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N.Y. Radio Legend Scott Muni Dies at 74
from: reuters.com
By Chris Morris
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Scott Muni, one of the legendary voices of New York radio, died Tuesday. He was 74.
The cause of death was not immediately known.
The popular disc jockey, who was an AM and FM star for nearly 50 years in the country's biggest radio market, suffered a stroke in January. It sidelined him from his last on-air job, a one-hour daily show at the New York classic rock station WAQX-FM (Q104.3).
For many, gravel-voiced Muni -- known to fans as "Scottso" and, reflecting his musical erudition, "the Professor" -- was the embodiment of New York radio.
He was one of the first major top 40 announcers to take his trade to the emerging free-form FM side of the dial in the 1960s.
WAQX drive-time announcer Ken Dashow, who worked with Muni at the album-rock powerhouse WNEW-FM for 17 years, said: "At the top of his game, he said, 'Nah, this isn't getting it done.' They're playing the 1910 Fruitgum Co., and he wants to play Jimi Hendrix."
Born in Wichita, Kan., and raised in New Orleans, Muni started his radio career as a Marine stationed in the Pacific, broadcasting on Radio Guam.
He became a professional DJ, replacing Allan Freed, the early rock 'n' roll radio godfather, at WAKR in Akron, Ohio. In the late '50s, he was the nighttime man at New York's top 40 outlet WMCA-AM, home of "the Good Guys."
In 1960, he shifted to late evenings at WMCA's archrival WABC. He broadcast live for the station, which was calling itself "W-A-Beatles-C," from New York's Kennedy International Airport in January 1964 when the Fab Four's arrival there detonated the explosion of Beatlemania in the United States.
After exiting WABC, Muni moved into progressive radio with a stint at WOR-FM, which made a short-lived stab at free-form programing.
His reputation rests on his years at WNEW, where he worked from 1967-98. There, he was among the on-air personalities who helped give birth to the progressive rock radio format.
Air personality Dennis Elsas of WFUV-FM in New York served as music director and worked on the air with Muni during the '70s. He recalls, "As both our afternoon guy and program director, he was the guiding force to making us the premier radio station in New York."
Elsas compares Muni to programer-announcer Tom Donahue, whose work in San Francisco during the same period launched the free-form sound on the West Coast. "Scott was the one guy who went from AM to FM and was significant in both," he said.
Muni was a friend to the stars and counted Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen among his associates.
Dashow notes that label executives like Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun also paid attention when Muni spoke. "He had the ear of the power brokers here in New York," he said. "I was just on the phone with Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer), and he said, 'Scott didn't just help ELP; he made ELP."'
Later in his career, Muni hosted such nationally syndicated shows as "Scott Muni's World of Rock" and "Ticket to Ride," a program that spotlighted his favorite act, the Beatles.
His distinctive voice also posited the question, "How do you spell relief?" in a national ad for Rolaids, and he was employed in promotional spots for ABC's "Monday Night Football."
Dashow said: "He never got bored with what he was doing. He had this childlike fascination with radio and music, and loved 'talking to the troops,' as he put it."
Muni is survived by his second wife and five children.
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