NorthEast Radio Watch 5/20 and 5/27/2024: Remembering Dick Summer

In this week’s issue… Dick Summer, radio legend – “Coast Country” surfs to Jersey shore – FLN adds three

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

[Programming note: We are on the road this holiday week, doing radio and some baseball across the Midwest. Our Fybush Media offices will reopen Tuesday, May 28, and unless there’s breaking news over the holiday, our next NERW issue will appear Monday, June 3.] 

*”One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese.”

“Don’t call it a sandwich, call it a Shrewsbury.”

If you listened to the radio at night in New England in the 1960s, there’s no mistaking the reason you know those phrases. They were trademarks of a unique radio personality whose career took him to many formats in several big markets, and whose death last week left reminders of how many of us were touched by his huge heart and caring soul.

Depending on how old you are and when you encountered Dick Summer, you might have known him as the last survivor of the top-40 crew that became legends at WBZ (1030) in Boston in the 1960s. Or you might have known him as the smooth nighttime voice of New York a decade later at WNBC (660) and WYNY (97.1). Or, perhaps, you encountered him later on in his career as a therapist, or as a podcaster specializing in creating relaxing stories to lull you into sleep.

Summer was all of those things and more, a Brooklyn boy born Richard Schwende who started in radio at WFUV at Fordham in the 1950s, then broke into radio at WNRC in New Rochelle. He worked in radio and TV in Albany at WTEN and WROW, meeting future WBZ colleague Bruce Bradley, did a little time at WNHC in New Haven and WIBC and WISH/WISH-TV in Indianapolis, and by 1963 had heard Bradley on WBZ and sent along his own demo tape, soon getting hired for overnights.

(There’s much more on his early career in Donna Halper’s excellent biographic profile of him, here.)

At WBZ, he created “Nightlight,” the forerunner of decades of loose, funny overnight radio as eventually practiced by Larry Glick and Norm Nathan. The “Shrewsbury” bit? That was Dick’s firm conviction that the meal with two pieces of bread and filling in between wasn’t actually created by the Earl of Sandwich but by his rival, the Earl of Shrewsbury – and for a while, a lot of Bostonians were indeed ordering Shrewsburys, or so he claimed.

Summer’s “Nightlight” overnight show lasted only five years, remarkably, but it took him in some new directions, introducing him to folk music and even the underground rock scene. By 1968, he’d made it to New York as the first morning man on WNEW-FM (102.7), soon returning to Boston for a stint programming WMEX (1510). That’s where he first created the “Lovin Touch,” the mix of music and poetry that eventually became a popular series of tapes, CDs and podcasts later in life.

A brief return to WBZ in 1972 led him back to New York, first at WPLJ and then most lastingly at WNBC and WYNY. At WNBC, his “Mouth vs. Ear” segments continued to mix poetry into his music shows, and at WYNY he was the relaxing night voice for years. By the 1980s, he was mostly out of radio, doing voiceover work, studying hypnotherapy and creating those tapes and CDs and podcasts. (Some of those podcasts continue to air north of Boston at Lowell’s WCAP.)

And he was always a great friend to broadcasters, sharing his friendship and wisdom (and sometimes customized CDs) almost to the end. Summer was 89 when he died May 14, survived by his “Wonder Wench,” Barbara Summer, and a large family including six great-grandchildren.