I think I was 11 when I first became conscious of Top 40 radio. It was probably the year the Beatles invaded America — a phenomenon that did not impress Evelyn and Ed Krause.
Rock ‘n’ roll radio didn’t exist in our house. I remember those first heady days of Beatlemania when even WLYN was playing songs by the Fabs. A week or two after the first Ed Sullivan show, we had a snow day, and my mother tuned into WLYN to get weather information. The station played “All My Loving,” a song she actually liked.
But I turned 11 that year and one of the presents I got was a transistor radio, and I started fiddling around to see what was worth listening to. That was the summer of ’64, when British musicians were coming over here in hordes, their way paved by John, Paul, George and Ringo (who turns 80 — 80 — next week).
My friend’s mother used to take us to the miniature golf on the Lynnway, and it was there, with music amplified to high decibels, that I became fascinated with modern music. There were three songs I particularly liked: “Things We Said Today” by the Beatles, “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals and “Walking in the Sand” by the Shangri Las. That was my soundtrack for the summer of ’64.
And how could I go this far without mentioning the emcee to the soundtrack: Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg.
Arriving, as I did, somewhat late for the party I probably missed the Woo Woo heyday. By 1964 and, especially, ’65, The Woo and his Night Train were losing a little steam. Radio was changing faster than anyone could keep track, and he may have been caught in that maelstrom.
But I caught enough of it. All the train whistles, the gags, his self-deprecating humor (he called himself “Aching Adenoids”), and his distinctive voice. I just never got the opportunity to actually go to Adventure Car Hop — the place on Route 1 in Saugus that he made famous. (If you went there, ordered a Ginsburger, and then mentioned his name, you got another one for free). It sounded like a teenager’s paradise, but at age 11, I didn’t even bother to ask for permission to go.
By the end of the decade, it was gone — part of the ever-changing landscape of the legendary highway.
But those were great days, when AM radio was current and even hip. I’d listen to that transistor at night, when I was supposed to be asleep, sticking it under my pillow so only I could hear it.
My father didn’t want me doing that, so he’d take on the persona of a drill instructor doing spot checks. He’d find the radio, feel it to see if it was hot, and then chastise me for listening to “that garbage.”
I was undeterred. Arnie the Woo was on every night, without fail, and he had a pretty formidable competitor over at WBZ, which, by then, had switched its format to rock ‘n’ roll, and Juicy Brucie Bradley was the nighttime jock. I actually thought he and Cousin Brucie (on XM radio) were one and the same. But Bradley is dead. Cousin Brucie still lives.
Ginsburg died last week at the age of 92. Before we got too far into the 1960s, Arnie the Woo was a relic. Arnie Ginsburg was not. He reinvented himself several times. In 1986, Ginsburg teamed up with John H. Garabedian, the jock who defined WMEX long after The Woo had left the building, to introduce V66 — a local music video channel. It never really took off.
He also helped establish WXKS radio, which not only brought us Sunny Joe White and Matty in the Morning, but the AM version, “Music of Your Life,” which was the only station my mother listened to as she got older.
I don’t mourn Arnie the Woo as much as I mourn the demise of accessible radio that helped escort him out the door. In 1968, WBCN (for Boston Concert Network), an FM classical music station, switched its format to progressive rock and took almost all the good music with it. The AM stations faded away until they changed their formats. Some, like WMEX, no longer exist around here.
But in the 1950s and ’60s, if you were to look up Boston Top 40 radio personalities in an encyclopedia, Arnie the Woo’s picture would be there with the definition. Believe me when I tell you, it was a much more innocent time.
Rest easy, Woo Woo. I hear a lonely train whistle mourning you off in the distance.