The last few days, I have been thinking about some of the old school legends of SC broadcasting and trying to remember how their careers ended. Did they outstay their welcomes? Were they fired? Did they retire with full respect and dignity? In Columbia, Woody Windham is now gone. How is that ending viewed? What about Good Morning Columbia? How did it end upstate for Bob Hooper, Love & Hudson, Matt & Bev, Monty DuPuy? The Deacon at the beach? And are there any "old school" broadcasters left in the state? Fill in the blanks for me. How did the big careers end?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
How Did It End?
- Thread starter whopper
- Start date
I remember that Bob Hooper had an awful ordeal toward the end of his career at WESC when a deranged person told some vicious lies about him. I actually did some work at his house a couple of years ago and he and his wife were some of the nicest people. Love and Hudson of course are in the midst of a revival and I used to run into DuPuy at the barbershop as a youngster. I think he does some work of sorts that I saw on Youtube.
S
Scooter Lesley
Guest
Well,...I have lived through most of it. I can tell my own story, but there is time for that later. Here's the skinny on my friend, Bill Love:
Love & Hudson began on MY 102, in the early 80's, when the station was owned by Amcom General, and headed by a brillant man; George Francis, Jr. The morning team garnered double-digit ratings that most of us can only dream about; reportedly a 24-share. Oddly enough, today, they are doing the same show on 103.3 FM. As for their stint on WMYI, here is the step-down: All was fine, until several years ago, when OM/PD Mark Pollack exited. His replacement was Scott Johnson, and like most pencilneck PD's, he wanted to be known as a mover & a shaker. It's their way of convincing the boss that they...know what they are doing! Trust me on this...Nothing could be further from the truth. After he was here long enough to have built a house, he began to ruin the morning show: Told Howard to cut down on the character voices, and brought in Sue Myers to do News. To me, Sue is easy on the eyes, but a little hard on the ears. After Sue & Howard fought for the mic several months, Johnson got Hudson fired, sighting that he didn't contribute enough. Twass-unt long after that Scott Johnson was fired, and replaced,...but the damage was done!(he shudda rented!). Now, restack, "Love In The Morning", with Bill & Sue. Later, Sue would ankle, due to one of CC's early budget cuts. Love, now solo, and OK with it, was given...a Short, Shallow, Burnt, Toasted, Allegedly Auditorium Tested, Consultant Approved, Playlist. My anallll-ogeeeee then was "A Gunfighter, without Bullets". When his numbers fell to a certain low, he too was fired, and thus the end of L&H on MY, but...you can't keep...TWO DAMN GOOD BROADCASTERS DOWN!
So, Say-eth The Sheppard...So, Say-eth The Flock!!
Scooter Lesley.
Love & Hudson began on MY 102, in the early 80's, when the station was owned by Amcom General, and headed by a brillant man; George Francis, Jr. The morning team garnered double-digit ratings that most of us can only dream about; reportedly a 24-share. Oddly enough, today, they are doing the same show on 103.3 FM. As for their stint on WMYI, here is the step-down: All was fine, until several years ago, when OM/PD Mark Pollack exited. His replacement was Scott Johnson, and like most pencilneck PD's, he wanted to be known as a mover & a shaker. It's their way of convincing the boss that they...know what they are doing! Trust me on this...Nothing could be further from the truth. After he was here long enough to have built a house, he began to ruin the morning show: Told Howard to cut down on the character voices, and brought in Sue Myers to do News. To me, Sue is easy on the eyes, but a little hard on the ears. After Sue & Howard fought for the mic several months, Johnson got Hudson fired, sighting that he didn't contribute enough. Twass-unt long after that Scott Johnson was fired, and replaced,...but the damage was done!(he shudda rented!). Now, restack, "Love In The Morning", with Bill & Sue. Later, Sue would ankle, due to one of CC's early budget cuts. Love, now solo, and OK with it, was given...a Short, Shallow, Burnt, Toasted, Allegedly Auditorium Tested, Consultant Approved, Playlist. My anallll-ogeeeee then was "A Gunfighter, without Bullets". When his numbers fell to a certain low, he too was fired, and thus the end of L&H on MY, but...you can't keep...TWO DAMN GOOD BROADCASTERS DOWN!
So, Say-eth The Sheppard...So, Say-eth The Flock!!
Scooter Lesley.
I lived near Asheville, NC back in 92/93 and discovered Love and Hudson. I was surprised when I learned that that they weren't syndicated. They sold cassette compilations (yes, cassettes) of their spoof songs back then and I wanted to pick up one in particular (Possum and Biscuits (Passionate Kisses)), but I couldn't find them up in NC.
Maybe it's just me, but since hearing them after their "return", the corny factor on Love & Hudson is through the roof. Can't listen.
Love and Hudson started together at WFBC-AM back in 80's, Went to Richmond VA Then a stop in Fla before coming to WMYI. These guys have together for years!
S
Scooter Lesley
Guest
Wellllllllll,...now, y'all, don't get all bent outta shape over the piddly little blowgun barbs, whizzed ocassionally by Freqdev. He has-unt mastered the english language yet, and certainly not the magical charisma of Southern English. As one can clearly see, we only receive one or maybe two typed sentences from him at a time. Mentally, it must be exausting for him! Also, he is not prevey to the age-old Southern prefix..."Trust me on this"...which alerts the reader that the following statement is not only Sobering, but Rock Solid in truth, with Zero dout. It must be his months of loud Timberlake, under headphones, and those endless cases of diet peach wine coolers. Sad,...it shrinks your brussel sprouts, and pickles your cabbage....to the point that you can type drivel,... at will!
MY 102.5 didn't start up until at least the later 80s, as WKIT 102.5 was still doing country the first several years I was at WMIT. They would rebroadcast an hour or two of our Sharathon to help our station, as did WWNC for many years.
Most legends in broadcasting, in my opinion, allow others to define their legendary status. I grew up loving Monty DuPuy, Billy Powell, Stowe Hoyle, as well as other greats from other markets I could hear from Marion, NC like Fred Kirby, Jim Patterson, Doug Mayes and Ty Boyd from Charlotte and guys like Bill Norwood, John Gosnell, Bob Caldwell, Arthur Whitesides ans Scotty Rhodarmer from Asheville. We have some greats still around today, like Love and Hudson, Chris Scott, Lee Alexander, and Russ Cassell (especially from his 93.7 days!)
I spent 18 years in the business and was fairly successful but I don't in any way compare to these guys. In my opinion very few if any of us who comment here are in the same category as these greats. I certainly understand that they were, are and should still be the standards of greatness in broadcasting.
Most legends in broadcasting, in my opinion, allow others to define their legendary status. I grew up loving Monty DuPuy, Billy Powell, Stowe Hoyle, as well as other greats from other markets I could hear from Marion, NC like Fred Kirby, Jim Patterson, Doug Mayes and Ty Boyd from Charlotte and guys like Bill Norwood, John Gosnell, Bob Caldwell, Arthur Whitesides ans Scotty Rhodarmer from Asheville. We have some greats still around today, like Love and Hudson, Chris Scott, Lee Alexander, and Russ Cassell (especially from his 93.7 days!)
I spent 18 years in the business and was fairly successful but I don't in any way compare to these guys. In my opinion very few if any of us who comment here are in the same category as these greats. I certainly understand that they were, are and should still be the standards of greatness in broadcasting.
MY 102.5 came on the air in 1987.
JMO, but I can't consider Russ Cassell a "great" by any means, at least these days.
JMO, but I can't consider Russ Cassell a "great" by any means, at least these days.
Amen, Cassell is a self absorbed, arrogant jerk who needs to be banned to the far flung regions of AM wasteland. Now go spin yer Hall & Oates records, jackass.
Russ Cassell was someone I listened to as a teenager. I enjoyed his morning show on 93.7 with Ken Rogers and others. I will always remember him fondly. He can be a bit arrogant these days but he is still talented. Thankfully most of our readers and contributors can respect people's opinions without resorting to name calling and silly, inmature remarks.
when Monty bowed out at FBC, seems like and Im certain a guy Dan Kelley came for a few years, he was from Kentucky and went back there, he was quite good until the PD started sitting in with him, the PD was a weatherman for a few years, don't recall his name, then Russ came, and had a huge following for many years, then Dale Gilbert who didn't seem to fare as well, then seems like many listeners went to 102.5,,
I have not had the chance to listen to Russ in a long time, but when I listened to him in the 80's and early 90's when he was on AM I liked listening to him. I loved listening to Love and Hudson and on MY who was fun to listen to as well... L&H started on MY I wanna say in Oct of 87 not the early 80's but as I said they were fun... In Columbia I am not sure how it ended. but I loved Woody and Leo on NOK. They were fun to listen to as well. I know that Woody left and then there was the Kteam Morning ZOO which was fun to listen to as well, but memory is failing but I just remember the morning Rush taking over in the Mid to late 80's...
CrazeeCarroll1 said:
I remember what happened at WNOK back then. Mr. McElveen had hired Tom Kent(word is that he wanted to hire Randy Kabrich, but Kabrich had other ideas and recommended TK) and Kent was taking over and changing things around September 1983. I had just gotten fired at Z96 for missing an announcers meeting because I had an exam at USC, so, I worked on an aircheck all night and was knocking on NOK's door the next morning at around 7am. Woody & Leo were on and, when Tom Kent answered the door(it was at the 1717 Gervais St. location then), he asked me to come back to his office to talk and as I passed by the studio, Woody yelled out, "Kick ass, Scott!" I didn't know it at the time, but Kent and the powers that be had already decided to make wholesale changes to WNOK. Kent was only interested in hiring me part time at first until he heard my aircheck, then he grabbed my shoulders and said, "You're my new 10p-2a jock" I was stoked, mainly because I had a job so quick, but also because, even though both Woody & Leo had been supportive of me as a jock prior to that, I had never actually worked with them. I thought this was my chance. But, alas, it was not to be. They had already hired former WGAR/Cleveland morning guy Phil Gardner for mornings, Pandora was staying in middays, TK would work 3p-6p, Hunter was moved from afternoons to early evenings 6p-10p, I was on 10p-2a and Jimmy Duncan was on 2a-6a. Kent wanted Hunter to call himself "Hitman" Hunter, and even though Hunter is too much of a nice guy and would never admit it, he HATED that idea. He was the music director, but with Kent being uber-hands on, that meant that he micromanaged whatever Hunter did with the music. It is worth mentioning that independent record promoters were a big thing back then and hadn't yet been cracked down on like they are now and Kent had his own(who will remain nameless, because, while indies are scorned nowadays, some are very good and decent people and I know this particular indie to be one of the decent ones), so he micromanaged the music and, subsequently the adds...and I can only imagine that Hunter chafed at that. Hunter's been around a long ass time and knew what he was doing. The argument could even be made(and a damn good argument at that) that he knew more about what appealed to Columbia musically than Kent did. Anyway, due in no small part this conflict("conflict" may be too strong a word, but it was an irritant to Hunter, I am sure...and deservedly so), Hunter soon parted ways with NOK after that and I inherited the 6p-10p shift and MD stripes when he left. Then, a couple of months after that, Tom Kent had apparently worn out his welcome and was fired, after which I inherited afternoons 3p-7p, John Rocke(also formerly of Z96) had crossed the street and was working 7p-mid with Jimmy Duncan expanding to mid-6a. Pete Hamlett became became the PD and Chief Engineer....they fired Phil Gardner and, in short order, hired Leo back, moved Pandora to mornings and brought production maestro Mark Plemmons in to complete the K-Team Morning Zoo. Prod director Jeff Clark moved to middays. Other than Rocke leaving a few months later and Robin King joining us for nights, the lineup remained fairly static until the latter part of 84 and first part of 85. I had lost my brother and my personal life was a shambles and I took a job down at WKZQ in Myrtle right when the PD stripes were transferred to Jeff Clark and Pete was able to concentrate solely on engineering duties. It was at that time that Jeff started talking to me about coming back, so I came back about 3 weeks after I left(like I said, I was a wreck) for afternoons. My personal life didn't get any better and I wore out my welcome by the first part of July 1985 and I got fired and went back to KZQ. It was a couple of years later when C103 debuted that I came back to do afternoons there and it was during my time there working for Ralph Wimmer that Jonathan started at WNOK for mornings.
WHEW! Better than therapy...and cheaper. Sorry I wrote an epistle, but it's a part of WNOK's history
Regards to you all the ''Cassellites'' that reside in Elitestville.
- Status