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680 Signal Question

Without a doubt, Brother Jon Rivers and Gary Smith are the same guy. I believe Gary Smith is his real name, but I'm not sure.

Here's a list, I hope complete, of the WMPS morning jocks from 1970 until the country flip in March 1978:

1970 Flying Dutchman
1971 Gary Smith
1972 Ron Jordan
1973 Bob McLain
1974-1976 Rick Dees
1976-1977 Phil Gardner
1977-March 6, 1978 Bob Tracy

Afternoons from 1972 went something like this:

1972 Mitch Craig
1973-1976 Ron Jordan
1976-1977 Mark Damon
1977-March 6, 1978 Kevin Murphy

Gary Smith leaves WMPS in 1972. Returns late 1973 to Memphis, doing mornings at WHBQ as Brother Jon Rivers. Leaves Memphis in 1974 or early 1975 and ends up with the Southern Baptist Radio & Television Commission as host of Powerline. He later did a Christian countdown and was involved in the K-Love format, but I don't know all the details.

By 1975, George Klein is doing mornings at WHBQ. In 1976, WHBQ brings McLain back to Memphis to compete with Dees. That didn't work out so well.

When WMPS GM John Rhea fired Dees in the fall of 1976, WHBQ signed Dees on to do mornings. After waiting out a 45-day non-compete, Dees did mornings at WHBQ until May 1979, when he left for KHJ in Los Angeles.

Hope this helps ...
 
KennyBosak said:
Without a doubt, Brother Jon Rivers and Gary Smith are the same guy. I believe Gary Smith is his real name, but I'm not sure.

Here's a list, I hope complete, of the WMPS morning jocks from 1970 until the country flip in March 1978:

1970 Flying Dutchman
1971 Gary Smith
1972 Ron Jordan
1973 Bob McLain
1974-1976 Rick Dees
1976-1977 Phil Gardner
1977-March 6, 1978 Bob Tracy

Afternoons from 1972 went something like this:

1972 Mitch Craig
1973-1976 Ron Jordan
1976-1977 Mark Damon
1977-March 6, 1978 Kevin Murphy

Gary Smith leaves WMPS in 1972. Returns late 1973 to Memphis, doing mornings at WHBQ as Brother Jon Rivers. Leaves Memphis in 1974 or early 1975 and ends up with the Southern Baptist Radio & Television Commission as host of Powerline. He later did a Christian countdown and was involved in the K-Love format, but I don't know all the details.

By 1975, George Klein is doing mornings at WHBQ. In 1976, WHBQ brings McLain back to Memphis to compete with Dees. That didn't work out so well.

When WMPS GM John Rhea fired Dees in the fall of 1976, WHBQ signed Dees on to do mornings. After waiting out a 45-day non-compete, Dees did mornings at WHBQ until May 1979, when he left for KHJ in Los Angeles.

Hope this helps ...
Click to expand...

Wasn't Tom Dooley in the WMPS morning mix at some point?
 
Yes Dooley pulled a short, strange few weeks, along with his guitar, as morning jock at MPS. I was personally involved in that one but the date escapes me......probably between Gardner and Tracy. When I say short, it was REAL short and I think he quit....not sure but thats my memory....cs
 
KennyBosak said:
Gary Smith leaves WMPS in 1972. Returns late 1973 to Memphis, doing mornings at WHBQ as Brother Jon Rivers. Leaves Memphis in 1974 or early 1975 and ends up with the Southern Baptist Radio & Television Commission as host of Powerline. He later did a Christian countdown and was involved in the K-Love format, but I don't know all the details.
Click to expand...

I really didn't realize until recent years that Jon Rivers was in Memphis at one time. He was and still is the host of 20 The Countdown Magazine, the top CCM countdown show. He also did the morning show on K-LOVE with his wife Sherry until a couple of years back when they stepped down because of having an additcion to prescription pain killers. He just recently became the midday host on American Family Radio.
 
Dooley would have been after Gardner and before Tracy. I remember listening to Phil and thinking that I was glad to not be in his shoes at the time. And I remember Dooley playing his guitar on the air.

I've told the story before, so just humor me, but I was doing mornings at WHBQ when Dees was fired at MPS. After Bob McClain left, I was the designated 'swing' jock, so I was given the morning shift to kill time until a real morning guy could be hired, with George Klein's caveat... "don't try to be funny unless it's something REALLY good."

While I was doing this shift, Dees was fired and GK resigned, seems to me both in the same week. When John Long came in at Q, he immediately shifted Stew Robb into mornings, and left me to fill in 9 to noon until the reinforcements (Bob Landree and Dickie Edwards) came in. Stew moved to middays, Landree afternoons, Edwards 6 -10 nights, Sheila 10 - 2, and Walt Jackson, who Klein had on in afternoons taking Dude Walker's place, moved to overnights. I went back to my regular 20 hours live on air on the weekends, and production (plus limited two-man bit stuff with Landree) during the week. At some point, John moved into doing 10 to noon, maybe even from the beginning.
 
Gary Smith leaves WMPS in 1972. Returns late 1973 to Memphis, doing mornings at WHBQ as Brother Jon Rivers. Leaves Memphis in 1974 or early 1975 and ends up with the Southern Baptist Radio & Television Commission as host of Powerline. He later did a Christian countdown and was involved in the K-Love format, but I don't know all the details.
Click to expand...
I used to say that Jon Rivers was the "other JR from Dallas" before I played "20 the Countdown Magazine" on Sundays at KSUD in West Memphis from 1997-2000. I miss KSUD a lot. I didn't know that JR spent time in Memphis. Powerline was on FM 100 for a time in the late 1990's.
 
Jon and Sherry Rivers were also on 94.9 in Dallas (KYLT?) before they went to K-LOVE.

I miss KSUD's music in the later years before K-LOVE bought them. I don't miss a lot of the dollar a holler type preachers that were the caliber of what is on WMQM now or infomercials though.

The local CCM station I miss the most is WGSF 1210. They had some bad preachers in their later CCM years, but the music was the best that had ever been done locally. They weren't afraid to rock. and believe it or not it was owned by Flinn! ::)
 
I miss KSUD's music in the later years before K-LOVE bought them. I don't miss a lot of the dollar a holler type preachers that were the caliber of what is on WMQM now or infomercials though.
Click to expand...

Joshua Stark got to picking the music in the later years at KSUD. My departure from KSUD was unfortunate. I got to working for WPLX six days a week and still had the KSUD Sunday gig at the end of 1999 and beginning of 2000. The WPLX job was taking up so much of my time that I gave up the KSUD job. Frank Hammond at KSUD was the one that got me my full-time job in radio at WPLX. Both stations were owned by Bill Pollack at the time. Later in 2000, Pollack sold WPLX to put me out of that job, but I landed at a place 39 days later, where I've been ever since.
 
Wow, all of this reminds me of my drive through Memphis in June, 1972. First, I heard Bill Gable on WHBQ and then "Chuckin" Mitch Craig on WMPS. I taped Craig on a radio/cassette recorder.

Fast forward to 1997. I mentioned to then Radio One/Atlanta GM Mary Catherine Sneed that V-103/Atlanta and 92Q in my hometown of Baltimore had the same station voice. She said, "That's Mitch Craig out of Memphis." I remembered my aircheck and listened after many, many years. I then knew Craig's sound when I heard him around the country.
 
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