As Harry Shriver goes to his grave, he leaves a twinkle in the eye of thousands who remember AM radio when it still brought us the song instead of the political snarl, and aimed for the laugh instead of the endless lambasting.

Shriver, who died over the weekend at 74, was the WFBR general manager who brought listeners Johnny Walker and The Flying Dutchman, Commander Jim Morton and Charley Eckman, Joe (Your Knight of the Spinning Round Table) Knight and Mike March, Ron Matz and Tom Marr and the Conference Call gabbers, and the rejuvenation of a Baltimore Orioles baseball team that had been treated as an afterthought a few notches down the radio dial.

“Harry was a great guy,” Marr said Monday, during a lull in his morning stint at WCBM radio. “He knew the craft, and he dealt with all kinds of personalities, and he believed in keeping listeners informed about local issues. He kept AM radio around Baltimore bubbling when it was on the verge of a breakdown.”

In the 40 years or so that he ran stations in Baltimore and Ocean City, Shriver was the man who understood a few facts of life that still don’t seem clear to some broadcast executives: Radio is brought to you in living imagination. The size of its audience will reflect the liveliness of its creators, a lesson even more vital as modern AM and FM radio deal with the incursion of satellite programming.

This story continues below
Advertisement

Shriver understood that whatever a station management’s political beliefs, it shouldn’t alienate half of its audience with a nonstop rant from only one side of the argument. It’s not called broadcasting because it aims to narrow its range of potential listeners.

Shriver was a political conservative and surrounded himself with like-minded broadcasters such as Marr, Lou Corbin, Ted Beinert and Les Kinsolving. Some were with him at WFBR, some moved with him to WCBM and some were picked up along the way.

But he also brought in the voices who created Mad Radio at WFBR. Whatever their political leanings, they were the wildest crew of comic anarchists on the airwaves — particularly the AM airwaves. This was 25 years ago, when AM was first giving ground to FM, with its cleaner stereo sound, and later when the AM stations were turning from music to full-time chat.

Shriver was the guy providing the last round of laughs to the AM dial, especially with Johnny Walker, the court jester who turned daily life around Baltimore into comic standup. Shriver had the brains to turn Walker loose, no matter what.

When the Orioles needed pennant help, it was Walker flying halfway around the globe to ask a witch doctor for a helpful hex against their opponents. It was Walker with his X-rated Olympics, his candygrams to the beleaguered Nixon White House and the $129.63 he raised from listeners to help bail New York City out of its financial crisis.

It was Shriver, too, who sent out Commander Jim Morton every night for his Singles Radio program — unscripted matchmaking among the area’s romantically unattached. And it was Shriver who unleashed sportscaster Charley Eckman, who was the voice of every fan.

Shriver also pulled off the deal that brought the Orioles over to WFBR from WBAL, where the ballclub had a stronger signal but an older audience and a management that barely promoted the team.

Shriver’s WFBR promoted the heck out of the O’s. It did it nonstop, and it did it at the top of its lungs. The ballclub’s fan base grew younger and louder. The seven-year marriage of the Orioles and WFBR — 1979 to 1986 — included two pennants, a world championship and a couple of close calls. It also included, not coincidentally, the full emergence of Wild Bill Hagy up in Memorial Stadium’s Section 34, and a remarkable surge in Orioles’ home attendance.

“When WFBR had the Orioles,” Marr said, “we put fans in the seats who had never been there before.”

Not to mention, when the Orioles moved Chuck Thompson over to full-time TV duties, it was Shriver who brought in a fellow named Jon Miller to handle the radio broadcasts along with Marr.

A final note: It was Shriver who handled the public address system at Colts’ games for many years. You can still hear his echo: “Will the driver of this vehicle please return to your car — your motor is running.”

For a lot of years, Harry Shriver was the motor that kept AM radio running.

Please send news tips to Michael Olesker at olesker@baltimoreexaminer.com