June 12 Radio History

➦In 1851...Early Radio pioneer, Oliver Joseph Lodge, was born in England (Died - August 22, 1940).

Oliver Lodge

He was a British physicist and writer involved in the development of key patents in wireless telegraphy.

On 14 August 1894, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University, Lodge gave a lecture on the work of Hertz (then-recently deceased). 

There he conducted a demonstration of Hertzian (radio) based wireless telegraphy, transmitting messages between two buildings, showing their potential for communication.   

This was one year before Marconi demonstrated his system for radio wireless telegraphy.

➦In 1911...the consummate radio actress Claudia Morgan was born in Brooklyn.

Throughout the 1940’s she played Nora Charles opposite Les Tremayne in The Adventures of the Thin Man. She was married to radio announcer and actor Ernest Chappell, and performed with him on the late ’40s horror show, “Quiet Please.” She was also a regular on The O’Neills, David Harum, Ford Theatre, Joyce Jordan, M.D., The Right to Happiness, Grand Central Station, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, On Stage and Dimension X.  In the early ’70s, Morgan was heard on Himan Brown‘s CBS Mystery Theater.  She died Sept. 17 1974 at age 63.

➦In 1914....actor William Lundigan was born in Syracuse NY.

He began as an adolescent announcer for a hometown radio station in a building owned by his father. He spent thirteen years as announcer before being discovered by a Universal film executive in 1937.  When big screen roles dried up in the mid-50′s he returned to announcing as host of TV’s dramatic anthology Climax, and Shower of Stars, on which he did commercials for the sponsor Chrysler. He also starred in the 1959 TV series Men into Space.

He died of heart failure Dec 20, 1975 at age 61.

➦In 1928....singer/radio-TV host Vic Damone was born in Brooklyn. He entered the talent search on CBS Radio’s Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and won in April 1947. This led to his becoming a regular on Godfrey’s show. By mid-1947, Damone had signed a contract with Mercury Records. In 1948, he got his own weekly CBS radio show, Saturday Night Serenade. In January 1950 he made his first of several guest appearances on Ed Sullivan‘s Toast of the Town, including a duet with future TV hostess Dinah Shore. Over the next thirty years he became a regular featured guest on every major variety series on network television.

He died Feb. 11, 2018 from complications of respiratory illness at age 89.

➦In 1955…Monitor debuted on the NBC Radio Network. The weekend program "Monitor," the brainchild of NBC radio and television network president Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, began its 19½-year run on NBC Network Radio. The initial broadcast lasted eight hours. After an introduction by Weaver, news headlines from Dave Garroway and a routine by Bob and Ray, Garroway cued a music remote featuring live jazz by Howard Rumsey and the Lighthouse All-Stars at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, California.

➦In 1972...the Sound Broadcasting Act was passed in the United Kingdom, providing for 21 new commercial radio stations, the very first legal competition for the state-owned BBC.

➦In 1989…Vivian Carter, a former DJ and co-founder of Vee Jay records died following a stroke. (Born March 25, 1921). She co-founded Vee-Jay Records with her future husband, Jimmy Bracken (they married in 1953) . Vee Jay, an independent record label, became the first successful black-owned recording company in the United States. It released original music from artists of the 1950s and 1960s in a variety of genres, including rhythm and blues, doo-wop, pop, and gospel.

Vivian Carter

In 1948 Carter won a talent contest conducted by Al Benson, a DJ at Chicago's WGES radio station. The prize was an opportunity to host a fifteen-minute segment on WGES, which launched her radio career. Carter worked at WGES for three months, but struggled financially and returned to Gary to work in a local millinery shop until she landed a job at WJOB (AM) in Hammond, Indiana. In 1952 Carter moved to WGRY and in 1954 to WWCA in Gary, where she hosted the "Livin' with Vivian" show six nights a week. Carter aired a mix of musical genres, including blues, gospel, jazz, and what became known as doo-wop.

In 1950 Carter and Bracken opened Vivian's Record Shop at 1640 Broadway in Gary's Midtown district. In 1953 Carter and Bracken borrowed $500 to establish a new record company, Vee-Jay Records, taking its name from the initials of their first names. The Spaniels recording of "Baby It's You" became Vee Jay's first release for the group. However, with no capacity to distribute the record, Vee Jay leased the recording to Chance Records.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, under Carter's and Bracken's ownership, Vee-Jay became a major independent record label with acts including The Spaniels, Jimmy Reed, the El Dorados, John Lee Hooker, Gene Chandler, Jerry Butler, Dee Clark, The Staple Singers, and The Four Seasons, among others.

Vee Jay secured the American distribution rights to The Beatles in 1963, but contract loopholes and lawsuits caused the company to lose them to Capitol Records. Meanwhile, Carter continued to work as a radio DJ, a key factor in attracting musical talent to the label.

➦In 2007…Citadel took  control of Disney/ABC radio stations.

➦In 2013…Veteran personality and programmer Bill Bailey died from a heart attack at age 66. He had stints are WLS-AM Chicago, WDRQ Detroit, WXTR-Washington, WIZF-Cincinnati, WLHT, WTRV and WGVU Grand Rapids.

Marv Albert is 81

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Disney composer Richard Sherman is 94. 
• Sports announcer Marv Albert is 81. 
• Actor Roger Aaron Brown (“The District”) is 73. 
• Actor Sonia Manzano (“Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”) is 72. 
• Drummer Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick is 71. 
• Country singer-guitarist Junior Brown is 70. 
• Singer-songwriter Rocky Burnette is 69. 
• Actor Timothy Busfield is 65. 
• Singer Meredith Brooks is 64. 
• Actor Jenilee Harrison (“Dallas,” ″Three’s Company”) is 64. 
• Accordionist-keyboardist John Linnell of They Might Be Giants is 63. 

• 

  Jenilee Harrison is 64

  Actor John Enos (“Days of Our Lives,” ″Young and the Restless”) is 60. 
• Rapper Grandmaster Dee of Whodini is 60. 
• Actor Paul Schulze (“Nurse Jackie”) is 60. 
• Actor Eamonn Walker (“Chicago Fire,” ″Cadillac Records”) is 60. 
• Bassist Bardi Martin (Candlebox) is 53. 
• Actor Rick Hoffman (“Suits”) is 52. 
• Actor-comedian Finesse Mitchell (“Roadies,” ″Saturday Night Live”) is 50. 
• Actor Jason Mewes (“Clerks”) is 48. 
• Blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 45. 
• Actor Timothy Simons (“Veep”) is 44. 
• Actor Wil Horneff (“The Yearling”) is 43. 
• Singer Robyn is 43. 
• Singer-guitarist John Gourley of Portgual. The Man is 41. 
• Country singer Chris Young is 37. 
• Actor Luke Youngblood (“Galavant”) is 36.

🕇DEATH ANNIVERSARIES

• Black civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated on this day in 1963 outside his Mississippi home. He was 37. After being set free because two all-white juries deadlocked, white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of the murder over 30 years later, in 1994.
• Mafia turncoat Henry Hill, whose story was told in the movie Goodfellas, died on this day in 2012. He was 69.
• Actor Gregory Peck died on this day in 2003. He was 87.
• Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of football star O.J. Simpson, was murdered outside her house on this day in 1994 along with her friend, Ronald Goldman. She was 35 and Goldman was 25. O.J. was acquitted of the murders in his criminal trial, but found guilty in a civil trial.