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WNOX, WJBE, Cas Walker, et al

W

wja30319

I grew up in south Knoxville (1957-1975), and started travelling here again recently, and noticed the big changes in the radio scene. Like what happened to AM990 WNOX? When I was young, that was the coolest station, playing all the AM radio hits of the sixties! I used to have to put the radio under my covers to listen so my parents wouldn't dog me for listening to devil music. Also, with the recent death of James Brown, I was thinking about WJBE (James Brown Enterprises). Are they still on the air?

And on a completely unrelated note: if anyone has any old film or tape of the Cas Walker spots from the sixties, like the ones where he stood before the easel and talked about the week's specials, or especially the "Thumpin' Good" animated watermelon spot, I would really appreciate a chance to acquire these or any other material for an internet/Web project I'm doing...thanks
 
Ah, the good ole days. Around 1982 WNOX was bouhgt by Mack Sanders (someone with more money than sense) and wanted a country station. They were still pulling decent numbers before the switch but died a painfully slow death for the next couple of years until it was sold again but the damage had been done and the BIG 99 was never the same. Dick Broadcasting acquired the station and donated AM 850 to the University of Tenn. It's been news/talk and now all sports for quite a few years.

WJBE was sold back around 1979 and changed calls to WBMK. It struggled along at it's Prosser Rd location until the mid or late 80's when it finally went dark.

As for the Cas Walker tapes you might contact someone at WBIR TV in Knoxville. They would probably have some old footage somewhere.
 
A little more up to date info on WNOX and AM 990. AM 990 is now WNML and goes by the name Sports Animal. They run live sports and sports talk 24/7. Up until a few years ago they were news/talk, but the current owner, Citadel moved the news/talk format and the WNOX calls to FM 100.3 where they live on.
 
knoxbob said:
Ah, the good ole days. Around 1982 WNOX was bouhgt by Mack Sanders (someone with more money than sense) and wanted a country station. They were still pulling decent numbers before the switch but died a painfully slow death for the next couple of years until it was sold again but the damage had been done and the BIG 99 was never the same. Dick Broadcasting acquired the station and donated AM 850 to the University of Tenn. It's been news/talk and now all sports for quite a few years.

WJBE was sold back around 1979 and changed calls to WBMK. It struggled along at it's Prosser Rd location until the mid or late 80's when it finally went dark.

As for the Cas Walker tapes you might contact someone at WBIR TV in Knoxville. They would probably have some old footage somewhere.
Click to expand...
Didn't WNOX go dark a couple of months or so before Dick Broadcasting acquired the station? I left Knoxville in 1986 and for some reason was led to believe WNOX went dark at 990 AM for a while.
 
For a while, I was the WBIR-TV anchor for the news breaks inside The Cas Walker Show, then CBS Morning News With Hughes Rudd. One morning, Cas had been hunting all night and brought several of what The Ole Coon Hunter hunted the best right to the studio and laid 'em out in front of his chair. They rapidly warmed and started stiffening and stinking.
I'm sure the Ronco Noodles rep came close to suffering a heart attack if he was listening the morning Cas was flipping his art cards, listing his specials, and said "Ye know, them things look just like heartworms in a dog".
 
The older I get and the more homogenized it seems our culture gets, the more I am amazed by what I grew up watching on TV in Ktown. Cas Walker, Clayton's Startime, Mull Singing Convention, Saturday wrestling from Chilhowee park, my kids can't believe it.
 
Wow I love this topic. I worked at WBIR-FM in the late 70s (and early 80s at WIMZ) and was among several of the "blessed" announcers who got to run the board for J. Basil and Lady for their Saturday night radio Singing Conventions. I know this has come up elsewhere on this board, but I still grin thinking about how their contract with the station kept them on for several weeks after the format change from country to rock. "We got singin', Lady Mull?" Carson Cooper
 
At the time they switched I believe Tim Edwards was the PD and they were losing ground playing AC so they switched to country since WIVK was pulling in 20+ in the numbers they wanted part of the pie. After that didn't go over very well they went to oldies in 1982 and soon after went dark.
 
radioediter said:
For a while, I was the WBIR-TV anchor for the news breaks inside The Cas Walker Show, then CBS Morning News With Hughes Rudd. One morning, Cas had been hunting all night and brought several of what The Ole ------ Hunter hunted the best right to the studio and laid 'em out in front of his chair. They rapidly warmed and started stiffening and stinking.
I'm sure the Ronco Noodles rep came close to suffering a heart attack if he was listening the morning Cas was flipping his art cards, listing his specials, and said "Ye know, them things look just like heartworms in a dog".
Click to expand...

My goodness, I remember hearing about that. Cousin Cas also did that at WATE-TV back in the 50's.
Calvin Sneed
 
Didn't WNOX go dark a couple of months or so before Dick Broadcasting acquired the station? I left Knoxville in 1986 and for some reason was led to believe WNOX went dark at 990 AM for a while.
[/quote]

You are correct. The original "WNOX-AM 990" did go dark back around April or May of 1988, and did not come back on the air until September 1, 1988 as the new "WIVK-AM 990".

WNOX-AM was sold to Dick Broadcasting sometime around late 1987 or late 1988.

Very few people remember this, however in early March of 1988, WNOX switched from Country Music to "Golden Oldies 50's and 60's." It sounded great IMO. They even brought back and used the original "PAMS Jet Set WNOX 99'er Jingles" from 1964 to make the station's new format sound like a time machine. Marty Shane was the PD of the new oldies format on WNOX.

Then only 2 weeks later REBS who owned WNOX at the time pulled the plug on the new oldies format, and started simulcasting the station with it's Top 40 FM Sister Station at the time, which was "953 WTNZ-FM". The WNOX calls were dropped and replaced with WTNZ. The AM 990 frequency simulcasted with 953 WTNZ-FM for around one month before it went dark.

Then sometime around April or May after the sale of WNOX-AM to Dick Broadcasting was finalized they shut the signal off and went dark for around 4 months until Dick Broadcasting brought it back on at midnight on September 1, 1988 at 12 Midnight.

Citadel put the WNOX calls back on AM 990 back sometime in the 90's and simulcasted with 99.1 and 99.3-FM as "NEWS TALK 99", however Citadel screwed the station up again when they removed the WNOX calls to 100.3-FM and replaced them with WNML, which was a very lame move IMO.
 
cheapman said:
What is 953 TNZ now?
Click to expand...

953 TNZ is now "95.3 WYFC" which has had a Satellite Automated "Christian" format on it since late 1989.

It has been owned by "The Bible Broadcasting Network", since that year, and the last I heard the studio is located at the transmitter site.
 
Back in the early 1960's, WNOX was on the Cincinnati Reds Radio Network. I remember picking the station up at night from south-central Kentucky in 1962 and hearing the voice of Waite Hoyt, the Reds announcer.

When I think of Knoxville, I remember going through the town in late August of 1963. On a Sunday night around 9 'o clock several of us went into a large supermarket there to pick up some items for camping in the near-by Smokey Mountains. That store was larger than anything I had seen before. When we were leaving, one of the clerks walked out to the car with us. One of my friends said it was probably close to quitting time for him. The young man said it really wasn't, noting the store would be open for a couple of more hours. That really suprised me since in Cincinnati back then, supermarkets were closed on Sundays, much less open to 11 P.M. I don't know if this was a Winn-Dixie or not, but I've always remembered its size and the fact that it was open that late on a Sunday.
 
MusicDoctorRadio said:
The original "WNOX-AM 990" did go dark back around April or May of 1988, and did not come back on the air until September 1, 1988 as the new "WIVK-AM 990".
Click to expand...

I'd been told that the only reason 990 remained on-air through the winter of 88 was their contract for UT basketball. As I understand it, 990 signed off and went dark immediately after the end of the final post game show of the 87/88 season.
 
Okay -- clear this up for me: DID Cas actually use the phrase "Nobody can beat my meat?" in a TV ad? It's certainly the stuff of urban legend -- and it does match his m.o. -- but I'd love to see it (YouTube, anyone?)

Thanks for the great thread. I'm a ET radio alum from the 70s and I miss TN more and more every year! "We Got Singin', Lady Mull?"


Carson
 
The Cas Walker Show actually premiered on WATE-TV back in the early 50's, before WBIR-TV signed on the air. I found some old two-inch black and white tapes of the old Cas Walker shows stored in the basement at Greystone when I did a 30-year anniversary show for PM Magazine in 1983. Channel 6 had moved all their really old tapes to the basement after the studio moved to various locations after Sharp's Ridge. Fortunately, somebody had the foresight to record the shows on the station's newly purchased (in 1954) RCA videotape recorders, those huge floor-standing monsters that weighed a ton apiece.

I remember seeing on the tapes Archie Campbell, Chet Atkins, Roy Acuff, the Smoky Mountain Boys, and the Carter Family, all East Tennessee products. Also, Cas, hawking everything from shortening and flour, to furniture. He also promoted a newly remodeled store in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I think.

I think I know where the tapes are, but I don't know if they're viewable.. the two shows I remember were on old tape, and old tape crumbles easily.. Besides that, nobody has a two-inch videotape machine anymore to play them. They barely have 3/4's-inch tape machines now.

Calvin Sneed
 
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