Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2008 > October > 10
Friday, October 10, 2008
10/10: Interviews with Georgia Radio Hall of Fame winners Scott Slade & Herb Emory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Scott Slade (left) and Capt. Herb Emory (right) are not the Regular Guys or the Bert Show. They aren’t flashy. They’re newsmen, traditional that way. And they have been doing news and traffic for WSB-AM in the mornings since 1991 with at least a half-million listeners any typical morning.
So they both were inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame this past Saturday. I missed the ceremony but spoke to both of them earlier this week.
“It’s a huge honor,” Slade said. He said he grew up listening to a lot of the existing inductees. “To be able to se them and be admitted into their company, that’s amazing. I remember Gary McKee’s first day on Quixie. I was in Griffin. We all talked about him. We thought he had potential. He became a legend.”
“I wondered if there needed to be a recount,” cracked Emory. “There are a lot of names who should have been put in before me. God pointed me to some good teachers.” Emory has worked with a host of legends, both past and present.
Slade’s been with WSB since 1984. He started doing traffic, competing against Capt. Herb. “We fought like cats and dogs,” Emory said. But when he arrived at WSB-AM, “Scott stuck his hand out. You can tell by looking at him, he’s sincere. We both gave each other compliments. Scott was a great traffic reporter.”
Slade started doing news in January 1991 the day after the Kuwait/Iraq war started. He remembers it had snowed in Atlanta the night before, too.
He said he also thinks he did WSB-AM’s final music shft before the station went all news/talk. “I remember playing a lot of Carpenters and Neil Diamond.”
In the 1990s, apparently, he said he’d do an occasional fill in shift on B98.5 under an assumed name. He hasn’t done it in awhile but would love to try that out on the River. (95.5/The Beat? Not so much.)
Slade said he’s always playing air traffic controller in the mornings with so much news, traffic and weather to squeeze in, especially with the recent spate of bad news.
“A lot of mornings, we’re kind of worn out,” he said. “We’re not only fighting the clock, we don’t want to let the listeners down. We want them to know what’s important. Our news director Chris Camp never wears that hat casually.”
Emory said he enjoys doing the helicopter rides. “I got the best office in town,” he said. “I get to see beautiful sunrises,” he said. “I get to witness big moments in Atlanta. I even got to see the launching of the Space Shuttle.” Worst moment: the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Although the copter could be a grind sometimes, “it sure beats looking at the same four walls of a cubicle every day.”
-Someone called wondering why Chris Williams was doing mornings this week instead of Giant Brian & Shaffee. Morning shows typically aren’t allowed to take planned vacations during the crucial spring and fall time periods (which radio stations consider more important to advertisers than summer and winter). But their boss Clay Hunnicutt told me this was preplanned despite rumors otherwise. So they should be back Monday. And their pages are still up on Project 9-6-1 (although Giant Brian hasn’t updated his radio station blog in three months.)
-Best new show of the years is ABC’s “Life on Mars.” It’s an Americanized version of a BBC hit in which a cop in 2008 finds himself in 1973. He’s not sure if this is a hallucination after he gets into a car accident or some weird alternative reality. (Kind of like James Gandolfini in “The Sopranos” that one time.) It’s beautifully shot, feels like a gritty “Kojak” episode and paces wonderfully. The lead actor Jason O’Mara (right) brings a wonderful mixture of self awareness, smarts and humor to a role that could easily become silly and stupid. Harvey Keitel is a gas as his 1973 boss and the music of the era sure beats the mustaches! Check it out if you haven’t already because it sure beats any new show NBC is peddling. (Avoid “Knight Rider” and “Kim and Kath.” Please.)
-Weekly Marcus Lehman checkup. Yes, the studmuffin doctor who attended Emory Med School had a very good week on “Survivor: Gabon.” He not only was ranked No. 1 among his peers (which made him worried he might become a target) but he was key in helping his newly reconfigured team win a game which involved a volleyball, water, oars and rafts. His fitness and coordination worked in his favor.
-Sean Hannity has signed a deal with Fox News to guarantee he’ll be around at least through 2012. Given his ratings, that’s not a surprise at all. He spent four years in Atlanta at WGST-AM in the early 1990s and is now heard in syndicated form on WSB-AM from 4 to 7 p.m.
