Dennis Elsas Never Forgets the Segue

The DJ on the Beatles and More

Everyone of my generation knows exactly what they were doing on Monday, December 8, 1980, when John Lennon was shot and killed outside his home at the Dakota on 72nd Street and Central Park West.

It was a day that will live in infamy, giving the 20th century two consecutive December days of infamy: Pearl Harbor was attacked Dec. 7, 1941, and my father and his generation remembered every detail and emotion of that day as long as they lived. December 8 is like that for us.

Most people heard the somber news from Howard Cosell, the colorful announcer from Monday Night Football, around 11 pm. I had already turned off the game and was ready to go to sleep when the phone rang. It was Joel Kramer, then, as I recall, Newsday's managing editor. He said John Lennon had been shot, it's very serious, get out here right away, to the newspaper's mothership in Melville, L.I.

Uncharacteristically, I had very little to drink that night. But I was tired. I told him I would collect my Beatles books and articles, and for him to call me back to let me know if the word about Lennon was final, and I'd be ready to jump in my car. Kramer called back less than 10 minutes later: Lennon is dead, get out here now, we're holding the front page for you. It was the one essential "hold-the-presses" situation of my life, and it paid off: then an afternoon newspaper, Newsday had my on-deadline 2,000 word appreciation of Lennon on the front page, long after the nearby city papers had already gone to press.

On the 30-minute drive east on the Long Island Expressway, I tuned to WNEW-FM/102.7, then the area's all-star rock radio station. All the WNEW-FM disc jockeys appeared to have instinctively homed-in to the radio station. Air personalities work distinct shifts, so it was memorable for the listener to hear what appeared to be a spontaneous wake taking place upon news of Lennon's death. Vin Scelsa and Scott Muni. Dave Herman and Dennis Elsas, and more.

That's the way it sounded. But it's not the process that occurred, according to Dennis Elsas, who had the high-profile 6 pm-10 pm slot then. Elsas spent 25 years at WNEW-FM. Since 2000 Elsas has been at WFUV-FM (90.7) from Fordham University in The Bronx, which reaches most of the New York area. Every Friday afternoon, in his Monday through Friday 2 pm-6 pm slot (prime radio real estate) Elsas keeps the Beatles' flame alive by playing a "Fab Foursome," four consecutive Beatles songs that he tries to connect thematically, so they segue well.

He also is part of the Beatles channel on Sirius XM satellite radio, on which he does a weekly 30-minute show, "Across the Universe." Not to overload you with details, but I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention another Sirius show co-hosted by Dennis, and of course it is also fab: The Fab Fourum (that’s spelled right, I think), a two hour weekly live show that has listener phone calls, guests, interviews with the wide world of Beatle people, and influencers from all Fab realms. He also appears on the Sirius Classic Vinyl channel. There is plenty more about Dennis on his web site, which includes his famous two hour live interview with John Lennon in 1974 on WNEW-FM. Lennon showed up at the station with rare 45s and did a kind of takeover that went well beyond promoting his then-new album, Walls and Bridges.

"The irony is that Dec. 8, 1980, was our annual WNEW-FM Christmas concert," Elsas said in a Zoom interview from his home in the suburbs north of the city. "It was a benefit for United Cerebral Palsy, it was lovely because it was held in Avery Fisher Hall [now David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center], listeners brought in a wrapped gift for a child, and then the music, and various jocks introduced the bands. The Marshall Tucker Band was the headliner that year. So we were all in the same place, and we were never all together!"

After the show there was a post-concert party scheduled backstage. Vin Scelsa, much loved New York radio personality famed for his free-wheeling "Idiot's Delight" programs, was holding down the mic at the WNEW-FM studio. He had the Lennon news. Scelsa somehow got a call from the station to Scott Muni backstage at Lincoln Center, Elsas said, a kind of miracle in the era of pre-cell phone, landline calling. Muni comes out, made an announcement that John Lennon was dead, and everyone dispersed.

"It's like 11:15, 11:30 now," Elsas continued. "Each of the jocks, without talking to each other, goes back to the radio station. It wasn't like we said to each other, 'we have to go back to the station.' It was like everyone got into their cars, or taxis, and went to the station. I was with my girlfriend, now my wife, and told her, 'I've got to go back to the station. You get home somehow.' So we were all there. . .We didn't have great technology, we weren't used to taking phone calls. The phone calls that got through, as you imagine, were heartbroken people. That night was [sitting] shiva, people calling in sharing their thoughts, the music was nonstop Lennon and Beatles."

Dennis Elsas (left) and John Lennon, all those years ago (circa 1974)

Pleasantly enough, though Elsas has what he might describe as "many tickets to the party" in Beatles World because of his WFUV and Sirius radio shows, he does not approach them as an obsessive, academic, purist, or scholar. He listens like a fan, albeit a highly discerning, deeply knowledgeable fan.

And he approached the Nov. 2, 2023, release of the "new" and "final" Beatles song, "Now and Then" that way. The song was based on a John Lennon piano demo with inferior audio quality from its time: the piano and vocal could not be separated as originally recorded, and it didn't sound great. Through the magic of modern engineering, the surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, were able to take a fresh approach to "Now and Then." I am not technologically schooled to say exactly what was done, and there are plenty of places to read about it elsewhere.

Elsas got to hear "Now and Then" a few months ago in an auditorium with about a hundred others with Beatles World connections. He appears to have reserved judgement, knowing that one listen in an auditorium even with the best sound equipment was not optimal.

"I thought the most important part of this [as a radio host] was to play John's original demo, compare and contrast, here's what Paul and Ringo started with, and what they ended up with," Elsas said. "And the biggest difference is that half the song is missing, which is John singing 'I don't want to lose you, I don't to lose you' from the demo."

I asked Elsas what his reaction was to the use of advanced technology to create a new record from an old demo, and declaring it a final Beatles song.

"I spoke to someone high up in Beatles-land, who would know. He said, 'nothing  gets done without everyone's approval,' so I assume this recording met with the approval of Paul and Ringo, obviously; the George Harrison estate, which is run by Olivia Harrison and Dhani Harrison, and Sean and Yoko Ono. So the cop-out answer is, if they're fine with it, I'm fine with it. The decision to leave out 'I don't want to lose you, I don't want to lose you,' was obviously an editorial choice, they chose to make a different song.

"Here's the bottom line," Elsas continued. " When I got into the studio, my womb-like environment, whether it's WNEW, WFUV, or Sirius, it's where I've spent a good chunk of my last 50-plus years, and I played it on the radio for the first time, I had my headphones on, nothing fancy, and it washed over me. It made me feel good. It touched every nostalgic chord it was supposed to. And I just thought, I like this feeling. I like this record. I'm glad they created this."

Besides the Beatles, Elsas has another expertise worth noting. He is, as he has always been through his 50 years in New York radio, a master of the art of the segue. (Pronounced "seg-way" if that needs saying.) It is an art that is dying out, as radio formats become more limited and narrow, and radio personalities have less choice in what and when to play a song.

WFUV has had a number of evolving formats: Under longtime program director Rita Houston, who died at 59 in 2020, it was called City Folk. Elsas joined the station in 2000. This was two years after WNEW-FM changed formats in 1998. During that time, he had an ongoing career as the golden-voiced disc jockey's best friend, commercial voiceover work. City Folk was singer-songwriter oriented, but took a wide view. As WFUV evolved, it was never free-form, but it never sounds too tightly wound. The current slogan is "come for the music, stay for the community." You'll hear a lot of the multi-Grammy nominated group boygenius; the rising star Vermont singer-songwriter Noah Kahan; Lana Del Rey; the Black Pumas; Tori Amos; and even some De La Soul, Marvin Gaye, Talking Heads, a pretty mixed bag, as their Saturday night specialty show is called.  

The other day I got into the car at the beginning of Elsas' 2 pm-6 pm shift, and he played "The American Dream is Killing Me," the new single by Green Day, followed by "Destroyer" (1981) by the Kinks. The split second where Green Day faded and the Kinks song began was one of the best segues I've heard in a long time. A well-executed segue creates a sound greater than the sum of the two songs.

"I don't walk in with a totally blank piece of paper," Elsas said when I asked him if his experience gives him more decision making over the songs he plays. "I knew from day one the job is to execute the format. Like any job, you pick your spots. I do my best to keep within the format. I know what I'm supposed to do, I know the balance the station is after, and I do my best to keep me happy and the station happy. Where I see the opportunity, I take the opportunity to do a good segue. There's nothing I love more than a good segue."