Don was first heard on WOLF in 1962 while attending Grant Junior High as a Teenage Guest DJ winner on the Marv Albert show (click here). The following year he began compiling his Big 50 song list and placed it in local record stores, competing with WOLF and WNDR's charts. In 1964, he was asked by Bud Ballou to help compile WNDR's year-end Top 100. Don ran a pirate radio station on the city's north side called WQBR (he was actually getting record service from many labels and the call letters stood for "we quite buying records"). At Syracuse University in 1965, he joined the staff of WAER-FM, and in 1968 hosted their first-ever pop music show, playing current Soul hits. The year before, he had been hired at WNDR as a weekend DJ. and newsman. In '68 he went full-time on WOLF as the night DJ during the station's country period, but soon the shift became "All Request Radio" and played all types of music-- paving the way for WOLF's return to rock in 1969. He was the Music Director for the new Big 15 but was soon lured back to WNDR, where (as Assistant Program Director) he did afternoon drive and the "Saturday Night of Gold". In 1976 he returned to WOLF part-time and then became Program Director upon the departure of Howie Castle. Leaving Syracuse in 1977, Don went to Pittsburgh and 13Q (WKTQ) where he originated the highest-rated show in the city's history: "The Sunday Night Oldies Party". From there, he moved to New York City, working simultaneously part-time at WYNY (as Don Bombard) and WCBS-FM (as Bob Shannon). He began full-time nights on CBS-FM in 1982 and continued with the new Shannon name. In 1986 he became their afternoon drive DJ until the stations unfortunate format change in 2005.
"Bob" has been nationally syndicated with the shows "The Oldies Countdown", "Keepin' the 70s Alive" and "Behind The Hits"; the latter two were heard in Syracuse on WSEN-FM. "Behind the Hits" is also the book he co-authored as an in-depth chronicle of the stories behind hit songs.
This aircheck is actually a compilation of several on WOLF from 1969.
_______________________________________________________________________________