Bruce Slutsky was born in New York City in 1949. I retired 8 years ago after working as a Science/Engineering Librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark for 25 years. I was married to Karen until she passed away in February 2021. I have a son Lee who is now 38 years old. I am very much interested in the popular music of the 1960s, especially Bob Dylan and the Beatles. I am interested in rock and roll radio. I am an enthusiastic fan of the New York Mets.
Dan Ingram Aircheck on WABC from August 1962 posted by Ellis Feaster
WABC was the premier Top 40 radio station from 1960 until 1982 when it became a talk radio station. It featured personalities including:
Dan Ingram
Harry Harrison
Cousin Bruce Morrow
Chuck Leonard
Ron Lundy
Charlie Greer
For several years WABC broke format on Memorial Day and played airchecks from the golden age of Musicradio WABC. After a while, WABC stopped doing this, but Allan Sniffen continued the tradition by playing recordings on WABC the entire Memorial Day weekend on Rewound Radio which usually plays oldies. It is nice to listen to the radio the way it was while we were growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. Thank you Allan Sniffen.
Bruce with Don K, Reed at Long Island Radio Day in 2010
I get very few online comments about entries in this Journal. I always wonder what people think about this journal in general or specific entries. Maybe people think I am too much of a Bob Dylan nut. Anyway, yesterday I received a letter from Russell from Lancaster PA. commenting about the entry I wrote about Don K. Reed back in 2009. Don was a radio personality on WCBS-FM who specialized in Doo Wop music. He left the station in 2005 when WCBS-FM made the terrible switch to the dreadful Jack format.
I certainly appreciate his taking the time to write a letter to me and using the postal service the old-fashioned way to get it to me. If he was able to find my mailing address on the internet, he certainly could have found my email address just as easily.
I will have to come back to this journal entry to listen to many of the 80 covers listed. Every entry is followed by a Youtube video with the song. The covers obviously range from the ridiculous to the sublime. All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix was number 1 while Mr. Tambourine Man by William Shatner was #80.
I am likely much older than the average WFUV listener. They certainly made good choices for Dylan's Top 80 songs. Lee's favorite, Tangled Up in Blue, was voted #1 just ahead of Like a Rolling Stone. My favorite, Maggies Farm, came in at #46.
Tangled
Up in Blue
Like
a Rolling Stone
Don't
Think Twice, It's All Right
Visions
of Johanna
A
Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Blowin'
in the Wind
Desolation
Row
Positively
4th Street
Mr.
Tambourine Man
Hurricane
Forever
Young
Shelter
from the Storm
Idiot
Wind
Simple
Twist of Fate
Highway
61 Revisited
Stuck
Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
I don't know. I have posted every other year on his non-milestone birthdays. There is nothing new to say. Everyone and his brother who is a fan or scholar has already written something. So, there is no sense in repeating what they have said.
I'll just say Happy Birthday and many more. Thanks for your songs and recordings over the decades.
Picture of Bob Dylan that I saw today at the Jewish Museum
Absholam Jac Lahav - American Born in Israel 1977 is the artist
I thought it was time for another museum trip as I hadn't visited one in about a month. The Jewish Museum at 5th Avenue and 92nd Street was my choice.
There were two exhibits of interest:
Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine - It explored how photography in popular American Magazines transformed American visual culture from the 1930s through the1950s. Works by photographers including Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Lester Beall, Margaret Bourke-White, Louis Faurer, Robert Frank, William Klein, Lisette Model, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Cipe Pineles, and Paul Rand were featured.
Louise Bourgeois Freuds Daughter - It features approximately 40 artworks from throughout Bourgeois’s career, including the Personages of the late 1940s; the organic forms in plaster and latex of the 1960s; the pivotal installation The Destruction of the Father (1974). The exhibit also presents writings that explore her complex relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis.
When I joined the Society of
American Baseball Research (SABR) I became acquainted with Bill Nowlin who
is an expert on the Boston Red Sox and a prolific author of books and
articles about players, games, and other baseball research topics.When I read his essays, I am impressed by his
ability to research obscure baseball players.I coordinate fact-checking games project articles for SABR.There are few if any errors in his
contributions.
I knew a little bit about Rounder
Records and that Bill was one of the founders but was not aware of the details
of how the company was started and how it grew.I just had to get hold of his recent book:
Nowlin, Bill, 1945- author. Vinyl ventures: my fifty years
at Rounder Records / Bill Nowlin. Bristol: Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2021.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book as I read it in three sitting
as I sat on park benches in Queens.I
found that the detail in Bill’s baseball publications is found in this book as
well. In part, the book is autobiographical with minimal reference to his
baseball interests and publications.Bill certainly has lived a very active life in his roles in the music
business and as a baseball historian.Where did he find the time to do everything?
I read with the book with my smartphone in my pocket with
the Amazon.com app.I bought:
Rounder Records' 40th Anniversary Concert Compilation CD
True Believers: The Musical Family of Rounder Records DVD
I highly recommend this book to all interested in the music
industry.I suggest that SABR members
read the book to become aware of the other side of Bill Nowlin.
Matt Scutchfield interviews Bill Nowlin about the book
