Classic Radio Icon Dies

Although my blog is mainly on classic films, what it should be is a blog on classic “anything.” So on that note let me just say how sadden I am to hear that one of America’s first radio personalities has passed. Paul Harvey died on Saturday February 28th, at the age of 90.  Paul Harvey was the guy who had a few minutes between talk radio personalities, with news and comments on the bizarre and ended with a punch line that went something like this, “and that’s the rest of story. Gooood Day!”

Paul Harvey would give us news you didn’t hear in other mainstream radio and all it took was 5 minutes, and he managed to give his sponsors a plug to boot. In fact, I have two items I bought and still buy just because Paul Harvey recommended them. When he plugged a sponsor, he did it the “old school” way, you almost felt you were living back in the fifties. Funny that it still worked in today’s high tech world. But it did. I am sure his advertisers will miss him.  I will never forget his quirky voice, odd pauses, and his emphases on the strangeness or punch line of the story.

Paul Harvey was born in 1918 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and according to his bio on his website, he grew up in newsrooms, eventually landing a job with a local radio station which took him around the world. He eventually met his wife Angel, whom he referred to all the time on his show, and they combined their talents and started News by Paul Harvey. Within a year the show was the most listened to broadcast. In 1968 his wife Angel started Paul Harvey Comments which ran for 20 uninterrupted years. He’d search the news wires for odd or random news, and just put it out there, when other stations would not. And he became a success. The ABC Networks have been bringing Paul to national radio audiences for over 50 years on over 1000 radio stations.

He is believed to be, by many, the father of conservative talk radio. And according to a blogger at michellemalkin.com,  because Harvey put news out there that no other media did, we can also say he started blogging, on the radio that is. RIP Paul Harvey.