

Ensconced on simulated-leather banquettes, our tables facing Allison sitting at his own table on a raised stage, we stared at his cheap-looking blonde crew-cut toupee and his hairy arms exposed in a short sleeve shirt beneath a sports jacket. He loved to talk about himself, often referring to his own Broadway career, especially when talking with theatre people. He’d been in one show, the 1946 musical Call Me Mister, that featured returning World War II veterans. Clearly I didn’t admire him, but I envied his fame and success and, taking dates to his live broadcasts, felt like being close to show business glamour.


Bud Brees w name

Bud Brees, another d.j. on the station, had his own shtick, too. His theme music was “I’m Just Breezin’ Along with the Breeze,” and he sang along with it to intro and outro his show.  Sometimes he’d also sing along with pop music instrumentals. Naturally that got him attention, which the management must have loved. He also generated anger; some people felt he was a show-off or that he couldn’t sing well.

Steve Allion


So, while developing enemies who’d never met him, Steve Allison had it made…for a while. But he got involved in a scandal involving teenage girls, despite being married and having his pregnant young wife sometimes appear on his show. He was too famous to be forgiven. His hatred club rejoiced.


Jean Shepherd w name


For many years, prior to the emergence of talk radio, sounding too quirky or specific inevitably led to annoyed listeners, always prone more to complain than compliment. In such cases people were more likely to say they hated the broadcaster, rather than hating what was said or how it was said. Managements were often of two minds about such ire. Generally, bland was better for selling advertising; too much hatred could have rubbed off on the stations themselves.


And it felt like nowhere.

WHAT’s That?

Hy Lit w name
Reggie 2 w name

Then another foothold materialized. Ivan Shaner (aka Gene Shay), a WRTI classmate who sometimes hosted shows with me on that Temple U. station, had a few weekend hours on WHAT,and told me that the program director had been looking for someone to cover a Sunday shift. And since jazz was a regular feature there, maybe I could get in. Newly emerging rock and roll was the big deal, hosted by such stars as Hy Lit. He was white, although WHAT aimed much of its programming at black people with a couple of very popular black d.j.s, Jocko Henderson (“Tell ’em JOCK-OHHH sent you”) and Reggie Lavong (“A pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a microphone”). 


I’d also listened at times to WHAT. And one commercial had stuck out. It was for Tappan’s Jewelers. There was a compelling sound effect. While the d.j. read the name, he spelled it out, “T A P P A N S,” and with each letter there was a perfectly timed tapping sound.


There was a very special duty on my Sunday morning shift. I had to engineer a two-hour live, black preaching and gospel music show. The host arrived with his singers—so many that they sweatedly crowded the studio next to mine. But before they could go on the air, they had to first give me all the money—cash—they paid the station for renting the time slot. They got their money from selling advertising on the show, a concept known in the trade as “brokered broadcasting.” Most important, WHAT owner Dolly Banks told me that if they didn’t pay they would not be allowed on the air, and that I had to count the money, put it in a zippered bag, and throw the bag over the transom into her locked office.




We went on a date and, on a hot summer night, went up to my one-room apartment, where she said she felt too hot and took off a few of her clothes. I saw more of her than I had expected, but didn’t know what to do about it. I remained a virgin. And we never saw each other again.

But no longer at WFLN and with only a few hours at WHAT, I still had the ongoing costs of college, meals, clothes, subway fare, and maintaining a car I wasn’t using much. One way to pay was a job making sandwiches in an industrial cafeteria, meaning getting up at 3 a.m., taking the Broad Street subway and then a bus to arrive at 4:30 to start ahead of the morning shift. By 10:30 a.m. I was on my own. Plus, there was such a thing as a free lunch.


Still, I wanted to be in broadcasting full-time.

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