Legendary radio personality Eddie Gallaher died recently at
the age of 89. For nearly 60 years, he practically owned the morning airwaves in the Washington, DC area. My mother told me
about Gallaher’s death during my visit with her in Easton, Maryland over the Christmas holidays.
I was reminded of his long-running radio show on CBS flagship
station WTOP, after accidentally tuning in to a local station in Easton that identified itself as a "Music of Your Life" affiliate.
As I soon found out, this nostalgic radio format plays mostly ‘40s and ‘50s music by the likes of Nat King Cole,
Doris Day, and Sinatra. Their often-repeated slogan is, "The radio station you grew up with is back." My mom and I enjoyed
the old songs, and they got us talking about the glory days of radio.
I am old enough to remember when sitting in the living room
in the evening and listening to the radio was a popular family pastime. But I am also young enough to have grown up during
the transition to television, and the stormy eruption of rock ‘n roll. Consequently, as a teenager, I was as comfortable
relaxing to Tin Pan Alley standards as I was to dancing to Chuck Berry and Elvis. Mom was (and still is) partial to Bing Crosby.
Gallaher’s morning show was a habit every day as I got
ready for school. His soothing voice was comforting, and so was hearing my mother singing along with Crosby’s "Don’t
Fence Me In," Day’s "Secret Love," or Patti Page’s "Tennessee Waltz." But when the school bus brought me home
in the afternoon, I headed for my room to spend an hour or so with Hoppy Adams on WANN in Annapolis, a black music station
that played Little Richard, the Flamingos, and Clyde McPhatter.
In my senior year of high school, I discovered jazz on the Felix
Grant show on WMAL. Grant was not only a great authority on jazz, but he was also a supporter and cultivator of new talent.
He was one of the prime forces behind the Brazilian bossa nova craze, a musical style that resurrected the career of tenor
saxophonist Stan Getz.
When I headed off to the University of Maryland the following
year, I listened to Grant in the evening, and stayed up late with Jim Meyers & Company, an all-night show on
WTOP that featured jazz and standards, as well as live performances by Meyers on piano and wife Ruby Lee on vocals. A great
portion of my record and CD collection was built around the music these announcers played.
And there were plenty of other stations, all AM, that beamed
in late at night. I sat spellbound while Bob Prince on KDKA in Pittsburgh did the play-by-play, as Harvey Haddix hurled a
12-inning perfect game for the Pirates. He lost it in the 13th. Dick Biondi blasted out the latest rock records
on WKBW in Buffalo. So did CKLW, a Detroit station with a powerful tower across the border in Canada. I even enjoyed the Grand
Old Opry on WWVA in West Virginia.
Listening to the radio was so important to me, that I once chose
to drive home from Colorado to Maryland at night, and sleep during the day (it took me four days), so I could hear my favorite
all-night jazz show on KMOX in St. Louis.
Those days are just about gone. Most radio stations are owned
by large media corporations, and feature a generic format and playlist that is as familiar as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.
Most stations have no local news. In fact, you can listen to these stations all day and have no idea what city, town or state
they come from. The DJs just shout their babble at you, the national advertising thumps away, and you hear the same 20 or
so songs wherever you go and whenever you tune in.
Eddie Gallaher was quoted in the Washington Post as saying
of his style, "I talk to one person out there instead of thousands, and I am honest with him." Folks like Gallaher made radio
feel like an old friend dropping by. It is sad to see him, and so many others like him, slip quietly into history.
