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A short walk down Memory Lane The 1960s As far back as junior high school, I can remember being interested in Electronics, Audio Recording and Broadcasting. Tinkering with all types of electronics and audio equipment was my favorite past time. When a cousin let me borrow an old wire recorder over the summer vacation, I got hooked on Sound Recording.
We lived in central New Jersey back then, only several miles from where I live today. By age 15, I had already bought a 2 channel, tape recorder (with tubes) and my interest in broadcasting was getting stronger by the day. I built a homebrew audio "console" in my parent's basement and would spend countless hours, recording 45s onto 1/4 inch tape. Then, I'd edit the music together and play it back for my friends. Rock & Roll and listening to top 40 radio was my life, and I replaced a lot of homework hours with audio "engineering". After several years, I decided to plan a trip to New York City with the notion to visit as many Radio Stations as I could in one day. But there were two things standing in my way of my radio adventure. Problem one was... once I got to New York City, I didn't know how to get inside the radio stations I wanted to visit. And problem two, was persuading my parents to let me go to New York in the first place. Convincing the folks that I could handle the big city alone, was a formidable task and looking back, I'm still amazed to think that my parents actually said yes. So, in September of 1967, I skipped school & I hopped a Suburban Transit Bus, headed for Manhattan.
I was a big WABC Radio fan back then, and Music Radio, 77 was the place to be. I had dreamed of doing this tour for months, and all of a sudden, there I was, in ABC's 7th floor studio. WABC had three big jocks back then, Ron Lundy, Dan Ingram and Cousin Brucie. When I came into the studio it was late morning and Ron Lundy was already on the air. He and his engineer were very nice to me . I watched as the engineer smoothly moved from one thing to another, pressing buttons and working what was called "slide faders". The engineer and on Air Jock were in one big room, not separated by glass as they were at other radio stations. That's because all of the music and commercials were not played from Vinyl records or open reel tape recorders. At WABC, the audio sources were pre-recorded onto a fairly new invention called "broadcast carts". Hundreds of carts were housed in 4 or 5 huge racks which were on either side of the room. This was all pretty heady stuff for a kid like me! Amazingly, nobody ever asked me to leave. So, I just stayed in the studio talking to Ron and his engineer. Later in the afternoon, Dan Ingram came into the studio and started his show. I guess he figured that I must have belonged to somebody important, because he never asked me to leave either. At some point, Big Dan and I talked about the radio business. Almost 40 years later, I can still remember Dan Ingram's advice... "Kid, get out of the business". I just laughed and obviously didn't listen. At that time, I wasn't yet "in the business", so, how could I get out of it? As a side note, if you haven't found it already, click on the picture I took of Ron Lundy to download an audio clip I edited together of various WABC jingles. I collected Off-Air jingles for years, but all of these are much better quality than my old Reel to Reel tapes. They came from the WABC music radio URL found on the Links page. The Music Radio website is great if you are a Rock & Roll radio fan. My compliments!
Here I am with "My" F- 4 Phantom at Mountain Home AFB near Boise, Idaho
The 1970s After high school I joined the Air Force and received training in Electronics repair at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. I was in Biloxi in 1969 when hurricane Camille devastated the entire gulf coast area with 205 mph winds and a 25 foot storm serge. So, when hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, I could only try to imagine the damage 35 years later. A month or two after Camille, I left Keesler and began my Air Force career as an Electronic Counter Measures Repairman, at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. As an E.C.M. technician you got to work on just about every type of aircraft in the air force inventory. Among these were C-121s, F-4s, F-105s, B-66s and B-52s. Only the military gives a boy (or girl), so much training and so much responsibility at age 19. You make decisions on a daily basis that affect the lives of others and it makes you grow up fast. Suddenly, you're not a kid anymore. You're a man and you are expected to do a man's job. That work ethic stays with you for the rest of your life.
While I was stationed overseas, I managed to work my way into a part
time job doing production work and engineering for the American
Forces Radio & Television Service. Working for A.F.R.T.S. in the
early 1970s, was probably like working at a small market radio station, anywhere in America, except for one big
difference... I wasn't in America.
At Takhli and Korat, Royal Thai Air Bases, and then a year or two later, on the Island of Guam, I would repair E.C.M. equipment by day and work a radio board shift at night. At the E.C.M. shop we worked a minimum 12 hour shift, six days a week. After that job ended, I went over to the radio station for another 5 or 6 hours. All that made for a very long day, but for the most part, I loved every minute of it. During the Viet-Nam war, I knew there were a whole lot of guys that had it worse off than I did. So, why complain? Besides, working at the station was fun. A.F.R.T.S. installations (A-Farts) were always short handed, which in a way was good, because that meant you got to do everything. One day you were editing audio tape and spinning records on the air. The next day you were working on the TV side, behind an old black & white camera with lights so hot you could fry an egg on the set. It was a lot of fun and a damn good education. When I came home from my first tour overseas, I married my wife Bonnie and we lived in Dayton, Ohio while I was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. With broadcasting still in my blood, it wasn't very long before I went in search of some broadcast production work to keep me busy and bring in a little extra cash.
Within a short time, I got a part time job at Channel 7, WHIO - TV. WHIO was the flagship station of the COX Broadcasting Company and was the biggest station in Dayton, Ohio with AM, FM & TV all under one roof. We were a CBS affiliate back in the days when All In The Family, MASH and Walter Cronkite led the national ratings. Locally, the WHIO team owned the market. I was a cameraman and audio assistant back then and worked at WHIO for a total of four great years. Eventually, Bonnie and I moved back to my home town in New Jersey and in the late 1970s I registered the company name Morningstar Sound.
Mr. Morningstar
The early Morningstar years, were a time for much personal growth.
Along with acquiring lots of equipment and technical skills I also had
to figure out how to manage the workings of a business. As a
freelance broadcast engineer and supplier of equipment, I also worked
with the many corporate television facilities that were springing up
almost daily. In the late 70s and early 1980s corporate mass
communications was in it's infancy and I took pride in bringing
broadcast sophistication and professionalism to hundreds of Corporate
productions. Throughout the 10 - 15 year hay-day of the
corporate TV boom, our client list read like a page from the Fortune 500
and many companies are still our valued clients today. The 1980s There are too many memorable moments from those early years to recount here, but a few highlights are worth noting. In February of 1986, my company Morningstar Sound provided all of the audio equipment and audio services for three huge press conferences following the Tylenol poisonings. It was the biggest news story of the year, and I'm proud to say that we handled all of the press conferences for Johnson & Johnson.
In
1987 we began a 10 year relationship with NBC and the Miss America
Pageant in Atlantic City. Besides supplying some of the equipment
used for the broadcast, I also personally handled the hundreds of
musical cues and pre-recorded production numbers.
After coming home from the Calgary Olympics in '88, I was talking with one of my corporate clients who asked me if I would continue to work with them, now that I had hit the "big time" of the Olympics? I looked surprised by that question and Naturally, I said yes.
From about 1990, here are from L - R Me, Dominic Azzaro and Harrison Ford
Dominic Azzaro and his company, Junket Productions, is the leader when it comes to providing equipment and technical crews to service the motion picture industry's vast publicity machine. Junket Productions has been a part of our success and I am proud to have played a part in theirs.
The 1990s
Fred was truly a broadcasting pioneer. As the 1950's producer of the CBS television series "See It Now" with Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly later went on to become the head of CBS news in the 1960s. Then, before joining Columbia's School of Journalism, Fred was instrumental in the formation of the Public Broadcasting System. Columbia's "Media and
Society Seminars, produced dozens of Emmy award winning programs for PBS
as well as programs for Corporate America during the 1980s and '90s.
Working with Fred and Ruth Friendly was another career high point, and
my relationship with the seminars lasted until just before Fred's death
in 1998.
There was nothing like working for the Friendly organization. They were definitely a class act from start to finish. Fred was demanding, and tuff, but he was always fair. And, if you worked for Fred Friendly, you never wanted to let him down. It wasn't fear that motivated the crew to work so hard, it was respect for the man and all that he stood for. He was a true professional. It didn't matter if you were a Supreme Court Justice, United States Senator, or a lowly audio engineer, Fred treated everybody the same way. Some people found his style to be bombastic, but I loved it, because unlike working with so many other television producers, you always knew where you stood with Fred Friendly. For all the time that I knew him, Fred carried around a copy of the US Constitution in his coat pocket and would quote from it verbatim, on a regular basis. He wore both a belt and a pair of suspenders with faded American Eagles on them. Fred was equally at home conducting a seminar for Corporate CEOs or a group of high school students. He was a unique individual and I'm glad to have worked with and for him. Shortly before his death, I asked Fred to autograph a copy of his book "Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control...". The inscription reads... "For Gary, who helps us make the Seminars work. Thanks, Fred". Thank you Fred.
A New Century Begins Well, now it's the start of a brand new century, and we've all been through a lot with the events of September 11th and the war. I thought long and hard about how to bring this section of the web site to a close and frankly had some problems with it. Everything I wrote sounded too final, like I was Tom Brokaw signing off the air for the last time. Today, work continues on with broadcast mixing, movie promotions, and corporate telecommunications keeping us on our toes. There are always new things to learn, like putting together this web site. After more years than I care to remember, I still find the Broadcast Audio work challenging and fun. I will update this site from time to time with some new photos and the latest happenings. So, stop back again. Oh, one last thing. From time to time, I come across a young kid who seems hell bent on getting into the entertainment industry. Whenever they ask, I give them the same advice that was given to me decades ago... "Kid, get out of the business while you still can." If they look at me seriously and ponder the statement, I know they won't last. But if they just laugh and tell me to go to hell, I know they're probably a keeper. Thanks for indulging my remembrances.
© 2006 - 2007
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Wire recorders were only made for a short time and preceded magnetic
tape machines. Recordings were made using very thin wire
which was threaded through the machine just like the tape used on a Reel
to Reel tape recorder. As the sound entered the microphone a
small, green vacuum tube, similar to a cats eye, opened and closed in
sync with the sound waves. When the two halves of the "magic eye"
indicator overlapped, you had too much record level on the wire.
When the two halves of the display just "kissed" each other on peaks,
the record level was right on the money. The fidelity was
poor, and the recordings were definitely Monaural, but no matter, I had
fun recording my voice and playing it back. You could even
reverse the reels and play things backwards... Neat! The reels of
wire moved pretty fast and every now and then the wire would snap and
spill all over the place. When that happened, there was no
splicing to be done. You simply tied the two halves into a
knot and kept on recording. Crude, but effective. It was my
first audio editing job and I was probably 12 or 13 years old!
Just after
the pageant ended in September, I received a job offer from ABC to work
the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Working on the
Olympics is truly a career high and I was awarded a Broadcast Emmy for
pre-production audio. Several months later, I also received an offer to work the Summer
Olympics which were being held in Korea. But I declined the
offer because that broadcast conflicted with the '88 Miss America
Pageant. As it turned out, I would work on the Pageant for another
nine seasons.
While there are few audio jobs as large and complex as the Olympics or
the Miss America Pageant, most times, those projects come around only once or twice in a
career, if your lucky. For most of us, it's the
hundreds of "meat and potato" jobs that keeps a career growing
year to year. Those "smaller" productions are no less important to the
client, and they have never been less important to me. A
case in point is a relationship that began during 1984 and continues
today past it's 20th year. 
One of the joys of being in the broadcast industry comes when you end up
working with someone who you've admired from afar. In 1990, I
joined up with an already successful series of PBS programs, sponsored
by the Columbia University School of Journalism. The program was called
Media & Society Seminars and
they were under the direction of an industry Icon, Mr. Fred W. Friendly.
