By Nat Johnson – 3/5/2011

This story originally appeared in WGBH & Friends

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.

It’s sunset on a Sunday afternoon. I’m eight years old and alone in our darkening living room, listening to a block of creepy radio mysteries crawling out of the Magnavox – Inner Sanctum, The Green Hornet, Lights Out, and the scariest of all, Orson Welles as “The Shadow.”

(Years later, I’d have strange, personal encounters with Welles himself, but that’s another story…)

As a boy, I’d spend hours seated at the console of our Magnavox – a magical machine with a 78 turntable and combo AM/shortwave radio – transfixed by its glowing green dial that drew me into its exotic world: Hong Kong, Paris, London, Tokyo. Strange music and foreign voices, rolling and fading like ocean surf, blending fragments of Morse code or teletype and eerie squeals and squalls, calling to me from somewhere … far out in the ether. This before FM and TV, and the LP, only just beginning to come into our homes.

1964. Fresh out of the army and back home from two years in Japan. I enrolled at the Longy School of Music and Emerson College, and began a part-time job at WBCN, starting on the graveyard shift –Saturdays from 4:00 PM until midnight.

Majoring in organ performance at Longy, I produced my own organ music series at WBCN, “The King of Instruments,” which I later shared with two college stations in Boston – WERS and WBUR. Years later, “The King” also ran briefly on WCRB before ending up at WGBH in 1967. When WGBH abruptly cancelled the show in the 1980’s, it went up on the bird to NPR stations in the Public Radio Cooperative. Long Live the King!

Me at the WBCN console (c. 1965)

Staffed by true music lovers, a few cranky Bostonians, and super-bright students from Harvard and MIT, there was no better place to work than WBCN, and no finer opportunity to learn the art of music broadcasting. WBCN had an unusually high-quality stereo signal and despite the makeshift apparatus that served as our broadcast console (see photo below), we were blessed with a magnificent Neumann condenser microphone (see photo) that made every announcer sound like a pro!

WBCN was the originator in a string of classical music FM stations on the east coast (the Concert Network) – and we were the Boston Station of the Concert Network. Others stations included WRFK in Virginia, WNCN in New York City, WDAS in Philadelphia, WMTW Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and WHCN in Hartford, Connecticut.

Broadcasts recorded in Boston were “tape-bicycled” to other member stations which worked pretty well, except when the automated Hartford station started playing our Christmas-week programs in July. For economic considerations, WHCN had no “live” announcers. Money was constantly a worry for everyone.

By 1967, WBCN was nearly broke and our blissful existence as devil-may-care broadcast mavericks was coming to an end. WBCN underwent a format switch from classical music to “middle-of-the-road,” so time to move on – to WGBH. Volunteering in the summer of ‘67, I teamed up with Fred Barzyk and Olivia Tappan on their experimental TV series, “What’s Happening, Mr. Silver?”

One night, David Silver, Fred and Olivia visited me at WGBH. They had brought along a brand-new, just-released album by the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That night, I decided to break with WBCN’s traditionally classical format to air for the first in America, a stereo broadcast of the album. Listeners were astounded – and generally seemed quite captivated.

I aired, for the first time in America, a stereo broadcast of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Listeners were astounded – and generally seemed quite captivated.

In December of 1967, with just one-hundred people on staff, I was officially hired at WGBH. My new boss, Bill Busiek, informed me WGBH wanted to continue my organ program and that I could fill in as a part-time announcer, but that I would be paid as an audio engineer – the position for which I was actually hired. Until my move to TV five years later, WGBH Radio seemed the ideal job, although a few quietly questioned whether newcomer Nat Johnson really ought to be wearing so many hats!

Soon after I was hired, ‘GBH-FM built its first “combo” studio whereby on-air-talent could “spin” their own records. I became the first “combo” operator, but that too raised some eyebrows and garnered more grumbles.

The compact-disc era had just begun, so WGBH bought a player. One morning, I aired the first compact-disc ever broadcast on WGBH, but only a few minutes in, it stuck – repeating a passage over and over and over. Fortunately, a listener called in to suggest the problem was probably only dust, or a fingerprint! I took the disc out of the player, apologized to the audience, explained what I was about to do and after cleaning the disc, it played successfully.

For two years, I hosted the weekend edition of Morning Pro Musica, beginning at 7:00 AM, until the indefatigable Robert J. Lurtsema arrived and took over the program in a seven day-a-week marathon. By then, I was happy to rescue my social life on weekends, and be allowed the luxury of sleeping-in on Sunday mornings.

Radio Drama

In 1968, a year after I joined, WGBH-FM received grant money from the NEH, the NEA and the Old Dominion Foundation to produce, record, and distribute 13 radios dramas on LP to educational stations around the country. Joan Sullivan and Lyon Todd produced and directed, Bob Carey and Bill Busiek were the principal audio engineers, and I assisted. With my ongoing interest in radio drama, this was the ideal situation to learn, experiment and apprentice. There was nothing like it then, and probably never will be again.

So, in the winter of 1967, I landed at WGBH – and just in the nick of time. WGBH had just been awarded funding for its proposed series of 13 radio dramas, to be distributed in a 13-LP boxed-set to “educational” stations around the country. The radio drama production teams worked in Studio 1 and out of the adjoining FM Sub-Master Control. The rest of us lived in what was called FM Master Control.

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In addition, WGBH produced a heavy schedule of live and taped concerts and lectures from around Boston and Cambridge (including the BSO and Boston Pops), the Gardner Museum and New England Conservatory of Music, Sanders Theater at Harvard, Kresge Auditorium at MIT. We broadcast Ford Hall Forum live from Jordan Hall, plus news, poetry, studio recitals, guest lecturers and recorded programs from the BBC and CBC. WGBH Radio was a wealth of significant cultural activity and a very busy, very happy place to be.

Then, in 1970, shortly after WGBH issued its boxed LP set of radio dramas, another bit of luck: I was chosen to represent WGBH at series of radio drama workshops at the National Center for Audio Experimentation at WHA in Madison, Wisconsin.

These amazing workshops, conducted by Desmond Briscoe of the BBC, were attended by public radio representatives from around the country.

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Besides me, there was representation from WILL Radio, University of Illinois; WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio; KBYU, Brigham Young University, Utah; KEBS-FM, San Diego State College; KOAC Radio, Oregon; WFCR, Amherst, Mass; KPFA Berkeley, WRVR New York City and WUHY, Philadelphia. WHA Madison and Radio Hall at the University was the host station and provided faculties for our study and actual production.

Much of our day was spent in the studio, reading and recording the assigned radio play, creating sound-effects on a table-top Putney Synthesizer, and then the final mix and editing. Oh yes, in those days editing was still on ¼” tape, cut by a razor blade on a splicing block and then glued together with splicing tape. The afternoons were dedicated listening times, during which Desmond Briscoe played us classic BBC radio dramas.

The play for our group was by Tom Stoppard: “The Dissolution of Dominic Boot.”

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These were heady days and over our horizons, the future looked brilliant indeed.

Epilogue

It was at WGBH I first met Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow’s producer at CBS, who spoke to us one memorable afternoon in TV Studio A about the dream about to be birthed for the future of radio and TV. In his talk to us, he called it “the Public Broadcasting Laboratory.”

The last time I saw Fred, many years later, we were both in Grand Central Station and in a hurry to catch trains. I stopped, said hello and reminded him of his visit to WGBH (arranged by GM Hartford Gunn, since departed) and of the dream they had shared with us.

Fred was so pleased, and thanked me for remembering. Yet, I could not help but detect a slight wistfulness to his tone, for I think we both knew that times were changing and that perhaps not every part of the dream was to be realized. I don’t remember exactly what we discussed but at the time, I thought I noted a brief flicker of sadness behind that wide and Friendly smile.

At this post, we are aware that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of ignorant, misguided, misinformed individuals and legislators throughout America who want to defund NPR and PBS, sink them forever, and destroy the legacy of quality broadcasting so many worked so hard for so many years to create.

If nothing else, I hope this little blog [WGBH & Friends] will be useful, and perhaps inspirational, to those read it and might choose to participate in the fray.

From the Daily Beast — 2/14/2012

Patton Oswalt obsessively live tweets it from his weekly viewing parties. Katy Perry is using it to distract herself from her marital woes. Roger Ebert has stepped outside the movie realm to praise it in his blog. Saturday Night Livespoofed it. Mob Wives star Big Ang Raiola recited favorite quips for Us Weekly.…

Could all of this fuss really be about a PBS show? Quite right. Masterpiece’s Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning hit, Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, a TV ratings success and cultural phenomenon, has catapulted the public-television broadcaster with the stodgy reputation to the cool kids’ table….

“There is a Downton-specific phenomenon going on,” said Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton, who also credited Sherlock with broadening Masterpiece’s audience. “People might have thought maybeMasterpiece was too refined for them, that maybe you had to have a master’s degree to enjoy it. People have come to the understanding that Masterpiece is just very well told stories with high production values and excellent acting, writing, and directing.”

• Read the story

From Dan Beach

Here is Jean Shepherd on the dock behind the Museum of Science for his first TV show with Fred Barzyk. With him is a ‘GBH Staffer Margy Pacsu. It was taken in 1961, probably in October.

• Read the whole story from Fred Barzyk

From Mark Steele – 2/5/2012

I started working at WGBH in 1986 in the online editing room where we finished most of the shows that aired on PBS: This Old House, The Victory Garden, Masterpiece Theatre, FRONTLINE, Mystery, NOVA, Evening at Pops, Championship Ballroom Dancing, and An Evening of Championship Skating to name a few.

I saw the beginning of New Yankee Workshop, The American Experience, The Aids Quarterly, Antiques Roadshow, Long Ago and Far Away, Adventure, Nova Science Now. We used the room do the first live transmission for The Bridge between the Soviet Union and the United States.

• Read Mark’s profile and comments

From the Boston Globe – 1/31/2012

Part of [Downton Abbey's] appeal is the smugness of hindsight. Just like “Mad Men” helps us think, “At least we’re not that sexist,” “Downton” lets us congratulate ourselves about American social mobility. Sure, we’ve got our 1 percent, the series reassures us, but we’re not all consigned to being masters and servants forever…

But the show seems most entranced with the notion of downward mobility. Consider the coming-of-age daughters of the wealthy Crawley family, raised in a palace that’s even bigger than Mitt Romney’s house in New Hampshire. Lady Mary is about to marry a common-born newspaper mogul, who sees their union as a business partnership. Lady Sybil is flirting with her Bolshevik chauffeur. Lady Edith steals a snog with a local farmer…

Then again, how satisfied should Americans be that our own country replaced rigid class with opportunity? In a 2007 study funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, researchers found that the United States lags behind most developed countries in social mobility, defined as the likelihood that someone will grow up to be better off than his parents.

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From AnnArbor.com

Stewart Leanny White, age 76, died at his Ann Arbor home on January 25, 2012.

Stewart was born on April 14, 1935 and raised outside of Philadelphia in Media, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Media High School in 1953, from Penn State University in 1957 and from Boston University in 1959. He served in the US Army at Walter Reed Hospital.

At Boston University, Stewart made lifelong friends working at WGBH, where he did a news, sports and weather show. He liked to boast that he had the second highest rated news show in Boston public radio at the time (there were two).

Stewart worked for Smith, Klein and French in video/communications in the 1960s, and was recruited to do similar work at the University of Michigan Dental School in 1969. In 1977 he transitioned to the UM Medical School as director of Biomedical Communications. He retired in 1995…

There will be a celebration of his life, as per his wishes, in mid-March 2012. Those wishing to make a tangible gift in Stewart’s memory can do so by donating to the Penn State Alumni Association/Michigan chapter scholarship fund, or the annual Ann Arbor winter coat drive.

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From Current.org

"Rights for Downton Abbey were believed to be caught in a heated budget dispute. But the series aired to great effect."

PBS’s ongoing negotiations to curb per-hour costs of producing programs and to assert more control over content are increasing friction with its largest producer, Boston’s powerhouse WGBH, according to sources at other stations with knowledge of the situation.

For a period until just four days before the second-season premiere of the gem of this season’s PBS schedule, Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Classic, the approval of PBS broadcast rights for the series hung in the balance as WGBH protested the network’s contract demands.

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From the Boston Globe — 1/27/2012

Alex Beam. Image from IdentityTheory.com

By any metric, “Downton’’ has hit a home run. Nationally, it has more than doubled PBS’s prime-time audience. Locally, “Downton’’ is enjoying a 5.8 rating, twice as high as “Masterpiece Classic’’ ratings last year. It is too early to know if that translates into increased memberships or pledge commitments for WGBH…

I loved the first season of “Downton,’’ with its obsessive attention to the “law of the entail,’’ which forbad the earl’s daughters from inheriting their father’s magnificent property…

Season two has a phoned-in quality; miracles occur where skillful writing might have intervened, subplots wax and wane randomly. But I am an originalist snob. I’m one of those people who can’t understand why anyone would watch NBC’s “The Office,’’ a show stolen character for character for character and situation for situation from Ricky Gervais’s much funnier British show. But what the heck, it’s television.

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• Image from IdentityTheory.com profile

From The Mail

It’s the quintessential British period drama series that has captivated and delighted its American cousins. So no one was surprised when Downton Abbey was praised for its Stateside success with a prestigious Golden Globe.

And creator Julian Fellowes beamed with pride as he and his Lord and Lady of the manor as they picked up the gong for Best Mini Series.

They were joined by executive producers Rebecca Eaton and Gareth Neame and director Brian Percival….

Bonneville believes the popularity of the period drama is down to its unpredictability as it is one of few pieces not to be adapted from a novel

Speaking backstage he said: ‘People tend to love period dramas, but this is one where you don’t know the ending, it’s not like an adaptation of a book.’

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From the Boston Globe

In the 130 years since Pat Garrett gunned him down in the New Mexico Territory, Billy the Kid has fired the imaginations of millions. Aaron Copland composed a ballet about him. Michael Ondaatje wrote a novel about him. Hollywood has made close to a hundred movies or TV shows about him. Tonight he’s the subject of an hourlong “American Experience’’ documentary on Channel 2, “Billy the Kid.’’

The most interesting thing in the documentary, both for itself and for how it’s used as an artistic device, is the one known photograph of Billy. John Maggio, who wrote and directed, keeps coming back to the image. A visual refrain, it recurs the way a hook does in a hit song.

The picture cost Billy 25 cents, and he has the look of someone out to get his money’s worth. Head cocked, he’s showing off for the camera – while trying not to show that he’s showing off. His sleepy eyes and slightly parted lips give him a casual look (the open mouth also reveals a bit of snaggle tooth). He wears a vest, suspenders, a jauntily knotted bandana, and a Stetson or sombrero whose dented crown is so high it looks like a top hat. Completing the portrait is a Winchester rifle, which Billy holds upright, grasping it by the muzzle. It looks more like walking stick than weapon.

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• Image from Wikipedia