E-MAIL MEMORIES, PAGE 5
MICHAEL CHANCE:
Bob, your site is like an oasis in the desert! Awesome site! For those of
us who cut our rock 'n' roll teeth on 'NOE and 'TIX, your contribution to
the www is HUGE! ! Thanks! Listen, one of my hobbies back then was collecting
radio station surveys. I've got a number of TIX and WNOE surveys from the
late '60s into the '70s. I've not seen any of the old surveys posted on
your site. Didn't know if you had any or not, but, I'd be glad to donate
them to someone like yourself, IF your're interested.
Again, great job. BTW, I live in the New York City area now. My station
here is CBSfm. It's been a thrill over the last 15 years that I've been
here to listen to guys like Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram, and Ron Lundy. These
were guys I used to pick up at night on my radio while listening from my
bedroom over in Gretna. Cool, huh? I get back to NO about twice a year to
see family. And in late April when I was there last, I'd noticed you'd gone
from TKL over to TIXfm. Good move. Even before you went there, on my New
Orleans trips, I preferred TIXfm over TKL. You're sounding better than ever!
I just wish TIXfm had streaming audio! Hollar at me if you're interested
in some old surveys!
BOB:
Wow...nice email like yours makes my day! I was the one who would layout
all those Top-40 surveys every week for the printer from 1969-1975. I even
snapped the cover pics of the DJ's in the years that we featured a different
pic every week. Thanks for the offer but I've seen all of them enough, and
still have a few here. If you look, I do have two TIX surveys and one WNOE
survey posted for viewing on my N.O. Radio Shrine startup page. And if you
were able to hear those NYC radio greats from your bedroom in Gretna, that
must have been one helluva longwire antenna. The furthest stations I think
I ever picked up in my AM monitoring days were XERF (Wolfman Jack), WLS
Chicago, KOMA Oklahoma City and WLAC Nashville (Ernie's Record Mart and
Randy's Record Shop). Must have better skip into Gretna.
Yeah, leaving TKL was the best decision I ever made...the juices are
flowing again after two really bad and depressing years dealing with out
of town ignorant and unconcerned corporate idiots, robots, morons and A-Holts.
Believe me, corporate out of towners have no real interest in any station's
format or history. It's just a piece of property in any format, whose only
purpose is to be maintained passively, plundered and bled dry for 2-3 years
before selling it to another outfit that does the same thing all over again.
All the while playing the same old tired out 200 songs that are played everywhere
else. Mindless sheep following each other in circles.
I was blessed to have been there when radio was fun...when we didn't
have to tell you that it was fun to listen!
EDWARD HAMMOND:
Royal Castle & Krystal Hamburgers * Adams Double Dip Ice Cream * Hanson
Sno Bliz * Richards Grill on Magazine * Southern Tavern * Mid City Bowling
Alley * New Basin Canal * National, Beacon, Lakeview Theaters * Lyceum,
Civic & St. Charles Theaters * Meal A Minit * Buck Forty Nine Steak
House * Dairy Queens * Tulane Stadium * Maison Blanche * Under the clock
at Holmes * Fitzgerald's Restaurant (West End) * Gluck's Restaurant * Blue
Room * Parisian Room on Royal Street * Monkey Bar on Canal * Brass Rail
* Pennny Arcades on Canal and Royal Streets * The President Paddlewheel
Boat at the foot of Canal St. * Abe's General Merchandise (Pawn Shop on
Canal) * Audubon Tea Room * Ding Ding the vendor at all types of events
* Magazine streetcar * The Half Moon * Cadillac Club (Poland & St. Claude)
* Hazel's Po-Boys on Carrollton * St. Charles Hotel * Norby's Restaurant
on Laurel St. * Dorian's Record Shop on Magazine at Jefferson Ave. * Swamp
Room on Canal * Musso's Piano Bar (Jeff Davis & Canal) * 5 Cent Phone
Calls.
BOB:
Ding Ding the vendor!!! Wish I had a picture of him to post. And I think
I was introduced to Krystal hamburgers at the one on the Canal Street side
of the Roosevelt Hotel on University Place, across from the Orpheum. They
only cost 7 cents!
ANDREW IN NEW ORLEANS:
I remember watching Saturday Hop with John Pela. I also remember watching
Eddies Three Way on channel 26. What ever happened to the Hazel Romano Dancers
and Tony Bevenetto Dancers?
BOB:
Eddie's Three Way Record Shop...a 70's TV advertising icon right up there
with Al Scramuzza's Bayou Seafood Company and Seafood City! And I suppose
those particular Hazel Romano Dancers and Tony Bevenetto Dancers from the
early Saturday Hop days are now giving performances for their fellow residents
at some old folks home!
AMY DOWTY:
I'm class of '78 myself. Love your website. Remember Mel Leavitt hosting
Prep Quiz Bowl? Seems like Brother Martin was always one of the teams. How
about saving the green Union coffee bags - save six get one free. Collecting
Top Value stamps at Winn Dixie - we used to fight over who would get to
lick & stick 'em in the books. How about the smell of coffee from the
Luzianne plant on Gentilly by the Industrial Canal.
BOB:
Mel Leavitt probably knew the Crusaders by name from all those visits to
Prep Quiz Bowl...and the contestants from Cor Jesu before the merge with
St. Aloysius to become Brother Martin. Remember before the Top Value stamps
we all collected S&H Green Stamps? But they never quite stuck to the
pages in the redemption books no matter how much we licked them. And that
delicious smell from the Luzianne plant in Gentilly told us we were on the
way to a few fun days "across da lake" in Waveland! Union coffee...were
they the ones that had the black & white commercials at the neighborhoods
"shows" (probably before your time) with the robed judge wearing
the curly and flowing white wig, who pounded his gavel and said "Be
coffee wise!" ??
DAVID VICKNAIR:
Just thanks for the memories!
BOB:
Thanks for sharing!
ERNIE DOPP:
Bob, I grew up in and around New Orleans as the son of a Neighborhood Barroom
owner who owned Pancho's Restaurant and Bar, which faced the corners of
Nelson and Dante St., in the Carrollton section. It was a local "Joint"
that catered to the neighbors. What I remember was getting the ol' 45's
from the juke box man when it came time to change 'em out. Also, we all
had our regular hang-out.....mine was the Rainbow Inn on Jefferson Hwy.
Lots of great times were had there and also the chance of picking up a drag-race
or two to try out your car before goin' up to Laplace Dragway on a Sunday.
BOB:
I grew up in Carrollton too, and my dad frequently visited the neighborhood
bars, especially Max's Tavern at Oak and Cambronne, and Buddy Fuch's Bar
at Oak and Dante, where the roast beef po-boys were the neighborhood's greatest.
He didn't venture out too far, so I don't recall him visiting Pancho's on
the other side of Claiborne Ave. But to paraphrase W.C. Fields..."My
daddy was the reason I started drinking...and I'm eternally grateful to
him!" And I know if you hung out at the Rainbow Inn (it's still there!),
you must know how to shoot pool. Hope you enjoyed Laplace Dragway with Big
Daddy Don Garlits on "SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!" We used to blow
out our vocal cords recording those radio commercials on WTIX.
My grandmother owned the bar and the building at Maple and Carrollton
which is now Madigan's, and I grew up in the building behind it on Maple
Street. Many times she hit up the TAC Amusement jukebox service man for
used records for me...many of which I played over the next 30 years on the
radio! Small world, isn't it?
ROSE FROM GENTILLY:
My friend Carol (see first Email page - Carol from Chilly Gentilly) has
it all spelled out and yes we were never home but what a great time we had.
When I worked for Zale's Jewelers on Gentilly and Elysian Fields, Benny
Spellman used to come in all the time just a' singing. Can anyone tell me
where he is located today, what a nice man he was. Sure hope he is still
around.
BOB:
Benny Spellman was a great guy. I loved watching him perform, with his lacey
shirt, clapping his hands and saying in that deep voice: "You're lookin'
GOOD!" No wonder you saw him there...Bennie lived in Gentilly, in that
subdivision over the Gentilly Rd. bridge right behind that first shopping
center on the left. We went to his house there more than once to contract
him for the Mater Dolorosa CYO dances of the first half of the '60's.
Benny left in the '70's then came back to New Orleans around 1990 to
live, after a few years working in another city. I was on Oldies 106.7 then,
doing the Sunday Night Oldies Party broadcast at Good Time Charlie's at
Williams and Sunset (now Joe Yenni Blvd.). On my birthday, August 2, 1992,
Benny Spellman and Ernie K-Doe just happened to stop by to talk business
with the owners. Of course, I knew Benny and Ernie from a long time ago.
They found out it was my birthday, and they sang "Happy Birthday"
to me at their table, with the same sound and harmony they had together
on "Mother-In-Law" and other hits. To this day I curse that I
didn't have a recorder to capture that short, magical performance.
Now K-Doe has left us, and I heard Benny had a stroke in the mid-90's
and is now living with family members in the midwest. But we all have our
special memories of both of them.