Salon.com > Mike Thomas

Paul Harvey

Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:28:00 +0000

In late August, 83-year-old broadcasting legend Paul Harvey returned full-time to radio land. For three months, he'd been out of commission thanks to a lingering virus that zapped his once invincible voice box. For a man whose physical health had been largely unwitherable, it was a frustrating ordeal. "When the engine's running, don't check the carburetor," he'd often say, putting a typical Harveyesque spin on his leave-well-enough-alone philosophy.

Following some rest and a fairly simple vocal cord procedure, Harvey began working mornings only, and eventually continued his midday and evening shifts as well. He knew the comeback was a bit premature, but he couldn't help himself. "Americans," he rasped, "can we visit for just minute? In my eagerness to return to work, you can tell ... you can tell by the cloudy, fuzzy voice that I may have returned too soon ... ABC and our wonderfully loyal sponsors have been so very patient that I am reluctant to take any more time off from these visits."

His wonderfully loyal sponsors were no doubt reluctant as well. For more than a quarter of a year, they'd lost their genius of a pitchman, whose show was left in the capable hands of fill-in hosts like Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who, bless his smug, bestselling soul, is no Paul Harvey.

Babatunde Olatunji: Delivering the cure

Sat, 08 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The '60s loomed and Fabian-soaked America needed a musical fix. Elvis, only two years into his career, had been drafted and shipped off to Germany, where he recorded not one note. And the void only deepened when three of the country's most promising young talents, Richie Valens, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and Buddy Holly, died in a plane crash one wintry night in February 1959. On the jazz front, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker experimented with Caribbean and South American rhythms, and Miles Davis' revolutionary album "Kind of Blue" set the precedent for a decade of modal riffs and was considered quite groovy. Neither, though, caused any mass hysteria. Of course, there was Sinatra, who by then was more popular than ever, but he just ring-a-ding-dinged like always.

Then, out of nowhere, out of Africa, came Babatunde Olatunji, drummer, singer, sage. He of the primal chants and flowing robes and tribal beats, a strange stranger in a strange land. No one, not even his African-American brothers and sisters, really knew what to make of him at first. But if ever the country was primed for something new, something wild, it was now, and soon he turned gapes and murmurs into smiles and cheers, and hi-fi's everywhere pulsed with the strains of the aptly titled "Drums of Passion," Olatunji's breakthrough release on Columbia Records. Four decades later, the album has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and has inspired beyond measure, musically and otherwise.

Bill Belew, the man who dressed the King

Sat, 18 Dec 1999 17:00:00 +0000

"If the songs don't go over, we can do a medley of costumes."

-- Elvis Presley, in concert at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, August 1970

Some months ago, Rick Lenzi, a California mechanic and part-time Elvis impersonator, was invited to flex his pork chops on "Your Big Break," a spiffed-up, non-lip sync version of the '80s variety show, "Puttin' On the Hits." The program's contestants, who mimic their favorite singers, are aided in their metamorphoses by a small staff of professional costume designers.

Upon arriving in Burbank, Calif., for taping, Lenzi learned that his transformation would be presided over by a man named Bill Belew. At first, the name had merely a familiar ring. Then it clicked. "You're not the Bill Belew, are you?" Lenzi asked incredulously, almost reverently, when the two met.

"Yes, I am," Belew said.

Lenzi's jaw dropped -- he knew, as any diehard Elvis maven would, that Belew wasn't just any costume designer. He was, in fact, Elvis Presley's costume designer and personal fashion guru for nearly a decade. "I was in awe," Lenzi recalls.