Roby Yonge

Roby Yonge was born on July 25, 1943 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the son of an Army officer. Roby grew up in Ocala, Florida. He got his first radio job when he was 15 years old.

Roby's first Miami Florida job was covering the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and hurricanes as a newsman at WIOD, which was then WCKR. He then moved to Miami's WQAM and became a DJ (where he worked with another Miami radio legend, Rick Shaw).

"The Big Kahuna"

He was best known for being fired from New York City station WABC-AM in 1969, after he reported over the air that the singer Paul McCartney might have died, circulating the now infamous Paul is Dead folktale saga and conspiracy theory.

He evolved into a character created out of a cartoon in the back of Playboy magazine. In the "Little Annie Fannie" cartoon, the "Big Kahuna" was a muscular surfer with a deep tan and all the girls. It was a joke because Roby was really the opposite, but the name stuck and he used his "surfer" image to great success in South Florida. He was not terribly athletic but the music he played was for the surfer crowd.

Here is The Big Kahuna on the air, March 28, 1966 [ LISTEN ] (45:54), again in April of that same year. [ LISTEN ] (20:19).

At 25, Yonge left Miami for WABC in New York. His first shows on WABC were December 30 and 31, 1967. He filled in for Ron Lundy before starting his own show on January 1, 1968 with the song "Devil With a Blue Dress On" by Mitch Ryder. However, his 1-3 p.m. show was short-lived.

Roby at WABC on January, 1969. [ LISTEN ] (29:55)

Roby takes over the Clark Moore Show while on a visit from New York.

He was shifted to weekends when Bob-a-Loo (Bob Lewis) went over to WABC-FM (now WPLJ) full-time. He was then shifted to overnights replacing Charlie Greer. He was told by WABC program director Rick Sklar, in the early fall of that year, that his contract would not be renewed. He subsequently went on the air with the Paul McCartney "death" rumor on October 21, 1969.

Having heard the rumor from WKNR-FM (Detroit) radio personality Chris Randall, he stated that he had already been fired and that at 12:39 AM, he would not be "cut" because there was nobody around, Yonge began to speculate on rumors circulating about the possible death of McCartney. He enumerated various "clues" in album cover art which he said had been catalogued by thirty Indiana University Bloomington students. The station switchboard lit up.

ROBY'S RANT
October 21 1969
[ LISTEN ]

It was an hour and a half before Sklar got Les Marshak in to relieve Yonge. With a huge nighttime radio signal, which easily covered thirty states, this was an embarrassment for the station. Roby was fired while still on the air, but the ripple effect continued for some time. Sklar's reach did not cross radio bands, as, less than three weeks later, on November 14, former WABC DJ Bob "Bob-a-loo" Lewis did a full production "Paul is Dead" show on WABC-FM, putting forth many of the same assertions about McCartney's supposed death that had resulted in Yonge being yanked off the air.

Marshak continued to do the show until a replacement was hired.

Paul Is Dead fever went on for more than two months. Fans from ten to twenty-five, in grade school to college, looked at albums with magnifying glasses, identified symbols, and listened to songs, sometimes backward, for clues.

(TOP) 1960s jocks (BOTTOM) WQAM Reunion, Lee Sherwood, Dan Chandler, Roby, Rick Shaw, and Charlie Murdock.

Yonge was hired by WCBS-FM, where he helped introduce the "Oldies" format of popular songs to that station. After a few years, he returned to Florida, where he served as general manager of Mother WMUM, an early FM rock station in Palm Beach.

After the demise of Mother in 1972, Yonge became a morning personality on Y100 WHYI in Fort Lauderdale/Miami. He was fired after the first day on the air, August 3, 1973. He moved to the competitor WMYQ-FM, where he spoke as a commentator with a morning show. In 1987, Yonge did a morning show at WKAT in Miami, then returned in 1993 to do a music/talk show on 790 WMRZ.

Roby Yonge passed away on July 18, 1997 of an apparent heart attack at age 54. He was broke and practically destitute living out of an old motel room. He would have turned 55 a week later on July 25.

On an ABC-TV Network morning show, the host read a story about the Beatles and then mentioned, “On a related story, Roby Yonge, often called the fifth Beatle died today."

As Roby would have said, “It’s cosmic.”

WHERE DID ROBY WORK? Here is the list: WTMC, WCKR, WQAM, WABC, WCBS-FM, WHYI, WMYQ, WKAT, WFUN, and WMRZ/WAXY.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: 560, Savage Lost, Beatleness.

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Dick Williams

He called himself the "Tall One". But for many listeners to CFPL in London, Ontario during the 1960s, Dick Williams was the only one when it came to Top 40 radio. Dick spent nearly half a century on the air in the Forest City, beginning in 1961 at CFPL. Williams was only 16 years old when he started his radio career in 1956 as program host at CKCR in Kitchener, Ontario.

Dick working at KDEO on July 13, 1960. [ LISTEN ] (36:12)

He moved to WSAI Cincinnati in 1958, and also jocked at KDEO San Diego and KROY Sacramento, California, before bringing his quick wit and masterful sense of timing to CFPL. Williams could have worked in almost any major market he chose, but he fell in love with the medium market of London, Ontario. A natural entertainer, Williams also did a dance show at CFPL-TV called "Dick Williams Wing Ding" that featured live performances and appearances by the other CFPL "Lively Guys."

Williams left CFPL in 1969, and later jocked on London stations CJBK, Q 97.5 (CIQM) and Oldies 1410 (CKSL).

The date is January 7, 1965 and Dick Williams opens his show on CFPL with the Beatles "I'm A Loser." [ LISTEN ]. (47:30)

Dick is credited with being the first DJ in North America to play the Beatles exclusively, well before the beginning of the "British Invasion."

Dick and some listeners, during one of the many street-side remotes in the new and improved Mach 2 Mobile Studio. Dick with Chatter the Chimp. Dick on a skateboard in 1965. The Lively Guys (left to right) Bill Brady, Al Mitchell, Dick Williams, and John Dickens.

WHERE DID DICK WORK? Here is the list: CKCR 1956, WSAI 1958, KDEO 1961, KROY 1961, CFPL 1961-1969, CJBK 1977, CIQM 1980, and CKSL 2000-2006.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Rock Radio Scrapbook

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Don Sherwood

People either loved Don Sherwood or people hated him. Either way, people listened to him.

He was born on September 7, 1925 and raised in The City's Sunset District, christened Daniel Sherwood Cohelan but known to listeners within the sound of KSFO's signal as "Donny-babe."

Heavy-smoking, hard-drinking and reckless living, Don Sherwood set the standard for every radio bad boy and shock jock to follow in his wake for decades to come.

The product of a broken home, his father's funeral was the only memory he had of his old man, and a failure in school ("It took me five high schools to get through the eleventh grade," he recalled, "majoring in recess and tea dancing"), at sixteen Don lied about his age to join the Canadian Tank Corps as World War II accelerated. After it appeared that his regiment would be shipped off to combat in England, he quickly admitted his real age and headed back to San Francisco.

Now a confirmed high school drop-out, Sherwood began attending classes at night while driving a lunch wagon during the day to make a buck. It was at night school that he would receive advice that would change his life forever: the prescient principal advised him to enter radio school, where his smooth, mellow voice would serve him well. He enrolled in the Samuel Gompers Trade School on Bartlett Street in the city, later boasting that he graduated in only a few weeks so that he could go after his first job in broadcasting.

With his radio school diploma in hand, however, he was unable to find a station in the city willing to hire him. He enlisted in the Merchant Marine, serving until he was nineteen years old, then returned to San Francisco where KFRC offered him the break he was looking for - a temporary job as an announcer.

Don's 1962 KSFO family portrait.

As his on-air responsibilities expanded, he would make fun of the commercials, use sound effects (with the help of a talented engineer named Charlie Smith), occasionally imitate popular singers, and present a number of regular comic features including "Just Plain Rosita," in which he pretended to translate the story of a Spanish language radio soap opera (actually dialog from a Spanish-language instructional record).

He also was the star of a long-running spoof on super heroes called "Super Frog," which relied on music and sound effects. Even with all of that, the job was short-lived, but inspired him to head to Los Angeles in search of radio work there.

After a year of frustration and little employment in Southern California, he came home once again only to find the job market as bleak — if not worse. He accepted a six-month hitch as radio operator on an Army transport ship, and then found himself back in San Francisco once more, unemployed.

Don's station bio in 1968.

Desperate for work in his chosen field, he made the rounds of the city's handful of radio stations, failing until KQW, headquartered in the stately Palace Hotel - it would become KCBS a few years later - offered him a foot in the door in the form of a daily ten-minute program, from 5:50 to 6 a.m., during which he could play a few records, talk a bit and read the news.

He would then hang around the station each day until 2 p.m. to announce the station identification and read the news headlines. It wasn't much, but it was a real job at a real radio station. Taking another career leap, Sherwood landed squarely on his feet at KSFO in San Francisco.

During Sherwood's KSFO programs, Hap Harper provided some of the Bay Area's first traffic reports (from a fixed wing airplane). On one memorable 1960 broadcast, comedian Bill Dana surprised Sherwood trying to report from Harper's plane. Whenever Sherwood actually played recordings, he deliberately avoided rock music - which he detested - instead he played his favorite "easy listening" singers such as Wayne Newton, Johnny Mathis, Vic Damone, and Carmen McRae. Sherwood would sign off with, "Out of the mud grows the lotus."

For some reason, Sherwood often tampered with the Berkeley Farms dairy products commercials. The prerecorded announcement included a final line "Farms in Berkeley?" followed by the mooing of a cow. Berkeley Farms had hired cartoon voice expert Mel Blanc to do the cow voice.

However, Sherwood would insert a pause after the question, then add something else (often totally unrelated to the commercial), before playing the distorted cow sound effect.

He also would tamper with a familiar cigarette commercial, known for the line "outstanding...and they are mild," by interrupting the words with his own comments or a recording that had nothing to do with the product. Reportedly, advertisers didn't mind Sherwood's actions because it actually called greater attention to their products.

While also hosting a late night television show in the mid-1950s, Sherwood was often late for his KSFO 6 a.m. morning broadcasts or did not show up at all, forcing KSFO to use Aaron Edwards, Carter Smith, or whoever else was available on short notice.

Sherwood had left the San Francisco Bay Area in 1957 to be considered as a possible NBC television host in Chicago, only to become homesick and return to San Francisco. He also moved to Honolulu and worked as an announcer there, before again deciding to return to the Bay Area. His final stint at KSFO was in 1975. Listeners generally thought he had lost much of his humor and creative imagination in his later broadcasts.

Worsening health led him to spend much of his later years traveling or on a house boat in Sausalito, California. He did appear on KGO Radio with talk show host Owen Spann late in his life and, despite poor health, still displayed considerable wit and wisdom. Don Sherwood passed away on November 6th 1983.

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Dick Hugg

Richard James Hugg known to his listeners as "Huggy Boy", was born in Canton, Ohio on June 9, 1928. He was instrumental in the promotion of rock and roll in the 1950s, and is credited with bringing rhythm and blues to the airwaves of Southern California, as well as bringing the "Eastside Sound" to large audiences. He was the first white disc jockey to broadcast (on station KRKD) from the front window of John Dolphin's popular all-night record store, Dolphin's of Hollywood. He also co-produced several artists, such as vocalist Jesse Belvin and saxophonist Joe Houston, on Dolphin's various record labels, including Cash and Money. With his own record label, Caddy Records, Hugg recorded local favorites Jim Balcom, Jeanette Baker, Chuck Higgins and Johnny Flamingo. Hugg later promoted bands like The Jaguars, the Village Callers, Thee Midniters and The Champs, later known as the Chicano rock movement.

Though originally an R&B disc jockey, he gradually aimed his radio and television shows at Los Angeles' burgeoning Latino population and featured almost every young Chicano group coming out of East Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley, the Pomona Valley, and the San Fernando Valley.

He promoted dances and shows in the barrio and was important in the growth of the city's Eastside Sound.

He also brought to East Los Angeles groups like Them, Sonny and Cher, The Righteous Brothers and Dusty Springfield, acts that may otherwise have not been accessible to Mexican-American audiences. He was on KRKD, 1951–55; KWKW, 1954; KALI; KGFJ, 1955; KBLA, 1965; KRKD, 1965–66; KRTH, 1975; XPRS, 1981–82; KRLA, 1983–98; KRTH, 1998-2002. He hosted an oldies show on KRLA and for a time, a dance program, "The Huggie Boy Show", which aired weekly on KWHY channel 22. His popularity continued to increase long after the show went off the air.

John Dolphi, Huggy Boy, and Billy Ward.

Huggy Boy's show on KRLA brought a lot of rare oldies to the airwaves from 1983 until KRLA's end in 1998.

Perhaps most interestingly is Huggy Boy and his unique, rare music collection was turned on to a whole new generation of listeners, and record collectors. Huggy Boy's show on KRLA in the 80s and 90s was a fun show that stood out amid the increasingly corporate sounds of commercial radio. One of the charms of Huggy Boy's show was he sometimes did not always have that perfect broadcast voice, or sometimes he stepped over the vocals while talking up a record.

Sometimes between the songs there would be some rambling, and sometimes Huggy Boy had fun with the whole request and dedication thing.

Following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which profoundly deregulated how many radio and television stations one corporation can own, CBS ended up buying KRLA in 1998. CBS also owned K-Earth 101, which was also an oldies station. Likely in the name of avoiding any potential competition, even though KRLA was very much an "Eastside Sound" oldies station as opposed to K-Earth, which was a general oldies station, CBS ended the oldies format on KRLA turning 1110 AM into a talk station. While some people were out of a job, as is the nature of broadcasting, Huggy Boy was, to the genuine surprise to many in the industry, given a nightly spot on 101.1 FM, which is a very coveted position in L.A. radio.

Dick blew through most of the major radio stations in the L.A. area finishing with this gig here on K-Earth 101 on December 4, 1998. [ LISTEN ] (15:11)

While it was a very generous gesture on CBS' and KRTH's part, The Huggy Boy Show on K-Earth was not quite the same, to say the least. In 1998, as it is now, K-Earth had a very highly restrictive oldies playlist, and Huggy Boy was only able to play one tune from his unique oldies collection only once a hour. As listeners to the radio station at 101.1 FM know, K-Earth is a very tightly run on-air operation, which for Huggy Boy meant his sometimes fun rambling between the music, or during requests and dedications, was greatly limited.[5]

Hugg's influence was noted on Lighter Shade of Brown's record "Huggy Boy Show." and The Blasters’ classic "Border Radio" was inspired by Hugg’s dedication show on XPRS.

Hugg passed away on August 30, 2006 at the age of 78.

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Gary Gears

Gary Gears may have had one of the best voices of all. The "Big G" joined WLS in 1971 after a brief stop at WCFL. Gary started at the Big 89 doing the 1-5 am overnight shift. By 1972, Gary had moved to middays working 9 til 12 noon replacing Joel Sebastian. In 1973, Gary was replaced by J.J. Jeffrey.

Gary Gears spent time at the legendary KOIL in Omaha before joining and serving in the US Armed Services. Gary was heard on AFVN radio in Vietnam. After his time in the service, Gary went to KQV in Pittsburgh from Minneapolis St Paul.

After leaving Pittsburgh , Gary spent most of his career in Chicago at legendary stations WCFL, WLS and many others including WDAI, WIND, WJEZ, WJJD, WKQX, WMAQ and WRQX. He also spent time at CHUM in Toronto.

Another cool program from Gary while he was at WLS on January 21, 1970. [ LISTEN ] (30:37)

Gears spent much of his radio career in Chicago, and also came up to Toronto now and then to do the occasional weekend shift at CHUM. Also heard is newsman Jeff Hendrix, who spent 31 years at WLS, from 1968 to 1999.

Gary Gears, Fred Winston, and Kris Erik Stevens all worked in Pittsburgh at ABC owned and operated KQV before joining WLS.

The station is WLS the Rock of Chicago, the date is December 29, 1971, and the jock is Gary Gears putting in another honest day's work behind the mic. [ LISTEN ]

Gary's voice was heard on commercials all over the country in the 70's. Followers should remember his voice from the many spots he did for Sears Auto Centers. Many people may have even bought tires or a battery solely after hearing Gary.

Gary Gears was the station voice on many radio stations throughout the country. In addition to being a jock, Gears was a top commercial voice, appearing in spots for Sears Auto Centers, Tuna Helper, and Dial Soap. He also did the "Ho Ho Hos" on the Green Giant commercials. Gary did additional commercials for Montgomery Ward, Dial soap and Cheer laundry detergent, and he was often hired to play the ``voice of God.``

Here is Gary and Peter Ray with the news on CHUM, December 16, 1973. [ LISTEN ] (31:10) and again from WIND in Chicago on June 1, 1974. [ LISTEN ] (9:24)

And more airchecks with Gary working the turntable...

WIND, Chicago. July 24, 1974. | CHUM, Toronto, Canada. 1973. | 1968 AFVN part 1. | 1968 AFVN part 2. | WCFL 2 - 6 pm. Early 70's. | WLS, Chicago. Early 70's. | WIND, Chicago. 7 - 10 pm. "Off air" recording. | Out Takes from the LOOP.

Gears was great at giving energetic song intros, outros, and commercial live reads. Gears was a fixture on Chicago radio in the 1970s, working as a DJ at numerous stations. He was a Chicago favorite.

Gary passed away suddenly of a heart attack on February 17, 1991. He was 46.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Rock Radio Scrapbook, Libsyn.

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Ron Riley

Ron Riley was a part of the legendary WLS lineup in the 1960s. He also worked in Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Baltimore, but considers his time at WLS the pinnacle of his radio career.

Riley always kew what he wanted to do. A child of the ‘40s, there wasn’t any Rock & Roll music, so he grew up appreciating all types of music – big band, mostly. When not selling insurance, his dad’s greatest fun was playing sax and clarinet with local dance bands on weekends. There was always music in the house.

While attending high school in northeastern Illinois, Ron swung his life plan into action when WKRS-Waukegan had a contest to get a student reporter to do high school news. Ron won that contest, and got to do it once a week.

During a stint at the University of Wisconsin Ron snagged a shift at the WHA campus station, playing classical music. He arrived there with his high voice, and mispronounced all of the classical names. All the professors who loved classical music called the station and told them how awful he was!

Another one of Ron's early radio jobs was at WLBK, in DeKalb, Illinois. It was March of 1954, and based on $1.00 an hour for 40 hours a week, along with up to 16 hours of overtime, Ron could rake in a cool $277.33 per month.

WLBK tried to please all the people all the time, but no Rock & Roll. The station did everything, but not much in music. The commodities reports at noon, corn report, and a polka show at night. Adding insult to injury, Ron migrated back home to work for WKRS/Waukegan, where he was known as “Polka Ron” for their afternoon show.

With Nancy Sinatra 1967.

Dave Crosby & Jim McGuinn of the Byrds

The Blues Magoos

The Hollies

Chad & Jeremy

His heroes at the time were from WOKY in Milwaukee. They had these great guys on the air before WLS played music, and Ron tried to sound like them. One day he was doing the polka show and reading birthdays on the air, and the engineer said there was a guy on the phone that wanted to offer him a job. Ron thought it was a joke, so he told him to "take a number". The guy was Jerry Bartell from Bartell Broadcasting. They owned a bunch of stations, and this wasn't a joke. He wanted Ron to come to work for WAPL at Appleton.

And that was his first real morning show/disc jockey job. They had different names for everyone on the air, and the sales manager had just come back from a fishing trip on Lake Riley and he gave Ron the name Smiley Riley. Riley found Appleton okay, but the whole time he was there, he wanted to go to Milwaukee. Ron was so excited when they finally offered him a stint as the all-night guy there. They paid him $90!

Riley was doing the all night show in Milwaukee, but he was in the Reserves and they called him up for active duty. He spent the next two years in the Navy. When he came back from the service, he landed a job at KXOK in St. Louis. It was a rock station, and those stations were on the move at the time. But shortly after he started KXOK hired a new program director, and Ron was fired in three months.

Ron went to WJJD in Chicago on a part time basis. They were doing country music at the time. According to Riley this is what happened next. “I knew Gene Taylor at WLS, and so I called him to ask about a job. He said he didn’t have anything for me. I got a part time offer in Cleveland, but it wasn’t set to start for awhile, so I called Milwaukee, and they asked me if I could do a few weeks of afternoon drive, as a fill-in. Afternoon drive? Really? Sure. I was living in Lincolnshire at the time, so it was a no-brainer. I had no sooner set the phone down when Gene Taylor called again, and asked me to fill in on the all-night show on WLS!”

So Ron did both jobs for awhile. He would drive up to Milwaukee, do the afternoon show, drive back to Lincolnshire, sleep a few hours, and then go downtown and do the overnight show on WLS. Luckily, that only lasted a few weeks.

Here's Ron behind the WLS microphone on October 11, 1968. [ LISTEN ]

It's a cold snowy Tuesday night as this scoped aircheck finds Ron playing the hits. Classic commercials are included as Ron is living the life of Riley...

Ron at WLS on August 25-26, 1967.

September 1, 1967

Ron ended up going to Cleveland, and was enjoying his time there with a great team, and suddenly the Biondi thing at WLS blew up. He got blown out for getting into a fight about the number of commercials on his show. In no time, Clark Weber called to say that WLS management wanted to add some talent, and had already narrowed down the list to two people, and Ron was one of them.

WLS offered Ron the job soon after. He knew this was his big break. Out of the gate Art Roberts and Ron were tuned into the younger demos at night. The people that ran the station had the insight to leave them alone and let them do what they thought was right.

They developed their own characters within the format. If they saw a trend, they jumped on it, and management would back them. The Beatles came on the scene, and the station got the record company to back them.

WLS got to be the station at their concert at Comiskey Park. They took a silver dollar survey, drew long hair on them, and Riley became “Ringo Ron.”

The competition between WLS and cross town rival WCFL was fierce, and the boys at WLS weren’t used to sharing the audience. The kids started switching back and forth between the stations, and that changed what it was like behind the scenes at WLS.

A very memorable thing from Riley's time at WLS was his connection to the show “Batman.” He gave updates on the air to people listening on the radio. The PR department came up with The Batman Club, and got a Batman suit from Hollywood, and the station did a promo at Channel 7. They made up a fan club card, buttons, and bumper stickers - and it was way bigger than anyone thought it would be. Someone sent Ron a picture of a tank in Vietnam with his bumper sticker on it. When the club started, about 5000 stickers were printed up, but it ended up 100,000!

Ron even got a cameo on the show. The title of the episode was called “Ice Spy.” He flew out to Hollywood with his brother, where he found he had his own trailer, a costume, and seven words in the script. He was playing an usher in an ice rink, where he spoke his line...“Mr. Wayne you have a phone call.”

With Clark Weber
at WLS

At WLS there was always the fear that the station would lose money to WCFL, and that’s why a new program director was brought in. WLS did the format change, and went to this fake Drake format, and that wasn’t WLS. We weren’t quite as innovative anymore after that.

Ron couldn’t change. He tried, but he didn’t like it. And eventually they found a reason to let him go.

Ron left WLS in 1969. After a short stay at WCFL, he moved to Baltimore to program WCAO-AM and WXYV-FM. In Baltimore, Ron got into TV hosting "Bowling for Dollars", as he exited radio and became a full time TV weatherman. Ron also worked in the tourism business for the city of Baltimore as well as the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Ron now does the morning weather at NewsChannel 8 in Washington DC, where he has been since 1994.

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George Michael

Michael was born George Michael Gimpel in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 24, 1939, the son of Margaret and Earl Herman Gimpel. He grew up near Tower Grove Park in the city's south side, and graduated from St. Louis University High School.

While attending Saint Louis University, he worked as a Midwest promoter for several record labels such as Scepter and Motown. It was also during this time when he made his radio broadcasting debut on a one-hour Sunday night show at midnight on WIL, which invited individual SLU students to be the hosts every week. He earned a full-time job as a disc jockey at the station after he was judged to be the best of the group.

His first radio appointment outside of his hometown was in 1962 at WRIT in Milwaukee, where he worked the 6-to-10 pm shift until he was reassigned to 5-to-9 morning drive time in early 1964. His next stop was at KBTR in Denver later in 1964, working under the name "King" George Michael for the first time. He earned the nickname due to his success in "ruling" evening radio.

George Michael following Johnny Donovan on George's first WABC show from Monday night, September 9, 1974. [ LISTEN ] (12:53)

George Michael was Bruce Morrow's replacement for the nighttime "teen shift". George was a star at WFIL in Philadelphia before he agreed (somewhat reluctantly) to come to WABC. He had worked with Ron Lundy and Dan Ingram as a record promoter at WIL in St. Louis

Boss 30 July 5, 1971

He became one of the original Boss Jocks at WFIL in Philadelphia when its new Top 40 rock and roll format debuted in September, 1966. He served as music director and evening deejay for the next eight years. WFIL, which was known as "Famous 56" after the transition, ended WIBG's listener ratings dominance and became the city's most popular station by the summer of 1967.

Michael was the first Philadelphia rock and roll radio personality to read the scores of local high school football and basketball games on the air. He also helped to start the career of Howard Eskin by hiring him to be his engineer. Decades later, Eskin would be a contributor to The George Michael Sports Machine.

Michael, noted for his energetic style, was hired by WABC in New York City; his first on-air stint there was on the evening of September 9, 1974. Michael now not only was entering the nation's largest media market; he also succeeded "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, who had jumped to WNBC.

NYC blackout July 13, 1977.

George was on-the-air at WABC on October 21, 1976. [ LISTEN ]

Even though he was reunited with Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy (colleagues from his WIL days in St. Louis), Michael's time at WABC, which ended on November 17, 1979, was mostly frustrating because he was no longer a music director who had any influence on a playlist which was much shorter than his more familiar lists. One of the highlights during his time at the station occurred when he anchored its coverage of the New York City blackout of 1977 after the music format was temporarily suspended for the night.

Engineer's view working with George.

His first experience in sports broadcasting also came in 1974 when he was a television announcer for the Baltimore Orioles on WJZ-TV. He declined an offer to work for the ballclub full-time in order to accept the WABC position.

As part of the deal to bring him to New York, Michael also worked for WABC-TV as the weekend sports anchor and a color commentator on New York Islanders telecasts for several seasons, paired mainly with Tim Ryan. He served as an occasional substitute on ABC American Contemporary Network's Speaking of Sports show whenever Howard Cosell, the primary commentator, was on vacation or assignment.

George is playing records at WABC on February 28, 1977. [ LISTEN ] (10:12)

These are the pre-disco days of the 1970s. Sure, a few stiffs are sneaking in, like The Sylvers – Hotline, but this is real Top 40 variety, with a generous dose of Jam jingles, Dan Ingram voiced imaging, and that rockin' reverb.

Sports Machine

For most fans, though, he was best known as the anchor of the “George Michael Sports Machine.” The early days of that Sunday night program, which aired locally on WNBC-TV from 1984-2007, could be likened to today’s version of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” before that cable program had access to the multitude of video highlights we see today. Michael would set up a piece, and then reach over and push a fake start button for his video machine (the actual directing was taking place in the control room). The “Sports Machine” was part of his duties as the sports anchor at Washington’s WRC-TV.

As the primary sports anchor at WRC-TV from 1980 to 2007, George was easily one of the most popular media personalities in the Washington area. He devoted extensive coverage to and was considered a significant influence in the popularity of NASCAR, broadcasting interviews with famous drivers such as Dale Earnhardt well before that sport became immensely popular.

An avid equestrian, Michael also broadcast segments on bull riding and rodeo. He was the play-by-play announcer for most of the Professional Bull Riders's Built Ford Tough Series NBC telecasts during the 2003 and 2004 seasons, including the final day of the PBR World Finals each year. Michael was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame in 2006 for his coverage of the matchups between rider Lane Frost and the undefeated bull Red Rock called the Challenge of the Champions.

WRC/NBC

In November 2005, Michael was seriously injured in a horseback riding accident. He broke several ribs and injured his wrists during the mishap at his Comus farm in upper Montgomery County, Maryland. He resumed his duties in December 2005.

George left his role as WRC-TV's daily sports anchor on March 1, 2007, following a dispute with WRC-TV over layoffs of his staff imposed company-wide by NBC Universal. The George Michael Sports Machine was aired for the final time on March 25, 2007.

First diagnosed with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2007, Michael died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in The Palisades neighborhood of Washington, D.C. on December 24, 2009. He was 70 years old.

WHERE DID GEORGE WORK? Here is the list: KICN, WRIT, WFIL, KLIF, WFIL, WABC, and WRC.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Musc Radio 77, California Aircheck.

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