Newsman speaks to Kiwanis Club of Los Altos
By Elizabeth Ridgeway, Special to the Town Crier
 Longtime KCBS broadcasting legend Al Hart told Los Altos Kiwanis Club members he started in radio in 1949 with “two turntables, a microphone and a telephone. |
Those who have never met Al Hart still recall his voice. He’s like an old friend, one who greeted them each morning: “This is KCBS 740, all news, all the time.”
When the veteran radio newsman spoke at the Los Altos Kiwanis meeting Aug. 30, the room was packed with members and their relatives and guests, all eager to meet the man behind the calm voice of the local news.
Jean Brandenbaum, who came from San Carlos for the occasion, said, “I had to be here - he is the only person in the world older than me. We have all listened to him, always.” Brandenbaum’s daughter, Susan Roberts, chimed in, “We’ve all heard him forever. He’s a legend.”
Hart, who filled the early morning slot at KCBS from 1976 to 2000, stood out in the crowd, suave and tall in a pale blue suit. His lean, smooth face and soft-spoken demeanor lit up when he stood at the podium and began to tell the story of his career with jokes and anecdotes.
Before he became “the voice of KCBS” and of San Francisco, Hart began his career at a station in Rhinelander, Wis. “Radio has changed so much since I started, it is hard to recognize. When I started in 1949, you had two turntables, a microphone and a telephone. There is a bewildering array of electronics today.”
Hart credits his childhood with inspiring his career. He grew up listening to the radio with his family in the 1930s. They talked politics over the dinner table. “Dinner at my house was a theater of its own, with my mom in a her flowered apron, six brothers, a sister, their spouses, my Aunt Nora and a boarder who stayed with us to make ends meet.”
The audience joined Hart in remembering some of his antics as a young newscaster. One woman, who had listened for years, asked him to tell the story of the “Thanksgiving turkeys.” He obliged, recounting the year he loaded turkeys into a helicopter and flew them around town, releasing the birds with special prize tags on their collars for those who found them. “We caught hell from animal rights groups, but that’s what we wanted - it gave us more publicity,” Hart said jokingly.
On a sober note, Hart told the group that he felt that he really learned the news business in Shreveport, La., where he covered segregation and the civil rights battle.
“The integration story of the South was by far my most memorable story. It was so heartbreaking to see little kids trying to get to school through a screaming, violent crowd. It was hard to watch, and hard to report on. That was a bad time in the 1950s.”
Since his retirement, Hart has worked as a freelance radio commentator, appearing regularly on John Madden’s KCBS program at 8:15 a.m., Wednesdays. Madden is a former Oakland Raiders coach and host of ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”
Broadcasts with the ebullient sports personality tend to be unrehearsed, and Hart said, “You can never predict what we will talk about on air. When I ask him in the morning if we should preview what we are going to talk about, he just says, ‘Nah.’”
Hart retired from broadcasting in 2000 to care for his wife, Sally, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and died in 2002. Hart continues to contribute to raising awareness about ALS. The Kiwanis donated $250 toward that cause.
During his speech Hart commented on the state of broadcast news today. “Radio has only changed for the best over time - you get so much in the first 15 minutes that you listen in the morning: news, traffic and weather.”
However, the values of the business have changed, Hart said. “Reporting is no longer about quality content. Rating and business are all important today. I don’t think we talk about world events nearly as much as we should.
“I get tired of a headline story being about a cat stuck up a tree … but it does build an audience,” he said. “We haven’t sunk too low - I’ve done plenty of it myself, so I can’t cast any stones.”
Hart encouraged young people to get into broadcasting: “Being a reporter in the middle of things - it’s a wonderful career. You never get bored, there’s always something going on. In this job, you don’t just sit at a desk all day making notes on a piece of paper.”
In his earlier days, Hart used his smooth voice for more than just reporting, singing in nightclubs after a day in the newsroom. He recorded a cover of “Tears are Only Rain to Make Love Grow” years ago. After much urging from the audience, he gave a rendition of the old tune.
“I wasn’t any good,” he said, but then, to giggles and applause from the crowd, he crooned, “When your love cries, hold her close and whisper low, tears are only rain to make love grow.”
