On May 13, 11:14 am, "Laura M. Young" <bridgeplaye...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 5/13/08 10:12 AM,"Num Lock" <sidpac...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > I'm 60, and although I now live in Las Vegas, I grew up in Los
> > Angeles, where we've heard of everybody. Never heard ofMurray the K.
>
> Well, and if you DID hear of him, why would you necessarily remember
him??
> I listened to dozens of DJ's when I was a teen, and I don't remember a
> single name. It's not as if he was a big movie star or someone
im****tant.
> We remember the Beatles and the other artists because they did something
> memorable themselves not just make money off of people with talent.
Ah, now there's the rub -- "not as if he was a big movie star or
someone im****tant." Murray was, from 1958 until 1967, the most
influential radio personality in what was then, in New York, the most
influential music market in the world. His radio show was, by the
early '60s, the top rated program in the New York metropolitan area,
but it was his off-air activities that helped make a difference in the
fortunes of rock 'n' roll. Three or four times a year, he staged live
shows at theaters around New York, primarily the Brooklyn Fox Theater,
just over the bridge from Manhattan. At those vaudeville-like
performances, which started at ten in the morning and went until
midnight (with a feature film screened between shows), some of the
greatest performers in modern music history put in six or seven
performances a day.
From Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis to Cream and the Who, both of
which made their US debuts at one of Murray's shows, fans could count
on being entertained by the leading acts of the day. It was Murray who
co-wrote "Splish Splash" with Bobby Darin. It was Murray who refused
to play Dionne Warwick's last ditch attempt at getting a Top 40 hit.
Instead, he played the "B" side of the single -- "Walk On By" -- the
song that made her a star. It was Murray who cruised the small clubs
every night and pulled the Lovin' Spoonful out of the Nightowl Cafe
and put them onstage at the Fox. He even gave a shot to his Fox
bandleader -- a guy who wanted to be a singer; a guy named Bobby
Vinton. It was Murray who hired a new group called the Rascals to be
his "house band" at personal appearances and then helped them get a
record deal. And it was Murray who championed a British group to
promoter Sid Bernstein, convincing Sid to stage a concert at Carnegie
Hall for that group -- The Rolling Stones -- whom Murray convinced to
do a cover version of "It's All Over Now", their first US Top Ten hit.
When the FCC forced radio stations to air different programming on
their AM and FM frequencies, Murray formatted (as program director)
and had the primetime evening spot on the first FM rock station -- WOR-
FM. He guest starred on TV shows, but he also created a series of
specials that introduced the concept of music videos -- two years
before Scopitone (the failed effort at a video jukebox) and fifteen
years before MTV. He also made guest appearances in a film with Harvey
Keitel and in a movie directed by Robert Zemeckis, who went on to do
"Back to the Future" and "Forrest Gump").
If that's not doing something memorable himself and doing more than
making "money off of people with talent" then nothing is.
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