After suffering a stroke earlier in the month, Scott Muni; a legend on NYC radio has died at the age of 74. There aren’t many famous people I could ever fathom writing a eulogy for - Fats is one of those exceptions.
Some of the things I’ll remember about him:[ul][li]That deep; but natural sounding, gravelly; yet clear voice taht was just perfect for radio[]The week of live broadcasts from the Hard Rock Cafe that I used to go attend during the mid-late 80’s.[]The taped rebrodcasts (& The ones I heard live) of his countless interviews with anybody and everybody from the music world: [/li](A somber) John Lennon and (an unsober) Elton John - just to name a couple[li]British Biscuits / Things From England[]The taped on air call-in from a deranged bank robber, ala ‘Dog-Day Afternoon’[]Belly Bombers and all things White CastleForever Afternoon(s Tuesday?)[/ul][/li]I have an old WNEW-FM calendar from 1987 buried in a dresser back at home. If memory serves me, Scottso was shown pictured with angels wings and a white tuxedo. From now on that’s the image I’m gonna choose to remember him by.
It’s been 40 years since the Beatles first landed on our shores, and somehow, in all that time, Scottso never got tired of 'em. Amazing. Og knows I got tired of hearing him play Beatles songs. Well, don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got 'til it’s gone.
Without pushing the point too far, you could say that Scott Muni’s career represents the rise and fall of music radio during the last half of the 20th century. He replaced Alan Freed in Cleveland when Freed moved on to New York, he was a member of the air staff at both WMCA and WABC in New York when those two stations exemplified the Top 40 format throughout the Sixties, and he was a pioneer in opening the FM band to rock music becoming one of the godfathers of progressive, album-oriented rock.
Unfortunately, he also saw that format devolve into a high-end oldies format labeled “classic rock” once it stopped being progressive. He even lost his long-time sinecure at WNEW-FM when it became apparent that he didn’t have the desire or energy to put into his show anymore. However, he was scooped up by a rival classic rock station in New York and given a one hour pre-recorded show that ran at noon every day.
I remember a day in the late seventies when some members of the Grateful Dead stopped by the studio; the last two hours of Scot’s shift consisted of records and an on-air poker game.
I remember my mind-numbing job during those years, and how the first two hours of Scotso’s shift made the last two of mine that much more bearable.
Was anyone aware that Fats was Sean Lennon’s godfather?
Looking back at his long career on the dial & metaphorically comparing it to what radio has become is a bittersweet and ironic excersize. I’m not passing judgement on Scott - when it comes down to the music (though I’d have to assume he wasn’t as principled a man as someone like Vin Scelsa), I can all but guarantee his Friday evenings were quite pleasant.
In a strange way, by talking about the loss of a man who I personally didn’t know, I guess I’m really mourning the loss of an entire group of radio personalities who’ve all but disappeared from the FM dial. People who respected their audience’s intelligence and their taste.
On my drive home tonight, as I tuned in to the Clear Channel station The Professor last worked on, it was sad to hear the “Remembering Scott Muni” messages in between a repetitive, market tested, sanitized & homogenized pre-formatted ‘classic rock’ program.
I wasn’t aware Scott was Sean’s Godfather. Back in High School, I couldn’t even count how many times I recall him playing Sean’s “It’s Alright” (The b-side to Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him).
There’s an entire thread of its own in your words. However, I do have to say that, in some respects, those same personalities also helped oversee the downfall of what they had originally built. Sure, you can talk about the consultants, the corporate mindset, and the lower-denomination programming that helped radio become the wasteland it pretty much is today, but it was also the inability of many of these jocks to make that next leap during the mid- to late-70s. Listening to the same radio station you mention, I had to laugh out loud when I heard the D.J. giving Scott credit for playing the Sex Pistols. OK, maybe he played them once or twice during his “Things from England” set, but they were never a regular part of his show. I listened to WNEW every day and with the exception of Scelsa or Meg Griffin, NEW jocks barely played any punk (not even the Ramones) and even seemed to be somewhat hands off when it came to most of the power pop/new wave bands of the period. And you could forget about hearing any Black performer with the exception of Hendrix.
Maybe as he aged Muni wasn’t as principled as Scelsa, but I think Scott always realized that radio is a business that has owners who are trying to make money. Scelsa, to this day, has a much more idealistic vision of what radio is. To Vin, his show is his own personal playground and once someone begins making rules about what he can and cannot play, he packs up and goes home.
And, yes, I do believe that Scott’s Friday evenings were quite pleasant indeed (and sometimes his Friday afternoons and his Thursdays and Wednesdays…)
