This legendary ABC Radio broadcaster (70 years in the business) has died at age 90.
Paul Harvey wore a sportcoat and tie to work everyday just because he felt it helped him to "keep his edge."
Maybe so. He represented the end of an era where you couldn't get on radio unless you worked at it.... for YEARS...and YEARS... and especially when many didn't even make it on the air unless they were the best of the best.
The guy was a legendary daytime staple at half the stations where I worked. At some stations, he got tape delayed, but the show always ran, and the outcue was always....
"Paul Harvey....<long pause> Good Day!"
It sometimes sounded like he was chuckling under his breath during the close.
We all loved to do imitations of him, but if you actually listened to the show, you got hooked on his style and his no-nonsense approach to news as well as lighter stories.
The comedy skit we might have laughed at (but not at Harvey's expense) is a program of all bad news (as there seems to be so much of today) and the show would end:
"Paul Harvey.... <VERY long pause> Bad Day!"
He was not afraid of controversy and the show was decidedly upbeat from the very opening:
"Hello Americans! This is Paul Harvey! Stand by... for News!"
The inflection on "news" almost made him sound giddy with excitment that here he was getting set to open another show.
Maybe you thought he was a goof, but once you got into the content of the show, you could tell that here was a hard-core serious broadcast journalist who simply had that extra flair that no one else had.
Paul Harvey...<pause> ...you rocked the broadcast world. Thanks for your years of dedication. Good Day!
