In the New York Times obituaries yesterday was this. Ron Lundy for 32 years was a presence on New York city radio from 1965 to 1997. as a personality jock (never use the term DJ or disk jockey) on WABC 77 until their format changed from rock to talk and then on the oldies station 101WCBS-FM from 1985 to 1997.
If you're not from New York, and if you've ever seen the movie Midnight Cowboy, you've heard Ron Lundy's voiceover at the beginning of the movie "you're in the greatest city in the world."
If you lived in a major market in the 1960s or 1970s you grew up listening to a personality like Lundy's.
In Los Angeles, it might have been Robert W. Morgan or The Real Don Steele, in Chicago it might have been Larry Lujack or John "Records truly is my middle name" Landecker, in Boston it might have been Dale Dorman or Arnie "Woo-Woo" Ginsburg, in Philadelphia it would be the recently departed George Michael, and in New York it would be Ron Lundy or Dan Ingram.
Top 40 radio personalities were the rage in the 1960s and early 70s in the heyday of Top 40 AM radio. Pocket sized transistor radios where the iPods of the day. Beatles producer Geroge Martin used a lot of compression in early recordings of the Beatles albums because he was aware that the audience was listening speakers 2 to 3 inches in diameter.
The format began to fade as listeners migrated to FM radio, and personalities changed as well as formats. Today the radio landscape is much different with Satellite radio, and large groups controlling the programming of thousdands of radio stations. Personality jocks are no more.
WABC was a big presence in Top 40 radio. they defied some broadcasting conventions by playing station ID jingles between commercials, a generous use of reverb, big personalities.
Lundy always began his show with "Helloooo Luvvvv, this is Ron Lundy" and his smooth presence was the right fit with his midday audiences. While he wasn't the king of the ad lib or as irreverent as afternoon colleague Dan Ingram, I do remember one exchange between them in the 1970s.
Ingram who also was an in demand voiceover artist for commericals, had Chevrolet as an account. According to legend, GM had given Ingram a Corvette as partial compensation for the commericals he recorded.
On day, on air Ingram bemoaned the failures of his "American" car, citing a litany of problems, he ending with a zinger, "but the damn seatbelt buzzer works fine." That was a good exit line, but Lundy came in with an ad lib that topped Ingram.
"Well Dan, 1932 was not a good year for De Sotos."
This broke Ingram up on the air, and you saw a rarely glimpse of Lundy's wit. Ingram's tirade, actually lost him the Chevy account.
Lundy's voice will remain etched in my memory and I will miss him. The website Musicradio77.com has an aircheck of Lundy from 1969 and an interview in 2006 at their website. If you never experienced Top 40 radio, enjoy a trip back and listen to a part of Americana that is now gone.
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I think it was around 1969 or so that we had a couple of FM radios in the house and my brother and I started to listen primarily to WNEW-FM with its interesting group of DJs and excellent rock music. I imagine that WNEW-FM, in particular, pulled a lot of listeners away from WABC around the time I switched. To paraphrase what you said in your post, "why listen to great rock music on AM mono when you can hear it in crystal clear FM stereo?"
Lea -- Hearing the WABC jingle with the chime at the end was as ubiquitous as the NBC Peacock or CBS eye.
Once a year – Memorial Day? – WABC broadcasts a block of programs from the good old days. Once I start listening, I can’t stop. I feel like I’m 17 years old again.
Thanks for a trip down memory lane, Andy, and a bon voyage to Mr. Lundy - those were some good times thanks to the radio men who spun the discs for us.
Rated.
John R played black and blue music back when little white kids like me weren't allowed to listen to "race" music, and his advertisers were Royal Crown Pomade and Black Draught, the laxative that "keeps you right all thru the night".
God, America and me were both SO innocent in those days.
In my 'era,' on Fridays at 6:00pm they would play "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone to kick off the weekend -- "Hello, Love!"
Rated
Walt -- Personality has been excised from music formats as a likely way to compete with iPods.
Catherine -- Thanks
Trilogy -- You're in a different part of the World now, but I hope this brought back some good memories.
Bill S. -- he was on from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., so you were probably in school.
Tom -- The clear channels like 77o WABC, 890 WLS, 1030 WBZ were able to heard great distances at night as most local stations on the same frequencies were required to stop broadcasting at sunset.
Life was simpler and seemed like more fun when we were younger, but we lived during the cold war, too.
Carole Hallundbaek -- The Lineup was Harry Harrison from 6-10, Lundy from 10-2, Dan Ingram from 2-6, "Cousin" Bruce Morrow from 6-10, Chuck Leonard from 10 - Midnight, and Jay Reynolds/Jim Nettleton from Midnite - 6 am.
Leonard was an African American who broke the color barrier in mainstream radio in a Major Market.
Wow - I remember them all! WABC was the station we always had my parents tune to when we were all in the car. (The parents would otherwise be listening to WPAT - geezer muzak.) My best memories of my youth are lying on the sand at Island Beach State Park with the transistor tuned to WABC. Songs from the 60s and 70s always bring back that image. Thanks for the memories!!!
Bluesurly -- Dan Ingram used to do the bit "Roll Your Bod, Roll Your Bod." every half hour for beach goers like yourself. One July 4th he said, "I know the beach is crowded today so please roll in the same direction."
R.I.P. Ron Lundy
John -- Ingram is doing weather forecast, "Brief Showers tonight, I love watching those briefs coming down. Then Ingram starts laughing and says , "cousin Bruce Morrow wears Jockey classicbriefs, he just threw a dozen of them at me...sniff sniff, they smell new..." and he finishes the forecast.
Spin Doctor -- It's all homogenized, there are no "new artists" only formula artists.
Bobbot -- Jack Carney was big at WIL in St. Louis, but that was in the early 60s. The Crusin' LP series of the 1970s had famous jocks recreate their schtick with old jingles radio format etc. Lundy also worked at WIL and was the WIL Wil' Child.
Coog -- Thanks. No one ever saw Murray the "K" Kaufman with his hat off either. Murray used to talk about the "submarine races" goin' on at the shore at night.
Any half-decent spell-checker would have caught most of these. This is just lazy writing. I can't believe it was an editor's pick.