Jerry Springer passed on Thursday, April 27th after a brief illness, at the age of 79, according to a spokesperson.
He was born in England, went through Brooklyn and landed in Cincinnati. A young lawyer later became Mayor of Cincinnati, then was the news anchor for the top rated Cincinnati evening news for many years.
He walked the walk by learning what people were going through by experiencing himself, like sleeping on a park bench to experience what the homeless was going through. That led him to his talk show that was a failure locally, in Cincinnati, but with some adjustments became the JERRY SPRINGER show that most know.
As for the show he said, "Our show is a circus, period,"
he quipped. "It
has no redeeming social value."
Jerry was known to respect Merle Haggard and was a declared country music fan. He released a studio album entitled "Dr. Talk"in 1995.
Years before his national and international success, in addition to gigs working as a lawyer, anchorman and politician, Jerry actually played in some country and western projects.
In 1968, he created a song that he did right after his stint on Bobby Kennedy’s political campaign called…. ‘Please Don’t Roll Those Blood Shot Eyes At Me’ with the subject of the song being “Linda,” who was part of his first singing aspirations. Listen below:
Here is a Cincinnati Magazine article about Jerry and former Cincinnati Bengals Mike Reid on creating music. Mike created with Ronnie Milsap and Kenny Rogers among others in his music career.
Released in 1995, Jerry's studio album ‘Dr Talk’ features one original song and some fresh interpretations of songs popularized by Hank Williams Sr., Patti Page, Hank Locklin, The Byrds/Dylan, Ernie Ashworth, The Everly Brothers and Conway Twitty with Loretta Lynn.
As for his talk show career, he got a taste of that in 1977 when filling in as host on the WUBE Radio Cincinnati morning show. He discussed that morning, after Elvis Presley died on August 17th, 1977, as one of career highlights.
His popular TV Show ended in 2018, but stayed busy up to the end with his recent project as a TV judge.
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