Ken Meyer interviews Jack Fox!
WBCA Podcasts
City Talk with Ken Meyer (Jack Fox)
(upbeat music) - WBCA radio is proud to present CityTalk, where fascinating conversation is alive and well, with your host, Boston radio veteran, Ken Meyer. - Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another edition of CityTalk. To introduce our guest tonight is quite a treat because it's one of these people that you know is going to be a good interview. And I guess when you talk about a gentleman named Jack Fox, who was a great talking book reader from American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, you can call into the voice of Louisville after putting in the amount of time and years that he has. And Jack, I gotta tell you, it is a real treat and a pleasure to hear that voice. - Oh, it's my pleasure, believe me. I have known a view for a long time. We met back at Perkins a few years ago, but I've known before that, so yeah. I've watched one doing sidewalks and airports around the country, Ken, so. (laughing) - Oh my goodness, that's something to get to a little bit. - Please stand to the right to allow those wishing to walk to pass safely on the left, there you go. (laughing) - Those that are lucky enough to go to Bradley Airport in Connecticut can hear that wonderful voice of my wife. And I did one day, and I've never been so excited in an airport to hear a voice on a PA system. (laughing) - The things that turn us on. (laughing) - Yeah, isn't it amazing? Listen, let's start from, are you originally from Louisville, where did you grow up and how did things all evolve for you? - I was born in Evansville, Indiana, which is about 120 miles west of Louisville. But my father was a minister, and we moved around a lot. My father had churches in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Illinois, in Indiana. And so we moved around a lot. I went back to Evansville to go to college, and then worked for a while in radio there. I was in radio all my adult life, worked for a while in Evansville, then went to Kansas City, and then to Denver, and then came here in Louisville in 1973 of all things. So we've been here ever since. Our daughters were raised here. - One daughter, Jill, I know you're familiar with. Jill Reed is also an APH. She's here, and her granddaughter is in my dining room right now, doing her school online. So. (laughing) - Yeah, things have sure changed, and sure evolved in the last several years. - Yes, sure, yeah. - But what brought you to Louisville, and eventually to APH in '78? - As I said, I was in radio. I actually started when I was in high school, in a little town called Harvard, Illinois. So I tell people I'm a Harvard graduate, that has a little different ring to it. But I worked in several radio stations, and while I was at KOA Radio in Denver, we took a couple of tours of Europe with our listeners, and we really enjoyed it. We loved the travel. And after we came home the second time, my wife said, "You know, we didn't spend nearly "enough time in Italy. "We didn't even get to Florence where all the art treasures are. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could go there "and stay as long as we want to, "and come home when we want to?" And I said, "That'd be great." She said, "Let's do it." And I said, "You're crazy." I said, "I know, but let's do it anyway." So we bundled up two little girls, sold our house, put our furniture in storage, and went to Italy for six months. Stayed on the beach in Tuscany, and roamed the countryside. But then money started to run out. So we came back home, had to find a job, and I found a job at a radio station here in Louisville at WHAS. And worked there. And then around 19, oh, the middle 70s, I left the station for a short while to do freelance work. And that was good, but I found I needed structure. I needed something to get me out of bed in the morning because it's one o'clock, and I'm still in my pajamas, you know, if I didn't have a gig to go to somewhere. And I'd heard about APH, and many broadcast people had read there, and I thought, "Well, I'll just go out "and see what it's all about." And I auditioned and got the job, and have been doing it ever since. So it basically started just to get me out of bed on time, you know, and I've been doing it ever since, so. - Did you take advantage of the sports teams while you were in Denver? I know you were a sports- - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, it was the Denver, well, the Denver Nuggets were there. And the Broncos, of course. I also, in Kansas City, I remember a guy named Lynn Dawson, the quarterback for the Kansas City Chief. Lynn was at our, he was the sports record, our radio station in Kansas City. Got to know him fairly well, too, so. I enjoyed all the sports. Never did you believe we were in Colorado. Our girls were little. We were involved at our church, and I worked some on Saturday, so I never got the chance to ski. I regret that, although it may have saved me a broken leg or two, so, but we enjoyed all the sports. - Are you doing any work in radio now in Louisville? - No, not at all. I left WHAS in 1994. Talk radio came in, and they wanted, they wanted talk, but not the kind of talk that I wanted to do. I didn't want to, I didn't want to do the controversial things and the yelling and screaming, so we parted ways. And I've freelanced ever since and been at the printing house ever since. - Tell me about your audition. If you can remember-- - Yeah, I don't really remember. I don't remember. I just remember going out and talking with the people. I'm sure I auditioned, and they sent it off to NLS, and I was approved, but I just don't remember much about it. A lady named Sarah Jean McConnell was the director at that time, or maybe Lee Allen. They interchange while I was there. Don't remember much about it. I do remember that we had a lot of legendary readers there, Paul Thompson, I think there was named Paul, oh, it was a legendary newsman here for Ty, and he read for years. My mind's gone blank here. Mitzi Friedlander was there. - I know that name. - Pardon me? - Yep, I know that name. I know Ryan Halloran. Milton Metz. - Oh yes, I worked with Milton at WHAS, yes, and Van Vance. Van may not have read a whole lot. Van was a sportscaster for years that he read there at the printing house. - Yeah. - At that time we were still, they were not doing the records at that time. They were doing the big 16-inch reels, and we went from that to cassettes and into a disc, and now CD, we're in CD, not CD, but digital now, I've lived through all of that. - Do you remember Carol Jordan Stewart? - Oh yes, sure, yeah. She spoke at our alumni association one year and said, "You like to read dog books?" - I do, I do. I read a book called "My Dog Skip" was the name that was one, but I've read a lot of dog books, yeah. That in Westerns, I tell people to read so many Westerns, my tongue is bull-legged, you know? (laughs) A lot of many, many, many of the more books, William H. Johnstone books, things like that. - Yep, I think now that it comes back to me, I think you read Jim Arnes' autobiography. - I might have, yes, I might have. I've read over 1500 books, and so it's hard to remember all of them. I do remember one, I know you'll appreciate Yogi Berra, eternal gang, that was what a joy that was to read. - Very well, as a matter of fact, as I told you yesterday, I got to meet Yogi when he was a coach with a New York Mets, and when that book came out, I was thrilled to have people like, guys like you reading sports books like that one then. That one, in particular, was one of my favorites. That's, I think that's one of the best, I've read a couple of books on Yogi, but that was one of the best, and you did such a good job with that. - Oh, it's easy to do when you have a material that you love, it's just, start with the material, and that makes it a lot easier. - Yeah, look, let's talk a little bit about that. How does that process work with the APH and getting you to do a sports book, or getting Ray Fusche to do a fictional court book, or a sports book, or whatever? - Well, the book's come in from NLS, and we've had as many as, we've done as many as 900 a year. We're not doing nearly that many now. There's been a little cutback, a little change in things, but the books come to the studio, and there's a committee of proofers and monitors who are familiar with our work, and they assigned them. They know that Jack would be good at this Yogi Berra book, or Carol Dines would be good at this book, or Ray Fusche is great on these detective stories. And so they assign them that way. We receive a book, they're all now digital, I get them on my computer at home and read ahead of time, and then we go into a studio for a two hour session. At one time, we were doing as many as two, two hour sessions, four or five days a week. Most of the sessions are just like one, one two hour sessions, three or four days a week. A monitor sets in an opposite studio and listens to catch our mistakes. And then when we're done, it goes to a proofer, not that we ever make mistakes, of course, but of course. Actually, I tell people, I'm lifetime security for the monitors and proofers. My broadcast background led me to look at cold copy and have to make sense of it. And now when I get a book from NLS, it has to be exactly what's on the page and I'll switch words around or substitute a word and they catch that. So I'm lifetime security for them. But that's what happens then after a while, we get corrections back and we go into a studio and correct them. Much, much easier now with digital. And then they're sent off to NLS. And these days with digital, you're getting them. I mean, within days, I think from them being done, being completed. At one time, when we had the big 16 inch reels, the proofer would mark the mistakes with a piece of tape in the reel. And if you didn't have a monitor who was doing the corrections, that was proficient with that switch, pieces of paper would wind up all over the room because it would rewind too fast or too slow and you'd have to start all over again. So it's been an interesting experience. But that's how a book gets out. We've had as many as 20 readers there at APH were probably active right now, probably 11 or 12, just because of cutbacks with COVID and things like that. About 10 or 11 monitors and 11 studios. And then we stay pretty busy. - Yeah, even with the COVID though, that's still, I think quite a large amount. And you've had some great readers. At one time, you guys had like Art Metzler, I'm hearing very well, Michael Palmer and of course Carol. I loved her, that's how you got her. - Yeah, she's a wonderful lady, yeah. - Got her to come up and speak in 2000, as a matter of fact, to our Alumni Association. And that's when she mentioned you and she said, Jack Fox is a great dog book for you. (laughing) - I have an affinity for dogs, yes. And two things that I will always remember you for are of course, the Yogi Berra book. And also some books by Vince Flynn. - Oh yes, Mitch Rap, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, Mitch Rap, right, that's it. - Oh, I've read at least 10 or 12 of those books. Yeah, anytime I go out to speak, they always mention the Mitch Rap books. And I'm amazed at the diversity of the people who like them too. I've had 12 year old boys and grandmothers all say, hey, we love those books, so. - Yeah, I remember I started reading those when they were still out on cassette. And then for some reason, you weren't doing them anymore. And it was commercial audio and I don't even read those. I feel like kinship and a loyalty toward you. - Well, we appreciate that, that has changed a lot over the last few years. I think they're doing more commercial books and we're doing fewer, but the ones we do, we enjoy. I have to tell you this, I like a book with a good sense of humor. And I recorded several joke books, the Milton Burl joke book and the Bob Hope joke book. And the people avoided me in the halls because they know I'm walking down the hall, hey, did you hear this one? You know, I don't wanna hear that anymore. - Had fun with those. I did the Dan Brown books, I did the Da Vinci Code. - Da Vinci Code, yes, that's another one. - Yeah, mm-hmm, yep. - Let's see, there was a series, Alan Lurie, he was an admiral in the English Navy in the 1800s. Dewey Lambdon wrote those or did a lot of those. One of my favorite books of all time was Little Big Man. It was, we recorded that a long time ago by Thomas Berger, but I love that. And one of my all time favorites was one of the early books I read called Smith and Other Events, Tales of the Chill Coughton, a group of people, some indigenous people and some people who lived off the land in the northwest part of Canada by Paul St. Pierre, just great character development. I enjoyed that a lot. I tell people I've read everything from Winnie the Pooh to Hannibal Lecter with Billy Graham and Dr. Phil in between, you know, so quite a variety. - Yeah, and you know what? I'll bet you never realized when you started the impact that you would have on people. I never did until I got on the air. - Yeah, I had no idea, I had no idea. - Wow, it's amazing. - Right, yeah, yeah, I had no idea. And I'm very humbled by that and appreciate it. We're in a little dark studio and sit down and read. And some days you may not feel like it, but when you talk to people and realize the impact, it's very humbling and I appreciate that. It makes you wanna make sure that you do your job and put the work in and give it all the expression that you can. - As a result of reading these books, have you become a fan of authors that you never thought you would be? - Yeah, you know, I enjoyed some James Lee Burke books, an detective Dave Robishow, I enjoyed those. I read Garrison Keel, of course, I was a fan of Garrison Keeler anyway, but I read several of his books, I enjoyed that. Trying to think of some other, I enjoyed the Dan Brown books, really. And Louis Lamour, I enjoyed those. - No. - In an interesting way, I read several of the Perry Mason books. Remember Perry Mason, Earl Stanley Gardner? They were just classic class B, but I love that dialogue, you know, and I enjoyed those a lot too. - Do I remember Perry Mason? One of my favorite people to interview was Raymond Burr. - Oh, really? - Oh, yeah. - Yep, I got to interview Burr in 1984. As a matter of fact. - I just search on you. You've got quite a record of interviews, man. You've done some impressive folks. I, you know what, it's the old saying, like Joe Guerrero has said to me once, it's just being in the right place at the right time. - Yeah, well. - And I don't-- - And being prepared too, and being prepared when you're in the right place at the right time and recognizing it, that has a lot to do with it too. - I don't know if the celebrities would be as accessible today as they were back then, or if they even-- - I don't know, yeah. - Even if they have the color and the magnetism that they have that they had back then. - Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, that's true. A little side story here. I did the little airport announcement from the moving sidewalk. My voice isn't about 100 airports around the country. In several places, in other parts of the world, in fact, we were in Hawaii several years ago, and my voice is greeting me as I come in. That started with a company here in Louisville that provides the computerized paging system for airports, so that announcements wouldn't walk on each other, while Delta's making announcement, and TWA's making an announcement that they wouldn't walk on each other. And they had a lady who still does them, Carolyn, who worked for them. And then 1991, when the Gulf War started, they said they wanted a male voice, in addition to Carolyn, who was friendly, yet authoritative, and evidently I fit that mold, and started doing them. And now there, as I said, they're around 100 airports around the country now. But an interesting thing that came off that, a director named Guillermo Del Toro was going through the LAX Airport, and heard my voice, heard that announcement, said, "I want that voice for my movie." He was shooting a movie called The Shape of Water, which won the Academy Award in 2018, and my voice is in there. It's in the background making announcements, security announcements at this facility where this creature is being processed. So you never know where it'll lead, you know? (laughs) Absolutely. Tell me about some of your travels around the country. I mean, we of course had Carol Jordan Stewart. Have you spoken at any of the NFB National Federation for Blender? - Several, several. Yeah, I've been to Florida a couple of times. Was out in Oregon here, Jill and I, Jill and I are speaking together a lot now. People have, the two of us come together, and she wants to make sure everybody knows that she's my daughter, not my wife. (laughs) But I've been to Florida, to Alabama here while back. Been to Missouri, several places like that. Yeah, and of course, we were in Perkins. Jill and I came to Perkins a couple of years ago. That was just a wonderful trip. We really enjoyed Boston and seeing all the folks at Perkins, it was great. Yeah, now it's funny, if Jill was there, I don't, I'm ashamed to say I don't remember. I might have missed her, but I don't remember her being, I know you were there because I talked to her about the Yogi Berra book. Right, yeah, yeah, she was there. We did a workshop in the afternoon and speaking at the banquet at night, I think it was, and had just a delightful time with all the folks there. Kim Charlton was there and she was our host, I will host this, I believe. Now, what happens when you get a book that you don't like? I'm sure that must have happened with 1500 books. You must have gotten a book and said, "Oh my God, this book is awful. "Are you able to maintain your level of enthusiasm for it?" Are we reading or are we gonna bleep this? No. (laughs) I haven't had too many like that, but some are just not as good as others. They're a little boring, you know, and you think, "Oh, when is this gonna be over?" And you really have to fight that because you know somebody appreciates it. I'll read a book that I think who is gonna read this and I'll run across somebody and say, "Oh, I read that book, it was wonderful," you know? So I had to remember that when I run across something that doesn't capture my attention as much as it should, it just takes extra work. One of the toughest things for me, or foreign language books, especially we did over the last few years, we've had a lot of Scandinavian detective books from Norway and places like that. And they insist on the names of the towns and the characters. That and Russian, we've had a lot of Russian things and those are difficult for me. You have to get a running start at the names and get all the syllables in and everything, you know? And sometimes it may sound edited when you go back and listen, I'm not sure. - It's interesting you mentioned that because I remember I got friendly with a lady named Sperber who wrote a wonderful biography on Edward R. Murrow. And she told me that the gentleman who read the book whose name was Ralph Lowenstein out of New York called her almost every other day to make sure that he would be pronouncing such and such, you know, a name correctly dealing with World War II and foreign officials and foreign countries and stuff like that. So you guys all really care about stuff like that. And that's very impressive. - Over the last few years, we generally have not been encouraged to like contact the authors or something, but early on we did, because we want to get it right or something. And generally those were good relationships. I had one years ago, there was a vision impaired roller derby guy named Sammy Scoble from Chicago, he grew up in Chicago and immigrants, his parents were from Russia or Poland or depending on where the boundary was or that particular week or something, you know? And a lot of names in there. And one was the name of his mother's hometown, it was just impossible to pronounce. Well, Chicago's only about 250 miles from here, I was gonna be in Chicago and I contacted him and said, "Could we meet?" And he was just a delightful fellow. He had grown up and didn't really realize his vision was impaired until he got to school. But he wanted to be a roller derby star, he was. And so I sat down and talked with him, took a tape recorder, got all the names down. So then when we recorded the book, NLS sent it back, said, "Where did you get a source for how to pronounce this name?" And the monitor wrote back, "Jack Fox talked to the author's mother." They accepted that, you know, so. (laughing) - Oh, that's great. - Yeah, that's great. - Can we, are books more explicit now, do you think, than they used to be in, does that bother you? - They are, and it does, yeah. Uh-huh, yeah. They are much more explicit, not all of them, but many of them are. And that is a struggle as a deacon at a Baptist church and a father who was a minister, it does bother me a little bit. But I tell my friends at church, "Look, I don't write 'em, I just read 'em." - And just read 'em, yeah. - Yeah, but they are. And it is difficult, oh, you'll appreciate this. My other daughter Heather was a monitor for just a short while, and one day she was holding for me. And it was some particularly rough language, and I just couldn't believe it, you know. And I'm embarrassed. And, but Heather could not wait to finish this session, run down the hall and tell Jill, "You won't believe what dad said." (laughing) And I had a lady one time. She was my monitor, an elderly lady. And we were reading a book, I think it was called "Garden's of Stone." And it was about some soldiers in a barracks at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, and then they were going to Vietnam. And some of the barracks language was really, really rough. And so I had to apologize her to a couple of times. It was really interesting. - Yeah, I'll tell you, I interviewed another talking book reader a week or two ago named Laura Gianarelli out of Washington. And I told her this story, there was a lady in Denver named Yvonne Ferret-Tesla, who was a great reader, passed away, unfortunately. And she told me she was supposed to read this particular book. And she was thrilled because she had loved the book and always wanted to read it. And when she got in the next day, they switched the assignment and said, "We're giving you this other book." And she said, "Why?" And they said to her, "Well, you have a particular reputation "of being able to read sleeves." - Oh my goodness. (laughing) Well, it is, it is for me anyway, if I have a young female monitor and I'm reading some pretty explicit scenes, but evidently it doesn't bother them a whole lot. I'm an old guy and I'm paying attention, so. (laughing) - What do you, do you have any, what's your favorite book of all time that you have read that was, I mean, the Yogi Berra book with me and the rich Mitch Rap books will stay with me as far as your concern for ever and ever. What books have you read that you'll sit back and say, I read that book. - Those two that I mentioned earlier, a little big man and Smith and other events, I have not heard a little big man in a while. Smith and other events, I got a copy of the book and I just go back and read it from time to time just for my own pleasure. But those two, those in the Garrison Keeter books, I would sit down and enjoy those and glad that I read them. I'm pleased that other books like the Mitch Rap series and the Loyola More books are enjoyed by so many people. I'm pleased about that. But just for personal satisfaction, probably those two, little big man and Smith and other events would be my favorites. - I read a book that you read by a guy named John Verden or Verden and it's about a, oh, the detective's name just went out of my head. - I'm vaguely remember that. - Gurney, Dave Gurney. - Okay, yeah. - And the book was Shut Your Eyes Tight. - Yes, I read it, huh? - In my opinion, his books move rather slowly. And I'm wondering if you share that same opinion of whether it was just me or whether I should keep reading other books. - No, they're books like that. No, they're books like that. The prose is heavy and takes them forever and some pack so much detail in there, you think you could have done this on a page and you took two chapters to do it, you know? Some books are like that. I don't recall, I don't recall the details of that book. I do remember the book itself though. - Yeah, I don't recall them all either, but I remember it was, that was the name of it and I was, oh, good Jack Fox reads this. I got reading this book and I read it and I thought, boy, kind of slow. I hope he doesn't feel about it the way I did. - Yeah, well, there are some books like that that you just, you're reading. And as I said, our sessions are two hours and I'll start at like at one o'clock and I'll be reading and slugging away and thinking, oh, it must be three o'clock now. It's one fifteen or something, you know, so. So not very many, but somewhere like that, yeah. - Do you remember the longest book you ever read? - Oh gosh, I'm trying to think. I've read some that like 1,000 and 1,400 pages and those are long, it's hard to sustain that. They're just packed with all kinds of detail and characters woven back and forth and you have to think, wait a minute, where did this person come in before and how do they fit in? I don't remember that one at all. It was, you're on page 988 and this person came in back in page 37 and you forgot it, you know, but I have read a few long ones. Many of the books I'll read will be, oh, three to 400 pages, 250 to 400 pages, most of the books that I get. I have a problem with commercial audiobooks in that I enduring as you put it from the book jacket. The synopsis at the beginning of the book, how many pages the book is and when you get the commercial books, you don't get that anymore. They'll tell you how long it is and they'll give you a library annotation at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. And that's all there is and I don't like that. Yeah, we actually are, we record several of those. We've got the contract to record several of those and I don't want to offend anybody here but to us, it was almost like rubbing salt in the mood. We don't get the book, but we have to do the opening to it, you know. And we're glad to do it. But I would rather read the book itself. Do you think they will ever, is it because of money or is it because of speed that they depend so much on commercial books? Yeah, I don't know, it's probably just a difference in philosophy or something, I guess. I'm not sure, I'm not privy to those things. I probably make it too political here, I don't know, but about two or three years ago, we knew there was going to be a cutback in our what we were doing because NIS was taking some of the money that was to be applied to books, to do some infrastructure upgrades, which was fine, but it was supposed to be for a year. And then when the year was over, what was going to be a little longer and it never has returned to that. So in the meantime, they started adding more commercial books. So I don't know, it's a difference in philosophy, I'm not sure. You, to me, are in a very inevitable position to be able to see all these readers all the time. Do you still stay friendly with everybody that's there? Yeah, because of COVID we haven't over the last year because it's very restricted. You go into a studio, they only have two or three people reading at a time. At one time, we would be, you know, we'd have 11 studios, they'd be full every hour of the day from eight in the morning till five at night. And you'd have time to have lunch there or take a break and stroll the halls and meet people. And we had a nice, nice camarader who still do, but we're just not there as much. But yeah, that's a good thing. Who are some of your favorite readers? I mean, do you listen to other guys reading books? I don't. Just out of curiosity. No, I don't have that opportunity because, you know, the books are restricted, we don't have an ability. But I know they're good. Barry Burnson, Barry reads a lot, Ray Fusche, some of the ladies, Kerry Duke, and reads a lot. Madeline Bessar. Madeline, yeah, you see Madeline all the time. We either, they're at the same time are coming and going and passing each other on the way to the parking lot. Delightful lady, very delightful. Has she been up to speak to you guys at all? No, she's very good. She does that kind of thing. There's some new readers that are very, very good, I think. There's a couple, Greg and Abigail Maupin and a fellow named John Hoffman. They are, they've been here for about four or five years now, but they're actors, local actors, are very involved in our Shakespeare and the Park Project here, but they do a lot of fine acting. And they're, I would think they're very good readers. Wonderful people, always delight to see them coming or going or in the hall somewhere. Yeah, Huffman did an excellent job on a biography of Fred McMurray that I read a couple of years ago. He's a great guy, yeah, great guy. And Gregory Maupin, yeah, I know that. Gregory and Abigail Maupin, yeah. Yep. We used to run into Roy Avers all the time, of course. Roy Roy, did you know Roy or no of Roy Avers? Oh, yeah, I knew of him. Yeah, he wrote some new eternity and read a couple of books by Brad Meltzer, as I recall, or at least one anyway. Yeah. So yeah, I was a big fan of his. Roy Roy, I tell you a quick story about, well, people always ask about misread. Roy had one of the classics one time. It was, the line said was a hole in the window and he read it as a hole in the widow and we had to go back and work on that a little bit. And then another lady, I forget her name right now, but she was reading about a wanton woman and she called her the wanton woman. That changed the direction of the narrative, of course. Yeah. Now, how did Jill get involved? Did you influence her at all? Or did she just get up and say, I want to do this too? No, Jill, I had an influence on Jill. Jill, when she was in high school, she was a junior in high school, Jill always had to have a project or, you know, to have something going on or it was difficult, not difficult to get along would be a teenager, you know. And I was working at the radio station and I hired her to come and be my producer. She would answer phones and the rain things and all that. And we did a show one day on the air. We called it Jack and Jill and people loved it. And so that kind of got in her blood at that time. And then she went off to Indiana University. She was a fine arts major, photography and things like that. And I encouraged her while she was in high school to come and read. And she did, but she was a little young for it and they just didn't accept her. And then after college, she took some time, sort of like we did, we went to Italy for a while. She and a friend went to Indonesia and just kind of backpacked around. Well, I came back and was looking for a job. And I said, well, they're auditioning at the printing house. And she went and did it and got the job and loved it. And she is now the voice of our public radio stations here. We have three public radio stations in the same building. And she does all of their underwriting, announcing and everything in addition to reading at the printing house. But she's been there probably 15 or 20 years now. Yep, I remember a book she read by Tina Sinatra as a matter of fact. Yep, I remember that. Now we talked about books. Oh, yeah, no question. Books about being explicit. Do you think the quality, I think the quality of writing has gone down? I mean, I look at the books every day on Bard and I can't believe some of the stuff that they record. I just don't believe it. Do you look at Bard every day or do you have any thoughts on that at all? No, but I would say generally speaking that I would imagine the quality has gone down. You know, if you look at what's being produced just on the market these days, quality has certainly gone down. Yeah, it's kind of too bad because, I mean, I love to read and I love sports books and they're just not as they used to say, they ain't making them like they used to. Yeah, that's for sure. Sometimes that's good, but other things it's not, you know. Are you enjoying your retirement or would you like to get involved in radio again or? Because I had a friend of mine, an announcer in Washington, as a matter of fact, say to me, you know, if you really like this business, it gets in your blood. And I've loved radio ever since I was eight years old and I was in it for 20 years and I'm back in and again on a volunteer basis. But I like it because I can get to do what I want to do with who I want to do. And I just can't get out of it. I enjoy it so much. I enjoyed the era I was in. I'm not sure I would be particularly excited about being in talk radio today. I enjoyed the era I was in. We would play music, but we also, if something was happening, we'd stop and talk about it. So it had the best of both worlds. We didn't just have to force things and have to force an issue or make something happen if that makes sense to you or not. But I enjoyed while I was there. And one thing I wanted to be sure about, you know, the guys that I worked with and we thought we did great work and we did, but we replaced some guys who their time had sort of passed, you know. And now when our time may have passed and some other guys come along with another approach, I don't want to be one of those guys saying, oh, they don't do it like they used to and they're ruined in this radio station, you know. So they've got the right to do their thing. I worked at this little, I started in radio in Harvard, Illinois, a little 500 watt daytime radio station, laid it named Esther Blodgett, put it on the air. It was her baby. She lived in the building and all that sort of thing. And I went back years later, about 10 years later after I'd left there and she had sold the station and they had moved from there to a downtown building. And I was visiting there when I went back to visit around the second floor and I said, boy, I never thought Esther would sell this station. They said, we're not sure she did, look down there. I looked out the window. Every day Esther would drive her car up and park it across the street. When they did something she didn't like, she'd roll down her window and shake her fist and say, you're ruining my radio station. (laughing) So I don't want to be like that. You know, everybody has their Europe and I enjoyed it while I was there. I would enjoy probably what you're doing now, just interviewing people and doing things like that. I would enjoy that. I always enjoyed the reach, the magic of radio. I listened to it as a kid. You'll appreciate this story. I had a program director one time that told me the best ad lib is a well-rehearsed ad lib. So I would collect things, you know, and something would, some phrase would come up and you'd do it right at the right time. I didn't realize that started when I was about six years old. My brother and I were sitting around, my two brothers and I were sitting around at dinner table one night and evidently we had done something and our mother said, boys, your father needs to speak to you. Well, you know what that means. Well, I had just read a bazooka. You remember those bazooka bubblegum things and they had little cover strips in there and I'd read something and I thought was very clever at the time and I thought, well, this would be a great time to use that. So I said, wait a minute, Dad. And I reached to my brother. I said, Bob, would you pass the bread? Here comes the bologna and it got deathly quiet. I thought, I'm gonna die. But my mother had a sense of humor and started staring and then my dad laughed. And I guess a smart guy like this jockey was born to that point or something. You know, just having the right phrase to use at the right time. - Now, because it's something I've been interested in all my life and I know you've been around long enough to appreciate it, when you were growing up, old-time radio, were you a big fan of old-time radio? - Oh, yes, oh, yes, yes. I was a kid listening to all those programs now. You could see it in your mind, couldn't you? - Yep, the theater in the mind. - Yep, yep, yep, enjoyed that a lot. Listen to the Lone Ranger and the Green Arrow and the Green Hornet and all those things, you know. And I, while I would listen on Sunday nights, I said, my father was a Baptist minister. So we had services on Sunday night. My mom would have to drag me out of the house to get there on time because I was listening some radio program that, wait a minute. It's gonna be over in another five minutes. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I really enjoyed that. - Yeah, that was great stuff back then. I, I mean, I, you've gone smoke. I like Jack Benny. - Oh, yeah. - Like the Lone Ranger. In fact, Fred Foy, who was the announcer for the Lone Ranger, I always joke, tell everybody, he helped get me my job because I interviewed him when I was at WBC. - Really? - I applied to another station here in Boston. I used that interview as an audition tape and the general manager called me and said, you know more about Fred Foy than he did. So I always used to kid Fred later on and I'd see him right. So I thought the announcer for the Lone Ranger would help me ever get a job. - That's a great story. - It's amazing how things can work out sometimes with different people. - You know, is there anything in the late 70s, I was still at WHAS and we ran a program. I think CBS may have produced it called Mystery Theater, ran at 11 30 at night and people still talk to me about that. You know, we used to hear that. We loved that program. We really enjoyed that. Whatever happened to that. So. - Yeah, we ran it for a while. - One of the quick story about, I mentioned Lynn Dawson when I was in Kansas City. Lynn and I were sitting around the studio one day. We're talking just off the air. We're talking about that kind of thing, listening to those kinds of programs on the radio. You know, now this is 1968 or '69 and television has really come on, you know. And Lenny's 10 year old son is there and he got this puzzle look. He said, "What did you look at?" And I thought, boy, that really captured, you know, this kid had not grown up with that. And all he saw was what he could see on television. Different story. - Now, that just made me think of something. Did you ever wish in your heart at one time or another you could have done play by play? - Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I did, for one summer, I did play by play. I was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We had a team at the Carolina League, had a Red Sox farm clock there, in fact. And Rico Petricelli was playing on the shortstop before he went up to the Red Sox. Can you believe that? - Yeah. - And I was there and we had a guy who had been in the major leagues named Wilmer Veniger Band Meisel. He was a left-handed pitcher. He'd pitched for the Cardinals for years. And then pitched for the Mets a while, I think two after he left the Cardinals. But he had married a local girl there in Winston-Salem and come back. Later ran for Congress, in Congress for several terms. But at that time, our station hired him to do those broadcasts. Well, he knew nothing about a broadcast booth. So I went along to quote unquote be his cult for me. And it was great. We went to do it on North Carolina, watched the Bulls and did that for a summer. Then when I came here to Louisville, there was a blind ad in broadcast magazine looking for a color guy for some TV broadcasts. And I did an audition, I sent a tape in. I got down to about, I was one of the last two or three. It was for the Cincinnati Reds. And I would have, I would have been there forever if that came along. - Ah, that's interesting. You work with Joe Knox Hall? - Yeah, well, this was for television. And I think they hired Jerry Coleman, eventually they wanted a player, a next player. And they hired Jerry Coleman, I believe it was there. This was back in probably '74, '75, somewhere along in there. But if that had happened, I would have jumped at that. - Yeah, I don't think it was Coleman because he went to San Diego. - Well, it could be, I can't remember who it was, but it was an actual player, but. - Yep, well, I know that would have been, when I was a kid, Mel Allen was my hero. And I always dreamed of sitting alongside Mel as his color man, but I never made it. - Was he your favorite? He was your all-time favorite girl. - Oh, absolutely. You can talk about sculliol you want, but there was nobody like Mel Allen, who made the drama and would describe a home run like he did. He was the best. When he would describe a double play, you were right there and you were right behind home plate. - I thought you had dream jobs. When I was in Kansas City, just before I left to go to Denver. - Excuse me. The Royals came to town, we can't see the Royals, excuse me. And they were advertising for looking for play-by-play guys and everybody in town was lusting after their job. I was not, I was going to KOA in Denver. But a guy named Denny Matthews came, young guy out of Bloomington, Illinois. He's still there, he just retired. He was there for 50-something years. - Oh my goodness. - And a dream job, yeah. - Yep, I think Buddy Blatner did it for a while too. He and Blatner were together as he started there, yeah. - Yep, I know all these songs. - But I'm sorry about Kansas City. When I was on the air there, a guy named Charlie Findlay owned at Kansas City A's. You probably remember that. - Oh yeah. - And Findlay was a real character. You never knew where he was coming from. We was always threatening to move the ball club. We're going to move it here, going to move it there, move it there. Well, coincidentally, my station was running a little promo thing and we went through the phone book that all the Abraham Lincoln's in the George Washington's in Ben Franklin's and they would say, this is George Washington, it really was. I cannot tell a lie. KMBZ is the greatest radio station in the world, you know? So we thought that was clever. Some guy calls up and says, "Look, my name really is Charlie Findlay "and I want to do one of those." He said, "Okay, we turned the recorder on. "My name's Charlie Findlay, I think KMBZ "is the greatest radio station in the world. "Well, we ought to move it to Peoria." (laughing) We got a lot of mileage out of that. You'd appreciate that, I know. - I know there's so many great stories of people and announcers, that's interesting about Denny Matthews because before the iPhone technology came in, when Kansas City was in the playoffs, I used to hear them, CBS had the rights and they broadcast them and I got to hear Matthews. So I knew who he was. - He was very good, very good. - But he came there as a kid, like 21, 22 years old, something like that, yeah. - Yeah, do you have any heroes? - Heroes in sports or in broadcast. - In sports and everything. - When I grew up, if people asked me what I wanted to be, I said, "I want to play third base "for the St. Louis Cardinals." Guy named Kenny Boyer was playing that. - Kenny Boyer, yeah. - Kenny Boyer and I enjoyed him. Guy named Denny Matthews, they were all third baseman. I played third base, Stan Musial. I was a big Cardinal fan growing up. We lived in Southern Illinois and in that area. Stan Musial, Red, Shane Deast, all those guys. And then later, all the Cardinals and Bob Gibson and Kurt Flood and all those guys were my heroes. Enjoyed that a lot. - How about in broadcasting? And in sports broadcasting, you have, I mean, like Mal Allen was mine and I'm just curious. - Yeah, I'm trying to think I had a lot of, Guy named Marty Brenema just finished his career here in the over the Reds. I got to like him a lot. I liked his style, liked him. I enjoyed Ben Scully. And of course, I grew up in Harry Carrey and Jack Buck, you know, with the Cardinals. I enjoyed them a lot. - Oh yeah. - They were some heroes. - I interviewed a next announcer for the Cardinals and I was kidding him. He was from St. Louis. And I said, "When you learn to talk, "will your first words, Holy cow?" (laughing) - Guy named John Rooney who wound up, I don't know if he's still doing the Cardinals games. He came from Louisville. He was in Louisville here at a radio station and did some of our local AAA clubs and went to the Cardinals for several years. Enjoyed him. - As far as I know he is. - I think he is. - He went to the White Sox for a while. And I think he's still with the Cardinals. And Mike Shannon, as a matter of fact. Shannon's getting ready to retire, I think. But yeah. - Yeah, he can run his restaurant. - I enjoyed all those guys. Seeing a lot of women do broadcasting now, especially basketball and some football, I think they're doing a fine job. - Yeah, the sports world has changed. - It's your hands. - Sports world has changed. - Yeah. - Listen, you have any closing things you'd like to say to your Talking Book reading audience? - Just how much I appreciate you. When I, as I said, we're in a little studio on the basement. But when I get out and meet people, I realize the impact that those recordings have. And then just get to meet good people. I appreciate that. - Wow. - I tell people, you keep reading and we'll keep recording them. (laughing) - Very good. And I hope that will continue despite the way that the industry, although I will say, it is kind of a treat to get a book that's read by a former president of the United States. - Yeah, right, yeah. - You know, I mean, there are advantages to this. Not many, but there are some. It's kind of neat to hear Barack Obama and not only him, but his first as wife reading her biography as well. There are some advantages to that. But listen, I want to thank you. It's been a great thrill for me. And if we're in person that COVID and that, I'd give you a big handshake because you. - We'll do it virtually here, that's good. - You are just so, you have such an impact and such a good guy. And I hope you're around for a long, long time. - It's been a pleasure to connect with you again, Ken. That was great. - My pleasure as well. - I'll close with one of my favorite lines for Will Rogers. He said, never miss a good chance to shut up. So I'll do that now. (laughing) - Well, I appreciate that. You've been great and it's really been a treat for me to talk with you. And ladies and gentlemen, that will do it for this edition of City Talk. - Thanks for listening to another great conversation with Ken Meyer and friends. You can contact Ken by email. He addresses KJ Meyer7@gmail.com. That's KJ-M-E-Y-E-R7@gmail.com. Tune in next time for more conversation with Ken Meyer on City Talk. (upbeat music)