(Left to right) Don Lancer and Meg Bowden
WOLF Radio, Syracuse
1964

We all know Don Lancer as the voice, the dean of radio anchors in Philly. But Don started as a Rock & Roll disc jockey. Above is a photo of Lancer and Meg Bowden (who sometimes did the weather on his show). We have a Monday, December 28, 1964 aircheck of Don on WOLF. There, he was known as Big Daddy Don Lancer, or simply Big Daddy. He also had a sidekick (with Don doing the voice). At the end of this aircheck, Don makes fun of the newscaster. Little did Lancer know what was really in his future.

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What follows are excerpts that Don Lancer wrote about his career!

Do you remember your first job? Actually, mine was as a porter cleaning toilets in a restaurant on the New York Thruway (we used to call it the Dewey Thruway in honor of Governor Thomas Dewey – the guy Harry Truman beat for the Presidency). I graduated from toilet cleaning to overnight cook at another restaurant in the chain, then got fired when I fell asleep on the job. I was titled the night manager of the restaurant in Warner’s New York but was actually chief cook and bottle washer overnight.

Anyway – the regional manager’s boyfriend, who was a truck driver, caught me napping one night. There hadn’t been a customer in hours but he turned me in anyway. So long, Donny.

It was then that I thought about joining the Marines. My sister, however, worked as the program director at a local radio station in Auburn and suggested that, since I had a good voice, I might try for a job. She hooked me up with WSGO in Oswego New York.

I applied, got hired as the morning man at 17 and lasted 3 months. Oh, well – no one ever said I was easy to work with. I played music, read the news out of the local newspaper as the station tried to get on its feet and worked with a real smoothie from the West Coast who turned out to be a nut job. I liked him, though – I have often liked “nutjobs”.

At 17 – you don’t lose heart. It’s only when you are nearing the end of the work road that things can look bleak. You may not realize it as you prepare for retirement but you miss the daily interplay with others. Work your whole life and then hit the brakes – work with no one else, try to find things to do, get bored!

I managed to line up an apartment at a home which rented a room to another radio guy who lived, for a long time, in Los Angeles. His career had hit the skids, as so many do in radio, and I won’t identify him as I won’t identify many of the people in my early career. You wouldn’t know him and it really makes no difference who he was.

He was smooth on the air – that’s smooooooooth and taught me to be prepared and unflappable. Just move through your time on the air and don’t get flustered.

I didn’t own a car and so used to take a Greyhound bus back home every few weeks to see Mom. By then, Dad – who had a hard time keeping his hands off the ladies – had been kicked out of my mother’s house. Taking the bus ended when a guy next to me cleared his nose on the seat back in front of him. OK, enough for me!

It didn’t really matter anyway because on that trip home I got a call from the radio station telling me my services were no longer needed. No reason – just I wasn’t working out. Pretty good for a station that had only been on the air for 3 months.

During my short tenure at WSGO I have never seen so much snow. It seemed to snow from December right on through my eventual exit in February. Remember, Oswego is on Lake Ontario. So my departure was not regretted.

In the beginning though I simply shrugged and went on to my next job – WCGR in Canandaigua New York.

A lot of people have asked me over the years what it is like to be a radio announcer. I bristle a little at that because I have, for most of my career, been a newsman. Times have changed though and most so-called newsmen and newswomen are little more than “announcers”.

This is not to disparage them; this is to disparage management which has the clamps on so tight thatindividual initiative – both locally and nationally isn’t allowed.

The radio business is just that – a business.

I never went to college! I could care less about college when I was a young buck (17) and just out of high school. I wanted to join the marines! I know – what are you, crazy? But I wanted some excitement coming from a small town in upstate New York. Its name – Auburn. It’s just west of Syracuse and located in the beautiful Finger Lakes, at the foot of Owasco Lake.

Looking back now, I didn’t know how great that place was. I go back a few times a year, and it’s changed completely. Luckily the lake is still there but all of the small family owned camps I used to hang at are now upscale places, way overpriced and most with indoor toilets. When I went there as a kid, hey – we had a lake.

When you’re a kid you’re footloose and fancy free even if you did just get fired. My second radio job took place in Canandaigua New York. Located on Canandaigua Lake, the city is a small town really. When I worked there the big attraction was a local amusement park with a large Ferris wheel. WCGR was a 250 watt powerhouse that just about covered the town.

Like WSGO, my first job, this was an everything job. Play music, who the hell is Frank Sinatra anyway? Only kidding – my dad used to play him on our brand new stereo every stinkin' day when I wanted to hear Bill Haley and the Comets, or who else? Let’s see – Elvis – no, I never did like Elvis.

WSGO was owned by a guy who had a couple of sons who liked to play jokes on you. One Sunday, I went to the men’s room, came back and sat down at the Microphone as a song ended only to find the little bas—– had poured soda on the chair. Oh well – they were the owner’s kids.

This was also the place I bought my first car – no more busses back home. It was a sweetheart – a blue and white Mercury Convertible – a real car. I used to wax it everyday.

I rented a small apartment, one room with a kitchenette. I mean this was small. I didn’t need much. My mother used to supply me with a spam like canned meat that she picked up by buying it off people on welfare back home. That was great stuff – I used to cook it up with eggs and never went hungry. I had an alarm clock because I was the morning man at WCGR. I forgot to turn off the alarm one weekend when I went back home to Auburn, New York. The thing went off at 5 a.m. and that caused quite a stir. It not only made a sound – a relentless buzz, buzz, buzz – but also flashed a light. That caused the people who owned the house where I was staying to call the fire department – they thought my apartment was ablaze.

Our PD was a guy named Jack Braxton – a nice guy – a former pickle salesman. I never did find out how he got into radio from selling pickles, but remember this was a time when radio was big – late 50s, early 60s. Everyone wanted to be a star. I liked Jack, a good family man as was Wes, the owner.

As to that Ferris wheel – the station decided it wanted to do a promotion – guess who was picked to ride that stupid thing, hour after hour, as we broadcast from the park? You guessed it – me. I hated Ferris wheels after that and then learned to hate roller coasters years later when my daughter Shelley had me ride down space mountain at Disney world – 8 times. “Jesus, please get me off this thing.”

You learn radio by being there – by doing whatever is asked of you. That means you play music, you read news, you record meter readings for the FCC, you even sell time when you’re asked. I did all of that for the year I worked in Canandaigua.

I met other old salts in the business, folks on their way down like a recovering alchoholic. He was recovering on his way down and had stopped the slide when I met him. He had a superb voice but had screwed up enough so that WCGR was the only place he could land a job. Like so many other people I have met in my life, I shut up and listened to him. That’s the only way to learn, shut up and listen.

My hometown is a place called Auburn New York. It is some 20 miles west of Syracuse New York on the Finger Lakes in Central New York. When I was growing up it was a great place, not so now – we get back there once a year. It was a small town on a beautiful lake (Owasco) with an amusement park, hang out restaurants and friends, I had loads of friends.

Auburn has died because of the demise of manufacturing in America. It used to house Columbian Rope – one of the world’s largest manufacturers of rope products, Alco – huge manufacturer of locomotives, Remington Rand, International Harvester – you name it – it was manufactured in and around Auburn. Now all that stuff is made overseas by people who can’t add and make a buck an hour.

It was also the place where I got my third job in radio – after WCGR in Canandaigua. I was still a kid and learning. Mom loved being able to hear me everyday, at least she said she loved hearing me.

This station was WMBO – affectiontely described as “We Might Burn Out” by those who worked there. In fact it is still there although now I think it is part of a repeater network – something like FingerLakes radio.

To give you an idea – the station had what it called a middle of the road format. How about “dull” format. Nelson Riddle was tops, Frank Sinatra was acceptable.

The radio station was owned by the local newspaper – the Citizen Advertiser which was owned by the Osbourn family – old line Auburians. The General manager was a nice old guy, his son was the Program Director/Operations manager and the News Director was an old sage.

Into this mix – comes me. It was not a good decision but when you are looking for a job – you take what’s there – at least I did. I could have spent the rest of my life there but I hated the music we played and as a result decided, on my own, to go modern – one morning playing a group called (of all things) the Astronauts, hard banging Rock and Roll.

So long Donnie. It took them less time to fire me than it takes most people to blink an eyelid.

They were all good people. I must say that the people I have worked with through the years, exept for a few, were the greatest folks in the world. The only ones who weren’t, worried about the competition. Guess what – I have followed their careers – they didn’t last long.

My next foray was to a station in nearby Syracuse New York. Actually – a place called Solvay New York – a station that was bankrupt when I joined it and still bankrupt when I left.

From the official archives of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
Photo & 1964 aircheck originally donated by the WOLF 1490 Tribute Website
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