This is the 4th in my series of recordings of great WQXR-FM announcers from the 1960s to the present. This time, longtime "morning drive" host George Edwards (George Edward Steinhardt) is primarily featured. He brought good cheer, music, and information to New York's airwaves -- when WQXR was still owned by The New York Times -- for an amazing 40 consecutive years, from 1948 to 1988. He passed in 2006 at the age of 87. At least from the 1960s onward, his morning program was called the "Bright and Early" show. At its daily conclusion, he passed the broadcasting baton to Bob (Robert) Sherman for the latter's "Listening Room" show for many years. Mr. Edwards' deep voice was somewhat similar to those of his famous colleagues Peter Allen and Duncan Pirnie. His New York Times obituary is at [ Ссылка ] radio.html#:~:text=George%20Edward%20Steinhardt%2C%20who%20for,Tenafly%2C%20N.J.%20He%20was%2087. In 1978, he was moved to a 10 am to noon shift and was succeeded as host of "Bright and Early" by Gregg Whiteside, who left the station, after 25 years there, in 2003, and subsequently became morning host at Philadelphia non-profit classical/jazz WRTI-FM, for which he recorded a fundraising video in about 2016 that can be seen, at [ Ссылка ].
Mr. Sherman started at 'QXR in the mid-1950s, and he held a variety of positions on and off the air. He also taught at the Julliard School and wrote for the NYT. His voice was a higher-pitched one, so it stood out as quite different from those of Messrs. Edwards, Pirnie, and Allen. Mr. Sherman was especially known for hosting such programs as "Young Artists Showcase," "The Listening Room", and the "Woody's Children" folk music show. He passed in 2023, not long after retiring from WQXR, at the age of 90. His NYT obituary is at [ Ссылка ]. WQXR generally steered clear of the public controversies of the day, though they were, of course, frequently mentioned in the top-of-the-hour newscast. The main exception was "Woody's Children," which waded, however gently, into such controversies as the Vietnam War (for example, in the October 18, and November 15 1969 installments, available at thttps://www.wnyc.org/story/vietnam-moratorium-program-1/ and [ Ссылка ], in which Mr. Sherman Bob Sherman "plays songs of war and peace and love and protest marking the day of national protest against the war in Vietnam just a few days earlier"). He also touched on the Black civil rights struggle, for example in a 1974 "Listening Room" interview of Marian Anderson, available at [ Ссылка ]. WQXR's excellent website contains tributes to Mr. Sherman and archived versions of many of his shows. However, there seem to be no recordings of Mr. Edwards online anywhere. This YouTube presentation contains (1) audio of an unusual 10 am "handoff" to Mr. Sherman in January 1981 (including the opening theme music for Sherman's program); (2) audio of a 1986 broadcast in which Mr. Edwards recalls the headlines 50 years earlier, in 1936, the year that the station was converted from an experimental station, W2XR, to a regular AM station, with the call letters WQXR; and (3) Mr. Edwards introducing the weekday morning feature "Advertising News of the Day" on March 31, 1981, presented by New York Times advertising columnist Philip H. Dougherty (see his Times obituary at [ Ссылка ]).

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