Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg was born to be a top 40 radio DJ.
As the conductor of the legendary WMEX AM 1510's top 40 radio format, Ginsburg's "Night Train" radio show embodied the true spirit of top 40 radio. You'd be hard pressed to find a better Boston top 40 jock from any generation!
Full of energy, personality, sound effects and classic jingles, Ginsburg's show served as a prototype, of sorts, on how to do top 40 radio. He was best known on WMEX 1510 in the late 1950s and 1960s, a top 40 radio listener's dream-come-true radio station. He was indeed a radio God to the teenage audience that loved rock and roll music.
I remember Ginsburg best for his Saturday night oldies radio show on, I believe, WMEX in the mid 70s. He didn't have a classic golden throat -- the prime tenet of a 1960s top 40 DJ -- but his boundless enthusiasm, radio intuition (i.e., the ability to segue into a song) and durability (he was on the radio all the time), Ginsburg is one of those rare radio personalities to gain full respect from not only his listeners, but also his colleagues.
Here is some feedback I received a while back from Dennis Jackson, a very popular New England radio personality through the years and owner of WQQQ (Sharon, Conn.), WRIP (Windham, N.Y.), WZEN (Farmington, N.H.) and WCLX (Burlington, Vt.):
"Your list omits the greatest and perhaps most successful (in terms of audience share) talent ever to grace Boston airwaves. Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg was an MIT engineer who began by buying time at night on 1600/WBOS in Brookline in 1956, doing a show and selling ads to cover the cost (and then some.) He soon migrated to 1510/WMEX, where his frenetic, high-energy style set the bar, not only in New England, but nationwide, for personality-drive Top 40 radio. He owned the nighttime teenage audience wherever one could hear signal-challenged WMEX. His exciting, tight, sound-effects laden presentation is captured in the "Cruisin'" CD series, which preserved the heyday of Top 40 personality radio for all time.
A man of many talents, Arnie went on to become a founder of Kiss 108 and TV Channel 66."
Arnie WooWoo...
ReplyDeleteUsed to listen to him on WMEX just about every night when I was in elementary school. I even had my own Woo-Woo U ID card.
Years later, I interviewed with Arnie when he was station manager at WWEL... I didn't get the job, but he was very gracious, and a real human being.
Thank you, Arnie, for all the memories and the Ginsberger.
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