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How about a WCFL rewind?

BP..
Is WOKY still stereo? They were awesome on the Dodge Intrepid rental car radio the last couple of years. Sounded better than most of the FM's!!
 
WCFL NEVER had anything to do with Drake/Chenault - except steal from them.

CFL's prodction did surpass wls.
 
Phil...

I'm embarrassed to say I'll have to ask at work Monday if we're stereo (WOKY). I think we are -- something to do with all this HD technology I only barely understand. Our stream at www.mighty92.com sounds great in a technical sense.

WOKY's morning guy and programmer is Gregory Jon -- a Wisconsin radio vet who lives and breathes bringing back "The Mighty 92." A great, old school radio guy who's doing a lot on a small budget. WOKY is live 6am to 10am weekdays, tracked in other main dayparts, Dial Global oldies channel off hours. Recently, we've had Bob Barry back on the air, Bob White, Sam Hale, and Mitch Michaels. Search for WOKY at www.reelradio.com for some good historical background on the station. Would love to track down Jack McCoy and see if he'd be up for a one-off airshift. Middays are handled by Robb Edwards (also the Brewers' PA announcer), afternoons by Parker Drew.

Just spent a few hours today tracking a shift for this Sunday (11 am to 3 pm). As I mentioned in my other post, Dick Sloane, who did great work in the 70s on WOKY, 99X New York, WGBS Miami, and elsewhere, is on from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Dick's a polished radio vet and great guy to work with.

Well, enough about WOKY on the Chicago radio board. Thought some of you might be interested.

I just may follow up on the WCFL idea. Anyone know where Bob Dearborn is?

Hammondo, shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] if you feel like it.
 
The real CFL was CFL in the late 60s. Ken Draper programmed. Johnny Mann jingles. Great news at the top and bottom of the hour (after WLS). No WLS-retread jocks like the always over-rated Lujack.

That was one of the great top 40 stations of all time. Not Sub-CFL of the 70s.
 
The Ken Draper era of 'CFL was amazing. Barney Pip was among the best, as was Joel Sebastian!! I thought the John Rook era at WCFL was great, too. Bob Dearborn is one of my favorites, and let's see...Dr. Brock, Scotty Brink, Ron O'Brien. I was curious last weekend when I heard the Reunion "Live Was A Rock" WLS version. I had always remembered in my head, "Life was a rock, until 'CFL rolled me." Did both stations have versions? I wonder who had it first?

Forgot to mention in earlier posts that we got to have Greg Brown on the air on WOKY for a week in mornings back in April. As usual, Greg sounded super. One of the most genuine and kind people I've ever met in radio.
 
Mr. bierkenstock,

Did YOU ever wonder about HOW radio came to be as it is today? You may find this great reading if your personal immaturity (and those other people who were droolilng about the wls rewind) about "something from your youth" would not get in the way. I liked BOSCO and Bozo, but they are gone now. Pity.

I'm writing this because I beg to strongly differ with your sugar-coated version of revisionist history from your prior post about "Ken Draper" who (I can't deny) was GREAT but was also a great financial drain, too.

The REAL 'CFL as you were want to say, was certainly NOT "in the late 60's." I bet the Chicago Fed of Labor looks at those years with CONTEMPT. HIGH EXPENSES, a cushy high-rent studio, large engineering bills, a relentless competitor, great but expensive dj's and STILL no real long-term rating success (though a few good books). As a businiess, the late 60's at CFL was a "leaky boat." I can't deny those were exciting years of being a teenager in Chicago (as I was), but if you want the TRUTH, here it is;

The REAL 'CFL was NOT contemporary music and Chickenman, but... THE VOICE OF LABOR.

May I suggest a good read? Find a copy of "The Voice of Labor" by Nathan Godfreid. A testament to Edward Nockles, the Chicago Fed of Labor secretary who had the vision and persistence to see his radio dream take form.

It says "WCFL was an attempt to bring the voice of organized labor to the public by way of broadcasting." Godfreid provides a history of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) attempt to stake a claim among the kill or be killed competitively "Soprano's style" world of commercial broadcasters.

Trying to get labor support while battling the broadcasting giants for a clear channel on the AM radio dial, Nockles emerges as a real hero for his refusal to give up. You'll read about the role of the American Federation of Labor in it's long-term luke-warm support for WCFL and the apathetic response of Chicago unions as a whole to the radio station.

There were some successes along the way but the gangland corporate war was a losing one almost from the start, as WCFL was forced by economics to become little different from other radio stations.

The book talks about the period of the 1920's, 30's and 40's, those years when it came CLOSEST to being a voice for labor (and has sad notes about the 60's and 70's. The end of the book documents the sale of WCFL by the CFL in 1978.

By the way, to be fair, the REAL WMAQ (when opertaed by the Chicago Daily News), the Real WGN (with Col. McCormick at the helm)and WBBM, and CERTAINLY the REAL WLS (owned by The Prairie Farmer newspaper) were NOT the stations of the 1960's til now, either. They were all RE-invented to "get with making money in modern times."

The BEST lesson of this book is "Anyone who believes that one individual cannot make a difference will find in the story of Edward Nockles a reason to think again."
 
I actually bought some Bosco about a year ago. Still tasted good!!
Never drank my Bosco while listening to The Voice of Labor", sadly.
Hell, I remember listening to Bob Elson call the White Sox games on WCFL before they were Top-40...
 
WOW - before wcfl went rock they were BIG BAND broadcasting from the Furniture Mart, across from WBBM (near McClurg Ct.)

The Voice of Labor.
Dan Sorkin was hilarious in the morning. (btw he is still living)
Howie Roberts did news
Red Rush did sports.
They broadcast the White Sox.

JOSH BRADY was another dj there (not sure what shift).

Sid McCoy did a jazz show overnight.

They had jingles. One said "Dial a thousand"
I wish I could remember other dj's from CFL from that era.

Any other old guys around here to help me?
 
bierkenstock said:
The real CFL was CFL in the late 60s. Ken Draper programmed. Johnny Mann jingles. Great news at the top and bottom of the hour (after WLS). No WLS-retread jocks like the always over-rated Lujack.

That was one of the great top 40 stations of all time. Not Sub-CFL of the 70s.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess we are all a product of what we remember. My relative youth does not remember CFL in the 60's, but I loved it in the 70's. To me, it had the perfect blend of "more music", and then great personality bits in between. Plus the "SuperCFL" shotguns were just SO cool!. Perhaps I missed the golden era of 1960's CFL, but the 70's version was not chopped liver either!
 
Hammondo,

I'm one of those that also fell in love with radio because of the radio wars between LS & CFL. WCFL in 1966 will forever be my "ultimate" radio station, broadcasting the top hits of the day and "my" White Sox games. Everything I needed without ever having to move the dial. (Well, except to hear what WLS was playing during CFL's news and commercial breaks!).

It also happened that my parents enjoyed the music and other programming on WCFL in addition to the White Sox games in the years leading up to WCFL changing to top 40. And a few of those personalities stuck around during the transition, and I think these are some of the names you are looking for. I remember Mike Rapchak and Jay Trompeter as a couple of the guys who stuck around a while. After the 'Bob Elson Sports Show' was dropped from it's 6 PM nightly run (unless pre-empted for a Sox game) it seems to me that Red Mottlow turned up doing sports updates during the newscasts, at the start of many many years where WCFL gave sports headlines and WLS didn't.

Then, the likes of Jim Runyon came in for mornings, Dick Williamson for middays, Jim Stagg for afternoons, and the first we heard of Ron Britian and the Subterranean Circus for evenings. Sid McCoy and Yvonne Daniels held down their overnight jazz show until what seems like '67 or so. Just after that, WCFL brought in a young talent to Chicago for overnights - by the name of Larry Lujack. I'm trying to remember if Lujack was before or after Jerry G. Bishop on the overnight show. Barney Pip came on board with "turn into peanut butter", and it went as far as to give Ron Riley and Art Roberts some competition, and that wasn't easy.

Yes - their overnight show. The days when you had to have major talent and experience to crack the Chicago market no matter what time of the day or night.

The late 60's early 70's brought the era of jocks jumping from WLS and WCFL on a regular basis. Gary Gears, Jerry "All Hit Music" Kaye (did he ever say anything else besides "all hit music WCFL"??), and of course we had greats such as Art Roberts Clark Weber, and Joel Sebastian on both stations. There was Scotty Brink who also was on both. I also recall WCFL had Robert E. Lee for early afternoons. Dex Card also finished up his Chicago radio stint on WCFL, after being "traded" for Larry Lujack, when Lujack went from CFL overnights to afternoons on WLS, and the next week Dex turned up doing overnights on WCFL for a brief stint.

Someone asked about Bob Dearborn. He started on WCFL doing late night, including the "long gold" feature of playing an oldie at least 5 minutes long (oh my!) weeknights at 11:00 PM. That's before he moved up to mid-days.

I last heard Dearborn on an AM station in Toronto when I was in town for a couple of days in 2003, but read that the station had a limited budget and couldn't afford him. This was after his run at WJMK in Chicago. Turns out Dearborn is from Canada and was planning to remain there, and I haven't heard a word about him since. And that's too bad.

But, just as Don McLean's "American Pie" is about the "day the music died", I'll always believe that March 15, 1976, the day Super CFL went 'beautiful music' after Lujack's sign off and 2 hours of ocean sounds, is the "day that radio died".
 
searadiofreak said:
Well, I guess we are all a product of what we remember. My relative youth does not remember CFL in the 60's, but I loved it in the 70's. To me, it had the perfect blend of "more music", and then great personality bits in between. Plus the "SuperCFL" shotguns were just SO cool!. Perhaps I missed the golden era of 1960's CFL, but the 70's version was not chopped liver either!
Click to expand...


Nor was the early-80's version of 'CFL: The oldies/AC format with Fred Winston (and Jim Bohannon as his sidekick), Dean Richards, Bob Kraft, Dave Martin, and the old 1960's jingles. A great station that had almost no audience.
 
This was on AllAccess.Com today...

Detroit Legend Paul Christy Passes

Legendary DETROIT programmer and personality PAUL CHRISTY (a.k.a. PAUL CHRISTIDES) died this morning after a long illness. He was 69. CHRISTY, whose radio career spanned four decades, worked with such MOTOR CITY outlets as WCAR, WABX and WMXD. [EDIT]
Memorial contributions may be sent to the PARKINSONS FOUNDATION. Family condolences may be sent to www.palmerbush.com.

[EDIT-truncated because quotation is lifted entirely from a copyrighted source. Unauthorized citation from protected sources is a violation of our terms of service. In the future, it is recommended you paraphrase such a small story or at least limit the quote to fair use standards.]
 
Paul Christy had good pipes and a good goatee beard. RIP.

Chicago Dave, WOW - great post. You got it! It's like remembering another great place, WIND, the station that sparked my interest in radio, and where I worked for a year, putting 2000 oldies on cart and doing GREAT production with my friend Eddie Schwartz, for a "genius" - Bob Moomey, and another wonderful, unique guy, Robert W. Morgan. But, that's for another post.
 
Robert W. didn't much like the WINDy city, apparently. I'm trying to think what other primarily left coast jocks did time here. Ron O'Brien, KES and Chuck Buell went from here to there, if I remember correctly. Van Dyke and Morgan came from there to here. Was Van Dyke also on CKLW early in his career?
 
My thanks, too, Chicago Dave!
Looks like Christy died from Parkinson's. What an insidious disease.

Those Chicago radio wars had to have been heard by more people nationwide than any other city's radio battles. WLS being a clear channel (back when that meant something..) and WCFL being audible all over anywhere east of their transmitter.

Entertainment. Pure and simple.
 
Robert W's last song on WIND was "California Dreamin' by the Mamas and Papa's, before going back to the left coast. I Loved the guy!
 
I'm a bit fuzzy remembering Wolfman Jack on CFL, but I vaguely remember them carrying him late on Saturday nights and that it sounded pre-recorded (i.e. no weather or local info) for a few months, and I'm thinking somewhere around '71 or '72.

Funny, but as I think about it, that was before Dick Bartley was syndicated and weekend syndicated music shows really got going. In fact, this (Wolfman on CFL) may have been a few months before Bartley started as a weekend jock on WFYR.

Meanwhile, if we're talking 70's CFL, we can't forget the unrelated O'Briens, Big Ron and Larry. Especially how Big Ron O'Brien's career was marred because he was the only one playing music while Richard Nixon's resignation speech was on every other station, even though it wasn't his doing. And that was before WCFL sometimes ran background music under their evening newscasts, a controversy at the time.
 
1. Wolfman on 'cfl was the SYNDICATED show. He was also on in Lafayette, IN and St. Louis, MO.

2. Barney Pip was on 'cfl LIVE playing his trumpet 9-midnight for years.

3. I was a friend of Bob Moomey (the guy who changed WIND to "Number One Music" and gave the placed about 3 additional years as a MUSIC station). Robert W was a very close friend of Moomey. They were both great guys and both a little "nuts."

It would have been ridiculous for big market radio professionals to think about "kicking Lujack's butt" on a lower power station appealing to an entirely different audience. It would be as idiotic as THEM trying to "kick Wally Phillips butt. NEVER happen.

Nobody at WIND had "delusions of grandeur." Morgan did fit WIND's demo's quite well. His paycheck was fabulous and he did have a 1 year out clause, that he used.

Klunk, I don't buy your theory unless you've got a source for that drivel.
 
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