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'KB was One of America's Two Great Stations. Which was the other?

I don't know about your contention of "too" rather than "two." I think Jeff Kaye's position on this, as related by Jim Pastrick in this thread, is confirmation enough of what his intentions were in proclaiming KB one of the America's Two Great Stations.
 
Agreed. Go with Debaser and Jim, both were privileged to work for Jeff Kaye back-in-the-day.
 
I knew several 'KB staffers during the era that also voiced the "too" theory. I suspect that Jeff may not have thought of that interpretation when coming up with the original concept, but ran with it when the questions started coming. I never heard that he named another station as the other "great" radio station. Once again, he manufactured a mystery that we're still talking about decades later.
 
Once again, he manufactured a mystery that we're still talking about decades later.
Click to expand...

Who let the Devil's Advocate back in here? ;D (yes...just me again)

Valid point. VERY valid. But let's break it down to a single question.

The key here is "we're" talking about it decades later. The masses to which are served...aren't (or may be over some Chardonay or beer...probably in a stooper)

The question: CAN IT BE DONE AGAIN!!! (not in the same context, necessarily). Compare it to the Mean Joe Greene spot that JUST WON'T GO AWAY. What it did for Coke was great....but we're in the HERE & NOW..... The industry NEEDS something that creates the talk NOT HERE........BUT OUT THERE!!! (well, ok, by default it would be HERE ::))

HDBG

Dang, I love these boards....Corporate meetings in the privacy of your own restroom ::)
 
heydaybegone said:
The question: CAN IT BE DONE AGAIN!!! (not in the same context, necessarily).
Click to expand...

Absolutely. We just may not recognize it right away because it'll be in a different context. (I'm assuming we're mostly of the age that remember Jeff Kaye's 'KB first-hand)

I think we've been shocked to death...so it may well be something that builds buzz gradually.
 
Hi SirRox,
In my high school/college days in Buffalo, we'd "hang-out" at 'BFO and other electronic groupie venues (sounds pretty official saying it that way...) and the word we got from guys over at KB is that it was meant to be "too" and the public's speculation (based upon it being "two") on who the other station was provided amusement to all involved. That last sentence being somewhat Abbott and Costello!

In any case, Kaye was brilliant and even his, "not really meant that way" proved gold!
 
I was just about to say the Jeff was one of two brilliant broadcasters for whom I had the pleasure of working in the 38 years or so I was in the biz (David Marsden at cfny being the other), but I just remembered I had the distinction of working at WDRC with Charlie Parker for 2 months (I was still in school and had to return after a summer gig in '67), so in my case Jeff was one of three great North American PDs.
 
It's Baaack!

I'm not sure Jeff Kaye ever actually took credit for coming up with the slogan (or admitted to borrowing it), and I don't mean to discredit Jeff's brilliance as a Program Director in any way.

But, while listening to a Dan Ingram/WABC aircheck from 1961 today I stumbled on a promo worded like so, "W A B C...one of America's Two (Too) Great radio stations"!

Want to hear the promo, it's here. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the ORANGE
download button.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/i9f2wj

Hah! Don Berns didn't nickname me "Sherlock" for nothing.
 
WWAB in Worcester Mass in 1968 was managed by Frank Ward (did all night house party show on KB AND was Guy King at OL) did an id with the slogan 1 of Americas 2 great radio stations. Alot of the jocks from the 60s were influenced by Frank and the Hound use to say he was one of America's great radio people and I agree.
 
Stepping back a bit...how many truly original ideas have there been in this business?

From "The best mix of the 70's and 80's" to Morning Zoos in the 80's to starting each talk break with calls to station logo styles, etc etc?

At the very least, great minds think alike. At most, Jeff Kaye took ownership of a pretty clever imager. Either way, I'd say the phrase is best associated with him and 'KB, and the proof is found in this very thread.
 
DaveMasonsd said:
Official word from Jay Clark, as we discussed a possible job there, was WPRO-AM in Providence.
Click to expand...

WPRO was a Capital Cities property in those days, making it KB's sister station.
 
Same jingles, used at the same time, both properties 1967-1968:

"Now radio comes alive, you're listening to K-B...."

"It's radio 6-3-0, it's W-P-R-O....."
 
Little known fact: I was on Jeff Kaye's radar because WPRO was trying to get me out of Providence when I was on WICE. Jeff originally offered me the all night show, but I had to go off to do my National Guard training and turned him down.
 
Debaser said:
Little known fact: I was on Jeff Kaye's radar because WPRO was trying to get me out of Providence when I was on WICE. Jeff originally offered me the all night show, but I had to go off to do my National Guard training and turned him down.
Click to expand...

So he was after you for a period of time? BTW I always thought you were in Hartford just prior to 'KB.

Was Kaye the type of PD who would've promoted you out of overnights had the opportunity come up? Or were jocks typecast - as at many stations - and what you were hired for is what you will be.
 
Jeff was definitely the type of PD who promoted from within...when it was appropriate to the sound he was creating.
I was only in Hartford for two months in 1967, btw. I worked in Providence from 1967-1970, after which I worked at WTRY until the big shakeup at KB in October when Armstrong and I were hired.
 
Savage said:
Same jingles, used at the same time, both properties 1967-1968: "Now radio comes alive, you're listening to K-B...."
"It's radio 6-3-0, it's W-P-R-O....."
Click to expand...
The "now radio" jingle package (one of the hokiest packages every recorded) evokes this memory: Jack Armstrong, having recently arrived at KB, rolls a "now radio" jingle into some smokin' song and lets it rip over the song intro... "Just listen to that! Yessir they're walkin' out in droves folks!"

It made me laugh. Being a radio junkie, I knew what he was talking about. At the time McLendon's WYSL 1400 was using a terrific jingle package that featured about a dozen cuts, shotguns, fast-to-slow, slow-to-fast, acappella and stagers. It was a tightly produced package that worked well with the music, currents as well as oldies (which were never more than five years old, or so it seemed.)

Fast forward a year later to the KB package Jeff Kaye custom produced which featured jingles that sounded like BS&T, Carole King, Chicago, Crow, the Beatles, Mungo Jerry and James Taylor. Any radio junkie worthy of his Sennheiser HD-414's or Koss Pro4aa's can vividly recall every ounce of energy Armstrong put into howling "Your leeeeeeeaader" over the intro of the jingle that sounded like the bridge in Chicago's "Beginnings" or a Don Berns talk-up of the intro to the KB jingle that sounded like the Beatles' "Come Together." (These weren't the Pop Tops, these were the actual jingles.) Very often, they were as good or better than the songs that followed and they sound every bit as good today.
 
Jim, even though most PD's hate it because it's too inside, I always enjoy it when jocks comment about something at the radio station. Joey Reynolds also did that when he was on KB and even though I didn't work in radio, somehow I knew what he was talking about.

Getting back to the thread KB was definitely "One of America's Two Great Radio Stations"!
 
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