Barry Farber on New Network: Classic Talk Radio Returns

NEWSMAX ^ | 4/21/02 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Talk radio wasn't always punctuated by sex-laden double entendres and confrontational screamfests.

In New York City, where the medium was born, a different style once prevailed - at least during the wee hours of the morning, when legendary radio talker Barry Farber and his roundtable held forth on the issues of the day on WOR.

Now listeners across the country can hear the voice that entranced Big Apple insomniacs for decades. Talk America radio network has decided to syndicate Farber nationally with eye towards returning him to his former all night perch.

"The years I was on the air late nights, we had a lot of competition," the radio talker told NewsMax.com. "There were other people doing serious issues. We talked about things like the Common Market and world communism and crime and capitalism."

In fact, Farber's topics were often so lofty he'd jest on the air, "This program is the only radio show that assigns homework."

"Today, I have to assume that there's still a market for that kind of talk and there's no competition," he noted. "One host is talking about flying saucers and the other's trying to see how naughty he can be and get away with it."

Can Farber still compete in a world of sexaholic shock-jocks pushing hot button issues?

Those who know his style say yes. "He's the only guy I know who could turn the Hungarian revolution into a current event - and do it in a way that was actually entertaining," one listener told NewsMax.

Farber's knack for turning a highbrow history lesson into mesmerizing monologue emanates from his homespun-style.

"He's more Andy Griffith than Alistair Cooke," another listener recalled, a reference to Farber's contrified vignettes - allegories often drawn from his North Carolina boyhood where he grew up Southern and Jewish at World War II's outbreak.

Then there are the Southern drawled Faberisms: On his show, guest-debaters are transformed into "two scorpions fighting in a brandy glass," with Farber occasionally pledging to join one or the other "on the ramparts with a broken bourbon bottle in hand."

Also a regular feature of Farber's roundtable, at least in spirit, is "Cousin Gurney," a character the radio talker invokes whenever America's psuedo-sophisticates need deflating.

With his North Carolina twang and cornpone wisdom, it's sometimes easy to forget that Farber has one of the most eclectic backgrounds in the business.

He was an editor of a daily newspaper, a wrestler, a steel worker, a representative of American college students in Yugoslavia and Brazil, an interpreter for units of the Chinese Nationalist Navy (he speaks 14 languages), and a Phi Beta Kappa student - all before he left college.

Before talk radio beckoned, Farber was a hands-on anti-Communist, leading Hungarian revolutionaries to freedom after their revolution collapsed; then rushing to cover the Cuban revolution. He arrived in Havana before even Castro.

Farber launched his new Talk America show on some 60-plus stations earlier this month, in a 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET time slot. The network is currently constructing a new state-of-the-art broadcast studio for him in New Jersey.

But it's the prospect of returning to an all night time slot that has him most excited. "As we say down South, I feel like a billy goat in a hot pepper patch," the legendary talker told NewsMax.

[lawdude]

Back in the 70/80's I loved to listen to Barry. His humor and twang combined with his conservative logic would drive liberal/socialist jingoists STARK-RAVING-NUTZ. Anyone remember Herb Jeffcoe [sp?]? He was the Art Bell of the Aunt Sophie rocking chair set.

Ah... the momories!