Start 2026 with the best Saturday night show featuring your favorite radio couple! Steve King and Johnnie Putman are starting their 4th year back on the air with some of their favorites AND a very special guest for a full circle moment!

Gino Salomone returns for a look back at some of his best ‘Showbiz’ moments of 2025 and we get a sneak peek at how Chicago’s iconic film critic duo Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert are being honored, plus Gino breaks down the new movie featuring the music of Neil Diamond and the new Chevy Chase documentary.

The loyal listeners of The Steve and Johnnie Show that stay up until their segment known as Last Call might know about The Closing Song by Red Peters, and who better than the man himself to kick off the 3rd anniversary of the show! You won’t hear it here but we finally get to know the man behind that song!

We catch up with Consumer Guide Automotive’s Publisher Tom Appel for the latest test drives and recall news that took 2025 by storm, including Ford’s very rough year for recalls. We get a look ahead to 2026 as Tesla is dethroned for number one EV manufacturer by a company in China plus a huge “screw-up” for BMW vehicles.

Johnnie Putman and Steve King bid adieu to 2025 with two of their favorite things: family and some good old fashioned, hometown rock & roll!

Kicking off the show is the Crispen family, including Joseph and his parents Patrick and Christine! Patrick wraps up the year with some tech news including some computer chip woes for consumers in favor of AI, CAPTCHA hacks and we get Patrick’s tech predictions for 2026!

Shifting over to music, Grammy nominated author, journalist, music historian and lifelong Chicagoan Bill Dahl joins for a spotlight on some of Chicago’s finest rockers to ever hit the airwaves, including Steve King himself. Chicago Rocks: Windy City Rock & Roll, Vol. 1 catalogs the rich history of Chicago rock & roll with various hits from the mid 1950s to 1960s and is a must own for any music historian in your life!

There were many eras of music that were memorable, but if you ask Steve King and Johnnie Putman, they’ll tell you that the 1970s in Chicago were the best for concerts and they have two guys who may agree!

The show kicks off with a frosty weather forecast from WGN-TV Meteorologist Mike Jansen as Christmas fast approaches.

The two guys mentioned above are Jim Summaria and Mark Plotnick, co-authors of ’70s Chicagoland Rock Concerts, a thrilling time capsule of concert photos, history and more! Mark is a retired Chicago journalist and Jim is a concert photographer and together they also are the hosts of That Rock Show with Jim and Mark where they celebrate all of the greatest music to come out of Illinois!

Later on, we check on tech with Patrick Crispen, Director of Educational Technology at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. There is plenty to talk about with AI as Disney makes a big investment and Patrick clears the air on some unease around Facebook/Meta “expanding” their AI tools. For all of you last minute Christmas shoppers, Patrick shares a few ideas for the tech and music nerds in your life and his pick for a cable TV alternative. Be sure to follow along with the show notes directly from The Steve and Johnnie Show Blog!

Johnnie Putman and Steve King are in for a super short show featuring our favorite car guru, Tom Appel, whom also happens to be the Publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive and Host of the Car Stuff Podcast to highlight the latest auto industry news, test drives and recalls, including the Trump’s decision to roll back fuel economy standards, which may impact drivers’ wallets at the pump, plus the shaky future of AM radio being a standard feature in vehicles.

Steve King and Johnnie Putman bring all the stuffing you need for Thanksgiving, and the main course: Muriel Anderson! It’s that time of year for her Saturday-After-Thanksgiving Concert! Listen in for all the details as she returns home to Downers Grove for her 34th annual concert featuring Alberto Lombardi from Italy!

Tune in for Patrick Crispen’s latest tech news including a new Facebook message that is sure to startle some, Google and TikTok features are improving the way they handle AI, and so much more that you can read all about on The Steve and Johnnie Show Blog!

Stay tuned on the blog for more, including Johnnie’s stuffin muffin recipe and Youtube channel for many servings of videos from our musical guests this November and all that came before!

Johnnie Putman and Steve King welcome back everyone’s favorite musical guest, The Empty Pockets! Josh Solomon and Erika Brett stop by to perform and share more tunes and upcoming shows! The big one is on December 19th at the City Winery and don’t forget to go to Will’s Place in Skokie to get your Thanksgiving pies!

Tom Appel, Publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive and Host of the Car Stuff Podcast checks back in after much time off for a segment on reliable vehicles that may be more affordable for most sitting around the $30,000 mark, in addition to the usual recalls and test drives.

Be sure to stay tuned on The Steve and Johnnie Show Blog to stay up to date on the latest and upcoming videos of in-studio performances!

After a much needed recovery, Steve King and Johnnie Putman have returned after a few weeks off air! It may be a little colder and darker, but rest assured that this show is a return to full strength!

Starting off the show is a little weather check in with WGN-TV’s Meteorologist Mike Janssen that preceded the weekend’s wildly varied snowfalls, which may be a sign of what is to come this winter.

We check in again with one of Chicago’s top reporters, Monica Eng as the ongoing ICE occupation continues to terrorize, make false claims and illegally detain legal citizens in Chicago.

In the first of many musical guests this holiday season, Nikki O’Neill and Rich Lackowski return to the studio to share more tales and tracks from her band’s latest album “Stories I Only Tell My Friends.” We are also treated to Nikki’s rendition of a holiday classic! You can catch The Nikki O’Neill Band at Art Makers Outpost on Saturday, Novemeber 15th!

Also returning this week is the Director of Educational Technology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Patrick Crispen! We’ve got all the show notes at the Steve and Johnnie Show blog for you to follow along as Patrick covers a new T-Mobile emergency feature for certain phones in a pinch, some more bad groups using public data maliciously, such as ICE, and Patrick shares his picks for reliable tech news sources

Rounding out the show is a special edition of Sports Between the Sheets featuring guest News Anchor Lauren Lapka!

Johnnie Putman and Steve King continue “Spooktober” following a sad elimination for the Chicago Cubs. We lament over another loss but we also take some time to pay tribute to a number of losses including some of Chicago’s very own.

Our first guest is Joe Berton, President of the Military Miniature Society of Illinois and we are talking about their 50th show which showcases a vast medium of historical miniature art and the talented artists behind them and the history of the medium itself. The 50th show takes place at the Marriot Schaumburg October 17-18.

Following another classic scary story, we jump into some fun photography time with rockstar photographer Will Byington! Will teaches the class about some handy iPhone photo tips covering exposure lock, burst mode and why a live photo is an underrated tool for capturing groups! With spooky season currently underway, it’s also helpful to learn some tricks for getting great low light photos.

Rounding out the show is Patrick Crispen, Director of Educational Technology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC with his latest tech and hacking news covering the removal of ICE tracking apps, Bose ending all internet streaming for their SoundTouch smart speakers, and so much more including TikTok, Meta’s AI Glasses. You can follow along with the show notes on Steve and Johnnie’s blog!

It’s time to step into October and get spooky with Steve King and Johnnie Putman! We are starting the show with an important PSA as ICE continues to terrorize Chicago, but we hope you will enjoy a fun scary story from the mind of Arch Oboler to balance it out.

Our first guest is the incredible Tommy Emmanuel for a much overdue reunion to promote his new album Living In The Light set to release October 10th! The album features the track Scarlet’s World, which he debuted here 2 years ago! We reintroduce him with a live version of that track and you can watch the full video here! We learn all about his songwriting process, how he handles playing his older songs, and working with legends like Chet Atkins and George Benson.

It’s also Consumer Guide Automotive Publisher Tom Appel’s turn to update us on all things automotive with his latest test drive and vehicle recalls. We also learn about some of the actual music manufacturers use when testing out a vehicle’s sound systems and we get a sneak peek at what’s to come on his Car Stuff Podcast.

News Anchor Gabe Salgado checks the pulse of Chicago sports and gives us some spark of optimism as our Bears, Blackhawks, Cubs and Sox continue to deliver what we have all come to expect. Tune in below for all of the above, plus an entertainment review by producer, photographer and avid theatergoer, Julian Saldierna, of the opening night of The Lion King at the Cadillac Palace Theatre and Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest blockbuster ‘One Battle After Another’.

Johnnie Putman and Steve King welcome friends from all over for another special show as October rolls around and we pay our respects in honor of a lost friend.

We welcome Becca Starke, Steve and Johnnie’s Panhandle Producer for when they are broadcasting from Panama City Beach, Florida. She stopped by Chicago to hang out with the class!

Before getting to our special guest, we honor the memory of a dear friend of the show following the news of her passing. Alice Selke was delighted to receive tons of birthday wishes from listeners all across the country for her 107th birthday.

It was our privilege to have Paul Cebar in studio to discuss his brand new self-titled album! We are treated to some fantastic live performances of some of the new tracks and we get a little insight into the man behind the music as well as a number of performances going on in and around his hometown of Milwaukee.

We check in for our regular tech updates and the week in hacks with the Director of Educational Technology at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, Patrick Crispen. We get the scoop on Microsoft ceasing all support for Windows 10 users, the latest from Apple and the kind of threat a SIM card farm may be for telecommunications networks. Tune in to the show blog for the show tech notes!