41 Facts About Bob Fass

Robert Morton Fass was an American radio personality and pioneer of free-form radio, who broadcast in the New York region for over 50 years.

Robert Morton Bob Fass was born June 29,1933, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

Bob Fass received a scholarship to study acting with Sandy Meisner and Sydney Pollack at the Neighborhood Playhouse and was a member of Stella Adler's workshop.

Bob Fass appeared on stage in Brendan Behan's The Hostage at Circle in the Square, The Execution of Private Slovik with Dustin Hoffman, and The Man with the Golden Arm at the Cherry Lane, among other New York productions.

Bob Fass then was given the midnight to dawn time block to use as he wished.

The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett, which Bob Fass was reading at the time, gave the show its title.

Bob Fass's signature greeting, "Good morning, cabal," came from a listener.

Bob Fass collaborated with Gerd Stern and Michael Callahan's media collective, USCO, which had produced sound fields for Timothy Leary's Fillmore East shows, then dove in and began creating mixes on the air.

The system Edl built became a centerpiece of Bob Fass's show, allowing more of his listeners to connect with him, and with each other.

Bob Fass plays a major role in Marc Fisher's book, Something In The Air, which covers radio's impact in the post-TV years.

Shepherd took the unseen audience and let them see each other, but it's Bob Fass who took that to the next level, giving it social and political meaning.

Bob Fass really opened the door and summoned the audience into the action.

Bob Fass used the mass media to amass a very real movement.

Some believe it began one night on-air in 1967, when Bob Fass invited "the Cabal" to join him for the Fly-In, a get together at JFK airport where he and his friends could meet and party with Radio Unnameable listeners and their friends, while aircraft took off and landed in the background.

WBAI had reporters on the scene and Bob Fass was broadcasting calls from Paul Krassner and others at Grand Central, describing the good vibes and great turn out.

Bob Fass was providing up to the second, unfiltered news that citizens wary of mainstream press coverage could trust.

Bob Fass rarely left his command center in WBAI's Master Control but at the very last minute, he flew to Chicago and recorded everything he saw and heard.

Bob Fass escaped indictment and returned to WBAI, where over the next decade, his show became a kind of an alternative Town Hall; Abbie Hoffman called virtually every night with an update from the show trial of the Chicago Seven, which lasted for months.

Bob Fass remembers visiting Woodstock during the early 1970s and telling Bob Dylan "Carter was being railroaded for being "an uppity nigger.

Bob Fass continued to do his show as New York City and WBAI went through radical changes.

In 1977, Bob Fass found himself at the forefront of a power struggle for the future of the station.

Bob Fass participated in a staff attempt to form a union.

Bob Fass was banned for five years, during which he returned to stage acting, did a guest residency at WFMU in New Jersey, and campaigned to return to WBAI.

Bob Fass reassembled the members of The Lovin' Spoonful on the air, emceed the Phil Ochs Memorial, and flew to Houston to celebrate Jerry Jeff Walker's birthday, which he taped and played on the radio.

Bob Fass continued to host in that single weekly overnight time slot.

On October 4,2019, WBAI was illegally seized by a minority faction of Pacifica's board without authorization, and canceled all of WBAI's original programming including Bob Fass's show, replacing it with canned programs from California.

Bob Fass met Dylan before he began his radio career, double dating with Carla Rotolo, one-time stage manager of The Hostage, and her sister, Suze, who was Dylan's girlfriend.

When Dylan's crusading anthem, Hurricane, came out in the mid 1970s, Bob Fass played it all night for five nights in a row and in 1986, when Dylan turned 45, Bob Fass organized a 45-hour marathon of his music for WBAI.

Bob Fass explained the connection to NPR reporter Jon Kalish, this way:.

Bob Fass had never been a brilliant monologist like Jean Shepherd who preceded him on WOR in the late 50s, nor a star interviewer.

Bob Fass's style was to make a few gentle stabs at drawing his guest out, and then he was content to go with the flow.

Bob Fass was always ready to lend an ear and share the air with absolutely anyone who felt they had something to say.

Bob Fass was an ongoing outlet for the unsung, unspun, ignored and unknown.

Bob Fass was a fierce and consistent critic of, as he called it, "Bush's war for oil", and continued to speak out against capital punishment, often putting prisoners who call from jail on the air.

Bob Fass went on to work with the Living Theater and members of that community to produce a piece of theater based on their experiences, called The Hands of God.

Bob Fass spent about an hour and a half talking to the caller live on the air, as other WBAI workers contacted the police and the phone company attempted to trace the call.

Bob Fass's telephone was off the hook, the radio tuned to WBAI.

Bob Fass was taken to the hospital in critical condition but survived.

Bob Fass says the man contacted him later and thanked him for being there.

Bob Fass later commented that he thought "Larry would enjoy having his picture in the paper".

Bob Fass himself appeared as a guest on the show in 2007.