MONTICELLO, NY- On Sunday, October 9, the longest running show in the
Catskills, WVOS-FM’s “The Bop Shop” hosted by John Manzi, will celebrate its
33rd anniversary. The four- hour radio show is heard on Sunday nights from 8pm
until mid-night.
The
unique program which features music—mostly vocal group harmony records--
from the late 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s is available on WVOS radio on 95.9FM
and on Time Warner Cable channel 1962 in southeast New York , northeastern
Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey. And it is now heard world-wide on
the internet at wvosfm.com.
“We
have a fun program and we play enjoyable songs from small labels that never
really go much airplay and since we’ve been on the internet we’ve been getting
calls from listeners in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, New Jersey,
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Long Island and all over the East Coast; even
from Alaska,” Manzi relates.
“We
go back to the roots of rock n roll and rhythm n blues playing great songs from
what is now known as the doo wop era. Sure we play chart records but mostly we
feature vocal group harmony records but we also play some rock-a-billy
and blues records, too.”
Currently
with features like “the name game”, “name that tune”, “same thing only
different”, battle of the (record’s) B-sides”, “rate a record”, and
“common denominator”, Manzi tries to keep his audience involved in the
show.
From
time to time Manzi has live in-studio a cappella from vocal ensembles like
Larry Chance and the Earls, Guy Villari & the Regents; The Shallows; the
Cliftonaires; Mystique; the Creations, the Arrogants, the Excellents;
Sentimental Journey; and BQE, to mention a few; and recently, Little
Isadore and the Inquisitors .
Every
Sunday Manzi is joined by his sidekick, Joe “Doo Wop” Greco who has been with
him since the beginning of the show in early October 1983. Also an integral
part of the program are Steve “the Eggman” (Ristano) and Cindy “G”.
Besides
playing the music, they inform the listeners of the background of the
songs; talk about the personnel and where they originated from, as well as
where songs placed on the Billboard charts.
Manzi,
the retired longtime publicity director at Monticello Raceway, has always been
a fancier of oldies music. His collection of 45RPM records exceeds 50,000 and
his albums number more than 3000. He plays his 45RPM records over the
airwaves.
For
the first 25 years the Bop Shop was heard on WSUL-98.3FM but eight years ago
Watermark Communications, which owns both WSUL and WVOS, switched the
program to WVOS-FM when that station began an “oldies” format.
When
Manzi took over the Sunday night oldies show at WSUL radio in October 1983
little did he fathom that 33 years later he’d still be at it.
“And
the beautiful part of this music is that even though the records are 50 years
old, and most older, I’m always coming across vocal group harmony songs that I
never heard before,” Manzi said. “It’s like listening to new music.”
“I
really look forward to Sunday nights. I love the music and I love our
audience.”
