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KEWB Anthem

D

DavidKaye

Every couple years or so I ask if anybody has a copy of what I call the KEWB anthem. It was a jazzy instrumental that ran a couple minutes in length and was often played during the midnight hours on KEWB (and probably KFWB and KDWB).

Back toward the end of King's KSFO, I heard it played there, too. I'm not sure why it was played there because it didn't go with anything, but someone did.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about, and does anybody have a copy?
 
David,

You can find the KEWB/KFWB/KDWB anthem on a CD call "Teen Beat Vol. 4" on Ace, from the UK. There are two (2) tracks, one upbeat and the other slow jazz. The name of the tracks are, "Image Pt.1" and "Image Pt.2" by Hank Levine. If you can believe it, Image Pt.1 made the US charts on 10-9-61 for one (1) at #98. It did better on the UK charts at #45. I bet you, KYA never played it.

KEWB was my all time favorite radio station, growing up in the Bay Area. It's long gone now, but to this day I can still hear the KEWB anthem in my head. To me, it was the best.

You may want to know how I know all about this. Will, it's many years on the internet and following all kind of links. I need a life.

If someone knows the whole history of KEWB from the start to the end, I sure would like to read about it. I only know bits and pieces of the history.
 
Growing up in LA, I didn't get addicted to Top 40 radio until about 1964, which was toward the end of KFWB's dominance in the market, though it was still a great station until it flipped to All News in 1968.

The poster known as "KEWB" probably already knows this, but for those others of you who may be interested, there are a few of KEWB "Fabulous 40" (and KFWB, too) surveys on the internet - just a google away. The jocks are always featured on the cover.

This one from the Bay Area Radio Museum features the (soon to be) famous Gary Owens:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/surveys/kewb/kewb_survey_jan-23-1960.shtml


I ran into one a few years ago with a pic of Michael Scotland (Jackson) - just a few years before his long reign as a talk-radio giant at KABC.

Also, Chuck Blore is still very much alive and active, and you can find his rememberances online regarding the beginnings of the "Color Radio" format
 
I grew up in Tucson listening to the great jocks on KTKT. My family moved to the Bay Area in 1960 and much to my surprise so did a number of the old KTKT jocks, most of them winding up on KEWB. The two top pop stations at that time were KYA and KEWB but from Marin County (where I lived) we couldn't get KYA very well at night so KEWB got our overnight biz.

I have an aircheck of Casey Kasem's "Casey At The Mike" program from the Fall of '61 and am listening to it now to see if the anthem was played.

I still remember that weekend at Stinson Beach listening to the final day KEWB broadcast music. Summer of '66 and I had just returned from two years in Vietnam. Pretty sad day.

I did make contact with Chris Borden some months ago and he is alive and well. PM me if you'd like his email.
 
DavidKaye said:
Every couple years or so I ask if anybody has a copy of what I call the KEWB anthem. It was a jazzy instrumental that ran a couple minutes in length and was often played during the midnight hours on KEWB (and probably KFWB and KDWB).

Back toward the end of King's KSFO, I heard it played there, too. I'm not sure why it was played there because it didn't go with anything, but someone did.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about, and does anybody have a copy?
Click to expand...

Is this it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnX1FJWioDM

There are a lot of nice pix to go along with this music, too.
 
radioman148 said:
Sure sounds like it to me.
Click to expand...

Nice orchestral arrangement. I don't remember hearing it before, though I may have just forgotten. I wonder why the "producer" of that video chose the 'WB anthem to go along with those images.

It's possible that those 6 signature musical notes are the longest lasting jingle in radio history - dating back 50 years to 1959 - the premiere of Color Radio at KFWB.

As far as I know, KFWB still uses that musical signature, and it was still being sung as "K-F-W-B, News 98" up until a few years ago when they changed to the frequentially correct "980."
 
barman said:
Is this it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnX1FJWioDM

There are a lot of nice pix to go along with this music, too.
Click to expand...

That's IT! Thanks a lot! Hearing it brought me chills. I hadn't heard it in its entirely since I was a little boy.

A reaction I didn't expect was how old it makes me feel! It's creepy, actually. The world of that song doesn't exist anymore. It's a world where sophisticates drank martinis and smoked cigarettes (see the movie "Seven Year Itch" to see that that life was like). It's a world where mom made dinner and then later the family gathered together to watch TV or play board games.

We had a 1950s Dodge club coupe with no heat, and plenty of blankets in the back seat to keep me warm on a trip. The seats had woolen upholstery and smelled like a wet dog when it rained. The car had a radio in it (AM only, of course), and it had a "station seeker", which was a motorized tuner run by a foot switch on the driver's side. I guess they didn't want drivers to take their eyes off the road.

I think I first remember hearing the anthem in the early morning when my dad would wake up for work at the post office. He got up about 4:30am or so, and sometimes I'd wake up and turn on KEWB. Sometimes they had just a board op and no DJ and they'd run the anthem between songs.

MAN, I can't believe how ancient that makes me feel.

But I just did a search on Chuck Blore's name and he's now 80, making him 29 when he created the Color Radio format for KFWB, so I guess I can't feel so old after all when he's still cookin'.

Here are some websites:

Chuck Blore: http://www.chuckblore.com/
A snippet of the jazz sax version of the anthem: http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/...pd_krex_dp_001_003?ie=UTF8&track=003&disc=001
(It's cut #4)
 
By the way, does anybody know the origin of the anthem? Was it written for KFWB and then released as a record or did it exist first and then licensed for use on the 'WB jingles?

Anybody know?
 
I listened to KFWB (on-line) last night. There are indeed still using that 6 note musical signature - instrumental versions between news segments (traffic, sports, etc.) and as a jingle - "KFWB, News 980."

Talk about feeling old - I had a college Intern about 10 years ago - who had grown up in LA. We got on the subject of LA radio, and I remember telling her that KFWB had been a rock and roll station when I was a kid. She looked at me like I had told her I used to commute in a horse and buggy.

KFWB was a rock station for a few weeks over ten years - KEWB a shorter time. Now, KFWB has been an All News station for almost 41 years.
 
To clear up a few points:

That should be Hank Levine & Orchestra on the credits for "Image (Part I)." The song was co-written by Bob Sande and Larry Greene, who were responsible for the Color Radio jingles and themes commissioned by Chuck Blore.

"Image" (Parts I & II) was released as a 45 RPM single in October 1961 (ABC-Paramount #10256). Part I hit the Billboard Hot 100 for one week only, on October 9, 1961.

Its chart position? Why, #98, of course!

Hank Levine also did orchestrations for several pop records during the early Sixties, including a few "surf" and "hot rod" records that were written by Roger Christian ... who was also a KFWB disc jockey. (See how this all ties together?)

More about Blore and Color Radio jingles at:

http://www.jingles.org/TheStoryofKFWBsColorRadioJingles.htm
 
radioman148 said:
Thanks for the jingles link. Very nice. :D
Click to expand...

And you can hear 2 of those jingles at this link: http://www.colorradio.com/color_radio_history.htm.

The Bay Area Radio Museum has a number of relevant KEWB airchecks (Thank you Boss Radio DJ), including the Real Don Steele (pre-KHJ), and KO Beachin, who was also Bob Elliot, and KO Bayley at KFRC:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/pages/stations.shtml#KEWB

reelradio.com ($12 yearly fee) has a slew of KFWB airchecks:


Bill Ballance, KFWB Los Angeles, August 18 1959
Bill Ballance, KFWB Los Angeles, May 12 1962
Larry McCormick, KFWB Los Angeles March 13 1965
Lohman and Barkley, KFWB Flight 98, March 3, 1968
Gene Weed, KFWB Los Angeles November 23 1958
Bill Ballance, KFWB Los Angeles March 1960
Gene Weed, KFWB Los Angeles 1962
Lohman and Barkley Phoners, KFWB Los Angeles 1967
Lohman and Barkley KFWB Los Angeles January 1968
Lohman and Barkley KFWB Los Angeles February 29 1968
Elliot Field KFWB Glory Years, KMET 1972
Bob Hudson, KFWB Los Angeles January 1968
Joe Yocam, Gene Weed, KFWB 1968
Emperor Bob Hudson, KFWB Los Angeles 1967
B. Mitchel Reed, KFWB Los Angeles, December 1965
Don MacKinnon, KFWB Los Angeles, CA. 1965
Elliot Field, KFWB Los Angeles, 1959
KFWB Custom Funky Jingles, 1967
Gene Weed, KFWB Los Angeles, 1968
Rebel Foster, KFWB Los Angeles, January 21 1966
B. Mitchel Reed, KFWB Los Angeles, 1967
Wink Martindale, KFWB Los Angeles June 1965
Joe Yocam, KFWB Los Angeles, 1962
Gary Owens, KFWB Los Angeles 1962
Bill Ballance, KFWB, 1961
Jackson King, KFWB Newscast, 1962

Finally, for another "feeling old" moment, I'll note again that KEWB are now the call letters of CHR Rhythmic station "Power 94" in the great metropolis of Redding, CA.

http://www.power94radio.com/
 
I had a copy of Image that I bought from a cut-out bin at Owl Drugs at Petrini Plaza in SF. It was on a different label (an indy). KEWB only played it as a single for a short time, then it was relegated to 30 or 45 seconds as fill to news. Then the up-tempo side was used as a promo bed.
 
Lkeller said:
The Bay Area Radio Museum has a number of relevant KEWB airchecks (Thank you Boss Radio DJ), including the Real Don Steele (pre-KHJ), and KO Beachin, who was also Bob Elliot, and KO Bayley at KFRC...
Click to expand...

And thank you, Llew. We've actually got a pretty good smörgåsbord of Kewbed airchecks on the Color Channel 91 page at:

http://www.kewbchannel91.com

Ever so slightly off-topic: I'm in the process of manually converting about 136,425 audio files* on the museum website from the Real Player platform to Yahoo Media Player. It's a more streamlined and flexible embedded player that seems to work better across a wider variety of platforms and browsers.

One of the first tests is on the Alex Bennett/KQAK page:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/kqak/kqak_alex-bennett_aug-23-1982.shtml

Give it a try and see if it works for you. (Note: If you're on a 56k dial-up, please don't complain to me.) I finally got fed up with Real Player myself and had several glowing recommendations for YMP. My own tests have been very positive.
_____________

* -- A bit of an exagerration, yes. But it sure feels like there's that many.
 
BossRadioDJ said:
Give it a try and see if it works for you. (Note: If you're on a 56k dial-up, please don't complain to me.) I finally got fed up with Real Player myself and had several glowing recommendations for YMP. My own tests have been very positive.
Click to expand...

The MP3 version plays okay in Windows XP, but won't play in Ubuntu Linux until the entire file downloads. The Real versions play fine on both platforms.
 
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