Jim LaBarbara's new biography, "The Music Professor," has a section in his book about my dad.
LaBarbara said that Big Joe McNay "was bigger than life. He was friends with everyone from (Johnny) Bench and Pete (Rose) to the big politicians. I think he introduced me to half the people in town, everyone seemed to like him."
I didn't like dad; I loved him. I learned how to deal with people from watching the master. A master who died at age 59 of prostate cancer. PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) tests were not common when dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1992.
A world famous physician was in dad's inner circle and dad went for regular checkups. No one ever thought to include the PSA exam. Dad was a former athlete in tremendous health, worked out seven days a week and enjoyed every moment of life.
Dad fought prostate cancer with a courage that amazed everyone. A tall and powerful man, he went from 228 pounds to 140 pounds, but kept fighting to the end. It was not unusual to hear the bones in his ribs and legs snap as the cancer ate them away. Painful as it was, he never gave up.
Prostate cancer was a battle he should not have had to fight. A simple PSA exam could have saved his life. If he had the PSA exam, he might have lived to meet the grandchildren and great grandchildren who came into the family after his death.
His death made me a zealot for getting my own PSA exams and encouraging my friends to do the same. Several of my friends have been saved by early detection. Now a panel of bureaucrats, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, has called PSA unnecessary. I would like to have the members of that task force spend 15 minutes going through what dad went through for 15 months. They might have a different view of the PSA test.
I believe it is easy to see what is driving the task force: money. A ruling of this type makes it easier for health insurance companies to deny coverage for PSA exams in the future. The PSA is a simple blood test. It is not invasive, painful or particularly expensive.
If you are wondering why you have heard of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force before, it may be because in 2009 they recommended that women under 50 not get routine mammograms. Although a recent USA Today article said that mammograms at age 40 reduce the risk of dying by 15 percent, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force decided they were unnecessary. Public outcry kept the task force's recommendations from being implemented. A lot of lives were saved. Now that same form of outrage is needed to stop the panel from eliminating PSAs.
Reading "The Music Professor" bought me back to the days when my father was still around. Along with my personal connection to Jim, it is a fascinating read. It is a first rate history of the rock and roll era of the 1960s and 1970s, and gives behind the scenes details about sports personalities who were part of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine era.
LaBarbara came to fame in a era where disc jockeys like Wolfman Jack, Dick Clark and Alan Freed were often more popular than the performers. LaBarbara was named one of the top 40 radio personalities of all time and is in the Radio/Television/ Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
LaBarbara operated out of WLW in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench was the best man in his wedding, and Jim was connected to every celebrity and influential person in that city. Jim met or interviewed every musical act you could think of, such as Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Supremes. Just like my dad was, Jim is a first rate storyteller. As his book noted, Jim and my dad were close friends. I would love to see what they would have done together if dad were still alive.
When Micheal Milken was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a few years after my father was, he devoted most of his personal fortune and energies to finding a cure. The research he funded and his advocacy of PSA exams has made a big difference. Like breast cancer, people fighting prostate cancer found that early detection is the key. And now, like those fighting breast cancer, people fighting prostate cancer are now fighting with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
A fight that is literally life and death.
For more information, visit Jim LaBarbara's website.
Cincinnati Enquirer's John Kieswetter
"The Music Professor" Jim LaBarbara with his 1940s Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox.
Wanted to make sure you saw my Sunday story about former DJ Jim LaBarbara and his new autobiography. It’s filled with great stories about the greatest rock n rollers, and some of your favorite Cincinnati icons — from Ray Charles and the Rolling Stones, to Neil Diamond and James Brown, Don McLean to Bill Haley, to best friend Johnny Bench (best man at his wedding), Sparky Anderson, Bob Trumpy and Marty Brennaman.
He’ll be signing “Jim LaBarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio & Rock ‘n’ Roll” ($28; Little Miami Publishing) at Books by the Banks Saturday at the Duke Energy Convention Center downtown.
My favorite story is his revelation that feds investigated him for payola in the early 1970s. They thought they had him nailed for WLW-AM playing the Sesame Street “Rubber Duckie” song mulitple times every day — until he pointed out that it was during the simulcast “Bob Braun Show” between noon-1;30 p.m., when Rob Reider would sing it repeatedly to upset Braun!
Here are a couple of outtakes that didn’t make my story:
Roy Orbison on the Beatles: When Beatlemania hit in 1964, LaBarbara recalled how Roy Orbison predicted their U.S. stardom. Orbison, who was touring England in 1963, had said back then that if the Beatles “kept their hair like it was… and did a show like the ‘Ed Sullivan Show,’ then they would be as big here as they were in England.”
Jerry Lee Lewis on love: When Jerry Lee Lewis was playing the Beverly Hills Supper Club in 1974, backstage he cried and confessed he still loved his ex-wife Myra Brown, his first cousin once removed who was 13 when she married him. Lewis told him: “Jimmy, she wasn’t 13 – she was closer to 14.”
Sparky Anderson’s advice: LaBarbara writes that he got relationship advice from Sparky Anderson. During spring training in 1974 in tampa, Anderson told him over dinner to stop running around with all these ladies and settle down with Sally Suttle, the woman he had been dating. Spark told him: “You should marry that pretty girl, and when you do, I’ll be at your wedding.” And he was there, along with Bench, his best man, and Bob Braun.
The book includes LaBarbara’s stories about Animals, Beach Boys, James Brown, Tony Bennett, Marty Brennaman, Ray Charles, Dick Clark, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Dion, Bill Haley, Kenny Loggins, Joe Morgan, Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits), Little Richard, Don McLean, the Monkees, Mike Reid, Rolling Stones, Neal Sedaka, Paul Simon, Sonny & Cher, Ed Sullivan, Supremes, Pete Rose, Bob Trumpy, Andy Williams, Jackie Wilson, former Beatles drummer Pete Best, Cash D. Amburgy and Elvis. To name a few dozen.
Randy McNutt Blog randymcnutt.com
I wrote the introduction for Randy's book "Cincinnati Sound" he has written a number of definitive books about the music business
Jim LaBarbara on the air in Cincinnati, 1980s.
Jim LaBarbara: A Life Amplified
Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll
By Randy McNutt
When the golden age of the 45-rpm single is re-examined, future historians will undoubtedly give proper credit to local disc jockeys who made and played the hits. One of them is Jim LaBarbara, late of Erie, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, and other cities. Not only did he play the hits, but he interviewed and knew many of the singers and musicians who recorded them. He also has the distinction of being a major air personality in two great Ohio music towns.
One of the most knowledgeable air personalities in radio recalls his long career in Jim Labarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll. It's not just another DJ book, nor is it a superficial one. It is a personal and career memoir, a rock history, and a tribute to the radio industry that employed him for fifty years. And it's also a lot of fun to read. Its many photographs give a sense of being there.
The radio industry that he discusses is mostly gone today. When he started in it in the late 1950s, the business was still wacky and wide open to people with big ideas. In the 1970s, I used to listen to LaBarbara--the Music Professor--on WLW Radio in Cincinnati, when he played the hits and then interviewed their artists. (I find it hard to believe that the same station today is mostly talk radio, but then that has happened all over the country.) If I missed his show, I thought I possibly missed something special. More recently, he played oldies on the popular WGRR in Cincinnati. Lately he has turned to chronicling his career, and with this book he proves that he can write with flair. He weaves his own story--a college kid wants to get into radio in the late 1950s--with the concurrent stories of singers who were making hit records in the early days of rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll. Over the years, he interviewed hundreds of them, including Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Neil Diamond, John Denver, the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. And yes, the book offfers anecdotes about dozens of them. Those anecdotes, including the ones he tells about himself, make the book interesting.
He worked in a time when radio was still exciting and creative. His radio career began at small stations in Pennsylvania, his home state. "I drove my new . . . light-blue 1959 Jaguar XK150 with red leather . . . 150 miles to Erie on a few hours sleep," he writes in a chapter titled "J. Bentley Starr," his on-air name then. "The receptionist laughed when she saw me. She still had all the postcards I sent. I was so tired, but I wanted to go on from seven to midnight. I felt terrific; my adrenalin was pumping, and about eleven o'clock that tnight, I got an idea. I was going to hijack the station. WWGO had the transmitter controls in the same area as my on-air studio. I had control of the station. They couldn't take me off. When the all-night man came in, I locked him out after putting the news microphone in the hall. He was a college student and didn't care; he studied. I put a huge desk in front of the door and stacked cabinets on top and barricaded myself in the studio. I was replacing a guy who left to go across the street to 'Jet,' the number-one station. It was shameless self-promotion: 'Hey everybody, look at me! Here I am.' It worked. The next morning by 9 a.m., the whole city knew I was in town, but my boss wasn't happy because I missed playing some commercials. [While on the air] he fired me a couple of times, but I had to tell him to watch his language because I had the news microphone in the hall turned on. A local high school team came to break the door down. During most of that time, I played one record--"C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman--and introduced it differently every time . . . It drove me crazy; I can just imagine what listeners thought." When the marathon ended thirty-some hours later, his boss agreed to keep him. When LaBarbara finally went to his car to go home, however, he found a lot of parking tickets waiting.
Eventually, he became the station's music director as well as a DJ. He stayed in Erie into the British Invasion, when he played both a British and American countdown show every night. When the Beatles visited Pittsburgh in 1964, he asked them before the show, "The 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' in the song 'She Loves You,' was that inspired by your Liverpool friends Gerry and the Pacemakers' song 'I Like It'? Where did you get it? They all stood up [from the interview table] and mocked me, singing, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.' Everybody got a good laugh."
He left Erie in 1966 to work for WKYC, a 50,000-watt Top 40 station in Cleveland, and WIXY. He used his real name.
LaBarbara was impressed and shocked at times by what he saw on stage and behind it. "I got shocked for the first time on stage . . . I was standing in a little puddle of sweat when I grabbed the microphone to take off [stage] a soaking wet Mitch Ryder. It hurt, but I kept it to myself."
He is reminded of a conversation he had with Jerry Lewis, who visited the radio station when his son Gary had some hits. "What advice did you give Gary?" LaBarbara asks him. "He said, 'Just make sure you can look at yourself the next day in the mirror.' A simple sentence but more complex than you might think."
In the '60s, LaBarbara was excited to work in Cleveland, one of the nation's top radio markets. In 1967, he says, he and Ken Scott tied for second place behind the popular Jerry G. in a Billboard magazine radio response rating for the city. "I was flattered to be in that company," he says. Cleveland was one of America's top radio markets.
Another LaBarbara story comes from Sonny Bono, just after he and Cher had divorced. The incident reveals the way the entertainment business works. To the public, Bono had went from big star on records and television to nobody, he tells LaBarbara, with people asking what he would do now that he didn't have Cher. People saw her as the major part of the act. "I had built this whole thing," he tells Jim. "I had written all the songs--ten million-selling songs. I had written the show I had created; I worked eleven years, devoted to this act. And when everything was shaken down, I came out really holding a fig leaf. You know, I thought, I don't ever want to do that again. So, I want to do things, and at least get recognized for what I do."
Turning to politics, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He later died in a skiing accident.
Another telling incident came years later, when the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum recognized famous DJ Bill Randle, LaBarbara's good friend and the man who once brought Elvis to Cleveland. "I was asked to sit on the dais," LaBarbara says. "As I sat there on stage, I thought about the irony. The one place I knew he had total disdain for was the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. He told me that seventy-five to eighty percent of all the people [enshrined or noted] in there are accused or convicted felons. He certainly didn't like the politics involved with the selection process."
When the 1960s ended, and campus life erupted in violence, LaBarbara decided to move to Cincinnati, where he did a radio show that allowed him to conduct interviews with recording artists and play records. He became Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor.
Class is still in session.
