Hy Lit Was a Friend of Mine
BACK IN THE DAY, which these days means a mythical time that could have been 50 years or 50 weeks ago, there was a man, who died Saturday, named Hy Lit who everyone agreed was the most famous deejay in Philadelphia. Flash Master Hy was the real deal. Before you hungry cats were making up names for yourselves a hungry young jewboy named Hyman Aaron Lit from 5th and Sigel in South Philly was on the radio calling himself "Hyski O'Roonie McVautie O'Zoot." And getting away with it. At a gig at North Philadelphia's Uptown Theater back in the day Hy Lit walked on stage to introduce the next act -- and back in the day it could have been name-groups like the Tempations. the Tops, the Supremes -- and a guy shouts out, "You ain't Hy Lit! Hy Lit's black!" And Hy Lit said, "Thank you."
That's a Hy Lit joke about something that really happened. He was a voice but not a face on WDAS-AM where this Hyski dude was kicking butt on a black radio station. They didn't have ratings then, just buzz. And Hy was the bee's knees. He was 21 out of West Philly High and everyone on the radio thought he was black. He talked the talk, son. Sometimes I think Hy thought he was black. But in truth he was a pale Jewish man and when the angry "You ain't Hy Lit!" shout began to get swirly and loud in the crowd at the Uptown, which was Philadelphia's Apollo Theater, WDAS deejay Georgie Woods took the microphone and said, "This IS Hy Lit!"
It's hard to describe how big Hy Lit was when he was your age, whatever that age may be. But imagine a 71 share. That means that 71 percent of the radios in use at a specific time were tuned to, say, you. That is so cool. Those are the numbers Hy Lit pulled on his weekly Sunday Night Memory Lane show. As Richard Corliss of Time magazine noted. "Those are dictator numbers." But Hy was never a dictator. Anything but. He was an old soul with a boy's mind. He forgot every joke he'd tell you just so he could tell you again. "You know Hy, he don't lie," he'd say on his evening show. "Except now and then, between six and ten."
