[BC] Jean Shepherd

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:48 PM 6/16/2006, Xen Scott wrote: -------

>I, like many, have a collection of Shepherd shows, mostly 1/4 inch open reel
>recordings I made off-air from WOR in the 1960's and early 
>1970's.  I much prefer
>his earlier work at WOR when he was on late just before Long John Nebel.  This
>was well before he started doing club appearances, PBS shows, 
>Playboy articles,
>book, and movies.  In the late 1950's and early 1960's he was still 
>a struggling
>radio entertainer/storyteller.

That was earlier than my discovery of the show. I remember it being 
from 10:15 to 11PM. In those days most hours consisted of a 15 minute 
newscast followed by a 45 minute show. Barry Farber followed him then 
and did a good part of overnight. Barry Farber is still a good friend 
and I should ask him about his memories of Shep. I'm told he had some 
issues with RKO General and felt the need to diversify. I worked with 
him at the beginning of the diversification. I recall his excitement 
at WGBH when we looked at the raw footage. He was like a kid in a 
candy store. They borrowed one of the engineers' Winebagos and carted 
one of the first Norelco PCP-90 camera/recorder combos around the 
country. It's probably where CBS got the idea for Charles Kurault.

The show called 'Phantom of the Open Hearth" especially pleased him. 
It was done in a steel mill in Gary, Indiana. They blew open the 
furnaces with dynamite. Fantastic fireworks. Phantom of the Open 
Hearth comes from the eerie face that appears on the triangular part 
of the ceiling crane that hooks the buckets that catch the flow of 
steel. It amazed me that something so hot and dirty could be so beautiful.

I have the impression he wasn't well liked at WOR in the RKO days. I 
know he was bitter about the station in later years.

Nostalgia is wonderful. Either WBAI or WFMU did a retrospective and I 
recall being disappointed. It wasn't as good as I remembered. Maybe 
they were the later shows. WGBH-FM carried the shows he originated 
there. I remember listening in a darkened room to his show on his 
stay at a friend's apartment in Chicago's Marina Towers. His 
description of the towers swaying almost made me motion sick. It was 
the most vivid theatre of the mind I can remember.

Rich

Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-454-3258