[Postcard2] [Clip] Radio's Ed Sciaky dies

[Jeff Sohn]

Radio's Ed Sciaky dies
Fan and friend of musicians stricken in New York

By JONATHAN TAKIFF
http://tinyurl.com/36dfv 

Ed Sciaky, a legend in the Philadelphia radio
community and devoted fan and friend of many
musicians, died suddenly on a street corner in New
York yesterday morning. He was 55.

And for many of us, it will truly be remembered as a
day when the music died.

"I'm going to be looking out there in the audience and
he won't be there," said a broken up Steve Forbert,
pals with Sciaky since the late '70s. "He was a Philly
fixture to me, synonymous with the city."

"I loved him. I'll miss him," said Steven Van Zandt,
longtime guitarist of the E-Street Band and host of
the "Little Steven's Underground Garage" show that has
followed Sciaky's "Sunday with Springsteen" on WMGK
since April 2002.

For many a Philadelphia baby boomer, Sciaky's radio
shows through the decades were literally the
soundtrack of their lives, and an advanced course in
music appreciation.

Always at the head of his class stood talents like
Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Yes - whom Sciaky
tenaciously played from "virtually unknown" status
until he'd helped to make them superstars, on almost
every shift of his gigs at WMMR and later WIOQ in the
1970s and '80s. That, of course, was back in the
"free-form" years of progressive rock radio, when DJs
could still pick the music, indulge in their passions.

"Ed was very helpful to our band in the early days of
Yes, being one of the first DJs in Philly and the U.S.
to adopt Yes music," said group bassist Chris Squire
yesterday.

"He was a champion of music, loved and respected all
kinds of music," said WXPN mid-day host and music
director Helen Leicht, who worked with Sciaky at WIOQ.

"A Bette Midler, Melissa Manchester or Barry Manilow
would never have gotten play on a rock-oriented
station like 'Q' if it were not for him. But Ed never
saw any barriers. He appreciated good music of all
kinds."

And the musicians, as well. The unusually gregarious
Sciaky and his wife Judy entertained many a musician
at their home, and were fixtures backstage after
shows, counseling the artists on what they'd done
right and wrong.

"He was on me constantly to turn up my volume," said
singer-songwriter Forbert, "until I finally gave in
and did it. Ed could be relentless."

Sciaky's devotion to Yes was so intense that he spent
vacations chasing their tour buses across the United
States and England. He traveled to Leningrad to attend
and voice the introduction to an
internationally-broadcast Billy Joel concert.

In Springsteen's early, just-scraping-by days, the
fledgling Jersey talent slept several nights on the
Sciakys' green velvet sofa, forever after to be
anointed the "Bruce Memorial Couch." Sciaky also
earned Springsteen his first big payday by persuading
Manfred Mann to cover "Blinded By The Light," a
million-plus seller.

One night this writer and friend - then Sciaky's
across-the-hall neighbor and WMMR staffmate - got a
knock on the door at 3 a.m. inquiring if I had a
guitar to spare. Bonnie Raitt and Martin Mull were
over, and wanted to jam. (As I'd get to witness, the
flirtatious Mull couldn't keep up with Bonnie, in more
ways than one.)

Born April 2, 1948, in New York but raised in
Philadelphia, Sciaky graduated from Central High and
matriculated at Temple as a math major. Then a chance
visit to the studios of WHAT-FM changed his life, when
Sciaky brought over an album for laid-back folk DJ
Gene Shay to play, and Ed became entranced with the
medium and messages of radio.

"He became one of my first unpaid assistants and
almost like a son," said Shay yesterday. "It was his
idea, for instance, that we take along a tape recorder
to a coffeehouse show, to capture this newcomer named
Joni Mitchell. Ed also kept me organized. He was
always very methodical, remembered everything, even
the catalogue numbers of records."

Shay, in turn, became Sciaky's mentor, helping him
polish his own, similarly naturalistic delivery when
Sciaky switched over to the communications department
at Temple, and went on the air at then student-run
WRTI-FM.