Mike said:
DavidKaye said:
What's strange in listening to Sherwood airchecks today is that it seemed like he was doing a midnight show at 7am. His music was slow for the most part and his delivery very homey. He did get into sketches, though, and that livened things up.
indeed, very indicative of radio back then. I grew up in NYC and there was a morning guy on WCBS named Jack Sterling -- very popular, for years and years. My parents listened to him and damn he was low-key.
IIRC from Laurie Harper's book, Sherwood said he started the show with softer music, and picked up the rhythm later in the show when listeners were more awake.
And Van Amburg? In addition to his DJ and KGO gigs, I believe he was Bill King's color man for a few years on Raiders radio (this would have been in the AFL days), before Scotty Stirling.
Most MOR jocks were low key. BARM also has an air check of Van Amburg on the pre-Top 40 KFRC. 'Van" was, of course, famous primarily for being the high-rated and sensationalistic news anchor in the 70s and 80s at KGO-TV. But he was a jock in the mid 60s at Radio "61" - mid-days, IIRC. Between his low key delivery, the soft pop music and slow meandering jingles, I was practically lulled to sleep. And MOR DJs of that era didn't do those things we're used to jocks doing. They usually IDed the song and artist, but promoting the station was not priority. They rarely mentioned the call letters or frequency.
There were exceptions - Gary Owens was wildly popular at KMPC (Los Angeles -sister station of KSFO) at the time, and his show was fairly high energy, in keeping with his personality, and status on TV's
Laugh-In. But KMPC's morning man - Dick Whittinghill - was more in the Sherwood tradition - though not nearly as funny.
