Legendary radio announcer "Cousin" Bruce Morrow on his fabulous career

Bruce Morrow at a recent Palisades Park Reunion Show

Photo by Elliot Stephen Cohen - All Rights Reserved - 2016

As anyone familiar with the famous radio payola scandal of the late ’50s knows, the career of Alan Freed, the disk jockey who helped put rock and roll on the map, was ruined, as were others in his field for accepting illicit money to play records on their shows. Some, like American Bandstand television host Dick Clark, were also called in to testify before Congress.

However, Morrow, now 78, decided the other day that he wants to come clean, acknowledging that he once actually did accept a bribe from someone to play a record on his radio program.

“I did accept payola once,” he admits. “It was two cherry pies from this record producer whose mother was a baker. So, in order to get his record played, he offered me a couple of cherry pies. I figured that wasn’t so bad, so I took them and played his record.”

Considering the millions of people Morrow has brought joy to over the past seven decades as one of America’s foremost radio personalities, plus his extensive charitable endeavors, he should be forgiven for that little “misstep.”

He was born Bruce Meyerowitz, on October 13, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York.  After adopting the familiar moniker “Cousin Brucie,”as the star of Manhattan’s powerful WABC radio station, he performed over 4000 shows from 1961 through 1974.

These days, when not doing his Wednesday and Saturday night shows on Sirius XM’s ’60s on 6 channel, he enjoys a peaceful, pastoral existence in upstate New York with wife Jodie, in a stone house built in the 1780s.

Saturday night, the National Radio Hall of Famer will be hosting a big Palisades Park reunion show at the Meadowlands State Fair in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that will also be broadcast on his Sirius XM program.

Among those on the bill will be Bobby Rydell, The Mellow Kings, Fireflies and Passions. There also will be a “Supergirls” group featuring original members of The Exciters, Cookies, and Reparata and the Delrons.

Says Morrow, “It’s always a very emotional experience. The audience is very much a big part of the shows. It’s like magic. It really is.”

Elliot Stephen Cohen: What was it like growing up in Brooklyn in the ’40s and ’50s?

Bruce Morrow: My family lived in a wonderful neighborhood that was very diverse. That’s what we loved about it. It was probably one of the greatest things that could happen to a child, being brought up with every race, religion, you name it. We had representatives from every planet in my neighborhood. It was truly wonderful.

ESC: How did you come to change your last name from Meyerowitz to Morrow?

BM: Well, back in the ’50s, for radio you had to have a name that didn’t sound too ethnic. They wanted people with names that sounded reasonably American or possibly Irish. One night I was at the home of my girlfriend’s mother, and she also said, “Meyerowitz is not a name you can use in showbiz.” I had already asked my parents if they minded if I changed it, and they said, “OK, as long as you keep the same last initial.” So she put her finger in the Manhattan telephone directory in the M’s, and came across “Morrow.”

ESC: Now, the story of how you transformed into “Cousin Brucie” is very touching.

BM: People still ask me about that. You know, in this business you need a handle, what we call a “shtick,” something to make you a little different, that people will remember. So this one day, when I was on the air at WINS, this little old black lady was escorted into the studio by one of the security guards. In those days, if someone looked decent, the security guards would say, “Someone wants to meet you,” and I would say, “Sure.” However, at that time, the station was located on 59th Street, right across from Central Park, so 90% of the characters who wanted to come up, you wouldn’t want in the studio, but I had a good feeling about this woman, and invited her in.

ESC: So, she came into your room?

BM: Yes. I was in the middle of cueing up a record, and I said, “Ma’am, can I help you?” She looks me right in the eye. Anybody who looks me right in the eye is OK with me because most people don’t do that. So, she looks straight at me and says, “Cousin, do you believe we’re all related?” I said, “Yes, Ma’am, I do.” Her eyes were twinkling, and I liked her right away. She looked right into my eyes and heart and said, “Well, cousin, lend me 50 cents to get home. I’m broke.” Now, I knew this little old lady was not listening to Bruce Morrow on the radio or my Elvis, Fats Domino or Everly Brothers records. She just needed money to get home. So, while a record was playing, I gave her the 50 cents, and she said, “Thank you, cousin. I’ll never forget you,” and just like that, she left.

ESC: What happened after she left?

BM: Well, that night, on my way home, a light just went on in my head. I felt my heart pounding because I knew I had found what I had been looking for. Sometimes the best things in life you find by accident. So, the idea for “Cousin Brucie” was born right there, but I still had to get permission from my boss.

ESC: How did he react when you suggested it ?

BM: Remember, I was just a young kid, just starting to work for a major New York radio station. So the next day, I said to Mel Leeds, the program director, “Mr. Leeds, I want to be called ‘Cousin Brucie’ from now on.” He looked me right in the eye and said, “That is the silliest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” He said, “Kid, this is not Wheeling, West Virginia. It’s not Bakersfield, California. This is the Big Apple, boy.”

ESC: It must have reminded him of a name like Tennessee Ernie Ford or someone like Minnie Pearl.

BM: Well, he was right that people like them appealed to the Crackerjacks, you know, the guys down south. Of course, they also appealed to the people up north, you know, the Lumberjacks, but he didn’t seem to know that. So he says to me, “You really want to do this?” I said, “Yup. We all love our cousins.” He said, “I think you’re wrong, but start it carefully. Don’t overdo it. If you’re wrong, I’m gonna fire you.” Now, I’m a Brooklyn kid. Nobody ever threatens a Brooklyn kid.

ESC: So I assume you went on the air the next day, calling yourself “Cousin Brucie” every chance you could.

BM: Of course I did. (Laughs.) I don’t think I took one breath without calling myself “Cousin.” Every sentence was “Cousin.” The very next morning, I get a phone call at six o’clock in the morning from Mr Leeds, my boss, saying, “Get your a... in here, son. You’re in big trouble.” My heart immediately went into my throat. So I go down to the station, and he pulls out hundreds of yellow pieces of paper that in those days were called Western Union telegrams, the extreme precursor of e-mails. These usually meant bad news, something like a war, or somebody in trouble. Then, after he actually started reading these telegrams, a smile broke over his face and he said, “We’re gonna put you on a seven-year contract.” That’s exactly how the birth of “Cousin Brucie” happened.

ESC: Would you say that the “British Invasion” of 1964 has been the favorite period of your career?

BM: Well, it was certainly one of the most exciting parts. Back then, there was a constant battle between WABC and the other stations as to who would get to play the new Beatles record. Because we were a 50,000 Watt station, we used to get almost all of the exclusives. So, WMCA would get to play theirs an hour or two later. It got so bad that we’d have to record something (over the record), saying, “Exclusive, exclusive, exclusive” every 20 or 30 seconds, so the other stations couldn’t copy it from us.

ESC: Was there a lot of competitiveness between the WABC disk jockeys and the WMCA “Good Guys”?

BM: There was a great competitive spirit between us. We played jokes on each other on the air, but they didn’t really have the ability to be competitive to WABC, because you were comparing a 50,000 Watt clear channel to a “teapot” 5000 Watt directional. You know, we were “The Good Guys” before them, but then we decided to call ourselves “The All-Americans.” A lot of these smaller Top 40 radio stations used to beg, borrow and steal from each other. So, there were probably also other radio stations calling themselves “The Good Guys,” but WMCA took the idea and put a lot of money behind it with their sweatshirts and other promotions.

ESC: When the Beatles came in and pretty much ended the careers of nearly all the popular American singers, at least in terms of having radio hits, did you think the Beatles were just a passing fad, or did you think this was the new direction for pop music?

BM: Well, the problem was, there was a very bad crack in the wall in corporate America. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So, these guys in the music industry were very complacent. The goose was still laying the golden eggs. They were still selling records, but then the Beatles came along and decided to redefine rock and roll. Here comes these upstarts from overseas. When we originally started receiving their records, I remember, at music meetings, we turned them down. “Nah, that’s ridiculous,” but what they didn’t realize was that the American audiences wanted more. The American music was getting boring, hearing the same four notes over and over again, with the same background.

ESC: …and the Beatles were like a breath of fresh air?

BM: Yes. If you look at what America was going through at that time, we had just experienced the assassination of John Kennedy. We had terrible racial strife, which was really reaching its peak. There were also real political problems, and here are these four guys who were, as you said, like a breath of fresh air. Society needed a new flag, new heroes. The salad was ready to be mixed. The cake was ready to be baked. We were readied for the arrival of the Beatles. We needed them, and we got ’em. Period.

ESC: What do you recall most about your first meeting with the group?

BM: Well, the first time was really at the Pam American press conference. We all kind of said, “hello,” and they thanked me for playing their records. As a matter of fact, that first recording which, unfortunately, was of terrible sound quality, I still play on the air. It goes, “Hi, I’m John. I’m Paul. I’m George. I’m Ringo.”

ESC: Their first Shea Stadium concert in 1965, is still considered one of the most iconic rock events ever.

BM: Oh yes. When I first got to know them, I realized that these guys were really still a bunch of nervous kids. By the time they got to Shea Stadium, they were scared stiff. Even though they had all this great experience in Europe, nothing ever hit them like when they arrived at Shea Stadium in front of 65,000 plus kids, who were absolutely hysterical with love, screaming and yelling.

ESC: What did any of the Beatles say to you before they went on?

BM: I was in the dugout with Lennon and McCartney. Lennon came over to me and said, “Cousin” – he always called me “Cousin” because, by that time, we were getting to be good friends. He knew who I was and that I was a real Beatles fan. I’d played all their music and had interviewed them several times. He said, “Cousin, is this going to be very, very, dangerous?”

ESC: What did you think?

BM: Well, I said to John, “You’re here for one reason, and the people are here out of love and to share space with you.” Of course, I was lying. I was scared stiff, too. All these years later, thinking about it, conjures up a feeling in my chest of impending danger, of a possible disaster or an explosive situation, but I had to act like the big guy. McCartney also asked me if everything was safe, and I said, “Absolutely. It’ll all be OK.”

ESC: Watching the video of the event now, Ed Sullivan seemed like an odd choice to be introducing a major rock stadium concert, even though he was the one who had put the Beatles on his show a year earlier.

BM: Well, Ed Sullivan was really not into rock and roll. He was a real square, but had tremendous power from his journalistic experience. He also asked me, “Is this dangerous?” and I said, “Yes.” I sort of wanted to get back at him. He was a competitive media guy who was not really into this music. Before he goes to introduce them, he says to me, “What do we do?” I said, “Ed. Pray.” He looked at me with those big bulging eyes and said, “Pray?” and then he shrugged his shoulders, walked up to the stage with me to introduce the Beatles and, of course, all hell broke loose. There was so much electricity in the air, I used to say Con Edison could have turned off the electricity that day, and the energy from that crowd would have lit up New York. We still have great concerts today, but nobody will ever reach the plateau of the Beatles during that performance, even though most of the audience couldn’t actually hear the music.

ESC: I know you’re very excited about Saturday’s big Palisades Park reunion show.

BM: This is reunion number four. Back when I did the original shows in the ’60s, Palisades Park was a safe haven for kids to go to. Parents would drop off their kiddies, and they were entrusted to Cousin Brucie as their babysitter , because I was somebody they knew or thought they knew from my radio show. Even then, I always realized that that the Palisades Park shows were much more than just a stage show that you can see anywhere today. It was a very wonderful emotional experience that I still feel at these shows.

ESC: In your long legendary broadcasting career, what stands out the most?

BM: WABC was the golden moment. It was the Mount Olympus of radio. Something like that will never happen again.

©  2016 – Elliot Stephen Cohen – All Rights Reserved

 

Elliot Cohen

A native of New York City, Elliot Stephen Cohen has been a regular contributor to such noted music magazines as Record Collector, Bass Player, Vintage Guitar, Relix and many others. A freelance music journalist for 30+ years, Elliot keeps his finger on the pulse of the current music scene, as well as demonstrating a keen appreciation and knowledge of Classic Rock and the iconic artists who created it. You may contact Elliot with any comments or questions at talking.with.music.stars7@gmail.com .