He was 93, according to The Boston Globe.
“People always say, Arnie, how’d you get the name ‘Woo Woo?’ Well, when I went on the air in 1956, I had a show called the ‘Night Train,’ " he said in an interview posted on YouTube.
“One night, someone walked in the studio and said, ‘Arnie, that “Night Train” theme is really good, but I’ve got something you should use on your show,” he added.
The fan gave him a woo-woo whistle that mimicked the sound of a railroad train and he was “Woo Woo” Ginsburg ever since.
Adding other sound effects — including bells, horns, whistles, and a squeaking squeezable carrot — Mr. Ginsburg quickly became one of the most recognizable voices in New England, partly because his voice was far from the usual radio fare.
“In an age when all announcers sound like graduates of the same broadcasting school, Arnie’s voice has always been distinctive, a whine that even he mocked by referring to himself as ‘Achin’ Adenoids,’ or the ‘Velvet Voice’ – I’ve heard better, but never worse,‘ ” the Globe’s Jack Thomas wrote in a 1988 profile.
After largely leaving announcing behind, though he returned over the years for regular spots that weren’t full-time, Ginsburg went on to work in management and other positions at other stations, including WRKO, WWEL, and WXKS. He also had been an engineer for broadcasts.
“It comes as a surprise to many when they learn that Arnie had originally no intention of being a disc jockey. As mentioned, his first obsession was radio engineering,” Carlos A. Vega, Mr. Ginsburg’s spouse and longtime companion, wrote in a tribute.
Despite not having the traditional deep radio voice, Ginsburg developed an audience that wanted to hear more of him, and he moved to WBOS 1600 AM in 1956 to be a night-time disc jockey. It was at WBOS, a station that programmed foreign language shows during the daytime, that he developed his own on-air Top 40 show; this prepared him for his move to a full-time Boston Top 40 radio station, WMEX/1510, in 1958.
While he developed a following during his time with WBOS, it was at WMEX that Ginsburg's popularity as a disc jockey expanded. In an era where top-40 DJs were given non-descript and non-ethnic radio names, Ginsburg kept his birth name and did not change it. He also refused a salary from station owner Max Richmond, instead making a deal for a 25% cut of all the commercial revenue Ginsburg would generate for his show. This, he claimed, made him "the highest-paid jock on the station."
According to Billboard magazine, by 1959, he was making an annual salary of $10,000, an amount higher than the median American income at that time. Ginsburg frequently did on-air testimonials for his advertisers, and perhaps the best-known was his work for Adventure Car Hop, a drive-in fast-food restaurant on Route 1 in Saugus, which promoted the "Ginsburger". According to the car-hop's owners, Ginsburg's radio commercials brought as many as two thousand teenagers to his restaurant on a typical summer night.
Ginsburg was also known for his ability to create hits by giving them radio exposure on his show. One good example was a novelty song sung by British vocalist Lonnie Donegan, "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)." It had been a hit in England, but when released in the United States for the first time in 1959, it was not successful. Then, in 1961, Ginsburg received a copy from a listener and began to play it, and after several days of heavy airplay, the song took off and became a hit in America.
During the Payola scandal, Ginsburg was among a number of high-profile Boston disc jockeys (including Norm Prescott, Bob Clayton, and Joe Smith) called upon to testify before a congressional hearing in Washington DC in early 1960. Several of the announcers, Ginsburg among them, acknowledged receiving monetary "gifts" from record promoters over the past several years. In Ginsburg's case, he told the committee that the gifts totaled $4,400 over a three-year period. But Ginsburg was never implicated in any wrongdoing, nor was it proved that he played certain records because he had been paid to do so.
While Arnie Ginsburg is best known from his days at WMEX, he also spent some time at other stations in Boston. In early 1967, when WRKO changed format to top-40, the station's new management wanted to build the new radio station around a well-known local radio figure, and Ginsburg was their first choice. However, the plans were interrupted. Ginsburg was on the air for less than a month when his former boss, WMEX owner Maxwell (Mac) Richmond, served the station with a court injunction, enforcing a non-compete clause which stated that if Ginsburg left WMEX, he could not work on air at any other station for 18 months. The case made its way through the courts and finally, Ginsburg was ordered off the air. But although he could not be heard on the airwaves for a while, he was able to stay in the business with WRKO, which moved him into sales. Ginsburg also sold all the time slots for WRKO-FM. Later, in 1970, he went on to become the general manager of WBCN. This proved a very controversial move, as the staff was opposed to the idea of a former top-40 personality serving as the manager of an album rock station—at that time, FM album rock prided itself on being the antithesis of AM top 40.
By 1972, Ginsburg was working on the AM side again, as the General Manager of WWEL. In 1973 he joined Boston's largest station, WBZ, producing and hosting a Saturday-night oldies show with all his familiar gimmicks: noisemakers, silly puns, and kidding with the newscasters and weathermen. In 1975, Ginsburg was hired by WMEX to do a similar, Saturday-night series of four-hour shows.
Ginsburg also syndicated a customized weekly oldies show to New England radio stations. By 1979 he advanced to become partner of WXKS-FM "Kiss 108," and managed WXKS-AM when it changed format to "Music of Your Life."
In his later years, Arnie Ginsburg was an occasional guest on Boston radio, such as on WBZ 1030 AM's "Steve Leveille Program", which aired weeknights from midnight to 5:00 AM. In 2008, he was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
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