VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Dan-O]

Best of luck to you then.

[Lee Gordon]

[Bruce]

Yes Andrew, maybe a bit nit picky, and maybe it's possible you haven't heard a lot of great story tellers be conversational before large audiences. There are dozens of celebrities and motivational speakers doing it right now and the best earn more money in one night than most of us earn in a year. Harvey often had two speaking engagements a week (he flew his own plane) and usually earned around $100,000 each, back in the day, if I recall correctly.

I listened to Paul Harvey for over 30 years and even though we didn't see eye to eye on some issues, I always found him to be a great story teller, possibly in the ranks with Mark Twain. Sure he had a bit boomy of a voice but he started when radios and network feed lines were not high fidelity so you had to be a little crisp and loud to be sure you were understood. He also was quite stylized in delivery which worked for him and his fans. The "farmer" piece was perfectly delivered for the time and place it was given....to a convention of farmers, of course. Which just means to audition for this you need to guess what a perfect delivery would be for the time, the place, the piece, and the audience.

I was lucky enough to watch Paul Harvey work when he spent a week doing newscasts from our radio studios in Phoenix. I came in at like 3:30 in the morning to watch him prep and do his first reads of the day. It was a treat. He eventually built a lovely mansion in one of our ritzy neighborhoods and ended up doing many of his newscasts from there in later years.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Foog]

Lee: Funny that you should mention Garrison Keillor. He was the first person I thought of when I was trying to come up with a conversational storyteller. Canadian Keillor clone Stuart Mclean was the second.

Bruce: It's the nitpicking, not the lack of experience with such storytellers that is my hurdle, I think. I love both Keillor and Mclean, for example, but refuse to consider either of their voices as "conversational". A conversation involves two or more people. If it's just one person talking, it's a speech, a soliloquy, a.... a... non conversation. No matter how engaging. I'm right and the entire rest of the world is wrong, so there!

I know, I know. I suck at parties.
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Andrew Fogarasi

[chrisvoco]

But if you're gonna sound like him, you gotta wear the red shoes with your tux.

If you click the heels together, you go back to Minnesota, to join the Indiana Navy fighting the sea monsters that are coming down from Lake Erie. I understand that they offer you a whole year's worth of Powdermilk Biscuits, just to reenlist.
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

[Ed Fisher]

Paul Harvey?

And how to work Paul Harvey into the conversation? (now's my chance)

Besides the fact that I remember when Paul Harvey offered to do local spots for...what was it? $10,000.00 per spot? I not sure of the number. But, it was obvious that he came up with that number to prevent every station in the Country from bugging him to produce their commercials. (which they would have loved) But, if he did, he was damn sure going to get paid for it.

And...wasn't there a LAWSUIT once where Paul Harvey had to stop someone who did a great impersonation of him from doing spots because it amounted to an "endorsement" from him? (my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details)

But here's to my point, which I have never enunciated on a forum like this before. It has been a complaint of mine for many years.

There are TWO radio personality that I shall always be SORRY that I discovered what they looked like. Mostly, because these guys decided to go on TV. That is because there is something magical about hearing a voice that you like and forming a mental image in your brain that you somehow cherish. Even though it's really a non-specific image and more of a "feeling."

PAUL HARVEY
CASEY KASEM

These were two voices that were integral to my youth and my world that by seeing their true images, destroyed a part of the magic in me they had created. We've all heard the term "A face for Radio." Well...that was my reaction to seeing these two guys. I was much happier with only the voice. I really didn't need a "face" to go with it. There, you have it. It's funny how we cherish our youthful illusions. But, somehow, those are always the best kind.
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"I reserve the right to be completely wrong."

[bobsouer]

[Foog]

Thanks Bob!!!

Put it like that, and I have to concede that it is indeed possible to be "conversational" in such a setting. That actually helps with my nitpicky mental block. A lot.
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Andrew Fogarasi