I grew up in Chicago, listening to WLS. Dick Biondi, Art Roberts, Clark Weber, and Ron Riley played records and bantered. Lyle Dean read the news. Paul Harvey turned it into the stuff of life.
America could set its watch by Paul Harvey.
His noontime broadcasts were a given, a constant. Year after year, decade after decade, Paul Harvey showed up right on schedule to share his distinctive take on the news and not-so-news of the day.
When I left Chicago in 1972, his was the only voice that followed me from one market to the next. I couldn't conceive of an American radioscape without Paul Harvey.
He also was a consummate pitchman. When he spoke about a product, you just knew he was telling the truth. To this day, I can still remember the words he used to launch the Teledyne Water Pik as a national brand: "Over, around, and in-between...Water-Pik'd teeth are hydraulically clean!" I admired his ability to communicate product benefits so naturally and authoritatively many years before I backed into my own career in advertising.
Paul Harvey set an impossible standard for elocution on radio, and achieved it daily. His demeanor was ever that of a gentleman, gracious, considerate, and kind. He remained a rock, unmoved by the vicissitudes of a shifting social and cultural landscape.
As I came to learn, his values were grounded in his Christian faith. Decades before there was such a thing as the "Christian Right", it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that he actually took his Bible seriously. The scriptures informed and shaped his worldview.
He didn't wear his religion on his sleeve; he just lived it.
Which is why most days he spoke with a confident smile in his voice and, I suspect, a confident twinkle in his eye.
The milestones he cared about were the extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary people. Celebrity status and achievements were ephemeral and unimportant. Leave the gossip and scandal to others. Paul Harvey would rather call our attention to an elderly couple among his listeners, celebrating their 50th or 60th wedding anniversary that day. Such was the stuff real life was made of.
He celebrated the institution of marriage, even as the revolution of the 60's sought to undermine it. He placed his "Angel" on a pedestal, where she remained until the time of her death a couple years ago. Now they are together forever.
ABC will find someone else to occupy Paul Harvey's time slot.
No one will ever fill his shoes.
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5 years ago
Endorsement spots can be a dangerous thing -- sometimes the announcer is just doing it for the money, or because the GM told him he has to. Listeners can generally tell.
ReplyDeleteI greatly admired Paul as a commercial pitchman, because he always sounded genuinely enthusiastic about the product or service he was pitching. Back in the 90's, I remember him mentioning during his show that he'd been approached to endorse a new electric razor. He said he was going to try it for a few months, and if it did everything the manufacturer claimed, you'd hear him talking about it.
Just hearing him say that made every other spot he did sound that much more credible.
Can you imagine Paul Harvey pitching "erase your credit card debt" schemes, or "burn fat while you sleep?"
ReplyDeleteMe either.