Honest Dick Smith Dies

[Doug Drown]

>>Providence had Salty Brine, Portland had Bud Sawyer, Worcester had Dick 
>>Smith.

Bud Sawyer worked in Worcester, too, at WAAB.  I had a conversation with him 
about it several years ago.

Mark, I had forgotten about the Beatles' gold record that Dick Smith had, 
though I knew WORC had some sort of famous connection with the Beatles. 
Thanks for the memories!

-Doug




----- Original Message ----- 
From: <marklaurence@mac.com>
To: "Larry Weil" <kc1ih@mac.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: Honest Dick Smith Dies


> Well, I've certainly heard of Dick "the Derby" Smith.  Although I never 
> worked with him, I grew up listening to him. He's one of those local 
> heroes that every city seemed to have until the Telecommunications Act 
> made such a bland national business out of medium market radio. Providence 
> had Salty Brine, Portland had Bud Sawyer, Worcester had Dick Smith. He did 
> mornings for years and was Program Director at WORC.
>
> WORC was a trailblazer in its day. They were the first station to program 
> their Top 40 format with all-requests from listeners. Sounds bizarre in 
> these days of auditorium testing, but in the mid-60's they discovered a 
> lot of hit records before anyone else.  Dick Smith had a gold record for 
> The Beatles' "She Loves You," naming him as "The First Believer."  I had a 
> WORC top 50 survey with Beatles records in every slot in the Top 10.
>
> Among the people who started at WORC were John (Johnny Gardner) Garabedian 
> and Mark (Scotty Wainwright) Parenteau.  Dick Smith made a short jump to 
> Boston at WCOP, but quickly returned to Worcester, where he thrived with a 
> 5000 watt AM signal that didn't get past Framingham.
>
> Mark Laurence
>
>
> On May 20, 2011, at 6:34 PM, Larry Weil <kc1ih@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> At 4:19 PM -0400 5/20/11, Donna Halper wrote:
>>> I was just called by WBUR about the death of Honest Dick Smith, former 
>>> WORC (Worcester) music director and a very influential figure in top-40 
>>> radio.  Any of you ever work with him?
>>
>> Maybe the question should be if any of us have ever heard of him! :-)
>>
>> -- 
>> Larry Weil
>> Lake Wobegone, NH
>