On December 24,1956, Eleven-Year-Old Henry Farag

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On December 24,1956, Eleven-Year-Old Henry Farag

VIVIAN CARTER AND VEE JAY RECORDS n December 24,1956, eleven-year-old Henry OFarag opened a Christmas present. Inside the big, rectangular box was a crystal radio set. It took him more than a week to assemble the hodgepodge of wires, plastic, metal, and strange-looking pieces, including resistors, diodes, a headset, and a tiny transistor. When he had finished building the set and turned it on, at first all he heard was static, but one night, Farag recalled, “a booming, foreign- sounding, rapid-fire, throaty voice almost blew my skull apart. I heard a woman talking and these odd sounds in quick succession: Oh what a night / duo, duo, duo, / to hold you dear, oh what a night / dow, doo, dow / To squeeze you dear.” A half-century later, Farag noted that voice that seemed to have its own built-in contest to select a young man and a young his “face got flushed and my ears hot” as microphone. An average student in most woman to host their own fifteen-minute he listened. The voice coming over the air subjects, Carter excelled at the auditorium programs on radio station WGES. When waves belonged to Vivian Carter, the own components of public speaking and the Carter showed up to audition, there were er of a fledgling record label called Vee Jay, ater that were central features of Superin hundreds of others lined up to read a com and she was playing a song her company tendent William A. Wirt’s work-study-play mercial that they had penned themselves. had recorded by a doo-wop group called system. After school let out, she waited The male winner was Sid McCoy, who the Dells from Harvey, Illinois. After that tables at her mother’s restaurant in Mid would go on to fame as the host of Soul one listen, Farag was hooked for life. town, Gary’s black district, and bantered Train. Carter was the female victor, and Like thousands of African Americans with the steelworkers who frequented the her career in broadcasting as a disc jockey from the Deep South, Carter’s parents place before or after their shifts. was launched. moved north after World War I hoping for After graduating in 1939, Carter took All was not smooth sailing in a male- better opportunities for themselves and classes at a business college and then dominated profession. Carter moved their children. Carter attended Pulaski joined the Quartermaster Corps as a back to Gary and for a while worked in a School in Gary, Indiana, until it closed clerical worker. During World War II she millinery shop. She seized an opportunity in 1933, and then transferred to Gary spent a year in Washington, D.C., but that arose at WJOB in Hammond and Roosevelt High School. Classmate YJean missed the Midwest and got transferred to then moved to WGRY and eventually to Chambers described her as lively, extro Chicago, closer to family and old friends. Gary’s premier station, WWCA. Her late- verted, and full of fun, with a rich low alto In 1948 disc jockey Al Benson held a night program, Livin’ with Vivian, ran five 48 | TRACES | Winter 2011.

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