KENNY MAYER
A Boston Original
by Joe Tyburczy
Photos courtesy of Robert Mayer
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I'm sure I wasn't the only
teenager who lay awake on Sunday nights in the 1970's desperately searching the
Boston radio dial for something to listen to. AM powerhouse WRKO's "Drug
Hotline" was an amusing diversion, especially after it became a beloved
target for prank callers: HOST: This is Drug Hotline, you're on the air. TEEN CALLER: Yeah, I (giggle) just smoked some
(giggle) marijuana and I think I'm (giggle) addicted (giggle) (dial tone). But mostly the AM
dial was barren, a wasteland of dull-as-paint-drying religious and community
affairs shows. Yet if you searched hard enough, down at the lower end of the
FM dial, you'd discover a guy playing comedy records. His name was Kenny
Mayer. Mayer was a
living anachronism lurking quietly on the fringes of Boston radio. He did a
brief stint at WBZ (AM) sometime in the early 1950's, and later hosted a
quirky Sunday night program aired on WBOS and WUNR (AM/FM) radio, lasting
well into the 70's. It was billed as a comedy show, and the LP selections
Mayer played were hardly cutting edge, mostly tired Borscht Belt stuff, but I
got hooked because it was something different on a Sunday night. No fancy
jingles, slick station ID's or scripted DJ patter. Just Kenny and his comedy
records. His on-air personality was absolutely one of a kind, more like
someone's grouchy, irritable uncle than a radio host: KENNY: "This is not a request show, so please don't call in with requests and then get upset if I don't play 'em. I can't fill your requests, especially if I don't happen to have that record. Look, if I have it or can get a copy of it, I'll play it. If I can't, you won't hear it. Now a lot of you have asked for more Bill Dana. We just did a show playing nothing but Bill Dana, and if you missed it, I'm sorry, you'll just have to wait till we get around to it again. So please don't call me asking for Bill Dana. That said, if there's something you'd like to hear, give me a jingle at WO9-89-89...." And his famous
"one-way" phone calls. When Kenny took calls on the air, he simply
picked up his phone and barked "Hello". The radio audience was limited
to hearing only Kenny's side of the conversation. The technology certainly
existed for both sides to be heard, but for some reason, he didn't use it.
The effect was extremely unusual and vaguely unsettling. KENNY: "Yes Ma'am. (pause) Uh-huh. (pause) Uh-HUH. (long pause) Well we just played that last week. (pause) Yes. (pause) No. (pause) Maybe next month we'll be playing that album. (long pause) You're welcome. (pause) Goodbye." And the
commercials. Lots of 'em. Mostly restaurant pitches which Mayer did all by
himself. Rambling monologues delivered in clipped tones, like Walter Winchell
on Percodan. To an
impressionable teenager like me living on the New Hampshire border, Mayer was
mysterious and worldly, and the Boston hotspots he promoted like "Ken's In
The Heart Of Copley (Square)", "Paul's Mall", "Lennie's
on the Turnpike", and "Aku-Aku" were thrilling, exotic and
foreign. But there was so
much more to him. Kenny held a full-time job issuing press credentials for
the Boston Police, and acted as a press spokesman for the Boston Police
Commissioners Office. He also pounded out entertainment columns ("Night
Mayer") for the Boston Herald-Traveler and later the Herald, and was one
of the few Herald staffers that stuck when the Boston Record-American took over. Mayer was an
old-school journalist. The kind that smoked Lucky's and drank martinis, wore
a fedora and trenchcoat in public and uttered profanities in private. He
referred to the world of shady Boston nightclubs, lounge acts, theatres and
restaurants as his "beat". He was the ultimate "night
owl", glued to his typewriter and telephone through the wee hours of the
morning. People who knew Kenny say they're not sure if the man ever slept.
You could call him at all hours at his telephone number ("W0-98989")
and more often than not, he would answer. He actually did his radio shows
from the basement of his Newton, MA home using an expensive (at the time)
telco line hookup to the studio.
Because of
similarities in name, Boston-area residents and even some media historians
confuse Kenny Mayer with Ken Meyer, producer of evening talkmaster Larry
Glick's radio show on WBZ in the 1970's. But there is no comparison. Kenny
Mayer was a true original. Perhaps because it's been
more than thirty years since Mr. Mayer's gruff, clipped cadences pierced the
inky night, I searched for an artifact, a shred of proof, some scrap of
evidence that the man even existed at all. But in all my Googling of the
world wide web I have yet to find even one page - never mind an aircheck -
for this incredibly rare gem of the Boston radio scene. So here it is, both a
web page and a brief aircheck of Kenny I was fortunate enough to obtain --
and you can now enjoy. EPILOGUE As usual, the
moment I put a page up, the world rushes to correct me. Here is an additional
source of Kenny Mayer airchecks on the web that have recently been brought to
my attention: |
