Posted on 10/25/2015 2:10:46 PM PDT by Vision
Friends, it's Sunday night again and time to relax. Warm up the tubes for another 4 hours of classic radio Americana.
Info *tonight's show will be available at the "Info" link starting tomorrow.
Official OTR blog of "The Big Broadcast" thread:
Hey, it’s a sad moment
Feel better. Goodnight
‘Night, Vision.
Amen, Viking. May we all do so well...
From DCRTV.com
0/15 - DC radio legend Ed Walker (right) is retiring from his Sunday night nostalgic radio show, “The Big Broadcast,” at WAMU, 88.5. According to wamu.org, Walker is leaving the public radio station due to health issues. He has been diagnosed with cancer. “He made the decision with his family to give his full attention to his health,” says a station statement. His last show - a compilation of his favorite music and programs - will air Sunday, October 25, at 7 PM. Rob Bamberger, host of “Hot Jazz Saturday Night,” will take the mic as interim host of “The Big Broadcast.” At 83, Walker has been host of WAMU’s longest-running program since 1990. About 70,000 fans tune in every Sunday night to hear the tales of “Johnny Dollar,” the witticisms of “Our Miss Brooks,” the Wild West stories of “Gunsmoke,” and a variety of other shows. Walker’s relationship with WAMU spans more than half a century. The first blind student admitted to American University, Walker was one of the founders of then-student-operated WAMU-AM in 1951. It is there that Walker met Willard Scott. A creative partnership sparked, and the two were a duo on Washington radio for 20 years, the mid-1950s through mid-1970s, calling themselves “The Joy Boys,” which aired on the old WRC radio. Over the years, Walker and Scott also worked at WMAL and WOL.....
10/20 - WTOP’s Neal Augenstein looks at the lengthy DC radio career of Ed Walker (right), who is retiring from his 20-year gig as host of Sunday’s “The Big Broadcast” at WAMU after recently receiving a cancer diagnosis. And two more decades in which Walker was partnered with Willard Scott as “The Joy Boys” on the old WRC radio. At wtop.com.....
10/22 - DC radio legend Ed Walker announced last week that he was retiring from his WAMU Sunday night nostalgic radio show so that he could focus on his health battle. But the last episode of a Walker-hosted “The Big Broadcast,” which will air Sunday night, was recorded in Room 623 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Walker, 83 and battling cancer, had been there a week. He did the show in a hospital gown, connected to a bank of hospital monitors, according to washingtonpost.com.....
http://wtop.com/local/2015/10/radio-legend-ed-walker-dies-at-83-three-hours-after-final-broadcast/
Thank you for posting.
Thanks, Vision. We’re sad beyond belief.
Oh, my. He was a special person.
Ed Walker, host of the Sunday night WAMU-FM vintage radio drama show, "The Big Broadcast," exchange notes with Tobey Schreiner in 2009. (Marcus Yam/The Washington Post) >P> By Paul Farhi October 26 at 1:32 PM
Ed Walker, who amused and entertained a generation of Washington-area listeners as half of “The Joy Boys” radio team with Willard Scott and spent 65 years on the local airwaves as a deejay, news host and genial raconteur, died Oct. 26 at a retirement community in Rockville, just hours after his final broadcast. He was 83.
Mr. Walker had been undergoing treatment for cancer, said his daughter, Susan Scola.
A lifelong radio connoisseur, Mr. Walker became one of its most skillful practitioners over his long career. For the past quarter century, he hosted a popular weekly radio-nostalgia program, “The Big Broadcast,” on public radio station WAMU-FM (88.5). Each week, he invited listeners to “settle back, relax and enjoy,” as he discussed and introduced replays of such golden-age programs as “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” “Dragnet” and “Gunsmoke.”
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