Rock Radio Scrapbook
AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For weeks of March 19,
2006
Weekly issue #368
Talent:
TED BROWN
Station: WNEW New York
Date: June 10, 1964
Time: 34:27
"Am I blue? No, I'm Brown.
Got a smile on my puss, not a frown
Every morn from seven 'til nine
We play discs and commit general crime."
That ditty - sung to the tune of "Am I Blue" - was Ted Brown's theme song for part of his legendary four-decade career in radio. Back in the days when what was said between the records mattered as much (or more) than the music itself, Ted Brown was one of the leading deejays in the U.S. As fellow announcer and musician Jim Lowe put it "he was a major talent, with a keen sense of the ridiculous."
A native of Collingwood, N.J., Theodore David Brown got his first experience behind a mike at a dance at Roanoke College in Salem, Va., when he filled in for a master of ceremonies who had failed to show up. After college, he fought for the U.S. in the Second World War as an Air Force tail-gunner in a B-17 bomber. He was shot down over Germany and spent 18 months as a prisoner of war before being released and returning to New York.
Brown's first taste of the big time in radio came in 1950, when he took over the morning show at WMGM from another broadcast legend, Robert Q. Lewis. Teamed with his wife Rhoda Brown and later actress and second wife Sylvia Miles - both of whom were known on-air as "The Redhead" - Brown delivered a highly-popular show that continued into the station's foray into rock 'n' roll music in the late '50s.
By 1962, he was off to the legendary WNEW, joining a staff that included such broadcast greats as William B. Williams, Gene Klaven and Dee Finch. Brown held down the afternoon drive spot at 'NEW until 1970, when he left for a couple of years at WNBC. He returned to WNEW in 1972 before leaving the station in 1989. Brown was working at WVNJ in Oakland, N.J., the same year he suffered a stroke, complications from which he died on March 19, 2004. He was believed to be in his 80s - he never revealed his age.
Ted Brown was described by his newsman Mike Prelee as "a tough guy with a soft heart". Hear him here.
(Scrapbook archives)