Hey Kemosabe: The Days (and Nights) of a Radio Idyll

It was a time of wide-eyed excitement;of great leaps, revolution, and war. A new generation wrested control of the music and the mores of the times. They tuned in, turned on, and dropped out to a sound track of rock and roll. It was the sixties and seventies, and in the biggest metropolitan area in the world, they heard it all on an AM radio tuned almost exclusively to WABC radio. Rising stars and future legends like Dan Ingram, Bruce Morrow, Chuck Leonard, and Ron Lundy played the hits, over and over again, pioneering what today has become a dying art: personality radio. Hey Kemosabe! The Days (and Nights) of a Radio Idyll is a ground-breaking work, blending memoir and fiction to create a revelatory look beyond the surface of the times and at the biggest radio stars of the day. We witness the camaraderie of these superstars as they navigate their times: the partying, the hijinks, and the heartbreaking loss. It focuses on the brilliant, sophisticated, and subversively clever Ingram while following his life, and that of the radio station, through more than two decades of dominance over the New York area airwaves. More than just a “music” book, Hey Kemosabe! is based on the remembrances of Ingram and other characters, drawn from interviews by the author, former CBS News writer Chris Ingram (who is also Big Dan’s son). WABC and its beloved cast of characters provided the mortar that helped hold us all together during a turbulent era—from the arrival of the Beatles through national tragedies like the Kennedy and King assassinations; from the rise of disco, FM, and talk radio to the murder of John Lennon. They were always there, dependable friends setting the tone with humor, energy, and, when called for, reverence.