Robert Reitman II, "Bob" to his family, and simply "Reitman" to generations of radio listeners, has had a significant impact on Milwaukee during his nearly 60 years on the air — a career that began and ended right here at WUWM.
The oldest of three kids, Reitman was born in Oklahoma. His dad was an FBI agent who was moved around a bit, but by the time Reitman was 5 or 6, his family had settled in the Milwaukee area. “No complaints growing up in Whitefish Bay, it was Ozzie and Harriet all the way … it was idyllic,” he says.
Reitman says he didn't know exactly what he wanted to do growing up, but he ended up doing what many of us aspire to — he found something he loved, got paid for it and had fun.
“I did realize one thing when I was about probably 11 or so," Reitman, now 82, recalls. "You know, you go to school, and then you got all summer of play, and I thought, you know, I gotta find a job that’s just like having summer vacation. And I found it."
He would eventually stumble into radio, but before that, Reitman went to Marquette University, majoring in English. He says he didn’t have a plan after graduation.
“I was managing a cemetery. Very responsible job. I had over 40,000 people under me," Reitman jokes. "But my godfather owned a cemetery, and I worked out there in the summers when I was in high school. Made enough money to pay the tuition at Marquette, by the way, which was $325 a semester … so I could earn the money for college and worked in the cemetery, and it was a job. But then all sorts of things started happening in the mid-60s.”
The 1960s is when Reitman began cementing his place in Milwaukee’s counterculture scene. He teamed up with Jon Kois (editor) and John Sahli (graphics editor) to publish Kaleidoscope, an underground newspaper that covered issues from an alternative and radical-liberal perspective — topics like American politics, police actions, civil rights, gender issues, sexuality, activist activity, arts, and culture.
“I think the philosophy was, well, whoever comes through the door and has an agenda, we’ll put ’em on," notes Reitman. "And it went from pretty much an idyllic kind of flower child kind of thing into pretty radical politics over that span of time.”
Reitman was the poetry editor for Kaleidoscope, which was a personal interest in his life from a young age. He started writing poetry when he was about 13 years old and still remembers part of the first poem he ever wrote about a thunderstorm:
Some like a day full of sunshine and flowers
I like a day made with lightning and showers
The falling of rain on creation below
Is God’s way of making his empire grow
Poetry and music are different extensions of the same form of expression for Reitman. "I love writing poetry. I mean, it’s a very personal thing. I used to read poems at the Avant Garde," he recalls.
The Avant Garde Coffeehouse on Milwaukee’s East Side jump-started the counterculture movement in Milwaukee. It was a welcoming spot for musicians, poets, and artists from 1962 to 1968, and Reitman says he was eager to read his poetry there.
"The first time I went down there, the guy that was running the poetry readings wasn’t around. I remember going from Prospect and Brady down to the coffeehouse. I was all excited, clutching my poems, and he wasn’t there. So I waited another week and did the same thing, and he wasn’t there! So, I said to the guy who owned the place, ‘Can I run the poetry readings?’ which is really not the way I am, but he said 'yeah.' So that gave me a nice jump start, and we just organized," he recalls. "It was women poets, Chicago poets, UWM poets, Marquette, and then an open mic, but it was a lot of fun."
The First Time Around at WUWM
Poetry is also what initially brought Reitman to WUWM to host a show called "Sense Waves," where he would read poems to music over the air. Reitman notes it was another lucky turn of events, since the man who was supposed to be running the poetry readings at the Avant Garde also had a radio show on WUWM he wasn't consistently hosting, and Reitman was asked to take it over.
Reitman’s love of poetry and music also came together for The Eleventh House album, a spoken word record that he and his friend John Sahli produced. They came up with the idea in 1966 and 500 copies of the album were released in 1972.
"I said [to John] why don't you play the guitar and I'll read some poetry and it kind of worked," Reitman explains. "John and I went in [the studio] and recorded I don't know 10, 12 songs, and then we told the engineer any musicians that come through there, play it for them and if they want to add something to it they're welcome to. Well, they did! We had a nice lineup [but] I don't think any of them ever heard the whole album."
“The poetry show was moving along, and it was fun, but my best friend and I thought that maybe we could have a couple of hours on a Sunday night or something," recalls Reitman. So, he connected with Dr. Ruane Hill, WUWM’s founder and first general manager. "And we approached Dr. Hill, and we said, 'Could we do an hour or two or whatever on a Sunday night?' and he went, 'Yes.' [It was] our choice of whatever we wanted to play, and he said 'yes,' just like that.
... Just in the last few years when [Dr. Hill] was still alive, I called him and I thanked him... I also asked him then why was it so easy for us to get a 'yes’ and he said, 'My kids have been on me to get some music on the station,' and there we were.”
From rock to folk to blues and new bands that reflected the times, Reitman filled a need for music in Milwaukee enough for the station to get ratings. "There was a lot of people at that point in history that were into counterculture and really liking certain music that they weren’t hearing anywhere, so we filled that void. That was fun," he says.
This was the start of Reitman’s nearly 60-year influence on Milwaukee listeners and presence on the radio, sharing music he loved from his childhood and exposing listeners to new artists and new music.
Reitman's Commercial Career
Reitman was at WUWM from 1966 to 1968. His show's ratings led him to his commercial rock radio career, which included stints at WAWA, WTOS, and WQFM — where he set a world record for staying on the air consecutively for 222 hours and 22 minutes. And he was one of the first DJs to spin records at the legendary WZMF, a groundbreaking progressive rock station.
Reitman is often referred to as "The Godfather of Milwaukee Rock 'n' Roll" — a title he says he's not entirely fond of. "Sometimes you get attention because maybe you were the first one that did it. And that doesn’t mean much, except you’re the first one that did it. I was just in the right place at the right time and there’s a lot of other males and females that knew how to spin a record and which ones to pick. And I had a lot to learn and I learned from them, and I’m not trying to be falsely modest here – I’m just a very lucky guy. I know that," says Reitman.
He says the events of the late '60s influenced the music he chose to play at these stations. "The music kind of reflected what was going on — any number of songs by any number of artists. Woodstock was going on at that time, and Hendrix and The Doors — a lot of people didn’t make it past 27 years. Buffalo Springfield, 'For What It’s Worth,' those kinds of songs that were reflecting what was going on in the country. Kent State happened and that was terrible, and that influenced a lot of people," explains Reitman. "It was a rough time because there was idealism on one side — real, true idealism — but on the other side was the status quo, and sometimes they clashed."
In addition to playing music that reflected the times, Reitman gave listeners a chance to express angst they were feeling with a call-in show called Dear Doctor. The show ran for about a decade, first on WTOS, then ZMF and finally QFM. It featured Dr. Alan Reed and was a show for people dealing with drug addiction and other problems. “Dr. Reed was a psychiatrist so he would answer these questions to the listening audience in a very direct way," Reitman notes. "And then it was pretty honest — he wasn’t trying to fool anybody, so there was a need for that.”
Around 1979, Reitman quit his job at QFM and decided to get in his car and drive across the country. When he returned, he made a significant career decision, debuting as the morning show host at WKTI in the late summer of 1980.
Some would say it was a risky move at that time, since KTI was part of the massive Journal Corporation, which included two newspapers: The Sentinel and The Journal, a television station WTMJ Channel 4, and 620 WTMJ, which was a ratings leader on the radio dial. WKTI was an afterthought at the Journal Corporation, which was reflected by their studio literally being in a closet.
Some of Reitman’s rock radio fans even thought he was selling out by going to a Top 40 station. There’s no doubt this move was an unexpected one for Reitman — he went from hosting nights on rock radio playing music that he helped curate, to mornings on a pop radio station with a tight playlist.
For the first two years at WKTI, Reitman hosted mornings more or less solo. Then in 1982, Jeff Rowe (known on-air as Dallas Cole) joined WKTI as the program director. Rowe and the general manager at the time, Steve Smith, wanted to elevate WKTI, and had the idea to pair Reitman with Gene Mueller, who was doing news at WQFM at the time.
Mueller shares his initial impression of Reitman: "He was everything I thought he was going to be, and much more gracious than he had to be. I mean, he was Bob Reitman; he didn’t need a sidekick. He had his own gig, he had his own schtick, and he was learning the ropes of Top 40 radio, too," Mueller recalls. "Bob was used to playing three songs in a row on the radio and not talking over intros. So he was learning, I was learning, certainly from one of the best in Dallas Cole — this Jeff Rowe guy who just was the perfect coach for the two of us — and he said 'We’re gonna make this work. I think you guys are gonna click.' He was our biggest fan."
Today, we only think of Reitman and Mueller as a successful morning show duo, but it took some time and learning to get there, according to Jeff Rowe.
"It was interesting because Bob Reitman, if you look at his history as a career arc from the '60s until they teamed up in 1982 — he was a solo act, and Mueller had always been part of a team. He did news in Stevens Point, he did news at WQFM, and I just felt that Bob, being a solo act but yet a collaborator, and maybe not having a partner, but Gene had always been. I just had a sense they would work, but clearly didn’t know," Rowe recalls. "On a regular basis for the first six months they would come to me, and Bob’s like, 'I don’t know about this Mueller. He’s harsh, he’s abrupt.' And Gene was like, 'You know, I’m not sure about Reitman; he’s a little bit stodgy.' But together, the sum is greater than the individual parts."
Rowe adds, “The hardest part of Reitman and Mueller in the early days was becoming comfortable and trusting each other. And it’s very similar to a marriage, you know, and there’s ups and downs, everyone’s got their ticks and quirks. But together they worked through those and really woke up Milwaukee for 24 years together.”
Reitman and Mueller did some incredible things over the course of their radio partnership, like broadcasting from six different Olympics, broadcasting from the Soviet Union in a cultural exchange, appearing on the TV show "Cheers" and in one of the "Naked Gun" movies, meeting President Ronald Reagan at the White House, and so much more.
However, one moment that many people recall as a highlight is the Cabbage Patch Kids doll drop. Reitman shares what he remembers of this stunt:
"Cabbage Patch Dolls were a dark corner of American psyche because people were beating each other up to get these dolls — it was Christmas-time shopping. And so we thought up a stunt that we would just do on the air, like a bit, and the bit was show up to County Stadium with your baseball mitt and a credit card and a B29 — which should have been a big giveaway cause B29s aren't around — the B29 would be flying over, dropping Cabbage Patch dolls and taking a picture of your credit card. It was ludicrous! But 17 people showed up and we got national, worldwide attention," he recalls. "I finally met one person, she was brave enough to say she went out there. But you know what, people that did that were naive and to me being naive is a good quality, and I think it's a special quality. But she kind of laughed about it. I don't know if anybody got mad, but maybe they did. Disappointed? But it was funny.”
Reitman and Mueller weren’t just a presence on the radio — they were on billboards, television commercials and merchandise. They were involved in local charity work, and frequently worked all week because of all the events they attended.
“For us it was always, you gotta be in the community, you have to be out there with people," explains Mueller. "That means being at the bars on Friday night doing promotions, that means taking every opportunity you get to do charitable work or present yourself in front of a crowd because you had to earn it on the street. So there was that aspect, but it was also just the need to be out there to talk to people to hear what the people are saying — good and bad — about you, and they're very honest. So it was good to be out in the community, to be connected, to see who's listening, and it was never a burden. It was always an opportunity.”
Audiences knew their partnership worked, but here's what Reitman and Mueller believe made them a success:
“One of the things that we wanted to do was appeal to the moms and the kids that they were driving to school, and that's tricky because if we go over a line those moms will never turn that radio on again. And we just talked about things and we laughed a lot and had fun, and I think that people picked up on that," says Reitman. "I mean, I was lucky to get teamed up with Mueller. We really hit it off well and he's one of those people who grew up wanting to be in radio and I didn't. And the combination I think worked, we had a lot of fun."
"I think the one thing that we had was that we were authentic," adds Mueller. "You know, Bob ran the show, I was his news guy, but we both had equal say in everything and that was how the marriage worked. And when things were good we celebrated, if we had a problem we talked it through right away. We agreed to that like the first week, it's like if I'm doing something that bugs you tell me, don't stew on it, vice versa. It was like a marriage."
After 26 years at WKTI, 24 of those with Gene Mueller and most of them as a top-rated morning show in Milwaukee, Reitman announced his retirement. His final day at KTI was Dec. 12, 2006.
There's never been a better morning show in the state of Wisconsin, full stop, than Bob Reitman and Gene Mueller.Jeff Rowe (also known as Dallas Cole)
"In my personal opinion there's never been a better morning show in the state of Wisconsin, full stop, than Bob Reitman and Gene Mueller," says Rowe on the duo's legacy. "There's a few in that, that high-level bucket, but no one is better. And so I think just the fact that that team together 24 years, you know arguably has woke up as many people in the city of Milwaukee as anyone else. You really look back and you say, 'That was a magical time.' I've never had more fun. What a special time for all of us.”
Reitman's Return to WUWM
After Reitman retired from WKTI, he considered asking WUWM if he could come back to do a show. However, he got a call from then-WUWM program director Bruce Winter and station manager Dave Edwards that beat him to it, offering Reitman an hour a week and bringing him back to the station where his radio career began 41 years earlier.
"Everything I asked they said, 'You could do that.' It was like a free ride, it was a disc jockey’s dream, really," says Reitman. "Sometimes [my son Bobby Reitman and I would] do 25, 30 minutes of music. Well so what? I remember one guy called, he had to drive for about an hour that night that we were on the air and he loved it because he just cranked the radio. I didn't talk as much, that wasn't the point — we weren't there to talk, we were there to play music.”
We weren't there to talk, we were there to play music.Bob Reitman on his return to WUWM in 2007
Reitman was officially back home at WUWM in January of 2007, hosting a new version of It's Alright Ma, It's Only Music and curating playlists every week.
“Putting a show like we did together is like putting words into a poem," notes Reitman. "Each song was like a word in a poem. There was always a theme of one sort or another — it could be about rivers, or it could be about broken hearts —there was never a lack of inspiration."
When his son Bobby Reitman graduated high school, he joined his dad as co-host. Bobby describes the essence of the show, starting with the freedom that WUWM program director Bruce Winter allowed them to have:
“[My dad] really felt like he could do anything he wanted here and that freedom is so amazing. It started out with maybe I played one song, or show something cool, and then it was like, oh you can do your own little set of music... And that was kind of what the show was about anyways, was just sharing ... In general he's great about just sharing things he loves with people, and music is the number one,” he says.
In general [my dad is] great about just sharing things he loves with people, and music is the number one.Bobby Reitman
Reitman's favorite musical artist is Bob Dylan, and it all started because of a kind gesture from a neighbor.
"I was living in this apartment on the East Side ... and there was a woman who lived above me, and she was so quiet, and she looked like Mary from Peter, Paul and Mary with long, straight blonde hair. But I was afraid to even say hi to her; she seemed very fragile," Reitman recalls. "But one day, she'd heard I was not feeling well, she knocked on my door, which stunned me, and she said, ‘Why don’t you listen to this? It might make you feel better.’ So I put the record on, Another Side of Bob Dylan, and I was, I don't know, fooling around in the apartment doing something, and all of a sudden the fourth song came on, ‘Chimes of Freedom.’ Froze me in my tracks. I mean, it did. I just stood there; I couldn't believe it. To this day, I mean, that was the one that opened the door ... I told her what happened, that my whole life changed because of what she did."
Bob Dylan was ever-present in It’s Alright Ma, It’s Only Music, and so was family. Three generations of Reitmans, all sharing the same name: Robert Reitman II (that’s Bob), the III (his son Bobby), and his grandson Bert, Robert Reitman IV, would occasionally sit in with his grandpa and dad in the final few years of the show.
"It was tricky putting [Bert] on the air, but he just took to it," notes Reitman. "And I’m sure some people liked it and some people didn’t, but I liked it. He was [fun to listen to] and spontaneous. No fear of being on the air! Which is unusual since I was terrified every time I started. Bobby did a good job, too."
Reitman "felt it was time" to retire from WUWM and hosted his last It’s Alright Ma, It’s Only Music on April 18, 2024. "I really worked on that [last show] ’cause I wanted that to be a really good show," he says. "A lot of times it was just spontaneous in there, but this one I worked on and ... I just wanted to do a show at the end that just sort of was something I wanted to say through music."
Bobby says the last show was "a perfect set of music that night. I think he was really happy. And just to be able to say 'I’m going out when I want to,' and I’m glad he wanted to include me. I’m very honored."
With that last set, Reitman turned off the mic for the final time at WUWM — completing the circle on a radio career that began at the station in 1966.
Reitman's Legacy
It’s impossible to sum up all that Reitman means to Milwaukee, but most often, fans would share that they loved learning about new music from him.
"That compliment was what I lived for," says Reitman. "For people to come up to me and say, ya know, you turned me on to Dylan or Lou Reed or Velvet Underground or whatever it was, they meant it. It meant so much because that’s why we were there."
Outside of Reitman’s love of music, Gene Mueller says his generosity and approachability are another part of Reitman’s legacy.
"Somebody that my former boss knew told them that their daughter wanted to learn about Bob Dylan. And this person said, you know, if you want to know about Dylan, you should contact Bob Reitman. And somehow she did! And Bob said, 'I’ll tell you everything you want to know.' And he would do that all the time," Mueller recalls. "He did it when he had prostate cancer. There’d be a knock on our studio door, and they’d say, 'hey, can I talk to Bob,' and that was my cue to leave. And then Bob would talk them through whatever they needed to know about it. He would do it on the phone, he would do it in public, he would do it everywhere, and that’s the Bob I know. It’s about the music, but it’s also about people, it’s about being approachable, and helping."
It’s about the music, but it’s also about people, it’s about being approachable and helping.Gene Mueller on Bob Reitman's legacy
Bobby Reitman says his dad’s legacy can be summed up by the classic concept of “Midwest nice,” especially in making himself available to others. "He took that kind of sharing, growing, trusting nature and extended that to others. That and leather vests will be the legacy," he says. "A love for Real Chili and a love for leather vests and Bob Dylan."
When we think about Reitman’s legacy beyond his Midwest nice sensibility, the scale of his career in radio is hard to comprehend. Jeff Rowe, the person who originally put Reitman and Mueller together, says that without question, Reitman is the cornerstone of rock 'n' roll radio in Milwaukee. He believes it’s an impressive feat that Reitman managed to evolve and stay relevant starting in the 1960s through the 2020s. Rowe believes this success boils down to his connection to the city and with his listeners.
"At the core of what Reitman is in my view: he’s a storyteller. And he’s a Milwaukeean, a native Milwaukeean, and he had tremendous stories about the city. And part of great hosts is being able to connect to the audience and Bob was brilliant at that," Rowe says.
When reflecting on his career, Reitman says that he "never really planned anything."
"Things just happened, and that’s why I say I’m a very lucky guy because I’d lose a job and somebody else would offer me a job. I didn’t have an ultimate vision, I just wanted to have fun," he says.
Having retired twice (once from WKTI and then from WUWM), Reitman shares some advice for others who may be newly retired or considering it soon:
"I hope they do it because they want to, and depending on their health, ya know, keep active," he says. "I’m 82, which I don’t feel 82, I really don’t. And maybe I’m delusional, but I have my aches and pains and my limitations, but I don’t feel much more than 14 ... If there’s a way to stay young it’s doing what you like to do ... and surround yourself with one or two dear friends."
Reitman has been a friend to generations of listeners, and he's said that radio for him was always just about the music. But for all of us who listened to Reitman, it was also about him. Through the airwaves, we could sense that he cared about us and that he wanted to make our days just a little bit brighter with his wit and compassion.
Thank you, Bob Reitman!
Rock 'n' Roll Poet: A Reitman Retrospective was produced by WUWM's Lauri Jones and Audrey Nowakowski. Special thanks goes out to WUWM station engineer Jason Rieve, and of course a big thanks to Jeff Rowe, Bobby Reitman, Gene Mueller – and the man in the black leather vest himself, Bob Reitman.
