by Richard Neer
It was one of the least enjoyable Springsteen shows I’ve ever attended. Not because of Bruce, he was superb. It started with the onstage introduction by Dave Herman, who had been to one of the earlier performances and had been converted into a rabid Springsteen fan. “And now everybody, please welcome Bruce Springstreet and the E Steen Band.”
Yeeesh. Dave still laughs about that intro. Pat and I retreated to Pat’s car to hear what the broadcast sounded like. It began very badly. There was some clicking noise underneath the whole thing that was noticeable during soft passages. Clarence Clemons’s sax was not miked, and the whole thing did not sound properly balanced. But after a few songs things fell into place and it was vintage Bruce. We could finally sit back and enjoy the rest of the show.
As it ended, I made my way backstage and interviewed a heavily perspiring Springsteen. He sounded like a boxer as he described how he “felt real good out there.” He was doing his best Muhammad Ali, and I couldn’t help laughing as the tensions of the night came spilling out. I wished him luck and he retreated to his dressing room.
A sweaty Mike Appel came down from the booth and mopped his brow. Pat and I gave him a wry thumbs up, and then climbed the ladder to see David. “It sounded pretty bad at first but it got better,” I said. “How was it for you?”
He then told us what had happened. Appel had originally taken the mixing console, but after struggling through the first notes, frantically motioned for David to take over. Vanderheyden mixed the lion’s share of the show, with Appel prodding him occasionally to boost the audience mics. Much ado about nothing.
Almost twenty years later, when Mel Karmazin was well on his way to controlling a broadcasting empire, he must have been cleaning out his files when he came upon a copy of the memo I’d written to him, pleading to do the Springsteen broadcast. He sent me a copy, with a note stating, “That’s why I never liked working with you. You had no foresight.”
Bruce was to me what the Beatles were to Dennis Elsas. A proper interview became my Holy Grail, but his management team, now headed by Jon Landau, comes from a print background and shields him from radio people. Initially, I could understand Landau’s need to protect Bruce, since he was not a great wordsmith while not onstage. But whether it was on Bruce’s own instruction or overly conservative management, our contact has been limited. Management continues to hold him at arm’s length from radio, and as a result, many stations don’t play his new records. Today, he is such an articulate voice on so many diverse issues, one would think that an extensive radio interview would benefit all concerned, even if it had to be conducted on a talk station. It’s a shame that so many artists who have nothing valuable to say are frequently accorded open forums on radio, and one whose words would be esteemed is strangely silent.
Mike Pillotte at Columbia helped put Springsteen and me together a few times. Mike and I rode up to West Point to catch one of the best shows I’ve ever seen Bruce do. After the concert, a man came out to the front of the stage and paged me. When I identified myself, he said, “Follow me,” and led me through the backstage catacombs to a small room where Bruce stood alone, toweling off after a typical three-and-a-half-hour show. We had a ten-minute chat before we both had to catch our rides back to the city.
In the summer of 1976, Springsteen and I went to a baseball game with a group of mutual friends. Amazingly, here was a man who months before had been on the cover of both Time and Newsweek, but as we walked through hundreds of young people on the way to our seats at Yankee Stadium, not a soul recognized him. Of course, Bruce was always changing his appearance then: His hair was long, short; he had a beard, a mustache, he was clean-shaven; he was skinny, he was muscular—he always looked a little different.
In November of that year, he played the Academy of Music and he and Pillotte popped into my Saturday afternoon show unannounced. He hung out for two hours, selecting his favorite records and playing disc jockey. I had no chance to prepare for the impromptu interview. My natural affinity and knowledge of his career enabled me to ask good questions, but as I listen to the tape now, there are so many more I would have liked to have addressed. But other than a telephone interview a decade later and a brief dressing room conversation before a Meadowlands show I did along with my brother in the early nineties, I have yet to do the definitive Bruce interview.
Kid Leo’s friendship with the Boss deepened throughout the seventies as well. In fact, E Street guitarist Steven Van Zandt’s protégé, Southside Johnny Lyons, had been so grateful to Leo for his support that he played the Kid’s wedding. On the Darkness tour, Leo was asked to emcee Springsteen’s performance at the Agora, which was coupled with a live radio broadcast. He contemplated his introduction for days, memorizing a dozen ideas that were eventually discarded. Leo was a big sports fan and he knew that Bruce had used boxing metaphors coming offstage in the past, so he crafted a Michael Buffer–type opening.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he intoned. “Round for round, pound for pound, there ain’t no fighter this world around, who can stand toe-to-toe with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band!” The crowd went wild and the broadcast soared from that point onward. After intermission, as the band came out, Max Weinberg hit the cymbals and Bruce yelled, “Round TWO!”
That show was part of a trilogy of dates in smaller venues that were regional live broadcasts. The other two originated from the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey, and the Roxy in Los Angeles, and were designed to build excitement for the first arena tour, which was beginning in Cleveland three weeks later. Now in a twenty-thousand-seat hall, Leo was again called upon to bring out the band. He began his boxing litany, and this time he was carried away by the power of his amplified voice filling the cavernous space. The crowd was screaming as the band entered, but Bruce held up his hand for silence, turned to Leo, and asked, “What’s the matter Leo, can’t you think of nothing new?”
I do recall a more peculiar encounter. New Year’s Eve live broadcasts of concerts from the Capitol with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes had become a tradition in the late seventies, and whenever Johnny played, there was always the hope that Springsteen might join him onstage. We ushered in 1980 with “Havin’ a Party,” a Southside staple, and signed off forty minutes later. But the Jukes’ manager was acting skittish all night, and when Johnny Lyons finished his last encore, came back to our broadcast location and asked pointedly if we had signed off. We assured him that we had, but by then it was obvious that something else was up. We called the station and told them to keep the line open, since we’d seen members of the E Street Band around, and we figured they might be gearing up to play. Bruce had gone over three years before releasing another album after his breakthrough Born to Run as he disengaged from Mike Appel’s management and signed on with Landau. Legal problems caused him to keep a low touring profile as well, so any chance we might get to air even a few songs was a huge scoop.
As we suspected, about twenty minutes after the Jukes finished, John Scher took the stage and announced a special surprise—a live set from the E Street Band. Over half the audience had left the theater, but those still in the street outside rushed back in to catch their hero. We hastily reactivated the lines and broadcast the first couple of songs, causing ticket holders who were already in their cars to turn around and come back.
Johnny Lyons was livid. He called me every name in the book, and his manager accused me of lying when I told him we were off the air. I replied that we indeed had been off when he asked, but that such a major event was big news and nobody officially told us we couldn’t air it. Lyons lunged as if to hit me, but was held back. He swore that he’d kill me if we didn’t end the broadcast immediately. Somehow, I found the fortitude to tell him that unless I heard it directly from Bruce, we’d continue.
As the next song ended, the irate manager snuck onto the stage and whispered into Springsteen’s ear. The Boss shook his head violently, and I could tell that he was denying us permission to broadcast further. We had to respe
ct his wishes, and told our radio audience that we regretfully had to sign off due to contractual reasons.
Johnny calmed down after that—we talked and shook hands and both of us said there were no hard feelings. I was morose though, because we had potentially damaged our relationship with two artists we had supported and believed in from the beginning. I had hosted the first nationwide Asbury Jukes concert from the Stone Pony in Asbury Park several years before, and saw Lyons not just as a satellite of Springsteen, but a man with considerable talent of his own.
As a New Year’s party started onstage after the brief E Street Band set ended, I said good-bye to my friends at the Capitol and prepared to go home. As I started out, Bruce grabbed me from behind and spun me around, giving me a big hug. “I’m sorry, my friend,” he slurred, drunkenly. After all, it was New Year’s and we’d all imbibed a bit.
“Will you forgive me?” he asked plaintively.
“Forgive you for what?”
“I don’t want you to be mad at me. Please don’t be mad.”
“Bruce, I’ve got no reason to be mad at you. I just hope you’re not mad at me. You understand we wanted to broadcast your set for our listeners, that’s all.”
“Don’t be mad,” he repeated. This was making no sense. Was he apologizing for cutting us off when he had every right to do so?
“Johnny’s a good guy. Don’t be mad at him, either.” He gave me a warm embrace.
I felt that he was appealing not to the representative of a radio station important to his career but to a friend, and I was touched that he seemed genuinely concerned that I thought well of him personally. He is extremely sensitive and expresses himself from the heart, and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s such a great artist. As I drove home, I felt pangs of guilt, hoping that I hadn’t betrayed him and that when we both drew more sober breaths, our strange sporadic friendship would survive.
Nightbird Flying
Alison Steele is probably the most revered woman in radio. She’s been an inspiration and role model for hundreds of other women in the business. And like Frank Sinatra sang, she did it her way.
There was always an aura about her. Men that she reportedly dated included the aforementioned Francis Albert, Sean Connery, and William Holden, all many years her senior. She reputedly caused an Emerson, Lake and Palmer concert to be canceled because Greg Lake couldn’t tear himself away from her charms. In the twenty-five years I knew her, though, her steady companion was a muscular assistant district attorney named Roy Kulcsar, who would pick her up in his Mercedes convertible many nights after her show. He accompanied her to hockey games, often with her friend Dani Greco, whom she introduced to everyone as her sister. There was a period in New York when she was considered the most desirable woman in a city filled with them. But the talent responsible for her seductiveness didn’t come from any of the typical areas, although she was no slouch in those either. Quite simply, it was her voice. Deep, sexy, provocative.
Her mother was an opera singer, and young Alison (née Celia Loman) grew up around music, both classical and big band. She never talked about her father. Alison married and divorced bandleader Ted Steele at a very early age and it was that relationship that gave her a new name and began her career in television and radio. Her alliance with WNEW-FM came about in 1966, when she was selected from among four hundred auditionees to become a disc jockey on the short-lived all-female format, originally doing afternoon drive. When the switch was made to progressive rock in 1967, she was fired three times by Nat Asch, but refused to leave. In fact, it was possible that the only reasons she was able to retain her job when the others were let go were her willingness to work overnights and her determination to learn a style of music that had been completely foreign to her until then.
She began doing overnights on the progressive station in January of 1968, and quickly attracted a following of college-age men, who were suckers for her sexy presentation. Although in person she displayed a tough, slightly New York accent, on the air there was a distinct mid-Atlantic feel, most apparent in her pronunciation of “buhhd” as in “Nightbird.” The voice of actress Kathleen Turner comes to mind.
She came up with the Nightbird in December of 1967, when she was on a two-week hiatus, having moved out of afternoons to make way for Scott Muni. It showed a side of Alison that would alternately haunt her and benefit her throughout her life. Whereas Schwartz and Muni had no shtick, Alison came up with an alter ego. In person, she was as hard-edged and pragmatic as anyone I’ve ever known. She smoked thin Nat Sherman cheroots—smelly, dark brown cigarettes that aspired to be cigars. She liked leather, and her outfits weren’t bashful about showing off her lean build. You’d never see Alison less than completely made up, even at two in the morning. Her red hair was perfectly coiffed, a perpetual tan gracing her well-toned physique, even in the dead of winter. She could curse like a sailor. In the company of her fellow jocks, she was like one of the guys—laughing at their crude jokes, telling some herself, and showing no signs of vulnerability. I don’t think I ever saw her in tears.
But on the air, she was spiritual, sensual, and gentle. As she began her show with some new-age poetry, read over Peruvian pipes, one was instantly transported to another sphere. Perhaps it was her classical background that caused her to favor bands like the Moody Blues, Yes, Renaissance, and Vangelis.
They say that the character “Mother” in the 1978 film FM was based on Alison. There was a certain nurturing quality about Alison when it came to young talent. She certainly was kind and helpful to Michael Harrison and me in our early days at the station, and she later took a mentoring role with Jo Maeder, who was known as the Rock and Roll Madame on various New York stations. But she also could be competitive and even fight dirty if her role as queen was threatened.
An example of this happened in 1973, when Carol Miller from WMMR joined the station. Carol came from Long Island, and was a pretty, dark-haired college girl working on a law degree. Unlike Alison, she was without pretense on the air, at least in her early days. She grew up with the music and was good at the technical aspects of presenting a program, something Alison could be lax with on occasion. Carol began working weekends, soon impressed Muni with her talent, and seemed to be a rising star.
Not long after Carol had been hired, WNEW-FM hosted a benefit concert for WNYU, the radio station at New York University, where she was attending graduate classes. Held at Town Hall, it featured David Bromberg and a host of artists from the Village folk-rock scene. As was his custom during the intermission, Muni came out onstage to introduce the troops. Alison was brought out last, since she always got the biggest ovation. Some of us took this as an indication of our relative popularity, but comparisons to Alison were discounted because of her spectacular appearance, especially from a slight distance. Alison played this to the hilt. There was once a summer concert in Central Park when she wore a thin leather halter top, a leather bikini bottom, with high boots and a bare midriff. Boys were literally falling out of trees to get a closer look. No telling how many dramas inside their pajamas it later inspired.
But that night at Town Hall, Carol, dressed simply in a granny skirt, got a huge ovation when brought onto the stage early on. When Alison came out, there was a noticeable chorus of boos amid the normal raucous applause. She stormed off with fire in her eyes; it was the first time she’d ever been upstaged by another woman and certainly the first time she’d been booed.
While doing her show a couple of nights later, Alison took requests. She always liked to answer the phones and develop personal ties with her audience. That night, some callers claiming to be from NYU told her that Carol had deliberately incited some of her classmates to boo Alison. Since Steele had some acolytes at WNYU, she investigated further and others confirmed this. Alison immediately complained to general manager Varner Paulsen, and issued an ultimatum—either Carol goes or I go.
To be fair, no one really knows if Carol had anything to do with the response to Steele. At the time,
it seemed pretty obvious why Alison was upstaged—Miller was twenty years younger, very attractive, and more accessible sounding on the air at a time when some college students were appreciative of that approach. But Alison was able to prove her case to Paulsen’s satisfaction, and Carol was dismissed.
It was difficult for me to fully understand what Alison had to deal with because I had always respected her and saw her as a larger-than-life figure. But for her, life was a constant battle for acceptance in a male-dominated world. She always kept her age a closely guarded secret. Whereas Muni was seen as an éminence grise and the rest of us were fairly young (except Zacherle), Alison was fearful of being portrayed as a middle-aged woman playing kid’s music. She also had credibility problems with her musical knowledge in the beginning, and even when she had caught up, she went out of her way to impress with her acumen in a manner that indicated insecurity. She was nearly fired several times in her first year, and I think that spurred her to work even harder to not just be an equal to the guys, but to be better.
Of course, male chauvinism did rear its head. There were those who just refused to accept that a woman could know and love rock, and present it properly. These people, many of them coworkers, were constantly seeking out chinks in her armor to prove that she was a fraud, whereas if a man showed similar weaknesses, it would be dismissed as minor. Her sex life was gossiped about in salacious tones, whereas a man sporting the same adventures would be admired.
Her liaisons with rock stars were legendary. One night, soon after young Marty Martinez had been hired by the WNEW newsroom, Alison asked him to do a favor for her. It seems that the building guard had called up to the station, saying that a dangerous-looking man was demanding to be let up to see her. He was driving an expensive car, and swore that he was friends with Steele but refused to reveal his identity. Would Marty go down and find out who the man was?
