An anecdote filled book tells the musical history of WMMR and fact checks Springsteen

No Philadelphia rock radio station has a richer, more colorful history than WMMR-FM (93.3). And none has showcased more indelible on air-personalities who went on to become Philly institutions.

The station’s beginnings as a progressive rock station date back to 1968 with Dave Herman’s free form show The Marconi Experiment. In the 1970s, DJs like Ed Sciaky, Michael Tearson, and David Dye helped turned Philly into a stronghold for artists like Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Yes.

And in the 1980s, ‘MMR rose to market dominance in the Philly market as John DeBella pioneered the Morning Zoo format and Pierre Robert began a 40-plus year run as a beloved figure on the airwaves that ended with his death last year.

That whole story is told by Erin Riley in The Mighty WMMR: An Oral History of Philadelphia’s Rock Radio Revolution, a new book published by Temple University Press.

Riley served as MMR’s Music Director from 1983 to 1991 and is the author of the memoir A Dark Force: 20 Years with a Covert Narcissist. She gives voice to 60 interview subjects talking about the station that branded itself “the home of rock and roll.”

On Tuesday evening at the Parkway Central Library, Riley will be joined by DeBella, discussing the book and the history of the station.

The book includes DJs and programmers with names known well by longtime Philly radio listeners; Cyndy Drue, Lynn Kratz, “Bubba” John Stevens, as well as Mark Goodman, who became one of MTVs original VJs after leaving the station.

Also reminiscing about the station’s glory days are DJs such as former Daily News and Inquirer music writer and WMMR DJ Jonathan Takiff, WMMR and later WYSP-FM (94.1) morning host Anita Gevinson who, Riley says, came up with the winning idea to tell the station’s story as an anecdote filled oral history.

In the book, Riley writes of her first day of work at the station’s then Rittenhouse Square offices in 1983, when she met Tearson for the first time and he proceeded to immediately roll a joint during their introductory conversation.

“I figured if he’s doing it, no one’s having a problem with this,” she writes.

The Mighty WMMR is a nostalgia fest. Interviewees include artists like Kenn Kweder, Richard Bush of the A’s, and John Eddie telling tales of long gone hot spots like Emerald City, Grendel’s Lair, and Stars, the venue run by Stephen Starr, now a restaurateur but then a club owner and concert promoter.

Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman of the Hooters tell of how Tearson gave the band its first big break by playing its cover of a Skatalites song on his show Gorilla Theatre.

Judy Sciaky, the widow of Ed Sciaky, who died in 2004, tells of her late husband’s close relationship with Springsteen, who frequently slept on the sofa at the couple’s Lombard Street house during his early 1970s salad days.

WMMR deejay Steve Martorano is one of several who warmly remembers Sciaky who, he says, “never missed a buffet in his life.”

Springsteen once referred to her husband as “Hungry Ed” in an onstage monologue, Judy Sciaky remembers. The Boss also had a jacket made for the DJ with that nickname stitched on. She also adds that Manfred Mann’s hit version of “Blinded By the Light” resulted from Sciaky introducing the band to Springsteens’ song.

Sciaky’s support for artists like Springsteen, Joel and Warren Zevon is legendary.

“Ed was there first. He believed first, committed to them, and did what he did,” program director Charlie Kendall recalls in the book. But did Sciaky play Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen’s debut album, first?

No, Riley clarifies. That was Tearson, followed by Takiff the same night.

Dye, who later was the founding host of World Cafe on WXPN-FM (88.5), where his Dave’s World airs on Sunday mornings, concurs with the timeline, though Springsteen himself misremembers it in his Born To Run memoir and namechecks Dye in a chapter titled the “A DJ saved my life.”

» READ MORE: Who broke Bruce Springsteen big in Philly?

Gene Shay, the late Folk Show host who made his home at MMR in the early 1970s, is paid tribute to as well. As is Robert, who came to MMR in 1982 and briefly worked as an assistant music director.

Joe Bonnadonna, who hired him, recalls that as an assistant MD Robert “was terrible.”

“He was so disorganized. … when he started to do part time work on the air it just became a natural progression for him. He was not an analytical brain, he was more of an artsy character.”

Robert, who died in October 2025, will be celebrated by David Uosikkinen’s In The Pocket during the Philly all-star band’s In the Pocket at Ardmore Music Hall on Sept. 26.

Erin Riley in conversation with John DeBella plus special guests at 7 p.m. Tuesday Sept. 15 at Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St. Free. Books will be available for purchase. freelibrary.org.