Herb Oscar Anderson

Herb with Carole Bennett in 1957

Herbert Oscar Anderson was born on May 30, 1928, in South Beloit, Illinois. His mother, the former Frieda Munson, a maid who was born in Sweden, placed Herb and her four other children in the Odd Fellows orphanage in Lincoln, Illinois, after the deaths of two husbands left her too poor to raise them. He later reunited with her.

He eventually moved to Wisconsin, where he worked as a newspaper reporter. After a three-year stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Anderson’s radio career began in Janesville, Wisconsin, and continued in Illinois, Florida and Iowa. He found success in the mid-1950s at WDGY to host a Top 40 program in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was known as 235 pounds of genial joviality.

He was immediately popular with listeners, as evidenced by the success of his “Oscar Socks” radio stunt, in which he started a fad among high school girls by getting them to wear a different knee-high sock on each leg.

He was soon offered jobs at stations in Chicago and then New York, where he moved in 1957. He first hosted a morning radio show on WABC, known for its “77/WABC” jingle, and a variety show on the ABC Radio Network. He was hired by WMCA in 1958 and remained there for two years before returning to WABC, where between 1960-1968 he referred to himself as the Morning Mayor Of New York.

January 5, 1963

Anderson had a mandate: to appeal to adults whose buying power was extremely critical to advertisers, much more than to the teenagers who were already tuning in.

1962

Each morning, his booming, melodic voice crooned his lyrics to his signature song, “Hello Again”. He recorded that song, as he did a few others, and wrote lyrics to instrumentals by Nelson Riddle and Bert Kaempfert.

Anderson’s old-fashioned approach set him apart from other D.J.’s at the station, like the exuberant Cousin Brucie Morrow, who courted teenagers. In effect, Anderson had said, there were two WABCs - one in the morning, and one for the rest of the day.

December 1960

Here is a Herb Oscar Anderson promo including part of his "Hello Again" theme on July 13, 1961. [ LISTEN ] (7:22)

Anderson was a throwback in a changing music scene, a fan of the big band sound, not necessarily the rock ’n’ roll he was playing on a 50,000-watt station that reached well beyond the city limits. Unhappy with how musical tastes were changing, Anderson left WABC in 1969.

A key reason for his departure was because station owner ABC broke its promise to let Anderson host his own talk show. Anderson followed his WABC gig as a DJ at AM radio stations WOR and WHN in the ’70s. In recent years, he hosted a Sunday night radio show in Vero Beach, Florida, near his home on Hutchinson Island.

Herb died on January 29, 2017 in Bennington, Vermont, near Hoosick Falls, N.Y., where he had a home. He was 88.

WHERE DID HERB WORK? Here is the list: KSTP, WDGY, WMCA, WMGM, WABC, WHN, WOR, KLKI, KWLE, and WOSN-FM.

Some materials used on this page were originally published on the following: Music Radio 77