Radio

When Miriam Blue took off her rubber gloves, put down her janitor’s supplies and began talking into a microphone at KMOX radio in 1975, she was following in the footsteps of a man who did the same thing nearly 40 years earlier.

Sol Williams, like Miss Blue, was an African-American (the term in those days was “Negro”) janitor when KMOX occupied studios in the Mart Building in 1938. Co-workers at the station appreciated Sol’s wit and happy banter as he mopped the floors. His advanced age of 70 didn’t stop him from living life to the fullest and loving it.

A debut on KMOX for Sol Williams came at an unexpected moment, a time when sports announcer France Laux suddenly found himself without an expected guest at the beginning of his nightly sports show. Williams had been working as a janitor at KMOX for 10 years, and Laux’s producer knew the man loved sports and had lots of opinions. Larry Neville ran out into the hallway. “Sol,” he shouted.

Drop that mop and come on in here.”

On the air, Laux was stretching, not knowing what was going on. As he saw Sol being escorted into the studio, he didn’t miss a beat. “…and our guest for the evening is the celebrated sports authority, Sol Williams.” There was no evidence of microphone fright, and management quickly found out how listeners felt. Fan mail came pouring in. Sol Williams became a regular guest on the “Hot Stove League” program.

In the late 1930s, almost everything heard on the radio was scripted, but not Sol. Laux reportedly wanted Williams to be himself, and a script would have hampered that. One of the traits that endeared the janitor to the listeners was his humanness. Sol was known for shifting his allegiance if his favorite teams or players let him down. As he once said on the program, “I picks ’em now. There ain’t nothin’ said about me having to stay on a team if it lets me down.”

Miriam Blue’s big break came in October of 1975 as she dusted in the KMOX studios while Jack Carney was on the air. At age 61, Miss Blue, as she was known to the staff, was a welcome sight in the studios at 1 Memorial Drive. Known for her constant upbeat approach to life, Miss Blue rode the bus from her home in East St. Louis each day. When asked how she was doing, her consistent answer was a sincere “All is well.”

As she told it later in her career, Miriam Blue was dusting in Carney’s studio and he began asking her questions. She answered in her usual upbeat manner, not knowing the microphones were on. The reaction from the audience was immediate, just as it had been with Sol Williams, and Carney created a regular slot twice a week at 10:15 on his program for her. She had advice for callers who phoned the program with their problems, and she was later incorporated into Carney’s wildly popular “As the Stomach Turns” skits. She joined the broadcasters’ union, AFTRA, and was paid for her broadcast appearances.

After he got finished on the air each evening, Sol. Williams returned to his cleaning chores around the KMOX studios, and Miss Blue did too, even though a national spotlight began to shine her way. The Associated Press ran a feature article about her broadcast success, which led to an article in People magazine and another on CBS-TV. The game show “To Tell the Truth” flew her to New York to appear as a guest star and she was featured in “The David Susskind Show” on CBS Radio. The New York trip was not only her first time on a plane. It was also her first visit to Lambert Field in St. Louis.
She continued on Carney’s show, as well as in her job as KMOX janitor until she was hospitalized in the early ’80s suffering from a stroke. She passed away in the hospital.

Miriam Blue was once asked by a reporter whether she was making a lot more money in her new status as a KMOX celebrity. Her response was vintage Miriam Blue: “I just couldn’t be happy as the idle rich.”

(Reprinted with permission of the “St. Louis Journalism Review.” Originally published 11/00)

The broadcast of the return of beer from Anheuser-Busch over KMOX last Thursday was hailed as the most successful heard during the two-hour CBS network program. Through the efforts of J.L. Van Volkenburg, Director of Operations, Walter “Hank” Richards, Program-Production Director, and Graham L. Tevis, Audio Engineer, the entire program necessitated accurate timing and numerous “remote” details clicked off perfectly.

France Laux was Master of Ceremonies of the program that included a broadcast from the warehouse where Marvin Mueller was in charge of describing the first trucks of beer that left the plant, another to the rail yards where Garnett Marks was heard and another to Lambert field where the first case of beer for President Roosevelt was loaded on a TWA plane. August A. Busch, Jr., addressed the nation upon the significance of the return of beer as it affects our economic structure.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 4/22/1933).

L.A. Benson at 32 is St. Louis’ Pioneer of Radio, Having Made First Broadcast and Installed City’s First Station.

Eleven years ago, L.A. Benson installed a radio receiver in an automobile and amazed the citizenry with a statement that the day would come when policemen would be in continuous communication with headquarters by means of radio.

He demonstrated his portable receiver to Chief of Police Martin O’Brien and a group of skeptics, who saw the device as an impractical and unnecessary invention.

Today, owners of short-wave radio sets are unimpressed when they hear police calls connecting headquarters with radio cars on the streets in all sections of the city. Radio police communication is an accomplished fact today and therefore commonplace.

Benson’s “dream” of eleven years ago is a reality now. But police radio communication is only one of the marvels of the era which has seen broadcasting develop into a major industry. He has been closely allied with every important step in radio broadcasting in this community, dating from the first broadcast sent from the basement in his little radio shop in 1920 – news of Harding’s election.

About a year later he established a record for long-distance radio broadcasting, having been heard as far away as Bristol, Conn. This achievement was flashed throughout the world as important news.

Ten years ago – he was 22 years old then – Benson installed radio station KSD and operated it for several months. That was his first adventure in broadcasting on a large scale. Now he is president of Missouri Broadcasting Corporation, owners of WIL.

Benson was the first St. Louisan to receive a commercial radio license. He began experimenting with wireless telegraphy when he was 14 years old and three years later ran away from home so he could enlarge the scope of his radio experience. He served as Marconi operator on the U.S.S. Arizona, a steamer on the Great Lakes and in 1918 entered military service at Camp Pike, where he became an instructor in wireless and was commissioned a first lieutenant.

Returning to St. Louis at the close of the war, he and W.E. Wood formed the Benwood Company to deal in radio equipment. The store was located at Thirteenth and Olive streets and it was from there that Benson did his first broadcasting. In 1921 the store was moved to 1110 Olive street and the call letters of the Benson station were WEB. Four years later Benson moved his station to the Star building and was assigned the call letters WIL, which still identify his station, now one of the most popular in the city.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 6/11/32).

Aspiring radio performers will envy the natural ease with which Bob Holt broke into the game. Connected with a commercial organization whose radio program was suddenly minus one of its regular performers, he was put in on a moment’s notice. His characterization without rehearsal was so outstanding as to create immediate interest. He was offered a position as an announcer, and though previously he had no thought of entering radio, he accepted because of the new experiences it offered.

His voice, however, is an inheritance from his mother, who, as Jessie Nelson, was well known in St. Louis some years ago as an elocutionist and teacher of elocution.

Young Bob was educated for a religious career. He attended seminary in St. Louis and a year abroad. An interesting sidelight is Bob’s reason for giving up the ministry as a life’s work: an intense dislike for public speaking. Even now he avoids public notice and confines his oratory to the small, round metallic instrument known as the microphone. But he is sufficiently cured of this reserve to aspire beyond everything else to sing over the radio when he has completed vocal training.

Bob Holt is now a real radio fan. His favorite pastime is paddling a canoe, with a portable radio and his favorite programs for companions.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 6/11/32).

Much like the proverbial cat with nine lives, Buddy Blattner proved to St. Louisans several times that one man could be successful in many careers.

Robert G. Blattner, known to his fans as “Buddy” died September 4th  [2009] after suffering from lung cancer. He was 89. Although many remember him as the announcer for the St. Louis Hawks professional basketball team, Blattner excelled in many other areas before and after that part of his life.

At age 12, he would venture into John’s Pool Hall here in St. Louis where he honed his table tennis skills. It was reported the kids would put slabs of wood atop the pool tables to use them for table tennis. The pool hall on Natural Bridge may not have been the ideal spot for a youngster to hang out, but Blattner became a world champion at the craft while he was a student at Beaumont High School.

By graduation his prowess at baseball was also becoming apparent. He became a part of the Cardinals organization and moved up to the Majors in the 1942 season. He got to play in only 19 games, though, before he was drafted into the military, serving the Navy in the Pacific.  The Cardinals went on to win the World Series that year, prompting Buddy Blattner to quip, “The team said I sparked them to the pennant by going into the service.”

After the war at age 26, Blattner played 3 more seasons with the Giants and one with the Phillies, ending his career with a .247 average. Within a year he had transitioned to a different sort of baseball career.

He debuted in the broadcast booth of the St. Louis Browns in 1950, paired with another former Major Leaguer named Dizzy Dean. Blattner later acknowledged in an interview with SJR that his job was to be Dean’s straight man.

When the Browns moved to Baltimore after the 1952 season, Blattner and Dean moved their act to a national level with radio’s “Game of the Day” and television’s “Game of the Week.” And when the St. Louis Hawks pro basketball team came to St. Louis in 1955, Buddy Blattner became their radio voice.

From the booth in the rafters of the old Kiel Auditorium, Blattner broadcast 800 games for the team, and owner Ben Kerner knew how lucky he was to have Buddy on board. In 1960, when Jack Buck was fired from the Cardinals’ TV broadcast booth, Blattner took his place. It was said the move was a reward to Kerner for switching his team’s beer sponsorship from Falstaff to Budweiser.

Fans of those halcyon basketball days in St. Louis fondly recall Buddy Blattner’s voice on the booming 50,000 watts of KMOX. His familiarity with those who followed basketball was typified in his trademark phrase after a foul was called, when he would tell listeners, “They’re walking the right way,” or “They’re walking the wrong way,” depending on which team had committed the foul.

In 1959, Blattner asked to be removed from his national baseball broadcasting contracts, and after he left the Hawks, he did baseball announcing for the California Angeles and, later, the Kansas City Royals. He was founder of The Buddy Fund in 1961, a St. Louis organization that still provides sports equipment to the area’s underprivileged kids. He retired from broadcasting in 1975.

Never one to sit idle, Blattner then excelled at tennis in the Senior Olympics, earning a large collection of medals for his effort.

Perhaps one of the most valued assessments of Buddy Blattner’s work came from Jack Buck, the man whom he briefly replaced in the Cardinals’ TV booth. Without mincing words, Buck said Buddy Blattner was the greatest basketball broadcaster ever.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/2009).

 It was just like those stories you hear the old timers tell: He was a 15-year-old kid who was so fascinated with the radio business that he just hung around the radio station until someone decided to hire him. His name – Dick Castanie.

When Dick was 15 in the late 1950s, he started spending all his free time at the KCFM studios in the Boatmen’s Bank Building downtown. The station had no openings for announcers, but Chief Engineer Ed Goodberlet recommended Dick be hired on a part-time basis to do some engineering work like meter reading.

“I got paid $19 a week for about 35 hours,” he says.

The station’s format consisted of instrumental music tapes. The “studio” from which the broadcasts originated was a room at the top of the building next to the elevator shaft, which made it impossible to talk on the radio when the elevator motors started up.

Castanie says that was no problem. Back then the KCFM broadcasts were based on music,  not personality. When listeners heard a voice, it was seldom, if ever, live. The drop-ins were recorded at KCFM’s other building at 532 DeBaliviere – where station owner Harry Eidelman owned and operated a hi-fi shop – and brought downtown to be broadcast. All the music was on huge reels of recording tape which were played on the big machines in that small room at the top of Boatmen’s Bank. Castanie says there was an emergency microphone there to be used should the need arise.

Eidelman had bought the KCFM frequency from KXOK for $1 after KXOK-FM had shut down. In an effort to keep breathing life into KXOK-FM, the station’s owner, the St. Louis Star-Times, had tried something called “transit radio.” The city’s streetcar and bus system had been outfitted with FM receivers tuned to the station’s frequency. But lawsuits shut down transit radio in other cities, and in 1954, Harry Eidelman became the proud owner of the frequency. KMOX gave Eidelman a used Western Electric control board from its old Mart Building studios.

“I remember Harry bought all the radio receivers used in the streetcars,” says Castanie. “We converted them for use in automobiles and sold them over the air for $19.95 apiece.”

A couple years later, Castanie got a chance to jump stations when a friend let him sit in and watch a show. While Dick Kent was on the air on KWK, the 17-year-old Castanie sat in an adjacent room next to the turntable operator behind the glass. These operators were leftovers from the days when radio stations had employed live musicians. Their union, the American Federation of Musicians, negotiated a deal with the station that would allow members to continue employment as “platter spinners.” Castanie was hired at KWK in 1959 as vacation relief for the turntable people, but he had to join the musicians’ union. His dad loaned him the dues, and Dick was soon elevated to a full-time slot. 

“I worked with Buddy Moreno and King Richard, and for a short time with Gil Newsome before he went to KSD. Gene Davis was the program director, and I worked with him when he was the midday announcer in 1961,” says Castanie.

That union situation hit an interesting juncture while he was working at KWK. Radio stations were limiting their playlists, so they dubbed most of their popular songs onto tape cartridges. This meant the turntable operators were no longer playing records, and they weren’t supposed to handle the tapes. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers argued its members should be playing the carts since they were the audio engineers, and the announcers’ union, AFTRA, argued its members should be playing the carts since the little plastic contraptions were part of program content. The entire argument centered on who would push the button to start the tape cartridge.

Castanie has other vivid memories of his work at KWK: “I was there during the ‘treasure hunt’ fiasco, and we had to go to work through the back of the building because the crowd up front was very upset about being scammed.” KWK was later found guilty of hiding the “treasure” in Tower Grove Park the day before it was found by a listener even though clues to its whereabouts had been broadcast for several days. The Federal Communications Commission eventually found the station guilty of conducting a fraudulent contest and revoked KWK’s license to broadcast, shutting down its operation.

When Ed Ceries signed on with a new FM station in St. Louis in 1961, Castanie went to work for him. The station, known as KSHE, featured female announcers playing classical music and was located in the basement of Ceries’ home in Crestwood. Castanie says his work with the new station didn’t last long: “I was let go because they couldn’t afford to pay me.”
Looking back on his experience over the years gives Castanie a different perspective, especially when it comes to the real reason he was hired at his KCFM job. “Years later my uncle, who managed the building, said that Harry [Eidelman] hired me hoping that if he couldn’t pay the rent there my uncle wouldn’t evict him.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 11/2001).