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WAMA Selma, 1974

danhughes

danhughes

I did afternoons at WAMA from early 1974 until the station went off the air about a year later. Music director was deep-voiced Joe Bolton, sports director was Bill Gamel (now does TV news somewhere in Mississippi). A guy named Jay something did mornings when I started there, but left soon afterwards. Harry something was manager. He left after I was there a few months, and he was replaced by a young guy from Nebraska named Phil Taylor. We had a fulltime secretary, too, but I can't remember her name. Phil went back to Nebraska when the station went dark, and he owned some radio stations there now.

WAMA ("Wama in Bama") was a beautiful station, and it played Top 40 when I started, but switched to a rock/country hybrid format a few months before it went dark. A really weird format, alternating a country song with a top 40 song, over and over. WHBB was doing top 40 and I think WTUN had gone to country by then, so rock/country probably alienated both audiences.

I remember showing up for an airshift one morning and finding the doors locked. The bank had closed it down, I guess. Never did get my stuff back that had been inside the office.

My pay in 1974 (for a fulltime gig) was $140 a week.

---Dan Hughes, http://danhughes.net
 
Happy to say that your former home on the old Jeff Davis Avenue, now J.L. Chestnut Jr. Blvd, still stands.

A mental health facility now occupies that building.

Now don't even ask about the change in the street name.

That would take forever to explain anyway.

That Harry fellow had the last name of Bolen.

I checked out some of the old phone directories i recently found and discovered after WAMA went dark, Mr. Harry went into the insurance business.

R.D.P. <><
 
R.D.P. said:
Happy to say that your former home on the old Jeff Davis Avenue, now J.L. Chestnut Jr. Blvd, still stands.

That Harry fellow had the last name of Bolen.

I checked out some of the old phone directories i recently found and discovered after WAMA went dark, Mr. Harry went into the insurance business.
Click to expand...

Harry Bolen! Yes! Thank you!

And I did a Sunday interview show called Focus, wherein many a time my guest was J.L. Chestnut Jr. I even took the campaign photos that appear in his book (uncredited, sad to say) when he ran for (I think) the Alabama senate. I drove him to Montgomery to shoot some pictures in front of the government building, and we had quite an interesting conversation on the way there and back. (I did wedding photography too.)
 
msugrad2000 said:
Bill Gamel is on morning on WCBI TV 4 in Columbus, MS.
Click to expand...

You'll like this - when he was working out his two-week notice at WAMA radio (he had been hired to do sports for TV channel 8 in Selma), he taped a dot to the studio window in front of him and pretended it was a video camera. And when he was reading the sports on the air, he'd stare at that dot. He was practicing for TV!

Musta' worked pretty well - 38 years later, he's still in the biz!

Now - anybody know whatever became of Joe Bolton? Last I heard he was somehow associated with a race track in Birmingham.
 
Reading all this nostalgia brings back memories for me.

I remember the first time I spoke on a radio station.  I shared some of my written works, I was doing at the time, with a friend.  After reading it, Mr. Dean Wilson approached me and said D. I want you to read some of these pages for me and record them.  I got myself a cheap battery operated tape recorder, back in 1996 and started reading.  Had the tape player pooched in-between my legs, while sitting in a rocking chair.   Recorded my readings and did the best I could. After I got through recording, I took the tape to Mr. Dean Wilson and the rest is history.  He put me on this little radio station, he was helping to run and people was telling him how much they loved my voice.  They loved it so much, he kept me on.  After he retired from the local contact guy position, a new person came in.  That person said he liked my voice so much, I want to keep on you on.  I was excited and carried on.  Kept on speaking till 2003.  When WAQU moved from Selma and upgraded that gig came to an end. 

I'm also thankful to Ms. Kitty Windham for teaching me how to talk, when I was 5 years old.  She was the first person that took up time with me and taught me how to speak to everyone.  That woman is now dead but I will never forget her for as long as I live.

Such great memories indeed.

And yes I'm still excited about my possible return to the radio business.  Ready to hear myself speak again.  Miss doing this!  I will be very excited should the door open for me again.

R.D.P. <><
 
Selma radio

Hi, Dan --

Really enjoyed your recollections on "Wama in 'Bama" (great slogan) and WHBB.  I love reading these old stories. 

My question centers on WTQX ("Twixie") and its place in the competition.  5 kW high-dial daytimer that programmed top-40 for a time, at least in 1970.  Two airchecks exist of a midday jock named Dave Paxton - one from March '70 and a full hour dated July 3 of that year.  It didn't sound half bad. 

Anyway, that would suggest all three AMs in Selma at the time were doing top-40.  Very odd, particularly when you factor in WVOK and WBAM, and maybe WSGN to some degree. 

I read somewhere that WTQX had flipped to an urban format by 1973.  What was their story??  Have to say my curiosity is raised about Selma radio. 

--Russell
 
Stayed Urban till they went silent in 1995. 

In the late 70s, Bob Carl Bailey from the Florence area purchased this station.

He kept it going till that time.

That's the year it went silent.

A few years later, he passed on.

His offspring are still living and run his other radio station, in the Florence area, known as WZZA.

R.D.P. <><

P.S. The old tower for WTQX still stands too.  Amazing isn't it. 
 
Re: WAMA Selma, 1974 (but this one is about WHBB and WTQX)

Russell, I'm not the ultimate authority and my memory is shaky, but I don't remember WTQX ever doing anything but soul.

I arrived in Selma in March 1970 and started working at WHBB that summer, I believe. At the time I was unaware of the other Selma stations. I do remember a Montgomery (or Birmingham?) station that had a popular oldies show called Dan's Dusty Discs in the daytime, and later there was a fantastic midday announcer at Montgomery's WHHY who was both brilliant and hilarious. But I can't recall his name! He had a "sidekick" who was an Italian chef, and one of his bits was showing silent home movies on the air. You'd hear the whirr and clicking of the projector as he described the scene.

I don't think I ever listened to WAMA until I started working there, about 1974. And though WTQX was a black station, I think WHBB's Jim Stallings (also black) had virtually the entire black audience to himself every night when he was on. (I was on immediately following Jim, so it was a harsh seque from Jim's R&B to my Top 40). Jim had won some kind of national small market award when he worked at the Marion station, before WHBB.

Another memory - Julius Talton coming into the station unannounced on early Sunday mornings once in a while, checking my transmitter logs to be sure I was taking the readings every half hour. (I was.)

Also - we ran a HUGE reel of tape, probably at 15/16 ips, that recorded the entire broadcast day (6am to 10pm) on one side of one tape. As the last DJ on at night, I had change that tape every night after signoff. We had 183 of those tapes, enough to keep an entire year's backlog. Each night I'd cue up the tape that was labelled the same day but the year before. So we always had the full previous year of WHBB broadcasts recorded.

Once in a while they had to refer to those tapes to determine whether or not commercials aired as logged. My guess is that their primary purpose was to be used as evidence that WHBB was doing the public service shows they were required to air, if the need for proof arose.
 
Re: WAMA Selma, 1974 (but this one is about WHBB and WTQX)

danhughes said:
Russell, I'm not the ultimate authority and my memory is shaky, but I don't remember WTQX ever doing anything but soul.

*SNIP* At the time I was unaware of the other Selma stations. I do remember a Montgomery (or Birmingham?) station that had a popular oldies show called Dan's Dusty Discs in the daytime, and later there was a fantastic midday announcer at Montgomery's WHHY who was both brilliant and hilarious. But I can't recall his name! He had a "sidekick" who was an Italian chef, and one of his bits was showing silent home movies on the air. You'd hear the whirr and clicking of the projector as he described the scene.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for your insight.

'TQX was for much of its time a soul station, but the two recordings I've heard indicate that in much of 1970, they were straight-ahead top-40. Sounded pretty good for what it was. Anyway, it's just one window in time for this station, and I've always been curious about it. It did make much better sense, given Selma's population spread, to have a dedicated R&B station.

In any event, I'll make a mental note to upload the March '70 aircheck later tonight and you'll see what I mean.

Oh, and "Dan's Dusty Discs" was the creation of Dan Brennan, afternoon drive jock (and part owner) of WVOK 690 in Birmingham. The Brennan family also owned WBAM 740, and a Montgomery version of DDD was also produced.

I don't know about the WHHY jock, but I'm guessing it could have been Larry Stevens. That was about the time he started there, but I've no idea when he moved to his longtime morning drive gig.


Also - we ran a HUGE reel of tape, probably at 15/16 ips, that recorded the entire broadcast day (6am to 10pm) on one side of one tape. As the last DJ on at night, I had change that tape every night after signoff. We had 183 of those tapes, enough to keep an entire year's backlog. Each night I'd cue up the tape that was labelled the same day but the year before. So we always had the full previous year of WHBB broadcasts recorded.
Click to expand...

And the question of the decade would be: Does at least ONE of those reels still exist in the bowels of Lauderdale Street??!! Oh, for the chance to digitize and preserve "A day at WHBB" for posterity. I'd gladly do it! ;D

Those low-speed logger tapes are a curious thing - not many stations had them, especially those live-staffed. That seemed to be largely the function of automated facilities, as a form of authentication for sponsors.

--Russell
 
Not Larry Stevens at WHHY. Larry did mornings, and was professional but not so funny as this guy I'm trying to remember. His "chef" did a recipe every day.
 
Loved that clip.

It was awesome.

However I was still in creation, when it came out.

My birth took place in 1971.

Showing my age here.

R.D.P. <><

P.S. Now let's play another game. See if you remember this one Mr. Dan. Broad Street and most of Downtown Selma was influenced very heavily by the Jewish community. I remember that and my own parents made me aware of it too. That would explain the reason why many of the ad spots you aired on WHBB and WAMA sounded like they did.

B.T.W. Thanks for sharing these memories with this 41 year old something. Glad that I can still learn from this site. Don't know what happened to Mr. Mathis but the church he preached for, is still standing, just north of Selma off Highway 22 east. That Church is now a daycare center. I remember reading about him being heard weekdays at 11:06 A.M. on WAMA 1340 AM, thanks to some old phone books my mother still has. I didn't know too much about that man anyway. I was a little baby when he was here. Believe he was a Hellfire type of Preacher. When I looked up the name of that church in those same phone books, discovered it was an Independent Baptist Church. Hence my reason for giving him that label. When he came on, I could imagine that you would have to adjust the volume level, just to keep up with his voice. And yes I do remember where your old tower was too. A housing complex for the seniors now sits on the dirt road that took you there. This road was located on Franklin street and the tower was behind the Selma Mall. The tower was torn down in the 1980s. I saw some people tearing it down, when it happened. Can't remember the exact year but they tore it down little steps at the time.
 
Just played that clip for my mother.

She informed me that the joke being told was sent in by her.

The prize she won, was $5.00.

Even had the opportunity to read it herself over his program.

Amazing isn't it.

Thanks again for posting the clip Mr. Russel W.

R.D.P. <><
 
I knew nothing of the Jewish presence in Selma when I was there. Mostly Baptists, it seemed to me!

And I don't recognize the name Rev. Mathis. He wasn't on WAMA when I was there.

I did Sunday mornings at WHBB in 1970-73, and at WAMA 1974, and I worked with a lot of preachers who were on for 15 minutes or 30 minutes each Sunday morning.

Deacon Henry Smiley (STILL on WHBB) is the one I remember best. A super-nice guy, always friendly and laughing, and I was fascinated by the way he casually inserted Roach-Kill commercials into his sermons.

One more preacher story - I did Sunday mornings at WKRP (Honest! It was in Dallas, GA; an Atlanta suburb) in 1979-80, and I had one preacher who was live for 15 minutes every Sunday morning. His sermons were something to behold! He would drop to a suspenseful whisper, then suddenly shout at the top of his lungs: "My friends, do you believe? Do you believe? .... DO YOU BELIEVE!"

First time he did that, it nearly blew my headphones off and pegged the needles bigtime. I quickly learned to anticipate those outbursts, my hand constantly on the Mic 2 pot.
 
danhughes said:
Not Larry Stevens at WHHY. Larry did mornings, and was professional but not so funny as this guy I'm trying to remember. His "chef" did a recipe every day.
Click to expand...

Just heard from Kris O'Kelly - he says the DJ in question was Isaac Dixon. Weird - I have no memory of that name!
 
Now I'm reading some info taken from a 1975 edition of the Selma Telephone Book.

According to the ad for that Church, you could hear a broadcast of theirs Saturday mornings at 7:15 A.M. on 1340 AM.

The name of that Church was The First Bible Baptist Church.

Their Preacher's name was Rev. Winfred Mathis.

The 1974 Phone Book had it listed in the same ad, that his program could be heard at 11:06 A.M. Weekdays on 1340 AM.

Hope that full name of the Preacher and Church will ring a bell with you.

If it doesn't then blame the phone book for making a false claim about my info.

Thanks anyway for sharing these wonderful memories with me.

I appreciate it.

R.D.P. <><
 
I think it's another case of my shaky memory.

A partial explanation - I wasn't at the station on Saturdays, and Rev Mathis' show could well have aired Saturday morning and I never heard it.

I don't remember it being on the air on weekdays, but I did afternoons my first few months there, then nights, so I may have just missed it in the morning. I do remember the name Winfred Mathis, so I had to have heard him somewhere.
 
Here's a link for all us old timers to check out.

It will give a detailed history of every radio station that has ever existed.

Even gives info about the old WAMA and what they were doing when they were on.

You can check this out when you get the chance.

I love the site myself.

It's awesome.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Radio_Archives.htm

R.D.P. <><

P.S. Might even find some info on the old WKRP radio from Dallas Georgia in here too.
 
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