And So the Journey Began

When I was eleven years old I started my love affair with microphones, spinning records, and moving listeners’ hearts. My passion started then and has continued until this very day. I grew up in my pre-teen days in Long Beach and Lido Beach, New York. The end of the line of the Long Island Rail Road out to the beaches. It was a wonderful place in which to grow up. One of my schoolmates at Lido Beach Elementary was the son of the man that owned and ran the Malibu Beach Club, the best and coolest of the Beach Clubs that lined the beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side of Long Island. His house was located adjacent to the club. In the summertime, they would book rock artists to entertain the kids of the club members. I not only got to see Bobby Darin, Fabian, and Frankie Avalon perform but got to meet and hang with them a bit, as they would hang out at my school friend’s house before performing. We would accompany them from his house, down the pathway, into the Beach Club, and stand on the side of the stage and watch them perform. For a kid of 10 or 11, it was pretty heady times. I was hooked for life.
In the Seventh Grade, at Lido Beach Jr. High School, in what was a pretty affluent area, I convinced the principal to allow me to use the A/V cart with the built-in turntable, microphone, and speaker, to spin records each day in the lunchroom during our 35-minute lunch break. All the students, grades seven and eight, were there at the same time for lunch, so I had a pretty big audience. Back then, as I look back, we were all pretty hip (by 50’s standards) to music and 45 rpm singles. We all had record players and bought our 45s at E.J.Korvettes for 69 cents.
I also convinced the principal to give me enough funds to buy three singles a week to add to our musical library for my lunchtime DJing. When I look back, I’m still pretty amazed that he agreed to do that. All the students loved the music I chose, and in a way, it kind of made me a bit of a Jr. High School star. That was a big bonus for an 11-year-old kid.
The day that truly hooked me for the rest of my life to the power of music, and being the presenter of that music, was the day after that fateful plane crash that stole the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. The next day at lunchtime, as being the closest thing to “social media” of the day, I got out three songs by the fallen stars and told my lunchtime audience, most of whom hadn’t heard the sad news yet, what had happened the previous day. Three of our favorite stars were gone. I then proceeded to play the three songs in a row. As I looked around the room, almost everyone had tears in their eyes, and many of the girls were crying out loud. After lunch, so many of them came up to thank me for so sensitively letting them know what had happened, and for playing those songs. It touched my very soul, and that feeling has stayed with me ever since. I didn’t know then that that was the beginning of my future passion. Programming, the power of the DJs words, and music’s ability to move hearts. It’s still the secret sauce that makes great radio.