Radio Days and Radio Nights

Hi, my name is Mar and I am a radio junkie.  It is an inherited trait.  Grandpa Mac always rushed home from the bank to listen to the 5 o’clock news on the big console radio in the living room.   Mom and I listened to George “Hound Dog” Lorenz on the kitchen radio and danced around on the linoleum floor to early rock and roll hits of the fifties as “Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Bill Haley and the Comets.

When I was about fifteen I received a radio of my own.   It was a turquoise Sears Silvertone transistor model, about the size and weight of a brick.  It even came equipped with a spiffy brown leather case.  I listened in the evenings when I was supposed to be doing homework and after dark when I was supposed to be sleeping.  That radio pulled in the 50,000 watts of WKBW 1520AM from Buffalo, but also WBZ in Boston and WLS in Chicago.  I was a fan of Danny Neaverth and Joey Reynolds and Tommy Shannon on KB as well as former Buffalonean Dick Biondi on WLS, and Dick Summer on WBZ who spun amazing tales about Irving the Second, also known as Super Plant (maybe an ancestor of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?).  I wrote them letters and joined their fan clubs.  I discovered my first folk music:  Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I listened to comedy:  The Smothers Brothers, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Tom Lehrer.

It wasn’t until I moved to Canada in 1968 that I discovered the CBC.  Their CBL 740AM powerhouse could be heard for miles.  I devoured every minute of this aural feast (music, talk, drama, and news) and I learned a lot about my new country in the process.  I fell in love with Max Ferguson, Don Harron, Vicki Gabereau, Bill Richardson, Arthur Black (Basic Black), Stuart McLean (Vinyl Café), and most of all, the inimitable Peter Gzowski first on This Country in the Morning and then my beloved Morningside.  I wrote letters, sent in suggestions for stories, and received letters and pictures back in the mail.  Peter read a few of my letters on the air and even interviewed me at the old Ministry of Truth (CBC) building on Jarvis Street in Toronto.  Bill and Vicki made my mouse story famous.  I bought everyone’s books and still have precious signed copies.  I listened on the radios I had in every room of my house, I listened in the car, and I listened at work.

I was listening in the back room at work one day and my boss came by and yelled at me for “using his electricity.”  He most definitely did not want anyone to be in a happy work environment.  My radio was audible only to me, and most of the time I was alone back there.  I was crushed when he forbade me to have my radio plugged in.  So what did I do?  I bought a battery-powered radio and he didn’t have a leg to stand on; I was no longer stealing his precious electricity.

During the seventies and the eighties I listened to a couple of Buffalo area alternative stations, when long-format songs were perfect for those wild and crazy days of FM before it was captured and neutered.   Of WPHD, WZIR (Wizard), WUWU, and WBNY, only the latter (Buff State college radio station), is alive and well.  In those days the music was more important than the DJs but I have fond remembrances of Jim Santella and Gary Storm (Oil of Dog) and several friends who worked at BNY when they were in college.

About the only shows that did not interest me on the radio were sports, opera, most classical music and jazz.  In a fateful turn of events both CBC and NPR were going on and on about sports late one night back in 2000 when I stumbled upon an interesting discussion on my radio dial.  It was Mike Siegel on Coast to Coast AM, talking about some paranormal subject.  I was immediately hooked on this program, and listened every single night for many months.  But one night Siegel announced that he would be moving on because some guy named Art Bell was making a huge comeback to the show.  The callers were apoplectic with excitement at this news.  Harrumph, I thought.  Who the hell is Art Bell and why is everyone so damned excited about his impending return?  I never heard of him.

Well, I decided to give this much-ballyhooed and alleged paragon of the airwaves a chance (mind you, just one chance) and I tuned in with a huge load of skepticism to keep me company. 

 

At midnight this buttery baritone oozed out of my speaker, introduced himself as Art Bell, and he proceeded to hold me spellbound for the next twenty minutes or so by telling the story of his cat Abbey who had fallen ill the night before.  Art and his wife Ramona lived in the high desert an hour outside of Las Vegas and it was to the emergency vet in Vegas that they had rushed poor Abbey Chapel Bell (rescued as a stray in the streets outside the wedding chapel the night Art and Ramona were married).  They had spent the whole night in the waiting room, wringing their hands and praying and pacing.   Morning finally came and Abbey had been miraculously saved from the brink of death and the relieved Bell family returned home so Art could catch some sleep and prepare for his radio return.

Well, between the voice and the cat story, I was hooked.  Mike Siegel was forgotten (sorry, guy!) and I have been a fan of Art Bell ever since.

One aspect that I enjoyed about shows like Morningside and Coast was the music that they played.  Although not music shows per se, Canadian radio had rules in which they were “mandated” to play an increasing percentage of Canadian music (makes sense, eh?) and this eventually spawned a massive Canadian music industry (and gave the world Celine Dion and Justin Beiber – sorry!).  Morningside, Basic Black, and The Vinyl Café introduced me to many new songs and artists.  And Art played little clips of songs known as “bumper music” at the beginning and end of talk segments and to my great delight his taste was very close to my taste; he played many old favorites of mine and introduced me to a few that soon became new favorites.

Art’s interviews were mesmerizing and his fascinating array of guests ranged from astronauts to abductees, astronomers to astrologers, physicists to psychics, animal communicators to actors, and famous musicians to the average folks down the road.  Frequent topics of discussion were the so-called Quickening, Florida’s Coral Castle, the pyramids, out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, chupacabras, remote viewing,  the Philadelphia Experiment, chemtrails, crop circles, time travel, life after death, the lost continent of Atlantis, and of course conspiracy theories concerning UFOs, Area 51, and alien abductions and visitations.  And then there were the one-of-a-kind individuals such as Richard C. Hoagland talking about The Face on Mars, Mel Waters of the infamous “Mel’s Hole” fame and the totally whacked out “J.C.” who simply defies description.

  

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the shows were riveting.   Art was not one to suffer fools, but for the most part he seemed to take everyone at face value and exuded a tremendous sense of enjoyment at the plying of his craft.  His calls were unscreened and he mentioned this frequently but every so often someone would call in and start talking about Art in the third person and he would let them go on for a while and then completely flabbergast them when he’d chuckle and announce that they were talking to Art Bell.  I never had the nerve to phone in because I was afraid I’d not recognize his voice and sound like an idiot (although after laughing at them, Art always endeavored to make these callers feel better).  (I might add that I did email him several times and he always wrote back to me.)

 

Art also kept listeners on the edge of their seats by retiring and then returning from retirement a number of times.  It was like a soap opera.   When his beloved wife Ramona died, he bared his soul to his audience, (something I had never heard from any radio personality) and he was such an amazing combination of powerful and vulnerable that people seemed to either adore him or loathe him.  With that voice of his he could have been reading the telephone book and he would have had an audience.

In the last couple of years we have lost Stuart McLean,  Arthur Black, and then Art Bell.  Fortunately for all of us late night listeners, upon his last unexpectedly abrupt retirement, Art passed along the reins for his latest show, Midnight in the Desert, to his startled producer and hand-picked radio heir Heather Wade.  She had huge shoes to fill but she was able to do an admirable job in a challenging and ever-changing radio/livestream climate.  She was also a cat person with a deep buttery voice, she held her own with guests and callers, and she continued to play Art’s beloved bumper music.  Unfortunately, after Art died, Heather was too grief-stricken at the loss and also hounded ceaselessly by Internet trolls and although she tried her best to continue, she was eventually unable to do so and has subsequently disappeared completely.  

 

One of Art’s favorite pieces of bumper music was “The Highwayman” by The Highwaymen (Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings).  I figured Art deserved his own verse and this popped into my head.

I sure hope there will be radio in the afterlife.  I don’t know what I would do without it.