Burning Up the Air: Jerry Williams, Talk Radio, and the Life in Between

By Alan Tolz and Steve Elman

Book Overview

One of the pioneers of talk radio was also one of Boston's most controversial commentators. This biography follows Williams's colorful fifty-year career from the mid-1950s until his recent death. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933212519
• ISBN13: 9781933212517
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Commonwealth Editions
• Length: 366 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.1" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Not just for talk radio fans

Although I've never been a fan of talk radio, I couldn't put this book down. The authors serve up a seamless mix of biography and radio history, written in an informal style perfectly suited to the subject. This book would make a great gift not only for Jerry Williams fans and talk radio listeners, but for anyone interested in a slice of Boston history. Highly recommended!

To the authors

What a great book... you captured the parts of Jerry that I knew, and illuminated the parts I didn't. Made it easy to love and respect a flawed man (and since I'm a flawed man... gave me hope). I just finished a 40 year career... essentially on the road all over the US. Could never have made it without the company and education provided by Jerry Williams and those who followed him. I heard Boortz when he was doing WRNG in Atlanta, and the whole WWDB gang in PHL. Bob Grant at WOR and WABC, and Rush Limbaugh before he was Rush Limbaugh.. You brought back so many fine memories. Thank you for telling the story, and telling it so artfully. Literally could not put it down. You guys were him. And thank you, and all the other guys behind the scenes who made it possible. My life has been made so much better by your work.

A Great Read

For anyone that has ever heard Jerry Williams on the air and wondered what he was like off the air, this book will make you feel like you've followed Jerry around for forty years. It's an intimate and objective portrait of both the public persona and the private man. The authors clearly admire Jerry's radio skills, and their personal bond with him comes across in the writing, but they also pull no punches when it comes to Jerry's character flaws. The result is an interesting and candid portrait of the man. The book has the added benefit of giving one an inside view of the radio business. Even if you never heard of Jerry Williams, there's a breezy down to earth honesty in the writing that makes it a great read.

Not a bad guy

I reviewed this for the Sturbridge Times Magazine (also on the web at [...]). I started listening to Jerry Williams around 1957-58 as a kid. He was great fun and he lasted just into the new millenium. He has as much right as anyone to claim to have invented the genre of talk radio. The Elman and Tolz book is as good a bio as you will find and it includes a lot of local history as well. You won't put it down. I would also suggest going to the website and listening to the clips. He knew how to use his voice. I had never thought that he had some voice training until I read the book. Knowing his instrument did not hurt his success.

The real world is so much more interesting!

No doubt about it. Jerry Williams was the real deal. As a young broadcaster in the early 1950's Jerry Williams recognized the enormous potential of two-way talk radio. Rock & roll was great for young audiences but with the demise of network radio and the emergence of television what would radio have to offer adult listeners? Before just about anyone else, Jerry understood the fascinating dynamic at play between callers, the host and the audience. And for the better part of the next four decades Jerry Williams would play a major role in shaping and molding the format we now call talk radio. "Burning Up The Air" chronicles the life and times of this legendary radio icon. My introduction to Jerry Williams came on July 29,1968 when the highly touted "Jerry Williams Show" debuted on WBZ-TV in Boston. I remember it like it was yesterday. Although that television show would be short-lived, the host sure made one hell of an impression on this 17 year old. Within a matter of weeks I found "The Spirit of New England" WBZ--1030 on my AM radio dial and I quickly became hooked on Jerry's nightly radio program. By this time, Jerry Williams had already spent more than 15 years in the business. He was a master at his craft. One of the co-authors of "Burning Up The Air" is Steve Elman. Steve had the distinct privilege of producing "The Jerry Williams Show" for a time during the programs eight year run on WBZ radio from 8:00 P.M. to midnight. This was appointment listening for sure. What made the "Jerry Williams Show" so compelling during those troubled times was that WBZ's booming 50000 watt signal reached 38 states at night. This was in effect a national issues-oriented radio talk show, most likely the first of its kind anywhere. "Burning Up The Air" recalls all of the hot-button issues that were being discussed on the program during those tumultuous years. From the Vietnam war and the anti-war activists to Dita Beard and the ITT scandal and on to Tricky Dicky and Watergate, Jerry Williams covered it all! In fact, he was even a proud member of Richard Nixon's "Enemy's List". More than three decades later I would have to point to those shows as the best talk radio I ever heard! Sadly, in 1976 WBZ chose not to renew Jerry's contract. For the next five years Jerry Williams was in radio limbo searching for just the right situation to get back on top. It was one of the most difficult periods of his life. The worm would finally turn for Jerry in the summer of 1981. WRKO radio in Boston was dumping music in favor of a new all-talk format and they wanted to feature Jerry Williams in the afternoon drive slot from 2:00 to 6:00. This was a time slot that Jerry had always coveted. He jumped at the opportunity to return to the Hub and within a matter of months Jerry was on top of the heap once again. But in this incarnation of his program the focus was radically different. Jerry would primarily discuss local issues. In those days his primary target