Good Evening,
Tonight is mostly a week off with a check-in from Salt Lake City, where I’m attending the Weston A. Price Foundation annual conference. I’m going to let Jean Shepherd do most of the work this week; after the break the rest of the program is devoted to him.
Jean’s last show on WOR radio in New York City was in 1977; he started in 1955. Mostly he’s known for his movie A Christmas Story as well as his later work on Pacifica Radio, PBS and NPR But his nighttime show on WOR, running through the late 1950s, all of the 1960s and most of the 1970s, was the stuff of legends — true ones. Shepherd influenced, as in directly inspired, and educated, generations of American comedians. Listening to him changed people’s lives.
What I love most about him is that he’s a time capsule into another world, a world long gone and almost forgotten.
In my view, he is the inventor of freeform talk radio, which is a nighttime thing. That is to say, freeform means he never worked with a script or anything other than sketchy notes, though some shows took months or years to prepare.
Here is the official description of the Jean Shepherd segment:
“Harry Shearer hosted and produced this NPR tribute to Jean Shepherd. Although “A Voice in the Night” is interspersed with reminiscences — from such as Paul Krassner, editor of the Realist; Kenneth Turan, movie critic of the Los Angeles Times; and cartoonist Jules Feiffer — Shearer determined early on that the bulk — at least 80% — would be Shepherd talking. This is a recording of the KCRW-FM Radio show from December 24, 2000.”
Two classic programs are attached below.
Thanks for tuning in.
— efc
Coming soon from Planet Waves!
Coming soon from Planet Waves!
Coming soon from Planet Waves!
