Lawrence Berger

I was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1943 and grew up listening to The Hound. He broadcast from the Zanzibar in downtown Buffalo ( or said he did ). I bought a 78rpm copy of his theme ( Big Heavy )then and still have it on CD. It is perfect instrumental music — every note is right. He would play really good instrumentals like that by artists who had few or no hits as well as the popular hit songs ( I can still remember him introducing Love Me by Elvis, which was only on an album ). His commercials were crazy ( Get your snap jacks — snap your fingers — at Tom McCanns) because he spoke in rhyme and used slang or hip expressions. He signed off with ” that’s all she wrote — that’s where the pencil broke. ” Most Rock and Roll shows were held in the downtown movie theaters and that’s where I saw many of the now famous artists before they became famous. In 1957 Elvis had a show in War Memorial Auditorium downtown ( later torn down ) and about a dozen artists later, banded together and had a show there also, but most played in the movie theaters. Although he did not invent the term, the Hound was an intrinsic part of the rock and roll culture