Blas Vallejo Alive & Well at www.oldiessuperhighway.com
I was informed about this Radio Info site from a friend and I want to say many thanks to those of you who still recall my days & nights on KHOP Stereo 104 and 1230 AM KWG ot to mention my Top Ten Show on KCEY. Let me start at the beginning. I had been on radio in Southern California on KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica in 1972. I was sort of discovered by the program director of KCRW Rob Pingle when he and I reached for the same record in a bin in a used record store and he asked me why I wanted that particular record and said it was the 10th record in a line of hits for that artist. He quizzed me some more and asked if I wanted to be in radio I said yes and we exchanged phone numbers and he said call me. Well I got cold feet cause I had no radio experience and then he called me and said we have got to get together and you're gonna be in radio. That was my first radio job doing oldies.
I moved from Santa Monica back to Modesto and started a record store with a friend of my brother. I also picked up a weekend gig at the brand new night club in Turlock California called The Sports Page Owned by Jack Phillips when it changed owners I worked at a small club in Modesto called Mr. Ralph's Around this time 1976 it was "America's Bi Centenial, I offered The Rockin 136 in Modesto a 12 hour music special called America's Summer Hits It was a shock to the audience since they had not heard many of those oldies hits since the day they were first played. Oldies were an untried format then. Anyway a couple of years later I heard a guy on KOSO 93 FM playing oldies on a weekday evening and I called him and asked him about a few songs. He knew a lot about the music but was missing a few songs so I offered to loan him some records, his name is Mike Lewis. I offered to loan him some records from my record library. I also suggested to help put together a few radio theme shows which became a very popular feature. The management moved him over to Sunday nights and with each special we did his show grew in popularity. I was approached by a sales staff person at Stereo 104 and asked if I would be interested in doing an oldies show opposite Mike Lewis on Sunday Nights and I said well Mike is my friend and I'll have to let him know if that's gonna be an issue. Well Mike said he had no problem with that and at that time I felt it could only help his sandwich shops Laval's Stufery to become more popular since I had been the dj at these parties he held at each location. I also never thought my show would ever catch Mike in the ratings especially in the Merced Patterson market. Many have said that Mike's shows and mine were the same and that is not true at all. Mike would play 20 songs by the same artist and then play requests from the week before, I played instant requests
and played TV Trivia with my listeners which would burn up the lines every Sunday. I also played a wider spectrum of oldies I was covering 1950-1971 where I think Mike covered 1955-1966 with no Beatles if he could avoid it. My Sunday night show did ok in Patterson not so well in Merced but was number one in Modesto, Stockton Manteca primarily cause our signal strength was huge and what I was doing was a little more interactive. I also was producing my noon day show called "The Top Ten The Way It Was Then" which was hugely popular, so much so that KO93 put on thier own oldies show at noon to counter my show. The reason I was let go from Stereo 104 is cause owner Pete Pappas hated oldies and decided that he was gonna drop it based on that. He told me straight out I hate oldies and I don't like you that much either. So I moved on to KWG 1230 in Stockton, at the time they were a sports station with oldies as an after thought and when I came to them with my extensive oldies library and a sizable audience they decided to open up the Sunday slot much like what I had at Stereo 104 and they started to fill the gaps in the music library from my collection and eventually Ron Dunlap's collection. After the first book while I was there they decided that oldies full time might work. We started showing up in the rating book with respectable numbers, and once things were really rolling the company that owned the fm side of KWG did a major market survey and said we are going to invest heavy dollars in this oldies format. So That's how KWG committed to doing this. Mike & I stayed friends and success was there for everyone. I really enjoyed working with such greats as Mike Lewis, Kevin Manna ,Matt Fore, Pat Kelly, Ron Dunlap, Dave Bowling, Dave Nelson, David Allen Kraham, Carol Benson, Ron Posey, Ken Page
Mary Greyshock, Vince Garcia, and many many others. I am now at two locations on the internet playing rare oldies I’m at
www.oldiessuperhighway.com and at
www.rockinradio.ocm
I have been the featured oldies mc for The North Modesto Kiwanis Father’s Day Graffiti Cruise for the past five years at the Modesto Junior College, however this year they have hired a blues band and are serving beer so they said maybe next year. I’ll probably still make the rounds just to check out the events cause it’s always fun and it’s in my blood.
I hope I see many of my friends there.
Sincerely Blas Vallejo
