End of Summer, Beach Bummer…

As a lover of summer (as long as there is silently cool a/c at night to sleep in), the start of Autumn can be a bummer, which is one reason I love a  South Carolina beach, where I’ve enjoyed surf and sandy days in October!

That is as far south as I plan to trek ; maybe someday, I’ll buy a house there with an ocean-facing deck. September somehow also makes me always want to hear The Beach Boys.  Maybe because as a disc jockey, I’d never play them again in a typical year until their Christmas song.

This tune from their Holland Days (sauce) sessions, with new singer for the time-being, Blondie Chaplin is my Fall folly anthem.  It took me a “minute” to realize it was them singing it too!  Part of the problem was that it was played on Rock stations and the jocks rarely back-announced it; same for the Pop stations of those early 1970s days.   Still a smooth Indian Summer groove and its those trademark, in-unison background “ooos” and “ahhs” that ultimately give it away to my ears as a classic “Beach Bums” jam.  I rock to and fro like Ray Charles at the piano, as their harmonies grow.  Just like good vibes, fun, California Girls and T-birds, for my every summer, they sing the last words of inspiration:

“Seldom stumble, never crumble Try to tumble, life’s a rumble Feel the stinging I’ve been given Never ending, unrelenting Heartbreak searing, always fearing Never caring, persevering Sail on, sail on, sailor…”

 

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“Hold ON!” Eddie Money and My First Real Radio DJ Gig

Here is my DJ story about Eddy Money, who we lost this week at 70 years young:

I “met” Mr. Money when I had to play his song, “Baby Hold On To Me” in-rotation, as I jocked “The Midnight Express” (a title I inherited from the previous jock who had moved on to 15WLAC, Nashville) radio show on Top 40, WFLB AM 1490, Fayetteville, NC in 1978.

I was just getting used to strictly formatted radio and we were part of the ABC Contemporary network.  I would listen to other overnight jocks in major markets, like Viv Roundtree, in cue during long songs because I was so starved for material and bored.  Very homesick – my first time a long way from home after college – and at the time, engaged to marry my college sweetheart, who I’d left behind in Long Island, New York, it was my first commercial gig on the air after my college station years.

Every time I’ve heard of Brooklyn’s own, Eddie Money during the ensuing years, I am back in that second floor studio, behind and overlooking the the McDonald’s restaurant takeout window on Bragg Boulevard, thinking and hearing “Baby Hold On”, its cold ending and the following record I would front-announce.  What a strong song!!

We played music on “carts” back then in radio; they resembled 8 track tapes.  I can still see the four or five Harris cart machines in front of me and behind the suspended microphone on ‘FLB AM, where I first played “Baby Hold On To Me” in 1978.  The Program Director, “Dr. Larry Cannon” had taped a sign whose phrase I carry with me to this very day.  It read, “Communication Is The Key“.

RIP Eddie Money; I hope you finally got at least one “Ticket To Paradise”!

 

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