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Danoinark

Howdy radio buddies. Some of you may remember Robert E. Knight who worked with me and so many other at WMPS in the early 70's. He was on air but primarily worked in engineering, his first love. Robert met an untimely death shortly after leaving the station. His wife was Courtney Kauffman, who worked in record promotions and I believed promoted Dee's Disco Duck. Anybody know her whereabouts. I sure would love to get in touch with her. Thanks in advance.
Dan S.
 
Dan- I don't think I have seen her since the funeral myself. When was that, the early 80's?

Robert was one of the first guys I ran into when I was trying to wheedle my way into the Memphis market. I remember seeing him crossing the WHBQ lobby going upstairs to get a cup of coffee. I had just been listening to him on the way into the station, and I felt I had been in the presence of radio royalty! A short while later, after getting canned at JDX, I was hawking my aircheck to whomever would listen. I must have shown up at WMPS with my last copy, because he took it to the production room and made a dub of it. He gave me encouragement, which at the time I sorely needed.

Robert was Chief Engineer when I came over to WMPS. I think the station was just transitioning to having the jocks take their own meter-readings, because he was tutoring some in obtaining their 3rd phones with broadcast endorsement. My wife got her license at that time, using the materials Robert provided to study. Robert had a great voice and was a model of the tight-and-bright witty jock that made up the bread and butter of successful Top 40 middays back then.
 
Thanks Rob. I think my time line was wrong as to when he passed away. I think now that I had already left town and didn't hear about until after the funeral. I am sure it was in the early 80's as you mentioned. A sweet lady that Sandy and I would just love to reconnect with.
Dan
 
Hi Dan & Rob
I was serving as GM of WMPS-K97 when Robert E passed away. My estimate would that he passed sometime around the end of year 1981, or 82. He was still employeed with Plough and had taken his child on a long, much deserved driving vacation out west when he died during the night in a hotel, somewhere around Phoenix I seem to recall. Robert was also the generic overnight voice tracker for the early days of K97. I was always running into these avid 97 fans who wanted to know what was goin on with that crazy "King Robert" in the middle of the night. The original K97 automation was always messed up, with back announces rarely in synch with what actually had just played. What these listeners thought was that he was on the air wasted every night and had no clue what songs he was playing.
I never had a good answer for that one so I ususally just smiled and said yeah he's somethin' else. He was a good guy and left us much too soon.....

Craig Scott
 
Thanks Craig I appreciate the update. I was almost positive we had left Memphis when he died. I left town Oct '80. I remember that automation system. If I recall it had the "ticker tape, punch card" strip input that had to be loaded into the machine as well as of course cueing up the large reels. When I was there it sat in the old news room area after we moved down the hall. This may not be easy to believe but they even had me voice tracking some of those K-97 shows...I went by Wolf Dan...I remember it vividly and of course for an old newsman it was "what I thought" as demeaning. But hell I got over that real quick. Good to hear from you too. I often wonder what happened and where the heck some of the old Plough alumni are these days. I understand Wayne Hudson is still in Memphis. I did hear from Doc Damon and Donnie Brooks sometime back.
Dan
 
The automation which was purchased for all the Plough FM's was a basic programming "brain" that I think was by Harris...not sure though. But we also had the 48 slot Instacart decks along with 4 reel tape sources. The voice tracks went into the instacart slots and were written and programmed with the false assumption that a well planned and timed hour should pretty much stay on track. Bad assumption. It was almost always a huge mess. That's why we pushed hard to go "live" with all of our stations as soon as we could. Yeah I wouldnt doubt if even Bud Leonard did a track or two back in the early days. The last I heard Wayne was doing well and living in Germantown. I left Memphis in 2000 but still have the best of memories of all the different people and places in my many years there.
 
Voice Tracking on that system required carting all of your breaks sequentially on a single big cart. Therefore, if you goofed up a couple of hours into your show, you had to erase it and start all over again. I spent time on K-97 doing the all-night show as "The 'Real' Bob Mitchell" (I love irony), not to be confused with the much later "Rob Mitchell" who was a Metro Traffic guy.
 
cscott said:
The automation which was purchased for all the Plough FM's was a basic programming "brain" that I think was by Harris...not sure though. But we also had the 48 slot Instacart decks along with 4 reel tape sources. The voice tracks went into the instacart slots and were written and programmed with the false assumption that a well planned and timed hour should pretty much stay on track. Bad assumption. It was almost always a huge mess. That's why we pushed hard to go "live" with all of our stations as soon as we could. Yeah I wouldnt doubt if even Bud Leonard did a track or two back in the early days. The last I heard Wayne was doing well and living in Germantown. I left Memphis in 2000 but still have the best of memories of all the different people and places in my many years there.
Click to expand...
You just described WCMT-FM, at least at the time I was working there! ::)
 
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