Ezra “Speed” Anderson (the nickname came from his hustle on the basketball court) was a jazz deejay in Boston, and on September 3, 1961, he resigned from station WILD-AM in notable fashion.
Speed Anderson started his deejay career at WVDA-AM in early 1957, on the live broadcasts from Wally’s Paradise. Then he moved into the studio, doing the overnight show, midnight to six. He used Basie’s “L’il Darlin’” as his theme song. In November 1957, the station changed its call letters to WEZE and moved to the middle of the road, but Anderson stayed on the overnights at least until mid-1959. By April 1960, he was on WILD-AM with a show on weekend afternoons. He was probably Ken Malden’s last hire as program director.
Station owner Nelson Noble switched WILD to an R&B format in 1961, and perhaps that didn’t interest Anderson, who left the station. According to a news item in the Boston Daily Record on September 5, he actually resigned on the air at the end of his Sunday afternoon show on September 3, announcing to his listeners that he was calling it a day.
Speed Anderson went out with style. Anderson signed off with three tunes: Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me,” Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” and Joe Williams’s “For All We Know.” WILD was a daytimer, and the station signed off at sunset. If Anderson had the last shift of the day, that made the set all the more poignant. “For All We Know” followed by white noise…
WILD replaced Anderson with a Rhode Island DJ, Steve Gallon, Jr., soon to be known as Wildman Steve, who later had a fascinating career of his own. Wildman admitted he didn’t know much about jazz, and I don’t know how much he learned in his two years at WILD. But the radio work got him into the nightclubs, and he was a popular emcee at Basin Street South and other clubs.
Wildman Steve was just another sign that the days of jazz on independent, commercial AM stations were numbered in Boston. In 1956, a half-dozen independents programmed at least some jazz. Five years later, Norm Nathan on the overnight shift at WHDH was about the last of it. You could find jazz on the radio, but it had migrated to the FM band.
Speed Anderson was back on the air at other stations in the sixties and early seventies. Most people who know his name, though, know him because of Boston Speed’s Hot Dog Wagon on Newmarket Square, where for over 30 years he dispensed the city’s most popular hot dogs. Anderson died in 2013 at age 94.
Here’s one from Speed Anderson’s last set, Sammy Davis Jr. with “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?”