Remember KFWB before all-news began in March 1968?

[LKellerIII]

As for KEWB, that might have been less about trying to block KFRC than desperately grabbing for a slogan that was working somewhere else...like Fresno,L.A. and San Diego.

But with KYA having been "The Boss of the Bay" from 1961 to 1963, the term was played out in SF. Drake wasn't going there with KFRC, no matter what.

Imagine if Drake hadn't picked Morgan and Steele for KHJ and they had to go down with the KEWB ship..

---Michael Hagerty

I see the scenario this way - Steele and Morgan go down with the KEWB ship, but only temporarily. At least one or two KEWB jocks (KO Bayley) ended up at KFRC.

So Drake hires Morgan and Steele for KFRC, and they work across the Bay in San Francisco for a few months, until Drake decides to move them south to KHJ.

His only mistake - he puts Steele on in the mornings, Morgan in afternoon drive, so the phrase "Good Morgan" is never born.

Kidding about that last part.

 

[michael hagerty]

As for KEWB, that might have been less about trying to block KFRC than desperately grabbing for a slogan that was working somewhere else...like Fresno,L.A. and San Diego.

But with KYA having been "The Boss of the Bay" from 1961 to 1963, the term was played out in SF. Drake wasn't going there with KFRC, no matter what.

Imagine if Drake hadn't picked Morgan and Steele for KHJ and they had to go down with the KEWB ship..

---Michael Hagerty

I see the scenario this way - Steele and Morgan go down with the KEWB ship, but only temporarily. At least one or two KEWB jocks (KO Bayley) ended up at KFRC.

So Drake hires Morgan and Steele for KFRC, and they work across the Bay in San Francisco for a few months, until Drake decides to move them south to KHJ.

Llew: My take's a little different. To truly go down with the ship at KEWB, they'd have missed the KFRC launch (February, 1966...KEWB struggled on until September of that year).

Let's say Drake passed on Morgan and Steele for KHJ in April, 1965 and brought Vic Gee (Jim Carson) and Steve Jay (Jay Stevens) up from KGB, San Diego for mornings and afternoons, respectively. And let's say they did just fine (given that Morgan and Steele's ratings weren't way out of scale compared to the rest of the station, that KHJ was prepared to go on without them during their 1969 strike and that their replacements held their numbers when they left for good in 1973, that's at least possible). What's left for Robert W. and The Real Don?

Remember...K.O. Beachin' at KEWB didn't immediately become K.O. Bayley at KFRC...he did a couple of years as Bob Elliot at KGB in between. So maybe, when K.O. goes to KGB just before KEWB changes call letters and format, Morgan and Steele can hitch a ride. Maybe they even get morning and afternoon drive (depending on how Jim and Jay's replacements were doing).

But what then?

San Diego's too small, Carson and Stevens are the epitome of stable...they'll be at KHJ for life....KFWB's clearly on its way out, KRLA is schizophrenic.

Maybe, like K.O., their next move is KFRC. Steele could have gone up at the same time as K.O. in '68, but Morgan would have to wait for '69 to replace Mike Phillips in mornings.

But that means Charlie Van Dyke wouldn't have come west from CKLW for that slot.

And how long would Morgan and Steele have lasted in San Francisco? How could Michael Spears' post-Drake KFRC have developed around them instead of Dr. Don Rose and John Mack Flanagan?

And the variables go on and on....

---Michael Hagerty

 

[Ultimajock]

Re: BMR 1967

Just listened to an aircheck of BMR during the summer of 1967 on Airchexx.com.

By then, BMR was heavy into the album cuts, but he still retained his machine-gun delivery.

...although a lot of the album cuts were from the allegedly lighter-weight acts; instead of The Electric Flag or really early Pink Floyd, BMR went absolutely ga-ga over The Monkees' "Daily Nightly" (Pisces, Aquarius, Capriocorn & Jones, Ltd.) and Phil Ochs' studio recording of "Crucifixion" (Pleasures of the Harbor) (the latter of which must have sounded really strange to someone DXing KFWB; it has a German abstract/expressionist-like chamber orchestra backing to it)...

 

[pattiwacki]

I'm trying to remember when Hudson teamed up with Landry-they were a scream!

Late 1970 or early 71 at KGBS. Hudson had been doing mornings and Landry afternoons. In fact, I think they did their first club dates and LP while doing separate radio shows. When KGBS paied them in mornings, Dave Hull, who'd just left KFI, took afternoons.

---Michael Hagerty

Thanks, Michael!

 

[oldmanradio]

In the era from 1964 to 1968, what other LA-area stations attempted to compete in top-40 or some hybrid top-40 format?

 

[michael hagerty]

In the era from 1964 to 1968, what other LA-area stations attempted to compete in top-40 or some hybrid top-40 format?

KBLA (1500) went Top 40 the month before KHJ in 1965.

KDAY(1580) and KGBS (1020) both went to Top 40 in 1968 after KFWB left the format.

KBLA had some top-notch jocks...Humble Harve, Dave Diamond (after three months at KHJ), Jim Wood, Vic Gee (Jim Carson), Emperor Bob Hudson (after leaving KRLA).

KGBS struck gold with personalities...Bob Hudson in the morning, Bill Ballance middays (with his Feminine Forum show) and Ron Landry afternoons (with Dave Hull taking afternoons after Hudson and Landry became a team in mornings). They cracked the Top 10 in the ratings in 1971. They really fit your "hybrid" category...straddling a line between Top 40 and adult contemporary.

And KDAY was pretty good in those days, too...Jimmy O'Neill was there, former KHJ night jock Tom Maule came back to Southern California from KFRC to do mornings, and when Sam Riddle left KHJ in 1970, he went to KDAY. Why? Because the GM at the time was Art Astor, who'd been KHJ's sales manager.

But...all three stations had signal issues. KBLA simply didn't have enough of one, KDAY's went out over the ocean instead of the city, and KGBS was daytime only.

KBLA went Country in 1967 as KBBQ...returned to Top40 as KROQ in September, 1972 , became a simulcast of the album rock format when KPPC became KROQ-FM in the fall of '73 and finally went dark in the mid-70s.

KGBS went talk in 1974 for about five months and then flipped to Country. It returned to Top 40 in December, 1976 as KTNQ (with a 24-hour signal), but was sold and went Spanish in August, 1979.

KDAY went to an album rock format in 1971, then to R&B and ultimately became the first all-rap radio station. It never tried Top 40 again.

---Michael Hagerty



---Michael Hagerty

 

[LKellerIII]

As usual, Michael's history is spot-on, but I'd add KEZY-1190 from Anaheim. Not sure when they became Top 40, but I caught onto them about 1967. It was a very professional station, with as slick a format as any - except maybe KHJ. I guess KEZY's signal was spotty, but I could pull it in clearly in the daytime where I lived - way out in foothills - near Glendale.

 

[michael hagerty]

As usual, Michael's history is spot-on, but I'd add KEZY-1190 from Anaheim. Not sure when they became Top 40, but I caught onto them about 1967. It was a very professional station, with as slick a format as any - except maybe KHJ. I guess KEZY's signal was spotty, but I could pull it in clearly in the daytime where I lived - way out in foothills - near Glendale.

Absolutely right, Llew. I've always mentally filed Anaheim/Santa Ana (KEZY) and the Riverside/San Bernardino (KMEN/KFXM) stations in their own categories, separate from L.A. But depending on where you were in L.A., you could hear them and they definitely had listeners.

---Michael Hagerty

 

[Marv-L.A.]

KEZY's air talent lineup, including Mark Denis, Jim Meeker and Arnie McClatchey, was a very good one, and I really enjoyed listening to them back then.

Ron Landry also received lots of praise from LA Times radio columnist Don Page (who also hosted a mesmerizing talk show on KLAC with numerous radio personalities as his guests on Sunday evenings) when he worked PM drive at KGBS in the early seventies, and Landry certainly deserved every single word of it--he was an absolute scream!!

Landry & C K (Cajun Ken) Cooper, who was hysterical-and-then-some when he came to LA a few years later to do PM drive at KFI during its top 40 era, were a blast to listen to back then, and would certainly rank alongside Gary Owens and Dave Hull as being among the funniest jocks in LA radio history, not to mention Charlie Tuna and Charlie Van Dyke.

 

[oldmanradio]

Correctly me if I am wrong, but it occurs to me that KFWB may have been playing a lot or mostly what is called sunshine rock or probably more accurately, sunshine pop music.

Happy music. Probably non offensive to everyone, and something even mom could listen to while working at home.

The Association and similar groups.

What do you think?

Also, it seems to be that KFWB was running "stay-tuned" promos for the all-news format at least as early as October 1967. The promo touted the worldwide bureaus of Group W ... "Westinghouse for Los Angeles."

Alas, I will listen to the BMR tape again.

History can be fun.

 

[michael hagerty]

Correctly me if I am wrong, but it occurs to me that KFWB may have been playing a lot or mostly what is called sunshine rock or probably more accurately, sunshine pop music.

Happy music. Probably non offensive to everyone, and something even mom could listen to while working at home.

The Association and similar groups.

What do you think?

Also, it seems to be that KFWB was running "stay-tuned" promos for the all-news format at least as early as October 1967. The promo touted the worldwide bureaus of Group W ... "Westinghouse for Los Angeles."

Tony...yes but both the music selection and news image in fall 67 would also be consistent with keeping the station adult contemporary in the WBZ mold.

---Michael Hagerty

 

[michael hagerty]

Also, Tony...Reelradio.com has several airchecks of KFWB from the time of the announcement to the switch, including Bob Hudson, Lohman and Barkley, Joe Yocam and Gene Weed's last show. Those airchecks give the best overview of the music and format.

From memory (it's been a year since I listened to any of them), they overplayed "Words" by the Bee Gees, "You Got It" by Brenton Wood, "Some Velvet Morning" by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, "Green Tambourine" by the Lemon Pipers, "People World" by Jim and Jean and "Sunday Morning" by Spanky and Our Gang.

In fact, those are the ONLY then-current songs I can remember from those six airchecks recorded over a two-month period (January 10-March 10, 1968). I'm sure there must be others, but they pounded the daylights out of those.


---Michael Hagerty