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Cal Walker

G

gymbeaux120

Guest
I just received word that my old friend Cal Walker, aka Calvin, has just passed away. Details regarding a memorial service will be announced soon.
 
gymbeaux120 said:
I just received word that my old friend Cal Walker, aka Calvin, has just passed away. Details regarding a memorial service will be announced soon.
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Is this the man who started "The Ride"?

If so this is sad news.
 
He didn't actually start "The Ride," but he was instrumental in the "Deep Cuts" phase at WXRC.
 
Sad news. Best known for his 95Q days in the early to mid 70s. I exchanged a few emails with him a few years ago, but he had disappeared, although I knew his health was bad. Sorry to hear he is gone.
 
Sorry if I am wrong. Wasn't it also Cal Walker, aka Calvin, who ran a low power FM at 98.7 near uptown Charlotte for several months around 5 yrs ago? If so, I loved going into town and listening to it. I wished it would have made it as he was one of a kind in this area.
 
My first memories of Calvin Walker on Charlotte radio was when he did nights on what was then 95.1, WRNA. The station had recently changed call letters from it's original WIST-FM in the mid to late 1960s. Henderson Belk still owned the station then. Calvin was playing all that underground loud guitar hippie music that Jack Gale and Long John Silver weren't going to touch on Big WAYS. For those of us who felt changes coming, his show was the best thing going on Charlotte radio. I regret that I never had the pleasure of working with Calvin or knowing him all that well, other than my days in radio engineering when he worked as sales representative with Bob Cauthen's broadcast equipment company, SCMS. I always had a great deal of respect for him, because he wasn't afraid to rock the boat and challenge conventional wisdom. There aren't enough of those left in radio now. I extend my deepest condolences to his family and friends for the loss of a true original who inspired me and many others.
 
audiomusiclover said:
Sorry if I am wrong. Wasn't it also Cal Walker, aka Calvin, who ran a low power FM at 98.7 near uptown Charlotte for several months around 5 yrs ago? If so, I loved going into town and listening to it. I wished it would have made it as he was one of a kind in this area.
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You are correct. Cal and a Mr. Silverman (sorry, I can't remember his first name) had a three transmitter set-up on 98.7 FM. He tried business talk on it, using the Bloomberg Network as its anchor. They actually put up several billboards in the area. Technical problems plagued the station and it eventually just shut down.
 
Calvin was one of my idols at the "Q". that station was pretty much the reason I chose radio as a career. The first air shift I did at the Fox when it was in Kannapolis circa '87, I followed Cal. What an honor that was to come on the air after such a legendary voice. We became friends when the station moved to 4th street, and partied quite a bit in the control room during his 60's flashback show "As It Was". He did some voices and bits for the early Jack at Nite shows. Things got weird around '92. I owed him some money for a crap reel to reel machine he sold me. I lost track of Calvin after he left the Fox. I was an avid listener of 92.7 when he brought it on the air as free form radio. Eventually, the station changed hands/formats several times. 98.7 was a fun experiment. I understand he had some problems in later years, and his gig at WXRC was almost all he had left at one point. If anyone can fill in the details of what happened, I'd like to know. Calvin was a radio maverick in the true sense, and he will be missed.
 
The first time I worked with Cal was at the Fox when it was still in Kannapolis, like Jack. One thing that always impressed me was his independence. He didn't give a big rat's a** if you didn't like him. At least on the outside that was the case. He truly did want to be liked. That was one of the reasons he was on the air. And he had a great following. He spun jazz records on the Fox. His library was huge. He would bring in crates of LPs and play some really good stuff. Later, we were both jocks on Deep Cuts, 957 WXRC. Everyone voicetracked even back then. We lived in Charlotte and the studios are in Newton. We had a Charlotte sales staff, so every day, one of the AE's would go by his house and pick up a DAT with the next night's show and bring it to me. I would take it to work with me and dump it into the system. Listening to him ramble about nearly any topic was quite an education. He will be missed by a lot of us who wish we had taken the opportunity to tell him so.
 
Guys, my wife wanted to say something about our friend:
===========================================
Well a dear friend of mine is gone, I met Cal, aka Calvin at WRPL about 1978 we talked on the phone and then we met each other and became friends, and we had some good times. He loved to go to Anderson's Steakhouse and enjoy a good meal over there and everyone in the place new him. He lived in an apartment behind a house on Cherokee Dr. Then he got a nice house in Dilworth and called me to see it. It was all Calvin, just what he wanted. And he put the touches on it. The glass
dining room table and chairs, and a kitchen that was so cute. The house was enjoyed by many of his friends and me. He loved to talk about all sorts of things beside Radio. He was a dear friend and we had some wonderful times. But we lost
touch after a while , the last time I saw him was at Harris Teeter on Central Avenue and he got to met my two sons. That made him happy. I hope in some small way that I did make him happy when we were together, had a meal together, or just enjoying one of his Cars...and that was his true love. Calvin you are gone but will always be remembered, I know you are in a better place. God take care of him , you know he a good guy. I will miss you. Gloria B.
 
The Memorial Service for Calvin is scheduled for Tuesday April 28 at noon at St Mary's Chapel in Thompson Park at Third and Kings near uptown Charlotte. Please enter from Third Street.

We hope to see you there. And bring your best Calvin stories.
 
Another one of radios greats is gone. They're going to fast. I remember Calvin with the lights out and the lamp on. He turns on the mic and says "Hi...I'm Calvin".
 
For those of you who may not be able to attend the service on Tuesday, will you please take some time and share some of your Cal stories here. I'd like to print them out for folks to read. I really appreciate it.
 
spacetrucker said:
Another one of radios greats is gone. They're going to fast. I remember Calvin with the lights out and the lamp on. He turns on the mic and says "Hi...I'm Calvin".
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benny, i didn't know him in person... but i was just about to say that i'll never forget how he sounded on WRNA when he would close his break with ... "I'm Calvin."
 
Cal and I talked via Amateur Radio a few times. He was fed up with radio by then. I thought he was one of the more interesting radio folks. He was from a time when the DJ had more say in what was presented on the air and how it was done. I wish I had gotten to know him better. There are only a few of us left who have tasted that kind of freedom.
 
So true Mike. It was fun then. Amos is another one that was ahead of his time. He would push the edge and I would laugh my ass off at the same time saying "he's gonna catch hell for that one". The ones that could take a show and do it right also made radio fun to listen to as well. I never knew Cal but have some friends that worked with him so heard a lot about him through them. I did spend some time visiting friends at WIST while he was at WRNA. Some one ask about Dave Bell, does anyone have a copy of the Trend Music Christmas spot he did back in the early 70's. Those that heard it are getting a chuckle the rest of you.......
 
I started listening to Calvin in the late 60's --- I was 12 years old and had been "raised" (like so many others)
on Big WAYS. Calvin introduced me (and many of my friends) to so much fantastic music. And we all loved his on-air style. He was an inspiration to my own short radio "career" --- (I worked on-air myself doing progressive rock, album rock, and a jazz show for over eight years.) Charlotte wasn't the most adventuresome radio market at that time....but Calvin certainly bucked the trends. I left for college in 1975 --- moved to Raleigh to attend NCSU. At times, I could (barely) pick up WROQ in my dorm and hear Calvin on the weekends. A couple of years later, I was in college in Knoxville, TN....a friend of mine and I once drove to Black Mountain, NC at midnight (3 hours away!) to listen to his WROQ jazz show. In later years, when he joined WXRC, I listened in via the web.

"Underground" FM radio had its time in the sun for a few years. Stan Kaplan wanted to make money....he bought WRNA and it became WROQ. Calvin's fights with Stan are legendary. I deeply admire Calvin's 40+ radio career....I did not have the guts to stick with that business myself, but Calvin did. For that, I am appreciative. And my music collection is a huge testimony to Calvin's musical knowledge. I wish him peace.
 
More on Calvin:

He was on WRNA...mostly automated. But he once hosted (live) a fundraiser for a Charlotte drug treatment facility on WRNA. He was incredibly convincing in this role. I can't remember when he went to WRPL, perhaps between WRNA and WROQ. WRPL had a real cult following despite being AM and daytime-only. The WROQ days were interesting. He did jazz...but some of it was really funk (pre-disco.) As I recall, WROQ featured a full (rock) album at midnight on Friday and Saturday. Calvin would immediately follow -- around 12:45 am. He was on until 4 am. I used to "sleep in shifts" on the weekend....waking up to hear Calvin and then going back to sleep around 4. Eventually, I rigged up a timer that would record his shows. I seem to recall that he bought a new car ever six months for awhile....one was a purple Volvo!
 
Just finished the Charlotte magazine article. Wow. What a hell of a guy.
 
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