One of the focal points of my childhood was the Sparton radio-phonograph console that sat in our den, right next to our black and white Dumont console TV. The Sparton belonged to my mother; she bought it in 1947 or 1948 with money she earned from her first good job as a file clerk at the Texaco refinery in Port Arthur, TX.
Back in the early 1970's, there were still FM radio stations that played instrumental music interspersed with network and local news broadcasts and short local programs of various interests. I remember my mom (and sometimes my dad, if he was home) listening to the music from KPAC-FM while sitting on the sofa reading, or doing light house work.
We also had a stack of about 6 78 rpm records that I would beg my parents to play as often as possible. One of those records was a black-label RCA Victor recording of Wayne King and his Orchestra playing "Melody of Love" and "None But The Lonely Heart," with radio personality Franklyn MacCormack reciting the poems "Why Do I Love You" and "Alone." Mom said that she didn't like the record and that she bought it by mistake. But I was mysteriously drawn to MacCormack's soothing baritone voice and the language of the poem "Why Do I Love You", which, as a 6 year old boy, was unlike anything I had ever heard.
Franklyn MacCormack was a broadcast veteran whose career extended back
to the 1930's. He never intended to be an on-air poetry reader. As he
told the story, his first poetry reading was quite by accident. During
the 1930's, transcontinental radio wires were sometimes unreliable, and
on one particular night the network feed dropped out completely.
Hiding his state of panic, MacCormack calmly announced that the station
was experiencing network difficulties, and began reading from a book of
poems that was within arm's reach of the microphone. Requests for more
poetry poured in, and MacCormack became an overnight sensation.
MacCormack became one of the most beloved on-air personalities on WGN in Chicago from the 1950's through his death in 1971. MacCormack's program ran from 11:05 PM to 5:30AM six nights a week, and was an unusual mix of 1920's and 1930's popular music and jazz, light classical and easy-listening music, anecdotes, and recitations of famous short stories and poems. A long-time listener remembers,
We would drive around until his show ended in the wee hours, listening to his amazing stories, poetry readings and incredible segues into commercials: "Have you ever held a beautiful woman in your arms, kissed her tenderly and then looked deep into her eyes? Well that's the same feeling you get when you take a long refreshing drink from an ice-cold Meisterbrau beer."
Our Wayne King record was broken many, many years ago, but recently I came across an RCA LP that included these two wonderful performances. Here they are:
MacCormack had numerous imitators over the years. During the 1970's, when I was home from school during the summertime, I often listened to Howard Finch on KTRH from Houston. His mid-morning program, Come Read To Me Of Life, also featured instrumental music and poetry readings.
It's unfortunate that today, the "talk radio" format is virtually devoid of any similar programming.
