A brand new edition of our Video Road Test has just been posted on Consumer Guide Automotive’s Daily Drive website. To see our review of the 2013 Kia Rio SX just click on this link.
If you want to check some of our previous road tests and some of the other goodies we’ve been pouring into the Daily Drive tank, just point your browser right here.
Random thoughts on the passing of a wonderful, “one of a kind” friend….
We knew it was coming but, as prepared as you may think you are, the news still stunned. Dick Sutliff had not been well for some time. Bob Kessler, another friend and colleague from our time at WGN Radio, proved to be more than a good friend and was bedside when Dick passed away.
WGN Radio’s rememberance of Dick Sutliff can be found by clicking this link.
We first met Dick during our early days at WGN Radio. He was writing for WGN-TV’s newscasts along with writing and anchoring some of the newscasts during our show. When WGN Radio moved from the Bradley Place studios shared with WGN-TV down to it’s own space at the Tribune Tower Dick made the move with us.
To say that Dick had a strong old school news background and even stronger personality is putting it mildly. There were nights when we could feel that he was “testing” this new couple to see if we would take his bait. Some nights he was just looking for a lively debate. Somewhere along the line one of us jokingly refered to him as the station curmudgeon, a term he, surprisingly, embraced. One night when it was obvious that Dick was in a mood to go on an extended rant we surprised him by playing his “new” theme song (familiar to fans of Rush Limbaugh). In echo, over the instrumental, came the words “You are listening to the R. I. B. Radio Network! — RICHARD IS BABBLING!” He loved it. We created a monster. He lived for the nights when we played his theme.
As serious as he could be about some things, Dick had a wonderful sense of humor. He loved to laugh and had one of those great big contagious laughs that, we think, sometimes found him even tickling himself. When friends of ours, Lee Overstreet and Wolfe Kinkaid, who, at the time, were doing a college radio show, put together a song featuring humorously edited clips from Dick’s newscasts, no one laughed harder at “The Dick Sutliff Song (We Love Dick)” than the song’s namesake.
As we’re writing this, we can feel Dick’s presence looking over our shoulders and whispering corrections for words or phrases that are not correctly written. We can’t count the times during one of his newscasts, while the audio from some network correspondent was playing, Dick’s voice would come over the intercom critiquing the newsperson’s incorrect turn of a phrase, poor story content, sentence structure and more. And, Dick wasn’t just complaining to complain, he was complaining because he was right. We’re not sure, but we think Dick Sutliff may have been the founding member of the grammar police.
Dick never hid his passion for country music. Just how strong that passion was is probably best explained by a true story Dick told . One night we had one of Dick’s favorite performers, Waylon Jennings, in the studio as our guest. As professional a broadcaster as he was, Dick was like a kid in a candy store having the chance to get “up close and personal” with one of his idols. When the opportunity presented itself, Dick told Waylon the story of how he actually broke the steering wheel in the car he was driving because he was pounding so hard on it to the beat of one of Waylon’s songs.
Dick was never shy about telling us that some of his favorite nights on our show were when we had country music legend Bill Anderson as our guest. Subsequently, Bill and Dick became friends and many a night on the Grand Ole Opry Bill would make Dick’s night by mentioning that his dear friend from WGN Radio, Dick Sutliff, was either in the audience or listening at home.
Dick loved, what he called, REAL country music and performers. As sick as he was, just this weekend, when Bob Kessler visited Dick in the hospital, Dick couldn’t really talk so they listened to WSM radio and some Bill Anderson and Roy Acuff songs and some Minnie Pearl jokes on YouTube, which he reacted positively to.
A night we will never forget found a listener from Pennsylvania calling in, during the “wee” hours of the morning, to ask for help with a problem. The listener was a paramedic who just found out that he had contracted HIV/AIDS from an accident victim. The listener was distraught, Thanksgiving was just around the corner, he had just gotten engaged and didn’t know how to tell his fiance. How would she react? For several hours we took supportive calls from listeners. Dick asked if the listener wanted to talk off the air. He did. Weeks later, as Christmas approached, we found out that Dick had been talking almost daily to this young man. It was Christmas week when we heard from the young man who shared the news that he had finally found the strength to tell his fiance and she said that she would be by his side to work out THEIR problem. We think that the listener found the strength, in part, with the help of the support he got from Dick Sutliff.
Many of our personal Christmas celebrations were made even more merry because Dick joined us. He would usually be the first to arrive and the last to leave, often helping us to set the table and helping clean up after everyone else had left.
For years, he blamed Johnnie for the extra weight he was carrying because he loved her cooking – pineapple cake, in particular. In recent years we were very proud to see the success Dick had with getting his weight under control.
REAL Country music, cars, conversation, newspapers, women, good friends, a good joke, Matlock, comfortable jeans, his dog Sasha (and every dog he ever owned), good food, good writing, good writers, “Smutliff” (The nickname Max Armstrong gave him) — these are just some of the things Dick Sutliff loved.
We loved him, too.
The latest edition of our Video Road Test has just been posted on Consumer Guide Automotive’s Daily Drive website. To see our review of the 2013 Ford Explorer Sport, just click on this link.
If you want to check some of our previous road tests and some of the other goodies we’ve been pouring into the Daily Drive tank, just point your browser right here.
We know that being a record producer may not be everyone’s fantasy. However, if you’ve ever thought that you’d like to be a part of the creative process and help a VERY deserving artist, who isn’t backed by one of the big bucks major lables, further her career, you might find this interesting.
If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that we are huge fans of Katie Quick. Katie is a former Chicago school teacher who, several years ago, left the teaching world and decided to follow her music muse. When, thanks to one of our engineers, Adam Phillips, we became aware of Katie, we were very impressed with her talent and contacted her, which resulted in several terrific in-studio performances and, more importantly to us, a new friendship with a pretty special person.
Over the years we’ve known Katie, we’ve been impressed, not just with her talent as a singer/songwriter but, additionally, with her incredible work ethic. In fact, if you look up “self-starter” in the dictionary, you’ll probably find a picture of Katie. Some of you may have seen Katie’s recent appearance on the Katie Couric show where, along with performing, she talked about her Fingertips Program.
Katie’s latest “self-starter” project is the production of her next album and, being an independent artist, she’s using the Kickstarter on line funding platform to finance the record AND bring her Fingertips Program to schools in need.
As we’ve come to know, Katie is the kind of person who doesn’t take “no” for an answer. That’s one of the many things we like about her. If you’d like to join us in helping Katie make her next record a reality and show students around the country that their dreams can come true just click on this link.
We don’t often make this kind of “pitch,” but we really think that Katie Quick, her music and the students she’s trying to help are worth it.
We hope you will too.
As we write this, today is Feb. 25, 2013. If we were fortunate enough to still have him with us, today would have been George Harrison’s 70th birthday. One of our favorite George Harrison songs is “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
One of the best versions of that song and a very special moment for us was the night Doyle Dykes joined us at WGN and played a beautiful arrangement of that Harrison classic on his 12 string guitar.
We thought you might enjoy seeing and hearing it, so here is Doyle Dykes playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Our first Video Road Test of 2013 has just been posted on Consumer Guide Automotive’s Daily Drive website. To take a spin in our extended test of the 2013 Dodge Dart, just click on this link.
If you want to check some of our previous road tests and some of the other goodies we’ve been pouring into the Daily Drive tank, just point your browser right here.
We’ve mentioned in previous posts that, among the projects we’re working on, a “Country Comfort Food – Gluten Free” cookbook was on the horizon. Well, just to give you a “taste,” the testing has begun in earnest. So, we thought we’d share a picture of one of the first items on the plate … Johnnie’s Cinnamon Sugar Donut Holes.
More to come as the kitchen heats up.
Johnnie’s Cinnamon Sugar Donut Holes
 | Milton Jenkins on R.I.P. Dick Sutliff |
 | Bob Kessler on R.I.P. Dick Sutliff |
 | Steve Dale on R.I.P. Dick Sutliff |
 | Howard Peters on R.I.P. Dick Sutliff |
 | Joann Crowe on R.I.P. Dick Sutliff |
