Gene Klavan on WNEW 1130 New York | August 1975
This starts out with a very nice narration by our contributor, Ed Montgomery. Very tastefully done and we thank Ed for this wonderful look at a very unique radio station!
One thing people remember about WNEW was the 15 or so year run that this station had as a pure, local, Standards station. What fewer people remember is when WNEW AM played some contemporary music. In fact, Metromedia had a very successful Full Service AC station on its hands, which was very heavy on personality. Gene Klavan is one of those hosts that WNEW fans remember fondly.
As you listen to this, remember to comment - we LOVE to hear what you have to say!
Rate This Aircheck
(9 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)
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I forgot how slowly things moved on this station back then. Jean seems disconnected at this point in his career. Some of the currents at the time were pretty terrible too, don’t you think?
Really enjoyed the aircheck. Ahhhh, the good o’ days. I miss Gene, rest his soul.
Wowo, Gene was the best. Too bad there is not ore of Him with Finch. I could still listento them for hours, still better than anything on radio today. Greatness is greatness, period
This is absolutely fantastic; I grew listening to WNEW and Gene Klaven; listened to him even at WOR. What a great memory!
excellent 70s radio not from ny but enjoy aircheck.
Scary - 30 years ago today.. I met Gene at WOR (1978) when he did his last gig in NYC..Very nice guy..no ego.. This is MOR radio Big town style late 60’s thru the 70’s..I loved to listen to WHN/WNEW/WNBC battling it out!! Nothing like it anywhere else..
It’s great to hear Gene Klavan again. I remember listening to him each weekday morning as I was eating breakfast and getting ready for school. My favorite part of the aircheck was the comment he made about the Keith Carradine song, “I’m Easy”. It was easily one of the worst songs of that time and possibly of all time, and Klavan pretty much said so, although he was nicer and funnier about it.
i I really enjoy listening to the old airchecks. It brings back a lot of memories of an era gone by. I grew up listening to WNEW-AM.
God what can you say? Absolutely fantastic. I mean like some fantasy I didn’t realize I had. A time machine. Takes me right back to the muggy Brooklyn mid-morning of my mid-teenage years. From 1964 to 1978 I got about 10 hours a week of WNEW if you include in the car. Is it okay to say I still prefer this pace, this umm ‘eclectic’ music mix? GAD, can I detect any of this in my delivery of the philosophy courses I now teach? I KNEW I recognized something familiar about Phil Hendrie’s voice — consciously modeled on Klavan? Dunno, Prefer Klavan, I know that.. Please put more of this stuff — this one WAS my Saturday morning show THIS morning in 2005.
Oh and how did I ever forget that American Airlines jingle: “We’re American Airlines, doing what we do best.” And Mayor Beame and the Mets and Carvel ice cream, and that sci-fi news bumper music… Tickled parts of the brain even I didn’t know I had.
Thank you for all your efforts getting this on and please keep it up — love it.
Ed, As I recall from listening to Klavan (and Finch) through my high school and college years, the 9-10 hour was a tad mellower than the earlier hours, perhaps accounting for what you perceive as a “tiredness” in Klavan’s delivery. The 9-10 hour did have more energy during the Finch years, building up to the final “Morning there, you!” chorus at 9:59:59 a.m. daily from this most entertaining of radio humor teams. Thanks to their style, which had me in stitches daily, I was also exposed to the best in jazz and standards I otherwise would not have known, having been a WMGM and WABC listener as an adolescent. I stuck with WNEW as long as it was around. Radio has never been the same and neither has humor.
A wonderful hour of purest nostalgia. I wonder where Bill Hickock is these days. We have a couple of pictures he took of us in the mid 70s which are much valued. Anyone know where he is? I have some aircheck material of Will B, Ted Brow, Klaven & Finch from 1964/5 if anyone is interested.
Feel free to email me if you’re interested in 60s vintage WNEW
I would like to know where I can obtain free airchecks of WNEW AM from 1965 to 1975 where I can once again hear those great radio personalities.
Remember the sine off in the original days of Klavan and Finch????
Just before the news at 10 AM it was….I’m Gene Klavan… and this is Dee Finch…”GOOD MORNING THERE
YOU.!!!!!
Gang, thanks so much for commenting on this aircheck. If people will send in recordings they have of WNEW I’ll certainly get them posted right away. The sad fact is, you have to realize that most of the airchecks we have and that most people thought to record were accidental - in other words, they usually did the recording at home as a teen just for the music, then re-discovered them years later in a box somewhere. For this reason, the majority of airchecks are of top 40 stations like WABC, instead of WNEW or some other MOR station.
True, there are others like this floating around but they are very rare and hard to come by. This one showed up purely by accident in a large donation.
Isn’t it sad how far radio has slipped? We listen to Gene Klavan here and while the show is at a snail’s pace compared with modern morning shows, it’s so much better. But nobody would think of trying a show like this today, nevermind an ecclectic AC/Standards mix.
Keep all the comments coming, and perhaps someone with a tape or two will step forward and let us post it!
I’d love to hear some of the material John Ross Bernard has on tape. John mentioned “Wild Bill Hickock”…did he do the Milkman shift for awhile? It’s unbelievable there is not more material out there from WNEW. Where is Klavan&Finch…Bob Landers on “The losers club”…William B. audio is shockingly
missing…he was the premier East coast personality
for decades but there is very little available to
showcase just how great he really was.And there is a litany of others…Jack Lazare…Dick Partridge…Jim Lowe…Ted Brown (you can find the last two on the internet but not from WNEW.Same for Pete Myers,got all
kinds of Mad Daddy stuff no WNEW.
And it’s not just these men…take Herb Oscar Anderson
for example. Herb says he has only one!!!aircheck from WABC and that it’s no good. Well someone finally persuaded him to send it in and it is now available,I think, on the web site. Herb was right…it isn’t very
good….he was ‘mailing it in’ so to speak but still it’s H.O.A. with Hello Again and all the rest of his “stuff”.
Good Lord, I remember this very hour.
Klavan’s live-tag reads at the end of Beneficial spots were always classics.
And *otherwise*, he didn’t waste a break, either. (Remember, you had to talk out of every song in those days … no sweepers and slick filler).
He had fun. He WAS fun. What a wit. The funniest person ever to talk into a microphone imho. I saw him do his show once. He was completely ad-lib. NOTHING scripted. Just silliness and buffoonery ; no blue stuff and no ethnic stuff of the sour sort. And a lot of his material was fairly lenghthy in theme, not just quick-hitting.
Klavan deserves his own tribute board.
Wonderful morning radio! Thanks Gene and Ed and Airchexx!
Thank you,thank you, thank you.
I really enjoyed hearing Gene again.
Hearing Gene again takes me back 47 years (getting older!). No one in radio has ever equaled his ability and creativity. My Dad listened to WNEW 12 hours a day at his store starting after WWII and where I leaned to love it starting in the late 50s. Today Gene and WNEW is as wonderful as ever to listen to on this airchexx. I agree with everyone else it would be nice to also hear Willie B and the rest of the old WNEWgang from the 50s-60s.
Thank You so much for this !! It was great to hear Gene again!! My dad also listened to WNEW all the time and I got hooked as a kid.
I was lucky enough to become friendly with Ted Brown and Gene Klavan and went up to the WNEW studios (565 Fifth Ave) many times just to sit and watch them do their shows. It was alway a thril for me as a kid and I will alway cherish thoses days !! Unfortunately all the air chacks I had of them on tape have long since gone bad.
Thanks again !!!
I never had the pleasure of meeting Gene but as a former air personality myself I am awed by his unrivaled talent as a broadcaster. Perhaps more important to me is what a truly nice guy (from all accounts) he was to everyone regardless of their station in life…a rather rare commodity in the business topheavy with annoying egos.
Thank you for allowing me to again experience great radio that is timeless.
Being a former air personality myself I can really appreciate the talent of Gene Klavan perhaps more than others who haven’t been in the business. I literally had to wash away the tears of laughter as I listened to the tape. This man was absolutely the best at what he did. As important to me is that reportedly he was just as nice to an ordinary person as he was to someone of “status.” My big regret is that I never had the pleasure of meeing Gene. I know God’s blessing will always be upon him.
How nice to find a place full of people who fondly remember Klavan and Finch and all the old WNEW names. I was in high school during that time and hated leaving my radio friends to go to school. WNEW woke me up every morning and the first thing I did whenever returning home was to turn on the radio and hear some more.
In fact it was WNEW personalities that inspired me to major in broadcasting in college. I visited their studio a few times and thereafter delighted in hearing Klavan and Finch references to my home state, Pennsylvania and they even mentioned “Linda” frequently. Very nice, personal touches from very nice men.
I met Willie B., too and just a few years ago located Ted Brown here in Palm Beach County, Florida. Unfortunately that frequency switched to an unlistenable format. No more six-foot-four, gold-flecked eyes, etc. I miss them all terribly.