Al Bowlly & Ray Noble Orchestra - "Midnight, The Stars and You" (1934)

John Calvin Batchelor (born 1948) is an author and host of The John Batchelor Show radio news magazine. Based at WABC radio in New York for five years from early 2001 to September, 2006; the show was syndicated nationally on the ABC radio network. On October 7, 2007, Batchelor returned to radio on WABC New York, and later to other large market stations on a weekly basis. As of Nov. 30, 2009, Batchelor was once again hosting a daily show on WABC, airing seven days a week in New York City between 9 PM and 1 AM EST, and in many major markets across the country. A podcast of the show is available at WABCradio.com.

Batchelor was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania to an Assyrian/American family, and was raised primarily in Lower Merion Township of Montgomery County, in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district. His mother and father both served in the United States Army during World War II; his father also served in the Korean War. Batchelor is the eldest of five brothers. He is a 1970 graduate of Princeton University and a 1976 graduate of Union Theological Seminary.

John Batchelor and his original co-host, Paul Alexander, broadcast Batchelor and Alexander on WABC in New York. On September 8, 2001, John Batchelor and Paul Alexander presented a four-hour WABC show that was devoted to multiple guest interviews on the USS Cole bombing in October 2000 by the major suspect, the Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden and his gang, al Qaeda. For two years, in the show, Batchelor performed the role of Republican; Alexander took the role of Democrat. They focused on international issues with a focus on Middle East-based terrorism. He described their approach as, Our model is the BBC World Service, with music and live interviews, but without English accents. Alexander quipped: We're not NPR, where they do setups to things on tape. Well, we could be NPR on drugs.

To report on breaking news, Batchelor and a small staff traveled to Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan, landing in Taipei to broadcast for the week leading up to the 2004 elections, when, on the last day of electioneering, both the president and the vice-president were shot and wounded by an unknown assailant.

Batchelor indicated he would seek to return to a regular radio program in late fall of 2006, but had not returned to a full-time position as of September 2007. His first radio appearance since his departure from ABC was as a substitute host for Matt Drudge on July 22, 2007. The show was nearly identical in format to his ABC show, including contributions from Klein and Loftus, among many other guests. He returned to fill in for Drudge on September 2, 2007.

Batchelor returned on WABC as the host of a weekly version of the previous show on October 7, 2007, from 7-10 PM Eastern Time. He then proceeded to host a second show as a guest host on KFI in Los Angeles, filling the vacancy caused by the departure of Matt Drudge, in the next three hours from 7-10 PM Pacific time. His first program featured an interview with Nick Grace of ClandestineRadio.com that broke the name of al Qaeda's extranet, Obelisk, and the news that the extranet's security tightened following a press leak in September 2007.

In 2009, Batchelor expanded his show to Saturday and Sunday nights, from 9 PM to 1 AM, on most of his affiliates. The Saturday show focuses more on authors of history books, while the Sunday show focuses on breaking news and a wider range of topics.

On November 24, 2009, WABC announced that the Batchelor show would be also airing weeknights from 9 PM to 1 AM effective November 30.

http://wabcradio.com/video.asp

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Music

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• The Stars and You 1934

[algernon4444]

Wonderful 1930s song sung by the greatest popular singer of the era. There's a whole generation waiting to discover Al Bowlly.

[carlo1775]

The Best show on radio. period. John offers something truly intellectual away from the demagoguery and usual banter of other radio hosts.

[fredjmp]

Beautiful song Joe. Excellent video. Thanks for sharing!

[GrayRealities]

Very nice, I still listen to this music its so relaxing thanks for posting

[elisa412]

Al Bowlly was a very handsome man..sad he died so young...thank you for sharing a wonderful bio on Batchelor ~  you always put together some great sounds and videos *smiles*

[5julia10]

beautiful music and good video Joe.Julia