[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9509-H9510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PORKY CHEDWICK: ``DADDIO OF THE RADDIO''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, we deal in particular in these days on the 
floor of the House with such weighty matters and such serious issues as 
warfare and impeachment, health care reform, Social Security, budgets. 
I rise tonight for a little lighter of an item. I think sometimes we 
have to talk about these lighter things to give ourselves a perspective 
on the serious matters that we occasionally talk about.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand tonight to really pay tribute to a friend of 
mine who has been in radio in the Pittsburgh area for the last 50 
years. Fifty years in a career that sometimes only lasts a few weeks or 
months, those who may have been in the radio business.
  If one goes to Pittsburgh, PA and talks about ``The Boss Man,'' 
``Your Platter-Pushing Papa,'' ``Your Daddio of the Raddio,'' everybody 
knows who they are talking about. It is Porky Chedwick, or as he called 
himself, ``Pork the Tork,'' the ``Boss Hoss with the Hot Sauce.''
  Mr. Speaker, he developed all of these lines of patter back starting 
in 1948 when really no one in the country was doing anything really 
strong entertainment wise in radio.
  Porky is a white disk jockey. And I mention that because he played 
what then was known as ``race music,'' the old R&B music, the sweet 
doo-wop sounds. And for those young people, Mr. Speaker, who may be in 
the House or watching at home and say what is doo-wop, it is that 
street corner harmony where you snap your fingers and it sounds so 
wonderful.
  He would play that music that oftentimes was covered by white 
performers like Pat Boone, but he played it back before people had 
heard of people like Little Richard and Fats Domino and Bo Diddley. And 
a lot of those performers pay tribute to Porky Chedwick for giving them 
their first air play, because back then it was very difficult for black 
performers to get a wide audience anywhere in the country. There were 
certainly not many mainline radio stations that would play music by 
black performers.
  Lou Christie, who also comes from the Pittsburgh area said being cool 
growing up, and Lou Christie had a lot of big records, he said being 
cool as he grew up meant listening to Porky Chedwick. He says he is 
still in awe of him, and he still reverts to being a 15-year-old child 
when he is around him. He will never know how important Porky was to 
his career. He was the first disk jockey in the country to play ``The 
Gypsy Cried.''
  Jimmy Beaumont, who has been with the Skyliners around for 40 years 
playing in the Pittsburgh area and all around the world, Jimmy said he 
has known Porky for 40 of the 50 years, and he says that growing up 
hearing that stuff, that is when Jimmy Beaumont of the Skyliners 
decided he wanted to become a singer and sing that same doo-wop and 
that same sound that he heard Porky playing on the radio all the time.
  There actually is a group in the Pittsburgh area known as P.O.R.C. It 
is an acronym for Pittsburgh Old Records Club, and one of the members 
of the club, Jim Sanders, said, ``When I was a kid, when you would 
listen to Porky, you knew you were cool.'' It goes back to Porky being 
the very first white disk jockey to program the music. It was a 
revelation to white teenagers to hear some of this great music.
  Porky started out in 1948 on a little radio station, doing a 5-minute 
sports program, called WHOD in Homestead, Pennsylvania. And he would go 
back and he says he played the ``dusty disks.'' They were really dusty, 
78 RPM records. And because nobody was playing them, the record store 
owners

[[Page H9510]]

would give them to him. He knew they were talented musicians and he put 
them on the air and teenagers all over the Pittsburgh area wanted to 
hear more and more of them.
  In fact the story is told of when Porky did a live show at the 
Stanley Theater. An hour before he went on the air, 500 people crowded 
around the Stanley Theater. Before the show was over, 10,000 people 
were crowded around the Stanley Theater. Downtown Pittsburgh came to a 
screeching halt. Kids were stuck on buses in the logjam created by 
Porky Chedwick. They got off the buses, crossed the bridges on foot to 
get to the Stanley Theater to see Porky Chedwick.
  As a disk jockey, he saw the highest recognition of his career before 
the Beatles. In 1963, the Beatles came to America. A lot of performing 
artists saw their careers go downhill and a lot of disk jockeys that 
had that signature type of music similarly saw music change a great 
deal. But still, many of the great disk jockeys in America today credit 
Porky Chedwick with beginning it all.
  As Porky said, ``I had more lines than Bell Telephone. I was the 
original rapper.'' And he probably was.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to Porky, ``We are honored for you and your 50 
great years in radio. We are honored that you are in the disk jockey 
portion of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and we hope you are still 
playing that music for 50 more years. God bless you.''

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