He was the king of the New York airwaves. He was the Grand Kook, the Grand Commodore, Me-a-surray and the Fifth Beatle. He coined the phrases blast from the past, golden gassers, Submarine Race Watching, Swingin' Soiree, ain't that a kick in the head? and he played them red, hot and blue.
Murray came from a show business family: his mother, Jean, played piano in vaudeville and wrote music and his aunt was a character actress on the stage and in film. He was a child actor – an extra – in several 1930s Hollywood films. He attended a military boarding school, and later was inducted into the United States Army where he arranged entertainment for the troops. Following the war, he put together shows in the Catskills' "Borscht Belt", also doing warm-ups for the headline performers.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked in public relations and as a song plugger, helping to promote tunes like Bob Merrill's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window." From there, he worked as a radio producer and co-host at WMCA (and briefly thereafter at WMGM), working with personalities such as Laraine Day on the late night interview program "Day At Night" and with Eva Gabor.
At the same time, he was doing promotion for several baseball players, including Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, and his radio beginnings may be attributable to his connection with the New York Giants, whose manager, Leo Durocher, was the husband of Laraine Day. His work on those shows earned him his own late-night show that often featured his wife as co-host, as was popular at the time. For a while in the 1950s he was president of the National Conference of Disk Jockeys.
Though Freed's spot was briefly occupied by Bruce Morrow, who later became known as Cousin Brucie on WABC, Murray was soon moved into the 7-11PM time period and remained there for the next seven years, always opening his show with Sinatra and making radio history with his innovative segues, jingles, sound effects, antics, and frenetic, creative programming. Jeff Rice, writing in M/C Journal, says that Tom Wolfe calls Murray "the original hysterical disk jockey".
Here's Murray and interviews with the Fab Four in early 1964.
Murray the K reached his peak of popularity in the mid-1960s when, as the top-rated radio host in New York City, he became an early and ardent supporter and friend of The Beatles. When the Beatles came to New York on February 7, 1964, Murray was the first DJ they welcomed into their circle, having heard about him and his Brooklyn Fox shows from American groups such as the Ronettes (sisters Ronnie and Estelle Bennett and their first cousin Nedra Talley).
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In addition to this stint at WINS Murray was part of the original progressive rock lineup of Toronto's CHUM-FM.
He also spent time at WOR-FM, WNBC, WKTU. Murray became a driving force in the fledgling album rock format.
When the band arrived in New York, Murray was invited by Brian Epstein to spend time with the group, and Murray persuaded his radio station (WINS) to let him broadcast his prime time show from the Beatles' Plaza Hotel suite.
He subsequently accompanied the band to Washington, D.C. for their first U.S. concert, was backstage at their The Ed Sullivan Show premiere, and roomed with Beatles guitarist George Harrison in Miami, broadcasting his nightly radio shows from his hotel room there.
Murray hosted shows at the Brooklyn Paramount, later moving to the Brooklyn Fox, and promoted many rock and roll shows, like this one in Connecticut.His radio station WINS picked up on the name and billed him as the Fifth Beatle, a moniker he came to regret. He was invited to the set of A Hard Day's Night in England and made several treks to England during 1964, giving WINS listeners more Beatle exclusives.
By the end of 1964, Murray found out that WINS was going to change to an all news format the following year. He resigned on the air in December 1964 (breaking news about the sale of the station and the change in format before the station and Group W released it).
1965 PSA: Murray meets Herman Munster.
He did his last show on February 27 prior to the format change that occurred in April 1965. A year later, in 1966, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that AM and FM radio stations could no longer simply simultaneously broadcast the same content, opening the door for Murray to become program director and primetime dj on WOR-FM — one of the first FM rock stations, soon airing such djs as Rosko and Scott Muni in the new FM format.
Promo Packet 1966Murray's first WOR-FM show on October 8, 1966. [ LISTEN ] (52:46)
Murray played long album cuts rather than singles, often playing groups of songs by one artist, or thematically linked songs, uninterrupted by commercials. He combined live in-studio interviews with folk-rock — he called it "attitude music" — and all forms of popular music in a free-form format. He played artists like Bob Dylan and Janis Ian, the long album versions of their songs that came to be known as the "FM cuts". Al Aronowitz quotes Murray as saying about this formula, "You didn't have to hype the record any more. The music was speaking for itself."
During that time Murray was often a champion of the much-maligned Bob Dylan. He introduced him to boos at a huge Forest Hills Tennis Stadium concert in August 1965, saying "It's not rock, it's not folk, it's a new thing called Dylan."
WOR switched to the tighter Drake format where DJ's weren't allowed to pick the music and talk as much, so Murray the K left New York radio to host programs in Toronto – on CHUM -and on WHFS 102.3 FM in Bethesda, Maryland in 1972. He returned to New York after his short stint on WHFS on the weekend show NBC Monitor and as a fill-in morning dj, and then in 1972 moved to a regular evening weekend program on WNBC radio where Don Imus was broadcasting. He was joined there by the legendary Wolfman Jack, a year later.
Murray's Swingin' Soiree at WNBC on the weekend of August 4 & 5, 1973.
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This aircheck is scoped but contains some cool music clips. Commercials include Texaco gasoline, Korvette stores, sugar free Dr. Pepper, American Florists, David Gates welcomes Wolfman Jack, and much more.
Although it was low-key, Murray's WNBC show featured his own innovative trademark programming style, including telling stories that were illustrated by selected songs, his unique segues, and his pairing cuts by theme or idiosyncratic associations. In early 1975, he was brought on for a brief stint at Long Island alternative rock station WLIR, and his final New York radio show ran later that year on WKTU after which — already in ill health — he moved to Los Angeles. The syndicated show Soundtrack of the '60s was heard in New York City on WCBS-FM. Gary Owens succeeded Murray as its host.
He was married six times and had three sons, Peter (Altschuler), Jeff and Keith. His first wife, Anna May, died in childbirth. He was married to his second, Toni, for three years; his third, Beverly, for three months; his fourth, Claire, for about nine years in the 1950s; his fifth, Jackie Hayes (called "Jackie the K"), until about 1973; and finally, his sixth, actress Jackie Zeman for just one year, although they were together for seven years before marrying.
Kaufman suffering from cancer, passed away a week after his 60th birthday on February 21, 1982. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1997.
WHERE DID MURRAY WORK? Here is the list: WMCA 1955, WMGM 1957, WINS 1958, WOR-FM 1966, CHUM 1967, NBC Monitor 1968, WWDC 1970, WHFS 1971, WNBC 1972, WKTU 1975, and Soundtrack of the '60s - Syndicated (New York, WCBS-FM) 1980.
Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: New York Radio Archive, Murray the K Archives.
