Article published May 11, 2008
There's a lot to know about John Tesh
Hosting 'Entertainment Tonight!' is just a blip on his long resume
John Tesh covered the Tour de France in 1982 and wrote an original musical score to go with his TV coverage.
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By DAVID YONKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER
So you think you know John Tesh?
The well-known TV star and musician has been in the public eye for decades, but there may be a few things about him that will surprise you:
• He began studying classical piano and trumpet at age 6 with teachers from
the Juilliard School of Music.
• He was a leading scorer for North Carolina State’s lacrosse team.
• A big-time Star Trek fan, he got to play a Klingon warrior in a TV episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• He dated Oprah Winfrey when they were both young TV reporters in Nashville.
• He played on a beach volleyball team with new age musician Yanni.
• He has undergone counseling for severe stage fright.
The tall and handsome celebrity with golden hair and charming smile has done quite a bit more than co-host Entertainment Tonight! for 10 years.
“You know, it’s been 12 years since I left that show and if I were to put on a shirt and tie and walk through the mall or the airport, people will go: ‘Da-da-da-dada-daaaa,’” Tesh said, singing the E.T. theme song.
Much of what Tesh touches has been a success, from his national TV career to creating and hosting a hit radio show (broadcast locally on WRVF-FM 101.5, "The River”) to writing a bestselling book.
But his latest project, Alive: Music & Dance, has not been one of his usual
success stories.
The project features a music disc with 12 songs performed by Tesh and orchestra,
choir, and high school drumline. A DVD, sold separately, features videos with the
same tunes performed live, accompanying ballet, lyrical, and hip-hop dancers.
The concept was to stage a show that gives dancers and choreographers between the ages of 13 and 21 a chance to shine and, hopefully, inspire and encourage
other young Americans to get off the couch, put away the video games, and find a positive and healthful outlet for their talents and imaginations.
Tesh thought the program would be a good fit for PBS stations, where his five
previous music specials have been hits.
“I probably had unrealistic expectations for the new special,” he said. “But they warned us. PBS said, ‘We’ve grayed out a little bit. ... This may be too young for us.’”
He chuckled self-deprecatingly when asked about the songs he wrote and played to accompany hip-hop dancer Breeze Lee on the video, writing it off as a bad idea with good intentions. He added that most critics have vilified him for even trying.
While the Alive program has not fared well on public television, it has been a “monster hit” on Christian networks and TV stations, Tesh added.
Although he typically follows a TV special with a national tour, Alive proved more problematic. With more than 100 people in the band, choir, and dance team, he is only doing a few concerts and most of them are pared down compared
to the DVD program.
Tesh, 56, said his career goals always involved music, but the doors swung open
early and wide to work in television. While still in college, he was hired as a news reporter at WTVD-TV in Durham, N.C., and after graduating with a communications
degree took a job at WFTV-TV in Orlando.
He then moved to Nashville’s WSM-TV, where he vied with Oprah, who worked at a rival station, to cover breaking news as well as feature stories. He said that although it now looks like “Monday morning quarterbacking,” it was clear even then that Winfrey was destined for greatness.
“Oprah was amazing. You could hand her a mic and she could do 45 minutes on a garden party,” Tesh said.
The two reporters got to know each other off camera as well, and their interracial relationship caused quite an uproar in Tennessee’s capital city.
“We dated for about six months and I only mention that because in Nashville it was a huge story,” Tesh said. “The Ku Klux Klan was still in fine form there at the time.”
A native of Garden City, Long Island, Tesh next moved close to home when he joined the staff of WCBS-TV in New York City. At age 23, he was the youngest reporter in an all-star lineup that included John Stossell, Linda Ellerbee, and Meredith Vieiera.
“Those were the real halcyon days for me,” said Tesh, who was at WCBS from 1977 to 1981.
After winning two local Emmys and an Associated Press award for investigative reporting, he switched to sports.
Tesh covered the Tour de France in 1982 and wrote an original musical score to go with his TV coverage.
Viewers liked the music so much that 5,000 called the station asking to buy a copy. That got Tesh’s attention, so he bought ads in two bicycle magazines and launched his recording career by selling 30,000 cassettes via mail-order — duplicating, manufacturing, and mailing the tapes from his garage.
He continued juggling a full-time television job and a part-time music career for several more years before taking a leap of faith in 1996 by quitting Entertainment Tonight! — and a salary reportedly in seven figures — to become a full-time musician.
He said he has never regretted the move.
“I read celebrity birthdays for 10 years. It was not my ministry. But God bless ’em,” he said.
One of his first breaks came from Yanni, the New Age maestro who was a volleyball teammate of Tesh’s.
“This was in 1988. We used to play beach volleyball and I said, ‘Why don’t we go out and tour together?’” Tesh recalled.
Yanni took him up on the idea and gave Tesh a chance to play keyboards in front of large audiences.
It also led Tesh to seek therapy for stage fright, adding that he is “terribly insecure.”
Tesh and Yanni remain friends today. “We all give him a hard time and eventually he will get to the end of talking about himself in the third person,” Tesh said with a laugh.
When it comes to putting out music discs, Tesh is a prolific artist. He has released 50 CDs over the last 20 years, netting three Gold Records and earning two Grammy nominations.
In 2003, he branched out yet again by starting a radio program, The John Tesh Radio Show, which is now carried on 290 stations in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.
The program, which has 8 million listeners, features “music from the 1980s, 1990s, and today’s soft rock,” along with Tesh’s trademark “Intelligence for Your Life” — helpful tips on everyday living gleaned from myriad sources, covering such topics as parenting, getting along with your boss, ways to save money, or fighting jet lag.
The inspiration for the program came from his wife, actress Connie Sellecca, who had piles of magazines and books on the nightstand.
“A lot of times we buy the promise,” Tesh said. “That’s why infomercials are so successful. … You mean well, but you never get around to it. Connie wanted to get into these books and magazines but never did. She just had sticky notes on everything.”
His radio show runs for five hours a day Monday through Friday, and he spends about four hours producing his part of it.
“It’s a fun thing for me,” he said. “But I finally came to the conclusion after five years that yeah, this is my job. I’m not going to phone this in. We have 10 people on staff who all they do is research. We’ve had people try to knock off the show and I tell them, ‘Good luck!’ I didn’t take a salary from it for the first 3½ years.”
He collected the best of the radio tips for a book, Intelligence for Your Life: Powerful Lessons for Personal Growth (Thomas Nelson, $19.99) which came out in March and made the New York Times bestsellers list.
He said the book is more than just advice; it’s also a memoir that reveals the passions that drive him as a musician and media star.
“Planting seeds and encouraging people with the program and my music is a method with which I am truly comfortable,” Tesh said.
John Tesh will appear in concert on Oct. 22 at the Stranahan Theater in Toledo. Tickets are on sale May 19 via Ticketmaster.com, the Stranahan box office at 419-381-8851, or Tesh.com. A presale begins tomorrow via Ticketmaster.com.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
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