Debbie Reynolds at WCLV

Photo: Shutterstock/Vicki L. Miller


Debbie Reynolds died Wednesday, December 28, at the age of 84. Some years ago, she visited WCLV.  The plan was for me to interview her live, and afterward she would go to an adjacent studio to record two interviews with other local radio hosts to be broadcast on other radio stations in Cleveland.

That morning, on WCLV, Miss Reynolds talked about her time at a Warner Bros. radio station, where the bosses felt she could cultivate her speaking voice.  She also talked about the famous couch scene in "Singin' in the Rain," which she said was filmed in one take.

She graciously helped introduce the Movie Quiz. She said, "I was in this movie, which is about American history." The movie was "How the West Was Won."  When I finished taking the call from the winning listener, I said, "Would you like to talk to Debbie Reynolds?" and handed the phone across the console. Miss Reynolds spoke with the WCLV listener for a minute or so and handed the handset back to me.

As it happened, the other announcers were late, and although after the interview I offered Miss Reynolds a chance to sit in our vestibule and wait for them, she said no, she'd rather sit in the control room, which she did for a half hour.

Having learned radio in the days when engineers cued up records and gave the announcers their cue to talk, she said she was fascinated watching me operate the audio console buttons, start the CDs, fade and out of music, play spots via the computer, and handle all the spoken business required of present-day radio announcers.

"I couldn't do what you do," she said.

The other announcers never showed up, and Debbie Reynolds had a half hour of quiet time in the WCLV control room.

Radio is Like Thanksgiving Dinner

Most of the music that you hear on WCLV is played by clicking on a computer cut on a screen in master control. We still have the thousands of CDs.  It's just a lot quicker to click on a cut than to (1) open the CD case; (2) press "open" on the CD player; (3) wait for the drawer to slide out; (4) load in the CD; (5) wait for the CD to slide back in before you (6) push the button for the track you want and (7) wait for that track to show in the display. You know this from your own CD players.

A volunteer is helping us enlarge the number of on-air music selections by adding computer cuts from older CDs in our library.  Recently I asked him, after he'd been working with us for three months, whether he had any observations about what he had seen here.

He said, "This is a LOT of work."

On the air, we don't detail all that is done to produce what you hear, much the same way that the host at Thanksgiving doesn't describe all the preparations once you arrive for dinner.  The turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie are there for you to enjoy. You shouldn't have to listen to a litany of preparation stories.

The volunteer added, "I used to think that you guys were just reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and every so often, announcing the music."

I replied, "We make you THINK we are."

Should I Worry?

Wednesday, January 20, the "Sousalarm" just before 7:00 a.m. was Frank W. Meacham's "The American Patrol," which dates from the 1800s, and which later became a hit record by the Glenn Miller Orchestra.  An Oberlin WCLV listener called and said (1) she keeps track of every Sousalarm on WCLV; and (2) I also played "The American Patrol" on January 20th last year. She thought I should celebrate on hitting the same date two years in a row.

Celebrate?  Perhaps not. It was a coincidence, after all.

More importantly, how many OTHER things in morning drive do listeners keep track of?  You are all full of curiosity and intellectual vigor. I wouldn't underestimate any of you.