There’s probably no rock & roller in Cleveland over the age of 25 who doesn’t know who Jane Scott is. The tireless reporter wrote about pop music for the Plain Dealer for nearly 40 years, starting in 1964 when she covered the Beatles because no one else wanted to. Scott passed away Monday at the age of 92. She was living at Ennis Court in Lakewood and had Alzheimers for the past few years.
The Cleveland native came to her métier late. She graduated from the University of Michigan and served as a WAVE during World War II. She landed at the Plain Dealer in 1952, following a stint with a Chagrin Valley community paper. During the ’50s and early ’60s, she handled the few beats then open to women: society news, and teen and “golden age” columns.
When the Beatles hit the U.S. in 1964, most newspapers covered them at a distance, usually in the form of a condescending, bemused column by some middle-aged writer who compared them unfavorably to Tony Bennett and Benny Goodman and opined that they would be forgotten by next year.
Scott approached them instead — like she approached all stories — without preconceived attitude. Those who criticized her coverage because she didn’t write high-flown analyses of the music and criticized rarely and only gently missed the point. She was first of all a reporter, aiming to get the story of who, what, where, when and why. It wasn’t that she didn’t know some of the music she was writing about was mediocre. But her attitude was that if a band or musician cared enough to be making the music, and someone cared enough to listen, they deserved respect.
The only thing that turned her off was a musician’s blatant disrespect and rudeness, especially toward fans, and she had a sly way of working it into a story without being nasty. She also encouraged younger reporters, including me (I was the freelance second-string rock writer for the Plain Dealer for more than a decade in the late ’70s and ’80s). She didn’t have an envious bone in her body and didn’t feel threatened by those who might have wanted to be in her position, perhaps because she knew how much work and dedication were involved.
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 5, 2011.
My first conversation with Jane Scott took place in the late evening hours of December 8th, 1980. I was running the overnight board on the Larry King Show at WERE NewsRadio 1300. Other than the board operator at WGCL 98.5 FM (our sister station) down below, we were the only one’s in the building. On both the newsroom wall near the editor’s desk and in the ’on-air’ studio hung a large box with a frosted glass inlay and lights behind it. The box was wired to the UPI and AP wire machines – if there was a breaking news story on the teletypes, the lights would flash on and off, and in the newsroom a siren would sound telling us something of immense importance was going down. I grabbed the wire copy from the machines and ran back to the on-air studio. As I put my boom headset back on, I turned on the ABC news audition mode on the headset, an ABC newsman told the board operators across the nation to get ready to break into normal programming in the next minute. As I listened to the countdown I broke into the Larry King Show saying, this is “Andrew Boggs at Newsradio 1300 – we’ve just learned that rock musician John Lennon has just been gunned down in front of his apartment complex and pronounced dead at 11:07 this evening. We now go to ABC News in New York!” After switching over to ABC News, reporter Mike Olsewski got on the phone to me on an inside line telling me to call Jane Scott and interview her on tape on the news of John Lennon’s death and then call Obie Shelton. I grabbed a reel from the bin marked ’bulked erased’ threading it on the old Ampex tape machine. The problem with the tape machines is they did not do a proficient job of erasing past material – thus they had to be bulked. Normally these are to be erased by the desk assistant to be ready at a moment’s notice – the DA didn’t quite do the job as I found out the hard way. I called up Jane Scott out of a sound sleep, explained who I was and she kindly did the interview with me. After we hung up, I listened to the tape and it sounded awful – the tape had not been properly bulked. So this time I re-bulked the tape personally, re-threaded the tape and checked levels, called Jane Scott back and explained the situation. Jane was nice enough to do a second take and this time the tape was fine. Jane asked what we had and I gave her some information – then she was off to work on a story for that morning’s edition and I was off to the next event of waking up Obie Shelton from a deep sleep, “What is it Boggs?” In Obie’s twilight shape, I told him Mike Olsewski wanted him in early because of John Lennon’s death on the streets of New York, and Obie in his non-awake state thinking I was saying that our news editor Leonard Will had been shot. “What’s Leonard doing in New York, I’m on my way” as he hung up. Meanwhile I had to run back into the ‘on-air’ studio to get us out of ABC news, play the local spots, and get us back into the Larry King show on the Mutual Radio Network. By then, Mike Olsewski walked into the newsroom to break down my interview with Jane Scott and write material around the cuts. When Obie walked in, he still was under the impression that Leonard Will had been gunned-down – until Mike Olzewski mentioned it was John Lennon and not Leonard Will, our news editor. I got a few evil looks from Obie Shelton – but I figured, I gave him the right information, geez Obie, you were still in twilight. As for myself, I was the first individual of reporting the death of John Lennon on air, beating both other radio stations, tv stations and obviously newspapers in reporting the news of John Lennon’s death to Northeast Ohio before going to the ABC Radio News Network. Although its an honor I could do without – I was a Beatles fan as well.
Wow, what a great story….about you (and a cursory mention of Jane). You sure are awesome. I’m sure your family has heard this one 10,000 times. I count myself lucky to have only heard it once. I trust we can look forward to this same story upon the deaths of Yoko Ono, Obie Shelton, and Mike Olsewski, as well?
I met Jane at a Genesis concert at the Ritchfield Coloseum in the mid-eighties for the Mama tour. As the crowd kept cheering for more encores (they wouldn’t let the band get off the stage) She was standing next to me and asked my opinion of the show. Of course I had replied that the near ecsatatic crowd had spoke for the show itself – She quickly jotted down the quote and proceeded with her notes on the show with much fervor- which turned out to be a glowing and accurate review the next day. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was older than I had imagined probably in her late 60’s at the time (but youthful in spirit). Of course following, I had to tell my buddy’s that I had met the famed Jane Scott and what an honor it had felt like. Rock Fans will miss you Jane!! Hope you get into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame some day. You’re truly an original!
Greg Voloshen. Parma Heights, Oh.
Wow mall your a tool. I bet you still dream of being a D.J. while spinning vinyl in your parents basement. Can I request the song “Loser” by Beck. And could you give a shout out to Jane, since you just wrote a novel about Jack Sh*t on this message board.
Wow mall your a tool. I bet you still dream of being a D.J. while spinning vinyl in your parents basement. Can I request the song “Loser” by Beck. And could you give a shout out to Jane, since you just wrote a novel about Jack Sh*t on this message board. Save 80% – Free Shipping
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