One of John Landecker’s friends, former colleague Don Wade, passed away last week from brain cancer. (Robert Feder has the details). Don and John worked together twice (at WIBG in Philadelphia in the late 60s/early 70s) and at WLS-AM in the 1980s. During the writing of “Records Truly Is My Middle Name”, Don was gracious enough to provide a few stories for the book. He spoke to me on the phone for about an hour and couldn’t have been nicer. (His wife Roma was in the car with him and called out in the background…”Tell John we love him!”)
The following stories made it into the final version of “Records Truly Is My Middle Name”. This first one is about their time together at WIBG in Philadelphia…
“When I worked with John in Philly at WIBG, I was doing mornings and John was doing evenings. Our schedules were opposite, but we saw each other at weekly meetings that were a complete waste of time. We’d eat pizza and try to be serious, but nobody was. Before or after the meetings a bunch of us would go to this par-three golf course and drink beer, and hit balls. We didn’t fit in at all at the golf course — we didn’t know how to golf, we all had long hair, and got dirty looks from the real golfers, the business executives. When we weren’t “golfing,” we were playing softball. Rick Buckley, the son of the owner, would get a keg, and would show up wearing sweats, and we would go out and bat the ball around. We all loved working for Rick. All he wanted to do was have drinks and have a good time. He was one of the guys.”
The second story is about the final days of the music format on WLS in the late 1980s…
“In those days we were only playing about four records an hour because John Gehron, who was running the place — and really is a radio genius, recognized that the future of music on AM radio was pretty grim. It was great working with John again. I’ve always considered him to be a great guy — always smiling and always positive. He was genuinely supportive of everyone else on the air. He would go out of his way to let you know when he heard things that he liked on the air. The other thing I’ve always admired about him is that he really works at his craft. He may come off like he’s goofing off, but trust me, he really works at it. He takes it very seriously.”
This is the way John recalled Don during the writing of the book…
Although there weren’t many highlights from that second WLS era, I did get to work with my old friend Don Wade, who I had worked with in Philadelphia at WIBG. He’s known as Mr. Conservative now, but when we worked together at WIBG he was a long haired hippie with bellbottoms. He did a scripted bit show there, the same kind of show he was doing at WLS in the 80s in the midday slot. When WLS changed formats to news/talk a few years later, Don was the one they asked to stay.
When the news hit that Don had passed away, John took to his facebook page to offer his heartfelt condolences…
“I am so saddened to hear about the passing of Don Wade. My thoughts and prayers go out to the lovely Roma who’s partnership with Don was a beautiful thing to see and hear. I knew Don before Roma. Don, his brother Long John and I worked together at WIBG in Philadelphia in the late 60’s -early 70’s. It was a great time. We were all a lot younger and the station was over the top with on air stunts and promotions. Years later I spotted him at a Cubs game when he was on US99. That was the first time I met Roma. A few years later all of us were together at WLS-AM. Those were dark days at the station but Don and Roma carried on. So well that they were invited to stay when the station went talk. The rest is talk radio history…never fear I’m sure Don is talking to God right now complaining that heaven is a little to liberal and needs to move a bit to the right…”
The broadcasting business has lost a giant.
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