By Frank “Smokin” Truatt
I have many fond memories of celebrating New Year’s Eve with my family. It was a night I was able to stay up really late to watch the ball drop in Times Square. Back in the early days it was Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. My parents would put his broadcast live on television from the Grand Ballroom at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. At midnight, the band would play “Auld Lang Syne,”then we would bring in the new year with a meal consisting of cold cuts, German potato salad, pierogis smothered in onions and butter and for dessert, homemade apple pie. That tradition would continue into my adult years. In 1972, Dick Clark started his own New Years show geared to the younger audience playing the hits I would hear on the radio and a new television tradition began. Since music was a big part of my life, I enjoyed seeing the artists perform live, and it was a way to put the year musically in perspective. Radio was great for that. I would always record the top countdowns of the year, most of which were timed to end around midnight for the big New Year’s countdown. It was one of my favorite things to record, and it’s still exciting to hear replays of those countdowns. Sometimes the staff at the radio stations would celebrate a little too hard making for some fun radio broadcasts. Through the years as the music has changed, watching New Years, now for 20 years with Ryan Seacrest was not as exciting, as the artists were more for the younger generation, sort of what the show was all about anyway. So, how did this year’s countdown go? I actually enjoyed the ABC ball drop this year. The entertainers were leaned more to the middle of the road. I guess they were trying to expand their audience reach. With the Jonas Brothers, Carrie Underwood, Lenny Kravitz, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, TLC, Alanis Morissette and others, the show, for me, was a big hit. I also enjoyed a couple of tunes I had never heard before. The telecast averaged 17.9 million viewers and put ABC well on top for the night. For the second year in a row, I got to live out my dream by being on WTBQ on New Years Eve, playing some great party songs and doing the countdown live at midnight, followed by, of course, Guy Lombardo’s “Auld Lang Syne.” I’ll eat the pierogis next week! Happy New Year!
