Today, the day we lost Jerry, radioman extroadinaireEllis B. Feaster posted in tribute this rare aircheck of the Geator on WSSJ 1310 on December 23, 1996. It's the Boss with the Hot Sauce at the top of his form.
The Geator: An
Appreciation
"The last bastion of doo-wop culture
in a McDonald's world."
These words were written about Philadelphia, but they apply equally
to Philadelphia's legendary radio personality Jerry Blavat -- The "Geator
with the Heater," the "Boss with the Hot Sauce." The unique
DJ, going strong to the end, who became as much a Philadelphia institution as a
cheesesteak or the Academy of Music.
Since 1961 the Geator did it his way, playing
a different kind of music -- different from what was playing in other cities
and even from what other DJs were playing in Philadelphia. Over the years
that approach maintained its consistency and the purity of its focus.
Decades after other stations shackled their DJ's to a limited
playlist and a tight, canned format, Blavat plays what sounds good to
him from the Geator Gold Vault of classic doo-wop, acapella, motown
and Philadelphia area dance hits of the fifties, sixties and seventies,
interspersed with his encyclopedic knowledge of the music, its writers and
the performers. What held it all together is the unique on-air personality
of the man himself.
On radio for decades, Jerry Blavat long ago transcended the medium.
Describing him as a "radio DJ" is like describing Abraham Lincoln as
a politician from Illinois. He became a true cultural icon of the
City of Brotherly Love, as recognizable a symbol as Independence Hall or
the Liberty Bell.
In Philadelphia, everyone smiles when they hear the Geator.
"The Geator is barely
in control. Johnny and the Hurricanes' "Sheeba" crescendoes in the background,
and Jerry Blavat cannot contain himself. His feet twitch convulsively, spasms
rock his wiry body, and his high-collar white cotton shirt is already drenched
with sweat. But it's his mouth that commands attention, a gaping abyss that
emits a nonstop stream of yowls, groans, gurgles, and barely decipherable
syllables. 'Come on, South Philly,' he hisses, swallowing
air in gobs like a man who has just done fifty push-ups. 'Come on,
come on, West Philly, come on, South Jersey, come on, yon teen agers everywhere.
Hit that thing now. Hey, hey, ho, ho. Let me say greetings and salutations.
Welcome to the biggest of all big-time ones. Once again, yours truly, the
Geator with the Heater and, of course, everybody here, swingin',
tick-tock-rockin' with the big time Chez-Vous tower of power. The toughest
dances in the entire world! Let's kick it off the big time, Du-Ettes -- 'Please
Forgive Me' -- oooohh!' For Jerry Blavat, in 1966, a night
at Upper Darby's Chez-Vous has just begun."
-- Joe
McEwen, The Catalog
of Cool (Gene Sculatti ed. 1982)
"I grew up listening
to him. He has his own AM radio station and he still plays old records and
talks a mile a minute and pounds his desk with his fist and screams. He's
amazing. He's my hero. I started listening to him on AM radio when I was
8 or 9 years old and he played the craziest shit. My dad was just
appalled."
-- songwriter and
performer Ben Vaughn
Born and raised in South Philadelphia, Jerry Blavat started in show business
at the age of 13, jitterbugging on the original Bandstand show on
WFIL-TV with its original host Bob Horn, who preceded Dick Clark.
Jerry Blavat dancing on Bandstand, June 30, 1955
His foundation was radio. He got his start on January 15, 1961.
Scheduled for an hour broadcast on WCAM from a local club, a snowstorm
shut down the club and the city. Jerry made his way to the WCAM studio
in Camden with the rock & roll records he had danced to as a
teenager and played them on the air as the snow fell. Kids started
phoning in. No one else could make it to the studio, so Blavat played
his favorites, rapped and reminisced all night until relief arrived in the
morning. The station's general manager, Bud Hibbs, proclaimed it
a smash.
"So came to be the Geator with the Heater,
keeper of the flame and coolest of the cool."
-- Nick Tosches, in Vanity Fair
magazine, December 2000
Calling himself "The Geator with the Heater," Blavat began broadcasting
regularly, first from WCAM (1310 AM) and later from WHAT (1340 AM) in
Philadelphia. By 1963 his show was also heard in Atlantic City and
Trenton, while off the air his "record hops" attracted thousands every week
to venues like Wagner's Ballroom and the Chez-Vous.
In 1966 Jerry returned to WCAM while hosting TV's
Discophonic
Scene, which increasingly occupied him through the late sixties.
In April 1972 he became one of the first on-air personalities on oldies
WCAU-FM (today's WOGL), doing a Sunday night show from 7 to 10. In the mid-seventies
he was heard on WFIL (560AM) on occasions like New Year's Eve. He
returned there as a regular in the fall of 1983, hosting Sunday nights and
weeknights Monday through Thursday, when WFIL returned as "Famous 56" (after
a disastrous experiment as a country station). About 1987 Jerry moved
to "Philly Gold Radio" WPGR (1540AM), which became "Geator Gold Radio" in
April 1992.
Following the demise of WPGR in 1995, Jerry took Geator Gold Radio to
WSSJ (1310) in Camden, then in January 1999 to WNJC (1360) after 'SSJ changed
to a Spanish-language format. In the mid '90s the Geator Gold network
also included WTTM (then 920 AM) in Trenton and WQVL (1600 AM) in Dover, Delaware,
serving Cape May County, NJ.
Today Geator Gold Radio shows from the archives can still be heard daily on radio stations
in the Delaware Valley, South Jersey and on internet radio.
All stream on the net and you'll find the schedule and links below in the
Listen Live section of this site.
On weekends the Geat changed things up a bit, with his Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues Express
Saturdays at 6PM on Philadelphia public radio WXPN 88.5 FM and with
The Geator, Frank and Friends, hosting the timeless Sinatra sound Sunday mornings 9 - 11 on WOND 1400 AM.
WXPN has announced that it will continue archived shows of Jerry's Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues Express
at its usual time on Saturdays at 6. WXPN's website for the program has archived shows for listening any time.
Through the years Jerry continued his club appearances around the
Philadelphia area. He appeared at his own club,
Memories, in Margate,
NJ, every weekend during the summer.
The wildest aspects of his patter and performance mellowed since
the early days of the Chez Vous and Wagners, but right up to the end they retained the
distinctive Geator character.
Jerry Blavat was one of the radio greats honored by the Rock & Roll Hall
of Fame in April, 1998.
Radio honorees at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998
left to right: Jack Armstrong, Pat O'Day,
Dan Ingram,
Jack Gibson, Red Robinson, Jerry Blavat,
"Cousin Brucie" Morrow, Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg,
Joey Reynolds, Erica Farber - Editor of Radio & Records magazine, Porky Chedwick, Denny Sanders,
Hal Jackson, Dave "Mickey" Marsden, Scott Muni, Art Laboe, Dick Biondi,
Arnie Ginsberg.
"Fads come and go, but the Geator never changes. He could give Henry David
Thoreau lessons in being true to yourself. To yourself, and your friends and your music ... "
--
Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky - 4/18/1989
For anyone who listens to '50s and '60s music on a conventional "oldies"
station, tuning in to the Geator is like moving from black-and-white
to Technicolor.
Blavat played "oldies" when the term itself was new, in the '60s becoming
the first disc jockey in the country to play music from the '50s. He played
songs no other DJ played, digging out obscure oldies, often the flip sides
of releases he liked better than the "A" side, and making them local and
national hits -- some for the first time, for others all over again.
Nevertheless, it was never just an "oldies" act. Blavat's taste remained
consistent over the years, with a preference for harmony, acapella, rhythm
and soaring vocal performances. There was always room in the Geator's
repertoire for new material that satisfies those preferences. Jerry Blavat
was the first Philadelphia disc jockey to break such songs as "Sherry" by
the Four Seasons and "Twist and Shout" by the Iseley Brothers. While much
of what comprises the "Geator sound" is rooted in the '50s and early '60s,
with generous representations of rhythm & blues, doo-wop, Motown and
high-energy dance numbers, something that came out yesterday made the cut
if the Geator thought it had enough "soul" in it.
It had been hell during
the Beatle reign, when there had been much pressure to get on the bandwagon.
"But I sensed that it just didn't have enough soul for my kids. The
Stones, yes, the Beatles, no. So I'd go up to Fonzo's Restaurant and
the upper-class kids would say how come no Beatles and I'd say it's just
not my schticklach, not my groove, not for my kids. So I finally gave
in and played a few, and I got bombarded by phone calls saying 'Geator, what
you doing, man?' " -- Bruce
Jay Friedman, Saturday Evening Post (1966)
The Geator described his music as "a part of my body" and reminded his audience
that it's played from the heart, not from a chart. He took the time to talk
about the artists and their records. All of this made him a rebel against
the system of "format" radio, where tightly controlled DJs are limited to material
from a playlist drawn up in a radio conglomerate's national headquarters.
Blavat never lost touch with the music or his audience. It's an audience
whose tastes he shaped and one that grew over the years, as the Geator
introduced several generations to the sound he made the musical
signature of Philadelphia.
Classic Geator
Riffs
"For those who grew
up there, Jerry Blavat's arcane, machine gun prattle only seemed normal,
a natural background for the raucous dances and frenetic Motown grooves that
served as background music to everyday teenage life."
-- Joe McEwen
Update January 20, 2023: WXPN will air archived shows from Jerry's Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues Express at its usual time on Saturdays at 6, at the link above.
Update January 23, 2023: WISL will continue to air Geator Gold programs daily from 5 to 7 pm at the link above.
As of January 23, archived Geator Gold Radio shows continue to air on all of the stations listed above, at the times shown.
Television
The Geator's weekly TV show
Discophonic Scene debuted on Philadelphia's WCAU-TV, channel 10, in
March 1965. It featured many of the artists Jerry had come to know
as road manager for Danny and the Juniors in the fifties, such as James Brown,
Martha and the Vandellas and Marvin Gaye. Discophonic Scene was
the only place the Supremes appeared on Philadelphia TV.
"He is a personality," wrote Murray Dubin in the Inquirer.
"You understand why the WCAU show was a hit, big enough so that WFIL, on the other
side of City Line, offered him a daily show ..."
The move to WFIL-TV, channel 6, came in January 1967. Now called Jerry's Place,
the show appeared 5 days a week.
WFIL, an ABC affiliate, was owned by Walter Annenberg's Triangle
Publications, which syndicated the show coast-to-coast in 42 markets.
Performances on Discophonic Scene and Jerry's Place were live, not lip-synched,
imparting to the program a higher standard of professionalism than its
competitors. That, together with the youth and distinctive personality
of its host, sustained the show's popularity for several years after
the demise of the other teen dance shows of the time like Shindig and
Hullaballoo. "Blavat was the master of excitement," the Philadelphia
Inquirer Magazine said about the show in 1972, "and he generated it through
the camera."
"He started out as a
dancer on 'American Bandstand.' He was one of us, whereas the
Wolfman was more of a father figure. The Geator was always right down there
dancing with the dancers. He may be the only disc jockey that was a dancer.
Usually the DJs were the guys who couldn't dance but loved music."
-- Ben
Vaughn
The Geator has appeared on The Tonight Show, in episodes of The
Monkees and The Mod Squad and in the movies Baby It's You
(1983) and Cookie (1989).
He also appears in the longform music video
Rambler
'65 about the making of songwriter and performer Ben Vaughn's
CD of the same name
And although it's hard to believe of the same guy who once did the Guess
What album introduction, in 1999 Jerry's status as cultural icon and
Philadelphia institution became indisputable when he hosted on-air fundraising
for Public Television. Since then he appeared on the PBS fundraising event DooWop 50
in December 1999 and again on DooWop 51 in December 2000.
The Geator's specials on Chubby Checker and Martha Reeves (of Martha and
the Vandellas) aired in January 2000 on Pittsburgh Public TV, WQED channel
13 .
In addition to the compilation albums, the Geator made some 45rpm single
releases of his own in the sixties. One of them, Discophonic
Walk, made for the benefit of a Catholic high school in Philadelphia,
was recorded in the school's gym with the students.
Releases with the Geator as performing artist were:
Before sending you off to Linkland, a few last items.
Acknowledgments
In August 1998 the author of this site stopped by the Geator
Gold Radio studio in Philadelphia for some CDs. From out of the office came
Jerry Blavat himself. When I mentioned my interest in doing a Geator website,
Jerry was kind enough to give me some photos, press releases and other background
material that went into the production of this site.
Thanks to Jerry Blavat for his courtesy on that occasion and for his support
of this website.
And special thanks to Keely Stahl for her contributions to this site since its appearance and for her
kind encouragement.
Your Turn
Your contribution will make this a better site. Comments? Reminiscences about the Geator? Share them with
the webmaster!
Please tell me whether all or any part of your submission may
be posted on this site and whether, if posted, it may be attributed to you.
Thank you for visiting Geator! A Tribute to Jerry
Blavat. Please visit again as the site develops.
Until then, as the Geator said at the close of every broadcast,
This site first appeared
March 12, 2000
Last update: January 23, 2023
This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by any person or entity
other than its author. "The last bastion of doo-wop culture in a McDonald's world"
is quoted from Joe
McEwen in The Catalog of Cool (Gene Sculatti ed. 1982).
The Geator: An Appreciation
The Geator's weekly TV show
Discophonic Scene debuted on Philadelphia's WCAU-TV, channel 10, in
March 1965. It featured many of the artists Jerry had come to know
as road manager for Danny and the Juniors in the fifties, such as James Brown,
Martha and the Vandellas and Marvin Gaye. Discophonic Scene was
the only place the Supremes appeared on Philadelphia TV.
