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Chuck Leonard Vs. Walt Love
- Thread starter MasterDJ
- Start date
Chuck Leonard had been doing R&B until 1965, when he was hired at WABC. He was there until 1979.
Walt "Baby" Love joined WOR-FM in 1970. It's not clear (to me) where he had been prior to that. It's possible he'd been doing Top 40 in a different market. Even at OR-FM, it wasn't a true Top 40 until a few years later, after they'd transitioned to 99X (WXLO).
Walt "Baby" Love joined WOR-FM in 1970. It's not clear (to me) where he had been prior to that. It's possible he'd been doing Top 40 in a different market. Even at OR-FM, it wasn't a true Top 40 until a few years later, after they'd transitioned to 99X (WXLO).
Legendary radio personality Scott Muni was the evening host on WABC in the early 1960s, 7 to 10:30 p.m. He was followed by another DJ who is still doing Saturday evenings on WABC to this day, Bruce Morrow. Dan Ingram was the very popular afternoon DJ on the station.
In 1965, Muni had become disenchanted with the Top 40 format. Reports are, he couldn't stand having to play Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong several times per shift, even though it was the #1 song of the year on WABC. So he quit, eventually having a big career in FM Rock radio, most of it as program director and PM drive host at 102.7 WNEW-FM.
Cousin Brucie moved down from the 10:30 to midnight shift to replace Muni in evenings. And Dan Ingram lobbied WABC program director Rick Sklar to hire Leonard for the opening at 10:30. Ingram didn't know him personally but heard him DJing on 1600 WWRL, one of NYC's two R&B stations. In the 1960s, most DJ staffs were still all-white and all-male. Sklar gave a listen to Leonard and was also impressed with his style.
Sklar invited him to join WABC where he was heard doing weeknights 10:30 to midnight and Sunday mornings. He'd sometimes do the early Monday 4 to 6 a.m. shift too. I got to know Chuck a bit over the years. He was a lector and on the parish council at my church, St. Paul The Apostle, next to Lincoln Center.
I admit, as a kid listening to WABC, I did not know Leonard was black. I was taken aback one year when I got the WABC Top 100 of The Year flyer and saw the DJ photos.
People sometimes wonder if Leonard's race was why his shift was only 90 minutes long, while most DJs worked 4 hours. But Cousin Brucie, who is white, also had a 90 min. shift before moving to evenings. The word is, according to union regulations, if your shift goes from one day into another, you got paid more. So that late evening shift always ended at midnight. And the overnight guy always worked midnight to 6 a.m.
In 1965, Muni had become disenchanted with the Top 40 format. Reports are, he couldn't stand having to play Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong several times per shift, even though it was the #1 song of the year on WABC. So he quit, eventually having a big career in FM Rock radio, most of it as program director and PM drive host at 102.7 WNEW-FM.
Cousin Brucie moved down from the 10:30 to midnight shift to replace Muni in evenings. And Dan Ingram lobbied WABC program director Rick Sklar to hire Leonard for the opening at 10:30. Ingram didn't know him personally but heard him DJing on 1600 WWRL, one of NYC's two R&B stations. In the 1960s, most DJ staffs were still all-white and all-male. Sklar gave a listen to Leonard and was also impressed with his style.
Sklar invited him to join WABC where he was heard doing weeknights 10:30 to midnight and Sunday mornings. He'd sometimes do the early Monday 4 to 6 a.m. shift too. I got to know Chuck a bit over the years. He was a lector and on the parish council at my church, St. Paul The Apostle, next to Lincoln Center.
I admit, as a kid listening to WABC, I did not know Leonard was black. I was taken aback one year when I got the WABC Top 100 of The Year flyer and saw the DJ photos.
People sometimes wonder if Leonard's race was why his shift was only 90 minutes long, while most DJs worked 4 hours. But Cousin Brucie, who is white, also had a 90 min. shift before moving to evenings. The word is, according to union regulations, if your shift goes from one day into another, you got paid more. So that late evening shift always ended at midnight. And the overnight guy always worked midnight to 6 a.m.
Now that was interesting. It was something I wondered about for a long time and now I know. WABC did have some wierd DJ shifts. There was the Monday morning one you mentioned and I think there was a short very early Sunday morning one too.
I really liked Chuck Leonard a lot. Because the DJs programmed their own music back in the day, you could always count on Chuck's show to be a little more soulful than the others. It was subtle but it was there. It made WABC special in that the jocks were allowed to shine in their unique way.
You'll recall he was also the host of "Sneak Preview," a 5 or so minute syndicated program that introduced new songs and was heard on the American Contemporary Radio Network. As I remember it, I think that was aired during the 8 PM hour on Cousin Brucie's Show.
It wasn't until many years later that I learned Chuck Leonard was born and raised in Chicago. He played a fair share of Spanky & Our Gang songs too. Of course, the group was from Chicago. Perhaps back in the day, those individual favorites that were in the library aired more than normally. Midday host, Ron Lundy, being from the South, would dust off those country crossover songs on occasion. While there was a lot of strict formatting, those selections, especially in the gold category kept things interesting.
As time moved along, apparently that Union rule didn't matter as much as Chuck did eventually have a 10-1 AM shift in the post Cousin Brucie days when George Michael was on board. I also believe Bob Cruz who sounded very much like Dan Ingram started out at 1 AM.
I think "Sneak Preview" also aired on WLS, I.m thinking both stations aired it at 8:25pm. None of those shoes seem to have ever showed up on aircheck sites that I know of. I have heard airchecks of Chuck Leonard with a separate WABC-FM show.
Walt was at CKLW for a short time, handling 10pm-1am, just before the forced sale from RKO. Since OR-FM and 99X, he was in other markets, eventually Radio and Records' Urban editor. He became a minister and launched syndicated Gospel shows.
Here's an interview of Walt with Pat Holiday.
There was no all-night show on Sunday nights. From 9 or 10 p.m. Sunday until 2 a.m. Monday, the station ran public service shows. From 2 to 4 a.m. early Monday, there was transmitter maintenance. (Yes, you had to take the station partially off the air for couple of hours weekly in those days to do maintenance.) Then from 4 to 6 a.m. Monday, someone had to come in and do a two-hour shift before the arrival of morning hosts Herb Oscar Anderson or Harry Harrison. That someone was usually the utility DJ but sometimes it was Chuck Leonard.
The rule that required extra pay for shifts that extend from one day to the next eventually was ended by management and the union. So that's when Leonard began working from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. But it wasn't long after that, the November 1979 Massacre occurred. Harry Harrison, George Michael and Chuck Leonard were all fired. Two weekenders had already left that year as well..
I have seen on other radio boards on Facebook people posting flyers/pamphlets of long ago DJ shifts and always thought it odd that they'd list "Joe Curmudgeon" working from 10 am to noon and again from 6 pm to 8 pm. The rest of the DJs also had those odd split shifts like that. Anybody know the reasoning behind that or was it just a quirk of bygone radio practices ? Personally I would have found it annoying as hell.
Sometimes the "second shift" was recorded.
Well, he didn’t exactly quit. He confronted PD Rick Sklar and demanded that Hello Dolly be removed from his show. That led to Muni’s firing. It’s all in Sklar’s book.
I was growing up in Baltimore in 1965, and Chuck Leonard was the midday jock on WEBB, an R&B station. When I first heard him on WABC, I thought he was a different person due to WABC’s processing.
yeah, that makes sense. Just thinking that as far as the 50s/early 60s go that recording the show would probably be noticeable due to the limitations of tape quality at that time. But then again, if it was on AM so people may not have not noticed. I would just be irked that for two hours, I'd just be getting warmed up and then WHAM! you're out of there.
The Hello Dolly story is something Scott made up and Sklar repeated. Scott if I recall correctly was let go at the beginning of 1965 long after Hello Dolly's heavy rotation period. Incidentally, as Louie Armstrong's status ascended to jazz icon the story changed, by the 90's Scott left because Rag Doll wasn't added to the playlist fast enough.
The real reason Scott was let go was pretty obvious, sitting right behind Scott in the line-up was a very ambitious 29 year old "Cousin" Bruce Morrow. He had worked with Sklar before, a tireless self promoter can there be any doubt he was looking for the more high profile position Scott was occupying and campaigning behind the scenes for it. Bruce who was on 10pm-midnight moved into the shift adding an extra hour, with the new show running from 7:20-11pm. Bruce was a perfect fit for the slot, high energy, 5 years younger than Scott, definitely more in line with the sound and style of the station that Sklar was looking for at that time.
The real reason Scott was let go was pretty obvious, sitting right behind Scott in the line-up was a very ambitious 29 year old "Cousin" Bruce Morrow. He had worked with Sklar before, a tireless self promoter can there be any doubt he was looking for the more high profile position Scott was occupying and campaigning behind the scenes for it. Bruce who was on 10pm-midnight moved into the shift adding an extra hour, with the new show running from 7:20-11pm. Bruce was a perfect fit for the slot, high energy, 5 years younger than Scott, definitely more in line with the sound and style of the station that Sklar was looking for at that time.
Fascinating. When stories are told over and over for a long time, it's hard to distinguish truth and reality from hype.
Over the years, Rick Sklar's "Rocking America" has come over a good deal of scrutiny on these boards by those who have impressive resumes and "being in the know." In another recent string discussing Rick Sklar, the $25,000 Button contest was revealed to have been a contest that was tried in a smaller market with much success. Perhaps the prize wasn't as large but nonetheless it wasn't original to Rick after all despite all the bragging about it in the book.
Outside of building a hugely successful radio station that was once billed "the most listened to station in the nation," I'm seeing lots of hyperbole and stretching the truth. In the end, Rick Sklar is still one of my all-time radio heroes but hype and ego have tarnished him a bit which for me leaves me feeling somewhat deflated.
Interestingly, "Cousin" Bruce Morrow also wrote a book. It's entitled "Cousin Brucie My Life in Rock 'n Roll Radio." There's a chapter in it called "Winning and Losing on WINS." There's a lengthy account of how Murray The K (Murray Kaufman) did all kinds of things to get Bruce's teen nighttime slot including seeing ad spots vanishing from Bruce's show.
What really happened from such a long time ago probably doesn't matter much now. But the reality is there's a lot of cutthroat aspects to radio. Much ego too. One statement that stood out was Bruce didn't think Murray Kaufaman was a very nice man.
Bruce's time at WINS gave him experience working in the #1 market where he got to meet Rick Sklar.Obviously, impressions were made. A radio success story if there ever was one. After gigs in Bermuda and Miami, all those right elements came together and he was off to WABC, a station and time that is still being discussed many, many decades later.
What a dumb rule
Oh, really? What is your source on this? I happen to believe Rick Sklar.
Yes, Scott was fired in 1965, and Hello Dolly peaked in 1964. But the saga dragged on after he first complained about the song.
From Rick Sklar's book:
"When Hello Dolly, the antithesis of rock & roll, clung to the number one playlist position week after week--a rank that meant it got played every sixty minutes--Scott Muni became furious. 'Get that song off my show,' he demanded. I refused."
Sklar continued:
"Eventually Scott Muni challenged the record store sales data secured by my telephone researcher. 'How do we know that she writes down what the store clerk is saying at the other end?,' he demanded. He threatened to go to the FCC and punch holes in the integrity of our system.
"I stayed calm. 'No problem,' I said. 'We'll tape the calls.' I immediately added a beep sound and a soundscriber tape system to the research phones.
"Next week he was back again, complaining to me in front of my staff about the short playlist. 'I haven't declared war on you yet,' he warned. 'But when I do--'
"'You have,' I said. 'The war is over.'
"Scott left. He was a very talented jock with a unique voice that got ratings, but the situation was untenable.
"It was a long time before Scott and I began talking again..."
If Rick made that up, he had quite an imagination, as it appears you do.
Tape quality then was more than adequate for AM. By the mid-60's most major AM stations had their music on cartridges, in fact.
The quality was good enough for FM, too. It's just that in most of the 60's there were few successful FMs
In fact, broadcast tape recording was developed in part by Ampex (using German WW II concepts) with the support of Bing Crosby who did not like having to do his show over again live for the West Coast. So he use tape to rebroadcast the show "just as it was for the East Coast" with no loss of quality... in the later 1940's.
Bing Crosby and Magnetic Recording
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What limitations are you talking about? How do you think music was recorded in the 50s? On reel to reel tape.
Muni wasn't the only Top 40 DJ who wasn't happy with the music being played at the time. Tom Donohue was a popular DJ at KYA in San Francisco. He was becoming aware of the exploding music community in that city in the mid-60s. By 1966, he had enough, left his job at KYA, went to a smaller FM station, KMPX, made a deal with the owner, and started playing some of the new bands that were becoming popular, such as the Jefferson Airplane. He was one of the early pioneers of progressive rock radio. Muni was another.
Absolutely. Both became pioneers in rock that wasn't being played on Top 40 radio. Donahue made a conscious decision to start what was a brand new type of radio at KMPX. Muni was between jobs (filling in on WMCA) when RKO launched WOR-FM as a Progressive Rock (or whatever it was called in those days) station. He joined WOR-FM along with Murray the K and Rosco. And when Bill Drake took over the reins at OR-FM, Muni "founded" WNEW-FM as a Rock station and over the years became a bigger legend than he already was.
The two ended up working for the same company when Donohue left KMPX for KSAN, owned by Metromedia, owner of WNEW.
When Muni left WOR-FM, he took Rosco with him. Rosco ended up leaving WNEW-FM over a similar music dispute.
Meanwhile Murray The K reinvented himself at WHFS in Washington DC.
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