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I'M A BIG GUY WITH A BIG VOICE
... AFTER AN UNCERTAIN START, AL SAHLEY
FOUND HIS CALLING
He was at his best as the Phony Philosopher (his
version of Kingfish from "Amos 'n' Andy"). He could be the Swami, Fat Drac or
Bill Cosby's Fat Albert ("Hey! Hey! Hey!"). His imitations of colleagues Ernie
Saunders and Joe Farris could fool even Ernie Saunders and Joe Farris. He was
the king of characters, a ham to the hilt, gleefully performing for unseen
fans. His stage was a broadcasting booth. For 40 years, at one station or
another, Big Al Sahley played the multifaceted roles of disc jockey,
sportscaster, emcee, play-by-play announcer, talk show host and impersonator
extraordinaire.
At 64, he has switched career dials from radio to
real-estate development. But don't tempt him with a microphone. Sometimes,
when he's feeling especially nostalgic, he lets the Kingfish record his voice
mail greeting. "I went through every facet of
radio and had a good time at it. And yes, I miss it. Radio is in your blood.
It's like a monkey on your back. But I can honestly say the ego trip is over.
It was an ego trip to begin with, and anyone who says it isn't is not telling
the truth. Everybody wants to be liked, to be No. 1. But that's gone. Once in
a while, I'll put the Kingfish on my message recorder, but basically say 'Let
someone else have it'."
My forte was always entertaining.
As a teen-ager, I remember getting into March of Dimes shows. I was always
imitating and acting, but I didn't know it was my calling.
In 1941, my dad opened a beer establishment in Spring
Hill: Sahley's Grill. My dad, being in a beer establishment with a lot of
Carbiders, wanted me to be a chemical engineer. So off I went to WVU to try to
be a chemical engineer. I flunked out. I went to
Morris Harvey for two or three years, and my grades were terrible. I had no
inkling of getting into radio, but one day, I was working in the beer place, and
a friend came in selling advertising for WCAW. On a whim, I said, 'Charlie, why
don't you get me a job on radio. I sound a lot better than that guy I'm
listening to now.'
I auditioned, but didn't make it.
Probably lack of experience. Hal Murphy was a popular disc jockey in town, and
he heard my audition and liked it. He had gone over to WTIP. His exact words
to Charlie were, 'Remember your fat friend? I thought he was good.' So they
sent me to WTIP. Bob Bowers gave me a commercial for Kraft cheese on apple pie
and told me to read it like I was eating it. He said I did pretty good. He
offered me $1 an hour for eight hours on Sunday. This was 1956, so this was big
money for me.
I remember running the World Series. Then I did Santa
Claus down at Village Hardware. The Shoney's drive-ins had these disc jockey
boxes on their lots. They put me down at Shoney's on the Boulevard. That was
the world to me. I felt like I'd finally made it.
Then this guy came back from the Army. You were supposed to give a GI his job
back if he wanted it. He wanted it. They moved me to part time, and I couldn't
stand that. So I took an offer at WWNR in Beckley for $65 a week.
I did the first talk radio show in
West Virginia in Beckley in 1957. We couldn't get it off the ground, because
all everyone wanted to talk about was race, religion and politics. You've got
to incite people to think, but stations were afraid to let their personalities
get into your mind and make you think. They didn't want us to answer. Someone
says, 'Hey, Al, you're fat.' And I say, 'Yes, thank you.'
I was working for WHMS when the
Civic Center opened in 1959. I did the first basketball game. It was between
Charleston High and Stonewall. Nemo Nearman was the salesperson. He told me we
were going to do 100 basketball games, that since I'd done sportscasting, I
would do the play-by-play. I told him I couldn't do that, but he'd already sold
it. I was so uptight at the Civic Center that I forgot to learn the lineups. I
said, 'The tipoff goes to No. 13, and No. 13 passes to No. 12 ' I thought, 'You
fool, you'd better learn and learn quick.' In five minutes, I learned 10 names
through the players' characteristics. One guy wore glasses. One guy had
pimples. One guy was real tall. Then what happened? Charleston ran away with
the game and they free-substituted. So here came all new players.
In 1961, I ended up in Miami, Fla.,
on WAME. I had a morning show and rubbed elbows with a lot of good people. You
know who got my job? Larry King. The station fired four of us, because they
wanted to go from Top-40 to big-band. I told them I knew big-band better, but
they wanted to clean house. I had an offer for an all-night show, but my father
tricked me and said he had angina and needed me home.
I worked at WCAW about eight months when Joe Farris
said he wanted to see me about working at WCHS. That was everybody's dream. I
did a show called 'Charleston at Night,' just before Hugh McPherson's 'Rehearsin'
With McPherson.' Doug Martin over at WCHS-TV said
he needed a Bozo the Clown. My aunt made me a Bozo costume and I got a wig and
put on whiteface, and they invited kids into the studio. I really enjoyed it. I got mad at WCHS over a parking spot and quit. I went to
WKLC. Ray Kandel, the owner, told me WKLC was barnyard radio, that I was better
than that. He said he would get me an audition at Cincinnati, and I could work
at KLC in the interim. So I went down there making $125 a week, and he got me
the audition, but I wouldn't go.
For years, I went back and forth between WKAZ
and WCHS. God gave me the ability to imitate a voice, so I used to do a lot of
voices. The best was Ernie Saunders. And I thought the Kingfish was a good
character. I called him the Phony Philosopher. I was the Swami, too, and a
hellfire and brimstone preacher. You've got to laugh at yourself, have some joy
in your life. I can tell you that guys on radio
with real big voices are real small, and guys with small voices are real big.
I'm different. I'm a big guy with a big voice. I've accepted that I'm a fat
man. Socially, you don't feel accepted. But on radio, no one sees you, and you
can hide behind it. I've used it, though, like with Bill Cosby's Fat Albert. I
poked fun at myself.
You don't find many personalities
on radio today. Now they have satellites and get music piped in from Colorado.
Everything's computerized. Why pay me when they can get some kid in there to
push buttons?
In '92, when the Raese group took over WCHS, they fired
me, Danny Jones, Frank George and John Dickensheets. After a couple of years at
WBES, I left radio. I've dabbled in real estate
for the last 15 years. My older brother is developing family properties in
Scott Depot, so when I got out of radio, I went down there with him. I wish I'd gone out west. I'm the type of person who
needs a manager. I've got confidence. I know I can do it, but I don't have the
push to go after it, and that was my downfall. I would like to have done what
Jay Leno is doing. That was my dream in life, but my dad wanted his family to
stay together. Now I'm sorry I stayed home. I tell everybody: Hey, let your
kids do what they want to do. If they want to go, let them go. Don't hold them
back."
THE CHARLESTON
GAZETTE 11/22/1999
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