Marv
died around 1998. He was dismissed from the Washington Bullets
as their PA announcer
in 1992 and was dismissed as the Washington Capitols PA announcer
in 1995.
He came out against smoking in 1994...something he had done most
of his life.
Lynn
Brooks, Marv's widow writes:
Marv
started at WPGC in August of 1964. The first record he ever played
on that station was Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman."
Marv had actually been doing voice work from the time he was 6
years old, in Detroit, MI. He worked on local radio stations in
the Detroit area until college. He attended college at Ann Arbor
(I can NEVER remember if that is Michigan State or University
of Michigan!! -- It's the one with the Spartans!)
When
Marv finished his Freshman year at college he wanted to try his
hand at professional radio. He made his Mother a deal: Give me
a year to make it...if I don't, I'll come back and finish school.
He
got a job at WPAC - AM, Patchogue, Long Island, NY. That was in
1962 and 1963. One of the WPGC guys was driving through the area
and heard him on WPAC. They needed a guy in the DC area and he
was down here within 3 days!!
Marv
was 20 years old when he started at WPGC. I had just turned 14
years old and listened to him everyday on the radio!! Marv was
the biggest thing to happen to the DC area in a LONG, LONG time!!
He
did many different shifts at WPGC, along with the requisite Hops
and Promos.
He
stayed at WPGC until 1968. As I recall, there were some political
problems with the ownership / management and union. Marv was unceremoniously
fired.
That's
when he went to WMOD.
Marv actually built that radio station from the ground up. It
was the first Oldies station in the country AND the first totally
automated radio station in the country. He was always very proud
of that.
To
be honest...I don't really remember why he left WMOD...I
think they may have changed formats and he was unhappy.
He
then started making his living as a free-lance voice talent. That
is how he made his living for the rest of his life. Marv had his
studio in the house and recorded anything and everything that
needed a voice. Character voices were a specialty.
Marv
also was the voice for many well know politians all over the country.
His voice was heard in practically every state at election time!
When
word came out that Abe Pollin was building the Cap Centre in 1973...Marv
made an audition tape...complete with echo, crowd noises and cheers.
He sent it to Abe Pollin and got the job as House PA Announcer
for the Capitals. He had that job for over 23 years.
Marv
also did the announcing for the Bullets in Baltimore and then
when Abe brought them to the Cap Centre. He also
did ring announcing for Boxing and Wrestling (I'm not a big fan
of either!)
Al
Wallack
Al
did news in 1970 - 1971. Today he is the Program Director of WNED-AM
970 in Buffalo.
Al
Writes:
I
enjoyed cruising around the WPGC website a great deal. Spent some
time there in '70-'71. Hired by big
Wilson and worked with Harv
Moore, several Bob
Raleighs and my best buddy there at the time was Davy
Jones. I was, mostly, a News
Guy. Keep
up the good work.
Bob
Raleigh (Bill Miller)
Bill
Miller inherited the 'Bob
Raleigh' air name when he joined the station from KOIL / Omaha
for nights at WPGC in 1966 as 'Tiger Bob'. He then briefly did
middays before moving to morning news and was the station's Production
Director. He held both positions longer than anyone else through
the Great
Strike That Struck Out in May of 1977, working with Harv
Moore, Columbus, and Tim
Kelly.
Skip
McCloskey of the WRC tribute site
writes:
Bob
Howard liked to keep the same names on air even though the
person changed. The guy who eventually inherited the 'Bob
Raleigh' air
name was Bill Miller in 1966. He did some fill in DJ work
and weekends but mostly did news during the week as I recall.
I know he went to WPOC (Country) in Baltimore after being fired
from WPGC (after the strike
in '77).
Ken
Mezger adds:
Bob Raleigh (Bill Miller) was filling in for Harv
Moore one morning and locked himself out. As his record was
ending, he jumped up into the ceiling (drop ceiling) and pushed
himself over and fell down into the lobby and broke many fingers!
Then he called Dino
DelGallo at home (lived close) and begged him to "bring
a vacuum cleaner quickly" to the station. Then they robbed
some drop ceiling tiles from other parts of the building and replaced
the broken ones. When Dino told me about this I couldn't stop
laughing ... every time I saw Bill Miller with splints on most
of his fingers!
Don
O'Day
Don
O'Day came to the station from sister station KAYK
in Provo in May of 1977 when The
Great Strike That Struck Out occured. In addition to doing
morning news, he also pulled a Saturday evening show until he
left the station in the Summer of 1978.
The
late, Don Bishop wrote:
Don
O'Day
is an old friend of mine originally from North Carolina who ended
up in Provo, Utah and attended college at BYU. He went to WPGC
to be the newsman with Jim Elliott.
Don always had that deep voice and a love for morning humor. When
he left WPGC in 1978, it was to replace me as PD at KAYK
AM/FM. The GM and I were on the outs and I soon left to go
to Q107.
The
last I heard is that after returning from 'PGC, he worked in Provo
and Salt Lake City. He did a lot of voice-over stuff including
scriptures on tape and so forth. I believe he moved to Phoenix
and I don't think he's in radio, though I'm not sure. His wife
is from Arizona, so I believe he went there to make her happy.
Scott
Woodside
Scott
Woodside
joined Jim Elliott
for morning news in the Summer of 1978 from WQXI in Atlanta.
Scott writes:
I
listened to all of the Elliott
and Woodside air checks and at 54 years old I became very
emotional. WPGC was the highlight of my entire 30 years of broadcasting
experience. I remember when Elliott
and I went from worst to first in 6 months. How did we do it?
By being ourselves. No bits, no sound effects, no smoke and mirrors,
just relating to our listeners. Who allowed that? Dan
Mason. He was a great friend and genius radio manager.
On
'Congressman Cottonpicker':
'You'll get richer quicker with Cottonpicker'! I came
up with the concept. One morning Elliott
turned on his mic and asked me a question and I used a Southern
voice and he asked who I was and I told him Congressman Buford
T. Cottonpicker. And the rest is history. At the time Dick
Marriott owned the station and asked that we do the bit twice
a morning because he loved it. We burned the poor congressman
out after three months. I even went to personal appearances
dressed up like Cottonpicker and nobody knew it was me because
we were such a new morning show!
On
the Armadillo Country Amusement Park:
This
is just another example of how creative Dan
Mason was. The three of us were talking, and he said something
to the effect: “Guys, your Armadillo Country Amusement
Park bit is fantastic and I can’t believe the thousands of
people that think it’s a real amusement park here in the
area.” We never gave out a location. Our tag line on
those fake spots was always: 'Take the Beltway and follow the
signs'. Turn left at the first arrow and go another 5 miles
to the entrance.
We
had Dave Foxx do one of those
real fast tag lines. It was great because listeners were always
calling up asking where the amusement park was. They wanted us
to elaborate on the directions which made for great phone bits.
Some people would call and play along like they had been there.
We would play along with them as well.
On
the Simulated Thanksgiving Day Parade:
Dan
Mason suggested we do a fake
parade in DC for Thanksgiving day. “Why don’t
you guys record your show for Thursday so you can have Thanksgiving
with your families?” Since there wasn’t one in DC
at the time, we decided to put together an entire theater of the
mind parade. We promoted it for about two weeks before the event
so that we could stir up the “monkeys” a little bit.
By
the time Thanksgiving day came around callers blew out the request
lines trying to find out where the parade was located. We embellished
everything, used crowd effects, marching band sound effects, made
up the name of the floats to relate with what was going on at
that time. I believe the other jocks were a part of the parade
as well and were supposedly on the scene filing reports.
On
UFO's:
Do
you remember when we did the UFO stories at WPGC in the fall of
1978? Well, I did a bunch of research and did a lot of sound bites
with a lot of people in the “know”. I must have hit
a nerve because the FBI had me followed and even tried to find
out where I kept all of my research. It scared me so bad, that
I had to go into hiding at Elliott’s
house for 3 months after we finished the UFO special. That’s
one of the reasons I loved DC because you just never knew who
was listening.
On
Dan Rather:
Once
when Dan Rather became the CBS anchor and began wearing sleeveless
sweaters I once said on the air that he looked gay and that you
could take any person off the street and put them in front of
a teleprompter and they would do better than Dan. Well, his daughter
called crying and later tried to sue me and the station for slander.
On
Tip O'Neal:
Another
time
I was kidding on the air with Elliott
and told him that when I was at a picnic over the weekend one
of the guests was Tip O’Neal and all he did was keep taking
food off of my paper plate. I was kidding of course and trying
to relate because that’s when there were a bunch of fat jokes
about Tip. Well, his grandaughter called in tears. I put the little
5 year old on the air and before the end of the interview we were
all crying. That was the magic of Elliott
and Woodside. We were allowed to be ourselves.
On
Chip Carter:
There
are hundreds of stories like that. My favorite was when I paraphrased
an article in the Washington
Post about Chip Carter having an affair with a DC socialite
in the private quarters of the White House. I got sued for 4 million
dollars and Marriott freaked out. It took 5 years back and forth
before it was settled out of court for a mere $30,000.
Seems
like I was always in trouble. That’s when Mason
and Marriott and Potter labeled
me as a “loose cannon”. Had they not been so paranoid
they could have hired me back somewhere after the Q107
debacle and I would have excelled like never before. It would
have been good for both of us. But they never really recovered
from when we left WPGC and I think they were always bitter about
that.
On
Leaving WPGC:
Actually,
we were the ones that contacted Alan Burns 18 months earlier.
We met but couldn't come to any agreement. Alan told us to leave
the door open and call if anything ever changed. Their first offer
was to find out how much we were making at 'PGC just so they'd
know how to play their cards the next time if it ever came up
again.
WLS
offered Elliott
a job without me in September or October of 1981 just a few months
before we went over to Q107.
WLS
offered Jim
$80,000 to move. He came back to 'PGC and told them what had happened
So 'PGC raised his salary to $80,000.
He
made a mistake by telling me what had happened so I went in and
asked for a raise too. After all, Kingston,
Giddens, and Potter
said that we were a team and putting our strengths together is
what made us"bulletproof" at the time.
I
remember going into Steve Kingston
the PD at the time,
and asking him for a raise. He told me to give him back 60,000
dollars and whatever was left is what I was worth. The next day
I called Alan Burns at Q107
and told him I was interested in leaving 'PGC. He asked if Elliott
would consider coming to Q too. I told him yes, and he arranged
a meeting the next day at the old Hamburger Hamlet in Potomac.
That’s where we agreed to sign a five year no cut contract
with Q107.
Kingston
says he was kidding. He wasn't kidding and he knew it. Since he
was my direct supervisor he was reflecting management's feelings
towards me. How else should I have taken that? I felt that I had
been a major contributor to the morning show. Everyone told me
that but Kingston,
so when he hit me with that statement in his office, I was devastated.
My
feelings were really hurt and then I got pissed. That's when I
picked up the phone and called Alan and told him I was ready for
a change. I told Elliott what
Kingston had said and that
I had called Burns. Elliott
said he'd go to the meeting because he had no loyalty with Potter
or the Marriotts. Hell, he said if he could get more money and
I could get more money from ABC then we should test the waters.
The next evening I met Ernie Fears at midnight at a gas station
in Chevy Chase to pick up my contract. Never let a lawyer look
at it. Elliott and I met with
Alan and Ernie at Alan’s house on a Saturday morning before
Christmas and signed the deal.
Kingston
freaked out. We told him right before Christmas that we were giving
him 2 weeks notice. He started screaming and said: “Why don’t
you get the hell out of here now if that’s the way you feel.”
We left the building by 10:30. Charles
Giddens was on vacation at the time. I had loaned him my luggage
rack for his road trip. He had to come off of vacation four days
early when the shit hit the fan. He drove over to my house and
the last time I saw him was when he slung the luggage rack into
my front yard and sped off in his car. Wow, he was pissed and
hurt.
Funny,
I always thought that you were supposed to go through the chain
of command. Isn’t that why there are PD’s. Aren’t
you supposed to communicate through them? Hey, Kingston
didn’t want to give me a raise, and I wasn’t under contract,
so why would I want to be where I wasn’t liked or appreciated?
Scott Shannon was my PD
before Kingston and obviously
the better of the two.
I believe Scott Shannon
is the best and most creative person that I ever worked with.
A consultant once suggested that Shannon
hire me when he was at Pirate Radio. Well, he must have known
it was ready to crash and burn and told me that I’d be very
unhappy. He also said that if he hired me my wife Cyndy would
kill him. He saved my ass at the time.
I
remember getting a call the next day from Glenn
Potter who was on a ski vacation with Dick Marriott. I missed
the call. They wanted me to change my mind and stay at 'PGC. He
called later and we talked and I told him that I shook hands with
Ernie Fears and Alan Burns and gave them my word that I would
accept their 5 year contract offer. The only thing you have in
life is your word and your handshake. I couldn’t go back
on that no matter what Marriott was offering.
Dan
Mason, who by then was GM of a KFMK
in Houston called on behalf of Marriott and Potter
and told me that if I stayed they would double what Q107
was offering and even gold plate the damn radio tower for me.
It was the hardest decision I ever made in my broadcasting career.
Had I not given my word to the Q107
guys I would have backed out and gone back to WPGC. They only
asked me. Not Elliott.
When
we left WPGC, I took all of our drops. I mean everything. Three
reel to reels full of stuff. I received a cease and desist letter
via registered mail saying that I couldn’t use any of those
drops on Q107. This was
after I explained to the guys at WPGC that I couldn’t come
back after giving my word.
On
the Mega Bucks Offer From Q107:
Burns
told us later that our contract was the highest amount ever paid
to radio talent at the time and as a result they had to raise
Larry Lujack's salary and Harden and Weavers. Why? Q leaked our
contract details to the Washington
Post and when word got out everyone had to be bumped up in
salary. We were also the first radio talent to ever be given a
no cut contract. 5 years too!
The
amount of the contract was so high that when
Elliott and I agreed to sign, Ernie Fears had to call ABC
president Leonard Goldenson to get his permission to do his deal.
Leonard was playing golf in Bejing, China at the time and had
a satellite phone on the course waiting for Ernie's call.
Double
to stay at WPGC would have been a whole hell of a lot of money.
My contract was damn good. I can’t remember the exact figures
but I do remember that they gave us each a $25,000 dollar cash
signing bonus. My contract totaled right around $900,000 dollars
for the entire 5 years. I can only wonder if Dick Marriott and
Glenn Potter would have doubled
that. Elliott made more on
his contract. His was a little over a million. After all, a DJ
is so much more talented than a news guy. Right? That was typical
radio management mentality back then.
And
I'll tell you this. If I've learned anything over the years, money
is not the answer. That's the most money I ever made in 30 years
of broadcasting but those five years at Q107
were horrible. I hated every minute working there. Everyone knew
how much we were making and everyone at WMAL and Q107
were totally resentful of us being there.
On
Union Issues with AFTRA:
AFTRA
had to let Elliott cross over
to Q. They fought it, but ABC worked something out with Evelyn
Freyman. He was allowed to work at Q but he was not a part of
AFTRA. ABC paid his dues. When I came to 'PGC from Georgia I was
non union. During the AFTRA strike I freelanced in NY and made
a tiny fortune. When the strike was over an agency called me and
congratulated me on becoming the new on camera spokesman for Ford.
When I told them I was non union they told me to join.
I
tried, and the guys on Wisconsin Ave kicked my ass right out of
the door. It took me two years going before boards and union members
to be allowed membership. I still carry the AFTRA and SAG cards.
Don’t use them, but I’m proud to be a part of the union,
especially SAG. Some day I’ll get back into acting.
On
Making the Move to Q107:
It
was the worst mistake of my life. When they brought us over they
tried to change us overnight. Little did we know that the only
reason they did what they did was to cripple WPGC so that Q would
be the only top forty station in the market. They cut back on
our talk, they added a bunch of that early MTV music that really
sucked, they told us what to do and when to do it.
Ernie
and Alan knew what it would take to ruin 'PGC. They never hired
us because they liked our act. They hired us to "blow up
WPGC." They never intended to let us do at Q what had made
us successful at WPGC. We weren't allowed to do anything but play
the hits and do the news. The music sucked, and we just sat there
every morning doing a few breaks every hour. It came down to this:
We did whatever they wanted as long as they paid us the money.
We
became whores for the money. Just went through the motions every
morning. They took away our “fire”. They ruined WPGC
and they ruined Elliott and
Woodside. Elliott and I broke
up with about 18 months remaining on our contracts. Q paid us
off entirely. They didn’t want to but the AFTRA forced them
to.
On
the Demise of Elliott & Woodside at Q107:
Why
did the team break up? I broke up the team. Elliott
was doing boatloads of cocaine and wouldn't stop, so I organized
a confrontation. The show sucked because Elliott
was fried every morning. Back then everyone in broadcasting knew
that drugs were being consumed but it was an unspoken thing. Management
didn't want to hear about it nor did they want to deal with it.
Long
story short, the team broke up and I was pretty much black balled
in broadcasting for turning Elliott
in. PD's were afraid to hire me thinking that I was a snitch and
would be causing trouble. Hey, I did cocaine too. I'm no angel
when it comes to that. But I stopped doing it when I found out
what it was doing to me. Elliott
continued. Elliott has admitted
to me that I was responsible for saving his life.
As
far as the cocaine is concerned. I quit about a year after joining
Q107. Elliott
promised me that if we did cross over to Q that he’d quit
doing coke. He lied. It was really horrible. I kept doing it,
then quit cold turkey. Quit smoking and cocaine the same day.
Boy
was it hard to find work after that. PD’s and GM’s wanted
to hire us individually but wouldn’t because they wanted
to pay less money. I guess they didn’t want to embarrass
us.
On
Returning to WPGC:
I was hired to go back to WPGC when it was changed to WCLY and
work with Jeff Baker. Boy was
that “fun”. That lasted a year. Then Jerry Clifton came
in and cleaned house and let me stay and do mornings by myself
for 6 months. One day Mason
came in and said: “Son, I hate to be the bearer of bad
news but you’re the last white guy left at the station and
we need to replace you with a black guy.” I left with
6 months severance and then a year later was asked to move to
Atlanta to do mornings at WZGC.
I
no longer talk to Mason and
he doesn’t talk to me. He fired me from WZGC
in the late 80’s for reasons I still don’t know and
that just about did it for our friendship. I was told if I moved
to Atlanta and reunited with my old partner from the 70’s
that I could stay there forever. Well, 2.5 years later I found
myself on the street. Had to sell my house and wow did it suck.
My
last job in broadcasting was a freakin’ traffic reporter.
Talk about the bottom of the food chain for a seasoned broadcaster.
That lasted three years. Thank goodness the pen company took off
in the meantime.
On
the Glory Days:
I
will say this: You could put Elliott
and Woodside in a studio today and we'd have the same success
that we had before. Why? Chemistry. That's the answer. PD's constantly
put morning show teams together without much luck. The missing
factor for success is chemistry. It's either there or it isn't.
Elliott and I would still
be doing mornings in DC had it not been for the drug issue.
It
took me years to get over what happened, and to this day when
I go to DC for meetings, I cherish the memories that I have and
secretly wish that we could have had another chance. My on air
days are over now though.
Wally
Weaver
Wally
Weaver
did afternoon news with Scott
Carpenter in 1979 / 1980 while he
was
working at WZYQ in Frederick, MD (where he did morning news).
Came
across your website almost by accident while reading about the
sad passing of Dean Griffith.
Great site that brings back lots of fond memories.
Went
to the "News Guys"
page to check on some old friends, and lo-and-behold - -found
my name from my brief stint at 'PGC. While there, I was "Wally
Weaver", a name concocted by then 'PGC PD Scott
Shannon. I continued to perform news duties at Z-104 in Frederick
under my real name, Wally Hindes.
Shortly
after, I followed Scott Carpenter
to B104 in Baltimore, and spent four years there. Also spent time
in Chicago, returned to Washington as News Director of WASH
in the mid-80s,...and, eventually, moved to AP Broadcast in Washington,
where I continue to oversee AP's audio products.
This
is a great web site -- not only because I spent some time at PGC,
but, since I went to high school in Fairfax, it brought back some
great memories!
Loo
Katz
'El
Double O' joined the station in 1980 as the utility fill in guy,
often substituting for Scott
Woodside in morning news. When Elliott
& Woodside departed
early in 1982 for Q107
he did morning news for an extended period of time.
He
later became the Promotions
Director for WPGC before departing in 1983 for a PD gig in New
Haven. Returning a year later he became the Asst. PD but left
again in 1984 for WAVA
where he did middays for several years. Eventually he spent 10
years in PM drive at
MIX107. He later did mornings for 14 years at WASH-FM.
J.
Robert Howe
J.
Robert Howe joined WPGC in the Fall of 1982 from sister station,
KYAK in Provo for morning news duties.
Initially he was paired up with Dude
Walker as 'Walker & Howe'. Redskins quarterback
Joe Theismann was also a
member of the show.
By
the Spring of 1983, Dude
had left for mornings at WASH
and Dave Foxx returned to mornings
where he had earlier been paired with Dude
as 'Dude & Dave'. Overnighter Glenn
Beck stayed around to do the traffic on the morning show too
until he left for mornings in Corpus Christie, Texas late in the
year.
