Every Friday night we smooth our way into the weekend with music, the universal language. These selections demonstrate that despite what is being passed off as art today, there is plenty of really good music available. Come along and enjoy!
A few weeks ago my dear friend and legendary Milwaukee classical music radio host Obie Yadgar passed away. I shared some memories of Obie in Part 1. This week, more memories of a terrific talent.
According to his beautiful daughter Sonja (Can’t believe she once sat on my lap as a child) Obie’s radio career took him from San Diego, to New York, St. Louis to Milwaukee, to Virginia, Chicago, and back to Milwaukee.
Obie was not your typical classic announcer. You know the type. “This is Eugene Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B Flat, Opus 60.” Pause. One-thousand one, one-thousand two, one thousand three. Start record.
When you listened to Obie you heard he just didn’t do it that way.
As I mentioned in Part 1, when I did morning drive news at WUWM and then turn the programming over to Obie he would pick his opening selection and then go from there, spontaneously choosing each piece as the show progressed. Thus, it didn’t take long for Obie to respond to my question, “What are you going to start with this morning?”
There was that morning in 1984 when we talked about the new popular movie “Amadeus.”
Obie couldn’t get over the film’s ending where Mozart’s body in a bag was unceremoniously dumped from a casket into an open grave filled with others on a gloomy rainy day, the kind Obie always referred to on-ar as ‘moody and introspective.”
Obie was audibly and visually upset at how one of his favorite composers was depicted.
“That’s Mozart!” Obie said sorrowfully on air.
More on Mozart: The renowned composer according to Obie loved to tell dirty jokes.
That’s a good segue to Obie’s anecdote on WMSE on Janaury 29 of this year.
He quoted English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, calling him the “king of the one-liners” who possessed a “very acerbic sense of humor.”
“The sound of a harpsichord,” said Beecham – “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.”
Obie, Bruce, and I were like the Three Musketeers. Whenever we got together we had the best, funniest conversation.
In the hallway in 1984 a discussion popped around the movie “Romancing the Stone” starring Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, and Kathleen Turner. Obie and Bruce mentioned what a looker Turner was, and I concurred. I believe Obie also used the word “yummy.”
Somehow the talk turned to another actress, Kim Novak. Obie had an affection for her and told us he thought she had a “really nice back.”
Novak starred in “Picnic” that gave us the standard “Moonglow.”
Obie possessed a very thick beard and mustache. His 5 O’Clock shadow probably began around noon.
WUWM sent the two of us and the general manager to Washington for a conference and meetings with National Public Radio. Sharing a hotel room with Obie I saw firsthand his daily morning ritual: a rather lengthy extended shave. The entire process took almost an hour.
For the longest time I’ve thought some outfit should conduct a study on how much time in a man’s life he wastes shaving. Honestly I don’t relish the whole ordeal. But Obie was totally different. To Obie every day started with sheer joy.
“The morning shave is my time for myself. Good time to think about things,” he wrote to me on Facebook where he often posted a photo display of his collection of razors, brushes, and after shave bottles.
The last time I saw Obie was just before he got his radio program at WMSE. We met at a coffee place in Shorewood where he shared with me a brush and shaving cream and happily gave me instructions on just how to use them for the best results.
You need to write a blog for me about shaving I told Obie. I was surprised because he wanted to know how to go about the blogging process. Can you imagine? Here was this author, asking for a primer on blogging. Obie wanted to do it, but was too busy at the time cranking out his latest novel. He never did get to send me a shaving column.
About that trip to D.C. We’d take walks around the city during off time and I swear on a few occasions Obie said to me, “I could go for some good mutton.”
I asked Obie about that not too long ago on Facebook.
KEVIN: Hey dear friend, when’s the last time you had some good mutton?
OBIE: Don’t like lamb.
KEVIN: Pardon me Obie. For some reason after seeing you in pics devouring a good-looking steak I thought back to when we were in DC and I thought you commented a few times you wanted to find some good mutton. My mind must be slipping!
OBIE: My dear friend, the pistons misfire after so many years.
Obie is a Vietnam veteran. While in D.C. Obie requested that I accompany him to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall that was fairly new, dedicated on Veterans Day in 1982.
Anyone who’s been to The Wall or even its replica knows it’s an intensive emotional kick to the heart.
Staring at the V-shaped shiny black granite wall Obie was silent. I, too, said nothing. Looking over at my friend I noticed that he cried a bit.
On March 29, 1973, two months after the signing of a Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam as Hanoi freed many of the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end.
Just a month later the jazz-rock group “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” released their latest album. One of the tracks was a poignant song nothing like the group’s previous big hits.
I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed my personal tribute to one of the finest gentlemen I ever knew. And I’m honored to have met and worked with him.
Goodnight.
Sleep well.
Have a great weekend.
I mentioned Bruce Winter earlier. One day WUWM received a promotional copy of an album by the Boston Pops and Bruce was excited to share it with Obie and me as we chatted in the hallway.
Despite it being a Boston Pops album the recording wasn’t classical per se. Even so Obie was delighted at the album’s theme and said he couldn’t wait to play some of it on-air. I don’t remember exactly what he put on the turntable, but he is deserving of the title number.
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