WYYR.COM – Yester Year Radio Just Smoke and Mirrors

Doctored up Photo of Non-existent WYYR Radio Station

Just a little over a year ago I was contacted by Chris Valenti about becoming a host on his WYYR.com internet based radio station hosted by Blog Talk Radio. Blog Talk Radio allows anyone, anywhere the ability to host a live talk radio show online, simply by using a telephone and a computer. Blog Talk Radio’s unique platform, powered by Cinchcast, empowers citizen broadcasters to create and share their original content, their voices and their opinions in a worldwide public forum. For a very inexpensive fee of $40.00 a month anyone can have their own radio show.

All one needs is a $25 headset that can be purchased at Radio Shack, access to a computer and a topic to discuss and you’re on the radio. Well not exactly! You’re on the internet streaming live information, but what kind of an audience do you have? Chris Valenti convinced me that if I would come on board and do a talk show on his channel that I would be reaching thousands of people listening in.

Well what he failed to make clear was that his website was getting thousands of hits each month but in reality the listenership on the blog talk radio stream was getting far less than a hundred listeners per night and of those the majority were listeners that had followed Chris over the years when he had a “real” live radio show in the New York City area.

My first broadcast had a listenership of perhaps 10 to 15 live listeners and during the next week maybe another 50 people would down load and listen to the show. Over the next 6 to 7 months that my so called program was on the ”air” I don’t think I ever had more than 50 “live” listeners on any single night.

I have to admit I did enjoy doing my show as I felt that I was getting some good experience and I did have the opportunity to interview some very interesting people of the Big Band era. People such as Buddy De Franco former leader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Fred Radke the leader of the Harry James Orchestra and a number of other interesting guests who were associated with the Big Band era.

Chris Valenti

Chris is an interesting character! He was at one time a “Real Live On Air” radio personality when his program “The Big Band Broadcast” first aired on New York's 1240AM WGBB in 1979 and the show featured both Big Band and early Rock & Roll, but lasted just a few years. Soon after with a different name and a new format, it came back to 1240AM WGBB and made itself a staple for many years on both AM and FM including WBAU & WHPC ... but solely as a Big Band program!

When Chris’s parents retired and moved to Florida, Chris went with them to take care of them due to their age and disabilities. Chris doesn’t really work a regular job as he purports to those that know him. He tells those that meet him that he is the “The Program Director” at his “Radio Station” but that is just his front. He really sustains himself by living off his parents Social Security checks, and to think that he has a PhD!

Recently he was really worried that he would be found out when the U.S. Air Force Academy’s music director wanted to visit his studio and he asked me what to do so they wouldn’t find out about the fact that he ran WYYR.com out of his bedroom. I suggested that he tell them that the studio was actually located in New Jersey where Blog Talk Radio is actually located and that he broadcast his show remotely from Florida, which is basically true. Chris proudly boasts on his website that a letter from the Academy’s commander is hanging prominently at WYYR. I suppose that it is prominently hanging on Chris’s bedroom wall.

Valenti gained international prominence several years ago by making some outrageous claims that the US Government was covering up the disappearance of Glenn Miller on December 15th 1944. He was labeled as a “Crack Pot Theorist” on July 20th, 2004 in this posting (http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A2654822 ) and has tried to escape this tag ever since.

My first show for WYYR.com began with this topic and to make sure that the subject was fairly covered my first guest was Dennis Spragg, Glenn Miller Archivist at the American Music Research Center on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. A total of six hours were spent discussing Miller’s disappearance with Dennis.

Jan Eberle

My broadcasting experience came to a screeching halt in November 2011 after I had done an online interview with Jan Eberle the daughter of Ray Eberle renowned for his short lived career with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. It seems that Ms. Eberle got her panties all knotted up when I made the comment that I thought she might be apprehensive about doing an interview with me as I was an “amateur” broadcaster. She immediately called Chris Valenti and began be-rating him that I “had to go” otherwise she would not become a member of his programming lineup. It was this sanctimonious tirade that caused Chris to cancel my show. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal anyway!

Jan got her show on WYYR and a couple more! She is a very insecure and vindictive individual and carries a lot of baggage around about the failures of her famous father, Ray Eberle. She has been trying for the last 30 or so years to succeed in his footsteps, but really to no avail. She pictures herself as a successful big band vocalist and to her credit has in fact performed with some very notable big bands but obviously nowhere near the level of her father. Other than a couple of self published books and a self published CD and of course her internet radio shows, she too has little to show from her career.

 Don Kennedy

Of course after the demise of my show Chris replaced it with a 92 year old broadcaster from the 50’s, Donald (Don) Kennedy, (aka Derrick Slaugenhaupt), (born June 8, 1920 in Beaver, Pennsylvania), who was a radio, film and television actor whose career began in the late 1940s with a radio announcer spot on Pennsylvania radio station WPIC. In the mid-1950s Don was a contributor to NBC's Monitor radio show where he developed several characters, including one named Goat-man.

He is best remembered as Officer Don, the host of the long-running Atlanta children's TV show “The Popeye Club” (1956 to 1970). He currently hosts “Big Band Jump”, as stated in his biography as “an internationally-syndicated radio show devoted to music from the Big Band era”, on WYYR.com! Sounds impressive, but total BS!

Horace Heidt

To round out its schedule of programming, Chris brought on a canned production from Horace Heidt, Jr. the son of big band leader Horace Heidt (May 21, 1901–December 1, 1986) who was a pianist, big band leader, and radio and television personality. His band, Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights, toured vaudeville and performed on radio and television through the 1930s and 1940s.

Horace Jr’s name to fame is as President of the Horace Heidt Agency, which owns and operates a unique 220-unit, 10-acre apartment complex in Sherman Oaks. This family-owned business has been in operation since 1956. He is also President of the Horace Heidt Productions, in which he offers his consultative expertise in the field of entertainment to Fortune 500 companies. From 1982-1994, he was the Musical Director for the Los Angeles Raiders and in 1985 played for President Ronald Reagan at the 50th American Presidential Inaugural Ball.

Peggy King

AND last but not least Chris hosts a monthly program with a 1950’s TV personality who is outrageously stuck on herself, Peggy King, who was a regular guest on the George Gobel Show which ran on NBC from 1954 to 1960. Talk about a real waste of time!

Many of you may be saying “Well why bother bringing up the past?” and I would have to say “Your right!” and then others will simple say that I am being “Acrimonious” and you would also be right! But for me it all boils down to honesty! Chris Valenti has never been honest and I just felt that it was high time that he be exposed for what he really is and that is a fraud! That is my opinion, enough said!

For those of you that want to listen to “Real” radio with the real sounds of the big bands listen to http://www.studio1430.com/ streaming live 24 hours daily.

Spencer K. Smartt

Dallas, TX.

Canned – The Real Truth Behind Miller’s Firing of Ray Eberle!

In June of 1942 approximately a year after the Glenn Miller Orchestra had completed the making of “Orchestra Wives”, the second and last film to feature The Glenn Miller Orchestra, the movie made by 20th Century Fox starring Ann Rutherford, George Montgomery, and Glenn Miller was “one of the many more notable swing era musicals because its plot was more serious and realistic than the insubstantial story lines that were typical of the genre.” 

The band was playing at the Panther Room in Chicago’s Hotel Sherman when Ray Eberle turned up for work late one day and Glenn had had enough so as Ray walked in the door, Glenn shouted out to Eberle "YOUR FIRED" no explanation, no more conversation, that was it Ray was fired!

Over the last 70 or so years what really happened has been pooh-poohed and hushed up because of the embarrassment that it caused the Eberle family. I wanted to get to the bottom of this incident so I began really doing some serious research as to what really did happen that fateful day in June of 1942. I started making some phone calls to several of my resources who knew not only many of the original band members but several of the authorities who have access to some of the documentation of the incident itself. Low and behold much of what has been previously reported was really true and the public image that the family has tried to portray is really a real “White Wash” job to cover the real story of Ray Eberle and not only this incident but the true character of the man himself. 

Glenn Miller & His Orchestra – “People Like You and Me” from Orchestra Wives

George T. Simon, in his book, “Glenn Miller and His Orchestra” while interviewing Ray during research for his publication says, " Ray Eberle still insisted he quit the band and his main beef with Glenn was over money, the guys in the band were getting $50 per week against his $35". 

But according to George Simon's book there were numerous other reasons given by members of the orchestra why Ray was fired. In Glenn's account of the reason were Ray's persistent heavy drinking and his many late arrivals to work were the primary reason for the firing. This was corroborated by quite a number of other band members according George T. Simon in his book “Glenn Miller and His Orchestra” and especially Marion Hutton, Glenn’s girl singer.  George states that Marion told him “point blank” that Ray “was getting away with things that nobody else could do” and that “If Glenn hadn’t let him go, there would have been a revolt in the band” confirming Ray’s hard drinking and undisciplined attitude toward Glenn’s strict rules that band members had to adhere to.

In another account of what happened according to band member Maurice Purtill he states that “When we were at the Panther Room, we used to do a one-hour show. There was always some big number for Ray and the Modernaires just before we went into the closing ‘Bugle Call Rag.’ On this particular night, Janet, Ray’s wife, and her family came in  to catch the show and when it was time for Ray’s big number, Glenn for some reason or other skipped the tune and went right into ‘Bugle Call rag.’ Eberle took a burn and had a few belts and said he was going to kill Glenn.” Obviously when Glenn got word of this comment he was not very pleased. Once again in his state of drunkenness Ray had stepped over the line as Glenn saw it.

In another incident that really got Glenn’s dander up was when Ray blasted him in one of the industry publications of the time, Metronome or Billboard or one of the publications which followed the music industry, about Glenn being a cheap skate and unfair to him about what he was being paid and that Glenn was to much a taskmaster with his discipline. Glenn felt that Ray’s comments were uncalled for and that he was very vindictive when he was drinking heavily. 

Ray was not the most popular member of Glenn’s band because of his drinking problem, he was not all that popular with the music critics either and many of them were not all that impressed with Ray's voice, yet he was an integral part of the Miller line-up, singing on many of the group's biggest hits. Even though Miller's own musicians weren't happy with Eberle's style and often voiced their complaints, Miller stuck with him up until the Panther Room incident.

 Glenn Miller and His Orchestra – “At Last” from Orchestra Wives

Regardless of what really happened between Ray and Glenn, Eberle landed a job with Gene Krupa shortly before the end of 1942. He only stayed a short while with Krupa before leaving to go solo. It was rumored that Gene stated that he really didn’t need any more trouble since his arrest on January 20^th of 1943 for procession of marijuana and he felt that Ray’s drinking problem would only exacerbate his problem with the authorities so Ray went out on his own. The only thing that really even exists of this short stay with Krupa is a few air checks that still exist. Although I was unable to confirm these rumors with my sources they would not deny them either out of respect for Gene.

Seeing that he had already been in the two Glenn Miller movies he was able to garner a role in a Universal picture called “Mr. Big” where he had only a cameo role as himself. He also starred in several other movies in 1943, but by the end of the year he had entered the army. By the time of his discharge from the Army in 1945 he formed his own orchestra, where he attempted to cash in on his experience with Miller. By the mid 50s his orchestra had broken up but Ray continued to sing sometimes on TV but mostly on the nightclub circuit until 1970 when he joined Tex Beneke’s Orchestra for a national tour. After that he tried one again to form his own band but that too did not work out. He appeared as himself in a couple episodes of the TV series “Happy Days” but for all intents and purposes Ray’s career had come to an end except for his appearances in various night clubs around the country.

Years later according to George Simon, Ray didn’t seem to hold a grudge against Glenn for firing him and would talk about his time with the band as a very happy time for him. During a phone call to Ray from George Simon in the late 60’s Ray admitted that he had not done to well financially by going out on his own especially as a soloist in various night clubs around the country but he was at last happy and serene in his Non-alcoholic existence. By his own admittance to Simon he states “Now, when I get up in the morning, it’s nice knowing where I am.” 

Ray Eberle died from a heart attack on August 29^th 1979 in Douglasville, Georgia, broke and with little to nothing to show for all the years he had tried to live in the shadow of Glenn Miller.

Spencer K. Smartt
Dallas, TX.