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WILKES-BARRE — Harry West once said, “We just came in and played the music.”
West, the iconic morning drive radio host on WARM in the 1960s and ’70s, died Friday Sept. 27, at the age of 89.
“Harry was king of the cowboys,” said Joe Middleton, former local disc jockey and longtime music columnist. “Harry was at every dance party, record hop and charity event. He was always doing events and going everywhere. He was the legendary morning man at WARM — the Mighty 590.”
West was the main cog in a machine at WARM that in its heyday had 60% to 70% of the radio listening audience tuned in every day. The powerful 5,000-watt station reached beyond Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and Hazleton — its signal pierced the air all the way to New York City, Philadelphia and Binghamton.
WARMland, as it was called, erased the lines of demarcation between counties and towns — creating Northeastern Pennsylvania — a designation that U.S. Rep. Dan Flood would use to help secure federal funding for the area.
Every baby boomer and beyond remembers WARM — the jingles, the Sensational Seven, record hops, WARM days at Rocky Glen and Sans Souci parks.
“They owned the market for teenagers,” said Joe Nardone, owner of Gallery of Sound music stores and leader of the Joe Nardone and the All Stars band. “There was no other station to go to — they were playing rock ‘n’ roll when nobody else was until long after.”
Nardone said he appeared on “The Harry West Show” many time to talk about the state of the music and band business. He said West and the other WARM DJs posted their “Top 40” on hand-out sheets that were distributed to record stores.
And, after WARM Harry was still very active in attending most
“Harry West was a great person first and wonderful DJ who was second to none,” Nardone said. “And Harry always made us laugh.”
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski said the name Harry West brings back many great memories of his early days inn the music business.
“WARM radio was the top radio station and they ruled the airways,” Pashinski said. “And Harry West was the No. 1 guy.”
Pashinski said West was one of the nicest guys he ever met and he helped a lot of local bands achieve notoriety and regional success.
“Harry will surely be missed by all of us who knew him,” he said.
Times Leader records show West came to WARM in September 1959, left for Pittsburgh in 1969 and came back to WARM in 1973. He left WARM in 1992.
Middleton said he met West in the mid-1960s and helped him with the dances at the West Pittston Armory.
“Harry always said WARM was the star attraction — others thought it was Harry West. Hew as a household name.”
During his first stint at WARM, West and “Little” Joey Shaver reached a pinnacle of as much as 80% of the listening audience.
As the late WARM sports director Ron Allen coined, “It’s only WARM for me.”
Legions of WARM fans still long for the good old days — the summer nights and the car rides and WARM on their transistor or car radio.
There are so many memories of WARM, like Terry McNulty’s daily visits to Goose Island and Pushy and Bosco and Naomi’s Cafe and the famous pineapple openings. Harry West and Emerson the maintenance man (actually Stan Neishel) would do their bits:
“I feel so bad today, Larry, I had to shoot my dog,” Emerson would say. West would ask, “You had to shoot your dog? Was he mad?”
“Well he wasn’t too happy about it,” Emerson would pan.
And then, Emerson: “Hey Barry, I got a new hearing aid today. It’s so good, I can hear a butterfly flap its wings a mile away.”
West: “Really? Well, what kind is it?”
Emerson: “It’s about a quarter to three.”
West told those stories and more in a Times Leader story in 2009 and he would laugh.
West’s listeners were fans of Elvis, the Beatles and points between. Fans would stop him and ask for his autograph. They knew his birthday.
West would say that his years at WARM were the best years of his life.
“We really had no format,” West said in the 2009 interview. “We did our own bits, wrote our copy and played the music.”
West had a sobering moment at WARM. It was Nov. 22, 1963. He was on the air when President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas.
“The bell on our wire machine rang around 1 p.m. and it never rang at that time,” he recalled. “I started to read the copy — ‘a shot rang out in Dallas.’ I remember thinking I hope this is right.”
In June 2009, WARM personalities Pete Gabriel, Jerry Heller, Harry West and Joe Middleton got together to reminisce. They shook hands, hugged and smiled as they recalled their years at the Mighty 590. All four were employees of Susquehanna Broadcasting when WARM ruled the airwaves in the 1960s.
“It was a time that will never be repeated,” Heller said at the time.
They told story after story, laughing and sometimes bordering on tears as they recalled events and co-workers who have since passed on.
“What a great time that was working with all those guys,” Gabriel said. “There was such camaraderie; we all got along.”