The Captain Passes

“Captain” Carl Reese has passed away.

A long and fruitful career in Cleveland radio was capped when even recent listeners got to hear him as a voice on standards WRMR, first at 850 AM, and then moved lock, stock and standard to 1420 AM when Robert Conrad decided to air the displaced format on his new AM station (first WCLV[AM]) instead of simulcasting WCLV-FM 104.9.

The Plain Dealer’s Tom Feran has an obituary here.

We now turn the OMW virtual keyboard over to Cleveland radio historian and long-time OMW reader Jim Davison, for a look at Reese’s long career.

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Carl Reese first got his start in radio when he worked for the American Forced Radio Network in Frankfurt during 1949. He was an announcerfor live updates and also drama episodes that were heard throughout Europe. After returning to the United States in late 1949, Carl landed his first job at radio station WCMW, which was located in Canton, Ohio.

In 1950, Carl went to work for the next two years at WJER 1450 AM in Dover, Ohio. Next was a stop at station WCUE 1150 AM in Akron, Ohio in early 1952. Later that year Carl got his wish when he was called upon to work at Cleveland radio station powerhouse WTAM 1100 AM/WNBK Television on August 2, 1952. Carl said “Not only were you a radio announcer for WTAM (which was part of the NBC Radio Network), but you were also called upon to announce live on television station WNBK.

In 1953, NBC in Cleveland started cutting back jobs and Carl then landed a job at WERE 1300 AM as a overnite announcer that actually had paid sponsors, and at that time it was unheard of for radio stations in the Cleveland area to have overnite sponsors. He stayed at WERE 1300 AM until the station cleaned house in 1961.

Carl then found himself working evenings at WHK 1420 AM. There he worked with such greats as Johnny Holliday, Pat Fritzgerald, Johnny Walters, Keith Morris, Allen Michaels, and Scott Burton. These guys were also known as the “WHK Swingin’ Seven DJ’s” and the “WHK Good Guys”.

Carl then left to work for KYW 1100 AM in Cleveland, Ohio for a couple of months until he received a job with WJW 850 AM in 1964-for Store Broadcasting Company, which has also been the home of Alan Freed, Casey Kasem, Soupy Sales, and Ed Fisher. Carl worked at WJW for the next eighteen years and in 1982, Carl landed a job at WBBG 160 AM which was the home of Big Band Music.

In 1988, Carl made a move to Cleveland’s WRMR am 850 where he played “The Music of Your Life” and was owned by Booth Broadcasting and was later purchased by radio owners Embrescia, Wilson and Pollack, and later the station would be bought by Salem Broadcasting.

On July 3, 2001, during a overnight swap of seven stations in the Cleveland- Akron -Canton area, Salem dropped the WRMR 850 AM station and it was purchased by WCLV and Robert Conrad, who bought the 1420 AM frequency and moved the music of your life staff over to WCLV 1420 AM. That is where Captain Carl Reese did his 3PM to 7PM shift weekly and celebrated his fifty years on the air. Carl told me “if its something you like to do you will stick with it until the end”.

Carl’s voice will be missed, he was a true radio legend and a great friend.

Carl passed away this morning on this day-November 26, 2014.

Jim Davison