Monday, October 22, 2018

I got a nice shoutout at the Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers (video)


My friend and former Metromedia FM radio station WMMR colleague T. Morgan -- holding the mike in the photo -- (that's friend and colleague Michael Tearson on the right) had some nice words to say about me at the Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers meeting last week.

Morgan tells the story of how I put a brand new radio station on the national map and made a star out of unknown, un-signed Billy Joel.

T. and M.T. spoke about WMMR's 50th Anniversary.

The printed materials Morgan refers to are here.

The "How Dennis Wilen Made Billy Joel A Star" saga was retold recently by Victor Fiorillo in Philadelphia Magazine.

I'm famous for 15 minutes yet again!

Here's the video, all cued up to right before my mention:

Thursday, October 11, 2018

#TBT Philadelphia 1970-71: When FM radio was the new kid on the block



Thanks to my old friend Arnie Holland, let's #TBT to 1970-71 when Arnie edited 34th Street Magazine, an arts and culture magazine at our alma mater, Penn.

I had no memory of writing this article until Arnie mentioned it yesterday.

I went to see him today at his home office where he pulled out a box of the original magazines and I shot this photo of the actual pages.

I wrote all about this new exciting thing called "underground radio." Think it will catch on?




Monday, August 13, 2018

This sounds like it was a lot of fun, but I don't remember a thing

I just found a 1970 story I wrote for the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS @phillydotcom about the Philadelphia Folk Festival @folksongsociety. I don't remember this at all but it sounds like fun!

Friday, July 27, 2018

Phamous in Philadelphia for phiphteen minutes once again

Philadelphia Magazine is retelling the story of Billy Joel's breakout to stardom in Philadelphia and it's all my fault!

Here’s How Philadelphia Created Billy Joel

The hitmaker, who plays Philly on Friday, tells us all about it.

....Back in 1971, Joel was a no-name 22-year-old from Long Island. In November of that year, he released his first album, Cold Spring Harbor, which got virtually no attention or airplay. But then one day in 1972, Philly music producer Dennis Wilen, who had launched a live WMMR concert series from Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios, got wind of this singer-pianist named Billy Joel during a visit to New York. Wilen invited Joel to do one of those WMMR live broadcasts....
Read the whole story @ Philadelphia Magazine Thanks to VINNIE for the clipping.