Chuck Cecil (broadcaster)
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Chuck Cecil (December 26, 1922 – April 30, 2019)[1] was a veteran Los Angeles radio broadcaster and longtime host of the syndicated program "The Swingin' Years", a "Best of" radio show for the "big band" era in music, which lasted from 1935 to 1955.
Early years
Cecil was born and raised on an
That same year, Cecil landed his first radio job at KVEC in San Luis Obispo, California. By December, he had been called to active duty by the Navy. Cecil was accepted for the Navy's V-5 pilot training program, flying for Grumman. When the war ended, Chuck was serving in a replacement squad waiting for his first combat assignment which never came.
After the war, Chuck went back to radio. where he found a job at KFLW in Klamath Falls, Oregon. While working as an announcer for "Baldy's Band", a popular orchestra in Southern Oregon, Cecil met his future bride, Edna Brown. She had been working as the band's vocalist. The couple wed in 1947 and have four children and 15 grandchildren.[2]
Cecil was hired by Los Angeles radio station KFI in 1952, where he remained for the next 21 years until 1973, when KFI made a format change, causing Cecil to leave the station. Cecil later spent most of the 1970s and 80s working at radio stations KGIL-AM and KPRZ, both in Los Angeles.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Chuck Cecil broadcast a show called "Big Band Countdown" on the American Forces Network (AFRTS).[3]
The Swingin' Years
While working at KFI, Cecil pitched the idea of a Big Band oriented radio show to the station's management; they agreed. So in June 1956, "The Swingin' Years" went on the air for the first time.
The concept was simple: "The Swingin' Years" perpetuates the memory of
"The Swingin' Years" began as a local Los Angeles show in 1956, but by 1973, Cecil began syndicating the program through
Cecil produced "The Swingin' Years" from his home in Ventura, California, where he moved from the San Fernando Valley in 2002, utilizing "a massive library of more than 30,000 78-, 45- and 33-rpm records, and his own personal library of interviews with 356 band leaders, singers and sidemen..."[4] In June 2013, the show celebrated its 57th anniversary of existence.
"The Swingin' Years" was heard on Sunday nights, from 8 pm to midnight, Eastern Time, on WPPB,[5] broadcasting from the Hamptons on Long Island, New York. Although Chuck's program was once heard on "some 30 stations across the United States..." and "on the Armed Forces Radio Network,"[6] WPPB was "...the only public radio station carrying his show."[7] The program was formerly heard on Saturday and Sunday mornings, from 6am to 10am, Pacific Time, on KKJZ, located in Long Beach, California.[4]
According to the late KKJZ deejay Bubba Jackson, "This music is the voice of America and he has documented it. Thanks to Chuck Cecil, that music will never disappear. He is one of the great historians of American culture."[4]
Chuck Cecil's last program on KKJZ was broadcast on February 9, 2014. Cecil broke off his long relationship with the station, citing "repeated technical difficulties producing the show."
Cecil's last show on WPPB was broadcast on July 3, 2016, when it was announced that this would be his final program.
References
- ^ "NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS AWARD PRESENTATION TO CHUCK CECIL OF RADIOS THE SWINGIN YEARS". pieceofcakepr. Retrieved 28 November 2013.
- ^ Chuck Cecil at Dancing L.A., accessed 2014-03-05
- ^ AFRTS Archive: Chuck Cecil - Big Band Countdown - 1982, accessed 2016-11-24
- ^ a b c For radio host, big bands' allure endures, by Charles Fleming in Los Angeles Times, 2013-12-19, accessed 2013-12-19
- ^ WPPB Radio Schedule, accessed 2013-10-06
- ^ Chuck Cecil at Los Angeles Radio People, Where Are They Now? – C, compiled by Don Barrett, accessed 2013-11-08
- ^ The Swingin' Years with Chuck Cecil, WPPB, 2014-03-12, accessed 2015-10-11
- ^ Chuck Cecil and 'Swingin' Years' to leave KJazz, by Charles Fleming in Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-27, accessed 2014-02-14
- ^ KKJZ 88.1 Program grid Archived April 15, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, accessed 2014-02-15
Sources
- Chuck Cecil at Dancing L.A., accessed 2014-03-05
- Chuck Cecil at Los Angeles Radio People, Where Are They Now? – C, compiled by Don Barrett, accessed 2013-11-08