After a nearly 60-year career in radio, local media and counterculture legend Bob Reitman is hanging up his microphone.
Reitman will host the last installment of his weekly WUWM-FM radio show, “It’s All Right, Ma, It’s Only Music” on Thursday, April 18, from 8 until 10 p.m.
Reitman got his start on WUWM in 1966 with a poetry show called “Sense Waves,” and by 1968 had shifted over to the fledgling WZMF, helping launch that station’s move into album rock – a new format – when he started his first show on Columbus Day 1968, playing The Doors’ “Break On Through.”
Reitman revisted the old WZMR studios last year.
A poet that published and even made an album, Reitman became not only a fixture at the Avant Garde Coffeehouse, but in the counterculture scene in general.
In 1975, he was the emcee and reluctant bearer of bad news at Bruce Springteen’s legendary “Bomb Scare Show” at the Uptown Theater.
Reitman also did stints at WAWA, WTOS and WQFM.
It was at the latter in 1976 that Reiman stayed on the air for 222 hours and 22 minutes at State Fair Park, setting a world record that was verified by the Guinness Book.
In 1980, his career took a more mainstream turn when he teamed with Gene Mueller on WKTI for the “Reitman & Mueller Show,” which took the pair into homes, businesses and cars throughout the area. The show, which was known for hitting the road, also took the duo to six Olympics, the Soviet Union and beyond.
For a time, Reitman and Mueller were everywhere, on the airwaves, on billboards, on people’s lips: “Did you hear Reitman and Mueller today?!”
The show lasted a quarter of a century and decades later it’s still well-known in Milwaukee.
Reiman came out of retirement in 2007 to host “It’s Alright, Ma, It’s Only Music” – the name a reference to a song by Reitman’s all-time favorite, Bob Dylan – with his son, Bobby.
“For the past 17 years, Reitman was a bridge between our past and our future. Reitman’s underground and freeform style, which he pioneered with us, will always be a part of our ethos here at WUWM and we will miss him greatly,” said WUWM general manager David Lee.
“Bob Reitman is the best of what we do in radio, from his origins at WUWM to his blockbuster career throughout Milwaukee, and back to where it all started. We are lucky to have been the home to “It’s Alright, Ma, It’s Only Music” and are thankful for everything he’s done for our radio listeners. I am going to miss him so much,” added Ele Ellis, WUWM’s vice president of content and programming.
I always figured I’d keep the first photo I took of Bob myself, at Colectivo in Walker’s Point after interviewing him for this Springsteen story.
In it – after I asked if I could take his photo – he looks directly at the camera from behind his raised middle finger, smirking slightly.
But I’ve decided to keep that one for myself. Instead, the photo above was taken in December outside the Bertelson Bulding on Prospect Avenue, which had been the site of the Avant Garde Coffeehouse.
We went in to see if we could get a peek at the old place, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, Bob chatted amiably with jewelry shop owner Paloma Wilder and her staff, reminding us of the personality that fueled 58 years of Milwaukee radio.
Here’s to you, Bob!
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
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