Victor Lundberg

Victor Lundberg (2 September 1923 – 14 February 1990) was an American radio personality. He is best known for a spoken-word record called to "An Open Letter To My Teenage Son", which became an unlikely Top 10 hit in 1967.

Lundberg was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was a newscaster at Grand Rapids radio station WMAX when he released "An Open Letter" in September 1967. The record, written by Lundberg and produced by Jack Tracy, imagines Lundberg talking to his teenage son -- in real life, Lundberg apparently had at least one male teenager in his household at the time. Lundberg touches on hippies, the Vietnam War, and patriotism. The voice-over, spoken over "Battle Hymn of the Republic", memorably ends with Lundberg telling his son that, if the teen burns his draft card, then he should "burn (his) birth certificate at the same time. From that moment on, I have no son."

"An Open Letter" became a surprise hit in Michigan, and was released nationally by Liberty Records, jumping onto the Billboard Hot 100 at #84 on November 11, 1967. Within three weeks it hit #10, making it one of the fastest-climbing records in history up to that point, and Lundberg made an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show -- apparently, the record found favour with members of the so-called Silent Majority, who supported the war. After another week at #10, it slipped to #22 for the week ending December 16 -- then vanished from the chart completely, after just six weeks in the Hot 100. (No other record has ever been ranked so high in such a short chart stay, and no other recording has dropped from as high as #22 to completely off the chart the following week.) [Joel Whitburn, "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits". 7th edn, 2000] "An Open Letter" also received a Grammy award nomination for Best Spoken Word Recording. [ [http://theenvelope.latimes.com/factsheets/awardsdb/env-awards-db-landing,0,3713019.htmlstory The Envelope] , "Los Angeles Times". Accessed October 19, 2007.] There were also at least two "response" records: Keith Gordon's "A Teenager's Answer", released on the Tower label, [ Available on the compilation CD, [http://members.aol.com/FoggVelvet/WOW1.html "U-SPACES: Way Out Wonders, Volume 1"] ] and "A Teenager's Open Letter To His Father" by Robert Tamlin. [http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2006/10/open/Robert_Tamlin_-_A_Teenagers_Open_Letter_To_His_Father.mp3]

Encouraged by the single's success, Liberty released an entire album of Lundberg's musings, entitled "An Open Letter". The album featured ten selections, many of which took a less strongly conservative line than "Teenage Son", such as "My Buddy Carl" (originally the B-side of the hit single), which decries racial prejudice, and "On Censorship", which takes an almost Libertarian view of "self-appointed...censorious do-gooders". But the album failed to make the record charts, and Lundberg's letters faded into obilivion. He died in 1990.

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