Bruce Morrow
Bruce Morrow is an American radio performer, known for some professional purposes as Cousin Brucie.
Early life
Morrow was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Abe Morrow. Raised in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, he attended elementary school at P.S. 206. While attending James Madison High School, he was involved with the All City Radio Workshop at Brooklyn Technical High School. Wanting to pursue a radio career, he spent 10 hours a week working for dramatic educational productions at radio station WNYE-FM.Morrow enrolled as a student at Brooklyn College but transferred to New York University in the Communications Arts Program. At NYU, he initiated the school's first radio station, WCAG. It was a carrier current station with a limited range and programmed classical music.
Career
Radio work
Morrow's first stint in radio was in Bermuda at ZBM-AM, where he was known as "The Hammer".Morrow began his career in the USA at New York City Top 40 station WINS in 1959. In 1960, he relocated to Miami, Florida for a stint at WINZ before returning to New York the next year for the major station WABC, another Top 40 station. Morrow's return to New York City came just as rock and roll music was becoming extremely popular among the baby boom demographic, and Morrow found himself on the most powerful radio station on the East Coast at the beginning of the so-called British Invasion. His main competition came from his previous station WINS, which featured "Murray the K," a DJ who claimed an association with the Beatles.
Morrow quickly became a success on WABC's teenager-oriented evening shift for 7:15 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., presenting the diverse musical genres of the time, as well as advertisements for youth-oriented sponsors like Thom McAn, local clothing outlets in the New York and New Jersey areas, and events such as concerts and drag-strip races.
Morrow worked for WABC for 13 years and 4,014 broadcasts until August 1974, when he transferred to rival radio station WNBC replacing Wolfman Jack who quit to tour with The Guess Who; after three years there, he quit performance to team with entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman to become the owner of the Sillerman Morrow group of radio stations, which included WALL; WKGL, now WRRV, in Middletown, New York; WJJB, later WCZX, in Poughkeepsie, New York; WHMP in Northampton, Massachusetts; WOCB in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts; WRAN New Jersey 1510 in Randolph, New Jersey; and television station WATL Atlanta. The group later purchased WPLR in New Haven, Connecticut.
During 1982, Morrow resumed working as a radio announcer, for New York's WCBS-FM, an oldies station. Initially, he filled in for Jack Spector every third Saturday evening for the Saturday Night Sock Hop program. After Spector's resignation during 1985, Morrow became the main performer for the program and renamed it the Saturday Night Dance Party. The station also added his nationally syndicated show Cruisin' America. During 1986, he began working the Wednesday evening shift, where he hosted The Top 15 Yesterday and Today Countdown. During 1991, the Wednesday show became The Yearbook, emphasizing music from the years between 1955 and 1979. Cousin Brucie was also the "breakfast presenter" on Atlantic 252 from 1992 to 1996.
When the radio program Cruisin' America ended during December 1992, Morrow continued hosting a WCBS radio program named Cruising with the Cuz Monday evenings until the end of 1993. After that program ended, he hosted the Saturday night and Wednesday night programs there until the station's change to an adult hits format named Jack FM on June 3, 2005. Soon thereafter, he signed a multi-year deal to host oldies programming and a weekly talk program for Sirius Satellite Radio, and as of 2020 hosted programs for Sirius XM satellite radio, on the '60s on 6 channel. Cousin Brucie's Saturday Night Party – Live is broadcast Saturday nights, while Cruisin' with Cousin Brucie is broadcast on Wednesday nights. On Sunday nights, Best of Brucie, a compilation culled from his SiriusXM broadcasts, airs. His crew has included at various points former senior producers Colton Murray and Adam Saltzman, and producer Lauren Hornek. On his Wednesday, July 29, 2020, program, he announced he was leaving SiriusXM following that Saturday's broadcast, characterizing it as not a retirement.
Television
Morrow's voice can be heard in the movies Across the Universe, Gas Pump Girls, and Dirty Dancing; he also had a minor part in the latter, playing a magician who saws Baby in half. He can be seen making on stage introductory remarks for the 1966 documentary The Beatles at Shea Stadium. He also appeared in the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and had a guest appearance for the 1990s science fiction television series Babylon 5,. In Across the Universe the radio station call letters he used were WEAF which were the call letters of 660 in New York before it became WNBC. He also played a television contest announcer in Between Time and Timbuktu, a 1972 National Educational Television production adapted from several short stories by Kurt Vonnegut.Charity work
For the last two decades, Morrow has worked for the Variety Children's Charity to help fund children who are disadvantaged, physically challenged, sick or needy, and he volunteers his time and talent with for people who are blind or visually impaired.Personal life
In December 1974, the divorced Morrow married Jodie Berlin, at the time the corporate manager of executive development and internal placements for the department-store chain Alexander's. Morrow has children, including daughter Meredith, from his first marriage.Honors
Morrow was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1988, and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division in 2001. In 2010, he received the Bravery In Radio Award from William Paterson University and its radio station WPSC 88.7 FM, for a track record of "inspirational radio programming and lifelong commitment to the medium of radio". Born in Brooklyn, part of geographical Long Island, he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2018.Books
- Cousin Brucie: My Life in Rock 'N' Roll Radio.
- Doo Wop: The Music, the Times, the Era.
- Rock & Roll:...And the Beat Goes On .