07:44:51 am on
Tuesday 19 Mar 2024

Summer & Bradley
Streeter Click

Bruce Bradley and Dick Summer anchored east coast night time radio in the 1960s. Bradley did evenings and held captive a generation of listeners. On the night Double-B premiered "Rubber Soul," in November 1965, every cut echoed around Ottawa, from car radios, as boomers drove pop's car till the tank ran dry, listening to Bradley introduce "The Beatles" best. "Michelle" still runs a chill up and down my spine, not for the music, but the way Bradley presented.

Dick Summer was lock step with the emerging intellectualism of the 1960s. He helped form the mind of a generation. In clubs, Woody Allen was performing for the same audience. From the Rockies to the Atlantic, they'd listen to Dick, driving home after an Allen show. There were his long conversations with Sandy Baron, Rod McKuen and others; a reading of "The Highwayman," paced by "Flute Thing," by the "Blues Project." Mostly, though, there was Dick Summer being Dick Summer, a special treat to this day.

By 1970, both Bradley and Summer had left WBZ for stations in New York City. Where else do the very best go, but to the biggest market. Radio, as Dick might say, being radio, both Bradley and Summer were looking for work in 1970. Summer was pulling a shift at WBZ, one night, and Bradley happened to be in the station. Some good callers and a wicked, vile Bradley make this great radio.

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Streeter Click is editor of GrubStreet.ca.

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