"Blasts From the Past" (1962)

[Wilson Gray]

On Mar 30, 2005, at 9:46 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Blasts From the Past" (1962)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:41:16 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> I remember "blast from the past" from Wolfman Jack in the film
>> AMERICAN
>> GRAFFITI. It's at least from 1962. "Blast from the past" is not in
>> the OED.
>> ...
>> Display Ad 9 -- No Title
>> Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jan 19, 1962. p. 10
>> (1
>> page)
>> ...
>> meet JIM LOUNSBURY in person
>> Bring the gang...and have the fun of meeting Jim Lounsbury in person
>> in
>> The Fair's record section, second floor. He'll be autographing copies
>> of
>> his great new album, "Blasts from The Past" ($3.98)--all songs that
>> have
>> sold a million copies or more!
>> (SEARS ad--ed.)
>
> Let's not give a Chicago DJ credit for a New York invention!  "Blast
> from
> the past" is generally attributed to 1010-WINS DJ Murray Kaufman, aka
> "Murray the K", or the station's assistant program director Rick Sklar:
>
> -----
> http://www.1960sailors.net/05b_Murray_the_K.htm
> As the overnight host of the  "Swingin' Soiree," which began in
> mid-1958,
> Murray Kaufman built a large following that readily tuned in earlier
> every
> day after Murray assumed  Alan Freed's primetime slot when the payola
> scandals of 1959 caused Freed's sudden fall from grace.  Kaufman was
> the
> creative genius who invented both the "blast from the past" and
> "submarine
> race watching."

WTF *is* a "submarine race"? I first heard this term used by the other
"Little Walter," *the* oldies DJ in the greater Boston area, in 1972.
Walter often played a doo-wop oldie entitled "Submarine Race
[?Watching"?] and also used the term regularly in his patter. I had
come to Boston from California, where both the song and the term were
unknown. Apparently, it was such an old and well-known term in the
Boston area that Walter never felt the need to give the slightest hint
as to its meaning and the words of the song also assumed prior
knowledge of the meaning of the phrase.

-Wilson Gray

> -----
> http://musicradio.computer.net/Sklar.html
> At WINS Rick also met and worked with another legendary disc jockey;
> Murray "the K" Kaufman. In fact, it was Rick Sklar who was responsible
> for
> Murray Kaufman picking up the name "Murray the K". And, it was also
> Rick
> who coined the phrase "a blast from the past" as a way to introduce
> oldies
> on Murray’s WINS show.
> -----
>
> There's a clip on <http://www.reelradio.com/mk/> of Murray the K
> saying,
> "This is Murray the K on the Swingin' Soiree with a blast <sound
> effect>
> from the past..."  Don't know what year that's from, but there was a
> 1961
> album of oldies called "Murray the K's Blasts From the Past":
> <http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:qxkxlfhekcqq>.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>