Dennis Elsas
Mike Gruenberg
2006-03-18
In My Life For some of us, growing up in the NY Metropolitan area in the 60’s represented a cornucopia of sights and sounds. Our neighborhoods reflected the ethnicity of our families. New York City represented everything else. The good, the bad, the ugly could be found somewhere in the Big Apple. I have always felt blessed to have spent my adolescence in such a culturally diverse environment. In the late 50’s commercial radio was relegated to AM. We had transistor radios seemingly glued to our ears as we strained to hear the hits of the day. We were fed a steady diet of Top 40 tunes carefully programmed on such NY stations as WMCA (known as the Good Guys), WABC (home to Cousin Bruce Morrow) and my favorite, WINS. I liked WINS because they had a disc jockey, Murray Kauffman, known as Murray the K who seized on the beginning popularity of the Beatles and milked it for all it was worth whereupon he finally anointed himself as the “5th Beatle.” As the early 60’s morphed into the middle 60’s, a new phenomenon in radio came into being which was called FM. By listening to music on FM, the sound became more rich and vibrant. Unscripted playlists gave listeners a chance to hear many varieties of new music. Every serious music listener immediately abandoned AM for FM. Sports and talk was on AM. Every type of music imaginable eventually made its way on an FM station. I recently had the pleasure to interview Dennis Elsas whose voice has graced the New York FM airwaves for close to 30 years. Having listened to Dennis for most of those years on legendary radio station WNEW-FM, meeting him for the first time brought back so many memories that I felt I was really meeting an old friend of mine. Charming, effusive and still passionate about music, we sat down to talk in the ultra-modern studios of radio station WFUV-FM located on the campus of Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. We spoke about his career on FM radio in New York and the many changes he has seen and in some cases the changes he helped create. MG: Dennis, you and I grew up in Queens. We are both first generation Americans and both of us went to college in the NY Metro area. I have spent the last 30 years in the business world and you have spent that time on the radio. I know how I got to the business world, how did you get into radio and how did your folks feel about you being a radio personality? DE: Early on, they both were very supportive. The fact that I didn’t go out of town to college gave them the ability to follow my career from the very beginning. I went to Queens College and then to a little suburban radio station up in Westchester. At the time, I was living in Queens and would drive up to New Rochelle to that station.
MG: When you worked in Westchester, which truly was in the early days of FM. Tell me a little about that time. DE: The early days of FM…………There are a group of us who are the first generation of college radio to FM radio people. The people before us who worked on stations like WNEW-FM were previously professional radio people. The next group to follow them like Pete, Vin and myself were all products of college radio. There were guys and girls like us all over the country. We were creating progressive, alternative or whatever it is you call it radio. When I started in college radio in the 60’s, there was no WNEW-FM, so I hadn’t heard anything like WNEW-FM. I was just putting things together in whatever format I was thinking of which I guess was a copy of the great Top 40 radio stations of New York City which I heard as a kid growing up in that time period. Also, the beauty of working in college radio was having the freedom to be in a creative environment. So to summarize, I went from Queens College radio to WVOX in Westchester. MG: So you took the lessons learned at Queens and applied them to WVOX? DE: At that time I was developing an FM show for WVOX. I convinced the general manager up there because it was a totally middle-of-the-road station and the AM signed off when the sun went down to support an FM type of show. I said to him that he could probably sell time, which is probably why he went along with my idea. I told him that on the FM he should play rock which was totally abhorrent to what he was doing because the AM was so totally mainstream, local middle-of-the road. I told him that on FM he could sell to boutiques, head shops, etc. Ironically, I called the show “Something Else Again”. Actually, it had nothing to do with my name. I just thought it was a cool album title and it was something other than what the radio station normally did. I don’t know if it really needed a name, but I was used to old style radio shows that had names. MG: Tell me about the show. DE: Primarily, it was a Sunday night show which lasted from 9:00 PM to midnight. I really learned my craft there. I used to do features on various artists. I closed the show from 11:30 to 12:00 with a segment I called “Reflections.” That’s when I played the folkiest of stuff because it was reflections from the week. It gave people a chance to look at the week that was and give them a chance to look ahead. Also, the themes I used were usually what was going through my head in those days. Whether I was having some problems with some girl or if I was anxious about work or whatever, it came out in the music played during this half hour. MG: Sounds like it was therapeutic. DE: Yes, it was therapeutic, but it also was a lot of rock ‘n’ roll from 9:00 to midnight. I was learning my craft and not being paid a whole lot of money. Then I got very lucky and started working at WNEW in the summer of ’71. I had submitted a tape to Scott Muni in April and was rejected. I would kid Scott for years because I still have the tape and the letter. As a matter of fact, I read the letter at his memorial service that I hosted.
MG: So how did you turn the rejection in April to acceptance June? DE: During that summer, there were many changes afoot at the station. Zacherle was leaving to go to PLJ which meant that Allison was moving up to his shift, which meant that Richard Neer who was the Music Director was going to get “overnights” which meant that suddenly they needed some summer relief. When I heard about all of this, I resubmitted another tape to Scott. I knew he needed somebody and so they called me in for an interview. I’ll never forget having the phone ring in my apartment in Queens hearing that incredible voice on the other end. You have to know that there was very little office help at WNEW-FM at that time. It was a very small operation. So I went in one day for the interview, wore a suit, said my now immortal words to him, “I used to listen to you while I was growing up” which he never let me forget for the next 25 or 30 years and of course, I got the job. Now, I am at the station for 3 – 4 years and I have established myself there and a kid comes up who has just gotten into college and meets me and says in front of Scott, “Dennis, I used to listen to you…..” The kid listened to me while he was in high school and Scott got such a kick out of hearing this. MG: We all grew up with Scott and I know the listeners in NY who experienced the pleasure of having heard him have many memories of him. What are your fondest memories of Scott Muni? DE: My fondest memory of Scott was that I worked for him as his Music Director. I say this in the sense that I joined NEW in the summer of ’71 as a relief announcer and would do basically all the relief work during that time. Initially that meant doing overnights which quickly led to daytime relief and that was great. For the first time in my life since I got out of college and I didn’t have a real job. I had a job where I had to show up ever so often. For example, there were times when I worked Sunday mornings and Sunday nights. It would be 8:00 – 12:00 Sunday mornings and then come back to do the Sunday overnight beginning at midnight. Not what you would call a 9:00 to 5:00 job. MG: And all of this for not a lot of money. DE: For not a lot of money, but I was on the radio in New York City. The world was my oyster. I was on WNEW-FM. Anyway, six months into the job, the Music Director position opens up. Scott asks if I would like to be the Music Director. Even though I really didn’t know what a Music Director was supposed to do, I asked Scott that if by taking this position did it mean that I had a regular job, He replied yes and I said “you’ve now got a Music Director.” From that moment through the next five years, I was not only the Music Director, but also the chief fill-in guy, plus I had week-end shows of my own. I had developed both Saturday and Sunday afternoon shows. And so it seemed to me that during those years, I was working six or seven days a week because whenever anybody was off, I would fill-in no matter if it was a morning, evening or afternoon show.
MG: Clearly, you were young and strong and could fulfill your responsibilities, but what precisely does as Music Director do? DE: A Music Director in the 1970’s at a radio station like WNEW-FM had a rare and unique opportunity. In this role, that person would get this stack of albums every week that would have to be listened to so as to determine whether the music would or would not be added to the station playlists. The Music Director would make notes on the albums, select specific cuts and really be the person to wade through all of these albums that literally arrived every week. That person was me. The other part of the job was to be the entrée for the record companies. For them to see Scott, they would have to pass through me. In those days, there were no interns and no assistants. The Programming Department consisted of me, Scott and his secretary. That job afforded me the ability to learn the business. Before this job, I knew the music and now I was learning all the music since I must have heard every record that arrived at the station from 1972 – 1976. That truly was a golden period in music. I have vivid memories of receiving the new Stones 1973 record “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” and bringing the record down the hall to Scott thinking of how many new Stones records he has already seen in his career since he was the primary guy in NY radio to successfully make the transition from AM to FM. But working for Scott, I wasn’t taking notes, but I was, I was watching the consummate “pro,” I was watching a guy who lead “by example.” By watching what he did, I learned how to work within the industry. He was a great teacher. For him, it was clear that we had friends and not such good friends and yet he navigated gracefully through them all. I knew the music, but now I was learning the politics of the music business. One of the most important things I learned from Scott and I have spent a lot of time thinking about him since I was involved in many of the memorial services held in his honor, was that he did not have an ego when it came to sharing the spotlight with others. So I was a young Music Director, when a Townshend or Ray Davies or various other people would show up at the station and a picture was to be taken, Scott would always call me over to be included. This was a man who was comfortable in his own skin. I didn’t take notes, but years later when I achieved my celebrity or fame, not necessarily a Scott Muni celebrity or fame, but whatever success I had, I wanted to be known as someone who can make other people comfortable around them and realizing that when a big star came in that you make it a point to introduce them to everyone. Make sure every person no matter the job gets to feel good about themselves at the station.
MG: Did Scott know what an icon he was and that he was revered by people who heard him on AM, then WOR-FM and WNEW-FM? DE: I think he was aware of it. The term “The Professor” (and we could do a whole article on Scott) was almost invented because the radio station was going through so many changes at the time that the thinking was that they should get rid of this old man. As you know, the station went through so many evolutions and so “we’ll call Scott, "The Professor” which was a reference to his age. Obviously, after a while he grew into that name and as he got older in a business that is younger and younger, the audience grayed along with Scott. I like to explain to people when I started playing Classic Rock, it wasn’t classic yet, it was new. Anything past 1971 to me, I played as a new record, not an old one. I think as time wore on, Scott knew more and more of people’s reverence towards him and at the same time the musicians respected him because they knew that he would always be fair to them. He really did help give many people a break. NEW-FM was NY’s premier rock ‘n’ roll radio station. We may not have had the best ratings, but we were where it was happening in NY. It was where John Lennon came up to do his interview with me and later with Scott, we were where the Grateful Dead came to hang out and play cards, we were the place where concert announcements were first broken, we were the place where new artists wanted to get their records played first. MG: I think that the people of my age group that grew up with NEW-FM out of sheer loyalty and the ability to hear the old classics and new classics stuck with the station for as long as they could as the years went by. DE: It’s funny because when I first started in the early 70’s, I thought that I totally knew my entire audience because most of them were my age in their teens or early twenties and most probably had the same hairstyle which tended to be long on the males. Most of them probably shared the same ideas about sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll. As I got older and the audience got older, we all started growing up and as a result we got a wider range of listeners. If you ever saw the movie, “FM” it’s a silly movie, but there are some very real truths in it. One of the things that rung true for me was when they depicted a radio station that was taking ads for the Army which caused a high degree of upset for the employees at the station. That was a real issue. There was a moment in time when WNEW-FM would not take advertising from the Army. It was the Vietnam War era. Yet remember we were owned by Metromedia, whose corporate and political tendencies may not have matched the political views enunciated on a hippie FM radio station. What I’m trying to say is that the audience that originally was an anti-war group was starting to change. The original audience for NEW-FM was bonded together as a counter culture group and now those people for the most part were growing into adulthood and still listening to the station. It was the peace, love and understanding generation.
MG: It’s interesting to see how our generation evolved along with WNEW-FM hearing new music over the years. I have always enjoyed speaking about music with my daughter, my stepson and my nephews. My daughter brought Phish and the Disco Biscuits to my attention. My stepson and my nephews have opened my eyes to groups like Umphrey’s McGee. Do you play any of these jambands oriented groups at WFUV? DE: We do. There is a show done by a student every Friday night called the WFUV Jamboree, As you know, the students here are primarily sports and news announcers and the disc jockeys are professionals. But the WFUV Jamboree is done by a student and it doubles up with the Grateful Dead Hour. It’s real nice segment here at the station. It’s ironic because NEW ran the Grateful Dead Hour for years and then dropped it and FUV has since picked it up. I remember a December of 1971 live broadcast of the Dead on NEW which may have been the first live broadcast of the band for the station. I was running the board that night. That was in the days when the New Riders would open for the Dead. I wasn’t the Musical Director; I was still the fill-in guy that night back at the studio. Scott was to be at the Garden to host the show with Bill Graham and my job was to stay at the studio to do station breaks and hang out there. I asked Scott how late he thought he would need me and he said somewhere around midnight and one. Needless to say, my first experience with Dead is sitting at the board until three in the morning. Another interesting footnote is that Phish made their NY radio debut on my show in 1994. I was doing the mid-day show that day and Phish was set to appear at the Beacon that night for their shows. We had a mid-day, lunchtime performance hosted by me in the studio and Trey is totally goofing on me and one of the guys in the band broke his leg and it was great concert. So, I may not be the first person you think of when discussing jambands, but Phish’s NY radio debut was on my show. But the bands you mentioned before, like Umphrey’s is that I certainly appreciate their music and enjoy it when I get to hear it, but the problem with being the Music Director at FUV is that I get tons of music each week both solicited and unsolicited all of which needs to be listened to. However, that’s the beauty of being at FUV is that I am exposed to and as a result listening to music I never would have heard had I remained at a station that played classic rock. Every Monday, we do a show called “New Music Monday” where I am hearing all kinds of new things. Much like the old NEW, this station prides itself on exploring all kinds of musical genres. So I can indulge myself with a great old Van Morrison song and at the same play all the new stuff which happily for me includes some of the jambands music. I play classic rock on Sirius and new music at FUV. It truly is the best of both worlds.
MG: Last month I wrote about the new Ray Davies album which took four years to record. For example, you get his album which comes from rock ‘n’ roll royalty and an album by a new artist. Do you consciously say I’d rather play this one rather than that one given that they both have merit? DE: No, I consciously say that I will play them both. If you look at what I will be playing at 4:00 PM today, you’ll see (shows me the playlist) that it’s a good mix of music both from established and up and coming artists. My biggest joy is taking that new Ray Davies which has an older and familiar sound and putting it next to something that you would not expect to hear after it. Or taking a totally brand new artist and being able to segue into something that is comfortable sounding for both you and me. I love the segue, always have and my biggest joy at the old NEW was when I had the freedom to program by putting two or three songs together in a set and my biggest joy here is working within the City Folk format. I love being on the air in the afternoon. There is no greater pleasure for me than spending the afternoon with the audience many of whom are old friends that have listened to me for many years. I also do a lot of voice over work and at those sessions I meet a lot of young producers who will say, “You’re Dennis from the radio.” I immediately think they know me from NEW, but most recently they know me from FUV. Granted there is a wonderful and loyal audience that grew up listening to me, but I love the fact that I am meeting all these new people. In short, this is a great place for me to work. MG: A number of years ago I interviewed BJ Thomas and for that session I brought along some of his LP’s from my collection. I showed them to him and a big smile came across his face when he saw them as he reminisced about the records. In your bio it talks about your LP and 45’s collection. Is there any one album or 45 that has special meaning to you? DE: All those records. I love the touch of vinyl. I love the sound of vinyl. I am not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. I am at Sirius a few hours a day and here a few hours a day surrounded by state-of-the-art equipment. When I go home, sometimes I just like the sound of silence or listening to sports radio or listening to talk radio. Are there certain records? I do make a distinction between the stuff I bought and the stuff I got. When I was interviewing John Lennon, he was very funny during that interview. I try to relate to him how it felt for someone like me to be sitting next to him. He immediately makes me feel comfortable by relating how he similarly felt a few weeks earlier when he met Chuck Berry on the Mike Douglas Show. I said how great it was to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and buy the records whereupon he turns to me and says in that unmistakable accent, “and now you get them free.” One of my big thrills was later that afternoon giving him a big pile of records since I was the Musical Director and on the autographed picture he signed for me he wrote “thanks for the freebies.”
MG: We are now here in 2006 in the modern studios of FUV. How different is FM radio today compared to the days at NEW? DE: It’s not that different because it’s still radio. I like to say that public radio, private radio, commercial, non-commercial, etc. It’s really simple. There is good and bad radio. There was good and bad radio when I grew up as a kid. There was a lot of crap and there was a lot of good stuff. There was good and bad radio when I started at NEW and there is good and bad radio today. A lot of good radio today happens to be in the non-commercial field because my friends in commercial know it’s harder and harder to do creative radio there when the most creative radio is “talk.” That’s where they have the freedom to experiment. There are a lot of good music disc jockeys but most of them on a commercial station have no input into the selection and playing of music. When I’m on the air and I grab a record out of the library and start playing it, it’s much the same way as it always was. NEW after the late 70’s had a very tightly programmed station playlist. When I finally went back to NEW and did “Classic Rock For Classic Jocks”, that was pure Layla, Jessica, Dream On, whatever. By most of the 80’s and 90’s it was a very tight playlist. And that’s how business was done and is done today. Most of the classic rock stations today are tightly programmed and that goes for whatever the music, be it Latin, hip-hop, country, etc. the vast majority are programmed. The other side of the music is the ability to communicate. When I flip open that mike switch and I see you driving on the L.I.E. or see you sitting at your desk in Floral Park or Plainview, I know my audience because I am my audience and I grew up with them. Now it’s weird because I get e-mails from people all over the world. I’m in a comfort zone here because I know the audience. We have a lot of the same interests. When you’ve made the choice to listen to FUV, you’ve made the choice to bring something to the table that allows your mind to open a little bit. I certainly like speaking to people of our generation, but I also want to appeal to those who are 10 – 15 years younger than we are. It’s great to look back nostalgically at the good old days, but my Crosby, Stills and Nash is another persons’ Phish. We ended our discussion when Dennis had to go to work for his 4:00PM show. He has been a staple of NY radio for so many years and for me, I am thankful that I have gotten the opportunity to hear the music he has selected for all of us.
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