KFAC: Requiem for a Radio Station; Part 2

I decided a long time ago when I first started the business, that I was going to try to be perfect for eight hour shift or whatever, I'd be a basket case. So if I made a mistake, I was going to acknowledge it rather than try to fool the people into thinking somebody else made it. And I've actually had people ask me who wrote my mistakes and I sent my reply, there isn't a writer alive that is. And let me tell you what you want to hear. I'd love to. I introduced a Brahms piano concerto and, you know, that had a lot of housework to do in the booth, house chores, you know, file this file that this that when I finally get a chance to listen to music like Holy Smoke, that's the quietest introduction to a concerto I've ever heard in my life. There's a reason for playing the second movement. I noticed the whole working here, it was on side two and one. I said, I don't know, what am I going to do now?

I don't know what in the world proud of me to do this. But when the second moon was finished, I cut the pot and turned the record over and played the first movement. Oh, I really done it. I'm really in the Soup Nazi, so I've got to play with. So in the first one was over, I killed a pot, lifted the head and turned it over. And as God is my witness, he must have been with me. I put the needle down right at the start of the third movement. So we got the whole thing that I started and I said, look, you did not hear Brahms the way you've ever heard it before. You heard the second movement, the first movement and the third wave. You heard the whole thing. I really shouldn't know that. And I got kind of tongue in cheek, a little facetious. I said it's a matter of fact, we're not even sure how he wrote it. He might have written a second movement first. And, well, it popped up in the Herald Examiner on page two, some I did not already know. Some listeners said, well, he's done it again. So I decided people that listen are human. And it isn't the same as a formal concert.

I would never do this with broadcasting for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. You wouldn't be prepared, but you're doing like an eight hour shift. It's a long time. It's a long time. And you don't have time to prepare everything. We had to fill up our cards, put them on the air. It was a one man band and I think lots of people just went along with this. Informality is like spending time in a rumpus room with Tom Dickson. It was. It was your trademark. Yeah. Yeah. Tom Dickson was always a special favorite because he was such a human being. And on the air, he was your friend. He really somehow or other made you feel as comfortable as if he was your uncle sitting in your living room. And that affected me a lot as a person, as a future radio announcer and as a music lover. Tom, you were at Cafe KFAC for 41 years, nobody wanted 40 years.

How many months? Two days and two. It's not that we're counting. I'm I was counting once. He was it was a goal of mine to become the oldest living disc jockey. Well, I didn't make it. I was older well, on the road. But I missed I missed that broke my heart because I thought I'd go into an eighty five or ninety. But get in the Guinness Book of Records. It life is long, you know. Yeah, I know. So how was it when you first started? Well it was a mishmash of things until it finally became classic. When I first went there, they had just stopped a little while before running baseball games. Pacific Coast League. Yeah. And from ten to midnight they had a thing called Lucky Lager Dance Team after Tom's evening concert and IRA Cooke would play unvarnished dance music. And I won the popular button and bows, buttons and bows. That was a big thing. Big hit.

Well, I used to fill in for IRA when he was on vacation for a month every year. And we broadcast this thing, this dance time from the window of Wallach's Music City. This is Kwesi corner of Sunset and Vine in the window with two turntables, one on either side, you know, and the mic in the middle. And the people stand out in the street and look at it through the window like some kind of a sideshow. So I'd be up there running dance music from ten to midnight. And the strange thing about this is, ah, when Lucky Lager gave up their sponsorship, they decided to give the public a vote as to which they would prefer dance music from ten to midnight or classics. Know the vote was very slim in favor of classic 64. It wasn't a mandate. A classic didn't catch on. Those were nineteen forty six per cent voted in that time and the city was growing. It was not the cosmopolitan place it is now and as a result we played classics until midnight.

Then we used to do a thing at midnight at the Crawford and I used to have to do one night a week from 12:00 midnight until eight in the morning. Ah, to relieve Hank the night watchman. That was his title. Hank the night watchman used to have janitors, all kinds of weird titles for guys at work these hours, you know. So one night a week we had to do this. Now, if you can picture eight hours with two turntables, one on either side running will say a Beethoven symphony with 78 rpm. They run four to five minutes per each. Right. And you have to try in one room to try and go from record number one and number two as neatly as possible. It was very rare that you got a perfect match. So the movement wasn't interrupted either by a pause or an overlap. And the strange thing here was that people would accept this now, the unthinkable. You couldn't do it. They'd kill you. That's my heart. Yeah. Well, you know, another one of the strangest things about this is there was one longer recording was called The Night Song Concerto by Leith Stevens,

I'll never forget this. And Arthur Rubinstein played the piano was for a picture, a Disney picture. This thing ran a make up of time. Something like twelve or thirteen minutes was on a big acetate record. See now all the other ones we had run from four to five or less seventy eight. So if you want to get off the board to go to the bathroom, you put on the night song concerto and you just might hear the night song concerto four or five times in eight hours. We always knew where Crawford's going to the bathroom comes out of the bed, but that's the only way we could get there. When did it all change into classical format? It evolved. It evolved. Nicolazzi It wasn't a sudden thing. There was a time when all the stations in Southern California were little entities of entertainment, of matter of fact, I went down when I was in city college with a group to do a play at KFAC, a drama, a little drama cave. We had its own orchestra as well as staff

of singers and comedians. Each of these stations, individual stations were an entity unto themselves, doing everything so bit by bit. We became a classical station, but it wasn't, you know, because there was a demand for it. I think we like made the demand. How? Because they did it. You know, KFAC and I used to be a very well, I guess you call it a Boston Pops type station. Wish to play all kinds of lovely mish mash things that would keep you on the edge of your seat and your feet tapping. This is one of them. Fine example of what we used to play on AM the FOIR Pogo, the fire engine, pocho bells and whistles and all that stuff going off one after another. Fire first by Joseph Strauss. With the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Yoda's Jarius Tudo to whoever who Georgiades, Georgiades, I got it.

I to get it right this time, the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in that

performance was John Georgiades. I think I'm pretty close there. And it's not that symphony orchestra under his direction played the first polka by Joseph Strauss. Tommy, with a host for many years of the Los Angeles Philharmonic hour and I came across this wonderful little story from one of the airchecks. Let's listen to it now. It is a pleasure once again to welcome to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Hour, and I stress once again monocular Ozbek, who has been with us a number of times on the program. You were telling me before we started to chat that you had possibly the back of your mind of doing something about the Steinway's cellar. That's OK. But the Steinway cellar is the basement. Yes. I think it's kind of a secret. But for those that have visited New York, of course, everybody's familiar with the name Steinway, but most people don't know. There is actually a place on 57 Street

where the Steinway showcases. But what is really unknown to the to your general public is that there is a basement there. You have to descend to flights down. You have to book your time. If you're a Steinway artist and you can choose among 25, 20 to 25 concert grand, you know, tonight you'll decide you want to take CD 104 or you might decide. No, I think I'll try 382, although she was acting up a couple of weeks ago, you know, and that's the kind of language that takes place downstairs in the basement. And you never know who is going to be leaving when you come in. Could be Van Cliburn. Can be if you're lucky, Horowitz, although that's very seldom. And usually he comes, you know, with Shelford in a very special whatnot. And there's hysterical stories that have come through the years about this secret club known as the Steinway basement. There's a very elderly tuner there who has his recounted a lot of it. He remembers when Rachmaninoff and Horowitz came down there to try out the first time, the third Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto.

He remembers the poker games that used to take place with the great artists down there and God knows what else is. Who was your audience listening to classical music? I remember one time I did realize pretty early on that you never knew where you were going to find somebody who listened to you on KFAC. You always think, oh, we used to think Beverly Hills, the elite, were our audience. You know, one time I was out on the other side of town and it was a hot day and I wanted a beer.

And it was this stuccoed type bar, stucco building, like a cracker box sitting kind of like room. And I drove up and I couldn't the DA I couldn't see the bartender. He was bent over in back of the bar. And I said, pardon me, could I get a beer? And this man rolls up and he looked like an expert. I had been pounded too hard. His face was all over, you know, and he said, You think you ought to have a beer before you go on the air, Tom. Really? And I like to die. Never again will I take it for granted that somebody doesn't know about classical music. Just like the balconies in the La Scala up the upper tiers support the opera, the poor people, the so-called poor people, the working people. But no, I really don't know where our audience was. But one of the things that bothers me now about the audience is that we are not reaching enough young people. It's a strange paradox that we are producing an abundance

of fine young performers you can get. If you want to play the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, you can get how many hundred young artists, the complete thing all the way through beautifully. But how are they going to play for a little while themselves? It's difficult at some of the TV or radio stations are going to try and reach a younger audience. And I don't think it's necessarily going to be with the announcers because the age of the announcer is not going to matter. I think it's attitude. Hmm. I think you have to believe in what you're doing. That's the first principle of anything. That's right. And love it can't be just a job when it's. But, you know, one of the things that happened to broadcasting was that when it became rich, people found out they could make a lot of money out of it. A lot of fun went out of it from our end of it. But I don't think the poor public can do anything to stop it. It isn't in their hands. It's a business now.

It's bottom line. Bottom line. What can we make on it and the public be damned? How do you feel about it on a personal level? Oh, boy, I feel betrayed. Well, when I stopped to think about it, the fellows like Carl, Fred, myself, Dick Crawford and others, all of the people in the music library were crazy. They didn't know who owned it, who were the salespeople, were they heard the music and they heard us. And I think over a forty year span in my case, thirty three and Carl's thirty nine or so with Fred, we became classic music to these people. And I guess, you know, it wasn't till I got fired that I got the feeling by God we really did accomplish something of if no other way we endured and we endured, we, we stuck it out. Well, it's been great talking to you.

And can you sign off for us? Oh, you mean. Well, first before I sign off, I got to say hi to certainly help with music. A mistake. Yeah. For years I signed off with a Cockney phrase just to the initials TFN. And for a while there people got on to saying it themselves. You know, it stands that Qatar for now catatonics. As soon as I get up in the morning, the switch went on and there was only one station

that was ever on that radio and at night later it went off. I never changed the stations. It's very difficult for me to imagine anything but having that station always. What part do you feel Casey played in the community in shaping the musical taste of Los Angeles? Absolutely a huge role in that. Let's remember that KUSI signed on in stereo in 1976, many, many years after KFAC had become a bastion of

culture in this community. And what we heard on the station, the information about concerts, interviews with artists, told us what music was and and what the potential of this cultural community could be. Welcome to luncheon at the Music Center. This KFAC feature brings you music and interviews with prominent national, international and Southern California personalities as they meet for luncheon at the Music Center. This is Thomas Cassidy speaking to you from the pavilion restaurant of the New Music Center, where we invite you to join us once again for a luncheon at the music center. Our guest today is a beautiful and wonderful woman, Maureen O'Hara, whom I like

to call the queen of Blarney Castle. Welcome, Maureen, to luncheon at the music center. Well, thank you very much. You know, it's lovely to hear you say my name right. It's lovely to hear you say Maureen O'Hara instead of Maureen O'Hara. Well, there's a little bit of irony in me to you, though. Yes. Yes, there should be, if you like, the flag I put up for you today. It's just beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, you should see what he has on the back of his beautiful golden cherry is the most beautiful. It's a tower rehme and it's boarded with the Irish colors. Green, white and yellow, they say. But it's really green, white and kind of orange. Right. And in the middle is the Irish harp, and it's surrounded by shamrocks and it says and brown, which is Ireland forever a Marine. We'll talk to you about your wonderful career in a few moments. But I think one of the pictures that people remember so much and identify you with so much of the time is The Quiet Man, which was one of the great insights into the people of Ireland. And so I've decided to play as an overture.

Some excerpts from the music that Victor Young composed for this picture. We'll do a Donahoe's house, my mother and the big fight. You remember the big thing? Yes, indeed I do. I got many remembrances of. Lunching at the music center was the brainchild of Thomas Cassidy and was to become the most important arts interview program in the city after 11 years, he was succeeded by Martin Workman, who was to personify the program for the next 14 years. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Time once again for a luncheon at the Music Center coming to you from the beautiful Pavilion restaurant at the top of the music center here in Los Angeles. This is Martin Sharp and this is really a pleasure for me to greet. Again, Emmanuel Schenkman, the virtuoso mandolin and balalaika artist who will be in recital with both instruments at Caltech Speckling Auditorium on January 17th.

Emmanuel, welcome back. Thank you very much, Martin. Always a pleasure to listen to you all the time. You're so I love it when you. But I just have to. Well, I. I remember you so fondly because. Hello, I'm Richard Rodgers. I'm the artistic director of the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet. When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1976, it was the thing to do as a artist to somehow get on Martin Workmans luncheon at the music center. And lo and behold, that finally happened to me. And I was very excited about going up there and meeting Martin and talking about I think at at that time we were premiering The Little Prince and I got up there and I was trying to think of what to say. And I was very, very nervous. But Martin was very gracious and very, very wonderful. And I finally got to meet this legend. And the first thing he said to me was, order the chicken. The chicken is the best on the menu. And that that's sort of how I remember Martin.

And I can't even remember the conversation. But we did have a wonderful lunch. And I felt, at least for a few weeks, that I had really made it in Los Angeles and things were things were terrific. Well, I have to ask you, Martin, how is a chicken? Was it really the best? Well, the thing is, as I recall, Rafer is having a bit of a problem deciding what to order from the menu. And so I just told him the chicken was excellent. It was just about the best. And it's so good to see you again with you. You it's good to see you. You did luncheon at the music center for 14 years, am I correct? A little over 14 years. Yes, every day. Five days a week and five. That's right. Five days a week now on holidays came and we still had to broadcast it. I would pretape it, but the largest percentage of the programs were live and right off the top of our heads. And it was a stimulating, wonderful experience. You know, we've been listening to old airchecks. And the thing that's really interesting is a long time ago, there were so much clattering of plates and people talking to waiters

and asking for things, you could barely hear it. Well, that goes back to Tom Cassidys time. When he started the program, we had an old RCA mic that sat in the middle of the table and where there was one guest, two guests or three guests, you all had to lean in toward that microphone. Finally, the chief engineer at the station, Bob Konger, and myself persuaded George French singer to supply three microphones, which relieved a lot of that pressure. We still had the table noises, but it wasn't as obvious or overriding. Did you actually eat during the conference? My guests did. I did not because I'm a klutz. And if there had been a plate in front of me with food on it, I would have had my elbow or my hand in it. Or if there was a beverage, I would have talked with my hands and he would have gone over. So I waited until afterwards. But yes, my guests did enjoy luncheon at

you. Tom Cassidy told us a story about where he was interviewing Billy and he dumped all he went like, took his arm across the table and all the glasses fell, dumping all the ice in her lap. I'm so happy he told you that story because I think it's wonderful. Now I have one that's very similar to it. I was interviewing Peggy Yarkon and she, like myself, drank iced coffee and she had asked the waiter for a fresh glass. And he came to the table while we were doing the interview and started to serve it. And he misjudged and partied all over her head. I know. Well, I said into the microphone, did the engineer play some music, anything quickly? I can't believe that that's a really funny. This must have been rewarding years and a lot of fun. I put it very simplistically. I never knew a man could like his work so much that he woke up before the alarm went off. And it is true, it was the most rewarding 14 years of my life. I had been working at various jobs over the years,

some of them in the broadcast industry, none of which I was happy with, although I was fairly good at what I was doing. And when this opportunity came along, thanks to Carl Princi, I found I had found my niche. The program was really important to the arts community at large, wasn't it? Oh, yes. When it was started by John Cassidy, it was quite unique. By the time I came into the program, it was well-established and I had people standing in line in order to get on the program because it meant so much. And as you probably know, Nicola, I interviewed the very greats from the field of music and theater. I interviewed the unknowns or the little knowns because I felt it was very important that the cultural community, the artistic community knew what was going on in various areas of Southern California, not just the music center, not just UCLA, not just Ambasador,

but a small theater, a small dance group. And it was very rewarding. Some of the most delightful guests I had were the ones from the smaller groups because they were so dedicated and so intense. And that's really what they were doing. Well, that to me. How did you manage to maintain this pace, to interview every day? Well, did you have help? No, I produced the show just as Tom did before me. I did the research. I selected the music that had to go into the program. I coordinated with traffic department to make sure that there were so many commercials and not too many in excess and so on. And it was it was a challenge and it was fun for me. And I really enjoyed delving into the biographies and the background of these people. What is your secret to interviewing? Woops.

I don't know that I have any secret. I would say no one being thoroughly prepared. Knowing your artist, I made a point of going to see the stage shows from which I was going to do an interview, concerts, opera, very often ballet. I did not have a chance to see them before I did the interview, so I had to draw upon my knowledge. So preparedness, making the guests feel at ease that it was not a strain for them. I wanted them to be comfortable and that's where the lunch came in. They were, you know, usually comfortable. And I did have guests that came in very antagonistic, feeling my nerves, or very often they didn't want to be interviewed. But the event was not polling well enough and it was needed for the exposure to get the word out. And when they found that I knew what I was talking about or had some

idea of who they were, they began to relax and we'd have a great time. Did you ever have a really terrible one that you just couldn't make work? And yes. Would you like to tell us? I will. It was Vladimir Ashkenazy. He was a very reticent man. And no matter how I phrased a question, he answered yes or no. So finally, I phrased a question. I'm sure that this will get this man. And he had just established a symphony orchestra and Mitrovic, Iceland. And I went into some detail about this small community and how, you know, how did he get the musicians and how did he maintain a season. And there was a brief pause and I thought, oh, I got it now. And he said it's been very difficult. So that type of thing did did give me a little bit of tension, but I tried not to show it too much.

And you must have obviously many memorable. Yes, many of them. One of the greatest interviews I had was with Marilyn Horne. Hmm. And when she came to table, she sat down, scrunched into a seat and she said, I will answer anything you ask me except how much do I weigh. I understand Beverly Sills was another one who was an absolute delight. She had no pretenses about her. She was assured, as was Marilyn Horne, of her place in the operatic world. She did not have to pat herself on the back. And we always got along very well. In fact, I was very flattered whenever the New York City Opera came to the music center, she asked, when am I going to be on luncheon at the music center? That's terrific. And one of the more difficult times I had was an interview I did with Susan. Strasbourg. Mm hmm.

And I was suffering a heart attack on the air. Hmm. And I got through the interview and then needless to say, I went to the hospital for a period of time. And thank goodness for the men at that station who filled in for me. There was Carl Princi, Tom Dixon, Fred Crane. They picked up the ball and ran with it so that the program would stay together. And then when I came back, you know, once triumphant return to the airwaves, my guest didn't show up. What what did you do? Well, grab a waiter. And no, I did not do that. That is where doing your research comes in very handy. I talked about the artist. I talked about what he had planned. I talked about what he was doing. And another thing, I knew what was on the recordings. So when I played the first bit of music, I said to the engineer,

now I have programed will say the second movement of a Mozart symphony, which is only 12 minutes long. But if you play the first movement, it's 24 minutes long. So by stretching the music and nattering on, like, crazy, you know, live radio. Yes, it was live radio. Martin, why don't we listen to some music now? All right, fine. How about, let's see, Mozart, the piano concerto number 21 and C, Major K, four, six, seven portion of the third movement with Daniel Barenboim and pianist and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. You're listening to KFAC Requiem for a radio station on KCR W,

I'm Nicola Lubich. Your KFAC, I remember those deadly dull music appreciation classes years ago in school, I studied what the teachers wanted. I got my musical education at KFAC. They were there when I wanted. This is Mitchell Partin. As one of the Tarleton twins, Fred Crane, spoke the opening lines and Gone with the Wind, but his mellifluous voice, his way with words in his great love of music, led him to KFAC, where he was to remain for 39 years. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The glad sounds of music ringing clear, calling for

ethereal spirits of good cheer, the consecrate this field work a day, a shrine where golden graces dance and play. Good morning once again with that music, The Pines of the Vilborg from the Pines of Rome and That Little Quatrain by Leonard Wellstead. This is Fred Greene greeting you again. We have the morning broadcast from KFAC in Los Angeles. We're going to begin this morning with Unhealth Romeril, featured on the guitar and the London Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Hesus Lopez Cobos. We're going to hear a selection, which is the third movement, Allegro Gabriel from the Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra by Lalo Schifrin.