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Yazoo City

H

Henry McClurg

The news of the tornado in Yazoo City brought back some memories. Yazoo City had two radio stations, in the 60's-70's, WAZF at 1230 and the other station who's call I cannot remember. WAZF's studio was downtown. I called on them on behalf of MRN (the Mississippi Radio Network, the state's version of an NBC or CBS). The station's manager was woman, a very nice woman. I don't remember whether they became an affiliate of MRN or not. I think they did.

Yazoo City was the gateway to the Delta for those traveling from Jackson. There were two gas stations on the edge of town. You had better fill 'er up. Before you were a couple of hundred miles of flat, fertile land, still farming mainly cotton in those days. Belzoni was the first stop in the Delta, where Herb Guthrie, a manager of WRBC in the rock 'n roll days, had bought WELZ to settle down.

Oh, well, memories. Can anyone add to the history of radio in Yazoo City?
 
1. Willie Morris worked at WAZF as a teen.
2. The other station was WJNS, an FM owned in part by Joel Netherland.
3. For a brief period, there was a third station also affiliated with WJNS, a directional daytime AM. Did not last long.
 
I saw where WJNS had a construction permit to move the tower closer to Jackson. the last I checked it still had all day Jimmy Swaggart on it. I used to pick up WAZF sometimes when I was a kid. How long has that station been off the air? I had forgotten all about that one.
 
The other AM was WYAZ. It had the distinction of having the first black country DJ in the area. J. Boyd is right - WYAZ didn't last long.
 
WAZF went off sometime in the mid-90's if I remember correctly. A fellow from Texas named Michael Augustus had it when they finally padlocked the doors.
 
WYAZ was at 1530 with 250 watts and 3 tower DA I seem to recall ... that sounds like a facility not worth fooling with ... low power, top of dial, daytime only, and the expense of erecting and maintaining a DA.
 
Henry- I know for a fact that WJNS went with MRN, because at WBAQ in Greenville, we picked up our MRN signal off their air signal. Therefore, I got to listen to a little bit of WJNS every day during my shift at stereo 98.
 
Rob, I remember WBAQ. It was actually licensed to Leland, I believe. Paul Artman (was that the name?) was one of the nicest guys in radio. I remember when we got a contract to run Charles Evers for Governor political commericals. Paul was one the guys I went to and asked (after all, it was early 1970's Mississippi), "Should we accept these commericals?" Paul said, in effect, "Absolutely!" So, not only did we run these radio commericals for the brother of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers, I was the announcer on them.

I remember sitting down with Charles at his campaign office on Farish Street in Jackson, and asking him how should we produce these. He said that, Henry, you're the announcer, you come up with what to say. So I said, "Why don't we shock them?" Charles said, "Okay."

The commerical ran something like "Don't vote for the black man." (Pause, to give listeners time to think, "What did he just say?") And then, "Don't vote for the white man. Vote for the man who will bring better education, better highways, etc., etc. to Mississippi. Vote for Charles Evers for governor."

To this day, I'm quite proud of what I did around 1970 in Mississippi.
 
Henry: WBAD 94.3 (black station) was licensed to Leland, WBAQ 97.9 licensed to Greenville. Wouldn't have advised having two sets of call letters that similar in the same market. Also licensed to Leland: WESY 1580, also a black station. There is some overlapping ownership between WBAD and WESY.
 
J Alex: Your half wrong on this one. (Of course, that means you're also half right.) WBAQ was licensed to Leland. But why don't you come to Houston and I'll sit you down, explain everything. and take you out to dinner in the finest restaurant in the Bayou City. I'll have my friend, Mayor Annise Parker, join us.
 
Off topic, sorry, but here I go... I wasn't aware of WBAQ being licensed to Leland, but it was decidedly Greenville when I was there in 1972. The tower was on the roof of the May Building, and the studios on the top floor. As a 14-year-old, it was kinda spooky when I would get to work the sign off shift, being the only (living) person in that seemingly big downtown building at midnight.

WBAQ signed on daily with "Dixie", and signed off with "The Lord's Prayer" by Jim Nabors. They ran American Information network at the top of the hour, MRN news at :30, Paul Harvey and Howard Cosell. The rest of the time it was Ray Coniff, Mantovani, Andy Williams, Peggy Lee, and if you really were playing it fast and loose, The Carpenters. Mr Artman's method of restricting cuts was to take a knife and scratch through tracks that were off limits. The final hour of the broadcast day, 11 to midnight, was "Stereo Showcase". It was reserved for concert albums, musical soundtracks, fairly uninterrupted. I got in BIG trouble one time when I filled in for the usual night guy, a genuine WJDX-FM listening hippie, who called in and goaded me into playing some wilder stuff during Showcase (as if Mr. Artman would not find out... what was I thinking!)

At the time I started there, they still ran commercials off of two Sony reel to reel recorders. They had a five-pot Sparta board, and you did production in "audition" during a long record. The Collins transmitter was directly through the glass from the control room. Dave Dunaway and Jim Chick preceded me there, and went on to JDX and beyond. The kid who took my place when I jumped across town to WDDT was Rob Roberts, who years later became the PD at Y-100 in Miami.

WBAD, which was a Leland station from the get-go, was located in a quonset hut in a cotton field between Greenville and Leland. (But then again, isn't everything that's not on a city street located "in a cotton field" in that part of the world?). I came very close to working there, but chickened out at the last minute, having a fairly narrow focus on becoming an AM top-40 legend. They used a TASCAM production board as their on-air console, which at the time seemed very exotic with its slide faders and such.

Meanwhile, back in Yazoo City...
 
WBAD is off topic, I agree, but if a discussion on it ensues, I can offer a lot of history ... the two guys who started the station (and still own it, I believe), were close friends of mine in the 70s and 80s.
 
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