Chicago

Memoirs of a DJ: John Records Landecker and Top 40 Radio

Bill Thompson

Every August 20th is National Radio Day, commemorating the contributions the radio industry has made for more than a century.

Today we are revisiting my 2013 interview with a disc jockey who has been a radio audience favorite in cities across the country for decades.

John Landecker is more frequently known by his full legal name: John Records Landecker. And believe it or not, that was the name he was born with, not just some disc jockey gimmick. More on that in a moment.

John started in radio – as I did – while still in high school. During his college Years he could be heard spinning the hits on several radio stations in Michigan, and then he joined to Philadelphia station.

Get your copy of John Records Landecker’s book

But his career took off when he joined Chicago Top 40 powerhouse WLS in 1972. The station’s signal blasted into 38 states in the evening, and Landecker built a national following over the next several years.

Later his radio career took him to Toronto, back to Chicago, Cleveland, and back again to Chicago.

And finally in 2013 he had the chance to write his Memoir, a book that he called Records Truly Is My Middle Name.

It’s a book filled not only with John’s own stories, but it is itself the story of AM Top 40 radio in America, now a bygone era.

So here now from 2013, John Records Landecker.

John Records Landecker is 78 now. He can be heard four evenings a week on Chicago’s WGN Radio.

Double Cross: The Book That Exposed Sam Giancana’s Role in U.S. History

Bill Thompson

In the 1950s and ‘60s one of the most powerful organized crime bosses in America was Chicago’s Sam Giancana.

His crime career began when he joined a youth gang, and soon became a hit man and getaway driver under Al Capone.

By th e’50s Giancana had established himself at the top. And he enjoyed the perks of wealth and notoriety, frequently seen with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe – and Joseph Kennedy.

It’s been widely reported that Kennedy came to Giancana to ask for his help in getting his son John F. Kennedy elected president in 1960.

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But after Kennedy won, his administration went hard after the mob, and Giancana took it personally.

Get your copy of Sam Giancana’s book

All this time Sam’s little brother Chuck never got into the crime business himself. In fact he distanced himself from it. As did his son, also named Sam.

And in 1992, Sam Giancana wrote a book about his Infamous uncle (with help from his father, Chuck). He called the book Double Cross, and it was a book that brought a startling new perspective to some of the most important historical events of the late 20th century.

I met Sam Giancana when he was on a book tour. So here now, from 1992, Sam Giancana.

Mobster Sam Giancana was killed at his home in 1975 at the age of 67. The murder remains unsolved.

Jane Byrne

Bill Thompson
Photo: Alan Light

For 21 years, from the mid-1950s to the mid ’70s, mayor Richard j. Daly ran the city of Chicago. And I mean he ran the city.

One member of Daley’s cabinet was a woman named Jane Byrne, who was Chicago’s Commissioner of Consumer Sales.

Not long after Mayor Daley’s death in 1976 Byrne left her city job, and ran for mayor herself in 1979. And against the odds, Byrne won. She became not only Chicago’s first female mayor, but the first woman to be elected mayor of any major U.S. city.

But 4 years later, when she ran for reelection, the tide that had swept her into office swept her back out again.

In 1992, Jane Byrne wrote a political memoir, and that’s when I have the chance to meet her.

So here now, from 1992, Jane Byrne.

Jane Byrne died in 2014. She was 81.

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Marva Collins

Bill Thompson
Photo: Eric Watkins

America’s schools are in crisis right now.

After COVID took its toll, and forced remote learning on millions of kids, school boards all over the country are now dealing with loud, sometimes ferocious, debates over everything from mask mandates to gender pronouns to critical race theory.

But debate over education is nothing new.

A generation ago, a Chicago educator with unusual methods was both widely praised and roundly criticized.

Yet it was hard to argue with the success that Marva Collins had with the students who attended her private inner city elementary school.

I met her some 31 years ago as we have a conversation about the state of education, and her unusual methods.

So here now, from 1990, Marva Collins.

Marva Collins died in 2015. She was 78.