From 1968 to 2000, legendary radio disc jockey Charles Laquidara ruled the airwaves in Boston with his show called "The Big Mattress." Laquidara is returning to Boston for the show "The First Farewell Tour," which will play at the Wilbur Theater. WGBH Radio's Henry Santoro spoke with Laquidara about his upcoming show. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Charles Laquidara: First of all, we never called ourselves "disc jockeys." We thought disc jockeys were those those lame, blazer-wearing, fast-talking, golden-throated people that didn't know anything about music and only played the same 40 songs. So we called ourselves "air personalities," which is kind of smug, now that you think about.
Henry Santoro: Well, this is public radio. You can be an air personality.
Laquidara: And your audience may not necessarily be the audience that I had back when I was doing rock radio. The 'GBH audience I would say [was] a little more sophisticated. I won't go into the details, but I think everybody knows what I'm talking about.
So a long time ago when I was doing radio, my music background was classical. I started off growing up in Milford, Massachusetts, which is a little town 30 miles southwest of Boston. And when when I was growing up, it was before rock and roll. I mean, I'm 60 years old, give or take five decades. So when I was growing up, when we were trying to get lucky on dates we didn't hear all these great rock songs. We heard Pat Boone and Johnny Mathis. I didn't know any great music, and so when I went to RISD I wanted to fit in with everybody. They were coming in from all over the world.
Santoro: Joining you on stage will be your old pal: former Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee.
Laquidara: Yeah, he's gonna be starting out. This guy has his own winery. When I called him and asked him if he'd want to do it I said, "Bill, do you do you want to come to Boston and do this thing at the Wilbur and be the opening act?" And he said, "Yeah, I'd love to do it." And I said, "Well, do you need help? Do you want me to go out there?" He said, "No, no. I did this big comedy special and I was better than all the comedians." So he's got no problem with self-esteem.
Santoro: I remember when I was getting into radio back in the '70s, someone said to me, "If you can work with Charles Laquidara, you can work with anyone." So I made it my mission to work in The Big Mattress. And you brought me on. That way I would be able to tell if I could make it in the business. So thank you for helping me make it into the business.
Laquidara: It's so funny. There's all these people are saying what a tyrant I was and how horrible I was to work with, and then they do the same thing you just did. They follow it up with, "Thank you, because now I can work anywhere."
