"Farewell, Eddie"

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: "Farewell, Eddie" : by Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune : --------------------------------- : : Radio legend Eddie Schwartz died overnight at age 62. I'd been keeping up with him in print and online these last few years. : http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/11/pay_it_backward.html : http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/01/former_allnight.html : http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/01/schwartz.html : http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/03/update-ed-schwa.html : http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/02/the_ed_schwartz.html : http://http//newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/02/chicago-eddie-schwartz-remembered.html : He was very ill, very sad, very needy man at the end -- a striking contrast from commanding presence he was when I first interviewed him very early in my career -- and I'm amazed that he lived as long as he did given all the health challenges he was facing. : He would never say it, but I sensed very strongly that he was eaten away by regret that in 1992 he walked away from WGN-AM 720 over a petty contract dispute. At that station he was the king of overnight radio in Chicago. He moved to WLUP-FM, a more youth-oriented station that didn't match his audience, and by 1995 he was off radio forever. : He knocked around, writing columns for the Lerner newspaper chain and staying in frequent contact with his former pals from the local media. Until recently I maintained a separate folder in my e-mail in-box labeled simply "Eddie Mail." : Every time I spoke to him until the last time a few months ago, he talked of someday getting another chance on the airwaves. "I've still got it, Bub," he'd say in his rare moments of optimism. : I think he did. I think until his dying day, yesterday, he still had it. : Now he has something he hadn't had in years: Peace. : Here are some passage from those postings/columns: : : [Schwartz's former fans] remember. They remember the Southeast Side grocer's son who fell in love with radio even though he lacked the baritone pipes and crisp diction of the classic program host. : They remember that he started as a gofer at WLS-AM 890, and was so tenacious after landing a behind-the-scenes role at WIND-AM 560 that the station took a chance on him when a spot opened on the graveyard shift. : They remember how Schwartz birddogged breaking news, interviewed celebrities and public officials, mounted crusades and started a major annual food drive for the poor--as though no one had told him that overnight radio was supposed to be soothing and intimate. : "He had the best all-night show I've ever heard," said Dave Baum, who worked with Schwartz at WIND and now hosts a weekend sports-talk show on WSCR-AM 670. : "He never had the voice for radio, but he sure had the heart for it," said veteran local air personality Clark Weber, who also worked with Schwartz. : Listeners responded. Schwartz became "Chicago Ed" and got huge ratings, first at WIND and then at WGN-AM 720. : Many will remember how Schwartz's girth, his earnestness and his unusual sound made him a frequent target of hosts on younger, hipper stations, but few will reflect on what an achievement it was for an overnight guy to be popular enough to rate such attacks. : The guy was an unlikely star -- his voice a bit mushy and high, his style and civic boosterism bordering on the corny -- but he put so much into his program and cultivated so many sources that it was must listening any time you were in your car or puttering around the house after 11 a.m. : He earned solid ratings, but not respect from the next generation of broadcasters in town -- Steve Dahl being the main disrespecter. Dahl arrived from Detroit in the late 1970s to challenge and mock the very conventions of radio that Schwartz (and most of the hosts at WIND and WGN-AM 720) embodied; conventions that in some cases deserved mockery. : Dahl, who was fat and had a high, thin voice, mercilessly made fun of Schwartz for being fat and having a high, thin voice. His then-radio partner Garry Meier did a dead-on Schwartz impression, and Kevin Matthews came along with the character Ed Zeppelin. : As I pointed out in the column, it was an amazing achievement for an overnight host to have rated such attention, negative and hurtful to him though it was.

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