Abstract
Mike Olszewski is a newscaster for WKSU-FM and a professor of communications at Kent State University and the University of Akron, as well as the author of several books. He was born in Cleveland in 1953. The interview discusses his childhood, racial issues, music, and the media.
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Interviewee
Olszewski, Mike (interviewee)
Interviewer
Aritonovich, Dana (interviewer)
Project
Rock and Roll
Date
10-29-2009
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
50 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Mike Olszewski Interview, 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 200012.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/19
Transcript
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:02] Why don't you state your name and tell us where you live and what you do.
Mike Olszewski [00:00:06] Okay. My name is Mike Olszewski, the last name's spelled O,L,S,Z,E,W,S,K,I, and I live in Aurora at [...] Summerhill Dr. in Aurora. Longtime radio television person, educator, I guess, historian. I've written several books, two of them coming out next year hereafter next. But I've written also the author of Radio Days, Stories from the Front in Cleveland's FM Air Wars Documentaries, things like that. So a little bit of everything.
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:39] And when were you born and where were you
Mike Olszewski [00:00:41] I was born May 30, 1953, Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in a couple of neighborhoods. My the two primary neighborhoods. One was on east side, 64th and Warsaw, which was an ethnic neighborhood at that time. And oddly enough, a lot of broadcasters came out of that neighborhood, probably five or six that I can think of, just within a two street radius. And then I later moved to East 131st and Harvard, which is the Corlett area, I guess you could say it, southeast side of the city. From the age of 12 on, I moved to Bedford Heights, graduated from Bedford High School in 1971, moved back to Cleveland briefly for about three years and then back to Bedford and then to Aurora. So I've been in this area my whole life.
Dana Aritonovich [00:01:28] And talk a little about your family. What did your father do for a living? What was your family structure?
Mike Olszewski [00:01:34] My father worked for a company that he started working for when he was 16 in his old neighborhood around 64th and Warsaw. It was called Air-Maze and it was a filter company. And he would have had to work there 49 years before he got a pension. But he got disability, so I guess he lucked out. I'm not sure. However, my mother was a homemaker who later started a business with daycare centers. She started daycare centers. As far as my past life, I've always been interested in popular culture. I was part of the first TV generation and as a result I got to see the three channels and very creative television in Cleveland. But also I kept an ear on music and radio and I was fascinated by that as well. Just about all the mass media. And early on I started to see the importance of radio and growing up in the. Well, let's see, I was born in '53, so even when I was 7 and 8 years old, you could still hear radio dramas and things like that. Not a lot of them, but my grandmother knew the stations to go to and she would listen to radio dramas and Things like that. So there were only still a handful on the air. But she enjoyed them. And I enjoyed sitting there listening to it as well. I had a small, little, like, little crystal radio that could pick up foreign broadcast. I thought that was pretty amazing. And just liked listening to the radio. And then once '64 hit - 1964 - 1963 was really, in my eyes, the birth of television news, with the assassination of John Kennedy. However, in 1964, popular culture just exploded with The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. And it was a very exciting time.
Dana Aritonovich [00:03:13] Was that kind of the first time you were really aware of music being such a big force?
Mike Olszewski [00:03:17] No, you know what? I knew a lot about music prior to that. And I can remember music going back to, well, the Everly Brothers and things like that. Because as a little kid, I remember there were just songs that people liked and they would have on the radio. But I remember distinctly the Everly Brothers and Wake Up Little Susie and things like that. And Elvis Presley and a lot of those things. I do remember pretty well just before the Beatles. When you're starting to hear some of the Motown stuff all of a sudden. And there were a lot of novelty records like Lorne Green, things like that. He had a song called "Ringo" at one point, Walter Brennan, who used to play Grandpappy Amos McCoy. He had a song called "Old Rivers" about a mule that he loved. And it died and all that sort of thing. And it was just fun to listen to. But, I mean, yeah, I was aware of music. I was aware of the importance of music. I didn't realize the cultural impact. Especially on certain ethnic groups and teenagers until later on. But, you know, you knew the Beach Boys when they were coming up. And they were important to teenagers. And Motown was important to young people and things like that.
Dana Aritonovich [00:04:22] What kind of music did your parents listen to, if any?
Mike Olszewski [00:04:25] They listen to mostly middle-of-the-road stuff. And I remember there used to be a show on WGAR called Joe Black's Journey into Melody. And I didn't care for that kind of music. And I'd sit there with my father in his '59 Bonneville. And with plastic seat covers, it'd be 100 degrees listening to Joe Black's Journey into Melody. And I was, like, 7 years old, thinking, this is a particular form of hell. So. But, you know, I mean, I liked my own music. I liked, you know, the kind of stuff that I liked. So. And, you know, there was plenty of it around. You know, you'd hear it on the radio. And he would listen to, you know, top 40 stuff. Too. He'd listen to WHK and KYW, which was 1100 at that time, so a little bit of everything.
Dana Aritonovich [00:05:04] And did you have any siblings?
Mike Olszewski [00:05:06] Yeah, I had two brothers and two sisters, all younger than me.
Dana Aritonovich [00:05:09] So what kind of music did they listen to once they became a little bit older?
Mike Olszewski [00:05:14] We all listened to basically the same thing. Here's the thing, right around 1965, I used to listen to KYW, which was top 40. And then in '65, the end of '65, WIXY - WIXY radio - well promoted, not much of a signal, but they played a lot of music and they played young music and they broke a lot of new music. So the whole family listened to Wixie. The whole family listened to. And that was right into the 1970s. By 1968, I had heard about FM radio - or FM rock, put it that way - and not a lot of people had FM radios. I mean, I actually had to go out and buy a small table model that had an FM radio on. It cost me $20. And I was listening to early WNCR, WMMS. There were even some ethnic stations that were playing stuff in college radio. And you could find a lot of stuff on the FM dial. And I liked it that there were very few commercials, but also just a very relaxed delivery and some pretty wild music playing at that time. You know, stuff you wouldn't hear, like Lothar and the Hand People and Ultimate Spinach and stuff like that. Just crazy stuff. Oh, I remember a lot of them. I remember Doc Nemo. I just thought that he was terrific. Billy Bass, of course. Martin Perlich. Oh, gosh, Ginger Sutton. It was wonderful. Ginger Sutton used to take us on the journey through Middle Earth every day. And every day he would start a show at 6 o'clock with the live version of "Midnight Rambler." And it was from get your Yaya's out by the Stones. And you could set your watch by it. In fact, I remember once we were all just sitting around and drinking Ripple wine and somebody said, what time is it, man? And all of a sudden you heard. He said, it's got to be 6 o'clock. We didn't need a watch. Well, that was a great thing because at that time, pre cable and there was a lot of wonderful TV and all that kind of stuff, you know, for the baby boomers and stuff like that. But Ginger Sutton once told me that FM rock was the electric backyard fence. And that's where we got to hear things and talk about things and exchange things. And it was just an alternative to what our parents watched. On TV, keep in mind, I mean, you had like The Dean Martin Show, which today you look at and is really kind of funny, you know, and the variety shows and Ed Sullivan and stuff like that. But if you wanted to hear, like, Janis Joplin and, you know, or breaking stuff, you went to FM radio.
Dana Aritonovich [00:07:48] And let's talk a little about the neighborhoods you grew up. But I know you said the East 6th, 4th and worst was kind of an ethnic neighborhood. What was the ethnic composition?
Mike Olszewski [00:07:55] Polish, Polish, though there was a little bit of everything in there, you know, I mean, there was Italians and Chinese, Czechoslovakians and stuff like that, but heavy ethnic. And those were the days when you had a Polish newspaper that came out every day. It was written in Polish. And there was. It was just, you know, an ethnic neighborhood. Then we moved to the Corlett neighborhood, which was primarily. It was kind of interesting because you could tell the kind of ethnic groups that were there by the churches. You had St. Tim's which was the Irish Church, where all the Irish people went. And then you had Holy family, which on 131st and Chapelside, which was where the Bohemians went. And then down the street you had Our Lady of Częstochowa, which is where all the Polish families went, or a lot of them, you know, I mean, all the churches had, you know, a pretty wide range of ethnic groups, but primarily those were the people. You know, those were the places. At that time, in the '60s, up until about 1967, even the Corlett area around 131st and Harvard, 142nd [and] Miles, that was almost like a suburb. I mean, it was old housing stock, but still you had everything you needed there. You had record stores and a shopping center and things like that, and banks and things like that. So it was a neighborhood for people starting out. Then when I moved to Bedford Heights, which was suburbia and it was brand new. I mean, they were putting up brand new houses. Went to Bedford High School, which was so just middle class, blue collar, middle class. However, later on, I moved back with my grandmother and East 131st and Harvard had turned into a pretty rough neighborhood quick overnight. And it was the whole urban flight thing, and she was getting broken into and stuff like that. And I thought, well, you know, I'll move in with her. And you got a different outlook on what people were all about. It was very much a sense of community. It was working poor and. And, you know, you really got to know that there was a different segment of society out there. You know, nobody wants to be poor and you just got an idea of what the other how, you know, another part of society lived. And you got a sense of community because you looked out for everybody else too, you know, because there was crime that was happening, and you kept an eye out on the neighbor and he kept one out for you. So worked out pretty well.
Dana Aritonovich [00:10:12] We talked about your schools. Who are your friends? What kind of people did you hang out with?
Mike Olszewski [00:10:16] You know what, it's funny because we were all pretty much the same in high school. I mean, our parents were all just, you know, pretty much middle class, low, maybe even lower middle class, I don't know, blue collar. And we, you know, it was just your friends at school that you had in class or in the neighborhood and things like that. I had a pretty wide range of friends. I had one. The people I grew up with in my neighborhood. Maybe there was two years difference between the oldest and the youngest. But one of us went to West Point. One of us went. Me, I went into radio. The other one went into the military. One became a commercial artist and the other one became an ambulance attendant. And we still kept in touch. We still keep in touch to this day. So we're all pretty tight. But it's because you had common roots. You all had common roots. I mean, everybody's dad worked in the factory and came home and, you know, and we grew up on the same kind of television and we had the same kind of environment in school. So we all grew up the same way.
Dana Aritonovich [00:11:13] What kind of things did you guys do?
Mike Olszewski [00:11:16] You know, it was, you know, it was just typical stuff like, oh, I don't know. When we were younger, we collected comic books, we went to movies and things like that. I think that once FM radio came into it to show us that there was like a lot of creativity and different music and a different lifestyle out there. A lot of us kind of adapted into that and sort of became like pseudo hippies, you know, and we enjoyed that. You know, I mean, it was freedom and it was. There was great music that was happening at that time. And keep in mind, too, that FM radio, especially at that time, really opened its arms to other cultures. And you could listen to FM radio and hear a classical piece going into folk music with Buffy Saint Marie, who is an American Indian, going into Led Zeppelin, going into Woody Herman and the Thundering Herd, and it would just be like one continuous piece of music. It was one wonderful segueing and things like that. And it opened our eyes to a lot of music, or our ears, I should say, and certainly to a Lot of different cultures around Cleveland and free clinics and things like that and saying, listen, let's reach out to everybody else. That was kind of neat. I think it should have continued.
Dana Aritonovich [00:12:21] Why do you think it didn't?
Mike Olszewski [00:12:22] You know what part of it comes down to? I'd say by the mid-1970s, people found out you could make a lot of money on FM radio, and it became a format thing. And then all of a sudden, the Vietnam War was over, so we didn't have that much to protest anymore. And people started cutting their hair and, you know, getting them to be a little more. You know, that little. They started to blend into society a little bit more. So, I mean. And that's not so bad, you know. I mean, people wanted families and stability and things like that. So just, you know, you can age without losing an attitude, I guess. At least that's. If you look at some of the people, though, they came out of that era, like Bill Gates and Lucas and people like that. They did wonderful things. Steve Jobs, you know, and they. We all had basically the same roots. They were a little more inspired than I was, that's all.
Dana Aritonovich [00:13:10] If you remember the first record you bought.
Mike Olszewski [00:13:13] Yeah.
Dana Aritonovich [00:13:14] What was that? Gosh, I think at least some of the early things that you actually went out and spent your own money on.
Mike Olszewski [00:13:18] Yeah, you know what that was stuff like the early British Invasion and early Beach Boys and things like that. And it really didn't matter if it was British or American. If it sounded good, I wanted it. And it was a lot of the stuff that was being played on top 40. Now, oddly enough, when I bought those records and brought them home and played them, they sounded. That's because when I heard them on Wixie, they were being played at 48 RPM instead of 45 because they had to get in their top six songs in 10 minutes. So that's how it worked. But, I mean, you know, I played a lot of. It was Beatles and things like that and, you know, early stuff certainly. I mean, we didn't. You know what? I bought records, but at the same time, I also bought magazines to read about the people and popular culture. Things like, you know, comic books and magazines about any number of things. You know, music and all kinds of wonderful stuff. But the earliest stuff was obviously rock and roll and stayed with rock and roll. I really started buying a lot of records when I was in high school, and crazy albums were coming out that you wanted to have in your collection that you could listen to anytime. So. And at that time, you know, you'd have two or three great albums coming out a week.
Dana Aritonovich [00:14:30] Where did you buy your records? What records do you?
Mike Olszewski [00:14:32] Well, you always want where it was cheapest. And I remember once walking the length of Southgate because the Beatles double album came out that December, and it was actually a dollar less. It was $10 at the May company. $10 in some sense, but it was $11 at the other end at pennies, so it was worth the walk. Of course, you could also get a bus ride for a quarter, so it was worth it at that time. Keep in mind, when you talk about the price of these things back then, I mean, your dad was making pretty good money if he made $5,000 a year. So it was a hundred bucks a week. What are you gonna do with all that cash? You know, he's got five kids, a mortgage, and a wife and a car, and she's not working. Hey, he's still doing all right. So, you know, I mean, you. And you picked up odd jobs and things like that wherever you could do, you know, just paper routes and things like that.
Dana Aritonovich [00:15:19] So what kind of things did you do to earn my extra money?
Mike Olszewski [00:15:22] Oh, you know what? Paper routes and. Oh, gosh, paper routes. I would work for people, you know, if they needed something done, they'd say, come on over, and they'd hit you with money. And my. I remember my grandparents were always asking me over to do things, giving me money that I didn't want, you know, and they'd insist, and they, you know, it's one of these things where they're fighting you. You're going to take this money or else. All right, you know. Yeah, well, yeah. And, you know, you're telling them, look, I'm not going to do this if you're going to pay me. Okay, I won't pay. Then you go over there. I changed my mind. Okay, thank you, Grandma. There you go.
Dana Aritonovich [00:15:55] And where did you guys go? You and your friends still listen to either recorded music or live music?
Mike Olszewski [00:15:59] Okay. There were a lot of opportunities for live music. And back then, Chanel High School used to have wonderful dances. But the thing was, their dances were really concerts, and they'd have national acts come in. I mean, James Gang would play. I remember they used to have Mahogany Rush. People like that. An early form of. Early version of Grand Funk Railroad. And Chanel played a lot of that stuff. They had a lot of. Those were the times when you could see national acts playing at Southgate, at the shopping center. And they'd have. Oh, certainly Geauga Lake. Oh, my gosh, Geauga Lake used to have these Wixie Appreciation Day shows where they'd have five major acts, and you'd go there to see, oh, gosh, the Fifth Dimension, Neil diamond, maybe two or three other major acts that they would bring into town, and they played huge crowds. I remember seeing a group only I think maybe I got to know him afterwards. It was only like their second or third appearance. Glass Harp was the name of the band out of Youngstown. This is the most incredible band. And they were playing at the opening of a clothing store at May Company at Southgate. It was called Weigh In. Had a little button that I still have, even the okay thing way in. But you could see wonderful groups like that all the time, you know, and you really didn't have to look for major acts. And keep in mind, too, a lot of major acts around 70, 71 were starting to make their way up. Like in 1970, there was a place called Cyrus Erie East, Cyrus Erie west, the Hullabaloos, and you. I remember once they had. Buddy Miles was coming in, Savoy Brown the next week, and Alice Cooper the week after that, and you'd see it for a dollar and a half. I remember we used to go to concerts, too. I remember seeing Derek and the Dominoes with a band called Tophat opening up for him in November of 1970. Tophat, and a number of the people later went on to change her name to Uriah Heap. And the next week, Elton John was opening for the Byrds at the Allen Theater. And you just saw remarkable acts. The who, August 12, 1971. Public call. Second row. Blew out my hearing. Tinnitus. I didn't have to go to Vietnam. Yippee. Thank you. And the weird thing was I actually said if I ever got to meet John Entwistle, I was going to thank him because I failed my hearing test three times. So I got to meet him years later, and I said, I thank you for keeping me out of vm. I don't understand what you're talking. And I told him, and he got upset. He said, oh, you got to take care of your hearing. Oh, look at poor Pete Townsend. And I said, no, no, I'm thanking you. You know, you don't understand. Oh. And, I mean, like, he seemed like he was really upset, so. But I'll tell you what, I. Second row in front of that bass speaker taught me a lesson. Earplugs. Yeah. But we saw all kinds of wonderful acts. Sure.
Dana Aritonovich [00:18:42] What did your parents think about the kind of music you were listening to?
Mike Olszewski [00:18:44] Oh, they hated it. Yeah. They Hated it. They hated FM rock radio. They listened to Wixie. But FM rock radio was a lot like the Internet today. It was just wide open. And there'd be talk about drugs and all this kind of stuff. And you know, words of certain, certain words didn't appear on Wixie and things like. And I remember once I was cleaning the garage and my father comes outside and the word "dope" came up and he just like snapped. He said, what the hell is, what kind of crap are you listening to? So yeah, they weren't too happy about it, but I even made it so that when you walked into my room that when you turned on the light, the radio would come on. So even if I was there for 30 seconds, I didn't want to miss something, you know. And you could listen to the radio forever. And if you didn't like some on the one station, you just go. If you didn't like something on, what was it? I think W- 99.5, I think was WNCR. You just go down to 100.7 and see what they had. Chances are you're gonna get go to another song you're really gonna like or you're gonna hear somebody talking about something you really wanted to hear about. Whether it was an anti war protest or somebody might have a pair of pants they'll trade you for a, you know, like a lift to Chicago or something like that. I mean they used to do these people's want ads, stuff you would never do now. You know, somebody's got a trombone for sale and but they need a canned ham for this weekend. It was just crazy hippie stuff. At one point they were testing drugs on the air. They were testing marijuana and they would give it actually to a lab. And the police, it was in association with the Cleveland Police. But the thing was, it was so ineptly dung. There was something called paraquat that was going around at that time. They were spraying this defoliant but if you smoked it, it could mess you up. So the police said, look, we don't want anybody getting hurt. So they went to MMS and they said, here's what you do. We're going to have a public service thing going on. And what they'll do is we will give them. They will have to send it to this post office box or to our police station on Payne. And they gave the address which was like 1314 Payne. And then you were supposed to have a six sequence number like you know, or Odyssey was like 137146 or something. And that was going to be your number. And then a week later you would send in a sample of your marijuana. And then a week later you would call this 800 number. Well, the guys that are listening to the station are stoned. They're not going to be taking down all these numbers. So they would send it to the radio station. One guy walked into the police station, gave him the bag and said, take what you need. And you know, then they would send like put return addresses on them. And you know, and after about two weeks. And people would send pills in, you know, and after about two weeks, you know, somebody at the radio station said, we got a license to worry about. We can't have this stuff coming in. So that was like, you know, those done in two or three different cities and they. It all went down in flames. They said, we're gonna stop this now. But I mean, that's what it was like. I mean, it was very much a sense of community from radio. And radio was the thing that brought us all together. I mean, they used to have a prisoner's rights show, they used to have gay rights, student rights, feminist-type shows. And you'd listen to it all, you know, it was all pretty good. We always enjoyed it.
Dana Aritonovich [00:21:54] So as a young person listening to this, basically, because primarily what I'm talking about is like Black music.
Mike Olszewski [00:22:00] Sure.
Dana Aritonovich [00:22:00] All of this came from Black music. As a young white kid growing up in this ethnic neighborhood, listening to these Black artists, how did that? How did you?
Mike Olszewski [00:22:07] You know what? It didn’t bother us one bit. I mean, to us there were no racial barriers in music. There were none. You listened to the Supremes and the Tops and the Temps and Marvin—well, Smokey Robinson and all that. It was just terrific. We loved the early Motown stuff because it was hard-hitting. It was energy and, you know, big production. And like I said, you know, you could hear all kinds of wonderful stuff. There were acts back then that they used to play in Cleveland that you wouldn’t even hear anywhere else. They were number one in Cleveland. You wouldn't even hear them other places, like the Toys' "A Lover’s Concerto" and Screamin' Jay Hawkins from Cleveland. There were wonderful things that were happening, and they knew that a lot of that came from—they were marketed through Cleveland. Berry Gordy once said — I got to talk to Berry Gordy once — and he said that they would bring their people to Cleveland. Motown brought people to Cleveland, Leo's Casino, places like that. And he said if they could make it in Cleveland, great. They were ready for the big time. If they didn't, well, they’re going back to Detroit. They knew any act they put out from Detroit was going to be huge. There was TV as well. And keep in mind, Top 40 radio back then played everything. You could have Glen Campbell and "Wichita Lineman" going into "Ball of Confusion," you know, by the Temps or something. And, you know, it was just like any number of things. "Harper Valley P.T.A." going into the Beatles, and you would keep it on there. I mean, it was just like Top 40 radio meant all genres, country, everything. There was even a song called "Paralyzed" by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, which is just this guy yelling into a microphone. And it was a novelty song, but you listened to it because it was just so crazy. The guy even ended up on Laugh-In and stuff like that. But we also— We were at an advantage because, besides having American Bandstand, we had Upbeat and The Big 5 Show, and whoever was playing Leo's Casino that week, they played there. Otis Redding—I saw Otis Redding on the Upbeat show, and I thought, how incredible is this? And you used to see all this. And so it didn’t matter. You know, you went to the record store, you might pick up the Stones and the Jackson 5 just because it was a cool record. So. And that was another thing. It really kind of made me crazy after radio started being put into, like, these niches and, you know, you’re like, the FM rock was 25–54 male and all that sort of thing. A lot of guitar-driven rock. Well, in 1987 or — yeah, '86, '87 — they started playing "Beat It" by Michael Jackson on WMMS. And it had Eddie Van Halen playing guitar, which is wonderful. You know, it's probably the best guitar solo we had in a long time. But there's this uproar: they're playing Michael Jackson. Well, first of all, WMMS was a reflection of the popular culture back then and of MTV. Second of all, when WMMS went on the air in '68, when the Jackson 5 hit in '70, '71, they played them, and nobody complained then. So I think that was just silly that, you know, people would complain about that. If you’re going to reflect popular culture, which is what they were doing, accept it or get out of the way. You know, so we- We just— We listened to everything. I remember Jimi Hendrix when he first hit, and you just heard this crazy music. And then you saw Jimi - and he looked pretty crazy too, you know, just, you know, he's, but you, this is the coolest thing, you know, and then — And a lot of the acts were more visual than anything, like the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. He came out and he had a helmet with flames shooting out of it. Oddly enough, he went bald. But, I mean, he just had great stuff, and he had great TV showing it too. So any of that stuff, but Black music was just part of the, part of the texture of, you know, part of the tapestry.
Dana Aritonovich [00:25:50] And what effect do you think that the popularity of Black music had on either nationally or in Cleveland, on race relations just between teenagers? Because this music was geared towards sure ones who made it popular than the ones who are making all the other change in the world.
Mike Olszewski [00:26:04] From early on. From early on, you could go to a concert and Black and white audiences. And I mean, the Moondog Ball, I mean, it was so infamous because you had Black and white audiences showing up for this. And the parents went crazy because that was not them. You know, they were from this really strange, racially segregated type of society, even, you know, without World War II, where everybody was fighting together. But that was just the way it was. I mean, you stayed in your neighborhood. Keep in mind, when I was a kid, you had neighborhoods where, like Little Italy and the Warsaw area. And if you didn't look like them, get out. You know, if you're not Italian, if you're not Polish, we don't need you here. You know, this is our neighborhood. Go to your own neighborhood. So. But, you know, I grew up around Black kids. And I'll tell you this about civil rights, though. I think that AM radio, Top 40 radio helped with the civil rights movement. Now, keep in mind that media helped, too. I think without television, we would not have seen certainly the end of the Vietnam War, but we wouldn't have seen civil rights the way it happened. And keep in mind, when there was a lot of racial tension, radio often helped WABQ, which stood for We Are Better Qualified, Tiny little daylight station, east side of Cleveland. And they were a daytime station. They went on and off with the sun. So obviously in the summer, they stayed on longer. However, during the Glenville riots, they said, we're staying on, and we're going to try to appease the public. Just tell them, listen, everything's good. Call in, tell us what's happening, tell us areas to stay out of, and let's just try to calm down. And they were. Later, the FCC later tried to cite them, and they argued, okay, look, we did that the one night of the riots because we are here to serve. We were given a license to serve the public good. What greater public good could there have been? And they dropped the citation. They just dropped the other complaint so made sense, I think that we especially once you start getting into the hippie era, around '70 through about '73, '74, '67 maybe to '74, it was just different. It was just, you know, everybody had the same things. Everybody had the same ideals. Everybody thought, hey, you know, we're just trying to get through life. And there was that huge generation gap between your parents and you about things like the Vietnam War and drugs and music and things like that. I think another thing, keep in mind that Coventry was the cultural center of Cleveland. And that's where gays, Blacks, old people, and hippies went. All the rejects of society. And we were our own community on Coventry. And it was just kind of cool, you know, I mean, it's like, you know, everybody, you know, we listen to the same music. And don't get me wrong, I'm not sure, you know, this is not an endorsement or anything, but, you know, there was. Keep in mind, that was the drug culture too. So the drug culture spanned everybody. And if you had a drug problem and I knew people went into rehab, you know, you'd see black and white guys there, you know, together. So I think that we made a major leap in that respect. I think that we evolved in a lot of ways. But I will say this, I think Motown helped a lot as far as civil rights. The Motown era, civil rights and TV helped. Sure helped too. Keep in mind too that Frankie Wyman from the Teenagers, his career pretty much ended when he was on national TV dancing with a white girl. Think about that. I mean, that's amazing. And the guy died, you know what, a heroin overdose in his 30s or something, living at his grandmother's house. It was like, wow, what a waste. But Cleveland was, keep in mind too, Cleveland, like a lot of big cities like Detroit and places like that in L.A., and we were a huge city at that time. There was a lot of racial tension, but I didn't see it among young people as much. I really didn't see it among. In fact, mostly it was about poor communities versus the police. But music helped.
Dana Aritonovich [00:30:12] And what do you think it is about the music that, I mean, as far as young people? Because no matter what generation it is, they don't like their parents music.
Mike Olszewski [00:30:19] Yeah, but you know what was kind of interesting too is our parents looked at The Supremes and The Temps, The Four Tops and people like that. And those were supper club acts, you know, I mean, they dressed like that and they could play Las Vegas or they could play Geauga, like in front of a bunch of teenagers. And the music was still great and they could still do dance moves and stuff like that. But that was sort of a thing that the parents kind of. I think parents really kind of like Motown. I know my parents could listen to it and they'd listen to things, you know, any number of things, as long as it wasn't too crazy. I mean, some of the stuff like I put a spell on you, you know, screaming Jay Hawkins, that was a little. That was kind of scary, you know.
Dana Aritonovich [00:30:58] Well, and you know, later on James Brown, when he became more militant.
Mike Olszewski [00:31:01] Well, that's it exactly.
Dana Aritonovich [00:31:02] And I'm sure a lot of parents didn't, you know, because that wasn't the right kind of.
Mike Olszewski [00:31:05] That's exactly it. Yeah, that was exactly it. He wasn't. He wasn't. He was no longer an entertainer. He's just trying to stir up trouble. Well, you know, doesn't mean we have to follow him. I'm listening to the music, mom, you know. Yeah. So I think that. I think the music really helped ease a lot of racial tension. And I also think that radio played a major role in that because a lot of people couldn't buy records. But you knew that if you're listening to Wixie or KYW, chances are you're going to be listening to, you know, any number of great groups. You might hear Marvin Gaye going into, who knows, Stones, you know, so great stuff.
Dana Aritonovich [00:31:43] I'm glad you mentioned the Glenville Riots. I'm going to be referring to that a little bit. And that radio was used, like I mentioned James Brown when Martin Luther King was assassinated and James Brown was performing in Boston. And he. They decided to. The mayor wanted him to perform on public television to keep everybody home.
Mike Olszewski [00:32:00] Yeah, sure.
Dana Aritonovich [00:32:01] So that, you know, the Black people wouldn't get out and start writing. That was. That was really what it was about.
Mike Olszewski [00:32:05] You know, I- And check into this too. I believe Jimi Hendrix also, they asked him not to play that night and he said no. I think that that's exactly what we should be doing. So check into that because I'm pretty sure the night of the MLK assassination that Hendrix was playing.
Dana Aritonovich [00:32:21] And what else do you remember about maybe like the Hough Riots and stuff? Do you remember hearing anything from your friends about it or what your parents' thoughts about it were?
Mike Olszewski [00:32:29] We saw everything on TV and read about it in the newspapers. And keep in mind that we had two newspapers back then, the Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Press Playing Deer Alone Morning Press in the afternoon. So there was a lot of competition to get new stories on you know, to sell newspapers. I think we knew that there was a lot of racial tension. You didn't have. You could see it. I mean, that's from the time I was a kid. And it hasn't gone away. I mean, I think we've evolved past a certain point. I think that maybe even people that were born after about 1980 have a completely different attitude, which is wonderful. However, I think that a lot of us just looked and said, well, wait a minute, especially young people. And I'm very sincere about this. I thought we looked and said, well, wait a minute. Why are people fighting and why are people rioting? And what's the reason behind that? I think a lot of people knew. This is about poor people versus people who have a lot. And this is about poor people who. And maybe some of it was instigated, don't get me wrong. And I mean, sometimes the Black Panther scared me, but at the same point, the Yippees scared me. So, you know, I mean, you know, you don't know what they were going. I mean, when people with the Weather Underground. I mean, you know, when they're blowing stuff up, you know, I mean, all right, now we're getting a little bit. But I think that, you know, the media helped fuel a lot of those fires and maybe even helped continue it. But I think a lot of young people just looked and said, you know, why can't we get along? I mean, you know, to quote Rodney King, I really believe that. I think that a lot of people just said, this is silly, because blacks were. I went to school and granted, I mean, like, it was less than 10% of Bedford High School. We all got along, you know, I mean, we'd go to each other's parties and especially around '69, '70, '71, once, you know, you started seeing this hippie type thing come up where everybody was together, you know what I mean? We're all listening and growing our hair and things like that. It was really a sense of community, and the community involved everybody. So, I mean, maybe it could have been a little more inclusive even, you know, because a lot of times it was the straights versus the freaks, as they used to say. Freeks, spelled F,R,E,E,K,S not with an A. But I mean, it was just like, you know, hey, you know, that was the difference is that, you know, hey, your hair short, mine's long. And we just have different values. So. But it was a value based thing. So that was it. We'd get together with people and go to concerts and stuff. Didn't really matter, you know, and did maybe, I don't know if you're maybe your friends or anybody because of the music.
Dana Aritonovich [00:34:59] Do you think they maybe got inspired to do any kind of social or political activism?
Mike Olszewski [00:35:07] I do know people that were like that. I'm trying to think right off hand. I think early on. Yes, early on, definitely. In fact, I knew people that used to volunteer. There was a thing called, oh, gosh, it was with WERE and they used oh, Call for Action. And they would just, you know, call up and they would volunteer and take down people's problems. And the radio station would try to solve these problems for you, as silly as it sounds. But somebody might call up and say, listen, you know, somebody is just blasting music out of this tavern down the street, you know, and I realize I gotta make a living, but I can't sleep. They would find out ways, you know, to do this. And it was an on air promotion, but at the same time it was social activism. I don't know anybody that. I do know one person I think that volunteered at the free clinic, but I don't know a lot about it, but I do know that there was stuff that there were people that got involved locally with things that, you know, you helped and certainly. Well, I'll say one thing though. Politically, I think it was a lot more involved because you would go downtown for rallies and things like that. I know that WNCR perhaps, or was it mms? I'd have to check my notes. They actually had a busload. They had busloads of people they were taking to the anti war rallies in Washington D.C. i will say this also, I think that Kent State showed us that we could all pull together because college radio really got out a lot of information about Kent State. But Kent State certainly was a rallying cry for a lot of people saying, this has got to stop. You know, this is insane. You know, people shooting at each other. So I think that the closer. I'll tell you what, I think that they say that all politics happens in your own backyard. And I was watching the Mike Douglas show and this tape still exists where John Lennon is sitting with Jerry Rubin of the Yippees. And they're talking about Kent State. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, that's a half an hour away from me. I thought, this is amazing that a Beatle is talking and this other national figure, whatever he thought of him, are talking about Kent State University. And it really brought it down that, you know, like all politics is local. So I think that, yeah, the only Real. It was a generational gap that was much bigger than any kind of racial divisions among young people. But it was a generational gap with you and old people, straights versus freaks. That was pretty much it. I will say this about radio, though. I think radio did try to pull people together. And like, if something disappointing happened, now, granted, the Kent State shootings, everybody took the side of the students on FM radio, you know, at least on the rock stations. But a lot of times they were just saying, look, we gotta get along. And, you know, this is. How would he put it? This is like a bummer, man, and all that sort of thing. But, you know, we gotta just pull together. And, you know, it was. It was a different time, but a good time, a nice time.
Dana Aritonovich [00:37:53] So what do you think the role of music is and should be in society?
Mike Olszewski [00:37:59] Well, from what it was back then, it was a unifying force. Pete Townsend used to call it the Electric Church. And I don't go that far. Come on, Pete. But it's a unifying force. And it can be a unifying force. I will say this, though. I don't endorse illegal downloading. But at the same time, once concert tickets go to $100 and once CDs which cost two or three dollars to make are going for $20. I think maybe people should have taken note and said, this is the community that built this. Let's serve that community. I think that music is a unifying force. It could still be a unifying force. Oddly enough, I don't see that happening in the future because it's now more about product than art and where people are going to be downloading singles rather than whole albums. Why would you buy a whole album if you. You don't know what's going to be on it? So it's one of these things where, you know, all of a sudden bands now, for the, you know, the sake of art, are going to be making singles, you know, and I think that the art is going to suffer as well. And as a result, solely unifying force. I think if anything, you know, what is. Now, I think about it, it could just be like an economic type thing, you know, the haves and haves, not have nots. Once again, I will say this too. Around 1975, once the end of the Vietnam War came and Cleveland was not as hard hit as other areas, but. And especially toward 1980, where people started saying, well, maybe it's time to settle down, things like that. There was this whole greed is good thing that came out of Wall street and stuff like that. And certainly, you know, with the Reagan administration. And that's where I started seeing that as being very troubling. And once again, it was the haves and the have nots only we were seeing it within our own generation. So I hope we've evolved.
Dana Aritonovich [00:39:48] Do you think there are any bands out there recording right now who may maybe in the future have an impact the way, you know, somebody like James Brown or Marvin Gaye would have?
Mike Olszewski [00:39:58] You know, it's funny you should mention that, because I don't hear it on commercial radio. I hear it on college radio, and I certainly hear it on WABS, the Summit, which is a public station. You know, they're supported by. And you're not hearing, like, the Midnight Oils that are real political or anything like that again anymore. But you are hearing new music and you're hearing people that are taking sort of political stands. But the thing is, it's not the kind of political stands we used to have. I mean, you know, there's obviously groups that want us out of, you know, that voice their political concerns. But a lot of that is classic rock. You know, you still have, like, David Crosby saying war is bad and all that sort of thing. And I think all war is bad, but sometimes you can't get around it. I don't see a lot of. And I don't see that happening. I hear a lot of groups that have a lot to say, and they have wonderful things to say about society and culture and things. But it's not just about unifying us, let's get out of Afghanistan, things like that. I don't hear that anymore. It's not likely you're going to hear it. Not with downloading. Downloading has overtaken CD sales. I believe it's overtaken CD sales. So you're not going to hear that anymore.
Dana Aritonovich [00:41:05] Do you think it's more of a result of the way the industry has moved, or do you think maybe there's?
Mike Olszewski [00:41:09] I think the industry played a big role in it.
Dana Aritonovich [00:41:11] An audience for that, kind of, like, socially conscious. Do you think Marvin Gaye could have recorded What's Going On that album that had talked about ecology and talked about the war and racial. Do you think that kind of thing would be as popular today as it was in 1970?
Mike Olszewski [00:41:23] I think the art would be there, but we wouldn't get the same message. Because you have to have. You know, keep in mind that even though technology moves media, media still has to have a message. And I think most people are still, you know, programming their own music. Now, and that's what they like right away. That's why iPods and CDs have overtaken morning radio in Cleveland. You know, I don't know, I think, I hate to say it. I don't think it would. Only because of just the marketplace, it's easier for us to just program our own music and program hits and things like that. I will say this, though. I think what's going on and things like that would have still been huge hits, but I don't know if people would have got the message. Because keep in mind, too, that when that came out, there was. You had the airplay, but you also had like the underground press and things like that. And you had community saying, let's embrace. And, you know, look at this message where you don't have that anymore.
Dana Aritonovich [00:42:19] Yeah, because like you said today, it's more individual. You don't have to listen to anything you don't like anymore.
Mike Olszewski [00:42:24] That's exactly it. It's individual tastes now. And. And plus, you know, the other thing was, too, when I was growing up, and this is not a reflection on today's society, when I was growing up, we used to do things like, you know, if you were a Cub Scout or a Boy Scout or, you know, belong to something, or a Catholic youth organization or something, part of that was serving the community, like paper drives and things like that. Even your school, you would band together to sell, you know, the Universe Bulletin or something like that, or paper drives where you'd fill up a huge cell semi and just go door to door to help the school or whatever. You're not going to get that now because people won't say, where's mine? Where's my part of it? So we were. Even though our parents, we had a great divide there, and there's still people at Thanksgiving to go out and help others and all that. But that's just one or two days a year. We used to do that all the time. And maybe just once in a while, but you still did it, like in the summer, you give up your time for a car wash or something. You know, I don't see the sense of community that we had in that helping another person keeps going down to the individual.
Dana Aritonovich [00:43:34] So just for one final question, What. I don't know how to word it. What just in general does music mean to you? Just as a fan, as somebody who's studied it, more academic.
Mike Olszewski [00:43:47] Sure.
Dana Aritonovich [00:43:47] What role has music played in your life?
Mike Olszewski [00:43:49] You know, it's funny you mention this because it's such a cliche, but music is the soundtrack. The music is the soundtrack of your life. Everybody says that and it's true. And you know, it's funny because I once got into, when I was in radio, I said, why is it that we are playing 250 songs? And the program director told me, well, because it's like McDonald's. Every time you go to McDonald's, you know what you're going to get. And that's what it is with our radio. Yes, but I'm not emotionally attached to a hamburger. You know, think about this. I mean, you know, I don't want. I don't eat that every day. I don't eat the same thing every 36 hours. And with a 250 song rotation, you get the same song every 36 hours. I don't get that. So music to me are snapshots of my life. I mean, I can listen to certain songs and I can listen to, oh, I don't know, Baba O'Reilly and think, wow, June 1971 or August '71. I remember where I was when I did that, or Carole King's Tapestry or something. And you're thinking back to that era. And when you listen to those songs, it can take you back, it can take you away from any problems you have. I really use music to help me just deal with things. Not necessarily as a crutch, but certainly as an outlet to just appease any kind of problems I have or help calm down any emotions I have, or just to uplift, be more uplifting. In so many ways, music has been a key part of my life. And I still like holding an album and I still like holding a cd, and I still like reading about the people and wondering what inspired these people. I think a lot of people still feel that way, and I think it's generational because it's important and it's going to be the future. I can't listen to a radio station on the computer. If it's there, that's fine. But I still like turning on a radio and I still like holding a newspaper and I still like holding a book. And there's this emotional bond between that and it's generational, but that's not so bad, you know, I mean, years from now, when today's teenagers and, you know, 20 somethings are in their 40s and 50s, there's going to be something new. And it's like, it's like Pete Townsend said, with new music, you either accept it or get out of the way. And that's what it is here. So there you have it.
Dana Aritonovich [00:46:14] And I lied. I have one more question.
Mike Olszewski [00:46:16] Sure.
Dana Aritonovich [00:46:17] What would you hope for young people to get out of this music that you grew up with? What kind of message do you think for their lives? Just as music fans and just as people who maybe want to be involved in their community.
Mike Olszewski [00:46:28] You know, it's interesting you bring it up because we were having a discussion about this the other day and they used to say, rock and roll will never die. Well, rock and roll is pretty much dead. You know, I hate to say it, it's all pop now. And if you don't have a 15 year old singing a Disney song, chances are it's not going to get played, you know, on a new music station. And maybe that's an exaggeration, but the great thing now is a lot of these artists, people like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and even Jagger and Richards and certainly, you know, Leonard McCartney and people like that, people are taking a look back on that music and certainly like Lieber and Stoller and the people who did a lot of the Motown stuff and they're saying, wait a minute, this is really music that has stood the test of time. Because there was a lot of stuff people don't remember. There was a lot of stuff that came out that, you know, they were just like instant flash, you know, it was gone, you know, like Jimmy Gilmore and the Fireballs and stuff like that. It was a great song for the time, you know, or like, was it tub thumping? That's not going to be a classic in years to come. But at the same point, it was fun when it was there. But a lot of the serious stuff that people, you know, and now people are starting to read and write books about these people and, you know, people are looking into it and a lot of the stuff is coming out that they recorded and people are starting to study this music and saying that look at the things that inspired them. And it's really a snapshot of once again the cultural and social changes that were happening. It's a reflection of what was happening. And look at the inspiration from these people. And people like, you can look into the personalities of people like Pete Townsend, who was doing Lifehouse and who had nervous breakdowns because he couldn't put all of this into the proper context yet. He went on to talk about his early life as the Mods and the rockers and all that stuff with Quadrophenia and his religious beliefs and Tommy and things like this. And you get a really good snapshot of the people. The other great thing is, and a Lot of young people are starting to look at a lot of this stuff because they grew up with this music around their parents and stuff. But a lot of these artists that were so huge at one time are very accessible now. And people can actually go up and say, hey, I liked your stuff. And when you have an artist coming out saying, well, I mean, even Paul McCartney's done book signings. But, I mean, people come up and they'll say, I bought this record when I was this age or whatever, and you've really inspired me. And that really. I think it's reaching out to people probably at the end of their career saying, I actually made a difference and I actually touched somebody. And whole generations were touched. And I think in the future, that generation's the baby boomer generation. That music will touch people only because there was so much of it and it was so accessible and it was so varied. Or today it's not like that. But at the same point, I'm hoping that there's some young guy that or maybe a bunch of young people who will take it in a whole direction that maybe I won't understand but will still inspire people. It's like Jeff Beck at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They came up to him and he said, what advice do you have for young guitarists? And he said, good luck. He said, show me something that hasn't been done. And he says, but you know what? That doesn't mean that somebody can't come up with some new instrument or play an old instrument in a new way. And that's what I'm thinking, too. If somebody. If all it takes is the right inspiration, the right marketing, don't get me wrong on that, but just the right stuff that, you know, the harmonic convergence to come together to inspire people, you know, and do something like that again. It could be anything. It could be world music. It could be reggae. It could be anything. But as long as people are inspired and maybe inspired in the right way to maybe, you know, pull together and look out for each other and say, hey, you know, maybe this peace thing isn't such a bad idea, you know, that it could happen, who knows? I can only hope. I can only hope.
Dana Aritonovich [00:50:08] Great. Well, we're finished.
Mike Olszewski [00:50:10] I hope I gave you enough.
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