A Farewell to the Bronx

Monday afternoon found me in the vicinity of Elkhorn City running a couple of errands, one of which put me in that town’s Dollar General Store. Whilst searching for those items I had gone there for, I found myself looking at some of their CD’s, a raggle-taggle mix of whatever, and ended up purchasing a couple of them. These CD’s, one of which was “The Music of Ireland”, and the second of which was “Classic Jazz Solos”, are seemingly as unrelated as they could possibly be. But, in a Freudian kind of way, I was to discover that, in fact, there may have been a bigger reason that I came home with these two on the same day, and that reason is, I may have subconsciously bought them as a way of paying homage to one of our area’s most colorful characters, Bronx Barney, a soon-to-be- former bastion of the colorful, eclectic, even eccentric format, offered by Whitesburg’s WMMT, 88.7 FM, Mountain Community Radio.

But perhaps I should start at the beginning. WMMT has been undergoing a bit of upheaval of late. What with a concern that, perhaps, some of the programming offered there wasn’t bringing in either the listeners they should, or the donations that the station needs in order to stay on the air, well, as they say, something had to give. And, so, armed with Arbitron ratings that detailed how many people were listening to whom, and stats that showed how much was given and when it was given, the station’s management soon separated the wheat from the chaff, and marching orders were typed up, and handed out. Sad to say, one of the casualties was to be “First Notes from Jazz”, the bailiwick of the aforementioned Bronx Barney.

Okay, most of the music featured on “First Notes from Jazz”-no surprise, considering its name-is either jazz or big band, and, considering the area’s musical tastes, which tend toward country or bluegrass or gospel, or even rock and roll, it is, perhaps, a miracle that ”First Notes” ever found a home on any local radio station. But it did. In 1986, in the stations nascent years, big band and jazz burst forth from Madison Avenue in downtown Whitesburg, and in a few years, Bronx Barney , who would often dance around his house with Sweet Thing, his "main squeeze" to this wonderful music, began his stint as a programmer on the show that featured such alien music as Spike Jones, the Mills Brothers, the Andrews Sisters, the Ink Spots (Fred Sandford’s favorite group), and even (Gasp!) Homer and Jethro, who, with the aid of ol' Spike Jones, did a wonderful tale of a visit to the opera as they try to figure out the tragic clown, Pagliacci.

No less a miracle, though, is that fact that Bronx Barney, aka Barney Reilly, would wind up in our area. Do I need to say where the man is from? His name says it all. For those who are curious, go to WMMT’s web site, and check out his bio. It’ll tell you all you need to know. So, how did Bronx Barney wind up in Virginia? Simple answer-Sweet Thing. Bronx Barney met Sweet Thing-nee Vina Pauline Deel, when he enlisted in the U. S. Air Force “at a tender age”, as his bio states, and at his first duty station, in Virginia. After a “whirlwind courtship”, the two married, and Bronx Barney and Sweet Thing made a 27-year career of the Air Force, and, once retired, settled down in her home town in Dickenson County, where they still live today as productive members of their community.

And how do CD’s that contain jazz and Irish music lead me to the conclusion that this purchase must have been a subconscious compliment to Bronx Barney? Quite simple, really. In addition to being an aficionado of the big band music and jazz, which is contained in the other CD, classic jazz solos, Bronx Barney is also, very proudly, of Irish ancestry. In addition to his usual offerings from the aforementioned era, Bronx Barney would often play Irish tunes from varied sources. One of these groups was the Irish Rovers, who rose to fame in the U. S when they released a song about unicorns way back when, or more particularly, why unicorns are now missing from the scene. (Seems they played hooky, and so missed Noah’s Ark.) Some Irish songs were more in line with the big band sound, and one of my favorites was called “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?”, as sung by der Binger (Bing Crosby). And sometimes, Bronx Barney would play a tale told by an able Irish story teller, such as the one about the fellow who journeyed to the sea to get some salt water as a cure for the miseries. Hilarious! And always, with Bronx Barney on duty, you knew exactly how many shopping days there were until St. Patrick’s Day. So, this wonderful CD of Irish music, which contains such standards as “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Londonderry Air” or more popularly, “Danny Boy”, could hardly be anything else than a loving tribute to the tutelage of Bronx Barney, who taught me much about his home town, and how wonderful it must have been to have lived there when he did.

But Barney and his cohorts, Otis Ray and Woody Goodman, were nothing if not musical professors. (Not unlike Kay Kyser, the ol’ Professor of Swing!) I learned so much about jazz and big band music, its featured performers, and most of all, I learned to love this music so much. It just seems to me that this music needs a home as much as the other music that WMMT features regularly.

What does it mean for this area now that the station will no longer play this music, or have a program with the likes of Bronx Barney? We will be poorer for the loss, and the station has lost a lot of its flavor now that “First Notes from Jazz” has been canceled. It’s like taking the Newburg out of the lobster. A lot plainer, and, to me, a lot less appealing. Well, I am but one person, and, as much as I am attracted to jousting with windmills-I tried my best to convinced the Powers-that-be at WMMT to keep Bronx Barney and the gang-this time, I am afraid, the windmills prevailed.