Buffalo’s Pop Culture Heritage 101 - Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

This article was published in Living Prime Time Magazine.

Every May for the past six years, the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers gather to celebrate the history and future of Buffalo Broadcasting.

We honor the great broadcasters of the past… Those for whom we have the fondest memories, and the mere mention of their names help us hearken back to a place where time has helped to round the harsh edges. They are the faces and voices that brought us news of wars beginning and ending, plants opening and closing, people being born and dying, and, all the music and sounds associated with those events in our minds.

It’s also our mission to celebrate those in television and radio today who keep the spirit of the media alive. It takes a special person to shine above the numerous television, radio, and internet choices of this day and age, and those who shine today are tomorrow’s fond memories.

The broadcasters who bring and have brought sounds and pictures into our living rooms, into our cars, and under our pillows (when we should have been sleeping!) are really just as much a part of events as the memories themselves. The following are this year’s best of the best… The 2003 Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame inductees.

Sandy BEACH

Beach has made a career of straddling the line of the conservative tastes of Buffalo, and has never let office or city hall politics get in the way of a good show. It’s that desire for great radio, no matter the cost, that has allowed Sandy to be a Buffalo radio fixture for 35 years with only a few interruptions.

Sandy came to WKBW from Hartford in 1968. Within 6 years, according to a 1972 interview, 2002 BBP Hall of Famer Jeff Kaye said that Sandy had “worked every shift on KB except morning drive, and improved the ratings in each part.”

His quick wit and infectious laugh have been a part of Western New York ever since at KB, WNYS, Majic 102, and now afternoon drive on WBEN.

A native of Lunenberg, Massachusetts (hence his long time sign off, “Good Night Lunenberg….Wherever you are”), Sandy’s made his impact for over a third of a century in Buffalo radio as a jock, in programming, and now in as a talker, and always as a wise-guy friend just a dial twist away.

Tim RUSSERT

2003 Buffalo Bob Smith Award

Buffalo Bob Smith began his broadcasting career in his hometown of Buffalo, but of course gained worldwide fame as the human friend of America’s favorite puppet, Howdy Doody. Despite his international celebrity, Bob never forgot his hometown, and even adopted it as a part of his name. Each year The Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers honor a broadcaster who has made his or her mark away from the Niagara Frontier, but is a Buffalonian at heart.

This year we honor the host of Meet the Press, NBC’s Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief, and South Buffalo native Tim Russert. A lawyer by trade, the Canisius High School grad worked in the Senate and in Governor Mario Cuomo’s office before joining NBC as a producer in 1984. He joined the NBC News air staff in 1990, and has been a fixture ever since. As one of the nation’s leading political analysts, Russert has been the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, and we celebrate him because through it all, he’s never forgotten the Queen City.

Carol JASEN

She’s the smart, beautiful, authoritative and street savvy woman all women would love to be… and all men would love to marry. Combined with the sense and skill of a good newswoman, her career as a news anchor was a homerun. Voted Buffalo’s Sexiest Woman too many years in a row to count, Carol transcended both television and news to become the unofficial Queen of Buffalo while anchoring the news on Channel 4 for 23 years. Her appeal as a newscaster and person is on many different levels…

Carol Crissey came to Buffalo from Harrisburg, PA in 1979, originally paired with John Beard at the anchor desk. Carol anchored the news at noon, 5, 6, and 11, with the likes of Beard, Bob Koop, Rich Newberg, and Kevin O’Connell until she “retired” to New Mexico last year.

Harry WEBB

2003 Golden Age Award

The Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers was founded in 1995, and we still have a lot of catching up to do. The Golden Age Award is reserved for the pioneers in the truest sense of the word: Those who did it first, the people who had no pattern to follow, no lead blocker. These folks blazed the trail, and set an example for future generations to follow.
Harry Webb came to Buffalo from Schenectady as a classic music announcer on the new WBEN-FM. At the same time, the Evening News was starting a television station. Webb was Channel 4’s first newscaster, when the broadcast days began at 12 noon, and involved reading the latest edition of the Buffalo Evening News to an audience of several hundred.

By the time Webb retired from newscasting in 1972, he had seen and been a part of the change of television from an avant garde indulgence of a few wealthy families to the modern global apparatus and definitive of disseminator information it is today. Webb recently passed away after several years of retirement in East Aurora.

Larry LEVITE

2003 Goodyear Award

The Goodyear Award is named in honor of George Goodyear, the Buffalo philanthropist who co-founded WGR-TV, and is awarded each year to those in Broadcasting’s front office who have made a career of advancing the ideals of the BBP.

Larry Levite spent the 1970’s moving up and down Buffalo’s radio dial breathing new life (and ratings!) into stations like WYSL, WPHD, and WEBR.

When, in 1978, federal regulations forced the Buffalo Evening News to sell off its radio and television stations, Levite formed Algonquin Broadcasting to fill the void, and purchased WBEN AM/FM. Larry continued the tradition of the News stations by bringing in top quality talent in all facets of broadcasting, and did so through the deregulation of the broadcasting industry, until selling the stations in the mid 90s.

Tom WHALEN

2003 Behind the Scenes Award

It takes more than just a pretty face or golden voice to put on a radio or television program, and with the Behind the Scenes Award, the BBP celebrates the folks who are the guts of any broadcast: The directors, producers, photographers, writers, engineers… All the often nameless, faceless people on “the other side of the glass.”

For nearly thirty years, Tom Whalen was the man playing the records and turning the dials for “Yours truly Buehly” on WBEN Radio. Whalen served in the Army Air Corps during World War II on the communications staff, and joined WBEN in 1947.

Soon after, he grew into Clint Buehlman’s right hand man, and remained there until Clint’s retirement in 1977. Part of the reason Buehlman’s show sounded like he was talking to each person individually, is because he was talking to Tom individually about the weather, Tom’s kids… Your AM-MC said often that Tom “was the nicest man he knew,” and it came across in Clint’s warm chats with Tom. Whalen retired in 1983 leaving a 36 year legacy as one of radio’s nice guys, making one of Buffalo’s greatest radio personalities comfortable, and thereby making you comfortable every morning.

We always welcome new members to the BBP. It’s our mission to preserve and promote Western New York’s rich TV and radio history, and to salute and bring attention to quality broadcasting of today. Membership is $25, and anyone with a passion for broadcasting can join as a member. It’s just as easy to join us in celebrating this year’s honorees. Tickets to our Hall of Fame event are available for to general public at $40 per person. Send your ticket order or membership request with payment to: The Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers; 5672 Main Street; Williamsville, New York 14221.

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

This story was published in Living Prime Time magazine.

Spring is in the air, the lilacs are in full bloom, and that means it’s time for Buffalo’s premier radio and television event…The Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame Induction. This year’s slate of honorees continue in the tradition of representing Buffalo’s amazing broadcasting past, present, and future.

Broadcasting is strange in that often, at the end of an 8-hour work day, one might have nothing to show for it all; no tangible proof of that day’s toil. By definition, one speaks into a microphone, or looks into a camera, and images and sounds go up and off an antenna, and are gone forever.

Each year, the Tralf is the location where pulled from the ether are entire life times’ worth of accomplishment. It’s with induction into the Hall of Fame that we make tangible the superlative informing, entertaining, and friendship these select broadcasters they have provided us with over the years.
The following are this years’ inductees:

Henry BRACH

The rock steady pulse of KB’s Pulsebeat news, Henry was the heart of KB… not only as the mainstay news anchor, but as everyone’s gruff but lovable uncle.
As Buffalo’s own version of Lou Grant, Hank’s crusty newsman personality could be counted on by KB staffers to drive in from West Seneca during the ‘77 Blizzard or hop in a news cruiser to cover the Attica Prison Riots. It was his big heart, though, that leaves him remembered as everyone’s favorite person and best friend.

Listeners saw both sides of his personality indirectly: It was his never-contrived voice of reason that warmed the radios of Western New York by talking to each listener individually.

Brach’s career began at WBNY, where as news director he was the first man to hire a fresh-faced Dan Neaverth as an announcer. Though his on air persona was that of a straight-laced newsman, Henry did music shifts at both ‘BNY and beautiful music WYSL-FM before joining KB. Brach died in 1983.

Frankie CROCKER

Frankie Crocker… Chief Rocker… The Eighth Wonder of the World!!! Revered as the man who changed the rules for African-Americans as both disc jockeys and musicians, Frankie Crocker started down the road to Gotham fame and nationwide reverence in his native Buffalo.
He was studying pre-law at UB, when he was bitten by the radio bug, joining WUFO as News Director. There, he tasted early success spinning urban wax and never turned back. As a jock at WMCA in the Big Apple, Frankie began playing album cuts and extended mixes from Urban artists, helping to pave the way for the more diverse sound heard today… When Crocker started in radio, music played by Black artists was lumped by mainstream circles into the category race music.

The Chief Rocker’s resume is that of a true broadcast pioneer: He helped to bust the stereotypes, and bring the music of an entire race from the remote corners of the music world to the popular choice of hip New Yorkers. Crocker passed away in 2000.

Ted DARLING

The career of Edgar Lee “Ted” Darling, the long time Voice of the Sabres, can be best summed by the number of honors he received in a life and career cut short by Pick’s Disease. He was inducted into the Sabres Hall of Fame and the Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame; is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, having been honored with the prestigious Foster Hewitt Award; and has the press box at HSBC Arena named in his memory.

Ted joined the Sabres in their inaugural season after having spent time with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada as an intermission host. Darling spent the next quarter century in the gondola high above the aud ice, entertaining Western New York’s hockey minions with his play-by-play over WGR, WBEN, WNYB-TV, and several cable outfits, including the Empire Sports Network.

Jeff KAYE

Jeff Kaye is a radio renaissance man…. A brash yet steady voice of gold, a masterful way with both the written and spoken word, and a producer par excellence, Kaye blazed into Buffalo in the mid-60’s as KB’s nighttime teeny-bopper leader and soon was at the rudder of the K-Big giant ship as the station’s program director.

Jefferson was responsible for bringing western seaboard phone operators to their collective knees with his 1968 adaptation of Orson Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” with folks calling from all points on the map to see if Grand Island was indeed under Martian control.

In 1977, he took over the most hallowed slot in Buffalo radio, morning drive at WBEN, as only the 3rd man to sit in that announcers chair. Jeff’s decades worth work as the radio producer for Buffalo Bills Football set him up for a job at NFL Films, which he has held since leaving Buffalo, voicing countless NFL video
compilations.

Jim FAGAN

His diction, energy and news judgment with just a touch of pageantry made Jim Fagan the quintessential intoner of Pulse Beat News. His sybarite swagger was as much a part of 1520 as were the K and the B from the time he joined the station in 1960 until he went down with the ship in 1988, when the station went to the birds and to the bird… satellite, that is. Fagan was so much a part of KB that he was brought back in 1989 and stayed on until 1992.

Fagan repeated the K-Big story of the moment at only after his days as a disc jockey at Buffalo’s WINE Radio; where he keyed the mic with such names as Mark Hall and Tommy Thomas. Also active as a shop representative, he was President of NABET Local 25, the broadcaster’s union, from 1970-89. He remains active in union affairs today, and is always willing to lend his voice to a worthy project, like Channel 2’s recent look back at the 1901 Pan-Am Exposition.

John ZACH

by wippert 1/21/02 John Zack and Susan Rose at WBEN Radio in their Amherst studios.

If you’ve listened to top calibre radio news in Buffalo anytime over the last 40 years, chances are good that you heard John Zach dictatorially caressing the airwaves, delivering the news with a style and passion like none other.

First renowned in Western New York for fronting the rock n’roll band “The Furyies” in the late 50’s, Zach’s news skills were first exercised on the Niagara Frontier at KB in 1961. The reigning Dean of Buffalo Radio News, John also spent time at WGR before joining WBEN in 1998, where you can now hear him along with Susan Rose as the station’s morning drive team.
Zach is also the Queen City’s top radio and television historian and scholar, and is active in the affairs of the BBP.

Zach is also the Queen City’s top radio and television historian and scholar, and is active in the affairs of the BBP.

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