Jim Cox (radio)
Encyclopedia
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, is a leading historian on the subject of radio programming
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
in the 20th century. He has written extensively on the history of radio from the 1920s to the present.
Books
Through McFarland & Company and Scarecrow Press, Cox has published more than 15 books, including the recent Radio Speakers: Narrators, News Junkies, Sports Jockeys, Tattletales, Tipsters, Toastmasters and Coffee Klatch Couples Who Verbalized the Jargon of the Aural Ether from the 1920s to the 1980s—A Biographical Dictionary (2007). The book profiles of more than 1,100 “radio speakers,” including Red BarberRed Barber
Walter Lanier "Red" Barber was an American sportscaster.Barber, nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", was primarily identified with radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball, calling play-by-play across four decades with the Cincinnati Reds , Brooklyn Dodgers , and New York Yankees...
, H. V. Kaltenborn, Dorothy Kilgallen
Dorothy Kilgallen
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending only two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York...
, Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
, Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
and Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
.
Other books by Cox include The Daytime Serials of Television, 1946–1960 (2006), Historical Dictionary of American Radio Soap Operas (2005), Music Radio (2005), Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons was one of radio's longest running shows, airing , continuing well into the television era. It was produced by Frank and Anne Hummert...
(2004), Frank and Anne Hummert’s Radio Factory
Anne Hummert
Anne Hummert was the leading creator of daytime radio serials during the 1930s and 1940s, responsible for more than three dozen drama series....
(2003), Radio Crime Fighters (2002), Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio (2002), The Great Radio Audience Participation Shows (2001), The Great Radio Soap Operas (1999) and Rails Across Dixie (2011).
Awards
At the Friends of Old Time Radio ConventionOld-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
, vintage radio’s largest annual event, Cox was the recipient of the 2002 Ray Stanich Award, given annually for prolific research and writing on the subject of old time radio. Cox is a frequent guest at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, held annually in Aberdeen, Maryland
Aberdeen, Maryland
As of the census of 2000, there were 13,842 people, 5,475 households, and 3,712 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,166.2 people per square mile . There were 5,894 housing units at an average density of 922.4 per square mile...
.
While Cox contributes to vintage radio club newsletters and nostalgia periodicals, his range of interests also includes travel, railroads, swimming, baseball, history and government. An active churchman, husband, father and grandfather, he volunteers weekly with charitable organizations. In 2007, Cox received the Stone-Waterman Award presented by the Cincinnati Old Time Radio and Nostalgia Convention for outstanding contributions to the preservation of old time radio history.