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94.9 KCLE HISTORY

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

I was doing some research I found out that KCLE 94.9 was a jazz station from 1963 to 1969. Then became Jazz and Progressive rock KFAD.

Intersting stuff. Any thoughts?

Thanks

T.J.
 
I was in college back then and was offered the overnight Jazz shift for minimum wage ($1.65 an hour,I think). I passed because I was making a whopping $1.85 at a TV station that was a lot closer to campus (SMU) A friend did take the job. He said the main audience seemed to be people in prison. George Marti owned it at the time.
 
I know KFAD in July 1969 was supposedly Jazz 6pm to 6am. It was Top 50 (Top 40 plus 10) 6am to Noon with a true Album Rock presentation. KFAD was album rock Noon to 6pm. Sunday mornings and evenings was plenty of black church programs.

I call them jazz in overnights but I heard it was always a party there at night and album rock loving jocks, so there was plenty of Coltrane and Miles. I heard them one night play the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony followed by Roll Over Beethoven by the Beatles, then into jazz.

Commercials were few at the time. I'd listen during the day and I recall the 6 to Noon jock, in classic album radio style, read the 5 minutes of news and then say 'let's pay the bills so we can play an hour of music", then read a commercial and started 55 minutes of non-stop top 40 hits with a 'cool' edge.
 
I worked at KFAD-FM (my only on-air radio gig) out of the old house in Cleburne from the end of Nov '70 until they shut it down and moved all operations to Arlington around Feb 1 '71. Did midnight to 6 AM Tues - Fri, and midnight to 6 Sunday morning, and 2-7 on Sunday afternoon. (Phew!) I remember announcing and switching over to the various church service remotes on Sundays, and interjecting prog rock or jazz music in-between. :D Others at the time were Phil Cook the prog director, Jon Dillon, Tim Spencer, Dave Thomas, and Pat Patterson who would come in at 7pm on Sunday evening after my shift and play gospel and jazz until the station would shut off at midnight until 6 am Monday. Jon Dillon was doing 6 am to noon then. One of our big deals at the time was trying to convince owner Jim Gordon to go stereo! He was pretty old even then, and had no interest in stereo. I think 94.9 didn't go stereo until new owners and the KAMC call change but I get foggy on that. I've got a few pictures from the old Cleburne location. Definitely what one would call a home-brew appearing operation!

I remember years before this, picking up jazz station KCLE-FM weak but listenable out in Lake Highlands where I grew up with an old EICO mono FM tuner.
 
Megapsycle said:
I think 94.9 didn't go stereo until new owners and the KAMC call change but I get foggy on that.
Click to expand...

You're right, it was 1973 when they finally went stereo and it didn't go smoothly. Getting a clear path to their tower, which at the time was located near the town of Lillian, wasn't easy. After several attempts they finally got the STL dishes aligned properly and it sounded fine. The problem was that from that tower coverage into Dallas wasn't good at all.
 
If I recall correectly, it was Dave Thomas that I knew. He was at KAFM at the time as they had switched to Progressive Country. The money must have been great since he worked a few evenings at Disc Records in Town East Nall, where I got to know him. He is the one that said the evenings at KFAD were a 'party' as he put it.
 
Disc Records...now you're REALLY taking me back a few years. And at Town East, no less...Sound Town was my favorite (I think their singles were a little cheaper, like 99 cents) but always stopped by Disc Records for a look around...and they always had plenty of copies of Buddy (and were close by the cute puppies at Docktor's Pet Center.) Tried desperately to win that little Toyota pickup they had parked inside the store there for a while. I think I filled out all the entry blanks in my dad's name so HE could win it (thus getting around the 18-and-over rule) and simply give it to me...at 10 yrs old. Ha.

No idea that was Dave who worked there. Really, I have absolutely no personal recollection of KFAD...just KAMC and those ugly, yellow, lasso-outlined "95-FM" bumper stickers (albeit pretty large for a bumper.) And when KAFM went Progressive Country on Jan 1, 1975, my mother blew a gasket, calling up the station that evening and chewing out the jock for about 15 minutes or so. (She told him that she SPECIFICALLY bought her $29 FM converter JUST to listen to 92-K.)
 
Wow, what great memories Mike. I went to high school across the freeway from Town East Mall.

In fact, I worked for Soundtown Records in Valley View Mall starting in September of '74 and ended up at the Promenade Center store on Coit Road in Richardson before finally getting my first fulltime radio gig in Eagle Pass, Texas in July '78. The first song I played was Surrender by Cheap Trick.
 
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