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Rec'd this from a reader and thought I'd post here... I remember him as a longtime reader/customer.
Lukas
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THE NIGHT VOICE OF WRR
Daniel Wilson Bates, Jr., died late Thursday night, June 20, 2008. He was 70 years old. Mr. Bates was born on February 08, 1938, in Dallas, Texas, to Daniel and Annie May Bates. He was a graduate of South Oak Cliff High School, and studied both engineering and journalism at S.M.U., being graduated in 1963. Mr. Bates was a military veteran who honorably served two-enlistments in the U.S. Air Force in Turkey and Pakistan from 1956 to 1961. He was trained at Syracuse University in New York as a Russian translator for the military. After his Air Force service Mr. Bates joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a journalist and film critic, serving in that capacity form 1963 to 1965. He was married to Vicki Fulghum of Dallas in 1963. During his stay in Fort Worth, Mr. Bates became an academic consultant to the Texas Christian University Films Committee, at the time, one of the few venues in the Southwest for the screening of independent, experimental, and foreign cinema. He was a writer and lecturer on cinema during a time that saw the rise of critical and public interest in independent and foreign films in America.
In 1965, Mr. Bates and his wife moved to Cold Spring Harbor, New York, where he worked as a journalist and writer for the Suffolk Sun, a newspaper on Long Island; he later worked for the Ellen Jacobs Advertising Agency in Manhattan. His wife was employed as an Information Technology manager for, first, the Univac Corporation, then for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering, St. Luke-Roosevelt, and New York Presbyterian hospitals; their marriage was annulled in 1966. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Bates became a resident of the East Village in lower Manhattan during its brief, but famous, period as the East Coast center for counter-culture, poetry, design, and experimental performing arts. As a journalist and keen observer Mr. Bates noted and catalogued his experiences while living through this historic time. He also wrote for “The Rolling Stone,” an influential, national, alternative newspaper of the era.
In 1968, Mr. Bates returned to Dallas to become a writer for the prestigious “Oil and Gas Journal.” A year later, in 1969, he Bates moved across country to Los Angeles, California, where he accepted a management position in the film industry with the famous Carl Laemmle Corporation of Hollywood. He worked in several film management positions in Hollywood until 1984 when he returned to Dallas to work in the book distribution business. In 1992, Mr. Bates joined the staff of the city-owned, classical radio-station, WRR-FM, at which he became well-known to the North Texas listening public as the station‚s overnight musical host, known to all as the “Night Voice of WRR.” He worked at WRR-FM until his retirement in October of 2002. Mr. Bates, whose mellifluous voice was recognized by countless listeners, also worked in voice commercials and in radio advertising. He was a gracious volunteer in recording books-on-tape for the visually impaired, and was the seasonal, costumed figure of, first, the black-cassocked Father Dimitri, and then the brightly-costumed Bertram Tracepurcel at the annual Scarborough Faire Festival in Waxahachie, to the delight of both young and old. In his later years Mr. Bates performed the character of Professor Cosmo T. Schmurd, “musicologist extraordinaire,” in five, yearly, on-stage performances of Peter Schickele‚s satiric music, “PDQ Bach,” with the Fort Worth Civic Orchestra playing at the Dallas Meyerson Symphony Center and in Fort Worth at Bass Hall and TCU‚s Landreth Auditorium.
Throughout his career in journalism Mr. Bates wrote feature articles and film-criticism for many respected journals such as “The Yale Review” and “Film Quarterly,” additionally contributing articles, too numerous to catalogue, for periodicals and newspapers on both coasts. Several of his authoritative articles are quoted and referenced in academic journals and scholarly books on the cinema. During his fifteen-year stay in Hollywood, Mr. Bates became friends with famous writers, actors, actresses, and directors, interviewing many of them in their homes for his articles and radio broadcasts. After his return to Dallas, he continued to correspond with many, recognized film-critics, journalists, composers, and movie-industry personalities, several of whom he counted as his friends. He was especially close to two film personalities, the western movie-star Harry (Dobie) Carey, Jr., who retired from Hollywood to his ranch in Colorado, and the award-winning, New York film-critic, John Simon, both with whom Mr. Bates corresponded for many years.
Mr. Bates was an early advocate for the serious study of cinema music as a recognized, musical genre. He became a collector as well as a promoter of such music, and was recognized as an expert on the film compositions of Dimitri Tiompkin, Bernard Hermann, and Jerome Moross. Mr. Bates was in failing health since his retirement. He is survived by his former wife, a resident of Southbury, Connecticut, and Sarasota, Florida; they had no children. Mr. Bates's funeral will be held at Laurel Land Funeral Home at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1. Mr. Bates will be interred next to his parents at the Hill Crest Cemetery in Oak Cliff. He will be missed by all who listened to his informed broadcasts, read his learned articles, and knew him as a gifted friend. So, for a final time, all of his many fans from New York to Dallas to Hollywood say, “Goodbye, Dan.”
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This Dallas boy remembers him. Nice that you would post this, LK.
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I worked many years at Laemmle theaters in LA with THE Tiomkin fan and enjoyed every minute of it. Miss him a lot!
Yes indeed, and those of us that knew him knew never to bring up "The Sound of Music" in his presence lol.
I've got an awesome photo of him looking at the camera with a wine glass in his hand. I'll dig it up and post it here for his friends.
Mick
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Mick, please! I want to see a photo of Dan!! I only heard is cool voice on WRR but never knew what he looked like.
My apologies as I completely forgot to do this. Looking for the right picture.one right now...Have changed computers and need to search drives.
Mick
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I found the photo but cant figure out how to post it here since there doesnt seem to be an attachment section. I dont have a host site to link to either
Mick
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Thank you, Mike J. This photo says it all. Wish he were still around to discuss film scores as it seems the dallas area is dried up in that department.
Mick
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My apologies to all, as I realize this thread is quite old.
How I ended-up here is somewhat bizarre. It started with an unrelated Google search for the call letters of a different radio station I listened to back in Dallas around 1992. The results of that search led me to a YouTube video. In the comments of that YouTube video, others who were in Dallas around that time posted some comments about that particular radio station. In turn, that led me to look for the history of the station, which led me to http://www.dfwretroplex.com/fmlist.html
In reviewing the history of the other radio station, I decided to review WRR Classical 101.1 FM. As I read through the history and the on-air personalities, I saw Mr. Bates' name. I remembered listening to his program "Music All Night," as I worked the night shift as a security guard in an office building in Las Colinas. I would have the show playing in the background, as I alternated between miscellaneous job-related duties and working on my college assignments.
Having no knowledge of how old he might have been or where he might be, I launched yet another Google search. It didn't take long to find his obituary. Truly, I was saddened to learn of his passing.
While I'm one of many nameless, faceless people who never met Mr. Bates, he was important to me. I came to find comfort in the familiarity of his voice and the regularity of his show. I looked forward to it. In fact, until the show started, I couldn't do my homework. It wasn't time. Things were not yet in order.
So, albeit some 25 years later, Mr. Bates, thank you for your companionship during those many long nights. I have never forgotten you and always appreciated your intellect and wry sense of humor. Until this very evening, I had no idea what you even looked like. But, thanks to the kindness of another person on this thread, I can finally look you in the eyes and say "Well done, sir. Thank you."
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