Columnist Joe Delaney: Reflections on 79 years of life

Joe Delaney

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001 | 8:51 a.m.

Joe Delaney's column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. Reach him at 259-4066 or joe@lasvegassun.com.

On being 79 ... The first reaction was satisfaction at making this annual milestone, which was followed immediately by the realization that at 5 p.m. on Jan. 9, I would actually be starting my 80th year ... Next came a feeling of gratitude that I am still ambulatory, have most of my faculties and am still earning a living doing things I really enjoy.

During 2001 I will be teaching my regular spring and fall courses at UNLV and participating in the Elderhostel programs as well ... In addition, there will be the three-week module in May at the International Academy of Broadcasting in Montreux, Switzerland, plus a week in Ireland.

God and the Sun willing, I shall be doing two columns a week and a show review plus weekly commentaries and feature articles for Showbiz magazine ... I am reducing my participation in Mariachi Festivals to directing only the September event in the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

My first memory at the end of the 1920s and start of the 1930s was listening to radio, a jazz program playing recordings by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Raymond Scott ... Sundays, early, it was Dinah Shore and the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, led by Henry "Hot Lips" Levine, who came here as trumpeter with the Royal Dixie Jazz Band and at the Barbary Coast.

Later Sundays on CBS radio, it was "Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm," starring Maxine Sullivan with the John Kirby sextet featuring trumpeter Charlie Shavers ... In the evening we gathered around the tall Philco radio console at 8 p.m. for the Chase & Sanborn Coffee Hour starring Eddie Cantor with Rubinoff and his Violin, the Mad Russian, Parkyakarkas and announcer Jimmy Wallington.

Comedian Fred Allen followed Cantor at 9 p.m. for a full hour with a strong ensemble cast ... In the 1930s, Sundays on radio, it was Jack Benny at 7 p.m., Phil Harris at 7:30, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy at 8 p.m. ... Jazz music, Cantor, George Jessel and Al Jolson shaped my thinking and fueled my ambition to be a part of the entertainment world.

In my teens it was vaudeville and musical theater and the opportunity to see most of the greats perform in person. In the 1940s television became the medium with Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris, plus Ed Sullivan who held that prime 8 p.m. Sunday-evening spot from 1948-1971.

After service in World War II, I was active in the recording industry ... There were performers I had grown up with who I had wanted to record someday ... Prior to moving to Las Vegas permanently in 1962 I was able to record Louis Armstrong, the original Dukes of Dixieland, Roy Eldridge, Pete Fountain, Buddy Greco, Lionel Hampton and Al Hirt, among others ... I was also able to work with Jolson promoting the films "The Jolson Story" and "Jolson Sings Again" in New York City.

With the Sun since 1967, I've been privileged to work closely with virtually every star who played here in the 1970s and 1980s, producing Nites of Stars for St. Jude's Ranch for Children, the Helen J. Stewart School and Variety Club, plus fund-raisers for Help Them Walk Again and other vital local causes.

Radio was just coming of age in the 1920s. Television was two decades away. Five decades later Roberta still has to program the VCR but I can work the computer after a fashion. I've flown on tiny two-engine planes, DC-3s, DC-4s and everything since with the exception of the Concorde ... I've seen Las Vegas grow from a small town to a large metropolis.

Since World War II I've been active in New York and Chicago at the best of times (1946-1951); New Orleans as well (1951-53); back to New York and Chicago (1953-1962); and Las Vegas to live since 1962. I have been blessed.

It has been a privilege and very exciting to be part of it ... I think the growth of Las Vegas will continue onward and upward for the foreseeable future ... I hope to continue sharing this with you for whatever time I have left ... When they asked George Burns if he thought he might retire, his retort was, "Retire, to what?" ... My sentiment exactly.