In show business, you get what you pay for. You can fire the unpaid volunteer for making silly mistakes. But you're very likely to wind up with another volunteer who makes equally, if not more egregious mistakes.
Thank you for replying ! One of the very first female dj's I ever heard, worked for a Froggy station, and they made her take the diminutive name "Tadpole". ( Guess she planned on spending her entire career there; because it wasn't very likely that she would get a job anyplace else using "Tadpole" as a stage name.)
I once worked with a jock who was pulling overnights on a CHR station and part time/weekends on a country station in an adjacent market in the days before VT. He used different names at those stations and there was little likelihood that many listeners would've caught on for various reasons..But he always had a paper pinned to the wall in front of him with the calls and his name in large, bold letters, lest he forget which station he working at and make a mistake.
As the aforementioned Jack Packard, I thought my brand new career in radio was ending with that faux pas. All of the Shadow Traffic reporters at the time were on multiple stations. WABC was the only one where I used a radio name. Dan came up with the name and WABC was the only place I used it, although many years later I was once introduced on WINS as Jack Packard (as well as Bernie Madoff).
Indeed, WASPy-sounding names were (are?) seemingly popular. Although Cousin Brucie also calls himself Bruce Morrow, his birth surname is Meyerowitz. One of Bruce's competitors was WMCA's B. Mitchel Reed, who was born Burton Mitchel Goldberg. Classical music fans undoubtedly recognize the name Michael Tilson Thomas. While it sounds rather WASPy, the cognomen is a truncation of Thomashefsky.
I remember Mitch Reed from Top 40 rocker KFWB Los Angeles, and then from an FM progressive rock station, KMET 94.7 in the 1970's. He did a great job; and sadly, he passed away quite young -- about age 57 or age 58. R.I.P.
Moe Horowitz, Jerome Horowitz, Larry Feinberg -- you knew them better as Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine, the Three Stooges. In the early part of the 20th century, Jews were still discriminated against and steered away from certain professions. The performing arts were open to them, though, but a trade-off needed to be made to ensure that Americans as a whole would pay money to see and hear Jewish performers. Of course, plenty of Christian performers changed their names too, because the ones they brought to Hollywood with them were too plain, weak or ugly. Marion Morrison became John Wayne. Frances Gumm became Judy Garland.
And singer Frank Ocean is Christopher Francis Ocean. Apparently, it's a more common actual name than you'd think. Billy Ocean, however, is Leslie Charles.
The original Ocean's 11 came out in 1960 with Frank Sinatra playing the fictional Danny Ocean.
And later, Dr. Don Rose took the joke even further, with Bobby Ocean in studio:
Thank you - this is very interesting information. If people in show business want to pick one stage name at the beginning of their career and stick with it, then that's fine. For example, if drummer Richard Starkey as teen chooses to work under the name of Ringo Starr, and he still has that name at age 82, then no problem. Life long rock fans will always know who he is.
Exactly right. Growing up in L.A. as a listener of rock radio, I could identify at least 25-30 different air talents by voice alone.( probably more). My sibling and I played a game where we would record air checks on a little cassette recorder, then play them back and ask each other to guess the voice. We almost always guessed correctly - and that included newscasters, sportscasters, and weathermen on all L.A. rock stations. ( Yes, it's stupid game for bored teens). But station managers, who are in the business of only producing revenue for the bottom line and have no idea of the relationship between listeners and air talent, are clueless about this. And often the air talent is equally clueless.
Daryl, I think, though, that we're largely talking about a practice that was common in the 60s and 70s, but today is very rare.
But you still know three different people who use the name Johnny Dark. And even though Scott Shannon registered his name with the union, he can still go to another station and change his name to something else if he wishes. It just means that no one else can use the "Scott Shannon" moniker.
