Bio - Update 11/02/2008
Bill worked at WCBS-FM, Sirius Satellite Radio Ch 6 "60's Vibrations" and Channel 13 " Elvis Radio" plus Bill is now the announcer for
John Gambling on WOR 710. 2009 will mark Bill's 38th year on New York Radio... Bill's overall since his days at WSOU is 44 years.
I want to thank Bill Rock for taking the time to send me this information, plus Vince Santarelli, editor of that New York Radio newsletter Apple Bites, for letting me use some of the intereview he had done with Bill a number of years ago.
A few words from former WWDJ dj
Chuck Cooper/Bill Rock
"When I was a kid, my family lived in Hasbrouck Heights. I used to listen to WABC. Their transmitter was in Lodi, you know, I probably could have picked them up on my bedsprings!"
Bill Rock(Chuck Cooper)started his radio career while he was a student at Seton Hall University on WSOU. Commercially, he started where history was being made.
"I was one of the original engineers for OR-FM back in the 60's. I used to engineer for Murray the K and Scott Muni and all those guys."
Bill's radio experience reads like, as Bill put it "alphabet soup." His part time jobs included WDHA in Dover, NJ (it was a classical station back then), WERA in Plainfield, NJ, WDRC in Hartford, Ct, WICC in Bridgeport, Ct, and, of course, WWDJ, using the name Chuck Cooper.
"Most of my radio career, I was in management either program director, operations director, or news director."
The management trail began in July of 1971 when Bill was hired to program WTRY in Albany, NY.
"WWDJ came into the picture when I sent an air check to Nick Anthony and he called me and asked if I wanted to do weekends. Here's the kicker, I used to fly down from Albany, do weekends at WWDJ and fly back late Sunday night or early Monday morning. I think it cost me more for air fare on the old Allegheny Airlines than I made. I didn't care though, I was on a "New York" rocker in my early 20's , something that was very rare back then. That was where I met Al Brady, perhaps my most significant future contact in the business. I was the guy who broke him in on the board. By the way the name Chuck Cooper came from Nick Anthony because he said there were too many guys on the air with made up sounding names. The irony is that Bill Rock is my real name!"
After leaving WWDJ, Bill moved to WMEX in Boston as operations manager. A year later he moved on to WAVZ in New Haven, Ct and then, in December of 1974, Bill made the move to Rockefeller Center and WNBC.
"I remember calling Al "Brady" Law at WNBC on a Monday and telling him 'I need a gig.' He told me that their production guy was leaving and he would put in the good word for me. I got a call from John Lund and went down (to interview) that next morning. I got back on the train and no sooner had I gotten back home when my wife said to me, 'you got a call from John Lund.' So Lund says to me, 'not only am I going to hire you as program director but Al Brady says you're one of the best jocks in the country --- you're going to be our swing and weekend guy! In fact, I want you back tonight because Dick Summer's on vacation.' So I got back on the train and went all the way back to New York. I got there at quarter to 12. I had worked in Top 40 radio all my life and here I was at WNBC in New York. I think it was the week between Christmas and New Year's in 1974. There I was in Rockefeller Center in New York."
Bill spent the better part of his New York radio career at WYNY, 15 years all together. He hosted the Saturday Night Country Club, one of the highest rated (if not the highest at times) rated show on the station.
"I enjoyed that so much. Here I was in New York, now, able to do whatever I wanted, I had a loyal audience, a sizable audience. In fact, we had a cume of, I think 150,000 when the station only had a cume of 800,000. So for five hours a week I had like 20 per cent of the station's entire listening audience. It was just so great to be able to do that." In the late 1980's I worked for Dick Clark and hosted Motor City Beat, a syndicated Motown oldies show. It was in 1986 that I got called by the NBC television Network to be the promotional voice for NBC Nightly News. I have been the promotional voice for Meet The Press, Weekend Nightly, and on MS-NBC I'm the announcer for Weekend Magazine with Stone Phillips. I've also done promos for Today, Dateline (I'm the voice of Dateline on NBC Europe and NBC Asia). I also do promos for CNBC and MS-NBC. I've even done some VO for Saturday Night Live. Currently I'm heard nationally for Winstar radio on a comedy feature called "Today's Show". I'm also the voice of News 12 New Jersey.
I also do a lot of work for the US Coast Guard Auxiliary. I'm public affairs officer on the flotilla, division and now the district level (which includes all of Long Island Sound and parts of New York and New Jersey. I'm also Vice President of the Connecticut Air and Space Center. There's kind of an irony about that... when I was a kid in high school growing up in New Jersey I worked part time at Teterboro Airport , just a few short miles from WWDJ in Hackensack."