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.
