I only worked as an announcer at WDSU-AM for a short time in the early sixties. I was hired to work midnight to dawn when Eastern Airlines bought a "Flight Facts" package, which aired on the hour. I played records the rest of the time. This ended when the station manager, Louis Read, met me and objected to my "facial adornment". My beard would have to go. I felt very attached to it, however. Shortly afterward, I left for New York to again pursue a singing career.


I first became aware of WDSU at the age of 12, when a neighbor of mine in Mobile, Alabama bought a TV set. She showed me a program which was being broadcast from New Orleans on a station that had recently gone on the air. The signal wasn't great, but it was live TV from many miles away.

Many years later, I was on my way to the west coast to pursue a singing career when I decided to stop off in New Orleans. (That was in 1961) On a whim, I auditioned at WDSU and another station, WWOM. The chief announcer at WDSU, Gay Batson, was impressed with my knowledge of musical terms and general use of language. He didn't hire me, but we became friends. I decided to stay a while when offered a job at WWOM.

I also was accepted as a member of the opera chorus. Some time later, another chorister told me that he heard John Gary was leaving the Mid-Day Show to go to New York and felt I should see if they needed another singer. I was still working at WWOM, an AM daytimer. I thought they might not consider someone who worked for a competitor, but I sang for Pete Lauderman and was hired to fill in occasionally… not a regular gig. Pete either retired or passed away, so I sang with Norma Hatfield accompanying me on the piano. On one occasion, the engineer Charlie Flotte recorded me singing over a Percy Faith recording of "And This Is My Beloved" and I lip-synced to it on the program the next day.

I was at the station when Bill Slatter interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald and I was there when NBC aired the bulletin that Kennedy had been shot.

Mel Leavitt was the best all-around broadcaster I ever knew. Everything he did was not-notch. He had a terrific lady named Margie Larson for a secretary/girl Friday. I got to know her and her husband better in later years when I had a sailboat, but that's another story. The night I sang on "Tonight With Mel", Charlie Weaver (Cliff Arquette) gave me high praise by saying I reminded him of one of my singing idols, Earl Wrightson (I was in a Summer Stock production with him in "Camelot" a couple of years later). That was when I sang "Gigi" with Norma at the piano. That night she had gotten married to Jay Albarado and as a result, the piano was messed up by all the rice that was thrown. Happily, that was after I sang. A year or so before he died, I sat with him in his living room and recorded a conversation with him. Here is an excerpt: Mel Leavitt:

My path crossed with John Gary in New York while I was rehearsing with my vocal trio in Central Park. That was in 1964 or 5. I Told him I had replaced him on Mid-Day and he gave me the contact number for his agent (who never returned my call).

I returned to New Orleans in the fall of 1966 and was back at 'DSU to be interviewed by Larry Johnson about my two years on the road. I noticed a young lady in a recording studio doing a singing commercial. We had sung together in the Summer Pops Chorale and the Bill Miller Singers before I went to New York. I couldn't recall her name. When I asked a sales rep (Mo Trahan) who she was, he wouldn't tell me. Seems he and a couple of other guys had their eyes on her and I seemed to be a competitor. She remembered me and waved. When she smiled that gave me the impetus to keep trying to contact her. I did a week or so later. The next spring, we were married. In the meantime, Jean was doing both radio and television commercials and became the first TV weather girl in New Orleans (at another station). After a while we did some TV spots together and even subbed for Bob & Jan Carr on their real estate show when they were out of town. I could never understand why some agency didn't pick us up as "couple number two in broadcasting".

Under the "Small World" heading, Norma had been Jean's "big sister" in a sorority in college.

I knew Paul Yacich, Ann Meric and Reggie Hendry only as people who would nod when passed in the hallways, until we all became a part of New Orleans Radio Theatre, Inc. in the 1990s, doing recreations of Old Time Radio shows.

Other employees I knew (to be added later):
(Bob & Jan) (Batson) (Romig) (Wheelahan) (Chuck Pratt) (Jerry ?) (Flotte) (Kampen) (Directors) (Wayne Mack) (Bart Darby) (ADT) (John Wilmot) (Al Braud) (Al Holman) (Claude Evans) (Dick Bruce) (Rod Wagener) (John Wilson) (Bruce Miller)(Bob Hassleman/Castle)