Seeing Wayne Newton perform at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at the height of his career…depressing. Seeing Wayne Newton perform at his theater in Branson, Missouri in the twilight of his career…real depressing. Going backstage with your grandmother to stand in line to meet Wayne Newton after the show…a Brush with Near Greatness for little 12-year-old Lane.
Long-time farm broadcaster Jerry Passer was working at WMT-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the mid-70’s, when a young Mary Hart came over from South Dakota to do feature segments for the midday news-farm show. Jerry recalls those million dollar gams looked great in the mini-skirts that were popular at the time.
This week’s BWNG is a…melange of brushes with near greatness. As a long-time radio guy, Jeff has met, interviewed or passed on the street…a lot of famous (or once-famous) people. He sat down in the BWNG studios armed with a long list of brushes and we didn’t get to them all.
AUDIO: BWNG #002
We’ve all experienced brushes with near greatness. These pulse-pounding moments can range from a drunken limo ride with Courtney Love to an elevator ride with someone you’re pretty sure plays for the Cubs. A brush with near greatness does not require that you actually speak to or with the great one, or that they even know you’re in the room.
Today we debut what we hope will be a sustaining feature at smays.com. David –a friend and co-worker– has had not one, but two brushes with near greatness and he was kind enough to share them here. You can download the MP3 file for now and we’ll podcast as soon as I can figure out how to do that.
I would say this is one of those bogus Internet things that make the rounds but my buddy Bob says his brother-in-law knows the minister featured in this recording.
I’m told it is quite common to forget the words to our national anthem when singing in public. A gold star for this young woman, singing at the Indiana State Fair last night [AUDIO]
Had I been there –and remembered the lyrics myself (“…were so gallantly streaming?” )– I’d like to think I would have leapt to my feet and led the crowd in singing along with her for the final few lines. Listen for at least 35 seconds.
Mike McKean heads up the new Convergence program at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. This fall he begins his 20th year teaching at the J-School. Once upon a time, he was a reporter for The Missourinet, one of the state news networks owned by the company I work for. Mike and I get together every few months to talk about radio and journalism and the Internet and stuff like that.
Today I took my recorder along and asked him about: Teaching journalism in 2005; podcasting; blogs; radio; advertising; newspapers; “citizen journalism” and some other stuff.
AUDIO: Interview with Mike McKean 20 min MP3
Mary Quass has been doing the radio thing for a long time. She bought her first station in 1988 and was right in the thick of the consolidation “land rush” of the late ’90s. Mary’s from a small town in southeast Iowa (Fairfield) and got her first radio job in 1977 selling advertising at KHAK in Cedar Rapids. She became sales manager of the station for two years (1979-82) and then served as GSM at KSO Des Moines until she returned to Cedar Rapids to purchase KHAK.
Ten years later, Quass Broadcasting merged with Capstar to form Central Star Communications, and Mary oversaw all aspects of the radio stations in her region. In July 1999, when the company merged with Chancellor Media to become AMFM Inc., Central Star Communications consisted of 66 stations in 14 midwest markets.
I’ve known Mary for a long time and she’s been a good friend to our company. Mary is one smart lady and she doesn’t think out of the box because she doesn’t know there is a box. So I called to get her take on what’s happening “out there.” I asked her about satellite radio, podcasting, consolidation, blogs, Internet radio and a bunch of other stuff.
AUDIO: Interview with Mary Quass 30 min MP3
Correction and update: I knew that Mary had been interviewed by Radio Ink in 2003 –and mentioned it in the interview– but when I went back to check a couple of things I thought I was looking at a new interview. I wasn’t. But I found a couple of interesting nuggets while re-reading the piece. Remember, this was two years ago.
“We cant just stick our heads in the sand and think that the Internet wont have an impact on Radio. This is the first technology to mean that anybody can have a radio station as good as, if not better than, whats out there today and it has nothing to do with a license. I want to be in and out of the business by then. When I was growing up, I could tell you my favorite radio station, and I was adamant about it. Well, a 12-year-old today can tell you the artists, but they may or may not have a Radio station where they know the DJs. Im very concerned about this, because we havent remained relevant to these people.”
“As an industry, we got away from that and have lost sight of the fact that we must give people product that they cant get everywhere else. If we dont differentiate our product when the Internet becomes wireless, it will be a whole new ball game for all of us. We had better be ready, or the frustration we feel will only grow.”
Kennett, Missouri hasn’t had a public swimming pool since they demolished the ancient, aboveground monster that people my age grew up with. But thanks to the generosity of hometown-girl-turned-superstar Sheryl Crow (and others), they now have the Sheryl Crow Aquatic Center. The nine-time Grammy winner came to take part in the dedication ceremonies on Saturday and Barb and I were there for the big splash.
I don’t know Sheryl Crow (I don’t know any big stars) but she seems like one very classy, very smart, very down-to-earth lady. She still sees herself as a Kennett girl. That’s home. And she’s concerned that the little town has fallen upon hard times, economically. So she wrote ’em a check for a million bucks to build a municipal swimming pool just off the downtown “square.” Which is slowly dying. Some would say dead.
But Ms. Crow is giving more than her money to help revitalize the town. She’s giving her time and her name and a little of her wonderful talent. She performed a few songs with a local band, The Usual Suspects. Her daddy, Wendell, plays guitar in the band when he’s not lawyer’ing.
I’m terrible at estimating crowds because I avoid them like the plague, but I’d guess there were three or four hundred [The DDD reports 4,000] folks on hand and it was a beautiful morning. I got to see a lot of old friends, many of whom I had not seen in 20 years. I took a bunch of photos while Barb manned the camcorder. We’ll get some video posted as soon as I have time to edit.
Following the performance, Sheryl held a little pool-side news conference [5 min] for the half dozen TV and radio stations on hand.
AUDIO: News conference 5 min MP3
(Rumor: A crew from ABC’s 20/20 was following Sheryl around for some upcoming segment) When no one could come up with a coherent question, Sheryl took over and explained why she got involved in the project. Not sure if you’ll be able to hear it, but I thought the best question came from Barb, who wanted to know Sheryl’s best stroke when she was on the high school swim team (breast stroke).
I don’t know that a new swimming pool will save my old home town but I’m proud of all those folks for trying.
Special thanks to Kennett correspondent Charles Jolliff for link to photos of Kennett’s old municipal pool. UPI Super Photog Bill Greenblatt for the photo above and others. And Jan McElwrath and Randy Morgan with the Kennett Chamber of Commerce for organizing a great a event making us feel so welcome.
Dan Shelley is a long-time and valued friend. For a dozen years he ran one of best (probably THE best) radio newsrooms in Missouri. In 1995 he moved to Milwaukee to become the news director of WTMJ. A year ago he was elected chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and took over those duties a couple of weeks ago at the association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas.
In his first speech as chairman, he outlined five challenges or issues facing “electronic journalists.” We asked him about blogging, podcasting and satellite radio.
AUDIO: Interview with Dan Shelley 30 min MP3
I’m not sure Dan –or any other mere mortal– is capable of taking broadcast journalists where they need to go but he’s the right guy at the right time.
