A cold call to Julian Breen resulted in a reel from WABC containing Series 34C and Series 37 jingles. PAMS was kind enough to send me the demos for Series 28, 34AB, and 36, and I was on my way!

During my senior year of high school, I met a substitute teacher named Howard Trombly. He casually mentioned one day that Dan Ingram was his nephew, and that was enough to get me up on the 8th floor at 1330, to watch Dan doing his show in 8A. It would be the first of many visits, and Dan and I still trade Christmas cards each year.

I put together my first jingle sampler in 1970 at my college radio station,WCPR, at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken. By then, I had made the acquaintance of Jon Wolfert, a friendship that lasts to this day. That first jingle compendium was called, well, "Sampler 1," followed rapidly by "Squish".

The next year, I proceeded to flunk out of  Stevens ("Classes? Who has classes when there's a college radio station to live at?!"), and transferred to Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, IL.

That was the birthplace of Potpourri 1, in early 1972. I decided to try an experiment using SIUE's radio station automation system to build a sampler.

I selected the cuts, and dubbed every other one (odd/even) onto two 10.5 minute carts, then added secondary cue tones to each to trigger the segues. I added in a few individual jingles on separate carts as afterthoughts, and adjusted the thumbwheels appropriately.

Playback was from two main ATC cart decks, with the add-ins running on a Gates carousel. I sat in the main control room down the hall, manually tweaking a few segues (turning the automation on or off, with manual advances). The result, Potpourri 1, went out to, I believe, nine people.

Shortly afterward, in May, 1972, I made my first pilgrimage to PAMS in Dallas. With the help of Mr. Wolfert, and despite one rambunctious
cockroach, I returned with 14 7" reels and one 5" reel, all filled with both WABC and KXOK/WIL/KIRL jingles.

Potpourri 2 was again automation system-based, and would probably have been done in June, 1972. It too was sent out to less than a dozen collectors. The original opening included a Series 17 generic cut, "Curtain's going up on..." with Jim Clancy saying "Ron Harris, visiting PAMS."

By August, the every-other-cut cart novelty was wearing off, and I splurged on two reel-to-reel decks, a Teac A-1230 and an Akai GX-220D.
Future samplers (Potpourri 3, 3 1/2, and 4) were made on those decks.

In 1973, I graduated SIUE and went to KGMO, Cape Girardeau, MO, doing evenings and shortly thereafter, afternoon drive. I also became
Production Director for KGMO.

In April, 1975, I left Cape Girardeau and went to work at TM Productions in Dallas, making me the third collector to work for one at the majors. I produced demos, wrote commercial copy, mixed jingle packages, etc., for three and a half years.

In October, 1978, I moved to Los Angeles, doing freelance engineering and production (radio specials, national radio spots for Warner Bros. Records, music demos, etc.) and in 1981 went to work for the Westwood One Radio Networks.

I'm still with Westwood One today, producing shows, specials, spots, and dealing with studio maintenance. And yes, I still love jingles!!