-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
studio address for the old WAAF 950
- Thread starter Link
- Start date
I remember one of their DJs in the early 60s, Jerry Layton saying that they were in the La Salle Wacker Building.
I'm Certain WAAF was in the LaSalle-Wacker building. Visited there often, with their "Western Electric" audio board and the mirror tiles in the radio station lobby.
Jerry Leighton; "The man who made "Chicago Ill." (get it?)
all those Muntz TV Commercials "Call Esterbrook 9 -6777 and have color tv in your home, tonight" with the quarter meter plan.
Daddio-Daylie ("for Meister Brau the custom brew")
Jesse Owens
morning man Marty Faye
Aah, THOSE were the days.
Jerry Leighton; "The man who made "Chicago Ill." (get it?)
all those Muntz TV Commercials "Call Esterbrook 9 -6777 and have color tv in your home, tonight" with the quarter meter plan.
Daddio-Daylie ("for Meister Brau the custom brew")
Jesse Owens
morning man Marty Faye
Aah, THOSE were the days.
Prais--
Do you know whatever happened to Jerry Leighton? I know around the mid 60s he left Chicago and was working out in the LA area. I heard him when I was out there around 1964.
Never heard about him again after that. He was a funny guy with a good sense of humor.
Do you know whatever happened to Jerry Leighton? I know around the mid 60s he left Chicago and was working out in the LA area. I heard him when I was out there around 1964.
Never heard about him again after that. He was a funny guy with a good sense of humor.
Jerry Leighton died in 1985.
As a teenager who with a buddy had a part 15 type operation, we would often go to the various radio stations in the Chicago area. WAAF was one of them.
Jerry Leighton was a real genuine person and spent too much time talking about the business with a couple of kids who were hooked on the business.
WAAF was in the Lasalle Wacker building. I believe the transmitter at the time was located in the stockyards.
"Daddio on the radio"
As a teenager who with a buddy had a part 15 type operation, we would often go to the various radio stations in the Chicago area. WAAF was one of them.
Jerry Leighton was a real genuine person and spent too much time talking about the business with a couple of kids who were hooked on the business.
WAAF was in the Lasalle Wacker building. I believe the transmitter at the time was located in the stockyards.
"Daddio on the radio"
Sorry to hear Leighton passed. He was a funny guy.
Anyone know what he did after he left Chicago in the 60s?
I know I heard him once in LA in the mid 60s. Wonder if he remained in radio out there?
Anyone know what he did after he left Chicago in the 60s?
I know I heard him once in LA in the mid 60s. Wonder if he remained in radio out there?
WAAF was, in fact, in the LaSalle Wacker Building. I remember visiting Dick Buckley there during the Playboy Jazz Festival in 1965. WFMT was also in that building for a time.
Yes, I can say for sure that it was in the LaSalle-Wacker Building. Fifth floor, Suite 500. My old man was its long time GM, Thomas L. Davis. After 40 years in Radio myself, when I say that I grew up in Radio, that's where I mean. The list of talent there was long and legendary.
Lindsay,
Do you know what happened to Jerry Leighton after he left WAAF?
I know he died in 1985, but I wondered where he worked after he left WAAF.
Do you know what happened to Jerry Leighton after he left WAAF?
I know he died in 1985, but I wondered where he worked after he left WAAF.
Nope, I can't seem to pull that out of the gray-matter. I don't think he lasted very long with the Atlas folks, who bought it from Drover's Journal in '65 or '66. I believe they all dispersed pretty quickly after the conversion to WGRT.
FWIW, Chicago Architecture Info also shows WAAF in the LaSalle-Wacker Building.
Interesting, I didn't remember that there was a WAAF-FM.
There was a WAAF-FM, but I don't think it ever amounted to much. One of the things that made my dad proudest was that he had managed to sell it for the huge total of $10,000! To the day he died (1991), he believed that this was his version of "The Great Train Robbery." I'm going to guess (and that's all this is) that this took place somewhere around '55-'57. I think that this could have been where WFMT came from, but I'm certainly not sure. One of the reasons I think that is that Studs Terkel was with WFMT almost from the beginning, and it was my dad who hired Studs when no one else would because of the "Red Scare." That much isn't conjecture, as I sat in a bar at O'Hare one stormy night in the 80's and listened to the two old warhorses tell me Radio stories while we all waited for our delayed flights. Finding our that my father (a famously conservative old coot by that time, in spite of his role in integrating Chicago Radio) and Studs Terkel didn't just know each other but actually seemed to enjoy each other's company, was quite a shock. But Radio is Radio, eh?
Shades of Bob and Ray's fictional stations--the simulcast of WFMF and WFMF-FM (_NEVER_ WFMF AM and FM). The call signs are always articulated by Ray Goulding in the voice of a guy who pronounced the letter F in much the same way as Bugs Bunny would have.Lindsay Wood Davis said:There was a WAAF-FM, but I don't think it ever amounted to much.
Jerry Leighton
Jerry Leighton, who was on the radio in Chicago in the 1960s, died in California in 1985. Does anyone know any of his family members? He use to work at a station I listened to, and I would like to contact them for photos, recordings, to help preserve his contribution to radio.
Jerry Leighton, who was on the radio in Chicago in the 1960s, died in California in 1985. Does anyone know any of his family members? He use to work at a station I listened to, and I would like to contact them for photos, recordings, to help preserve his contribution to radio.
Re: Jerry Leighton
I don't know any of Jerry Leighton's family. but he sure was funny during his WAAF days. I don't know where Jerry was working when he died, but I remember hearing him on LA area radio after he left Chicago in the mid 60s.
shreveville said:Jerry Leighton, who was on the radio in Chicago in the 1960s, died in California in 1985. Does anyone know any of his family members? He use to work at a station I listened to, and I would like to contact them for photos, recordings, to help preserve his contribution to radio.
I don't know any of Jerry Leighton's family. but he sure was funny during his WAAF days. I don't know where Jerry was working when he died, but I remember hearing him on LA area radio after he left Chicago in the mid 60s.
Jerry was my father. He passed away in 1985. I have some old radio stuff in a box. I also have a recording from the late 1950's where he had a call into his show from Glen Campbell. I don't really come to this forum, so you are welcome to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Tod
Tod
WAAF was/is one of the first 50 radio stations licensed in the US that still exist (as WNTD). It was too close to WWJ Detroit to be fulltime, even with 500 watts, until directional antennas started becoming more common in the late 1930s to early 1940s. Then, problems with having to have two sites due to the centrally located daytime site, a required complicated multitower directional antenna, a huge North South oriented city spanning nearly 30 miles, and getting a nighttime interference free signal over 80 percent of the city, all while getting a lot of grandfathered interference from WWJ (since the late 1930s a 5000 watt two tower array with just two shallow 1000 watt equivalent nulls toward WPEN and KPRC until the late 1990s), were some of the problems. Also, until sometime in the 1960s, you couldn't increase power at night, and you had to be 1000 or 5000 watts, no more than 5000 watts, and nothing officially in between. All this led to WAAF...WNTD not being authorized fulltime until circa 1980.
Last edited:
- Status
- This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.