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.
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?
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!
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....
Joe Fields, a driving force in the jazz music business for over 50 years, passed away on July 12. He was 88 years old.
Fields was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1929 and raised in Brooklyn. In high school he was an accomplished athlete, winning the prestigious New York Journal American Lou Gehrig award. He was also an industrious student, working many jobs during his school years, including selling newspapers, pushing a rack in the Garment District and driving a cab. He played college football at Syracuse and the University of Bridgeport, where he was captain of his team his senior year. While attending Bridgeport, he met and married the woman who would become his wife of 66 years, Joan Nancy Boyd.
After graduating from college, Fields had several business ventures but found his calling in the music business. In the late 1950s, he began selling records to music stores in Brooklyn. Fields was hired by London Records to pick singles for the United States market.
He worked for MGM, Verve, Prestige and Sue Records before becoming the national sales manager at Buddha Records. While at Buddha, Fields started its jazz division, Cobblestone Records. He started his own record label when he acquired Cobblestone from Buddha and renamed it Muse Records.
I had three artists (co-produced with Skip Drinkwater) on Joe's Muse/Cobblestone:
Norman Connors during his Pharoah Sanders period
The Grubbs Brothers aka The Visitors, highly influenced by their cousin John Coltrane
Catalyst, virtuoso players ranging from hard bop to fusion
