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Irv Schwartz
- Thread starter DXDXDX
- Start date
Just found it:
SCHWARTZ Irving age 87, passed away April 30, 2010, beloved husband of the late Rhoda Schwartz, devoted father of Rick (Tamar) Schwartz of Louisville, KY., loving grandfather of Eric, Natalie and Jessie Schwartz, dear brother of the late Arthur Schwartz and brother-in-law of Muriel Schwartz of Toronto, Canada. Graveside services Monday, May 3 at 1:00PM at United Jewish Cemetery
This doesn't mention anything about him starting and owning WCLU.
I know Irv was a colorful character, but he was the guy that gave me my first job at age 16, and I'll always be grateful to him for that.
SCHWARTZ Irving age 87, passed away April 30, 2010, beloved husband of the late Rhoda Schwartz, devoted father of Rick (Tamar) Schwartz of Louisville, KY., loving grandfather of Eric, Natalie and Jessie Schwartz, dear brother of the late Arthur Schwartz and brother-in-law of Muriel Schwartz of Toronto, Canada. Graveside services Monday, May 3 at 1:00PM at United Jewish Cemetery
This doesn't mention anything about him starting and owning WCLU.
I know Irv was a colorful character, but he was the guy that gave me my first job at age 16, and I'll always be grateful to him for that.
I worked for him in 1972..."Colorful" is a good description. He was a tightwad...refused to repair equipment and paid me $2 an hour but I enjoyed playing the country hits on Big Clu Country. He has the distinction of being one of only 2 people who have ever "fired" me. He saw me slam his falling apart cart machine with my fist when it failed to start. Actually, he didn't fire me...he had Judge Roy Wakely do the dirty work. RIP Irv...
I never worked for him but I admired his tenacity.
He had a turntable that someone left in gear for way tooooooo long and it had a flat spot in it. You could always tell when they were playing a record on it because you could hear the "thump,thump, thump," in the record.
There are, to this day, some songs that don't sound right without the thumps. For that, and for the training that no longer exists, that gave us so many talented people like Janeen Coyle and Leah Burns,
RIP Irv Schwartz.
He had a turntable that someone left in gear for way tooooooo long and it had a flat spot in it. You could always tell when they were playing a record on it because you could hear the "thump,thump, thump," in the record.
There are, to this day, some songs that don't sound right without the thumps. For that, and for the training that no longer exists, that gave us so many talented people like Janeen Coyle and Leah Burns,
RIP Irv Schwartz.
I saw Irv in person just once - at a forum featuring many local radio station owners. Too bad that nothing was written in the paper when he passed away about owning the radio station. Does anyone know what the call-letters W-C-L-U stood for? I don't.
I did promise more about Irv and WCLU so let me get started. First, the disclaimer...Irv had his share of detractors but I was not one of them. Many had come and gone thru his doors, many left on bad terms and often times of their own making. I've thought alot about Irv since I left and I can tell you this, I too left on bad terms, entirely of my making. At first, there was no problem. At the end, it was me who allowed his personal life to destroy his professional life and thru it all, Irv stood by and watched but treated me with respect and not once allowed what must have been his personal hatred for the kind of life I was leading to lower his dealings with me. In the end, it was me who came to the realization what my "performance" was doing to the station and I voluntarily left. Two times Irv spoke powerful words to me...I remember them well..."I am getting very disappointed in you" and "I can't trust you". Wow. Talk about getting hit by a ton of bricks. Irv was right on both accounts. I only wish I could have later gone back and apologized to him for what my job performance amounted to. Irv, those of us here don't quite fully understand this death thing. But if by chance you can read this, thank you for your patience, your understanding and your professionalism. You were great. I was an ass.
Irv Schwartz
He told me his father owned a chain of butcher shops in Canada. He also said he and Rhoda spent the first year of their married life traveling thru the USA! He was a great hockey fan and loved baseball too. Many of you may know he was GM of KUDL in Kansas City and managed some heavyweight talents such as Ted Adkins and others. Irv also formed Midwest Time Sales and was one of the early pioneers of computerized playlist developement. (more to come)
Irv Schwartz
He told me his father owned a chain of butcher shops in Canada. He also said he and Rhoda spent the first year of their married life traveling thru the USA! He was a great hockey fan and loved baseball too. Many of you may know he was GM of KUDL in Kansas City and managed some heavyweight talents such as Ted Adkins and others. Irv also formed Midwest Time Sales and was one of the early pioneers of computerized playlist developement. (more to come)
Irv Schwartz (Part 2)...I think he called that computer system "Centronics". Irv told me WCLU took the country market by storm in the 60's and many of the C/W stars of the day would stop in regularly or call. Additionally, some heavy weight talents worked their including Roy Wakely, Jack Reno, Dave Lee and maybe even Rich King. Even though I came in long after Roy had left, we still had listeners calling for him! By that time I felt the station's better days were behind it but it was a job and a fairly easy one at that. Yes, the equipment was old but I had previously worked under some of the more "thrifty" owners in the business, so this was nothing new to me. Like many non-technical owners, Irv felt he had more engineering knowledge than he actually did. We spent many times discussing his concern about minor line voltage fluctuations on the transmitter. He simply could not understand that was normal and did not make any difference. The PD when I got there was Ron Farris, from Detroit by way of Arizona. Ron did not understand "thrifty" radio and left abruptly but not until a profanity laced, religious insult filled tirade. Thru it all, Irv didn't raise his voice, use similar profanity or obscenities and handled the matter in an exemplary fashion. Irv had more than his fair share of "characters" who walked thru the doors. When I got there they had a guy from Erie, Pa named Ted Branch on the air, who lasted about a month. A few years later Branch made national headlines by defecting to the USSR! There were numerous drunks and johnny-come-lately sales people. One of those drunks stole my wrist watch from my desk. We had a receptionist who was head over heels for a PD who was old enough to be her grandfather. Another guy went off the deep end and was arrested and of course, hospitalized for showing up at a gas station naked. Still another guy failed to show for his shift...(more)
Irv Schwartz (Part 3)...so Irv went to the jock's house to find him at the kitchen table drunk out of his mind with spaghetti in his hair. I've heard the story about Rick before but I cannot verify its truth. My contacts with him were always pleasant but I felt he would rather be playing rock music instead of country! He was a good guy and very easy to work with. As you may know, he is an attorney now concentrating his practice in the area of helping people with their financial problems. I think his website is schwartzbankruptcy.com. Somehow Rick left me with the impression of wanting to choose a more humanitarian aspect of the law as opposed to the more negative aspects of criminal defense.
MORE LATER!
MORE LATER!
Irv Schwartz (Part 4) There were some funny stories at WCLU. One I remember was we had a guy on the air who went by the name Jerry Dale, an ex-car salesman. One evening he called me out of breath, excited beyond belief saying, "You better get down here! A train jumped the tracks and hit the building! Rain is coming in thru the hole! It knocked out the electricity too." I asked him to go back into the transmitter room and give me a description of the damage, fearing the worse. He declined and said it was too dangerous. "You better get here and see this." So when I arrived the rain had slowed down. What had happened was a room air conditioner which was in a window had fallen out backwards taking the window glass with it! He assumed the worse because there was a train track along the property line! Anybody else have any better stories???
In conclusion let me say Irv made a positive impression on me. In my time there I do not recall him using any profanity and I felt I was talking with a true professional. Irv was a sober man and of even greater value, there was not one hint of immorality about him. I will always remember Irv in those terms. He was a GOOD MAN!
Rick, you are so blessed to have a father of his quality!
SHALOM!
In conclusion let me say Irv made a positive impression on me. In my time there I do not recall him using any profanity and I felt I was talking with a true professional. Irv was a sober man and of even greater value, there was not one hint of immorality about him. I will always remember Irv in those terms. He was a GOOD MAN!
Rick, you are so blessed to have a father of his quality!
SHALOM!
But...Rich King's voice was heard in the building daily...part of my job duties were to listen to WKRC's traffic reports during the Rich King show, re-type them & read them on WCLU. And yes, WCLU did take the country market by storm in the 1960's...double digit ratings I believe. That all ended in April 1969 when 1230 WUBE dropped Top 40 and went "CountryPolitan" 24/7 (WCLU was 6AM-Sunset at the time) with an air staff called The Magnificent Seven. And speaking of Country Stars of the day who passed through there, for some reason I thought that Jimmy Logsdon had some country records out (he was on the air there at the same time I was in 1972), but I see no record of him having charted since 1944. Anyone else remember the singing jingle with the request line number? 2-6-1-85-85?Ken Tucky said:
Are you sure you weren't thinking of Joe Lomas, the former WKRC All-nighter? He worked at The CLU. So did Janeen Coyle, Ernie "Fat Man" Brown, and Rockin' Ron Schumacher.
I remember that PTT button on the phone. We had it when I was there from '85 to '87 when Irv sold out to Plessinger. I remember one day I had to record Turfway race results while the Miami football game was on. Problem was, we only had ONE line that was dedicated for recording, and it was on the air with the Miami game. I had Turfway call Rhoda's number at the front desk, do a suction cup pickup into a cassette deck, then out of the cassette deck headphone jack into the patch bay to production. Talk about the long way around. Unfortunately my sister was listening that day and heard me yelling, "He's not there! Where is he?" I don't know how that could have even gotten on the air, since it was not the line that was on the air. Who knows how that place was wired.
I have those old Big CLU jingles. When Plessinger was killing time between Gospel and Spanish back in '06, he was playing classic country and calling them Big CLU Classics. I edited the jingles to remove the call letters, but they still sung "Big CLU Country." He loved them. He used them for a short ime until the ill-fated sale to Davidson and the Spanish format.
Our request line number during the "Cincinnati's Hit Playin' AM" days in '85, '86, and '87 was AM1-1320.
I remember that PTT button on the phone. We had it when I was there from '85 to '87 when Irv sold out to Plessinger. I remember one day I had to record Turfway race results while the Miami football game was on. Problem was, we only had ONE line that was dedicated for recording, and it was on the air with the Miami game. I had Turfway call Rhoda's number at the front desk, do a suction cup pickup into a cassette deck, then out of the cassette deck headphone jack into the patch bay to production. Talk about the long way around. Unfortunately my sister was listening that day and heard me yelling, "He's not there! Where is he?" I don't know how that could have even gotten on the air, since it was not the line that was on the air. Who knows how that place was wired.
I have those old Big CLU jingles. When Plessinger was killing time between Gospel and Spanish back in '06, he was playing classic country and calling them Big CLU Classics. I edited the jingles to remove the call letters, but they still sung "Big CLU Country." He loved them. He used them for a short ime until the ill-fated sale to Davidson and the Spanish format.
Our request line number during the "Cincinnati's Hit Playin' AM" days in '85, '86, and '87 was AM1-1320.
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