Bruce Springsteen Forum

Max Weinberg hat auf Eds Beerdigung über seine erste Begegnung mit Ed (kurz vor Main Point) gesprochen und war auch einer der Sargträger.


Posted on Tue, Feb. 03, 2004
Inqlings | Friends and musicians he fostered pay tribute to Sciaky
By Michael Klein
Inquirer Columnist

Ed Sciaky would have loved his funeral service Sunday.
And not because he was right up front - as he was for more than 30 years at countless rock shows.
And not because it was on Super Bowl Sunday - as he was the ultimate sports hater.
It was the outpouring of affection and respect from 500-plus friends, colleagues, music-industry folks and relatives of the pioneering disc jockey. On WIOQ-FM (102.1), WMMR-FM (93.3) and later on WMGK-FM (102.9), Sciaky was an early champion of Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Yes and Renaissance.
Sciaky (say it "SHOCK-ee"), who had diabetes, died suddenly of a heart attack Thursday at age 55.
The tributes were touching. Folk-music champion Gene Shay, recalling his "protege" from the mid-1960s, dropped the tidbit that Sciaky - "the consummate collector" - would be buried with a number of rock T-shirts. Family friend Amy Richan, on violin, and musician Rob Hyman, on piano, hauntingly played the intro to Springsteen's "Jungleland."
Max Weinberg, Springsteen's drummer, embraced Sciaky's wife and concertmate of 35 years, Judy. From the pulpit, he told mourners how he met Sciaky in 1974 at the Main Point, before one of his first shows with the E Street Band. Springsteen pointed to Sciaky and said, "Boys, I want you to be nice to this guy."
Weinberg was impressed how Ed and Judy Sciaky - and, later, daughter Monica, 18 - would show up wherever Springsteen would play. And how Sciaky invariably quibbled about some aspect of Weinberg's work.
"Ed, to us, was the guy who put us on the map." Weinberg was a pallbearer, as was rocker Steve Forbert.
Monica Sciaky, a freshman at Northwestern University who sings opera, played a recording of some of her father's favorite music: two pieces from her high school recitals. "He used to joke about me and opera," she said. " 'Kids today.'