DOO-WOPPIN’ AND BOPPIN’ IN ROCKLAND COUNTY

BY ALLAN GOLDSTEIN

Ever since he was a kid in the Bronx in the mid-1950s, Nanuet resident Bob Trivero dreamed of being a radio disc jockey. Now on Friday evenings, as host of “The Doo Wop Dream Machine” on Rockland’s WRCR he comments, “It took sixty years to make my dream come true.”

Playing tunes from the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bryant Avenue Bob, as he is known to his listeners, conjures up a time long past when rock n roll was king and groups of teenagers seemed to sing on every Bronx street corner. He notes, “I paint a picture of what it was like to live in New York City in the 1950s. I take phone calls, rekindle memories and reminisce.”

Trivero has taken advantage of Rockland’s favorable demographics to put together an ever-growing group of regular listeners to whom he attributes his success. With often colorful names including Ebbets Field Tommy, Crazy Glue Bill, Judy, Judy, Judy and John from Nanuet, he adds, “They call every week because I take requests; remember their birthdays and other events in their lives. We all just love the music. Betty J should be the president of my fan club.”

Trivero had a wonderful time growing up on Bryant Avenue in the Bronx and for a time was even one of those kids singing in a local group as a member of the Startones. Legendary DJ’s Alan Freed, Hal Jackson and Alan Fredericks ‘had a great influence on my musical tastes. We sang in local schools until around 1960, then we discovered girls.”

He is a graduate of James Monroe High School and had a long career with Western Union and then with Jacobi Medical Center before he retired in 2005. He moved to Nanuet in 1995 and enjoyed the WRKL morning show. When the station adopted an ethnic format he started listening to WRCR and became a regular caller.

He struck up a friendship with WRCR on-air personality Clem in the PM who encouraged him to create his own show. Trivero put together a slate of local sponsors and went on the air last March. He was extremely nervous in his early days behind the microphone but credits his success to his wife and his engineer Neil Richter “who makes the show sound as smooth as it is.”

Trivero also loves baseball and dealing with the public. During the season, he can be found in the seats behind home plate at Rockland Boulders home games working at another job he loves… being an usher. “What could be better than doing my show on Friday night and then walking in to my place behind home plate (WRCR is located behind the centerfield fence at Boulder Field). Whoever thought that at this stage of my life I would be doing this? Let’s face it; you are never too old to dream.”

The Doo Wop Dream Machine airs on Friday evenings on WRCR radio from 6 – 8 p.m.

  80s rockland, doo wop, nanuet, wrcr