Benny Goodman, A Painted Pith Helmet, and the Theatrics of Religion with Vin Scelsa (Episode 57)

Vin Scelsa is a familiar name to anybody who grew up listening to FM radio in the New York/New Jersey area. He spent nearly 50 years playing music on the radio, starting out at a college station, then a couple of  commercial stations, before heading to public radio.He was on the air the night that John Lennon died in 1980, and he turned WNEW's airwaves into a kind of virtual wake, with callers sharing their grief.  Along the way, he interviewed everybody from David Bowie to Suzanne Vega to Kurt Vonnegut.  I met Vin when we were both working at WFUV in the Bronx, Fordham University’s public radio station, and he did a weekly show called “Idiot’s Delight.” He’s retired now, and I visited him last summer at his home in suburban New Jersey, where he and his wife Freddie had bagels and coffee waiting for me. After we ate and caught up, we went into his home studio to talk.