Dan Ingram
Daniel Trombley Ingram (September 7, 1934 – June 24, 2018)[3] was an American Top 40 radio disc jockey with a fifty-year career on radio stations such as WABC and WCBS-FM in New York City.
Dan Ingram | |
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Born | Daniel Trombley Ingram September 7, 1934 Oceanside, New York, U.S.[1] |
Died | June 24, 2018 83) Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. | (aged
Occupation |
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Years active | 1958–2003 |
Spouse(s) |
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Children | 5 sons, 4 daughters, 2 stepdaughters[2] |
Career
"Big Dan" started broadcasting at WHCH Hofstra College, Hempstead; WNRC, New Rochelle; and WALK-FM, Patchogue, all in New York State.
Ingram was one of the most highly regarded DJs from his era. He was noted for his quick wit and ability to convey a humorous or satiric idea with fast pacing and an economy of words, a skill that rendered him uniquely suited to, and successful within, modern personality-driven music radio. He was among the most frequently emulated radio personalities, cited as an influence or inspiration by numerous current broadcasters. One of Ingram's unique skills was his ability to "talk up" to the lyrics of a record, meaning speaking over the musical introduction and finishing exactly at the point when the lyrics started.
Ingram was well known for playing doctored versions of popular songs. The Paul McCartney & Wings song My Love Does it Good became My Glove Does it Good. The stuttering title refrain of Bennie and the Jets went from three or four repetitions to countless. In the same vein, the distinctive refrain added to Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede, Ooga-chucka-ooga-ooga would start repeating and listeners would never know when it would end. Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover became "50 Ways to Love Your Leaver" and "49 Ways to Relieve Your Liver", and Ingram "rearranged" the spelling of "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y" on the Bay City Rollers' Saturday Night.
His longtime closing theme song was "Tri-Fi Drums" by Billy May. An edited version of the song was used for broadcast.
TV commercials Ingram narrated include a 1970 promo for free cut-out records of Archies songs on the backs of Post Honeycomb and Alpha-Bits cereals.[4] Ingram also worked for cable channel HBO in the mid-1980s, mostly as the off-camera host of HBO Coming Attractions (a monthly show featuring previews of HBO's upcoming programming; occasionally he would co-host with another HBO voice, Joyce Gordon) and various voiceover roles, though he did occasionally appear on camera in early 1986 as part of the HBO Weekend interstitials of the time.
Ingram was also featured prominently in his son Chris's book, Hey Kemosabe! The Days (and Nights) of a Radio Idyll, a fictionalized account of the Musicradio WABC era.
On air history
- 1958 — WICC, Bridgeport, CT (under the name Rae Tayler)
- 1958 — WNHC, New Haven, CT
- 1959 — KBOX, Dallas, TX
- 1959 - 1960 — WIL, St. Louis, MO[5]
- July 3, 1961 - May 10, 1982 — WABC, New York City. He and Ron Lundy were on-air as the station switched to TalkRadio.
- April 1984 - December 1986 — Hosted CBS Radio's Top 40 Satellite Survey
- 1984 - June 1985 — WKTU (92.3 FM), New York City
- 1986 - 1987 — announcer for Nightlife, a late-night TV talk show hosted by David Brenner
- 1987 - 1988 — The Weekend Music Review, a weekly Adult Contemporary radio program that counted down the top 20 AC records today, and highlighted what was going on 20, 15, 10, and 1 yr ago that weekend. JAM Creative Productions, Dallas TX[6] produced and syndicated from 1987 to 1988. Julie Sizemore handled affiliate relations. Dan Ingram was host of "The Weekend Music Review" 3 hour AC show.
- October 1991 - June 2003,[7] September 16, 2007 — New York Radio Greats on WCBS-FM, New York City
- June 1998 — KRTH-FM, Los Angeles. One week as "guest DJ," ostensibly a tryout for the morning drive spot previously held by Robert W. Morgan, who had died a month earlier. The job went to Charlie Van Dyke.
- February 8, 2004 — Fab-40th Weekend on WAXQ, New York
Personal life
Upon his death, Ingram was survived by his wife, Maureen Donnelly.[8] He also had five sons (Christopher, Daniel, David, Robert and Phillip), four daughters (Patricia, Michelle, Christina, and Jacqueline), and two stepdaughters (Laura and Linda).[9] He also had 26 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.[9]
His brother was John W. Ingram, who was the final president of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad when the company went bankrupt on March 31, 1980.
References
- Shannon, Bob (1 September 2009). "Turn It Up! American Radio Tales 1946-1996". Austrianmonk Publishing – via Google Books.
- Sandomir, Richard (June 25, 2018). "Dan Ingram, Irreverent Disc Jockey, Is Dead at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
- "Dan Ingram Dead At 83". Allaccess.com. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
- Vintage Fanatic (18 June 2013). "Vintage Old 1970's Post Alpha Bits and Honeycombs Cereal Commercial with free record". YouTube. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
- "Dan Ingram, jock from WIL's Top 40 days, dies at 83". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 25, 2018.
- "JAM Photo Album". Jingles.com. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
- Deitz, Corey (2003-06-20). "Dan Ingram Departs WCBS-FM". AboutRadio.com. Retrieved 2013-06-02.
- Fisher, Marc (June 28, 2018). "Dan Ingram, popular DJ who poked fun at his own medium, dies at 83". Washington Post. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
- Quinn, Dave (June 26, 2018). "Famed Radio DJ Dan Ingram Dead at 83 After Choking on a Piece of Steak". www.msn.com. Retrieved 14 April 2019.