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WOWO's Bob Sievers dead at 90

V

VideoPaul

Guest
Just got a call form a colleague from the old WOWO days, Bob Sievers died this morning at 90.

He joins Sam DeVincent and Jack Roberts as legends who now belong to the ages. Radio in the hereafter just got a hell of a lot better. May we all be one tenth of the broadcaster that Bob was.

--Paul
 
The "World Famous Fire-Escape"......is a little emptier

Thanks Bob,

Stuart Greenberg
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

My condolences go out to Bob's Family, and his many fans across "WOWO - LAND"
 
I was one of the thousands of WOWO listeners who started his day with Bob Sievers and Jay Gould on the "Little Red Barn" program. Bob was more than an announcer, he was a member of the family. On snowy mornings, kids all over northern Indiana hung on every word Bob said as he read the school closing announcements and many still remember his 5 AM call to area state police posts. It was homespun radio with a 50,000 watt touch...and a human touch. Thank you Bob, you were as much a part of my childhood as my parents.

Bob Siever's day didn't end when he left the WOWO studios. He was always in demand as a speaker and his "good old days in radio" stories are legendary. Bob also shared his advice and talents with youth who had a desire to make radio their career. Bob's voice still graces WOWO with station IDs and occasional commercials.

A super radio guy like Bob Sievers comes along only once in a lifetime. I'm glad he was so much a part of my life growing up. He wasn't just a voice on the radio, he was a friend, a mentor, a family member and an all-around-nice guy.

Thanks for being there Bob, my life is richer because you were here.
 
We lost a legend...and slowly losing a colorful history of personality-oriented radio with it. Cincinnati had Ruth Lyons and Bob Braun,Dayton had Lou Emm and Gene "By Golly" Barry, Detroit had Byron MacGregor and I can go on from now until the good Lord returns.

Hats off to Bob Sievers...Bring in the Hot 8 Brass Band from New Orleans to play "I'll Fly Away." ..the 'ol boy needs a super send-off. Peace be with 'ya Bob!
 
Living a good distance from Ft. Wayne; I can’t admit to being a “Little Red Barn” regular, but I always thought Mr. Sievers had a very special touch. Had he been local, even my Mom ‘n Dad would have listened – despite the Beatles, Beach Boys, and later—Badfinger tunes he often spun. My first college roommate grew-up on a farm near Ft. Wayne – and Bob was like a family member seated somewhere behind the speaker in the radio right next to his family's breakfast table. That young guy was the typical late-teen rock-fan who adored 103.9 WXKE, but wouldn’t have thought of setting his morning alarm to any station but WOWO! Today – how many radios even reside near the kitchen table – much less, radios that are diligently-tuned to the same "companion" EVERY weekday morning?
 
VideoPaul said:
Just got a call form a colleague from the old WOWO days, Bob Sievers died this morning at 90.

He joins Sam DeVincent and Jack Roberts as legends who now belong to the ages. Radio in the hereafter just got a hell of a lot better. May we all be one tenth of the broadcaster that Bob was.

--Paul
Click to expand...

I think Paul meant Jack Underwood, the veteran midday guy who followed Bob Sievers every day. Jack passed on some years ago. Sam DeVincent was music director and musician on the Sunday Little Red Barn.
The rest of that era's legendary WOWO lineup included Chris Roberts-afternoons (he now owns stations in Ohio), Ron Gregory-early evenings, and Paul Ellis-late evenings. I still wonder sometimes if Paul Ellis ever paid off that refrigerator contract he signed with Westinghouse.
 
I had one degree of separation from meeting Bob Sievers, having interviewed Jay Gould in the early 80s after his WOWO retirement. Jay also had some interesting tales, and lots of respect for his former morning partner on "The Little Red Barn." I also knew Jim O'Brien during his tenure at WOWO and he told me tales of the "easy" writing for Sievers in production. With Bob's delivery, a 30 for anyone else there was a 60 for Bob. He was in the early part of "retirement" but would still show up to record commercials for clients who requested him. Every time Bob would show up at the studios/offices, he brought a sack of White Castle hamburgers to share with his WOWO buddies.
 
WOWO's website has a condolences page for Bob...It's really edifying to read not just the memories of those who worked with him, but his listeners too, in the tri-state area and well beyond. Here was an unselfish, Christian man who defied the orders of his bosses, not to push the envelope with raunchy material, but to help people by broadcasting lost dog announcements. In these days when morning shows consist of a bunch of people arguing over who should have been voted out on "Big Brother", Bob and others of his time are missed even more. Over the past day, I have found myself replaying in my mind Bob and his cohost/farm director Jay Gould on the Little Red Barn, playing the hits, feeding the chickens and BS-ing with each other. I never thought of this, but with the chickens, cows, and all, the Little Red barn was the first Morning Zoo!
 
If anyone reads the Indiana Broadcast Hall Of Fame book (with great pictures), Bob's section is one of the best! For those of us who only heard him, it was an insight to the face of a Man who was more than radio.. He used radio to be a positive part of the Fort Wayne and greater 50kw clear channel community of WOWO...Family, Faith, Career and love for his FW... I look forward to meeting him, one day...On the brigther side.... :)
 
WFWA Specials

WFWA-39 is airing 3 hours of WOWO specials tonight, Friday, and Saturday. It would be great if someone made
these available in WAV for us former Hoosiers now residing outside the state.
 
Bob made mornings for a LOT of people here in NE Indiana...just go look at old ratings books and the numbers don't lie.
I worked behind the mic because I wanted to live life on the invisible airwaves, inspired in some way by Mr. WOWO, since I grew up hearing him every morning. (even in 1976 my family didn't have FM...well, not until that Xmas...) And I never would have been anything like Bob, because you just can't match the heart he had, or the sense of community.

There will never be another Bob Sievers.
 
Wow..it's like Bob Sievers was there since the day I first heard a radio and never left..even after he retired. I thought it was really good that WOWO still had Bob Sievers gracing the top of the hour IDs to this day. When I was 10 years old I wondered how old Bob got from the "Little Red Barn" to the studio in the 7 minutes of the 7am newscast. School closings? I went to school in a place called Coldwater, OH...my grandmother who raised me always asked when I shouted out that our school was closed if I'm sure Bob didn't say Coldwater, Michigan.

During teen years I always thought that Bob Sievers and Jack Underwood were a touch less hip while announcing the Beatles and other rock groups than some of the jocks like Mike O'Shea (who as I recall had more of a Top 40 delivery) but the station and the man are nothing but a legend.

I've really found it a shame that so far no airchecks of WOWO have surfaced and found their way to a site like reelradio.com
 
I've really found it a shame that so far no airchecks of WOWO have surfaced and found their way to a site like reelradio.com
The only presence of WOWO on reelradio.com is in a couple of jingle montages. One has the early-mid 70's top of the hour ID jingle, and the other (which I haven't heard since it was posted after they went subscription) is the "Great Place To Be" jingle that names all the towns. To be fair, there aren't too many MOR stations represented on reelradio.com. I've heard a couple for KMPC in Los Angeles and WBZ in Boston, and that's about it.
 
They had a bunch of KFWB (Group W in LA) and those airchecks sounded simila to WOWO at the time. You can make an argument that WOWO at some times in its history rocked harder than WMEE or WPTH!
 
gr8oldies said:
They had a bunch of KFWB (Group W in LA) and those airchecks sounded simila to WOWO at the time. You can make an argument that WOWO at some times in its history rocked harder than WMEE or WPTH!
Click to expand...

Yes gr8..I remember WOWO sometimes sounding more Top 40 or rock than WMEE..as a kid I thought they were Top 40 even in the 60s before WMEE came into being. I had one of those Radio Shack "50 in One" electronic kits my dad got me for Christmas as a young teen where WOWO's signal was the only signal it picked up out on the farm.

By the way..here's the mp3 audio of the Hot 8 playing "I'll Fly Away" I talked about earlier..in memory of Bob Sievers.

http://exploitsystems.com/hot8/Fly Away.mp3

http://www.hot8brassband.com
 
I guess to be accurate, WOWO could have been called in today's terms an AC or even a hot AC, as could some of their Westinghouse sister stations, especially WBZ in Boston. My earliest recollections of their music mix (this would have been mid 60's) seems to include a good bit of rock & roll...They shied away from the harder British stuff like the Yardbirds or the Kinks, and the harder edged soul artists like James Brown and Wilson Pickett. There was quite a bit of MOR including Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, who were still having number one hits at that time, and quite a bit of country, especially during Little Red Barn. (Don't forget the Songs of Inspiration, usually gospel quartets like the Blackwood Brothers.) If there was a center to their music mix, it would have included maybe the Supremes, the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Johnny Rivers, and Petula Clark. Actually, their music mix probably wasn't that far from WLS, which was always one of the more conservative top 40 stations around.

ETA: Reelradio.com has just posted its first WOWO aircheck...It's a clip of Bob reassuring listeners concerning an EBS test that was apparently botched at the point of origin, and freaked out a lot of people across the country.
 
You're pretty much dead on for the time period. I think of WOWO when I hear Gary Puckett and the Union Gap more so than CKLW. There was a time they really melowed out in the late 60s. I actually remember a WOWO evening jock accidentally starting the wrong side of the double-sided hit "House that Jack Built". After the opening words he quickly flipped it and played "I Say A Little Prayer" by Aretha Franklin.


By the late 70s they were hitting all the Foreigner, Bad Company, and other top 40 rock.


I really have to subscribe to reelradio. I remember the EBS event happening but didn't hear it live. Younger folks on this board may not appreciate the cold war mentality that the Russians might push the button at any minute.

I have read several accounts that stated that Bob Sievers was host of "The Little Red Barn Morning Show" not taking into account that LRB ended at 7am (I think 8 on Saturdays) and it was Bob Sievers flying solo until 10.
 
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