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Bill Drake: 1937-2008

Dave Clark

Dave Clark

According to multiple Internet sources, radio programming icon Bill Drake passed away Saturday afternoon at the age of 71, after battling lung cancer.


Los Angeles Radio-Info board: http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,114995.msg921270.html#msg921270

ReelRadio message board: http://www.reelradio.com/comment/comment.cgi?general~General+Comments~../index.html~#LASTMSG

Ken Levine blog post: http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/


I, and a couple of other folks that post on this message board, had the privilege of running the board for what many consider to be the ultimate music documentary, the Bill Drake hosted "The History of Rock and Roll" on a couple of occasions in the early 1990's. It was 52 hours of pure heaven for radio and music junkies and I, and others, still quote some of the Drake references to this day.

There are still a few people that post on this board that have ties to WHBQ in the 1960s. Any Bill Drake stories you can share?

"We continue now..." to see radio icons leave us. Unfortunately, Bill Drake has apparently joined the list...


Dave Clark
 
Dave, I had the good fortune to be PD at KAKC/Tulsa when Bill Drake and his band of west coasters brought the format inland in the late spring of 1967. Imagine it was because they couldn't find a real PD who'd work for what KAKC was paying. But whatever the reason, I got to stay in the chair and learn from Drake, Bill Watson, Gene Chennault and Bernie Torres. After that, when Jack Parnell was tired of being told how to take a station that had already been magnificently successful and rebuild it, he stepped down as PD and I got to come to Memphis. I was there when our weekly 'music calls' started including mention of something we might do instead of one of our "Million Dollar Weekends," a thing called "The History of Rock & Roll." You have no idea what an undertaking that was! Jack, Skip Wilkerson, and George Klein, along with world-class production engineer Dick Romine, took the scripts and music lists we were sent from LA, and made them into pure Memphis. Maybe my memory's running away with me...but I'm pretty sure that of the entire RKO General chain and the 4 or 5 non-RKO Drake stations that did HRR, HBQ's had the best ratings showing of them all.

A lot of people threw a lot of stones at Bill and the changes he brought to radio. But if you listen carefully, you can still hear many of the same basics he re-emphasized to revitalize what had become a moribund format, over 40 years ago.

He will be missed.
 
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