Scott Muni (May 10, 1930 – September 28, 2004) was an American disc jockey, who worked at the heyday of the AM Top 40 format and then was a pioneer of FM progressive rock radio. Rolling Stone magazine termed him "legendary".
Early life
Born Donald Allen Muñoz in Wichita, Kansas, Muni grew up in New Orleans. He joined the United States Marine Corps and began broadcasting there in 1950, reading "Dear John" letters over Radio Guam. After leaving the Corps and having considered acting as a career, he began working as a disc jockey; in 1953 he began working at WSMB (1350 AM) in New Orleans. His mentor was Marshall Pearce.
Muni joined the staff of WAKR (1590 AM) in Akron, Ohio in November 1956 as their overnight host. The following July, he was promoted to host Request Review, an evening music program famously helmed by Alan Freed a decade earlier. In addition to Request Review, Muni presented nightly weather forecasts on WAKR's television adjunct WAKR-TV (channel 49), hosted The Hop—a local music and dance program—on WAKR-TV, was WAKR's music director, and emceed teenage sock hops throughout the city. Prior to leaving the station, the Akron Junior Chamber of Commerce honored Muni for one sock hop that also fundraised for a local children's home.
Along with his work at WSMB and WAKR, Muni also worked for a time in Kankakee, Illinois.
Career
Muni then spent almost 50 years at stations in New York City. He left WAKR in May 1958 to join WMCA (570 AM), one of the first Top 40 stations in the market. While at WMCA, Muni was briefly the subject of unwanted attention in both New York and Akron when a congressional investigation into the practice of payola called him in for questioning. He moved to WABC (770 AM) in late 1960 as that station fully converted into a Top 40 format of its own; Muni was billed as part of the "Swingin' Seven at 77" airstaff that also included fellow former WAKR colleague Charlie Greer. There he did an early evening show called "Scotland's Yard" and was among the first WABC DJs to capture the attention of the teenage audience for which the station would become famous. He also participated in the competition to cover The Beatles on their first visits to the United States, and thus began a long association with them.
In 1965, Muni left WABC and ran the Rolling Stone Night Club while doing occasional fill-in work for WMCA. Muni had explored some opportunities beyond radio: for a short time he co-hosted a local weekly television show on WABC-TV (channel 7) with Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, and he would go on to record the spoken single "Letter to an Unborn Child", about a soldier with a premonition, which was released in 1967 to little acclaim.
Muni decided to return to radio, and in 1966, he joined WOR-FM (98.7), one of the earliest stations in the country to program free-form progressive rock music. The progressive format did not last at that station. In 1967 Muni moved to WNEW-FM (102.7), which had been running a format of pop hits and show tunes, hosted by an all-woman staff. This time, the Progressive Rock format took hold, with WNEW-FM becoming a legendary rock station. Muni stayed there for three decades as the afternoon DJ and sometimes program director. Muni was described by fellow WNEW-FM DJ Dennis Elsas as "the heart and soul of the place". Under assorted management changes during the 1990s WNEW-FM changed formats, and in 1998 Muni ended up hosting a one-hour noontime classic rock program at WAXQ (104.3 FM), where he worked until suffering a stroke in early 2004.
Muni was known to his listeners by the nicknames "Scottso" or "The Professor", the latter to emphasize his rock expertise. While he sometimes spoke in roundabout phrases and succumbed to progressive rock radio clichés such as "That was a tasty cut from ...", he also conveyed on the air and in his professional relationships a gruff immediacy that was a by-product of both his time in the Marines and his earlier Top 40 skills. His low, gravelly voice was instantly recognizable and often lampooned, both by other disc jockeys and by impressionists such as on Imus in the Morning.