Soul Man

Harry Weinger ’79 parlayed the passion for music he nurtured at WICB into an impressive career in the recording field.

by Claudia Montague Wheatley ’80

Visitors to Ithaca College’s radio station in the mid-1970s were likely to meet a lanky fellow carrying an armload of LPs, his eyes bright with enthusiasm behind his aviator glasses. The shaggy black do is now a neat gray coif, but Harry Weinger ’79 still radiates the zest that characterized his years as a WICB-FM disc jockey.

All WICB DJs love music (think High Fidelity set in a tiny, windowless room), but even among fanatics Weinger was a standout. And he has parlayed his passion for music into an impressive career, starting with production gigs at major-market stations WABC and WPLJ before becoming a producer for the Progressive Radio Network. Weinger has edited for Cashbox, written for Rolling Stone and Vibe, penned liner notes for record jackets, and edited books about music. Last spring he was named vice president, artists and repertoire, for Universal Music Enterprises. This fall Weinger returned to South Hill to talk about the music with IC students. He was also a guest on Looking Back, a weekly show on WICB hosted by the venerable soul artist Bernie Milton.

That guest spot was a homecoming in more ways than one. Weinger’s responsibilities at UME include overseeing the Motown catalog. That means he spends a lot of time listening to, meditating on, and devising new ways to package some of his favorite musical genres.

"I’ve always liked soul," he explains, "and I had a lot of R&B records as a kid." His tastes were considered odd at the suburban schools he attended in Nanuet, New York, but they served him well when he got to Ithaca College. Inspired by the crossover successes of artists like Boz Scaggs and George Benson, Weinger and Brian Campbell ’80 produced a weekly show on WICB in which a song by a popular contemporary band like Earth, Wind and Fire might be followed by a cut from soul survivors like the Crusaders. (In 1982 Weinger helped produce an Earth, Wind and Fire box set --- and remembered Campbell in the liner notes.)

Weinger also hosted WICB’s The Midnight Snack, featuring interviews with artists appearing at IC and Cornell --- including idols like the members of Tower of Power and the Average White Band. This experience, he says, helped him find a niche in the music industry: "It gave me the journalism skills I need so when I’m working on a Marvin Gaye project I can interview the people I need to talk to."

That Marvin Gaye project ultimately yielded the critically acclaimed box set What’s Going On. Other Weinger productions include box sets for Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Temptations, and Barry White. His album notes for the James Brown box set Star Time won him a Grammy Award in 1991.

"I have one of the few creative jobs left in the business," Weinger says happily. Right now he is having fun digging up material for a collection of Michael Jackson love songs and a 30th-anniversary edition of the sound track for Lady Sings the Blues, in which Diana Ross played legendary jazz/blues singer Billie Holiday.

He acknowledges that "a lot is dictated by marketing and sales. Lady Sings the Blues was suggested by the head of sales. You need to deliver things they think they can sell." Fortunately, the sales staff tends to be receptive (think High Fidelity in suits and ties). "My favorite thing is when I bring up something and sales says, ‘Beautiful,’ " Weinger smiles. "It means I get to do the record."