Ed Cook - WVON, Chicago - January 29, 1966

Free the Airchecks!

This Ed Cook aircheck is often sold on eBay and is probably one of the better-circulated R&B airchecks out there, and for good reason. If Ed was a cranky sort anyway, the fact that his car wouldn't start in subzero weather guaranteed that his on-air performance was really going to be special. It didn't help matters that, right off the bat, the wrong record was played. The intro to the Vontastics' version of "Day Tripper" follows the WVON jingle, and Cook is having none of it. "Hold it, man!" he bellows, as the record is quickly switched to Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bring It on Home." "Shoot - messing up already ... look out, Jim [Maloney, WVON's newscaster], I ain't in a good mood today ... I feel like Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou!" For the remainder of the aircheck, Cook holds court, playing some of the same tunes Cordell played but getting some B.B. King in there among other things (he mentions that King used to be a DJ, and remarks that King was smart to quit and become a musician) and railing about the weather ("Why would anybody want to move to Chicago?" he complains, although he is amused that Tupelo, Mississippi and other Southern cities are snowed in), thanking the lady who drove him to the radio station, encouraging listeners to go see Cat Ballou, and making come-ons like "you just stand there like a rich man's porch and let me admire you!" It's a classic, and it's always good for a laugh as well as a "get on down."