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Anyone Old Enough To Remember May of '67??

johnny marks

johnny marks

Goes back a looong time when WYSL was McClendon's Siberian Station! Coldest I've ever been was May in the Queen City! I looked outside, anticipating my first day of work, and saw everyone wearing sweaters, so I changed and went out of the hotel onto Delaware Ave. and froze in place! Seemed there was a clock makers convention in town and the guys I spotted were all German quite use to the cold..and me up from Texas!

Made it to work, and met a beautiful Italian woman with whom I'd be doing the news. Among other things that first day I covered a rock slide at the Falls and the riots at night..but the most difficult and hardest to do was the tag line after the young lady and I did the news:"First In Buffalo With Two Man 20-20 News!" Trust me, it was no man doing the news with me! Just to show you the times we lived in. The jock (Shaun Grabowski) was going after 2 ethnic groups with one name!

I drove up in a Corvette ('64 convertible) with a friend who had to be back to go into the Navy just a few days after our arrival. After getting shot at and other mishaps..I went into the PD's office, and told him I was headed back to the Lone Star State. He said he didn't blame me and would probably do the same himself! He followed, and showed up in Houston just weeks later.

We decided to catch the World's Fair in Montreal while we were there, and lost track of time! Having induction 48 later..time was of the essence. We made it from Montreal to Corpus Christi in 47 hours (still contend the 327 was the best engine Chevy ever made!)...my best land/speed record ever! How are things in Buffalo? Johnny / San Antonio
 
They were wearing sweaters in MAY? Wusses. Sounds like your timing was impeccable. I don't think that we've had a riot since '70. Well, maybe a melee or two, but no full-on riots.

If you'd have stayed a little longer, you could have found out how well that Corvette might have scored with the distaff side. Tommy Shannon played it VERY well. Then again, Tommy's a very talented guy. Smooth doesn't begin to describe his style.

We're still making Chevy engines in Tonawanda. It could have been visiting its birthplace.

Lastly, when it's a little nippy, you can put on more clothes. Ain't NOTHIN' you can do when it's 110 in Texas. And I'd rather shovel snow than a hurricane.
 
SirRox..It was a cultural change for sure! Tanawanda is home for Taylor Devices. I've been there..I remember being given a small book on how to pronounce the Indian names in the area when I arrived at WYSL (losing proposition going up against a 50k rocker!)! Have been back since and really enjoy your neck of the woods.

Very true...we've weathered some terrible hurricanes. Celia's 180mph winds in 8/70 was the worst. I was GM of an FM station in Corpus Christi at the time and watched the water empty out of the bay and come back in after the eye passed. Johnny / San Antonio
 
How well I remember May '67! I was a newbie in this biz, having started at WLEA in Hornell on my 17th birthday just a month before. I recall sitting in the Statler Hilton lobby phone booths with Wayne Fuller from WBTA Batavia, repeatedly dialing the WYSL request line on a Friday night trying to get through to jock Tim Kelly so we could get a peek at the studios (the giant FM signal pounded all over WNY and reached my small hometown south of Rochester. The AM on the Larkin warehouse...not so much.)

Persistence paid off and Wayne and I finally got through for permission to come up to behold the Gates Dualux board, the CB-series turntables and the four (luxury!!!) ATC cart machines. I don't think the VU meters budged off the pin the whole time we were there talking with Kelly. Down the hall was the FM studio where the volunteer teen DJs did shifts (for free!) on what appeared to be an old Collins industrial-gray console and older-series Gates turntables. I believe there was only one cart machine, a ancient (even then) first series ATC.

Our field trip also included freak-show curiosity WNIA and WKBW where we were denied entry by Bud Ballou.

Fascinating unforgettable times, when radio was central in everyones' lives and Buffalo was a big industry hub! I'm proud to be the keeper of the historic callsign "WYSL".
 
Hellyeah (to use a Texasism), you should have toughed it out. Winter in Western New York can be a challenge. You probably would have put the 'vette in storage and driven what's commonly known as "a winter car" (at least ten years old with 100k miles on it), aka, "a beater."

Even the staunchest Buffalonian yearns to get outta Dodge for a week or two in February or March. But May? Heck, you were days away from what could have been the best summer of your young radio career. Although WYSL (known as The Toy Bulldog) was 1 kw day and 250 watts night at the time, it was a hot radio station and a stone in KB's sizable shoe. WYSL for a while had premier night motor mouth Dickie "Wild Child" Kemp ripping it up at night and the other jocks were tight and timely. Sean Grabowski was a home grown favorite, the late John Szczepanik. He also worked at KB as Jack Kelly.

As Savage notes, WYSL-FM was a flame thrower, both AM & FM having the stick atop the Larkin Warehouse Building. Now that you've intrigued us, who was the PD that followed you back to Houston (McLendon's KILT?); Paxton Mills, Larry Vance or Kahn L. Hammen (or "none of the above")?
 
SirRoxalot said:
We're still making Chevy engines in Tonawanda. It could have been visiting its birthplace.
Click to expand...

The new Gen V small-block V8s will be made there. Tonawanda is hallowed ground for any Chevy nut.
 
Great memories and info, guys! I appreciate it! Yes, we bailed, my friend went to 'Nam..made it back, I got married in '70 after programming KEYS and KZFM in Corpus Christi. FM penetration was so bad in South Texas at that time we were giving away converters for all the cars with only AM Radios!

I made my way to San Antonio in 4/'74. Worked 7P to midnight on WOAI, a 50k rocker owned by AVCO. That was one dream realized..being heard from South America to Canada! When they came out with a home video recorder/player that wasn't viably priced for the market, AVCO liquidated their b'cast holdings which were substantial. Two local guys bought the station for pennies on the dollar (one a used car dealer I knew in Corpus Christi). We decided to incorporate (the other jocks split to Providence..I stayed, as rumors were we'd be News/Talk/Sports, and it intrigued me, having never worked anything but music.

We sat around one day and I suggested we call the company Clear Channel Communications as WOAI was just that..everyone at 1200 on the AM dial across the country had to lower their power at local sunset to accommodate "The Monster!" There are others as you know. The Spurs were just going into the NBA from the ABA with Gervin as our franchise player thanks to a fire sale by the Virginia Squires. The stories I could tell! It didn't hurt that one of the principals that owned the station was also co-owner of the Spurs. We broadcast every game which paid the light bill as we acquired other properties.

No need to tell you the rest. Having helped build CCU (one of the greatest growth stocks ever) left me with mixed emotions. I hated what we turned into. A monopoly that killed many a Mom and Pop. I retired at 50 due to pressure, ulcers and other problems. Radio, to me, should be fun. When that element left..so did I. Johnny / San Antonio
 
I had just started my first professional job-weekends at WICE in Providence (at $1.45/hour!). I went to visit my folks in Hartford and decided to stop at WDRC to see if one of the DJs from my hometown station would give me a few minutes to listen to an air check and possibly offer some tips to a newbie. Also to see if I could grab their PAMS jingle package so I could edit out their call letters (the jingles were like mini songs back then) so we could use the remnants at our campus station, WBRU AM (Brown). After Don Wade kindly listened to me tape and was...um...tactful in his response, I asked about the jingles and he told me I'd have to see (legendary) PD Charlie Parker, who said "yes" to my request and then asked me what the tape was that I was carrying around.

I explained how Don Wade had been nice enough to listen to my air check, and then Charlie asked if he could hear it as well. He plopped it onto the Wollensack, listened for about 2 minutes, then said, "You're good. Want a job?"

After I picked myself up off the floor, he explained how the FCC was requiring AM and FM operations to provide separate programming for a minimum of 12 hours each day starting in July. I told him I would love to work for him (who wouldn't want to work for the station that inspired them to get into radio?) but I wasn't going to drop out of school, which was OK with him because it gave him 2 extra months to find a permanent host for the afternoon show.

Since I didn't want to lose my new gig in Providence (it directly lead to the KB gig a few years later), I ended up working on WDRC-FM from noon-5 Monday-Saturday, drove back to Providence to be on the air at 10 Saturday night. Did a Sunday shift as well and taped a 1 hour show that ran Wednesday nights on WBRU FM, and then drove back to Hartford to start the process all over again.

Yep, May (through August) of 1967 was pivotal for me; it's the time I decided that radio was going to be my career.

-berns
 
Great stuff, Debaser!! I've visited Charlie Parker's Facebook page..I believe him to be one in the same. Radio man for sure and, yes, the Charlie you worked for is, indeed, a legend. Having your cake and eating it, too! Not many get that..good thing you were young with the schedule you had! I lived in Rocky Hill outside Hartford as a kid. Take Care..j.
 
No, Nick, I went up as a newsman. Used my real name. As mentioned earlier, I couldn't get over the tagline:"First in Buffalo With Two Man 20-20 News!" The other "man" was the most beautiful Italian woman I've ever seen! The days prior to equal rights on several levels fostered some strange experiences. Thanks for asking..Buffalo was trip! Johnny
 
Then you remember John Barger.....?
 
All too well. When Mays brought him down from KRLD I was the PD during the transition from rock to talk. I rode to Port Arthur with John Wheeler. Longest drive of my life.

We had purchased a station there and "Blue Belly" ... as he called himself on the CB... tossed a coin to see who got the "honor" of firing the staff. Interesting guy.
 
Too bad Jeff Laurence Gill's post disappeared from this thread. There appear to be server issues @RD. Maybe Jeff will re-post. It was a good technical read and offered his personal recollection of 1967. He noted an WYSL-FM jock who signed of with the Association's Cherish. That likely was Tim Kelly, who did the same when he was promoted to WYSL-AM. Jeff's recollection of the AM jocks who failed to kill the FM carrier also was interesting. Sometimes the carrier would go off, but the exciter remained on and the AM could be heard on FM. I once heard what appeared to be production being done in this mode. Multiple takes, with a re-cued music bed. No cussin'. Somebody realized what was happening and everything disappeared. Fascinating stuff for a radio geek who should have been sleeping.
 
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