Barry Farber Fills In for Chuck Wilder Today
As smooth and civilized as Jack Daniels whiskey, and with just as much kick, Barry Farber is one of America's legendary talk show hosts. Raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, he drank in with his mother's milk the art of storytelling and of painting memorable images with a gentle Southern accent. But before leaving college this knight errant had been editor of a daily newspaper, a wrestler, a steel worker, a representative of American college students in Yugoslavia and Brazil, an interpreter for units of the Chinese Nationalist Navy, and a Phi Beta Kappa student.
His radio career began in New York City when William Safire, then assistant to Tex McCrary, hired Farber as a producer. Barry soon became a familiar and beloved voice on the Big Apple's airwaves, hosting his own shows on WINS, WOR, WMCA, and WABC. Barry went national in 1990 and only a year later was named "Talk Show Host of The Year" by the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts.
One secret of Barry's enormous success is that he speaks in 26 tongues. A God-given gift for languages led him to teach himself Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Yiddish, two dialects of Chinese, and more. Such fluency came in handy in Havana as he covered the Cuban revolution, when he led Hungarians across the border to freedom after their revolution, and when he could speak Russian with Soviet Jews from the Moscow synagogue beginning in 1956. As his audience knows, part of Barry's genius is a gift for hearing the inner voices of the human heart.
A master of language and a joy to hear, Barry's articles have appeared in The New York Times, Reader's Digest, and the Washington Post. Among books he has written are Making People Talk, How to Learn Any Language, How to Conceal Stupidity, and his current bestseller How to Not Make the Same Mistake Once. Like his writings, Barry's talk show brings listeners wisdom, insight, and first-hand knowledge from a cosmopolitan mind and down-home heart full of charm, sweetness, and the warmth of a deep and steady inner fire. One taste and your listeners will agree that Barry Farber is to talk radio what a fine wine is to a good meal.