Talkin' 'Bout My G-g-g-eneration...

Charlie Clark has published a review of Marc Fisher's book on Radio Rock & Roll -- in AARP's magazine...

To grasp the confluence of forces behind this revolution, set the way-back machine for the early 1950s, when the radio industry was on the verge of being destroyed by a fad called television. Radio then was a Squaresville of melodramas, religion for shut-ins, live big bands, and grown-up favorites dictated by Sing Along With Mitch.

The generational tsunami that would graft boomers to their radio dials was propelled by their demographic bulge, a new hybrid of music called rock and roll, some farsighted entrepreneurs, and technologies that haven't stopped evolving.

With conversational simplicity, Fisher describes the impact of breakthroughs, including the long-playing record, the 45, portable transistors, car radios, and the FM broadcasting equipment (and subsequent programming) that permitted longer songs and interior album cuts.

He sketches colorful personalities, both on-air—deejays who made you feel they were speaking directly to you—and the powers-that-be in the executive suite. You'll learn about Todd Storz, the Omaha-based beer-fortune heir who launched the first empire of stations that repeated the hit songs. You'll encounter Jean Shepherd, the eccentric New York-based storyteller who created a multi-state community of culturally disaffected "night people." You'll sample on-air long-hair Bob Fass, the father of free-form '60s community FM radio at New York's WBAI, who boosted the careers of Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie—and still broadcasts. You'll come to know commercial "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, the teen audience's "love courier of the New York night." And you'll meet Bob Siemering, the '60s Wisconsin college radio activist who went on to found All Things Considered for fledgling NPR.

Some of Fisher's fun facts: The term deejay was coined by Variety magazine in 1941; the "top 40" was named for the number of songs a jock could play in an average three-hour shift; many deejays were given on-air names so that they could be replaced without listeners knowing.