Off the Air

[lagilman]

Scott Muni, a disc jockey whose deep, leisurely, fogbound voice was a regular companion to New York City rock fans for nearly 50 years, died on Tuesday in New York. He was 74 and had not returned to the air after suffering a stroke in January.

His death was confirmed by his son Mason Muñoz, who said he had recently had neurological, heart and lung problems.

Mr. Muni was a pioneer of FM radio in New York, breaking from the regimentation of Top 40 radio to introduce a free-form approach. "There was an extended period when my father let the D.J.'s play whatever they wanted to play," Mr. Muñoz said. Playing album tracks as well as singles, and speaking to the audience conversationally, Mr. Muni helped set the style for FM radio nationwide in the decades to come. But his calmly authoritative voice was always distinctive.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/arts/30muni.html?oref=login

Comments

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

My first experience with Scott Muni was in the mid 80's when I started college in Upper Montclair. He was a legend in rock and roll. His knowledge of the early days of rock was fantastic. I hope he left some memoirs. Bye Bye Scotso. :(

[lagilman]

Yeah. We used to listen to him while we worked in the darkroom, in high school. I joke, only not really joking, that my "adult life" began when WNEW changed format, as the station and I were the same age, and it was like having a lifelong friend die....

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

I was still living in Jersey when WNEW brought Opie and Anthony on board. Then I moved to Virginia. Some months later I made a trip back up to North Jersey, I was driving up and looking forward to listening to WNEW again. Tuned the radio and was like, WTF! This isn't WNEW. I was very disappointed. Sometime ago I was back up that way and I tuned into WNEW out of curiosity and nostalgia I guess. I was very suprised that they had changed formats again. They switched over to a music format again, and was billing themselves as a women's radio station. They were playing good easy listening music, also I found this ironic as WNEW HAD been a women's radio station back in the 60's before they went to a an all rock format. One of the DJ's that was there in the 60's when it was a women's radio station was Sally Jesse Rafael. Yes, I am a fount of useless and little known facts. :)

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Ohh, that was a terrible time. I'm somewhat thankful it happened while I was living in Toronto (which at the time had NO good rock station--it's gotten better), so I didn't feel the pain as keenly. Somewhere I have cassettes I made from WNEW back in the late 80s, and I'm pretty sure Scottso's on some of them. Time to find them and dub them to CD, I think.