CLUB 1270 [Show Theme] Les Elgart Orchestra VARSITY DRAG
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Photo: Lesley Gore highlights guest appearance on WXYZ Club 1270. Sunday, August 18, 1963
Above featured article/advertisement courtesy freep.com newspaper archive. Copyright 2023. Newspapers.com
The above featured Detroit Free Press article was digitally re-imaged by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Missed any of our previous ‘Detroit Radio Back-Pages‘ features? GO HERE
MCRFB Note: Special THANKS to our friend, John Bartony (a.k.a. Jukebox John) St. Clair Shores, Michigan, for providing the above Detroit Free Press WXYZ 1270 ad (January 1963) for this site, as featured today.
A special thank you to senior MCRFB consultant/advisor Greg Innis, of Livonia, MI., for contributing the Newspapers.com archives (Detroit radio related) articles, ads, and images we have featured on this site, since 2016.
Thank you, Greg Innis, for making these historic Detroit radio features possible! ?
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This WDRQ recording was recently donated to our Detroit radio aircheck collection. Lee Alan’s New Year’s Eve Countdown, on WDRQ, December 31, 1977. This was to be his second, and last, on WDRQ. (Lee Alan hosted one other New Year’s Eve broadcast on WDRQ in 1976). In closing out the year, this exclusive posting is our special featured presentation on Motor City Radio Flashbacks on this last day of 2022.
In this recording, the tape begins – timewise – at the 9:59 p.m. hour (Detroit time) with Lee Alan’s presentation of Chuck Berry performing live at the Walled Lake Casino, sometime late-October, in 1963. Five years ago, we lost Chuck Berry in March 2017. Also in the broadcast you will hear Lee Alan paying a short tribute to Elvis Presley, who passed away four months earlier, August 16, 1977.
(Click on 2x or tap over this image for largest detailed view.)
The broadcast was taped by our friend, Greg Innis. Greg has kept this tape in his personal Detroit radio airchecks collection for the past 45 years. And as always, this site is indebted to him for having shared this holiday memory. It is presented here for the very first time, today.
You will note this two hour recording highlights listener call-in’s and recollections, stories and sounds. And minutes before the end of the recording you will hear The Horn counting down the seconds to 1978 . . . as was heard on New Year’s Eve night, December 31, 1977.
Enjoy. Lee Alan’s WDRQ New Year’s Eve Countdown . . . . Happy New Year!
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Audio recording digitally remastered by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
A special THANK YOU to senior site contributor Greg Innis of Livonia, MI., for having provided this featured WDRQ audio memory for our Motor City Radio Flashbacks aircheck repository.
Motor City Radio Flashbacks extends warm, belated Birthday wishes to Lee Alan (affectionately remembered as ‘The Horn’). Happy Birthday, Lee, we hope your day was truly special. Thank you again, for those great WXYZ radio memories you shared with Detroit nightly on the dial, ‘back in the ’60s’ 🙂
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The above featured photo courtesy of Lee Alan; Facebook. The Lee Alan photo montage below was created by Motor City Radio Flashbacks in 2018.
In my first book, ‘Turn Your Radio On’, there is a photo from the Detroit News referencing how I was able to play the part of The Lone Ranger.
It was all arranged by the late Dick Osgood who was a wonderful friend, Emmy Award Winning Radio icon, and a giant in the early days at WXYZ. One of the three performances we did was recorded with Dick giving a brief history of radio and introducing the cast of the performance. You’ll recognize some of the names.
With an introduction by yours truly, this is the only recording in existence and deserves to be preserved. Most of the cast are now in Heaven, including a bit player, Detroit’s most popular radio and television weatherman, Sonny Eliot.
In adding further to the Lone Ranger legacy, in 1986, Lee Alan wrote to a feature columnist with the Detroit News:
“My childhood hero was The Lone Ranger, but before Clayton Moore. As a boy growing up in Detroit I listened to The Lone Ranger as it was done live from WXYZ on the radio. My Lone Ranger in those days (actually the name was Brace) was Bruce Beemer. His deep, resonant voice created a vivid mental picture of my hero.
Brace Beemer. The original Lone Ranger on the radio ‘live’ from the WXYZ studios in the 1940s.
In 1965, I shared an office at WXYZ with my dear and recently deceased friend, Joel Sebastian. I heard a voice from the hallway. And there he stood . . . 60 plus years of age — looking just like I always thought he would. I nervously introduced myself. He shook my hand, and with the other . . . he gave me a silver bullet. Five days later he died.
“In 1985, at the national convention of the ‘Friends Of Old-Time Radio,’ the Lone Ranger was recreated by the original cast. They asked me to go and play Brace Beemer’s part. For 30 minutes I was surrounded by all the thundering hoof beats from out of the past and realized my boyhood dream. I was the Lone Ranger . . .”
“I retired from radio in 1970 and opened my ad agency about 16 years ago,” said Alan. “The horn and ashtray are locked up in a vault, along with photos and film clips of my radio days. But nothing means more to me than that silver bullet. That and the fact that I actually became the Lone Ranger . . . if only for a little while.”
A ‘Lone Ranger’ Blue Network radio ad. May 1945
Alan also added, “The cast members, when I had the wonderful opportunity to play Brace Beemer’s part as the Lone Ranger before a live audience of a thousand people, included Fred Foy who was the show’s announcer, Dick Osgood, Rube Weiss as Tonto and, the show’s actual director on WXYZ, Chuck Livingstone.
When it was over a small elderly lady approached me and said: “I closed my eyes and it was him . . . I heard his voice. It was him.”
The lady was Leta Beemer, widow of Brace Beemer. My “Lone Ranger.” She saw the “pictures” that only radio can produce.
Lee Alan | March 15, 2022
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A special Thank You to Lee Alan for recently providing his special audio presentation of The Lone Ranger for this page on Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
This WNIC recording, having been long-held as part of our Detroit radio collection, essentially was found incomplete in its recorded form. And while the recording’s quality varies, nevertheless its contents is worthy, in my view, for posting today as our featured presentation on this New Year’s Eve, 2021.
The WNIC broadcast was recorded on two 100 minute cassette tapes. In the process of enhancing the audio, I removed, having edited in part, about a half hour of the recording found in the b-side of tape one. This was due to excessive ‘wow and flutter’ having been picked up during the recording process. Also, it bears noting the official ‘countdown to 1983’ (in-studio with Lee Alan) was not found in the recordings as well. What we do have is what you will be listening to today.
Nevertheless, this was a special WNIC New Year’s Eve presentation. The broadcast was taped by our friend Greg Innis. He has kept them in his personal Detroit radio airchecks collection for the past thirty-nine years. As you listen, you will immediately note it is chock-full of listener call-in’s, great memories, stories and sounds, having shared with a large WNIC audience by The Horn on New Year’s Eve night, December 31, 1982.
Lastly, in commemoration of this featured presentation, I also added extensively more to Lee Alan’s exclusive feature (he shared for the broadcast) of Chuck Berry’s live performance at the Walled Lake Casino near the end of the recording.
Enjoy. Lee Alan’s New Year’s Eve Party on WNIC. Happy New Year!
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A special THANK YOU to senior site contributor Greg Innis of Livonia, MI., for having provided this featured WNIC audio gem for our Motor City Radio Flashbacks aircheck repository.
JIM HAMPTON PRODUCTIONS * September 14, 2019 * WXYZ REMEMBERED
BOB GREEN PRODUCTIONS * September 14, 2019 * WKNR REMEMBERED
JIM HAMPTON PRODUCTIONS * September 14, 2019 * CKLW REMEMBERED
Pat St. John, Lee Alan, Shotgun Tom Kelly (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Lee Alan, Robin Seymour (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Pat St. John, Max Kinkel ‘Super Max’, Jim Edwards (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Pat St. John, Jim Edwards (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Jerry Goodwin, Paul Cannon (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Robin Seymour (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Robin Seymour and daughter, Deborah Seymour Young (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Robin Seymour (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Robin Seymour (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Bob Green, Jerry Goodwin, Lee Alan (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Bob Green (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Charlie O’Brien, Robin Seymour, Scott Morgan (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Jo Jo Shutty-MacGregor, Johnny Williams, Charlie O’Brien, Bill Hennes, Pat St. John, Jim Edwards, Super Max (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Bill Hennes, Jo Jo MacGregor, Johnny Williams (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Paul Cannon, Jerry Goodwin (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Joey Reynolds (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Jo Jo Shutty MacGregor, Dick Purtan (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Jo Jo (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Johnny Williams, Michael Stevens, Pat St. John (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Robin Seymour, Jack Scott (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Art Vuolo, Phlash Phelps, Robin Seymour (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
Lee Alan, Eric Smith (Photo credit: Chris Auger; Copyright 2019)
THE LAST DETROIT RADIO REUNION
—September 14, 2019—
ONE YEAR AGO TODAY
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SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
JIM HAMPTON
A special ‘thank you’ to Jim Hampton (Greenhouse Productions), of Cathedral City, California, for producing the WXYZ and CKLW visuals he created — and was presented on screen — for the Last Detroit Radio Reunion.
Both audio portions of Jim Hampton’s special video presentations is featured in its entirety, here.
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BOB GREEN
A special ‘thank you’ to Bob Green(Bob Green Productions), of Houston, Texas, for creating and producing the WKNR visual which was presented — on screen — at the Last Detroit Radio Reunion.
The audio portion of Bob Green’s special video presentation is featured in its entirety, here.
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CHRIS AUGER
A special ‘thank you’ to Chris Auger. All photographs presented here, having been marked, is the sole property of the photographer named, with all due credit. All images copyrighted 2019.
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LEE ALAN
Last, a sincere ‘thank you’ to Lee Alan. Many months were devoted by him into the planning and putting together this Last Reunion event, and ultimately, the reality it became.
Thank you, Lee Alan
Jack Scott passed away in December 2019. Johnny Williams and Robin Seymour passed away in April 2020
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THE LAST DETROIT RADIO REUNION 2019
For more images of the Last Detroit Radio Reunion on Motor City Radio Flashbacks, posted last September 16 (featuring the photographs of Charlie O’Brien), goHERE
While I had attended the Last Reunion event last September as well, I will now share, here, this very special moment of mine. Yours truly, curator of this website, photographed at the Motown Museum with the Detroit broadcasting legend. Thursday, September 12, 2019
MEMORIAL DAY * Lee Alan * LEE ALAN CREATIVE PRODUCTIONS
WORDS OF REMEMBRANCE
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter the words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”- Ronald Reagan
“Let their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” – Daniel Webster
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God such men lived.”- George S. Patton
“Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.”- Unknown
A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
“From the opening battle of the American Revolution through the turmoil of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, to the Persian Gulf and today’s operations in the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, our members in the military have built a tradition of honorable and faithful service. As we observe Memorial Day, we remember the more than one million Americans who have died to preserve our freedom, the more than 140,000 service personal who were prisoners of war, and to all of those names who were declared as missing in action.
Gratefully honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of liberty’s blessings. Please listen and just reflect what each of them must have gone thru in those terrifying moments before giving their lives. Bless them all.” — Lee Alan
CLUB 1270 [Show Theme] Les Elgart Orchestra VARSITY DRAG
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Photo: Lesley Gore highlights guest appearance on WXYZ Club 1270. Sunday, August 18, 1963
MCRFB Note: Special THANKS to our friend, John Bartony (a.k.a. Jukebox John) St. Clair Shores, Michigan, for providing the above Detroit Free Press WXYZ 1270 ad (January 1963) for this site, as featured today.
