Calif To TC

Found following while trying to check local radio for the commentary when the Blue Angels perform.

Small world
We spent a little time on Monterey last March

This post was from Sept '04
Blues flying again this weekend (they do it every other year).

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California radio host does show from Traverse City

By TOM CARR
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY - Good morning Monterey! By way of Old Mission Peninsula, that is.
Since June, Ed Dickinson has been broadcasting his big-band jazz radio show on the AM station KIDD Magic 63 in Monterey, Calif. from his summer home overlooking treetops and East Bay.
"It's perfect looking out and seeing that instead of talking to a blank wall," he said. "When I'm in the studio, sometimes that bothers me."
Dickinson, 78, has been a fixture of Monterey radio for more than 52 years and hosts "Way Back Now" on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Last summer when he and wife Anne came to spend the summer in Traverse City, he flew back and forth to keep the show going.
"This year they put in the ISDN (integrated services digital network) line and that's when we bought this house in the Bluffs," said Anne.
The house she refers to sits high on a hill on the Old Mission Peninsula. The home is mostly underground with a tower sticking up about 40 feet that provides a view of the treetops and water.
Both Ed and Anne, Dickinson's second wife, lived parts of their childhoods in Michigan. They met through a mutual friend in Monterey when Anne, the former Anne Braden, moved back there after she spent most of the 1980s in Traverse City.
They have been married now for about 10 years. They bought their home here after Anne's daughter, who has adopted five children, moved back to the area.
Dickinson's listeners know he's broadcasting from Michigan, and he begins the show with a recording of someone climbing 35 steps. That's the actual number he takes to get up into the tower.
Dickinson acts as if he's out of breath, then chats with his engineer back in California over that digital line. He spins big band favorites from Glenn Miller to Artie Shaw to Suttons Bay resident Harry Goldson, with other old non-big-band numbers sprinkled in.
He can also chat with listeners calling in to answer trivia contest questions.
Radio station general manager Kathy Baker said the arrangement "works very well." She said he's a "very popular announcer" because of his longevity, the fact that he plays music that older listeners can't find on other stations and his rapport with his audience.
Dickinson started his career after being stationed in Guam and China with the Marines between 1944 and '47, then getting a bachelors degree in radio speech at San Jose State University.
He was first a disc jockey at a station in Elko, Nev. Seven months later, he landed a job at KMBY in Monterey broadcasting minor-league baseball and spinning pop records.
The station was owned by Bing Crosby. It aired his golf tournament known as the "Crosby Clambake."
"It was a lot of fun," Dickinson said. "We worked with one drink in the hand and all the movie stars were there."
Through the years, he's worked at several stations in the Monterey Bay area, building a following for his knowledge of music and his folksy on-air persona. That got him a nomination to the Radio Hall of Fame in 2001.
Every year, he observes the birthday of Doris Day, a local resident there, by focusing on her recordings. He dedicates Memorial Day and Veterans Day shows to veterans.
Dickinson will be returning to California soon. When he broadcasts from the studio there, they play fewer footsteps and he says he's broadcasting from the attic. The pretense is that it's his grandmother's attic and he's finding old records there.
"People actually believe he's up in an attic," Anne said.
He does play some CDs, though he still plays mostly vinyl.
"People say, 'We love hearing the nicks and the pops,'¡" he said.
The Dickinsons often lead cruises and other trips for fans through a travel agency in Monterey. They plan to lead one to Michigan next year that will include the Detroit area and Traverse City.
"They want to see the tower," Ed said.
That's because he's talked it up, having become fond of the scenic perch in the modern home. His listeners have heard some of it themselves, including a Blue Angels jet flying overhead and a woodpecker knocking on the house.
And by now, Ed uses the correct terminology when he tells his listeners where he is, with the help of his wife.
"The first day I was on the air from here, I said, 'I'm here looking at West Bay' and she said, 'No, no, it's East Bay,'!" he said.