I consider myself living proof of the Law of Attraction. As a child I envisioned myself as a radio and television broadcaster. My path from the dream to reality manifested through the music business. After several years on the road, I brought my piano bar act to Nashville's Printer's Alley in the early '60s. Performing by night, writing songs by day, I had songs recorded by such legendary artists as Brenda Lee, Johnny Mathis and Al Hirt among others.
But the broadcasting dream remained an unsettled calling. A fortuitous introduction to the WSM radio program director led to various apprenticeship duties. For ten years I lived on Woody Allen’s advice that eighty percent of success in show business is simply showing up. It worked! Eventually, I persuaded WSM radio officials to let me host its first call-in talk show in 1969.
A year later I assumed the host role of Nashville television’s most prestigious television program, Channel 4 “Noon Show.” Then three years later, WSM radio named me host of it’s popular “Waking Crew.” Both programs were Middle Tennessee traditions, woven in the fabric of Middle Tennessee viewing and listening habits. Eleven years later, Nashville's ABC affiliate made me an offer I should have refused as its prime time news anchor.
I soon found that telling “what” as a news anchor was not as fulfilling to me as asking “why” as an interviewer. So I returned to my first love—talk radio—and introduced “Teddy Bart's Round Table” to Middle Tennessee. It aired for over twenty years.
Driven by my lifelong fascination and curiosity for the spiritual, paranormal and metaphysical, I launched a talk show called “Beyond Reason” in 1987. Today “Beyond Reason” is heard as a webcast through www.beyondreason.com, and on radio in Chicago on 100.3 FM.
If broadcasting is my first love, writing is my second. My previous books include "The Mensh" and "Inside Music City USA." “A Particle of God”—a metaphysical novel—will be released in the spring of 2009.
I am extremely proud to have been voted Nashville's Best Talk Show Host five years running. In 2003, my peers in the Nashville Broadcaster’s Association honored me with their Lifetime Achievement award.
When not on the air or writing, I spend my down time reading or walking the land of the farm where my wife Jana and I live in Coffee County, Tennessee.
