Ron Briton at WCFL and many other Chicago stations had an amazing voice and sense of humor. He used great sound effects too.
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Have You Ever Listened to a Station for the Jock?
- Thread starter AM-FM-DXer
- Start date
Martha Quinn when I'm in Vallejo
Very interesting responses! Thank you. Here are some of the jocks that were "appointment listening" for me, including some who worked at stations whose formats I did not even like.
1. Howard Stern
2. JoJo Kincaid
3. Broadway Bill Lee
4. Shotgun Tom Kelly
5. Big Joe Henry
6. Kyle and Jackie O (in Sydney, Australia)
7. Charlie Tuna
8. Cousin Brucie
9. Billy the Kidd
10. Bubba the Love Sponge on the Power Pig
1. Howard Stern
2. JoJo Kincaid
3. Broadway Bill Lee
4. Shotgun Tom Kelly
5. Big Joe Henry
6. Kyle and Jackie O (in Sydney, Australia)
7. Charlie Tuna
8. Cousin Brucie
9. Billy the Kidd
10. Bubba the Love Sponge on the Power Pig
I second JoJo Kincaid - I can't stand most 80s pop, but love listening to airchecks of him in that era doin' his thing! What a master! I'd listen to pretty much any format with a jock like that on the air...
JoJo was/is incredible, I loved hearing Howard Stern marveling at his skills:
There are some great interview clips of him here:
I got to work with JoJo at Y100, he radiated positivity, on and off air...
I listened to him when he was doing weekends on Q105 in Tampa, he was still great!
In addition to his incredible charisma and on-air presence, I always marveled at the sheer numbers of markets that he worked in. From Boston to San Diego, Tampa to San Francisco, and Detroit to Birmingham, he made every station must-listen radio.
Understood.
But let's also put it in context -- this was 9 PM and later on a suburban station targeting adult listeners. It's not like many people were going to be listening at that time, anyway. And the DJ did stick to the rules in that he didn't play anything outside the standard playlist before 9 PM and after that time I'm pretty sure he limited his "extras" to a couple slots per hour as per management guidance.
So I doubt that it did any harm.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Well, based entirely on your original description of his "extras", if I were his PD I still wouldn't allow it. His selections were terrible. (IMNSHO.)
If stations play similar "tested" music for a specific format, I would think the only reason to listen to one station over another would be the personality. That would include the entire presentation. I can hear and pick and choose my favorite tunes anywhere, but an enjoyable personality gives me a reason to choose that station and listen to it's commercial load over a different source of music
I would listen to WLS-FM (also was Z95 for a while) to hear the morning shows, Susan Platt/Susan LeighTaylor (my favorite female dj ever) and Woody & Jim on 107-5 The River in the past decades. Also a Free Beer & Hot Wings fan! 🍺 🍗
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In case you're interested, Susan Leigh Taylor had been with KCBS San Francisco for a lot of years, ending her time there as AM Drive co-anchor of their all-news format. She was about to retire, then put it on hold temporarily because of the pandemic, then finally retired for good 2 or 3 years ago.
She retired July 24, 2020 (I recorded her last broadcast on KCBS/KFRC-FM).
Okay, it was 4 years ago. Call me pisher. (As my grandmother used to say -- old Yiddish expression.) Time flies when you're having Trump 24-7.
I would listen online on KCBS and shortly after, she retired. I was so bummed. And I remember listening to her last show on Z-95 in Chicago. She said (paraphrasing) ‘When it’s your last day, you can play what you want to play - after all what are they gonna do, fire you?’ Then she played ‘Bobby Jean’ from Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA album. She said it wasn’t a hit but it should have been. Also said she was going to Z-100 New York middays. I remember clear as day her last words on Z-95 were something like, ‘Good luck and good-bye. This is Susan Platt on Z-95’.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
In 1989, I had the rare opportunity to do the last six hours of a station before its ownership and format changed, an honor afforded me as the only morning jock they'd had under that format, as well as APD and MD. Unrelated circumstances had kept me off the air for several days before then, so the audience probably thought I had been prematurely fired -- the format change had been announced in advance -- and it was a surprise when I turned up again at 6:00pm on a Saturday. (My PD didn't even tell the rest of the staff that I was going to do it.)
We did the most free-form show I have ever done in my career ... lots of listener "last requests", memories from the other jocks (all of whom turned up, one by one, as the evening progressed), and at the top of the show I pretended to crumple up the hot clock, explaining to the audience what it was, and announcing that I was going to do whatever the hell I felt like for the next six hours.
So the words "After all, what are they going to do ... fire me?" resonate well with me.
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That sounds like a blast- getting to pick your own songs for hours knowing it’s out there on the air. Susan’s voice - A list. Then Z-95 brought on Diane Banks who had a very similar voice to Susan’s which was good.
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