[Dixielandjazz] William B. Williams honored

[Robert Ringwald]

William B. Williams honored

In DJ Ranks, William B. Williams Was a Long-Playing Hit
by David Hinckley
New York Daily News, June 27, 2011
Twenty-five years after he died too young, William B. Williams will be inducted into
the New York State Broadcasters Hall of Fame on Monday night.
His fellow inductees in the annual ceremony at the Sagamore will include Regis Philbin,
WOR owner Richard Buckley and others. Speakers will include Brian Williams and Deborah
Norville.
To anyone who remembers radio's golden age of American popular standards, though,
"Willie B." is the star.
Best known for three decades as host of the midday "Make Believe Ballroom" on the
late WNEW-AM, Williams was to radio hosts what his friend Frank Sinatra was to popular
singers.
He's the standard, the single name that defines the elegance and class of professionals
who don't just play music on the radio, but who know that music and understand what
it means.
"There's a beauty to radio, in that the imagination comes into play," Williams said
a few years before he died. "People can close their eyes and take themselves back
to when they first heard Sinatra sing 'Night and Day' or the Miller band play 'Moonlight
Serenade.' There is great therapy involved in getting out of stressful situations
by listening to music associated with maybe nicer days."
Nicer days to Williams, who was born William Breitbart in Babylon and graduated from
Babylon High School, meant the days when rock 'n' roll didn't dominate the radio.
Like Sinatra, he considered rock 'n' roll juvenile and shallow -- no match in sound,
lyrics or style for "Stardust," "Night and Day" or "Angel Eyes."
He started his radio career at WAAT in Newark in 1944, then weeks later was hired
by WNEW-AM. Sure enough, this being radio, WNEW-AM fired him in 1947 -- for reasons
that either involved union activism or red socks. He bounced to several stations,
including WOR, before returning to WNEW-AM for good in 1953.
He took over "The Make-Believe Ballroom" in 1957 and hosted it to the end -- even
through the 1965-1978 era when WNEW-AM was mixing in soft rock and it became a challenge
to keep playing the likes of Sinatra.
Sinatra, who got his "Chairman of the Board" nickname from Williams, didn't miss
or forget that. You couldn't attend a Sinatra show in New York without hearing praise
for William B.
Nor was Sinatra his only fan. He was sometimes half-jokingly called "the psychoanalyst
for 500,000 Long Island housewives" because of his relaxed on-air style.
He often stood at the microphone when he worked, and it was said that someone who
listened closely could hear him jingling the change in his pockets.
William B. Williams, or "Guillermo B. Guillermos," or "Wolfgang B. Wolfgang," was
three days from his 63rd birthday when he died in 1986, a year after he was diagnosed
with colon cancer.
His death marked a symbolic sundown for his kind of radio. But with Willie B., as
with the Chairman of the Board, the melody lingers on.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
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