Publicist John Manzi’s radio show 35 years old

MONTICELLO, NY- On Sunday, October 7, the longest running radio show in the Catskills, "The Bop Shop" hosted by John Manzi, will celebrate its 35th anniversary. The four- hour doo wop program spins 45RPM records every Sunday night from 8pm until mid-night on WVOS-95.9FM

A unique offering, which features mostly vocal group harmony records from the late 40's, 50's and early 60's, the program is also available world-wide on the internet at wvosfm.com. 

Host John Manzi is also an inductee of the Harness Racing Hall of Fame as a Communicator. Manzi's full time career was that of being a harness racing track publicist, who spent most of his career at Monticello Raceway.

"We have a fun show which many of the listeners say that the four hours goes too quickly," Manzi says. "We play enjoyable songs from small labels that never really go much airplay and since we've been on the internet we've been getting calls from listeners in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Long Island and all over the East Coast; even from Alaska!"

"We go back to the roots of rock n roll and rhythm n blues playing great songs from what is now known as the 'doo wop era'. Sure we play chart records but mostly we feature vocal group harmony records although we sometimes spin rock-a-billy and blues records."

Manzi tries to keep his audience involved in the show with features like "the name game", "name that tune", "same thing only different", battle of the (record's) b-sides", "rate a record" and "common denominator.

Over the years Manzi has had live in-studio a cappella from vocal ensembles like Larry Chance and the Earls, Guy Villari & the Regents; The Shallows; the Cliftonaires; Mystique; the Creations, the Arrogants, the Excellents; Sentimental Journey, BQE, and recently, Little Isadore and the Inquisitors, to mention a few.

Every Sunday Manzi is joined by his sidekicks, Cindy "G" and Steve "the Eggman" Ristano.

Besides playing the music, they inform the listeners of the background of the songs; talk about the personnel and where they originated from, and if the songs placed on the Billboard charts.

Manzi has always been a fancier of old rock n roll and rhythm and blues music. His collection of 45RPM records exceeds 50,000 and his albums number more than 3000 and on Sundays he plays records from his collection over the airwaves.

For the first 25 years the Bop Shop was heard on WSUL-98.3FM but 10 years ago his program was switched to 95.9WVOS-FM when that station began an "oldies" format.

When Manzi took over the Sunday night oldies show at WSUL radio in October 1983 little did he fathom that 35 years later he'd still be at it.

"And the beautiful part of this music is that even though the records are 50 or 60 years old, and some even older, I'm always coming across vocal group harmony songs that I never heard before," Manzi said. "It's like listening to new music."

"I really look forward to Sunday nights. I love the music and I love our audience."