Blast
from
Your Past!(TM)
Rock
& Roll Radio DJs:
the First Five Years
1954 ~ 1959
LinDee Rochelle
aka
your BFYP-FM
DJ, “Rockin’ Rochelle”
www.BlastFromYourPast.NET
Based
on the print book-in-progress
Blast from Your Past!
Rock
& Roll Radio DJs who ROCKED Your World
1954 ~ 1979, Vol. I
Copyright 2011 by LinDee Rochelle
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or otherwise be copied for public or private use, without prior written permission from the author or publisher.
The text contained in this book is based on actual occurrences as reported from research and/or through participant interviews, and the author’s editorial perspectives. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
Unless otherwise identified all images are from the author’s personal collection. Individually owned images are credited and used with owners’ permissions.
ISBN: 978-1-61061-306-4
Radio Consultants: Bill Gardner, Shotgun Tom Kelly & all BFYP DJs!
Smashwords edition (no-frills!) The First Five Years: April 2011
Smashwords
edition ~ License Notes
This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be
re-sold or shared freely with others. If you would like to share this
book with another person, please purchase a gift copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, please return to
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and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author. (“Starving artist” is no joke!)
A
product of the USA
Published by Penchant
for Penning
San
Diego, California
To
the One and Only You …
(Dedication)
My wonderful boys, Scott & Verne, and Verne’s beautiful family, Tammy, Arianna, Shayna and Zakary – and my little ray of sunshine, furry therapist and muse, Sunny the Cat (01/01/1998 ~ 02/01/2011).
And to the consummate Radio DJ …
“Who’s dis on the Wolfman tel-e-phone?”
Wolfman Jack
The Rock & Roll Radio DJ who summed up our generation and the advent of Rock & Roll in, “Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.” (With author, Byron Laursen.)
See “Wolfman Jack, You Da Man!”
Trippin’
Through the Years
(Contents)
Foreword:
Lonnie Napier/Wolfman Jack VP
Special
Introduction: Bill Gardner/DJ Extraordinaire
Preface
~ Idiosyncrasies
& idiocies
The
Wonder Years of Rock & Roll Radio
Half-Decade No. 1
Fifties,
Rock-and-What?!
1954 ~ 1959
1st up on the Turntable
Ron Riley - Best known, WLS/Chicago, Illinois
Ken Chase (aka Mike Korgan) - Best known, KISN/Portland, Oregon
Forrest “Frosty” Mitchell - Best known, KIOA/Des Moines, Iowa
Kent Burkhart - Best known, KOWH/Omaha, Nebraska
Bill Bailey - Best known, WAKY/Louisville, Kentucky
Bob Doll - Best known, WCPO/Cincinnati, Ohio
Burt Sherwood - Best known, WMCA/New York City
Norm Prescott - Best known, WBZ/Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Don Rose - Best known, KFRC/San Francisco, California
Cousin Bruce Morrow - Best known, WABC/New York City
Jack Vincent - Best known, KCBQ/San Diego, California
Jim Stagg (aka Johnny Gray) - Best known, WCFL/Chicago, Illinois
Terrell Metheny - Best known, WOKY/Milwaukee, Wisconsin
William F. Williams - Best known, KMEN/San Bernardino; KPPC Los Angeles, California
Sandy Deanne with band, Jay & The Americans - Best known for “Come a Little Bit Closer”
Wolfman Jack, You Da Man! - The Early Adventures of Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith)
Conclusion
~ it Ain’t!
Acknowledgements
Glossary
~ What does that mean?!
Remember
When ~ Memory Test!
Rock & Roll Rochelle
~ Author Bio
[Image: Wolfman Jack with Lonnie Napier, friend, advisor and business partner from 1970 until Wolfman’s death, July 1, 1995. Courtesy of Lonnie, c.1976,]
The DJ was “the man”
Foreword by Lonnie Napier
Some people grow up wanting to be rock stars. Some people grow up wanting to be doctors or lawyers. And then there’s that unlucky bunch who dream of being a radio DJ.
For the latter, it usually starts at a young age and is more than a dream. It’s an obsession. The reason I say “unlucky” is because the job is never about money and, more than likely, not about fame. It comes with a passion to play music through a small radio speaker and excite the listener.
But once-upon-a-time, occasionally both fame and fortune came to that rare breed of personality who rose above the mere mortals to become the Zeus or Apollo of radio. In Blast from Your Past, LinDee Rochelle has put together an insight into the endangered animal known as the Rock & Roll Radio DJ.
Her request to the industry for fun, old-radio reminisces, especially about Wolfman Jack*, to whom she’s dedicated the book, struck a memory chord and of course, I answered.
It was fun to recall … I must’ve been barely eleven or twelve years old listening to “Happy Hare” on KCBQ, San Diego. Harry Martin was just that, “Happy.” A whacky DJ who made you laugh. You hung on his every word and then he’d slam into a hot platter of wax from the Beach Boys or Del Shannon.
I laid under my covers at night, not thinking of carnal images of Ann Margaret or Natalie Wood, but trying to pick up San Diego’s KGB-AM on my transistor radio. In later years, I became friends with Buzz Bennett, the program director from KGB. And I met my idol, a production God in my eyes and ears, Bobby Ocean.
Then I found a Los Angeles station, 93 KHJ on my radio and I heard the incarnation of the Boss Jocks. Robert W. Morgan. Bill Wade. The Real Don Steele. Sam Riddle. Later on it was Charlie Tuna. Humble Harve. Rich Brother Robbin*.
And then there was the Mexican station. The Mighty 1090, XERB*, where this strange voice emanated every few hours claiming to be “Wolfman Jack.” Little did I know at the time, but my life was on a direct path to a 25-year career of working with the Wolfman.
Radio has changed a lot since then. The DJ was “The Man” back in the Golden Age of Rock & Roll Radio. I began working for Wolfman Jack in 1970 and one of the first things he passed on to me was his love for radio. His passion for the art of broadcasting.
Wolfman taught me that you didn’t go home just because you’d worked your eight hours with an hour lunch. You worked until you felt your job was done. Until you knew that what you’d produced was the best it could be and that everyone who heard it would be blown away.
Probably no one would ever know you’d created that ear candy and you probably wouldn’t make a lot of money. But you’d know. And if you loved radio, that was enough.
Wolfman was my best friend. A confidant. I loved him like a brother. Over the final ten years of his life, I probably spent more time with him than I did my own family. And now, 15 years since his death, I still think of him every day and wonder what he thinks of the radio productions I’m putting together now. Even though we live in a digital age, all of the lessons I learned from one of the masters of radio, are still inside of me. The passion and the art of radio have never left.
I hope LinDee’s fresh collection of stories will remind you of the innocence that was the excitement of radio. [Or for you young’uns, sneak a peek into the lives of your parents and grandparents – something they refer to as “the good ol’ days” when great radio was “live.”]
Maybe Blast from Your Past will take you to a fond moment in your childhood or have you wishing you had been there “when.” Regardless, radio is and always has been a conduit between information and entertainment.
And the DJ – that guy or gal with the gift of gab was the flamboyant master of ceremonies. Read. Enjoy. And learn about a time of innocence. A time of frivolity. A time when radio was “cool” and the Rock & Roll Radio DJs were Gods.
Lonnie
Napier
Nashville,
Tennessee
Associate
Producer
American Country
Countdown with Kix Brooks
VP
Wolfman Jack Enterprises
Forever
friend to Wolfman Jack
[Don’t
miss Lonnie’s own story in the full-throttle print edition!]
*BFYP
DJs; and see “Wolfman
Jack,
You Da Man!” re:
XERB and XERF
[Image: Veteran Rock & Roll radio DJ, Bill Gardner at KLZ-Denver. Bill is the eldest of a trio of radio DJ brothers. Al & Andre Gardner still thank big “brutha” Bill for telling them to stay out of radio … obviously they listened. Photo courtesy of Bill, c. 1965.]
Why
DJs do what we do …
it’s for you!
Special Introduction by Bill Gardner
I’ll never forget it. One morning in the mid-1990s, while hosting my KOOL morning radio show in Phoenix, Arizona, I answered another of my ringing studio lines. The caller said something that’s permanently etched in my mind.
“Good morning Bill Gardner! I just figured out what makes your radio station my absolute favorite, anywhere in America. What makes you different from the rest of the voices. Each spring I drive my mother from Arizona, several thousand miles back to her home in Florida. Along the way, I listen to many, many radio stations for countless hours on end, all with virtually the same music as yours. But it’s you guys alongside the music that separate your radio station from the rest!”
I thought, “We did it. We broke the pane of glass.” Have you ever, when you least expected it, turned toward the radio and thought “My god, he was talking to me!” That’s what I’ve always called “breaking the pane of glass.”
When you’re listening to a radio station, and we are “live” inside, talking between songs, if it’s easy for you to ignore the voice on the radio, we haven’t gotten through to you … we haven’t broken the invisible pane of glass that separates the people on the inside of the radio, with those outside who listen.
If someone calls our studio lines and after any short conversation says, “… and what was your name again?” I know I haven’t gotten through to that person. We haven’t formed that radio bond. But if I hear, “Bill Gardner, I love waking up with your morning show on the radio,” those are the listeners who make my job worthwhile. And they’ve made it worthwhile for me each morning since I began as a radio DJ in 1965, at America’s very first rock and roll station on FM, KLZ-FM, Denver, Colorado.
LinDee Rochelle and I have that bond. I know her name well, and she knows mine. Through that wonderful miracle known as “the radio,” we connected. When I first heard of the Rock & Roll Radio DJs project, I was glad for LinDee, and glad for the radio industry on a number of different levels.
Many times I’ve heard spoken words over the radio and thought that was brilliant! Maybe even said a few myself that I thought might qualify. But I knew full well that unlike live television, or live music, or live performances of any kind, the likelihood was extremely low that what I’d just heard or said over the radio airwaves would be saved or preserved.
People do record television, live concerts and other performances, but the evocative, daily creativity on radio almost always just goes away after one real time, right now airing. That was especially true in the early days of rock & roll radio. Although radio airchecks abound on the Internet, they’re most often of “celebrity” DJs. But there are countless moments of thousands of DJs across the country devoted to their listeners that were not recorded. What I’d heard in one fleeting moment that made me smile would evaporate into thin air and be gone forever.
LinDee’s Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs who ROCKED Your World! preserves a bit of the magic, a bit of the bond that keeps radio personalities like me doing and enjoying what I do, for as long as you’ll listen … it’s not just the blah, blah, blah, it’s the link between people, between you and me … and it’s our reward.
Blast from Your Past! preserves some of the spirit of thousands of hours of radio broadcasts that will never be heard … again. But maybe the spirit, and the connection between people who don’t really know one another but feel a genuine link, makes it worthwhile for all of us.
BRAVO, LINDEE ROCHELLE.
Bill
Gardner
Las Vegas, Nevada
BillGardnerOnTheRadio.com
[Don’t miss Bill’s own story in the full-throttle print edition!]
Idiosyncrasies
& Idiocies
(Preface)
Where
were you in ’62? or ’72, or even the early dawn of Rock &
Roll as we know it – 1954?
Disclaimer: For you music purists, BFYP is a blender; an “MOR” (middle of the road) in the truest sense of the term. I’m throwing several types of music into the mix to create the right setting for a teaspoon-helping of Rock & Roll Radio DJ history and tributes.
Why? Because that’s what those decades were all about – creating, mixing, swirling, concocting – and taste-testing our music and attitudes. The ingredients mixed one way didn’t work; add a little more of something, and it was good, but … hmmm, there’s still something missing … at times the mix virtually exploded from our transistor radios in a spectacular moment of our lives we’ll never forget.
Early Rock & Roll – even today’s so-called “rock” – blends elements of the Blues, various cultural essentials, Soul, Jazz, Hillbilly, and leftover flavors of the Big Band Era. We picked our favorites and more so than today, the radio music surveys charted crossover songs and called them all “top 40” or Pop or Rock & Roll and only the industry insiders cared – most listeners on the other hand, cared not. We simply wanted to Rock!
So wherever you were, whatever radio station you listened to and whichever DJs brought you the music, you loved it, lived it, or lambasted it while it was happenin’, but we can all look back at it now with a lopsided grin and a knowing wink. We were there.
Don’t look for a ton of historical facts, or in some cases, even exact facts. I tried to get the “real story” in my personal interviews with some of your favorite DJs; but sometimes it’s just important to demonstrate a colorful moment. And there are many very fine websites, books, and documentaries devoted to the history of music, radio, and “real” Rock & Roll. (Thumb back to the Sources & Resources pages – you’ll be happily occupied for days!)
Thanks for the memories …
I hope you’ll revel with us in many memories and enjoy Blast from Your Past! as it’s intended – a peek into our lives of yesteryear. Yours, mine, and the featured radio disc jockeys. Together, let’s bring back the music, the merriment, the moods, and att-i-tudes that personified Rock & Roll and terrified our parents in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
I
wasn’t old enough to be “swingin’” in 1954, except in my
mother’s dance studio. But from the beginning, Florence-don’t-
call-me-Flo, instilled in me a healthy love for music of all
melodies. She taught everything: tap, ballet, jazz, traditional
ballroom, even folk dances – but it was the swingin’ steps of
jitterbug and Rock & Roll that really made her toes tap.
[Image: Music lover – heart & soul! Author, LinDee Rochelle; c. 1953.]
Perhaps like mine, your traumatic teen years were right smack dab in the middle of the 1960s’ youth and music rebellion. I reveled in it with curious timidity, wistfully wishing to participate more. How this Northern California “country girl” pined for the action … until I graduated from high school in 1966 and we immediately moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Oh, my, my, oh hell, yes … I put on my party dress!
Parts of the decade held elements of political and social revolution, though truth as declared by historians was (and is) highly subjective. Truth be told though, trouble had been a-brewin’ long before it finally erupted.
From music to racism to feminism – “What a revoltin’ development this is!”(RW) – was oft-repeated as we moved into the 1960s. “Your generation started it,” mom lamented. To her deathbed, my mother blamed the social and political unrest of the Sixties and Seventies on us rebellious teens. Even as we matured into the Baby Boomer generation, she laid the back-peddling and economic woes of the 1990s on our back.
Somehow, I always managed to refrain from reminding her that the Great Depression of the 1930s helped foster general unrest, the 1940s encouraged women’s freedom, and the debacle that is our credit/financial system, generating crooked politicians and borrowed government funds, was well in place with Charga-Plates by the late 1950s. But I let her rant. Aren’t I a good daughter?
And, “Do you call that stuff music?!” she’d exclaim. Although she’s the one who taught me the Jitterbug, the Lindy Hop (of course), and the Charleston, I taught her the Mashed Potato, the Twist, and the Monkey.
Now I understand why by the mid 1960s she quit teaching current dances to focus on the age-old classics. For her, Rock & Roll music had changed. It became ever more controversial and salacious – and we began dancing individually, rather than as couples. She was probably right. BUT … oh, what fun!
Making the connection …
Although Blast from Your Past features the wild-n-crazy Rock & Roll Radio DJs who brought music to our ears, it also mimics the images of the decades: Stepford-lives of the ‘50s, rebel yells of the ‘60s, and roiling psychedelic art that belied the turmoil that was the ‘70s.
Blast from Your Past is more than a book about DJs – it’s about the connection the DJs gave us to the biggest musical stars of our era, as they reflected our restlessness. They spoke to us on our level, in our language, some whispering, their lips caressing the mic*, others screaming to the rafters – they spoke as if each of us was in the room with them. Right here, right now … just you and me, babe.
*OK, I can hear ya-all now – what is she thinking?! “Mic” is not the proper spelling for the abbreviation of “microphone.” My question to you, is why isn’t it?!
Even the dictionaries proclaim “mike” the correct spelling for the informal version of microphone. But I consider that confusing – “Mike” is a proper name and certainly not the more logical truncated form of microphone. So I’m standing my ground on this anomaly. Deal with it. Or join my crusade. Your choice!
Hey LR! What the hell are those stupid, tiny “(RW)” and “(G)” references in the text?
Do you “Remember When”? Just as the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were no ordinary decades, this will be no commonplace chronicle of Rock & Roll Radio DJs. With any luck, you’ll detect the innuendos, double entendres, and tongue-in-cheek references with a knowing, conspiratorial smile.
For those of you who “don’t get it,” hopefully, you’ll still be entertained and maybe curious enough to ask questions. Go ahead. We love to talk about our past indiscretions. Ummm, I mean, adventures.
To this end, throughout the book you’ll find quotes, phrases, and allusions to fads and facts popularized by the era. However, to stop and explain or reference each one would interrupt the flow of our conversation; thus, you will note a tiny “(RW)” next to the text.
First, see if you recognize the source, or the full text, or whatever it alludes to – I mean, geez, this book is all about havin’ fun! C’mon, join in. To confirm the accuracy of your memory banks, or for you young-uns to wallow in ancient history, check the “Remember When” directory in the back.
If you were there through the rock, radio, and radical, and your memory muse puts the skids on a section, yelling “That’s not what really happened!” What you have just witnessed is the fickleness of the human brain in action. Or simply, another POV (that’s “point of view” for non-writers).
I mean, seriously, we’re trying to recall passing events of thirty to fifty + years ago! Give these guys (and me!) a break … let them have their memories and please, only dispute something you can prove. Otherwise, your muse has offered no better recall than theirs and what’s the point of a he-said, she-said face-off?
The most blatant possibility for good-natured rivalry is in the category of “firsts” – you know – the first station or DJ to play Elvis, the first station to play The Beatles, the first FM station in the country, the first … well, you get the idea.
So I maintain that some details are surely and gleefully embellished while others conveniently blurred or eradicated … so be it.
The scattered “G” for “Glossary” terms are era and industry definitions that are more dictionary-oriented, often explaining radio lingo.
No doubt about it …
… this nitpicky book editor (moi) is breaking a whole bunch of grammar, spelling, and basic literary rules. What do you expect for a book about the era that gleefully urged us to crack open convention and challenge authority? I don’t say it’s right … so let the punishment fit the crime … take my Mark Twain collection away for a week.
And if you’re reading BFYP – the First Five Years in the no-frills ebook version, remember, it’s much more entertaining as a print book. In this case, images are important and creative fonts are enhancing – ebooks still have a ways to go to replace the visual entertainment of print.
It is important, too, to offer something about my personal POV referencing a more sober issue. Because Blast from Your Past is set in an era of racial and social unrest, and is the era in which I came of age, the use of some terms here may be outdated or even insensitive, according to today’s standards.
I mean no disrespect to anyone – I hold high esteem to all of humanity and creatures of the Universe, regardless of form, race, culture, or beliefs. OK, except for maybe, insects. Eww.
However, I hold little regard for “labels.” I don’t have “African-American” friends, or “Jewish” friends, or “Irish” friends – they’re just friends. (Some with really curly hair, which applies to me, too!)
During my youth the respectful term for African-Americans for instance, changed several times as our society evolved; during the fifties “colored” was still in use, but “Black” became the norm during the 1960s and ‘70s, which are the dominant BFYP decades. It was the accepted term at that time, so it is in Blast from Your Past.
Other cultural and racial terms from that era may also appear – but they are included with the utmost respect. Just as Rock & Roll was in its growing stages, so was our country’s awareness of these diversity issues.
One thing I have done in BFYP that may be considered controversial to the political pundits who can’t see past their prejudices, is in addition to respecting the standard capitalization of national cultures mentioned, so is the term “White” capitalized. Although my heritage is Irish (a couple generations removed), I am “all American” and it’s important to me that we all enjoy the same respect.
I certainly don’t expect you-all to agree with every comment, opinion, or nuance uttered here, whether by me, or one of these esteemed disc jockeys. But let’s just agree to disagree, raise our hands in a “V” and with a silly grin, say, “Peace and love to you, my friend.”
And, a word about ebooks – I love ‘em, really I do. However, when it comes to a book of this nature laden with necessary images, we’re just not quite “there” with the ebook technology. They cater to small screens that may be convenient, but are not as pretty as print books!
Many radio surveys and a few other fun images had to be deleted not only to accommodate file size, but simply because in the resulting miniscule size they just were not effective. And fancy formatting with unique fonts is a no-no, reduced to bland. (Picture a spoiled brat with her lower lip stuck out in a pensive pout.)
So if not by the time you read this, soon, you will be able to see all of the deleted images and much more, in the 25-year print version; and even before its release some surveys will be available for viewing on the Blast from Your Past! website.
Also stuck in the text here and there you may find a lame “LR” or two, followed by a few words of wit or wisdom, clothed in brackets, [LR: ]. These reflect my need to butt in and tell you something I think is important. I’ll try to keep them to a minimum, and probably half the time you can ignore them. But every now and then, like your fave Rock & Roll Radio DJ, I might have something significant to whisper in your ear in the middle of a record … “Pssssst. Rock & Roll will never dieeeee! Rock on!”
LR
San
Diego, California USA
March 17, 2011
What were we listening to in ’54? “If You Love Me” and “It Happens to be Me” … but we wanted more!
[Image: Song Hits magazine July 1954. (Published through mid-1980s.) BFYP collection.]
The Wonder Years of Rock & Roll Radio
(Half-)Decade
No. 1
The
Fifties,
Rock-and-What?!
1954
~ 1959
Sh-boom, sh-boom … or is that shazzam!? 1954 in America was a sneaky year. Our Stepford-style(RW) lives followed a formula set forth in the six-pack or so previous years since the end of World War II.
For the most part, women unquestionably obeyed their husbands, and children dutifully behaved at the supper table and clothed their bodies appropriately. Only bad boys and crew cut military men sported tattoos. And on women?! Never! At least not in this decade.
But the war changed us in oh so many subtle (at first) ways. Many women liked the freedom to work outside the home, brought on by the absence of our men in uniform. The country’s personal involvement in this war heightened our awareness of each other as people, genders, races, and cultures.
Even our music was affected. Some think Martin Block’s defection on January 1 from his popular Make Believe Ballroom(RW) radio show for a TV gig, kicked off a year of musical metamorphosis. Big Bands and big-voiced singers still ruled the airwaves, but an indefinable itch tickled to be scratched.
The Stepford life clung to us as Ray Anthony, baton-master of the Ray Anthony Orchestra, introduced his new line dance, the everyone-follow-me bouncing “Bunny Hop.”(RW)
A goofy variation of the Conga line, I say the “Bunny Hop” was an obvious sign of restlessness. Our bouncing up-and-down was an attempt to work off frustrations reflected in an impatient and moody 1954.
[Image: Ray Anthony leads everyone in fine form in his popular Bunny Hop at DJ Bob Horn’s Bandstand show in Philly. Song Hits magazine, July 1954. BFYP Collection.]
Black teens and young adults weren’t bouncing, though; they were swiveling and swinging and sweating to their own beat. The White folks began to take notice, and said, hey, wait a minute – we wanna swing too!
Those who got wind of the hip new music played on “Black radio” hunted down the records to play at home. It certainly wasn’t pouring out of their lily-white radio speakers. Those producing the controversial music bounced their heads against the glass ceiling of White radio station owners and program directors, afraid to make waves.
But Rock & Roll was not to be denied its birthright. With the help of a handful of disc jockeys pushing the buttons of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), our once hardened, black-and-white society hesitantly shifted into teeming shades of gray. Behind closed doors, White folks shucked and jived to that scandalous “race music.”
Until one station dared to blast the door off its hinges.
In truth, for several decades dance music had become more vigorous and exciting. Since the Charleston of the 1920s and the Jitterbug of the 1930s and ‘40s, we steadily boogied our way out of the staid Victorian Era.
1954 was just the shout-it-out-loud year. As early as 1916, lyrics whispered with variations of the phrase, “rock and roll.” That was long before it bedded down with sex, drugs, or dance!
Anyone remember Little Wonder records?(RW) “The Camp Meeting Jubilee” by the Peerless Quartet warbled, “We’ve been rockin’ an’ rolling in your arms / Rockin’ and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses.” Say what??!
That’s right, kiddies – the first purported use of rockin’ and rolling emerged from the very sector of the population that later labeled it blasphemy! Well, OK, I’ll grant you that by 1954 rockin’ and rolling no longer meant in the arms of a religious prophet … although, exclamations of “Oh, God!” could be heard with it.
Even before “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (Big Joe Turner, February 15, 1954), we heard Ella Fitzgerald’s unmistakable crooning of “Won’t you satisfy my soul / With the rock and roll?” (“Rock It For Me Baby,” 1937), and by 1953 we had “Gee” by The Crows, considered by many the first real rock and roll group, with the “first” rock and roll hit. Even Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame places it in their list of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
So what does all this have to do with rock and roll radio DEEJAYS? Patience, m’dears, patience; we’re gettin’ there.
Which radio station, where, and who, first turned us on to Rock & Roll? Ever hear of spontaneous combustion? My guess is it was something like that – the cause will never be definitely decided, but its effects were instant and hot. Once started, we were a nation on fire!
Did the Rock & Roll shout-out come from Memphis? Uh-uh. You think it all started in Cleveland? Nope. New York? Sorry.
A creative blend of predominantly Rhythm and Blues, Country-Western, and Rockabilly, Rock & Roll spread like wildfire from what would later become the nation’s Country music capital – Nashville, Tennessee.
WLAC in Nashville seems to have the majority of proponents for its status as at least one of the most obvious choices for the honor of “first.”
Talk about jumpin’ and jivin’! WLAC jumped from network programming of news, orchestra musicals, and farm reports, to swingin’ all night long, with three White-boy DJs playing race records.
Debates still rage from coast to coast and border to border, and though I tried to find the most consistently repeated hypothesis, there are too many versions to come to a conclusion. So agree or disagree with what you read here, but I hope either way you enjoy the stories.
Right place … right time … timing is everything!
Gene Nobels, a wildly popular WLAC deejay – and a White guy – is often regarded as the first to throw caution to the wind and play R&B music for a large audience of racially mixed listeners.
Nostalgic radio DJs will remember the time they didn’t absolutely have to run everything through the PD (Program Director) and station management to play something new. One impulsive night changed our world of music forever …
The story goes (as told in the documentary, Rock & Roll Invaders: The AM Radio DJs, Winstar 1998), during one of Gene’s all night shifts, two Black guys glibly talked their way past the security guards. WLAC was housed in a bank building – think bottom floor, buttoned-down-shirt conservative during the day with 24/7 high security vs. the top floor, no holds barred, flagrant radio carousing all night long.
The eager fans walked into Gene’s studio and asked him to play some Black records they had in hand. He put them on the turntable, liked them – and so began the legend of all night R&B.
It didn’t take much to urge the other two daring deejays at WLAC to follow suit. Along with Gene, “Gentleman John” Richbourg and Bill “Hoss” Allen helped launch the big name careers of early R&R artists, like Fats Domino, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Otis Redding, and so many more.
How did Gene get away with it in the beginning? At that time, segregation was literally “Black and White,” and rarely the twain shall meet. But half of Gene’s audience was Black, who thought he was oh, so cool. The other half was White, thinking they were adventurous and just a little wicked, listening to “race music.” Most of both sides thought Gene was Black and his appeal was universal.
But before Black artists made their own names in Rock & Roll music, their “tell it like it is” bouncy tunes were pasteurized and milkified by White performers, for the White audiences.
Pat Boone covered Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” in 1955; and they both charted with it. Good thing Pat didn’t get his way on a title revision to “Isn’t That a Shame” – it simply doesn’t have the same flow.
A random thought here … since music creates a common neutrality atmosphere, why don’t we require music be played at all political meetings? It might calm a few folks down. Teehee.
So finally, because we all wanted to enjoy this hip new sound, the racial lines began to blur … let the good times roll!
Alan Freed organized dance parties that mixed cultures. Dick Clark invited a racial mix of teens to his popular TV set of American Bandstand. Ever-so-slowly, radio stations began hiring the Black DJs who dared to be different.
‘54 rolled out in vibrant, rebellious colors of change.
Rock & Roll was catching on. A collective consciousness awakened by primal forces from this year forward, would propel the most powerful nation on Earth into a new, energetic warfront.
Leading the new musical revolution, Alan Freed belted out his now-famous line meant to excite and incite – mission accomplished! 1954 heralded a transformation in music and the beginning of world change, as Alan Freed shouted, “Let’s Rock & Roll!”
The 1950s were sweeter than wine yet more acidic than the lemon tree. While Freed blasted away with his upbeat, phone-book-thumping banter at WINS in New York, Ron Riley warmed up his pipes in his first real radio gig at DeKalb, Illinois’ WLBK. Eighteen-year-old Riley made $1.00 per hour and still has the framed agreement to prove it. But we’re not quite there yet …
The blues and soul, tagged as Rhythm and Blues, along with the ballads and bantering of big bands, a smattering of Country-Western (as it was known then), and “pop music” began to fall short of a new sound … Rock & Roll.
Still strong but fading fast, Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, and a few more savvy singers hung on to the music surveys’ lists even into the ‘60s.
But the music notes on the wall predicted a shake-up that originated in the wiggle of Elvis’ hunky hips. The chains of melody began rattling for release with a number of bouncy tunes that pressed onto the early record charts.
Bill Haley & His Comets climbed the charts with “Shake, Rattle and Roll” in 1954, followed in 1955 by “Rock Around the Clock,” deemed the rockers’ creed and what may be the first Rock & Roll song to inspire its own movie (1956).
In between my prattle and the stories of your favorite DJs, you’ll find tidbits of the era, the industry, and some mention of noteworthy DJs, other than those interviewed.
Many great minds were mentored along the way … “I was the pain-in-the-ass kid who hung around (WWOL/Buffalo),” says New York DJ Joey Reynolds of his introduction to radio.
The up and coming upstart broadcasters began to replace “announcers” and dramatic radio show hosts, for their own share of immortality … and landed as DJs in Rock & Roll radio.
So let’s flip the microphone switch and sign on!
Oh,
my papa, to me he was so wonderful
Oh, my papa, to me he was so
good
Eddie Fisher’s #1 hit “Oh, My Pa-Pa,” January 1954 - Not quite rockin’ & rollin’ yet!
(Read this fast and loud!) This is your Resident Redhead coming to you from BFYP-FM (Blast from Your Past-Full Moon), broadcasting to the world from sunny San Diego, Cal-i-forn-i-a! Let’s spread music and mayhem throughout the land, with scenes from the lives of your favorite Rock & Roll Radio DJs of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s!
Poodle skirts, saddle shoes, bobby sox and ducktail hair, madras shirts and beehives, love beads, hiphuggers and peace signs – we’re ready to ROCK!
Come on! Let’s go trippin’ down mem’ry lane and check out those wild-n-crazy guys and gals who kissed your ears with Rock & Roll music for the souuulllll!
First up for your platter-spinning pleasure … a real Midwest Rock & Roll treasure.
Ron
Riley
Best
known at WLS/Chicago, Illinois
Ron Riley … or did you know him as “Ron ‘Ringo’ Riley”? How about “Smiley Riley”? With stints at WLS-Chicago, Milwaukee’s WOKY (pronounced “walky”), and even his own Bowling for Dollars TV show, Ron never wanted to be anything other than a deejay.
“Come on-a My House,” Rosie Clooney crooned to the impressionable, adolescent teen. It was the early 1950s and Ron Riley headed to downtown Chicago every chance he got to watch the guys in the fishbowl radio studios(G) spin Rosie’s platters.
“I just knew that was what I wanted to do,” Riley said, reminiscing. A child of the ‘40s, “there wasn’t a lot … well, not really any, Rock & Roll music then, so I grew up appreciating all types of music – big band, mostly. When not selling insurance, dad’s greatest fun was playing sax and clarinet with local dance bands on weekends. There was always music in our house.”
Young Ron realized that even the disc jockeys didn’t know what to do with Rock & Roll. How do you introduce something so feisty and unpredictable to a radio world previously ruled by big bands, boozy ballads and smooth talkin’ gents?
You can’t blame them for being confused. A great song would hit the “race music” airwaves, but they weren’t allowed to spin that version. It barely had time to earn a following before the song was rerecorded in a slicked-up version “suitable for a broad audience.”
Smooth and sophisticated Pat Boone crooned his version of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame”; and “Sh-Boom,” originally charted by The Chords, found wide acclaim covered by The Crew Cuts, a creamy and dreamy doo-wop group from Canada.
About this time, mid-teen Ron swung his life plan into action and won a contest that gave him the opportunity to report his high school’s news on-air at WKRS in Waukegan, Illinois. “I used to go there once a week with sweaty palms and talk about high school,” Ron admitted. Whoohoo! Ron’s first true taste of his future. Sweaty palms and all.
During a stint at the University of Wisconsin Ron snagged a shift at the WHA campus station (Madison), playing … excuse me … Classical music. “I got in there with my high voice (wish you coulda heard him imitate his former squeaky tone!) and mispronounced all of the Classical names; and all these professors who loved all the Classical music called the station and told ‘em how awful I was.”