22. ”I’m like a one-eyed cat…..”(a) can’t go into town no more(b) sleepin’ on a cold hard floor(c) peepin’ in a seafood store
23. ”Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do…….”(a) cause there ain’t no answer for a life without booze(b) cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues(c) cause my car’s gassed up and I’m ready to cruise
24. ”They often call me Speedo, but my real name is……”(a) Mr. Earl(b) Jackie Pearl(c) Milton Berle
25. ”Be Bop A Lula ….”(a) she’s got the rabies(b) she’s my baby.(c) she loves me, maybe
26. ”Fine Love, Fine Kissing …..”(a) right here(b) fifty cents(c) just for you
27. ”He wore black denim trousers and …..”(a) a pink carnation(b) pink leotards…
DON’T CHEAT… ANSWERS BELOW
Buddy Holly and Little Richard in 1959. What advice did Richard give to Buddy?
Answers:Scroll Down so you aren’t tempted to cheat (as if cheating were needed here).* * * * * * * * * * * *1. (c) The movie’s over, it’s 4 o’clock2. (b) Blackboard Jungle3. (a) Angel4. (c) Blueberry Hill5. (a) Mr. Sandman6. (c) Sun7. (b) Charlie Brown8. (a) Mac Heath9. (c) Tutti Fruitti10 (c) Alan Freed11 (a) Little Richard12 (c) Annette Funicello13 (b) Don and Phil14 (a) Jiles P. Richardson15 (c) Motown16 (a) 77 Sunset Strip17 (b) Sandra Dee18 (b) The Monotones19 (b) Kissed20 (c) Maybelline21 (b) Bully22 (c) peepin’ in a sea food store23 (b) cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues24 (a) Mr. Earl25 (b) she’s my baby26 (a) right here27 (c) motorcycle boots28 (c) Boney MaroneySend this to everyone lucky enough to be teenagers in the Doo Wop era…… or who wishes they had been.
7.He asked, ”Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?” Who was he?
(a) Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
(b) Charlie Brown
(c) Buster Brown
8.In Bobby Darin’s ”Mack The Knife,” the one with the knife, was named:
(a) Mac Heath
(b) Mac Cloud
(c) McNamara
9.Name the song with
”A-wop bop a-loo bop a-lop bam boom.”
(a) Good Golly, Miss Molly (b) Be-Bop-A-Lula (c) Tutti Fruitti
Can you name these two friends?
10.Who is generally given credit for originating the term ”Rock And Roll”?
(a) Dick Clark (b) Wolfman Jack (c) Alan Freed
11.In 1957, he left the music business to become a preacher:
(a) Little Richard (b) Frankie Lymon (c) Tony Orlando
12.Paul Anka’s ”Puppy Love” is written to what star?
(a) Brenda Lee (b) Connie Francis (c) Annette Funicello
13.The Everly Brothers were…..
(a) Pete and Dick (b) Don and Phil (c) Bob and Bill
14.The Big Bopper’s real name was:
(a) Jiles P. Richardson (b) Roy Harold Scherer Jr. (c) Marion Michael Morrison
15.In 1959, Berry Gordy, Jr., started a small record company called…
(a) Decca (b) Cameo (c) Motown
16.Edd Brynes had a hit with ”Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb”. What TV show was he on?
(a) 77 Sunset Strip (b) Hawaiian Eye (c) Surfside Six
17.In 1960 Bobby Darin married:
(a) Carol Lynley (b) Sandra Dee (c) Natalie Wood
18.They were a one hit wonder with ”Book Of Love”
(a) The Penguins (b) The Monotones (c) The Moonglows
Famous cameo role by who and on what show?
19.The Everly Brothers sang a song called ”Till I ______ You.”
(a) Loved (b) Kissed (c) Screwed (d) Met
20.Chuck Berry sang ”Oh, ___________, why can’t you be true?”
(a) Suzie Q (b) Peggy Sue (c) Maybelline
21.”Wooly _______”
(a) Mammouth (b) Bully (c) Pully
22.”I’m like a one-eyed cat…..”
(a) can’t go into town no more (b) sleepin’ on a cold hard floor (c) peepin’ in a seafood store
23.”Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do……..”
(a) cause there ain’t no answer for a life without booze (b) cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues (c) cause my car’s gassed up and I’m ready to cruise
24.”They often call me Speedo, but my real name is……”
(a) Mr. Earl (b) Jackie Pearl (c) Milton Berle
25.”Be Bop A Lula ….”
(a) she’s got the rabies (b) she’s my baby. (c) she loves me, maybe
26.”Fine Love, Fine Kissing …..”
(a) right here (b) fifty cents (c) just for you
27.”He wore black denim trousers and …..”
(a) a pink carnation (b) pink leotards (c) motorcycle boots
28.”I got a gal named………”
(a) Jenny Zamboni
(b) Gerri Mahoney
(c) Boney Maroney
where did Beatles final concert take place with these accompanying acts: Extra points for knowing the year , exact date even better?
Answers:
Scroll Down so you aren’t tempted to cheat (as if cheating were needed here).
* * * * * * * * * * * *
1.(c) The movie’s over, it’s 4 o’clock
2.(b) Blackboard Jungle
3.(a) Angel
4.(c) Blueberry Hill
5.(a) Mr. Sandman
6.(c) Sun
7.(b) Charlie Brown
8.(a) Mac Heath
9.(c) Tutti Fruitti
10.(c) Alan Freed
11.(a) Little Richard
12.(c) Annette Funicello
13.(b) Don and Phil
14.(a) Jiles P. Richardson
15.(c) Motown
16.(a) 77 Sunset Strip
17.(b) Sandra Dee
18.(b) The Monotones
19.(b) Kissed
20.(c) Maybelline
21.(b) Bully
22.(c) peepin’ in a sea food store
23.(b) cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
24.(a) Mr. Earl
25.(b) she’s my baby
26.(a) right here
27.(c) motorcycle boots
28.(c) Boney Maroney
Send this to everyone lucky enough to be teenagers in the Doo Wop era…… or who wishes they had been.
San Francisco Celebrates KYA Top 40 Day with DJs Norman Davis, Tommy Saunders, Gary Mora
Legends in Broadcasting is a fine organization that celebrates its own radio personalities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It meets each quarter for a luncheon to honor a personality or radio station . June 23, 2016 was KYA Day, featuring DJs NORMAN DAVIS (known as Lucky Logan when he first came aboard in 1959), TOMMY SAUNDERS from 1962-1965 and GARY MORA from the late 60s and 1970s with noted DJ and media mogul BEN FONG-TORREZ as moderator. MORA continues to keep KYA alive with an internet version of the station with lots of memorabilia, concentrating on his era of the late 60s
From 1958 to 1963, KYA was the biggest radio thing in San Francisco with popular DJs including those pictured above including ‘all night’ JOHNNY HAYES, PETER TRIPP, BOB MITCHELL, LUCKY LOGAN (Norman Davis) and TONY TREMAIN. GENE NELSON. TOMMY SAUNDERS and RUSS (The Moose) SYRACUSE joined the staff in 1962 coming from noted broadcasting school in Syracuse. KYA was so popular several albums were produced with songs from the era and DJs pictured (partial) on cover (as at left)
VIDEO:Tommy Saunders and Norman Davis talk about the ‘happy days’ at KYA, circa 1959-1965.
They describe how the station’s popularity was driven by the new ‘TOP 40’ format, which was sweeping the nation, thanks to Bill Drake and Bartell family. Top 40 was the rock and roll of the day but would hardly be considered rock and roll by today’s standards , what with the wide variety of music as shown on the survey below…everything from Frank Sinatra to instrumentals with backing vocals by Anita Kerr Singers and novelty songs. Everything was fast-paced so as to cram as much as possible around a fast-talking DJ…jingles, weather, newscast along with the great (in our opinion) music (even if Saunders and Davis weren’t big fans of it at the time). Sorry, time restraints don’t allow us to include the entire lunch presentation. In another segment the guys talk about one of the real ‘characters,’ one DJ named Harry Stevens (1959–1963) and his stories including one about a playmate bunny.
We’ll try to put up some radio airchecks, too, if possible… the great Russ ‘the Moose’ and others
Top 40 (or Top 60 for awhile) was the rage in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to Bill Drake, Bartels family and others who introduced the format that combined a wide variety of the music of the day still called ‘rock and roll’ though it was a stretch (Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett were played along side Elvis, Bobby Darin and the like. DJs generally talked fast so as to squeeze in as much ‘patter’ along with the ‘platters,’ jingles, weather reports and news as possible. DJs of the time included Tony Tremayne and Jolly Rogers. See if you can’t make out some of those memorable songs from the day, above, by enlarging this official ‘Hit Parade’ survey from July 10, 1959.
Visable from left are NORMAN DAVIS (Lucky Logan), TOMMY SAUNDERS and Ben Fong-Torres (back)
Held at the Basque Cultural Center in So. San Francisco, the event featured a nice display of KYA memorabilia (see more on accompanying videos and photos . A few hundred radio contemporaries joined the KYA folks to honor them and the legendary station 6-23-16
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Great writeup by cofounder of Steely Dan about a pioneer of talk radio, when radio was still real fun and the ‘friend’ you’d take under your covers via transistor and go to sleep with. Didn’t know until now that Jean Shepherd has since become, perhaps, more known for his connection to The Christmas Story movie than the wildly popular ‘hip’ early talk show on NEW YORK’ s powerhouse, WOR. We grew up 3,000 miles away from where Shepherd reigned and never heard the man until recently, though we had many of our own out West ( Bob Sherwood, Al Jazzbeaux Collins, Russ the Moose Ssyracuse, Bobby Dale, even Ira Blue, but perhaps no one person who could put it all together in one ascerbic session like Jean Shepherd.Here’s Fagen, who can talk much more intelligently about Shepherd than we can
On Christmas Eve, TBS will again present its annual 24-hour marathon of Bob Clark’s modern classic, A Christmas Story. Wrapping presents while watching Ralphie pine for a Red Riding BB gun has become a holiday tradition as beloved and durable as candy canes and eggnog. Yet the author and narrator of A Christmas Story, Jean Shepherd, had a deeper legacy of enchanting, subtly barbed storytelling as a longtime voice on nightly radio. In this piece from December 2008, Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagenrecounts growing up in suburban New Jersey enthralled by Shepherd’s radio show.
Remembering JEAN SHEPHERD and his Christmas (Eve) Story
Jean Shepherd
If you know Jean Shepherd’s name, it’s probably in connection with the now-classic film A Christmas Story, which is based on a couple of stories in his book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. He also does the compelling voice-over narration. On Christmas, TBS will continue its tradition of presenting a 24-hour Christmas Storymarathon. There are annual fan conventions devoted to the film— released 25 years ago this Thanksgiving— and the original location in Cleveland has been turned into a museum. But long before A Christmas Story was made, Shepherd did a nightly radio broadcast on WOR out of Manhattan that enthralled a generation of alienated young people within range of the station’s powerful transmitter. Including me: I was a spy for Jean Shepherd.
In the late ’50s, while Lenny Bruce was beginning his climb to holy infamy in jazz clubs on the West Coast, Shepherd’s all-night monologues on WOR had already gained him an intensely loyal cult of MORE
TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL: Ultimate Survivor – How He Lived To Tell It All in New Movie
‘He never took himself too seriously,’ said co-star Lanie Kazan,
which may account for , in part, why he’s still around. Says
Debbie Reynolds, it was his true blue, honest quality.
For a guy who never felt it was necessary to make a big splash ‘coming out,’ he managed
to carve out a life for himself – a happy one at that , to this day. After reading about other gay actors of
the 50s and 60s who may have even tried harder than Hunter and still didn’t attain great satisfaction
in life – Rock Hudson and Tony Perkins come to mind -it’s nice to see that Hunter did. Credit him
greatly for this accomplishment in the most difficult of times.
When his career dried up in the mid-60s because he didn’t change – or the world
could no longer accept the clean cut kid of the Fifties in a Peter Fonda/Easy Rider-type
movie i n the late 60s- Hunter was content to live a quiet life with his horses until John
Waters brought him back in the campy movie ‘Polyester’ in 1981 that became a cult
classic.
‘Lust in the Dust’ was another campy movie that Hunter and his new partner- who he
remains with after 30 years – were able to put together without the aid of a major
backer or movie studio. Besides acting, Hunter had a successful recording career with
with nearly 50 singles and one monster hit, ‘Young Love'(see and here below) that
stayed on the charts at No. 1 for six weeks
Hunter is the subject of a new movie documentary ‘The Tab Hunter Confidential, ‘ based on the
book of the same name, now in theaters this
week; not sure about next week. But you should see it even on video if you miss it in the theater.
Even for those who still question the gay lifestyle, this movie may finally awaken you -you can’t help
but like Hunter. He’s a natural through and through.
The movie consists of Hunter as narrator, recounting his life story from the early 50s
when he accidentally got into the movies , expounding on one vignette after another,
accompanied by current ‘testimonials’ from some of the few actors and actresses still
alive who he worked with.
One thing that struck this viewer was
how natural and down to earth he was and is. Hunter has an amazing likability factor.
There was and is no hint of scandal surrounding Hunter; goes to show they can still
make great movies without intrigue or scandal, at least in our opinion.
While other gay actors like Hudson and Perkins , who were with ‘pretend’ women in
their lives-with Perkins it wasn’t so pretend as he had several kids- the easy-going
Hunter wasn’t rattled by the persecution of gays and had the inclination and ability to
be able toto pick and choose his movie roles and the people
he wanted to be with.
There were periods when he wasn’t with anybody and he would find pleasure with his horse friends.
Today he remains tied to his stable of horse(s) and gets up early everyday to tend to his horse(s),
according to his long time companion.
How a guy could go from a successful movie and music career in the ‘repressive’
Fifties while being gay to losing it all, career-wise, in the late Sixties during a time when
there was supposedly more freedom, to make a dramatic comeback in the 1980s at an
advanced age for a movie star and still seem youthful and full of life today at 85 is pretty
amazing. I think it shows that a good sense of self
and good friendship(s) and interests can go a long way. Much of the years he wasn’t
making movies he was looking after his elderly mother, with whom he had a good
relationship even though she could be tough on him.
Hunter is now retired from acting for good but doesn’t miss the limelight
at all, according to his friend, who also says that Hunter has no interest in watching his old movies
anymore; in fact, when they come on TV he says Hunter will turn the channel.. Hunter and friend
live relatively modestly in Santa Barbara well out of the spotlight.
It was nice that the contented, mild-mannered Hunter, would make this , perhaps, one
last movie, a documentary, so we can see the famous actor who’s been through a lot-
someone you would never
expect to be so nice and humble – to be just that and
have not only survived but have led a pretty much happy existence throughout, a rarity
for Hollywood then and now. Some people change with the times but Tab Hunter never
seemed to try to change his personality to adapt to current trends. He either fit in or he
didn’t and he usually did- if he wanted to.
Most people today wouldn’t know Tab Hunter from Art Gelien (his real name). But,
younger generations might learn a lot from seeing what the old Hollywood studios could turn out and
some of the actors that turned out. Hunter may not have won any academy awards but he was
convincing in a lot of good movies like Damned Yankees and Battle Cry with some great co-
stars – and he has some very interesting and
funny stories to tell along the way, Catch ‘the Tab Hunter Confidential’ if you can. There were only
a total of three people in the theater on this opening Friday night, which might not bode well for the
film, but, as Tab Hunter might say, it’s more important to put out a good film than to worry about
how many tickets it sells. (Of course, the Steve Jobs big box office movie , no longer in theaters,
which we were going to see hasn’t done that well, either; glad we saw this one instead.
In the ‘Confidential’ movie -and previous (2005) book of the same name -Hunter reveals what is was like to be a 1950s-era star—to be created, packaged, and sold to the American public, shaped and controlled by the studio system that ran Hollywood until the 1970s. Hunter also discloses:
His co-stars, actresses Natalie Wood, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Sophia Loren, Debbie Reynolds, Tallulah Bankhead, and Divine, and the actors Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Robert Mitchum, and Van Heflin.
His films, from the box office hits Damn Yankees and Battle Cry to the cult classics Polyester and Lust in the Dust
His on- and off-screen relationships
His music career, including the #1 hit song “Young Love,” which topped the Billboard chart for six weeks
The demands that were placed on him, including sexual favors, and what it felt like to suddenly see his face—and often, his half-naked torso—on the covers of dozens of magazines
His comeback as a cult sensation, thanks to John Waters
But, those were the bullet points that were used to sell the book (and movie); just to see
the down-to-earth guy, as he is today, weave the story of his life in such an entertaining
and fun way, recounting story after story from old (and newer) Hollywood, is a true
delight. Few other living actors today would have the credentials (or ability) to match this
effort. As a sidelight, it’s also fun to see some colorful people associated with Hollywood
we haven’t lately, such as Hollywood entertainment reporters Rona Barrett and Rex Reed,
along the few still-living actors Hunter appeared with such as Kazan and Reynolds.