Eckhartz Press co-publisher Rick Kaempfer is a former radio producer and host who still writes about the media regularly as the media columnist for Illinois Entertainer. This is his 30th year as a media writer, so throughout the year we are featuring excerpts from the more than 200 current and former Chicago radio and television stars he has interviewed, including many people who are celebrating birthdays this month. Here are ten examples…
Eddie Volkman’s birthday is April 1st. He has been on the air in Chicago for decades, including many high-profile years with Jobo Coburn on B-96. Rick first interviewed Ed in 2008, and the subject of his famous father (weatherman Harry Volkman) obviously came up…
By the time I was born my father had already been on television for several years. In fact, both of my older brothers’ births were announced on my dad’s weather segment. It was so normal to us that my brother, Jerry actually asked a kindergarten classmate, “What channel is your dad on?” High school was a little tougher. As an athlete, opposing teams would yell things like “Are you puttin’ on the High Pressure Defense?”. I’d shut ’em up by “raining” 3-pointers! You have to remember, in the 70’s & 80’s–pre-cable days–the channel 2 or channel 9 news had higher ratings than “American Idol” or other hit shows these days. The recognition factor was pretty high.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Chet Coppock’s birthday is April 30th. Chet is the father of sports-talk radio in Chicago, and entertained Chicago radio and television audiences for forty years. Sadly Chet passed away in 2019. Rick interviewed Chet many times over the years, and even teamed up with him to publish the Eckhartz Press book Your Dime, My Dance Floor. In his 2014 interview for Illinois Entertainer, Chet exhibited some of his famous bravado while praising the competing sports talk radio station The Score…
What I admired the most about the Score in those early days was they knew they couldn’t compete with me as far as getting the big guests, so they invited everyone who was ticked off to vent on the air. They said, we are your open forum to express your anger. Where they did catch lightning in a bottle was hiring their midday show. I am number one as a solo act – I am Hulk Hogan, Mickey Mantle, George Halas and Joe DiMaggio as a solo act. But as a team – [Mike] North and [Dan] Jiggetts are bar none the greatest tag-team ever. They understood how do that kind of show, and ran with it.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Melissa Forman’s birthday is April 7th. Rick has interviewed Melissa three times over the years, twice while she was doing mornings at WLIT-FM (2007 and 2021), with one interview during television career sandwiched in-between (2016). In that most recent interview Melissa talked about the joy she feels doing the station’s Christmas format, particularly the wishes the station grants…
These Christmas wishes are so meaningful to me. I’m so appreciative that I’m allowed to do this. I really mean it. We’re all going through this time together. When things seem hard or difficult, I keep telling myself that I’m so blessed to be able to grant wishes to people. I mean, who gets to do that? The people are so joyous, so grateful, and it’s so meaningful to them. You can’t help but get emotional. It makes me feel so good; it’s like I’m the one that gets a gift. We had wish, upon wish, upon wish for other people. A husband to a wife. A teacher to her students. A mother-in-law to her son-in-law. The expression of love from one person to another is so incredible. How many times have you wished you could do that for a special person in your life? Even my own family got into it this year. We’re all quarantined together, so I played these wishes back to my family at dinner sometimes. It just made us all feel good.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Jim Johnson’s birthday is April 2nd. Jim was a newsman at WLS Radio for nearly 50 years. He worked with the likes of Steve & Garry, Roe & Garry, Roe & Roeper, and many more. Rick interviewed Jim in 2010, and asked him about his earliest days at the legendary radio station…
1968 was a life changing year for me. Not only had I just started as a newswriter-editor at WLS…but some of the biggest stories of my career happened soon after I arrived. Martin Luther King was assassinated (followed by the west side riots in Chicago.) Bobby Kennedy was shot. The Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago and the anti-war protests and riots broke out. Although I was a rookie reporter, the new news director at WLS, Bob Benson, decided I should become a street reporter and cover these events. Little did I know that these stories in my first year were some of the biggest stories ever. I was only 23. In addition to filing reports for WLS, the ABC network began using my reports on a regular basis. I was used as a fill in network anchor on ABC network newscasts. I covered the clash between anti war protesters and the police at the corner of Balbo and Michigan. It was pretty “heady” stuff for someone my age.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Sherman Kaplan’s birthday is April 25th. Sherman was a reporter and anchor at WBBM NewsRadio for four decades. Rick interviewed Sherman in 2010 about some of the stories he covered for the news station…
Most of these stories I covered in the studio, but many of them happened during my show. The crash of the Illinois Central Railroad on the south side. The Nixon resignation. The explosion of the Challenger. I’ll never forget that day. We carried the launch live at 10:30. At that time we had a business report from Len Walter at 20 and 40, and as I threw it to Len, I had my eye on the television monitor and saw something that didn’t look quite right. I mentioned it to my producer in the talkback, and when we came back from Len, I started to describe what I was seeing, before the network was on it. They cut to it shortly thereafter. There have been so many other memorable days as well. Daley’s death. Harold Washington’s death. Of course, 9-11.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Bob Stroud’s birthday is April 13th. He has been a fixture on the FM dial in Chicago for 40 years, at places like the Loop, WCKG, and his home for the last two decades, The Drive. Rick has interviewed Bob several times. One of those interviews took place in 2007, and Rick asked Stroud about his 1980 arrival in Chicago…
Oh, it was. I was working in Sarasota Florida before that, and Bob Coburn was the PD at WMET. He flew me up to Chicago for an interview. I told my boss in Florida about it, and he gave me the worst advice of my radio career. He said, “Now, Bob, this is the big city—you better clean yourself up. Get a haircut. Buy some nice clothes.” So I did. When I landed in Chicago I was met at the airport by a guy with shoulder-length hair, wearing a satin radio jacket and jeans. I thought “Oh great.” When I got to WMET, everybody looked at me like, “Who’s the geek?” I knew right away that this was a badass station. It had an attitude that was totally catchy. The general manager of the radio station, Harvey Pearlman, was walking up and down the hallways holding an empty bottle of vodka, screaming “TAKE NO PRISONERS!”
To read the entire interview, click here.
Robert Murphy’s birthday is April 10th. Murphy had a few long and successful stints on Chicago’s radio dial, most famously at Q-101 in the 1980s. Rick interviewed Murph in 2008 about that time period, which is widely remembered for his television ads wearing a straight jacket…
Well, “embrace” may be too strong a word, but I am very aware of the commercials positive influence on my career. My initial objection was that it seemed kind of a lowbrow concept (“That Murphy’s Cray-zee!) but most of the commercials were exceptionally well executed. Though it is inarguable that the straitjacket helped to bring me recognition and thereby bolster my ratings when I first started, I wanted to move on after a while. But No! If there was a smidgen of a drop in the ratings, management whipped that bad boy out again, and I was back on TV, running through Chicago with my arms restrained and my feet bare.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Dan Sorkin’s birthday was April 6. Unfortunately, Dan passed away a few years ago (2016). He was the morning man at WCFL in the late 50s/early 60s, and was incredibly influential in the career of a little known comedian in Chicago at the time, Bob Newhart. Rick interviewed Dan in 2010, and asked him about that relationship…
Playhouse 90 writer Jim Gallagher and I were friends. Jim and Bob had put together and were selling to radio stations a 5 minute taped comedy “man on the street show” for $5 a show. It cost them $7 a show to produce. The more successful the sale, the more money they lost. I loved the comedy routines and asked Jim to Bring Bob to the WCFL studios for a live interview. He did. Bob performed several of his routines on air. When Warner Bros. President Jim Conkling came to Chicago I performed Bob’s routines for him and suggested a contract. Jim Conkling contracted and had Bob booked into the Tides Hotel in Dallas and recorded live, “The Button Down Mind Of Bob Newhart”. He got a recording deal and a television show, and I became his staff announcer. Every Friday after finishing my WCFL Morning Show I would cab to the roof of the Merchandise Mart where a helicopter took me to O’Hare Field in time to Catch a Continental Non-Stop to Burbank where I had a Honda Motorcycle stashed at the air freight office. I strapped my bag to the Honda and drove to the NBC Burbank sound stage where I arrived in time to announce the Bob Newhart TV Show. It was a wonderful year!
To read the entire interview, click here.
Kathy Voltmer’s birthday is April 27th. The veteran news anchor has worked at several radio stations in Chicago including WXRT, WLUP, and a long stint at the Drive (WDRV). Rick has interviewed Kathy several times, including one of his first interviews for Chicago Radio Spotlight in 2007. He asked her to talk about the worst thing she’s experienced in the business…
Years ago (long before I worked at the Drive), I was asked to lie about the weather forecast because the station was sponsoring a big outdoor promotion and rain was expected!!!! When I didn’t do it I was screamed at and accused of trying to single handedly bring down the entire promotion! By telling the truth about the weather. It’s hilarious in retrospect.
To read the entire interview, click here.
Bernie Tafoya’s birthday is April 1st. Bernie has been a reporter for WBBM News Radio 780 for more than 30 years. Rick interviewed Bernie in 2009, and asked him about his years on the streets of Chicago, covering the news…
I started this shift in August of 2000, and it used to be a cops and robbers beat, but very early on my news director decided to use me in a different way. She knew I had sources in all sorts of other areas, like in education or the church, and she let me cultivate those sources and use them. Plus, the main spokespeople of the various different agencies all knew me. I was very happy to be given that role, because the old cops and robbers stuff wouldn’t have interested me nearly as much.
I have seen a few things that stick with you. The Amtrack crash, the Brown’s Chicken murder. Believe it or not, though, I still have faith in people. People ask me if I’m ever afraid going into so-called bad neighborhoods, and I’m really not. Most people in most neighborhoods are good people. So-called bad neighborhoods are not to be feared. There are only a few bad eggs.
To read the entire interview, click here.
