American radio performer (born 1935)
Bruce Morrow
|
---|
Morrow during 2003
|
Born
| Bruce Meyerowitz
(
1935-10-13
)
October 13, 1935
(age 88)
[1]
[2]
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| Disc jockey,
radio announcer
, actor
|
---|
Years active
| 1959?present
|
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Spouse
| Jodie Berlin (m. 1974)
|
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Bruce Morrow
(born
Bruce Meyerowitz
; October 13, 1935)
[1]
[3]
[2]
is an
American
radio performer
, publicly known as
Cousin Brucie
or
Cousin Bruce Morrow
. In an October 2020 interview, Morrow said he received the moniker "Cousin" while in the lobby of his midtown Manhattan WABC studio when an elderly woman once asked him "Cousin, lend me fifty cents to get home" to whom he did give that fifty cents. The name stuck for six decades.
[4]
Early life
[
edit
]
Morrow was born in
Brooklyn, New York
,
[2]
the son of Mina & Abe Meyerowitz.
[5]
Raised in the
Sheepshead Bay
neighborhood, he attended elementary school at P.S. 206.
[2]
While attending
James Madison High School
, he was involved with the All City Radio Workshop at
Brooklyn Technical High School
.
[2]
Wanting to pursue a radio career, he spent 10 hours a week working for dramatic educational productions at radio station WNYE-FM. He is
Jewish
.
[6]
Morrow enrolled as a student at
Brooklyn College
but transferred to
New York University
[6]
to study in the Communications Arts Program.
Career
[
edit
]
Radio work
[
edit
]
Morrow's first stint in radio was in
Bermuda
at
ZBM-AM
, where he was known as "The Hammer".
[7]
He began his career in the US at
New York City
Top 40
station
WINS (AM)
in 1959.
[8]
In 1960, he relocated to
Miami, Florida
, for a stint at
WINZ (AM)
before returning to New York the next year for the major station
WABC
(AM 770), another Top 40 station. Morrow worked for WABC for 13 years and 4,014 broadcasts until August 1974, when he transferred to rival radio station
WNBC
replacing
Wolfman Jack
who quit to tour with
The Guess Who
. After three years there, he quit performance to team with entrepreneur
Robert F.X. Sillerman
to become the owner of the Sillerman Morrow group of radio stations, which included
WALL
and WKGL, now
WRRV
, both in Middletown, New York; WJJB, later
WCZX
, in Poughkeepsie, New York; WHMP in Northampton, Massachusetts; WOCB in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts; WRAN (now dark) New Jersey 1510 in Randolph, New Jersey and television station WATL Atlanta. The group later purchased
WPLR
in New Haven, Connecticut.
During 1982, Morrow resumed working as a radio announcer for New York's
WCBS-FM
, an
oldies
station. Initially, he filled in for
Jack Spector
every third Saturday evening for the
Saturday Night Sock Hop
program. After Spector's resignation in 1985, Morrow became the main performer for the program and renamed it the
Saturday Night Dance Party
. The station also added his nationally syndicated show
Cruisin' America
. In 1986, he began working the Wednesday evening shift, when he hosted
The Top 15 Yesterday and Today Countdown
. In 1991, the Wednesday show became
The Yearbook
, emphasizing music from the years between 1955 and 1979.
When the radio program
Cruisin' America
ended in December 1992, Morrow continued hosting a WCBS radio program named
Cruising with the Cuz
Monday evenings until the end of 1993. After that program ended, he hosted the Saturday night and Wednesday night programs there until the station's change to an
adult hits
format named
Jack FM
on June 3, 2005. Soon thereafter, he signed a multi-year deal to host oldies programming and a weekly talk program for
Sirius Satellite Radio
and for 15 years from 2005 to 2020, hosted programs for
Sirius XM
satellite radio
on the
'60s on 6
channel.
Cousin Brucie's Saturday Night Party ? Live
was broadcast Saturday nights, while
Cruisin' with Cousin Brucie
was broadcast on Wednesday nights. On Sunday nights,
Best of Brucie
, a compilation culled from his SiriusXM broadcasts, aired. His crew included at various points former senior producers Colton Murray and Adam Saltzman and producer Lauren Hornek. On his Wednesday, July 29, 2020, program, he announced he was leaving SiriusXM following that Saturday's broadcast, characterizing it as not a retirement.
[9]
Days later, it was announced that Cousin Brucie would be returning to WABC in New York City, where he was previously a DJ from 1961 to 1974. The station was reviving its previous 'Music Radio 77 WABC" format for Saturday evenings with the otherwise all-talk station airing
Cousin Brucie’s Saturday Night Rock & Roll Party
weekly from 6pm to 10pm, beginning September 5, 2020. The program was described as featuring music from the 1950s and 1960s and "a good touch" of the 1970s.
[10]
Film and television
[
edit
]
Morrow's voice can be heard in the movies
Across the Universe
,
Gas Pump Girls
, and
Dirty Dancing
; he also had a minor part in the latter, playing a magician who saws Baby (
Jennifer Grey
) in half, and served as period music consultant. He can be seen making on stage introductory remarks for the 1966 documentary
The Beatles at Shea Stadium
. He also appeared in the 1978 movie
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
and had a guest appearance in the 1990s science fiction television series
Babylon 5
[in "
War Without End
" (Part 2), playing the first officer of Babylon 4]. In
Across the Universe,
the radio station call letters he used were WEAF which were the call letters of 660 in New York before it became WNBC.
[11]
He also played a television contest announcer in
Between Time and Timbuktu
, a 1972
National Educational Television
production adapted from several short stories by
Kurt Vonnegut
.
Charity work
[
edit
]
Morrow has worked for the Variety Children's Charity (for which he served as president for ten years) to help fund children who are disadvantaged, physically challenged, sick or needy and he volunteers with Gatewave Audio Reading Service for people who are blind or visually impaired.
[
citation needed
]
and
WhyHunger
(which in 1975, was founded by Morrow's close friend, the late singer-songwriter,
Harry Chapin
).
[12]
Personal life
[
edit
]
In December 1974, the divorced Morrow married Jodie Berlin, at the time the corporate manager of executive development and internal placements for the department-store chain
Alexander's
.
[5]
Morrow has three adult children and two grandchildren.
[13]
[12]
Honors
[
edit
]
Morrow was inducted into the
National Radio Hall of Fame
in 1988,
[1]
and the
National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame
in the radio division in 2001.
[14]
In 2010, he received the Bravery In Radio Award from
William Paterson University
and its radio station
WPSC
88.7 FM, for a track record of "inspirational radio programming and lifelong commitment to the medium of radio".
[15]
Born in Brooklyn, part of geographical Long Island, he was inducted into the
Long Island Music Hall of Fame
in 2018.
[16]
In 1994, the city designated West 52nd Street (where the
headquarters
of former WCBS-FM parent
CBS
are located) as Cousin Brucie Way.
[17]
Books
[
edit
]
- Cousin Brucie: My Life in Rock 'N' Roll Radio
(1987).
- Doo Wop: The Music, the Times, the Era
(published November 1, 2007).
- Rock & Roll:...And the Beat Goes On
(published October 1, 2009)
ISBN
0-9823064-3-1
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Profile
, radiohalloffame.com. Accessed January 22, 2024.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Barmash, Jerry (November 5, 2012).
"Cousin Brucie Recalls His Brooklyn Roots"
.
Adweek
.
Archived
from the original on December 18, 2018
. Retrieved
July 30,
2020
.
(subscription required)
- ^
"Cue Up the Shirelles: Cousin Brucie Is Back at WABC-AM Radio"
(age given as 84 on August 11, 2020), nytimes.com. Accessed January 22, 2024.
- ^
Golomb, Robert (October 15, 2020).
"How Radio Broadcaster Bruce Morrow Became The Legendary Cousin Brucie"
.
The Published Reporter
. Retrieved
October 22,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
"Richard Kaufman Marries Jean Aberlin > Jodie Berlin Is a Bride"
.
The New York Times
. December 27, 1974. p. 39
. Retrieved
July 30,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
"Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame 2019 > Bruce 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow"
. Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative.
Archived
from the original on July 2, 2020
. Retrieved
July 30,
2020
.
- ^
Morrow, Bruce (1987).
Cousin Brucie: My Life in Rock 'N' Roll Radio
. New York City: Beech Tree Books. pp. 48?53.
ISBN
0-688-06615-1
.
- ^
"How Radio Broadcaster Bruce Morrow Became the Legendary "Cousin Brucie"
"
. October 15, 2020.
- ^
Angermiller, Michele Amabile (July 30, 2020).
"
'Cousin Brucie' to Exit Sirius XM's '60s on 6 Channel After 15 Years on the Air"
.
Variety
. Retrieved
July 30,
2020
.
- ^
Jacobs, Julia (August 11, 2020).
"Cue Up the Shirelles: Cousin Brucie Is Back at WABC-AM Radio"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
August 11,
2020
.
- ^
Fandango Filmography for Bruce Morrow
Archived
March 3, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
. Fandango.com (1935-10-13). Retrieved on 2016-05-15.
- ^
a
b
ROBERT GOLOMB
"How Radio Broadcaster Bruce Morrow Became The Legendary Cousin Brucie"
. October 21, 2020
. Retrieved
February 7,
2022
.
- ^
Hazlewood, Lynn (n.d.).
"At Home with Bruce and Jodie Morrow"
.
Hudson Valley
. Today Media.
Archived
from the original on July 30, 2020
. Retrieved
July 20,
2020
.
- ^
"NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame Radio Inductees"
.
National Association of Broadcasters
. Archived from
the original
on 2008-11-09
. Retrieved
2008-05-03
.
- ^
"The Bravery in Radio Award: Bruce Morrow, 2010 Recipient"
.
William Paterson University
. n.d
. Retrieved
January 18,
2020
.
- ^
"
'Cousin' Brucie Morrow, Deejay: 2018"
.
Long Island Music Hall of Fame
. Retrieved
July 30,
2020
.
- ^
"Bruce 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow Departs SiriusXM Radio Show '60s on 6"
.
Yahoo!
. July 30, 2020
. Retrieved
January 29,
2022
.
External links
[
edit
]
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Personalities
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Current shows
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Past shows
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Former personalities
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