster Corps, rising to the rank of major.

Returning to Philadelphia after the war, he joined the Stagecrafters, a small theater troupe in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood. Before long he found work doing commercials for local drug companies.

Zacherle's first horror gig was posing for before-and-after pictures for some new brand of tranquilizer. In the ‘before’ shot, he was chasing his wife with a carving knife like a maniac. Then, after he took the pill, he was transformed into a kind and loving husband!

In 1954 he gained his first television role at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia, where he was hired as an actor playing several roles (one was an undertaker) in Action in the Afternoon, a Western produced by the station and aired in the New York City market. Three years later, he was hired as the host of WCAU's Shock Theater, which debuted on October 7, 1957. As the host, Zacherle appeared wearing a long black undertaker's coat as the character "Roland," who lived in a crypt with his wife "My Dear" (unseen, lying in her coffin) and his lab assistant, Igor.

The hosting of the black-and-white show involved interrupting the film to do numerous stylized horror-comedy gags parodying the film, an influential change which pioneered a now-standard television genre. In the opening sequence, Zacherle as Roland would descend a long round staircase to the crypt. The producers erred on the side of goriness, showing fake severed heads with blood simulated with Hershey's chocolate syrup.

During the comedy "cut-ins" during the movie, the soundtrack continued to play on the air, while the visual feed switched briefly to a shot of Zacherle as Roland in the middle of a related humorous stunt like riding a tombstone, or singing "My Funny Valentine" to his wife in her coffin. The show ran for 92 broadcasts through 1958.

The purchase of WCAU by CBS in 1958 prompted Zacherle to leave Philadelphia for WABC-TV in New York, where the station added a "y" to the end of his name in the credits. He continued the format of the Shock Theater, after March 1959 titled Zacherley at Large, with "Roland" becoming "Zacherley" and his wife "My Dear" becoming "Isobel." He also began appearing in motion pictures, including Key to Murder alongside several of his former Action in the Afternoon colleagues. A regular feature of his shows continued to be his parodic interjection of himself into old horror films.

He would run the movie and have "conversations" with the monster characters. He kept his "wife" in a coffin on stage. His co-star was in a burlap sack hanging from a rope. The on-air conversation consisted of Zacherle repeating the words he heard from the sack.

He was a close colleague of Philadelphia broadcaster Dick Clark, and sometimes filled in for Clark on road touring shows of Clark's American Bandstand in the 1960s. Clark reportedly gave Zacherle his nickname of "The Cool Ghoul."

In 1958, partly with the assistance and backing of Clark, Zacherle cut "Dinner with Drac" for Cameo Records, backed by Dave Appell. The record broke the Top 10 nationally. Zacherle later released several LPs mixing horror sound effects with novelty songs. Sequels included, “Eighty-Two Tombstones,” “I Was a Teenage Caveman” and “Monsters Have Problems Too.”

In a 1960 promotional stunt for his move to WOR-TV, Zacherley—by then, a Baby Boomer idol—staged a presidential campaign. His "platform" recording can be found on the album Spook Along with Zacherley, which originally included a Zacherley for President book and poster set which is highly collectible today. He was a guest on CBS-TV's What's My Line, on Halloween Eve, October 30, 1960 as the final guest on the broadcast.

When WABC had run through its stock of horror films, Zacherle took his act to Channel 9 and then Channel 11, where he became the host of “Chiller Theater,” “The Mighty Hercules Cartoon Show” and, briefly, “The Three Stooges Show.”

Disc-O-Teen c.1967

In 1965, WNJU, a new UHF television station broadcasting from Symphony Hall in Newark, put him in charge of an afternoon dance party called “Disc-O-Teen.”

The show simply grafted Zacherle’s “monster of ceremonies” persona onto a low-budget version of “American Bandstand.” Somehow, it managed to attract well-known groups like the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Young Rascals and the Doors during its three-year run.

“Jim Morrison looked at our weird set and mumbled, ‘This is the damnedest TV show I’ve ever seen,’” Zacherle told The New York Times in 2012.

He moved to the New York album-rock radio station WNEW-FM in 1967 as a morning D.J. and two years later began hosting a program at night. He later worked at another rock station, WPLJ, and in 1992 joined WXRK, known as K-Rock. That job ended four years later when the station changed its format from classic rock to alternative rock.

DICK'S PICKS VOLUME 4

On February 14, 1970 he appeared at Fillmore East music hall in New York City to introduce the Grateful Dead; his introduction can be heard on the album Dick's Picks Volume 4.

It's September 18, 1975 at WPLJ, but Zacherley isn't doing much more than back announcing the records. There is a cool promo for a Summer-end concert featuring KISS, Orleans, John Sebastian, Don McLean, Chris Hillman and Brian Auger & the Oblivion Express for $6.50! [ LISTEN ]

In the early 1980s, he played a wizard on Captain Kangaroo, appearing without his Roland/Zacherley costume and make-up. He continued to perform in character at Halloween broadcasts in New York and Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s, once narrating Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven while backed up by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

WPLJ'S ROOTS OF ROCK
Sunday, April 16, 1972

In 1972, WPLJ was a year or so into the "New York's Best Music" format, but they were willing to break format a bit to host a "Roots of Rock" weekend. Many of the songs played are what we would now call "oldies", although some weren't all that old in 1972. But it was still impressive that WPLJ would deviate from format to play these tracks.

There were some bad choices: I don't see how "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" or even Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" were roots of rock, although they were hits in their day. Seems to me those songs could have been replaced with some real roots music: blues from Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and others or some very early R&B.

Hard to tell if Zach was picking the tracks, but there are a fair number of tracks out of Philadelphia, like Chubby Checker and Dee Dee Sharp and Zach spent a lot of time there. We even get to hear Zach's own "Dinner with Drac". We also hear some Beatles, the Who and the Drifters among others.

The show starts with an unnamed announcer. About 20 minutes into the aircheck, Zach takes over for the rest of the show. [ Part 1 ] (1:07:00) and [ Part 2 ] (1:02:06)

In 1983, he portrayed himself in the feature length horror comedy Geek Maggot Bingo produced and directed by Nick Zedd in sequences shot in Zacherle's apartment on the Upper West Side.

He hosted a direct-to-video program called Horrible Horror in 1986, where he performed Zacherley monologues in between clips from public domain sci-fi and horror films.

In 1988, he struck up a friendship with B-movie horror director Frank Henenlotter, voicing the puppet "Aylmer," a slug-like drug-dealing and brain-eating parasite, one of the lead characters in Henenlotter's 1988 horror-comedy film Brain Damage, and cameos in his 1990 comedy Frankenhooker, appropriately playing a TV weatherman who specializes in forecasts for mad scientists.

Zacherle joined the staff of "K-Rock," WXRK in late 1992, at a time when the roster included other free-form radio luminaries such as Vin Scelsa (with whom he'd worked at WPLJ) and Meg Griffin. He departed in January 1996 when the station switched to an alternative rock format and hired all new jocks.

In 2010, Zacherly starred in the documentary, The Aurora Monsters: The Model Craze That Gripped the World. The documentary includes a number of short pieces featuring Zacherly and his puppet co-host Gorgo.

Zacherle continued to make appearances at conventions through 2015. The book Goodnight, Whatever You Are by Richard Scrivani, chronicling the life and times of The Cool Ghoul, debuted at the Chiller Theatre Expo in Secaucus, New Jersey, in October 2006. Scrivani and Tom Weaver followed it up with the scrapbook-style "The Z Files: Treasures from Zacherley's Archives" in 2012.

Zacherley continued to make occasional on-air appearances, usually around Halloween, including a two-hour show at WCBS-FM with Ron Parker on October 31, 2007. Zacherley and Chiller Theatre returned to the WPIX airwaves on October 25, 2008 for a special showing of the 1955 Universal Pictures science fiction classic Tarantula!.

The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted Zacherle into their Hall of Fame in 2010.

John Zacherle died on October 27, 2016, at his home in Manhattan. He was 98.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Finetooning, New York Radio Archive

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Brother John Rydgren

Born February 14, 1932, John Rydgren (aka Brother John, as he came to be known as an on-air DJ and radio personality) was an ordained minister in the American Lutheran Church, and was a director of the American Lutheran Church's radio and television films division.

His claim to pop history fame came in the 1960s and early '70s when his syndicated FM shows, most notably the show called Silhouettes, which was broadcast across the U.S. (and in Vietnam) between 1966 and 1968, reached a wide-ranging audience.

Here is John on June 15 or 16, 1968, on a recorded demo prior to the launch of WABC-FM's syndicated "Love Format". [ Part 1 ] and [ Part 2 ]

The WABC-FM Love Format Team: Brother John Rydgren, Bob Lewis and Howard Smith.

Positioning himself as a sort of "hip preacher" between Christianity on one hand and the emerging "Flower Power" generation on the other, Rydgren interspersed progressive and psychedelic rock tracks with his thoughts on spirituality, philosophy, and the changing times, all in a deep, sincere, and affecting baritone.

Heading into the Summer of Love, Rydgren was the crafty head of the TV, Radio and Film Department of the American Lutheran Church. Years before the words "Jesus" and "Freak" became joined at the rib, the straight-looking Rydgren created a daily radio show called Silhouette in which he became the reassuring, resonant-voiced Hippy for God. Rydgren wrote, announced and programmed Silhouette, taking his musical and cultural cues from The Electric Prunes, Herb Alpert and the cover of Time (Is God Dead?), with a vocal delivery that was straight out of the Tom Donahue, Scott Muni, Ken Nordine school of breathy baritone radio seduction. Silhouette dropped all the counter-cultural code words of the day into a heady mix of Peace, Love, Sex, Drugs, Jesus. and groovy fuzzy guitars.

He also released three LPs of his thoughts and musings laid over a backdrop of fuzz guitars, heavenly choirs, and sitar drones, Worlds of Youth, Cantata for New Life, and Silhouette Segments.

Rydgren's Silhouette segments are stunning. Here are all 19 of them: Music to Watch Girls By, Hippy Version of the 23rd Psalm, Rinky Dink, An Offering In Music, Disadvantage of Life, Hippy Version of Creation, Search it Out, Plea of a Lonely Girl, Butterfly, The Happening, Groovin On A Saturday Night, Dark Side of the Flower, The Lord is My Shepherd, The Oil Painting, Here Lies The Church, Move Out In Style, A Simple Stroll, The Noise, and A Beautiful Girl

New York's WABC-FM picked up Silhouette on a daily basis after the FCC forced them to stop using their FM station to re-transmit WABC-AM, their Top 40 powerhouse. Faced with an immediate need for a new format, ABC signed on to Rydgren's Psychedelic Christian format, at least for part of the day.

The FCC rule in question - the non-duplication rule - sent stations all over the country scrambling for formats at a time when youth counterculture ruled the zeitgeist. Yes, the same rule that created the Psychedelic Christian format also gave birth to the commercial freeform radio movement in the US.

ABC quickly dropped Silhouette from its lineup, and flailed around for three more years before finally changing the station's call letters to WPLJ in 1970 and finding their calling as one of New York's eminent Album Oriented Rock stations throughout the 70's.

But Rydgren and the American Lutheran Church aggressively syndicated the show beyond New York, and in that effort, they issued a double LP in 1967 called New Life Radio Spots and Cantata, which distilled Rydgren's swinging message of redemption into bite size bits for other radio stations to play. If they liked the Silhouette segments on the New Life LPs, they could pick up the whole show, as American Armed Forces Radio did in 1968. The 2-LP set was issued to radio stations only, but the segments were later reissued a few years ago on a single LP called Silhouette Segments. That reissue wisely omitted the LP-length Cantata, which was along the lines of The Electric Prunes Mass In F Minor.

In 1970, John left WABC/fm to produce religious and socially slanted radio/tv programs. He moved to L.A. in 1972 and eventually hosted a program called "Heaven Is in Your Mind."

In 1982, John suffered a debilitating stroke while on the air, which left him with a form of dyslexia, forcing him to relearn reading and speaking from the third-grade level. With therapy he rejoined KRTH in 1986. John passed away on December 26, 1988. He was 56.

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