Long John Nebel: radio talk king, master salesman, and magnificent charlatan

by Donald Bain

268 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

From Wikipedia: Donald Bain (1935-2017) was a United States author and ghostwriter.

Author Jack Pearl is his cousin and sometime co-author.

Known Pseudonyms:
Jessica Fletcher
Joan Wood
J.D. Hardin
Nick Vasile
Mike Lundy
Pamela South
Lee Jackson
Stephanie Blake
Marjorie Margolies
Kathy Cole
Donna Bain

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of late night AM talk radio for a long time. Of course, the premiere such show is Coast to Coast AM, started years ago by Art Bell and now ably helmed by George Noury. But before there was a Coast to COast, way back in the '60s and even late '50s, there was the Long John Nebel show from New York.

In his youth, Jack Knebel was a street huckster, hawking wares in New York in the '20s. He longed to be in show business, so among his many odd jobs he was an usher in several theaters. Gradually he got to know people in the broadcasting business, and in the '50s he was lured away from a lucrative auction house he had established in New Jersey to team up with a seasoned radio professional for a one-hour radio show each day. From that time on, there was no turning back for Long John Nebel.

Nebel had a life-long interest in the paranormal, and broad curiosity about most subjects. He parlayed this, plus his natural talkativeness, into an interview style that left his guests breathless and defensive, and his audience hanging on by a thread. His popularity among the night owls all along the East Coast was unprecedented (this was in the days before syndication, when a radio station had to rely on its own broadcast power to reach a wider audience).

Nebel had his demons, though, and they dogged his personal relationships all through his life. At times he contemplated suicide, but he always managed to find a bright spot, or a friend to show it to him.

This book suffers a little from poor editing, and the early timeline of Nebel's life in the '20s and '30s whipsaws back and forth so that it's hard to follow for the first two chapters. If the reader can make it that far, the narrative settles down and becomes a compelling look at a very complex, flawed, but lovable and fascinating man. I'm sorry that he left the scene--I would have loved to listen to his shows.

[Stas]

One of his wives was Candy Jones, a leading pin-up girl in the 1950s, who later claimed she was a subject in MK-ULTRA experiments.