Reynolds' radio career started at WWOL in Buffalo with Dick Purtan, then WKWK, in Wheeling, WV. He continued at several venerable stations, including WKBW in Buffalo, New York, WNBC and WOR in New York, KQV in Pittsburgh, KMPC and KRTH in Los Angeles, WDRC in Hartford, WIXY in Cleveland, and WIBG and WFIL in Philadelphia.
Rockin' the 60s.
Whereas most radio stations and DJs had jingles cut in Dallas by Pams or TM, Joey got Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to crank out a custom version of his. It was recorded after he wrote the liner notes to their "Sherry" album. Also during his time in Buffalo, he and fellow DJ Danny Neaverth recorded a novelty single entitled "Rats in My Room" (a rearranged cover of a Leona Anderson song of the same name).
This WKBW aircheck gives us a taste of the excitement when the Fab Four first arrived in North America. Everybody was talking about the Beatles except Reynolds, who thought the Beatles weren't much better than the "best group in each and every town in this country." Nonetheless, he plays lots of Beatle tunes on his show. February 22, 1964 [ LISTEN ] (46:24)
Reynolds and Neaverth, on behalf of WKBW, were offered the chance to bring The Beatles to Buffalo Memorial Auditorium on February 10, 1964, the day after the band had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. It would have been the Beatles' first concert in North America.
Joey’s career began in the 1960s in Hartford (WPOP, WDRC), Buffalo (“KB Radio” WKBW), Cleveland (WIXY), L.A. (KMPC) and Philadelphia (both WIBG and WFIL). Here is Joey in Detroit on WXYZ in 1966. (30:09)
The date is April 19, 1966. WXYZ 1270 is set on your radio dial. The time is 9:00 PM on a Tuesday evening here in the Motor City.Coming in fresh from Cleveland’s WIXY, listen in as Joey Reynolds introduced himself on The Joey Reynolds Show for the very first time when he first came over to Detroit. [ LISTEN ] And here is Joey again, this time about one month later, in May of 1966. [ LISTEN ]
Unwilling to risk the $3500 appearance fee for a Monday night concert, in the poor February weather, for an unproven band he did not expect to sell out the auditorium, the two declined the offer. It was not until after Beatlemania swept the nation that they acknowledged that it was a mistake to not bring them in. In the three years the band toured North America, they never performed a show in Buffalo.
Joey Reynolds was in the category of disc jockey, playing music on music intensive radio stations from the very late 1950s until the mid-1980s during his time on Z100 and WFIL.
In 1986, he arrived at the former WNBC in New York City doing the afternoon drive, Howard Stern's previous shift. That station was attempting to move into a more talk intensive full service format with music taking a backseat but still heard. Reynolds was basically playing a mix of oldies and adult contemporary cuts along with comedy and personality, and was most notably on the air when the station's traffic helicopter crashed, killing reporter Jane Dornacker. He exited WNBC at the end of February 1987 and was replaced by Alan Colmes.
Joey Reynolds was in the category of disc jockey, playing music on music intensive radio stations from the very late 1950s until the mid-1980s during his time on Z100 and WFIL.
In 1986, he arrived at the former WNBC in New York City doing the afternoon drive, Howard Stern's previous shift. That station was attempting to move into a more talk intensive full service format with music taking a backseat but still heard. Reynolds was basically playing a mix of oldies and adult contemporary cuts along with comedy and personality, and was most notably on the air when the station's traffic helicopter crashed, killing reporter Jane Dornacker. He exited WNBC at the end of February 1987 and was replaced by Alan Colmes.
Joey's at WNBC in New York between January 7th and 11th, 1974. [ LISTEN ] (1:27:08)
This starts out with Reynolds’ trademarked theme song sung by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. You’ll hear plenty of callers, some of whom remember Reynolds from WKBW Buffalo – and they do mention call letters on the air. In fact, Reynolds even mentions WMCA by calls and ‘the left most station to the right’. He even plays a Dan Ingram jingle!
His next stations were morning shows and at that point Joey had evolved into more of a talk intensive program. He was less a DJ and more like a talk show host. By 1995, Joey was no longer playing music on his shows and in 1996 he arrived at WOR in New York. He has been a talk show host since.
While Reynolds' present persona can be considered mellower by comparison, he still retains a loyal audience. In Denver, Colorado, he hosted a radio-television simulcast on KOA-AM, and launched (and hosted) the first nationwide satellite radio programming featured on more than 35 radio stations coast-to-coast.
Reynolds' career memoir is titled, "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella, But Don’t Get a Mouthful of Rain". He maintains a second home in Florida and spends most weekends with his two daughters.
On March 10, 2010, it was revealed that WOR would pick up Coast to Coast AM from Premiere Radio and would cancel "The Joey Reynolds Show." (Coast to Coast had been heard on crosstown rival WABC for several years, before that station dropped the show in favor of an in-house offering from Doug McIntyre, which led Premiere to seek WOR as the new New York affiliate.) Reynolds' last show, which was segregated into the "Final Gay Hour," the "Final Jewish Hour" and "The Final Hour," aired the morning of April 3, 2010.
Reynolds later hosted All Night with Joey Reynolds on WNBC-DT2, the digital subchannel of television station WNBC-TV known as "New York Nonstop." It was broadcast live from the NASDAQ site in Times Square at 43rd Street and Broadway. Reynolds was reunited with his former WNBC radio sidekick, Jay Sorensen, as the program's announcer. The series ended on April 25, 2011.
Reynolds made a cameo appearance on the ill-fated Buffalo Night in America broadcast on WBBZ-TV in July 2012.
Beginning on September 18, 2016, Joey returned to radio on WABC-AM in New York with a Sunday evening program, The Late Joey Reynolds Show.
Taped at Art Vuolo's birthday party on Sept. 26, 2010, here are two radio legends (with a third - John Records Landecker thrown in for good measure) Shotgun Tom Kelly (KRTH-101) and New York's Joey Reynolds, telling some cool stories! This segment focuses on how Shotgun Tom got his "Shotgun" name.
WHERE DID JOEY WORK? Here is the list: KQAQ, WNDR, WPOP, WKBW, WDOK, WIXY, WXYZ, WDRC, KQV, WIBG, KMPC, WGAR, KRTH, WHTZ, WHYT, KMGG, WFIL, WHLW, WNBC, WSHE, WQAM, WIOD, WBZT, WFLY, and WOR.
Some of the materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Motor City Radio Flashbacks, Airchexx, videoholics2000s, Rock Radio Scrapbook, Geoff Fox, Man From Mars.
