WMPT Radio and Kelly Watts' BLOG

Duane Eddy about Roy Orbison

2011-09-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Duane Eddy is one of the GOOD GUYS in rock and roll. Born in Corning New York, Duane and his family spent many summers in Towanda, Pa near my home town. It was a real pleasure for me to become friends with him during my interviews on "The Class Reunion." But the story I want to relat here is about an artist I never had the opportunity to interview, and artist that left us way too soon, that being Roy Orbison.

I saw a biography of Roy Orbison, and I could not remember if Duane and I ever talked about him, so I sent Duane a note, the following is his reply.

“Yes, I knew Roy Orbison... He was a wonderfully sweet man. I enjoyed talking to him and loved to hear him sing! He grew up in West Texas, I believe. We were about the same age, and had the same influences and pretty much the same type experiences (playing high school dances, honky tonks etc., etc.)
We liked the same artists and the same music shaped our choices of what we did when we began making records.
Did you know he was one of Elvis Presley's favorite singers?
I was in England on the sad day in December 1988 when he died, and was asked to say a few words about Roy for a couple of reporters at my hotel. I did that, and then afterward went for a walk alone.
It was a cold night, just after 5 o'clock and already dark. Christmas lights were on and twinkling, and all the stores and the streets were decorated.
I was walking up Regent Street still thinking about Roy and how he'd died way too young, and I could hear the sounds of radios playing, coming out of shops as I walked past, as well as from cars and taxis slowly driving by in the evening rush hour. They were all tuned to the same station - the BBC. (and nobody there listens to much else because at certain times of day, there is nothing much else to listen to! They only have a couple of radio stations in London.)
The station was re-playing an interview of Roy Orbison's that he'd done a year before. As I walked along, I listened to the entire interview, hearing it fade in and out as I passed along between shops. Then I heard my name and realized Roy was talking about me. He was relating the story of how he'd gotten to do the first big Beatle Tour of England, in 1963, and how it had rejuvenated his career. He told of how I'd been scheduled to do the tour but couldn't do it for some reason, so he'd gotten to replace me.
I'd heard him tell this story before, on a TV show we did together in L.A., as well as several other times through the years. Roy would always thank me when he told the story, as if I'd personally engineered it so that he'd gotten to do the tour. (which I hadn't)
He went on to say, "So in a way, I really owe a lot to Duane Eddy. If he hadn't cancelled the tour, I wouldn't have gotten it... So thanks Duane."
The announcer didn't say anything for a few seconds, and as I walked along I could hear Roy's voice echoing through the street, saying, "... so thanks Duane, Duane, Duane.......
It was an eerie feeling, especially since I'd just said some words about him because he had died. And then to hear him talk about me, and address me personally, was weird.
But, as I say, a great guy, a great singer and Roy has made more money since he died than he ever did in his lifetime. Isn't that ironic and strange? “

My radio influences

2011-09-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Me in about 1974 at WILQ the "board" is the first one I rand in 1964 at WLYC.

Whenever I look back over the years I spent in radio I can't help but think of the people in media who had a profound influence on me. Most of them were local D.J.'s and I think my on air style is a little piece of each of them. Please bear with e while I remember some of them.

Bill Sherwood: One of the first D.J.'s I actually met, I watched him do a record hop in Canton, Pa, and that really got me interested in pursuing a radio career.

Dick Crownover: Dick was 18 when I met him, he seemed older, but I got to know him at his record hops in Montousville, Williamsport, and South Williamsport. Also I made it a habit to show up at his remotes whenever I could. Dick went out of his way to show me the basics, and even allowed me to cover for him when he took a break. I think I learned a lot about managing people from Dick as he was the Program Director that hired me there.

Ana Davis: No not the one from the Brady Bunch, although I am sure at times she felt like we were a bunch of kids. Ann was the first Program Director I ever worked for at WLYC. she taught me a lot about how to break formats, probably that was not her intention. Ann pretty much would let me play anything I wanted on the air as long as I play one Frank Sinatra song an hour. This of course suited my wide musical taste.

Mike Sarlo: My buddy at WLYC, we worked hand in hand to crack each other up on and off the air. Mike was a true talent who probably should have been in major market radio, but worked in the trenches with the rest of us. Mike taught me a lot about country music and was a damn fine country music songwriter and artist. We were always pulling a prank on each other and it usually succeeded in one of us "losing it" on the air. Mike passed away at far too young an age, I was so devastated I could not go to the funeral or viewing.

Dave Castelbury; Dave was the owner of WMPT, in many ways he was like a father to me, even though he used to kick me out of the radio station on a VERY regular basis. He didn't give me my first job, BUT he did give me my first sales, programming, and management positions. He also was more than gracious to show me some of the engineering ropes along the way. while I never gained the real nuts and bolts technical knowledge, I did gain the practical knowledge to work with engineering staffs over the years and be able to communicate ideas and actually help. Well I did manage to be a studio engineer and work on a lot of equipment over the years. Dave was another one who left us far too early in life and really should be considered as on of the real pioneers of broadcasting.

These are just some of the many people who have helped me along the way. check back on ths posting as I add more.

Record Hops, Remotes, and more

2011-02-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

Even though I started in radio officially in December of 1964 I actually did a few record hops prior to that time. If I remember, my first was about a year earlier for the Drama Club or Warrior Run High School in Turbotville, Pa. My friend Bob Ott was the advisor and asked me if I would do the hop as a fund raiser for the group. I don't remember much about it except I had to borrow some equipment from an old friend Lewis “Slim” Bogen, he had taken the guts from an old juke box and made a Pa amplifier. Not long after that I acquired a Lafayette Pa amp, Mic, turn table and speakers and over the course of the sumer I did several record hops at the town park in Watsontown as well as a dance for a Citizens Band Club Jamboree at the Lycoming County Fair Grounds.

The summer of 1965, after High School Graduation, I was hired to do the tennis court dances at my Alma Matter, Montoursville High School. They were a lot of fun and some great experience for a young D.J. One of the strangest things I ever saw happen during a gig was there, I actually was driving the speakers so hard one of them caught fire, fortunately the damage was limited to one speaker and we kept going.

During my time at WLYC we didn't do a lot of remotes because the station really didn't have a very big audience. However the first remote I remember doing was the Lycoming County Fair in 1965. We were on the air each day from 10 AM to 6:00 PM, and the duties were shared by myself, Bob Johnson, Mike Sarlo, and Nick Green. The deal was we would be on the air for an hour or two and then we were off for two hours, during that time we did get a break and also were supposed to walk around and get interviews from the exhibitors who bought commercials and from the non profits exhibitors as well. They we would play them back during the times we were on the air and if any were left the other jocks would use them.

After I went to WMPT the remotes were a pretty regular occurrence, most times I would be the second guy, usually working with Dick Crownover. Let me tell you Dick was one of the best people I have ever seen to find things to talk about. I give Dick a lot of credit for teaching me the ropes. I think that one of the first remotes I did with Dick was at the former Town & Country Department Store on W. Fourth Street in Williamsport, the highlight of that remote was me describing the inside of a Styrofoam cooler. After Dick left WMPT I pretty much became the “remote guy” and the list of business was quite interesting and included:
Car dealers, Gas Stations, Supermarkets, Department Stores, a Sheraton Hotel, Fire Department Carnivals, Mobile Home Dealers, County Fairs, Restaurants, Appliance Stores, Shopping Centers, Banks, Air Shows, and of course record hops. I've done remotes at all hours of the day, and HIGHT. I remember a couple of remotes I did for the former Tri-State Discount Department store in the Newberry section of Williamsport. These were ALL NIGHT remotes! I guess I was the only one crazy enough to do them, but I was young and the money was good. The store would run a door buster ever hour all night and I was completely surprised at the number of people who came in. The store manager had an idea, (call it a test) he would ask for people to bring in certain things for a prize. The oddest was a snake! Sure enough I hit the air with that the first person to bring in a live snake would win a prize. It could not have been more than 10 minutes and I had a very large boa constrictor paying me a visit. Now I HATE SNAKES so this event stands out in my mind.

My old Friend Steve George and I did a take off on the then popular TV Show Batman. Our characters were Fatman and Ribbon, yes in those days Steve was skinny and I was, well fluffy! I can remember we did a couple of remotes for L.L. Stearns Department Store in costume, I certainly hope that any pictures of those appearances are long faded! Yes, we also participated in a Donkey Base Ball Game in costume as well. At the time I owned a 1961 Forest Green Lincoln Continental, yes, it was “The Fatmobile.” Right after the flood of 1972, Steve and I did a remote for the Nesbit Volunteer Company at their carnival. We were the guest “dunkees” on their dunk tank. We had a mike positioned so the guy in the hot (or wet) seat could be on the air talking with the other person located a bit away in a slightly drier location. I guess no one thought to warm the water and the first dunk into it was to say the least “awakening.” I still to this day don't know how we managed to keep the four letter words off the air, but we did.

Car dealer remotes were usually, in those days the new car show was pretty exciting stuff, car dealers built excitement up to the “NEW CAR SHOWING”. I think it was 1968, Bob Jackson and I were doing the new car showing at Wyno Volkswagen and we had a great time and great crowd. I had owned a VW Karman Ghia so I knew the product and most of the people at the dealership. 1968 was the first year that VW installed seat belts in their cars and during one talk segment I was sitting in a “Bug” and was talking about the safety features with Bud Smith the Sales Manager. I put the seatbelt on as a test, now the problem comes in the fact I didn't know how to release it. So there I sat, Bob Jackson busting a gut laughing, along with the rest of the crowd in the showroom and there I am in the VW. No one would help me, finally after what seems like a couple of hours I found the release and got out. The only casualty of the day was that was when Bob met his future wife.

Another time I was working with Cliff Horton as the Lycoming County New Car Dealers Show at the Loyal Plaza on a beautiful summer Saturday. Well I was quite taken by an MG B that was on display. I was talking to the dealer and told him I liked the car, but didn't think I could fit in it. He said “no problem.” FIRST MISTAKE! I got in OK, BUT found that my tall torso wedged by head against the roof and I could not maneuver to get out. Did I mention this had the hard top on at the time? Well anyway, of course I was on the air and once again MY FRIENDS felt the situation was VERY funny inviting people to come see the “Canned DJ” or something like that. The dealer had to have his mechanic come to the show and remove the top so I could get out.

Some remotes are just better than others! One of my favorites was one I did for the Grand Opening of a new Sunoco Gas Station at 6th and High Streets in Williamsport. The dealer and the Sunoco Rep, Ken Andrus who I had known for years, thought a remote would be a lot of fun. They had a lot of event s planned including a band and Go Go Girls! Now you see why I said some are better than others. Well anyway, the girls were beautiful and well built and I guess my on air description was pretty good as we had traffic jammed for at least a mile in each direction!

The Loyal Plaza was a “strip plaza” of some 20+ stores and was a good account so we went out of out way to assist them in anyway we could with promotions. Santa's arrival was always a big deal there and we had our “crack” remote crew on hand for the event. Each year was a challenge to out perform the previous year and somewhere around 1976 or 77 I had a brilliant idea. So meeting with Larue Jolin and John Schneiderhand (the agency rep) we devised a plan. Santa would arrive in a helicopter! How were we going to top our coverage? WMPT had a very good two way remote system called a MARTI. Dave had the foresight to license two frequencies and we had several units capable of broadcasting on either one, plus a receiver at the studios and one at the FM transmitter site on the top of Bald Eagle Mountain. OK, it was decided that Gary Strausser and Cliff Horton would “anchor” the coverage at the plaza and I would accompany Santa in the helicopter. With the Matri units we both would be on the air and build the excitement. This of course was an evening arrival so it was pretty dark. I met the helicopter at the King Air Hanger at Williamsport Regional Airport and hooked up the Marti. The pretense was that I was meeting Santa there after his flight from the North Pole. All is set, the equipment is working flawlessly, and we take to the skies! As soon as we took off I got the station on the Marti and told them we were ready, we got on the air from the helicopter just as the helicopter broke over Sand Hill. I was talking to my “grounded” crew as was Santa. We stated to do a couple of circles of the plaza and I said to the pilot what is all the dark area's there? He said, PEOPLE! There must have been 10,000 people in the plaza. Fortunately the Loyalsock Township Fire Police did an excellent job of keeping the landing area clear so that went off without a hitch. OK, I have to get back to airport to get my car, the pilot offered to take me back down, and like a fool I said “yeah sure that would be fun.” OK, I get in the helicopter and we took off straight up for probably 1,000', my stomach was in my boots1 The he started forward headed West and did a sharp bank to head to the airport, I was looking straight down at the ground and crowd, he said something like “you want to have some fun?” I must have nodded because he did a strafing run and pulled out. I am not sure how many “G's” I pulled but it was more than the take off. I was never so glad to return to earth in my life and promptly headed for one of the radio stations “watering holes” for some “nerve tonic.”

Next time, even more fun and adventure as they unlock my chains and let me out of the studio yet again!

WKAD FM Technical

2010-11-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Engineering by Dave Johnson, Dave Castlebury, Vic Michaels II, Alan Preuss, and Kelly Watts)

WKAD, went on the air in 1978 as the second station owned by Galen D.(Dave) Castlebury Jr. the owner and founder of WMPT AM FM South Williamsport. WKAD, the call letters stood for Kelly, Alan, & Dave), was licensed to Canton, Pa frequency of 100.1 MHZ with a power of 500 watts H & V. The tower site was on Armenia Mountain, near the intersection of Lower Mountain & R. & E. Machmer Road in Tioga County.

The Studio equipment:
Control room: An Eight (8) channel Ramko DC 8MS stereo console, with 2 12" Gates turntables, 2 B.E. mono single cart machines, 2 EV RE 50 Mics, and a Revox A 77 Reel to Reel tape recorder. The frequency and modulation monitors were Belar and the transmitter control unit was a home brew unit designed and built by Alan Preuss. The rack also had a single patch bay for remote loops and other basic functions. With the exception of the cart machines all the control room equipment was new.

Production:
An 8 Channel (used) Gatesway console, a consumer grade turntable and a (used) BE cart recorder. Not a lot of production was done there in my time as most of the produced commercials came up from WMPT on reel or sent up via dedicated broadcast pair from South Williamsport.

Transmitter site:
a 180" guyed tower (used) that had been an AM tower in Orange,Va. Dave and I trucked the tower from VA to South-Williamsport, sandblasted and painted it. Because of the height and location it did not need to illuminated. The tower support design and installation was done by Vic Michaels (II) former part owner Manager of WMLP in Milton a long time friend of Dave's with his son Vic (III) installing the antenna. The tower was constructed on the ground and listed into place by a crane. (On the first attempt we bent a 20' section so the tower was actually shorter than we had planned. The Antenna was a (new) 3 bay CCA dual polarized antenna with heaters. The transmitter was a (new) CCA 500 watt FM transmitter with a Orban audio processor and exciter. Audio was sent to the transmitter site via Stereo equalized dedicated broadcast lines from Canton Telephone Company.

All in all the on air quality was excellent however the signal to the North was a bit spotty as when we picked the transmitter site we missed seeing the peak of Alba Mountain, on our maps, which was 1' below the top bay of the antenna, so we had a shadow in some parts of Troy but a signal you could pick up all over Sullivan and Tioga Counties and even in Williamsport.

One funny side light was with the Ramko console, the channel selectors (A & B) would switch for no apparent reason. It was finally discovered that the switched, (resistance type like in an elevator) were so sensitive that a fly could cause them to switch. after lots of consultation with Ramko the solution was to 'paint' the switch rings with a black magic marker.

The tower site is still in use, but owned now by The Innes Hose Company (Canton Fire Department) and the tower has a variety of municipal two way antenna's attached. The old WKAD frequency was abandoned when the tower site was moved after the station was purchased by Dave Bernstein who also owned stations in Selinsgrove and Bloomsburg.

WBPZ Technical

2010-10-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

Chief Engineer Al Stratmon

In February of 1967, I stared work full time at WPPZ AM FM in Lock Haven, Pa. WBPZ was a Class IV AM on 1230 (1000 watts day/250 watts night) with WBPZ FM (Class A) was on 92.1 Mhz with 3kw. I must say this was a decent place to work and Al Stratmon was a good engineer. The Control Room equipment, when I started was OLD, in all probabilities the original dating back to 1947, however it did work pretty well. The main console was an RCA 8 channel, with both A and B sides. B side was used for cuing and production and of course A side was on air. Support equipment included two old RCA 16" turntables that took about 3 turns to get up to speed and a home brew 45/33 RPM turn table that sat on top of the console. Additional equipment included two spotmaster cart players, a Magnacorder 1023 and a Magnacorder PT6 reel to reel. The most interesting piece of equipment was a Gates Spot Tape machine. This was the technology in between using reel to reel and carts for produced commercials. The unit had 100 tracks up to 90 seconds long on a wide tape belt. Selections were made with a fount mounted pointer. The unit was not without its own "personality" as it was noisy when you had to rewind and you could not play commercials back to back from it. By the time I arrived it was mostly being used for show intro's, Psa's, etc. Usually the tape belt would break at the least opportune times and you would have to re-record all the tracks to the unit. That job fell to me since I had 3 hours of Mutual Network talk and news shows each night. The control room mic was an probably an old EV 674 mic mounted to the console with almost no adjustment. Remote control was from two separate units one was an Gates the other was probably an old RCA. The AM transmitter was located near Lock Haven Hospital and used a mono pole tower, the only one I have ever seen. (I believe is was torn down when Lock Haven Hospital expanded and replaced with a conventional tower). The FM was located to the Southwest of Lock Haven at the former WBPZ TV site. I never saw either transmitter but I am assuming the AM was an RCA and the FM a Gates. Both sounded great on the air as they were fed by balanced dedicated phone lines with a decent processing (I believe a CBS unit) in the control room. One thing the station had was a fantastic patch bay, you could do just about anything with it you could imagine.

The production studio was sparse with a home brew 3 channel mixer, turn table, reel to reel, and cart machine. Most of the DJ's preferred to do their production on the main console since you had a lot more capability.

About mid 1967 the corporation decided to replace the console and turn tables and retire the Spot tape machine. They ordered a new Gatesway II 8 channel console and new 12" gates turntables and an EV 668 microphone again console mounted, (the one thing I hated). I can remember one night after sign off at 1 AM, Al came in and I stayed to help him replace the console. We finished up just about the time Jim Eckert, the morning guy, came in, the last few connections were made while Jim was on the air.

WBPZ carried a lot of sports including Phillies Baseball fed by lease dedicated telephone line, when that system went down the backup was to pick the feed off WRAK FM from Williamsport. That system worked fine as long as everybody remembered to give a warning that ID was coming. If not you could have SEVERAL different station I.D.'s on the air, usually prompting a call from the Program Director asking what the hell you were up to.

I stayed at WBPZ until November of 1967 and I must say they treated me fairly while I was there. Harris Lipez the General Manager was another classic radio station manager, always very professional. I worked for them again briefly in 1971 filling the Saturday overnight after WBPZ had gone 24 hours.

The Coup (or how to kill off three managers)

2010-06-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

A long time ago I mentioned in passing a "Coup" that took place at WENY Inc. and promised to expand on it. This chapter explores the seamier side of broadcasting and broadcast corporations, believe me the "Green Group" was not the exception.

A bit of history, WENY AM TV, WLEZ FM were owned by "The Green Group" of Atlantic city, N.J. Partners were Howard Green, Donald Simmons, and John Steahers, by the time I got to WENY, Howard and Don were the only stockholders left as Mr. Seathers had either passed away or retired and sold his interest to the other two. We seldom saw Don Simmons, who was really a quite nice person, as he owned Sayre Lingere that made undergarments for some of the top names like Fruit of the Loom. Howard ruled from Atlantic City and the go between when I was hired was Mike Steele. As I said in an earlier post I had and still do have a great admiration for Mike as a manager. Mike, like a lot of the golden age of radio people came up through the ranks, the difference is that Mike NEVER forgot were he came from and treated his employees fairly.
Ok, the ground work is laid, I had taken over WLEZ in 1982 on the retirement of Ted Hodge. The station was failing, but with lots of hard work by my staff and looking ahead to the coming domination of FM, we turned it around. When Mike left and Howard hired Pat Parish it was the beginning of the end for me. To be sure, I had a great contract deal, a percentage of the annual increase, a car, gasoline and other trades that I am sure was far better deal than Pat had.

Each Department Manager had a somewhat limited scope of authority, to a certain extent I was used to pretty much running my own show and reporting to the owner directly as in the case of working for Dave Castlebury at WMPT and WKAD. Working with Mike was not always easy, BUT I could talk to him and he would listen to a reasonable argument. If you could prove to Mike, it would make the station sound better, run more efficiently, or save money and time, he would give you the go ahead. Pat Parish would not listen to anything, nor would he give you a decision. Instead he would let things hang for weeks on end, that forced me several times to go around him or just go ahead and do what needed to be done and let the crap fly, that more than anything was probably my undoing as I ran WLEZ like it was MINE!

Pat violated my contract on several occasions one in particular was when the local Avis Franchise was sold and the new owners did not want to continue with the barter deal for my car. My contract specifically said the station would furnish a vehicle, so I started to drive one of the company cars. Pat and I had a rather loud and ugly argument one day about that with him stomping off and finding out I was right.

Each Manager was meeting with the same frustration as I was. Things went from worse to critical after Pat convinced Howard to buy a "loser" AM FM combo in Rome, N.Y. Pat was spending all his time up there causing the hand picked Rome Manager to quit in frustration. Meanwhile Elmira was suffering and no one could do anything. Finally Don, Lew and myself got together and called Howard and said we needed to talk. We met Howard and laid out our complaints and frustrations and walked out of the meeting feeling that maybe Pat would be gone. Howard gave each of us area's of total responsibility, I had buildings and grounds, Don had the vehicle fleet, and Lew had equipment. We set about getting things done! BUT, IN TYPICAL Pat fashion he out and out lied about each of us to Howard and eventually each one of us were told that we were not allowed to do anything without approval from Pat. I have to wonder IF that really was the case as we never were told that by Howard. Anyway, withing 6 months following the Coup we were all gone. Lew retired bringing on Meade Murtland who had been at the station a long time and Don went to running his own advertising agency and selling cars and yours truly dismissed on a Friday Morning as Pat's clone Art Kendall the manager of WENY AM took over both departments.

In the over 4 decades I spent active in broadcasting I have worked for a variety of bosses some good, but some were VERY BAD, like Pat Parish.

WMPT Technical Part 2

2010-05-11T12:08:00.001-07:00

Chief Engineer(s) Galen "Dave" Castlebury Jr, Jon Paul (in name only), assisted by Dick Crownover, Kelly Watts & Warren(Lomie)Lomisson)

In the period of 1968 through 1972 some other changes happened at the WMPT FM transmitter site. Three of the TV stations in Harrisburg approaced Dave about using the tower to receive their signals so they could add translators to serve Williamsport. The original plan was to have both the receivers and transmitters in the WMPT FM building, BUT testing found that there was a signal shadow over a part of Williamsport. The TV stations then leased a piece of property further down Skyline Drive and built a small building and tower there. WMPT FM's tower was still used for receiving the signal and boosters to send it through coax to the transmitter building. A benefit,(?)to WMPT was income and we had three TV's in the production studio that covered all three major networks. D.J.'s quickly found out that they could plug in a microphone in the studio and watch TV while they were on the air. A practice that Dave didn't care for, BUT we loved. One bebefit was beign able to catch news bullitens quickly. In addition, several local businesses contracted with Dave to use the tower and building for their two way communication equipment.

In 1968 A.B.C. News changed its format to four different radio networks. This also meant a huge increase in the costs of bringing the signal to WMPT. In those days it was lease telephone lines the cost was offset by royalties paid for carrying programming. With the split of the network so ended the royalties for small markets like Williamsport. Dave felt that we could not afford the costs so a deal was worked out with WHDL Olean, NY to pick up their FM signal, using a receiver at the FM Site, and broadcast the news. The system worked pretty well, except when a DJ was asleep at the switch and you might get some of WHDL's station I.D. on the air. We also taped Paul Harvey from them and broadcast it 15 minutes later. The station eventually built a library of generic Paul Harvey broadcasts in case the D.J. on duty forgot to tape Paul or some failure happened. After a period of time Dave struck a deal with WUDO AM in Lewisburg to share the cost of the leased telephone line to Lewisburg, and pay the full cost from Lewisburg to South Williamsport. The sales staff became very creative and sold sponsorships to other A.B.C. programs like Howard Cosell to help defray the costs. During the negotiations with WUDO was the first time I met Ted Hodge, who I would meet again in 1979 when I went to work for WENY in Elmira, NY.

In June of 1972 the Agnes Flood nearly destroyed WMPT with 8 to 9 feet of water in the building. I lived in Barbours on The Loyalsock Creek at the time and was stranded there till the water went down. Just as well as I spent my time with Plunkett's Creek Fire Company where I was also a member. It was about June 24th or 25th when we finally were able to get into the building and found MUD everywhere. Before the flood waters came through the door Jon Paul, Bill Byham and Caesar Mattioli did what they could to save equipment by putting it up on counters. The popular rumor that the WMPT property was dry during the flood of 1936, well it certainly wasn't in 1972. I said to Dave that if cows had actually stood on the knoll where the station was, "They were damn tall cows." It was amazing to see all the efforts to get the station back on the air, engineers from WRAK, WWPA, AND WLYC all came over to help as they could along with Warren Lommison, the owner of Lommison Sound Systems. We tore out all the equipment and took it to the parking lot where liberal applications of water and Dow bathroom cleaner removed the mud. After it dried out we plugged it in, the old Dualux console actually worked on one channel and after some coaxing the C.C.A. transmitter came back to life, at very low power, after isolating the modulation transformer be setting it on some damaged 33 RPM records. repair parts for everything that didn't come back to life were ordered and we went back on the air with a limited schedule. To that point WMPT had been 24 hours, six days a week, but we had no production facilities so production was done after sign off at midnight sometimes lasting all night. To the credit of all concerned it was the absolute BEST EFFORT I have ever seen by a group of people to try and operate as normally as possible. I think it was about day four after we went back on the air we actually did a remote from the Lycoming County Fair. No small feat since we had temporary audio lines running across the floor no office equipment, very few dry chairs and worst of all NO COCA COLA MACHINE!

The causalities of the flood the old Gates Transmitter, the home brew production console and all the masters for client jingles, not to mention a large part of the record library.

I left not long after the flood as did Caesar and a couple of other employees as frustration set in. I wound up at WLYC/WILQ, and Caesar at WMMR IN Philadelphia. The Gates board and turn tables eventually were sold to the upstart Mifflinburg radio station WJJR FM, built and managed by Ron Shobert.

POST SCRIPT:

As I have said many times in this BLOG, I am always afraid that I will forget someone. Steve Helms, (air name Steve Hurr) dropeed me a note to tell me he has been reading the BLOGS and reminded me that a bunch of us piled in Dave's old Bronco and went over to Steve's parents house for a BBQ as a break from the post flood clean-up. Steve, sorry I forgoten about that, heck it was only 38 years ago! Anyway, Steve and I worked together at WMPT and WLYC and shared duties doing the Monday Night radio tests on the West Branch Fireman's Radio for several years.

WMPT Equipment Part 1

2010-05-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

WMPT AM 1966:
(Chief Engineer Alan Preuss)

Of all the engineers I worked with in 45 years Alan was probably the best! He designed and built equipment for the station and kept the place running pretty well. When I started at WMPT they had just purchased a second hand Gates Dualux. I remember when I was still at WLYC, Ron Shobert calling me and asking how certain things worked. Being a studio transmitter location had both advantages and disadvantages. It was great since you didn't need a remote control setup but bad because the RF from the station was a constant problem creating all sorts of noises. Also in the control room were two Gates 16” turn tables that eventually we put new tone arms on and new solid state pre-amps in for better quality. There were two tape recorders a Magnovox PT 6, old by any standards and was probably used when Dave got it. Eventually a consumer grade Wollensack was added to the equipment for recording and back up playback. There were two Spotmaster Cart machines, Alan eventually added the third, and the usual Gates Modulation and Frequency Monitors that caught fire on a regular basis. The control room mic was a EV TV Boom mic, great sound) Oh some place along the way a reverb was added to the control room mic channel using a Fisher “spring” reverb. The transmitter was an old workhorse Gates AM 250-D, which Alan used to laugh was 2 years older then he was. Audio processing was with a tubed Gates Stay Level and Limiter. The tower was right next to the building and 146' tall with a dual obstruction marking light on top. When WMPT went to 1,000 watts in 1968. (We became 1,001 watts, 1,000 from the transmitter and one Kelly Watts). Dave bought a used Raytheon AM 1000, it was a MONSTER. The day it was delivered we had to get a fork lift from Nippon Panel to get it off the truck and slide it in the transmitter room door.

Production was sparse to say the least, there was another Wollensack reel to reel, a Voice Of Music consumer grade turntable (also used at record hops) for mixing a small pa amplifier and a EV 635A mike. That was it! Some amazing stuff came out of that room from the hands of Dick Crownover, Mike Sullivan and others. Eventually Alan built a little six channel stereo board and the production studio was relocated to the former lounge directly in front of the control room. That board stayed in service until the flood of 1972. The former "closet" production room became an announce booth and the home of "the Aging Left-handers" (Bill Byham) typrwriter.

In 1967 it was decided that FM was the coming thing, so Dave applied for a channel allocation for SOUTH Williamsport. In those days the F.C.C. had very few frequency assignments and there were not left in the Williamsport area as both WLYC and WRAK had FM's. Dave was afraid once the allocation was granted that Woody Ott, Majority Owner of WWPA would apply as the channel assignment was fair game once the F.C.C. acted. I can remember Dave telling me that Woody had called him and said that he was not interested in the frequency as FM was not going to amount to anything. Eventually 99.3 was granted for South Williamsport and Dave, and Alan, with some help from me set about the process of putting a new radio station in operation. Dave purchased the former Lycoming TV Cable Company building along with the 90' tower on Bald Eagle Mountain. Because of the formula that the F.C.C. uses (height above average terrain vs power) the 3,000 watts became 105 watts horizontal and vertical. With so few stations on the air in those days WMPT FM had a really good signal except for the person who lived the nearest to the transmitter, Al Ferrari who owned and operated Inn 15 at the Top of Montgomery Pike on Route 15.

Equipment was an interesting mix, a C.C.A. single bay dual polarization antenna was mounted at the top of the tower, with the audio being fed from the studios by equalized leased telephone lines. Originally it had been planned to use a microwave link, but there was no line of sight so it would have involved a repeater in between, at the time that was quite an expensive deal. The transmitter was a used GE 250 watt workhorse. I can remember the day we installed the transmitter Dave telling Alan and me that he was going to install this one "expensive" tube. Well as you might guess Dave accidentally dropped it, something we never let him forget. Once the STEREO exciter and audio processor were installed that part of the transmitter, with the expensive tube, was no longer used. Dave did go top shelf on the audio processor buying a three band Orban, at that time it was the "state of the art."

Early on it was decided that daytime broadcasting would be in monaural (even though the stereo generator was still on) on the FM since it would simulcast the AM and the live on air console was monaural. Nighttime, Dave didn't want the heavier rock and roll at night on the air so Alan set about building various components of a simple automation system. The automation unit consisted of a new Skully 14" reel to reel tape transport, a new S.M.C 24 cart carousel and an new S.M.C. Stereo record/playback single deck unit. The unit had and auto fade so we could carry news and a silence sensor that would start the music reel if a cart misfired and sound a warning alarm to the AM DJ who was also in charge of making sure the automation was loaded with carts and music. The first programming package was from G.M.I. and was elevator music and also part of the music programming package was "middle of the road" music show featuring announcer Don MacMaster.

The quality of the station was excellent and was the first STEREO signal in Williamsport spurring the sale of FM radios for cars and home stereo systems. My old friend Edsel Sanders, who owned the local Lafayette Radio Associate Store, sold a lot of FM converters and car FM radios. We had Plankenhorn Stationary print up a bunch of promotional signs and went around to all the stereo dealers and tuned the station in and put a sign on top of their unit telling people that WMPT FM STEREO was on the air. For allowing us to do that we would give them promotional mentions on the air.

Once the FM was added it gave WMPT the capabilities on broadcasting two sporting events at the same time. That drove the D.J. on duty crazy trying to monitor both events for ending times. I can remember times when there were two live sports events on the air and a third one being taped.

One of the neat things about having the stereo station was that we could produce some local programming as well. Not long after WMPT FM went on the air I sold and produced a local music show sponsored by Fulton Piano & Organ Company called "Hammond, The Sound Of Today." I actually took a reel to reel recorder to the local Fulton Store in The Loyal Plaza and recorded Fulton Organist and Salesman Jim Greg playing. Occasionally he was joined by Joe Kita on guitar and it really was a good show. The disadvantage is that I had to go to the station every Saturday and run it manually as we had no way to put the automation tones on the reel to reel. At the time Booker T & The M.G.'s were on the charts with the song "Hang 'Em High," Jim and Joe surprised me during one of the recording sessions by playing it for the show.

After Alan left engineering responsibilities fell to Dave, Dick Crownover, Harry Seltzer, and once in the while, when all else failed, yours truly.

One of those Pennsylvania thunderstorms put the end to the Raytheon 1,000 watt transmitter as it burned out a lot of critical parts that, because of the age of the unit were not available. Dave surprised us all by ordering a brand new C.C.A. 100/250 watt transmitter. Around the same time he decided to make a major addition to the rear of the building,adding a new transmitter room, new bathrooms, and a second floor office.

The Technical Side of My Early Radio Days Part 1.

2010-05-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

I got thinking today, on thing I never have really talked about was some of the equipment I worked with over the years. While this may not be of great interest to a lot of people, I am sure those people I worked with will sometimes fondly remember the trials and tribulations of working with equipment that was just one more fire away from the scrap pile. I will also salute the intrepid engineers who kept it running against all odds.

Our first stop will be WLYC AM & FM, Williamsport, Pa:

(Chief Engineer Jim Hubbard) (later John Ellis)

My first employment in radio was here. For the most part the on air equipment was pretty good. The main control room has a Gates Dulalux console (board) that you can see on my website www.kellywattsclassreunion.com. This was an 8 channel board, capable of airing two separate programs at once, which quite often happened at WLYC and at WMPT. This was a tubed console, and put out a lot of heat, the power supply was remotely mounted in the equipment rack and was prone to tube socked failure, due to heat. The board had a variety of switching combinations for remote starts and inputs as well as an intercom system that you could use to the newsroom, etc if it was set up. This “Talkback” system could be used when you did a remote using a leased dedicated telephone line. All in all it was a pretty well designed console, with the exception of the power supply. Most of the Dulalux Boards were in service for over 20 years untill stereo and lack of tubes made them obsolete. However I did work with one that had limited modifications for Stereo at WZKZ (KZ 106) In Corning in the late 1980's.

Also in WLYC's control room when I started there in 1964 were 2 - 16” 3 speed Gates Turntables with two different tone arms,(one for 33 & 45 RPM records, the other for 78 RPM records.) 3 Ampex 601 reel to reel rack mounted tape recorders (remote start) and one Magnacorder PT 6 to reel, also remote start. Around the time I arrived the station was changing over to broadcast carts and had purchased a dual deck Gates cart machine. The top deck also recorded so it was not uncommon for you to record commercials while you were on the air, using the “B” side of the console. This unit made a VERY loud THUMP when you started it as the pinch roller flew up. After a while you learned to turn off the mic BEFORE you hit start. It was a pretty rugged machine and was still in use in 1972-74 in WLYC's news room and was still there when I left in 1974. In addition there was a super patch panel system with pads and coils for level and matching control of the incoming lines. EBS monitoring was with a Gates EBS monitor, it sounded a LOUD bell when the EBS station cut the carrier for more than 2 seconds, which was procedure in those days. When you left at night you had to remember to cancel the automatic function or the bell would continue to ring when the station you monitored signed off.

Legal monitoring was with a Gates(AM) and RCA(FM) frequency and modulation monitor and a Gates transmitter controller that ran both the remote AM & FM transmitters on top of Bald Eagle Mountain. Interesting to note, in those days you were required to take transmitter reading every 1/2 hour and at sign off and sign on or any changes in operation. Once a week Jim would head to the top of Bald Eagle and we would calibrate the meters as required by the F.C.C.

WLYC AM was a daytimer on 1050 KC with 1,000 watts from a Gates transmitter. WLYC FM was 3,800 watts from a RCA 1,000 watt transmitter and a multiple bay antenna system. Interestingly enough WLYC FM although licensed for full time operation was only on the air from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM. In the summer months when WLYC AM was on the air programming would split at 7:00 PM with a fellow named Nick Green hosting the classical music show on the FM each night from 7:00 to 10:00 PM. Nick would work from the small production studio directly in front of the Main Control Room. BTW, you had to walk thru production to get to the control room. The production studio had an very old, I assume original equipment from sign on, RCA 4 channel board, with two RCA turntables and another Ampex 601, that could also be controlled from the AM control room. Mic's in the station were quite an assortment with a EV general purpose mic on a ridged pipe frame mount in the control room, while the news booth has a EV 664 mic, and two RCA model 44 mics in the “big” studio. One additional piece of equipment that WLYC had was what we called the “jukebox.” This unit, marketed by Gates and built by Seeburg Juke Box Company, held a large number (100) of 45 RPM records and could be programed by a series of switches in the machine to play one or both sides or skip the record completely. I liked this unit especially when you were working a long airshift and had to make a bathroom run. The downside was that records would stick or skip. The unit had a remote start and stop in the control room. During the period from December 1964 to February 1966 that I worked there the unit got very little use. One of my jobs was to change the
45's every month or so and post a list of what record was in what slot.

I don't remember a lot of equipment failures during this period of time, with the exception of the FM frequency monitor who occasionally throw a fit with the deviation meter swinging full scale. In the winter, icing on the FM antenna was a problem so you had to remember to turn on the antenna heaters or you would be off the air due to ice buildup. When the transmitter and antenna system was replaced in 1973, automatic heaters were installed that saved a LOT of headaches.

Bye Bye, Miss American Pie, good bye to radio yet again!

2010-04-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

I was debating on what exactly to call this posting, my other choice was "The Day The Music Died." Friday, April 2, 2010 ended the latest edition of "The Class Reunion." In the 45+ years I have been in radio I have seen many changes, most NOT FOR THE BETTER. The one thing I believed in throughout those years was that a persons word and handshake are the BEST contract. I will not go into great details about what happened other than to say the my agreement for compensation with KRIM FM was not upheld by them.

I am sure if you ask the owner of the station you would hear that I am rude, un-reasonable and a pain in the butt to work with. Maybe so, however, in my defense I can say that my rude is short concise answers, my un-reasonable is standing for what I believe, right or wrong, and being a pain in the butt by believing that IF you are granted a license as a "Public Trustee" then you should try your best to serve your community. I make no secret of the fact that I am highly opinionated, something I have told owners and General Managers for a LONG time. Most say, "good, I like a person who can think and knows what to do." That usually doesn't last long as the first or second time we butt heads they find just how well I dig my heels in and won't move.

I try never to compromise the legal operation of a broadcast station and try my best to make sure that the advertisers get the best results possible. Along with that, I also try to give the listeners a good performance. A Program Director I worked for many years ago had a motto I have mentioned before; "Be informative, be entertaining, or BE QUIET!" That was my goal in 1964 and remains my goal today. If I never again am on the airwaves I will rest assured that I always tried to give more than I had to.

Will "The Class Reunion" ever be back on the air? I learned a long time ago, never say never, time will tell. So, Bye Bye, Miss American Pie, drove my Cruiser to the levee but the levee was dry. Sorry Don McLean, your song is much better than what I just did to it!

Lenny Welch

2010-03-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

Time to mix up a big tall glass of Ovaltine, and get close to the radio. It seems like only yesterday that I remember those great Saturday morning serials on the radio. The Roy Rogers Show, Captain Midnight and more. I am sure that may of you saved those Ovaltine seals and sent in for your secret decoder ring; I know I did. There is one scene in the holiday movie class, A Christmas Story, where little Ralphie anxiously awaits his decoder ring only to find the message was “be sure and drink your Ovaltine.” I don't remember what message Captain Midnight sent, but I am sure it probably involved my part in how to save the world or intergalactic travel. It runs in my mind I also saved up something for an official “Sea Hunt” Mike Nelson swimming frogman. The ties ins with the shows certainly were a great way to sell the sponsors products. I wish I still had all of those premiums as they certainly would be collectibles today.

Often during the interviews I would ask who a particular artist influence was. Lenny told me that while he didn't have any in particular he really liked Clyde Mc Phatter (Little Bitty Pretty One.). “I tried to imitate him till I found my own style” said Lenny.

As with a lot of very talented artists the difference between success and failure can be credited to a record producer. Lenny became associated with the late Archie Blyer, a band leader. producer, and owner of Cadence records. Archie's list of artists is quite lengthy, as well as his band charting several times, with the most notable song being Hernando's Hide-a-way.

The 1963 hit, "Since I Fell For You," was released at Lenny's suggestion, Lenny said he liked the song from his teenage years when he heard it by Willie Winfield and the Harptones. The song was one of several “pretty” songs that went into the Since I Fell For you Album. Even though they did 20 takes of the song, the one that was released was take number 1. Personally I have always felt that it was on of the most powerful songs of 1963. Lenny says, “I love it, and I don't go on stage without singing it.”

His next song was another classic. This time Lenny took Archie's suggestion and released "Ebb Tide." I've heard many versions of that song over the years, but Lenny's style makes it on of my favorites. The song even appeared in the Paul Newman movie Sweet Bird of Youth.

Lenny somewhat disappeared from the popular music scene for several years, and pursued an acting career, which by the way was his major in college. Getting back into the music business happened while on a trip back to his home town of Asbury Park, N.J. A long time friend of his played him several songs as said “Why not record them?” Lenny made a demo but nothing happened for nearly 10 years until he came across them and decided to put them together in a CD called “It's All About Love.” I had the opportunity to listen to the songs before I interviewed Lenny and felt that he sounded better than ever. Cut one is a song called “Dancing Naked In The Dark.” When he saw the title Lenny said, “I can't record this. After I listened to it I said this is not a bad song, there's nothing dirty about it, the song is all right.” Lenny asked me what I thought about the second cut on the CD called “Slow.” I said ' It reminds me of an old movie, a couple is kissing and the camera pans away to the open window with the curtains blowing in the wind, you know something is happening, BUT it is not shown.” You can hear samples of the CD at www.lennywelch.com.

Lenny also does a lot of oldies shows, primarily on the east coast and you might even see him on a cruise someplace.

Trivia This group from New jersey are sometimes called the female Drifter's who are they? They of course are the fabulous Shirell's.

The Buckinghams Part 2

2010-03-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome back again to those thrilling days of radio, as the Lone Disk Jockey rides again! What does it take to operate a radio station? Now that has as many variables as anything that has options. Of course you will need equipment, that can be as simple as a couple of computers, a microphone, audio processing equipment, a transmitter, and antenna and something to hold an antenna up in the air. Low Power FM, of which Payson has two, are the least expensive stations to build and operate. Since for the most part all the music is on a computer hard drive, along with the commercials, etc and it is all controlled by special software designed for radio stations. The inside name for these is “A jock (disk jockey)in a box, “or “jukebox.” Some stations use satellite delivered programming that is produced by a specialized company and delivered to the station via satellite with the station having a special software program to insert commercials, weather, news, etc. Some stations use a combination of some or all the options. I consider myself fortunate to have worked in completely live radio where anything could and DID happen. Sadly the cost of operation have all but doomed totally “live” stations to being relics of a bye gone era.

Before I continue let me correct an error. In a posting I gave Credit to Duane Eddy as being Joe Gigilo's favorite guitarist. Well, Joe corrects me, and while he played a lot of Duane Eddy songs, his favorite was guitar legend the late Les Paul.

1967 saw The Buckinghams come out of the box with the number one record “Kind Of A Drag.” In those days young Disk Jockeys such as yours truly listened to the “mega stations” like WLS Chicago to hear new music, and of course copy the style of the “boss Jocks.” It was WLS where I first heard Kind of A Drag. That song was given to the group by the friend of their manager. The Buckingham's manager was looking for an original song and got it from a friend. This song was one of if not the first time that a pop bands used horns. Listening to the song again before I wrote this article , I can't imagine how it would sound without the horns. When I asked Carl about the first time he heard it on the radio he told me, “We were practicing in my basement and my father yelled down to us that our song was on the radio. We all ran up and listened, it sounds really different when you hear it on the radio, really exciting, something you never forget.” Carl told me, “to see your name on the record charts with the likes of The Beatles and The Stones, and then to see your record ahead of them was pretty incredible.”

Regarding the next song, “Don't You Care,” Carl says “If you listen to it I think you will see a giant jump in quality.” By the way, that song is Carl's favorite and mine as well. I told Carl “it is one song I enjoy singing with, BUT not on the air.”

The group continued to gain in popularity with appearances on The Joey Bishop Show, Smother's Bros. Comedy Hour, American Bandstand and of course the Ed Sullivan Show. Those were the days before the likes of MTV and those shows were a MUST for an up and coming group.

July 1967 saw Mercy, Mercy, Mercy as The Buckinghams fourth chart hit. That was followed by “Susan.” To me that song was a departure from the traditional Buckingham's style. The song I considered was some what of a “cop out” song to the psychedelic music of the day. It has some very strange effects near the end. Carl said, “when we heard it we thought there was something wrong with the test pressing, no one in the band liked it.” The song writer of “Susan” wrote it after the breakup between he and his Chicago Playboy Bunny girlfriend.

Trivia “How Did the Buckinghams get their name? “ The Buckinghams started out as “The Pulsations.” It was when they were hired to do a 13 week show on Chicago television station WGN that it was felt a new name was needed. The producers wanted something that sounded British, even those the group was from Chicago. There were many suggestions offered but the honor of naming the group goes to a Security Guard for WGN. “The name sounded British, with Buckingham Palace and such” said Carl so out with the Pulsations and enter The Buckinghams.

If you are interested in some new music by the Buckingham's, check out their website at www.thebuckinghams.com. They have several CDs available including a Christmas CD and a single performance by Carl Giammarese. My thanks to Donnalyn for being a part of my interview with Carl. One thing that still bother me, is that I never got the opportunity to interview Carl again as I ended “The Class Reunion” before I had the chance. Maybe someday.

The Buckinghams Part 1

2010-03-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hi again everyone, and thanks for taking the time to share some memories with me. The results are in and our radio station is #1. Recently I was watching an old episode of WKRP where the story concerns Program Director Andy Travis and Station Manager Arthur W. Carlson and the Arbitron Survey. I could see myself sitting there with “the book” in front of me afraid to open it for fear of what the results might be. In major market radio, careers are ruined by one bad survey. I have worked at stations where the whole staff, of our the sister station was replaced because the numbers were down one or two percentage points. I always felt that while they are a useful tool for judging the stations performance, they should never have been given as much importance as they were. For the most part, the Arbitron Survey relies on a realitively small number of diaries (survey forms) from a particular metropolitan area. I have seen as few as 40 “diaries” placed in a county of 100,000 people. If the diaries happened to fall in the rural area there was a good chance the people might not ever receive the station. Back in my early days in Williamsport, Pa. On of the competing radio stations always bought the results. Oh yes, you paid BIG MONEY for this report. My stations budget was such that we could not justify the cost versus the benefits. For many years my station would instead commission a telephone survey of roughly one to two percent of the county. I always felt that those numbers were far more important since the questions were asked directly of the person who answered the phone. Why are the numbers so important? Most national advertising agencies use the survey to place advertising on stations that reach their target market. So a “bad book” can have a far reaching impact.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Carl in 2006 on “The Class Reunion.” Now before I get to the meat of that interview, let me tell you a story that goes along with that. When I started out to do the “Legendary Artist Series,” I sat down with one of my reference books and made my “A” and “B” list of artists and groups that I wanted to interview. Once I did that, I set about finding them through various methods, but mostly computer searches. Along the way I would ask certain people I knew if they had a group they had an artist or group they wanted me to interview who would it be? One of the people that I asked was the former co-host of “Good Morning Payson”, Donnalyn Williams. She told me that she knew a member of a popular group from her home town of Chicago. When I asked her who the group was she told me The Buckinghams. As coincidence would have it, I had just made contact with a member of that group and had an interview scheduled. To my surprise, Donnalyn's long time friend and my contact were one in the same, namely Carl Giammarese. It was then that I asked her to be a part of the interview with Carl.

In the years 1967 and 1968 the Buckinghams had a total of seven songs that made the charts. I remember telling Carl that when Mercy, Mercy, Mercy hit I said “ Another Buckingham's song, aren't we already playing two”. I have to think one of the secrets to the groups success was the rapid fire release of songs, when one was dropping off the charts, there was another to take it's place.

The Buckinghams songs were a staple of my “record hop kit” in the late 1960's. I could always depend on playing a couple of their hits usually more than once during the record hop. It came as no surprise when Donnalyn asked Carl if it was true they were named “The Most Listened to Group in 1967” by Billboard magazine. Billboard was one of the publications that music directors such as I used to pick songs for the station play list. Oh yes, The Buckinghams did get that honor against some pretty good competition.

The Buckingham's share the pretty typical group start up story, a couple of guys get together and form a band. Carl said, “when I heard the Beatles, I wanted to be a Beatle.” One big difference in the case of the Buckinghams success was a really aggressive manager, who actually paid for a lot of demo tapes himself.

Jim Yester the Association Part 2

2010-03-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

Hello again from behind the microphone and welcome to my memories of my days in broadcasting and stories of the musical artists of the 1950's and 1960's. Back in the days before it was common to have 24 hour radio stations, I did many a sign on shift. I always wondered if anyone actually was listening for the first few minutes of “the broadcast day.” Even into the 1970's, it was not uncommon for your favorite station to sign off during the overnight hours. Eventually I believe that station owners got smarter and figured that IF they were on the air overnight then people would leave their dials set there all the time. My first “experiment” with all night broadcasting came in late 1969 when WMPT became the first 24 hour station in Williamsport, PA. I will always look back on that as one of the most interesting times I ever spent in radio. I never really knew how many people listened, BUT I know I received a lot of calls from the various business places, police and firefighters, etc, who were up all night and finally could receive a strong radio signal. I called the show “The Watts Watch,” a unique name to be sure. I know some of my biggest, and smallest fans were at the nursery at the local hospitals. All in all I did that show for over 3 years, at one time actually working my night off at another station that went 24 hours. WMPT was off the air that night so with the blessing of both stations I was on the air.

In another BLOG Post I mentioned The Association the monster hit “Along Comes Mary”, written by Jim Yester. Many people at the time regarded it as a “drug song” and The Association was met at the gate by Sheriff Deputies and Disney Security, and were not going to be allowed to play. Jim Yester tells me that “ things were getting hot, when a group of nun's came along and said, Oh there's the Association. We just love your song about the Virgin Mary.” As a result of that divine intervention, the group was allowed to enter and perform. Jim also tells the story that he was on his way to a performance one evening and was injured in an automobile accident and was sidelined for several weeks. He got a call from Jules Alexander asking him to write down the words. Jim was the only one who knew them.

One of the most prolific writers in the Association, other than Jim, is Terry Kirkman. Jim says, “ Terry was a journalism major in college, so he was VERY wordy and wrote some great stuff.” Some of those “wordy” song included “Everything That Touches You,” “Requiem For The Masses,” and the Association classic “Cherish.” Jim said, “Cherish is one of those songs that guys sing to their girlfriends, but it really is a song about un-requited love.” Jim told me something that I was not aware of, “We weren't going to release Cherish as our second song, it was going to be “Enter The Young, (Jim jokes that today when we do that song we should call it “Enter The Old”) but a disk jockey in Ohio, played the cut, (Cherish) from our album.”

Another one of my favorites by The Association is “Windy.” That song was not written by the group but by an 18 year old fan Named Ruthann Friedman. If you listen to the end of the song there are 12 to 15 people singing including 2 wives of Association members, and Don & Dick Addrisi, (singer songwriters). Jim says, “The appeal of the song is really broad, a lot of High School and college marching bands play the heck out of it.”

On of my favorite lines of the whole interview was when he told me, “I really knew I made it when I was on an elevator in Davenport Iowa, and heard my song Goodbye Columbus.” BTW one of Jim's favorite songs is “Everything That Touches You,” The song was produced by Jim's brother who apologized, “If I would have known more, the Renaissance Album (Everything is a breakout single) would have been a lot better album. “That song is yet another story about love, and a relationship that never happened and was based on a real experience.”

Today Jim is as busy as ever appearing with Diamond Dave Somerville (The Diamonds), and Bruce Belland (The Four Preps) as Y.B.S. Gold. The show that these three do took well over a year to perfect. The late Ed Cobb (The Four Preps) produced the show. I have both the albums, (Better Than Ever, and Triple Gold). These are great albums, I do not believe that the first CD is no longer available, but if you do a search for “Triple Gold” you will find that it is available. Jim travels extensively to bring his anti drug program “Say No Way” to students K through 12, and also performs with his band, “The Yesterdaze.”

Trivia: What lead singer for a Chicago based 60's rock group was the jingle singer for commercials for McDonald,s United Airlines, Lava Soap, RC Cola, Pizza Hut, and Coors Beer? Carl Giammarese of the Buckinghams.

Jim Yester of The Association Part 1

2010-03-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

And now, live from Studio A in the Shadle building in beautiful downtown Lock Haven, here's Kelly Watts. I'm not sure if I ever actually was introduced like that but many of the old time TV and Radio shows began with a similar introduction As a young lad growing up in the infancy of TV and the end of the Golden Age Of Radio, I marveled at the great, and for the most part, un credited announcers. In the days of live radio and live TV shows it was their job to warm up the audience so that when the host, whom they introduced, appeared thunderous applause would ensue. Some of the greatest ever included the late Ed McMahon, Johnny Olsen, Gene Rayburn, George Fenneman, Don Wilson, and Larry Keating. Many of these folks behind the microphone went on to host their own shows or be a part of the shows ensemble. Even local TV had their share of great voices. I can remember as a very young DJ walking into WILK TV in Wilkes Barre, Pa. and meeting the great Hal Berg. Hal was a booth announcer, and between network programs he would give the station identification and read live commercials. I marveled at the timing and style of people like Hal. I often wished I would have been born just a few years earlier to have been a part of the “unseen” stars.

As I have said before, often when I listen to an interview I come to realize how much fun I had talking with the artists. Such is the case with a 2006 interview I did with Jim Yester, one of the founding members of The Association. Jim Yester started his musical career in the late 50's, along with his brother Jerry, playing as a folk duo on the coffee house circuit in L.A.. Jim says, “we did that for about a year and a half, and I had the sword of Uncle Sam hanging over my head so I went down and enlisted. After I was in about six months, I thought, what did I do? So I formed a comedy folk trio.” For the next two years Jim and his partners were called on to entertain the troops in Germany and France.

After being discharged from the service, Jim headed to L.A. Again, and the third day he was there he auditioned for the Manager of the Pasadena Ice House. Jim said the manager told him, “There's good news and bad news. The bad news is I can't use you, but the good news some friends of mine are putting a group together.” “I had never met any of them,” Jim said, what came out of that audition that met in Terry Kirkman's apartment was The Association, and Jim was a part of it. The core of the group came out of a 13 man group called “The Men.” Jim and I joked around that “to get a great sextet you need to start with 13 people.” I related a story to him about my friend Ray Coyle, a professional musician from Ohio, who played the hotel circuit as half of “The Lyterside” duo. Ray often said, “the best way to become a duo is to start out as a quartet,” which he did.

The Associations first release was a “highly forgettable” song called “One To Many Mornings.” It was released on the Valiant label and Jim said. “That song only got to number 16 on the West Coast, but it got us our record deal.” Jim told me prior to that “we had auditioned for everybody and got turned down. They told us, we think you guys are great BUT we don't know what to do with you, you're too different.”

“We didn't work anywhere for the first six months we were together. Six days a week eight hours a day we would rehearse and write. By the time we worked someplace we were so slick it was scary,” according to Jim. Of course some of the members like Jules Alexander did session work to survive. According to Jim, “everyone in the Association not only sings lead, backup and plays as well.” Terry Kirkman by the way plays 13 different instruments.

The first chart hit was “Along Comes Mary.” That song I played as a “new” song. I told Jim “I heard the song and said, they are pretty good, I think they'll go somewhere.” I followed that up jibbing Jim with, “but we were desperate for music, so we would play anything.” Thank goodness he laughed. More with Jim Yester in another post.

Trivia question: What Association song was regarded as so controversial that when the group was to play Disneyland they were met by Sheriff Deputies as Disney security. The song was Along Comes Mary, it seemed the Disney folks thought it was a drug song. As things were about to excalate a group of Nun's came by and said "Oh look it's The Association we love thier song about the Virgin Mary."

The Four Aces

2010-03-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

Borrowing an old line from the great Jack Benny, “Hi I'm Kelly Watts....(pause)......
there will now be a 30 second pause while everybody looks at their radio and says so what?” One of the greatest fears that I think any disk jockey has, is the first day on the air at a new station. In small market radio one usually arrives without much fanfare and while that can be a blessing it can also be quite frustrating. Not only to the D.J. But the listener as well. Over the years I was the “newbie” at a bunch of stations, including of course our own KMOG. When the decision was made to leave my roots and move to Payson, I decided that I would enjoy getting back in radio on a regular basis, and if the truth be told, I was less that anxious to play country music. I had worked at four country stations over the course of my career and actually enjoyed doing the format. My problem was, I had not worked at a modern country station since 1975 so it was with a certain amount of reservation that I applied, was hired, and accepted the chance to work at KMOG. As with all disk jockeys I have my own style. Over the years that I had worked at fast paced, “tight format” stations, I picked up my speaking pace considerably, at times having been called on to read 70 seconds of commercial copy in 60 seconds. My first few days on the air at KMOG were interesting, fun and at times down right discouraging. I wrote in my BLOG, “I really don't think the people of Payson were quite ready for a Northeastern former Top 40 Jock.” I remember receiving a number of calls from people telling me that they didn't like me at all. One lady even went so far as to say “well I'm selling my radio.” to which I responded, “you'll have to call during trades and sales.” I give a lot of thanks to Blaine Kimball and Mike Farrell for their support during my time at KMOG, and to the listeners who eventually got used to my “small people warnings” on wind days, yerms like “snizzle” freezy skid stuff, and P.O.E.T.S. Day.

The Four Aces. If I had to pick a 1950's group for the best harmonies I am pretty sure it would be them. Their chart classics such as “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Perfidia, Heart and Soul, and Three Coins In A Fountain” are some of the greatest and most recognizable songs ever.

The original Four Aces have all retired, but leader Fred Diodati joined The Aces in 1956, so in my mind he is an original. During the course of “The Legendary Artist” interview series, I had Tenor Joe Giglio on four times. Joe is a tremendous talent by himself, and actually cut a couple of songs that we played on the show. One in particular, called “Angela” he wrote for his girl friend. The first time I heard it I wondered why he was not a lead singer, so I asked him Joe said, “I'm not a lead singer, I am a back up singer and a guitarist.” By the way if you are fortunate enough to see an Aces concert Joe will be playing guitar. One of his idols was Duane Eddy, Joe said “back when I had my group I had to learn to play like him to do Rebel Rouser.” Anyway, todays Aces line up includes Fred Diodati, the leader and spokesman, Joe Giglio, Tenor and Guitar, Harry Heisler, Bass and Musical Director, and Danny Colingo, who sings in fluent Italian and does a dead on impersonation of Johnny Mathis.

Whenever I talked with Joe, I never knew what was going to happen. As with all my interviews they were un scripted and we were never sure where a topic was going to lead us. And on more than one occasion Joe had me laying back in the control room chair laughing. I have never met a man with so many different stories in my life.

I was honored in February of 2008 to be Joe's invited guest at a show featuring the Four Aces, The Four Lads, and The Diamonds. I have been to live concerts over the years and have come away at times disappointed that the songs just really didn't sound as good in person as they did on record. This was not the case. There were several highlights of that evening including being backstage before the show laughing and joking with the acts, and yes we even got into some music trivia, NOW that takes guts with all the experience in those groups. I had interviewed “The Lads” Frank Busseri, so this was a double treat.

Because the concert ended late, I stayed at the same hotel as the groups and was invited to breakfast the next morning. Let me tell you that was an experience. The stories and Danny Colingo doing the absolute best Godfather imitation I have ever heard, I don't think I have ever laughed so hard.

The Four Aces have appeared in Palm Springs Follies every couple of years for decades. For more information of the group and to order their album “We Are Singers” ( as opposed to what maybe floor sweepers? my line) visit their website at www.thefouraces.org.

Trivia: What song was a hit for both The Chordetts and The Four Aces. The song of course was the classic Mr. Sandman written by Francis Drake "PAT" Ballard or Troy, Pa in 1954. The same song was adapted as a Christmas song by Suzy Boggus as Mr Santa.

Bits and Pieces

2010-03-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

A big welcome to everyone. I am honored to have the opportunity to share memories and behinds the scenes stories from my time behind the microphone. A little brief bio information: I began my radio career while I was a senior at Montoursville High School in Pennsylvania. In the 43 years that I was active in radio and TV, I held about every position in the business and helped to design and build two radio stations. But my favorite times were those days actually on the air. For my first offering here I would give you some “behind the scenes” looks at a few of the artists I interviewed. There is no particular reason why I chose these bits of trivia, rather when I sat down to write this article, these stories came to mind.

Trini Lopez: Most of you know Trini’s high energy style of music from such chart toppers as Lemon Tree and If I Had A hammer. While both songs are more readily associated with Peter Paul & Mary, Trini’s versions outsold and placed higher on the national music charts. This might not have been IF things had been a bit different in 1959. After the February 1959 plane crash that claimed Buddy Holley, J.P. The “Big Bopper” Richardson, and Richie Valens, “The Cricket’s”, Buddy Holley’s back up band, were looking for a new lead singer. They called Trini Lopez and asked him to come to California for a meeting. Trini told me that he met with The Crickets, and he was supposed to take Buddy’s place, but nothing happened. According to Trini, they were too busy partying and Trini said “ I needed work.” So he began doing session recording and was eventually discovered. Trini remains active today and has released over 50 albums in his career.

While I am on the subject of “The Day The Music Died,” another artist got his start 50 years ago, because of that tragedy. Bobby Vee was a 16 year old kid in Fargo, N.D. where Holley, Richardson, and Valens were headed when their plane crashed. Bobby had a local band and happened to hear the news on the local radio station about the accident. The concert promoters put out a call for local talent to fill in that night and Bobby and his band appeared. Bobby said he was “scared to death,” working before a sold out house, but they went on. Their performance got the attention of the media and record company executives. Bobby had 43 songs that made the chart and today is still actively touring the country with his show.

Did you ever wonder how groups got their names? I asked that question of Hugh Geyer of The Vogues (5 O’clock World, Magic Town, and over 10 more chart hits). He told me the group, consisting of himself, Chuck Blasko, Bill Burkette and Don Miller, played the clubs around Turtle Creek, Pa, near Pittsburgh, as The Val-Aires. They had a couple of regional hit records on a small record label from Pittsburgh, CO & CE, (Which One Will It Be, and I Go Looking For Jeanie). In 1965 they recorded a song written by Petula Clark called “You’re the One.” The record label that released it felt the group need a new name. Hugh told me he came home from “his real job” one day, walked in the house and the song was playing on The Pittsburgh radio powerhouse of the day KDKA. At the end of the song the DJ said that was the new song by The Vogues! Their manager had chosen the name from a club called The Vogue Terrace. Hugh continues to work today with one of two groups using the name “The Vogues.” He is with a group run by Stan Erlich, and was recently joined by original lead vocalist Bill Burkette. Chuck Blasko tours in Southwestern Pa. with his own group.

The Fleetwoods consisted of founder Gretchen Christopher, Barbara Harris, and Gary Troxell, and came out of Olympia, Washington. All were friends in high school and got together and began performing at high school assemblies. Their classmates wanted a record of the now classic “Come Softly To Me” written by Gretchen Christopher. Several months later their demo tape came to the attention of Bob Reisdorf founder of Dolphin Records (later Dolton Records), and it was recorded and of course became a hit. Oh, the accompaniment consisted of a guitar and Gary Troxell shaking his car keys. Dolphin Records told the group they needed a professional sounding name so entering unto the music scene was “The Fleetwoods” named after the telephone exchange the group members lived in. Barbara and Gary are retired, but Gretchen continues to perform today with two new back up singers and has a new CD called “Gretchen’s Sweet 16.” I had the honor of being one of the first DJ’s in the country to play cuts, even before the final mix was completed, during my three interviews with Gretchen. You can hear those interviews at www.gretchenchristopher.com .

Trivia: What male country singer known in some circles at “the Gentle Giant” had a top 40 hit as the lead vocalist in 1966? The group was a “one hit wonder.” Don Williams unique voice is heard in the Pozo Seco Singers hit of I Can Make It With You.

Donnie Brooks (live from......)

2010-03-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

On location broadcasts, also called remote broadcasts, have been a staple of small market and even some bigger market radio stations for years. It involves one or two disk jockeys on location at a business to promote some special event. Over the years I probably have done several hundred or more of these events ranging from gas station and supermarket openings, ice fishing clinic, to a Corvette show. These remotes are live, largely un-scripted and can put you in some rather interesting situations. As I write this some come to mind. I once did an ice fishing clinic about 30 miles out in the middle of nowhere. We had to use our radio station two way radio link and power the equipment from my car, I don't think I thawed out for two weeks. Oh, it was a balmy minus 20 degrees that day. Another time I was doing a grand opening remote at a new gas station. The owner had Go Go Dancers and a live band there. We had traffic backed up for 2 miles in every direction. My favorite story happened one very warm July Saturday in the late 70's. I and a fellow named Cliff Edwards were doing a remote at a Chevrolet dealership for a regional Corvette Show. As the remote wore on both Cliff and I noticed that there were a large number of very attractive females (we both were single) in the crowd. In one of our talk segments Cliff said, “Kel there certainly are a lot of classy chassis here today.' Which got a response from me of “ yes, and the cars aren't bad either.” There was the brief pause while his mind processed what I said, and then it was all over for us the rest of the day. We could not look at one another without breaking up.

In the over four decades I spent in broadcasting I saw the passing of a great many artists. In 1974 the Righteous Brothers (Bobby Hatfiled and Bill Medley) recorded a tribute song called Rock and Roll Heaven. As you my remember they sang about many artists who had passed away with the pretext that , borrowing a ling from the song, “heaven has one hell of a band.” (Their words not mine). When I decided to do the Class Reunion, interview series I knew that in the back of my mind was the fact that like all of us, some very great artists have only a short time left with us. That fact came around in February of 2007 when Donnie Brooks died.

Donnie Books may not be a familiar name to you but his one top 20 hit “Mission Bell,” I felt was one of the better up tempo classic love songs ever released. By the way “Mission Bell” charted in July of 1960 and gave the guy who was born John Abahosh the start of a long and very successful career. During that time he also recorded under the name of Johnny Jordan and Johnny Faire. Donnie Brooks came about when a fellow named Dave Taxi suggested he change his name for a song, as it would be a “riotous occasion,” or a real Donny Brook.

As the case with a lot of artists of his era, Donnie performed on a weekly radio talent show. One show, where he won first place the runner up, was none other than Joanne Castle, long time pianist on the Lawrence Welk Show. Donnie said that years later she called him and told he owed her $75.00 as she was a big star in the Welk Show and he was merely a rock and roll singer.
Donnie was one of the busiest people in rock and roll over the years appearing in three films, “A Swinging Summer”, with Raquel Welch,” (Donnie also wrote the opening song in the movie as well as a lot of the sound track.) “Get Yourself A College Girl” With Nancy Sinatra, and “The Love-ins” with James McArthur. Donnie also produced a rock and roll oldies show for over 15 years.
Donnie wrote “Mission Bell” as a folk song and after “taking it around” to try and get someone to record it, he finally landed back at Era records where they said “we'll cut you on it.” “I'm a folk singer,” Donnie told them, they said not to worry. So they laid down the tracks and he was going to come back the next day, but Era told him he didn't have to. He said “But I haven't done my track yet.” The record company said “ we got you with the back ground singers and it is fine.” Donnie said, “I got kind of depressed that I had not even heard it.” So they played it, and to his surprise it worked, Donnie said.

I heard about Donnie's passing and it really hit me hard, a mere four months after I interviewed him. I called his long time manager Howard Thompson to find out if it was true. Howard asked if I had a copy of the interview and could I send it to him as it was THE LAST interview that Donnie ever did.

The Four Preps Part 1 (classic? radio commercials)

2010-03-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

Once again it's time to go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear; the Old Disk Jockey rides again! Over the years I, and I am sure other Disk Jockeys, have used some take off on just about ever famous line from a classic TV or radio show. I was no exception to be sure. Working in small market radio gave me lots of opportunities to do different jobs and it was not uncommon for me to be a “Combo Man” being on the air a few hours each day and selling advertising the rest of the day. Again because of the size of the station, I more often than not wrote commercials for my advertising accounts, and would rely on twists of well know phrases. Such was the case when the owner of the local A & W Drive In Restaurant wanted to promote chicken meals. I remembered the old radio comedy bit by Dick and Sandy Orkin, (from My raiod hometown Williamsport, PA) called “Chicken Man” and thus “The Adventures of Chicken Legs was born.” For a local loan company, Haven Consumer Discounts, the classic song “Pennies from Heaven” (Skyliners) became “Pennies From HAVEN.” Yes I can hear you groan now. Also along the way many stations used the “hook” of offering a free singing jingle to a client for signing a long term contract. Yes, we were often called on for our input for lyrics. One that stands out in my mind was for Paul F. Glunk Florists. My first lines were not accepted, to this day I can't see why they didn't like “If your flowers are old and shrunk, order new ones from Paul F. Glunk.” The final jingle was Think Paul F. Glunk for fresh floral fashion.” Then the spoken phrase, “Think Glunk!” Was it better? Well, I still liked mine better, even though the real jingle sold a lot of flowers for Mr. Glunk.

I know I have mentioned The Four Preps in passing before as another group from the 1950's and 60's that I felt had a lot of talent. “The Preps” gave us timeless classics such as “26 Miles”, “Down By The Station”, Big man, comedy take offs, “More Money For You And Me,” and The Big Draft Medley. One the latter two songs the Preps with there amazing versatility mimicking other hit groups of the day suggesting that their talents might be better served other than the music business. If you get the chance, “The Four Preps Greatest Hits” CD has these songs and some lesser known, but classic Four Preps harmony that makes for great listening. I did 2 interviews with Bruce Belland; he along with Ed Cobb, Glen Larson, and Marv Ingram made up the original Four Preps.

Bruce describes himself as “one of the most famous people you never heard of,” From recording artist, record producer, actor and TV Network Executive, I guarantee you know his work.

His first television role came on The Ozzie & Harriett Show. Originally The Preps were hired as a band to backup Ricky Nelson at a party at David Nelson's TV Frat House. For a couple of seasons The Preps continued to appear on the show as Frat Brothers, and then Bruce was asked to continue as David's college roommate. As often happened, our interview took a side track to that great TV show and I gained a bit of insight into TV's iconic family. Bruce actually was a good friend and classmate of David Nelson at Hollywood High and eventually got to know Ricky as they both got more involved with the music business. Like most of the young males on the show, Bruce admitted a crush on Harriet Nelson. Harriet (Hillard) was a singer with future husband Ozzie Nelson's band, and Bruce describes her as a great singer, dancer and actress. At one point a major studio wanted to put her under contract, but she missed Ozzie too much and came back to the East Coast and of course they eventually got married. Bruce said “she knew everybody's name that worked on the show and their birthdays, and had quite a sense of humor.” Oh, Bruce also said she was “very beautiful and had great legs!”

Bruce told me a bit of trivia I never knew, that Life magazine coined the term “teen idol” to refer to Ricky when he was on the cover. After the TV show David ran a production company making TV commercials.

As one of the most famous people you never heard of, Bruce was the West Coast Programming Executive for N.B.C. And helped put together a rather famous show called “The Wheel of Fortune” with first year host Chuck Woolery. Chuck left after a year in a money disagreement with show creator Merv Griffin and was replaced by Pat Sajak. Bruce stayed with N.B.C. for a little over two years and then went on to head Ralph Edward Productions for five years. You may remember Ralph Edwards was also a well known producer of TV game shows. To this day Bruce tours, writes and sings “still in the same key” , but more about that in Part 2 next week.

Trivia: Johnny Maestro was the lead singer of two popular groups what were they: The Crests that did “16 Candles,” and The Brooklyn Bridge “The Worst That Could Happen”. Birthday and wedding were the subjects.

Trivia: In the Four Preps song “Down by The Station” how many girls does the boy fall in love with?

The Four Preps part 2

2010-03-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

Often I am asked what was my favorite job in broadcasting. Over the years I've done a lot of them. From Disk Jockey, News Person, Investigative Reporter, Advertising Sales, Sales Manager, Program/Music Director, Studio Engineer, TV Weather and Sports Anchor, Field Reporter, Videographer, Studio Camera Operator, Video and Audio Switcher, and Radio Station General Mangler, er Manager. My favorite? That's easy; it is being a Disk Jockey. I have been very fortunate to work along side some really great people in the business and my style I think reflects a little bit of each of them. Probably my two favorite music formats to work are Oldies and Country. I actually spent more time working those than all the others, although I feel pretty comfortable doing a easy listening music format as well. Both Oldies and Country Music gave me the chance to let my slightly off center way of looking at things show through as well as having a very loyal listener audience.

Last time I started to talk about my first interview with Bruce Belland of The Four Preps, the original interview ran over an hour on the air as we had a lot of ground to cover. This time I would like to talk more about the Group and their music. The Preps first music session in the latter part of 1956 yielded a great slow song called Dreamy Eyes. The song, although it was in my opinion a very good song, was only a minor chart hit. The follow up single 26 Miles written by Prep's Belland, (he started writing it in Jr. High School) and Larson, it hit the top of the charts. Interestingly enough Bruce Belland had never been to Santa Catalina before he wrote the song. All he knew that his favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs did some spring training there, so “it had to be a magical place.” Another bit of trivia, “26 Miles” was not the “A” side of the record, but as often happened some disk jockey turned over the record, and the rest was history.

Bruce was one of those artists I liked instantly, our initial telephone call to set up the interview lasted quite a while and we both took turns cracking each other up. It was no different on the air, as both of us related stories that maybe would not have normally been aired. I remember Bruce getting a kick out of my telling him about warming for the community Christmas Choir to The New Four Preps, (Bruce Belland, Dave Somerville, Ed Cobb, and Jim Yester) and trying to get my breathing to where I could hold a note as long as they did. Bruce credits their great harmony and tight sound to producer Lincoln Mayorga, sometimes called “The Fifth Four Prep.”

The Preps next hit was in 1960 a song called “Down By The Station.” To my way of thinking it was some of their finest harmony. That song was the first single record that the “new” Fender Bass was used on and it supplied the chug chug sound rhythm on the record. You can really hear it in the remastered cut on their greatest hits CD.

The Preps songs were not without a certain amount of controversy. A song called “Letter to The Beatles” about a guy whose girlfriend is infatuated by the “Fab Four” was pulled by Capitol Records after The Beatles threatened to sue. That song is on the Greatest Hits CD. The Preps did many parodies of music groups of the day including those in a song called “More Money for You and Me.” that song came out just after the election of President John Kennedy and was inspired in part by the Peace Corps. The Preps musically are dead on with their impressions of the Fleetwood's, Hollywood Argyles, Platters, Kingston Trio and others as they share what they want these artists to do so there will be “More Money For You And Me.” The Preps would listen to the songs and each one would try their voice at imitating the lead singer. With such a great range of talent, you would swear you are hearing the actual groups. Another bit of controversy came with their imitation of Dion and The Belmont's and the parody of “Teenager in Love”. In the song they changed the lyric line to “why must I be a teenager in jail.” It seems for quite sometime when Dion would perform the audience would yell out “jail” as Dion was singing the word love.

Bruce to this day stays busy, from his long time association with Dave Somerville of The Diamonds and Jim Yester from The Association in Y.B.S. Gold, to a 50th anniversary tour of the Four Preps. Quite a few tour dates are scheduled; see the web site www.thefourpreps.com. . He says, “I can't go too many days without opening the pipes.” Bruce still writes and produces as well and was a major contributor to Dave Somerville's CD “The Cosmic Adventures of Diamond Dave.” Bruce is currently doing a 50th anniversary Four Preps tour. For more information see his web site www.thefourpreps.com.

Trivia: In the Four Preps song “Down by The Station” how many girls does the boy fall in love with? The answer is Three. With the third one telling him to “go down by the station and catch yourself a trolley car that goes into the sea.”

Dick & Dee Dee (and changes I have seen in Radio)

2010-03-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the over the more than four decades I spent “between the turntables and behind the microphone” I saw quite an evolution in broadcasting. The first station I worked at was in a transistion from old to new technology during my tenure there. In my early days radio commercials were aired in one of three ways: some “live”, some of those commercials were really hard to read, for instance Tobin's First Prize Frankfurters commercials. Tobin's would not allow you to call them hot dogs, hots, wieners or anything except FRANKFURTERS. Needless to say that word frequently got mis-prounced. The second way to play commercials was reel to reel tape recorders. If it was a “produced spot”, with music, or two announcers, etc it would be recorded on a 3-1/2” reel of tape. To air it, you had to thread it on one of the reel to reel machines, the station I worked at had five such machines, and play it. Without fail when you were the busiest you would drop a reel of tape and it would roll around the room unwinding. For many years I carried a pen that fit the center hub of the reel so I could rewind it as quickly as possible. The last method was 16” wide Electronic Transcriptions, we called them E.T.'s. They were just like a record album only 4” bigger and yes, radio stations had special size turntables to play them. After a period of time they of course would get scratchy and sometimes stick or skip.

Here's a new record by Mary Sperling and Richard Gostling! I have you scratching your head don't I? The afore mentioned duo is much better known as Dick and Dee Dee. They had nine songs that made the Top 100 charts and of those, 3, were in the top 20. I talked with Dee Dee back in 2006 on “The Class Reunion” after finding her pretty much by accident while doing research for another show. Dick and Dee Dee rocketed to the top of the charts in 1961 with “The Mountains High”, a song, according to Dee Dee that might never have been a hit if a disk jockey in California had not accidentaly played the wrong side. The “A” side, was a ballad called “I Want Someone,” was a big studio production with full orchestra including strings. Dee Dee told me the first time she heard the “The Mountains High” on the air was while she and her family were “in the car, going on a vacation that I didn't want to.” She said she was “shocked and and thrilled.” Thrilled to hear it on the radio and shocked because it was the “B” side of the record. She said “that song was just thrown together in a little studio with only 4 instruments.”

During these series of artist interviews I always learned something new. In this case it was the back in the days when Dick & Dee Dee were doing local shows. The opening act and back up band, was none other than The Beach Boys. Also interesting to note was that Glenn Campbell was a “Beach Boy” during those days. Later on Dick and Dee Dee were the Beach Boys opening act and Glenn Campbell would rehearse their back up band.

I mentioned Dee Dee's book the Vinyl Highway before in this column, as it really gives a great behind the scenes look at the music business of that era. You can order it on her website www.dickanddeedee.com. During our interview I really think she summed that time up very well when she said, “ I think the 60's was a time of complete transformation, as a nation and as a world. We went through so many changes and the music reflected that.”

The website also contains some really interesting video clips of Dick & Dee Dee, including one that was filmed on the last Shindig TV show that promoted the upcoming replacement show. Oh, that show as none other than the campy tv show Batman. In the video Dick plays Batman, and had a hook on the back of his costume. Dee Dee said “he never really knew when they were going to “fly” him. If you watch the video you can see Dick trying to concentrate on “lip syncing” the song while being yanked off the floor. I must say that Dee Dee makes a very attractive Robin, she looked at lot better than Burt Ward. It is classic video and remember it, in all probability, was done live.

As I was talking with Dee Dee, I am not really sure if I complimented her or not when I compared the harmonies of her and Dick to the country duo The Kendall's. I told her that “I felt that the harmony and range of both groups was quite similar.”

Dick (Gostling) St John died in 2003 as the result of a fall, He passed away some three weeks after he fell, never emerging from his coma. Today Dee Dee is joined on tour by Michael Dunn, and actually has some concerts scheduled in Arizona in 2009.

Trivia: What were the first names of The Kendall's, and what relation were they? Jeannie and Royce were father and daughter, their stage name was shortened from Kurkendall. Between the 1960s and 1990s, they released sixteen albums on various labels, including five on Mercury Records. Their albums accounted for more than thirty singles on the Billboard country singles charts, including the Number One hits "Heaven's Just a Sin Away" (also a #69 pop hit), Royce passed away in 1998 and Jeannie was continued to perform releasing several records but unfortunately none have met with a great deal of success.

2010-03-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

You're in, with Kelly Watts, MORE MUSIC” Hi everybody, in the 60's and 70's in Top Forty Radio (read rock and roll) almost every disk jockey had his or her own “shout.” “Shouts” were personalized introductions for the disk jockey usually produced by the same company that produced the singing station jingles. There were dozens of thees companies in operation at one time and their services not only included radio station jingles, but also singing jingles for a multitude of products. I still have copies of my shouts and have used them during my radio career.

When I say the name Jimmie Rodgers, depending on what generation you are from you will either think of the Pioneer Country Star , also known as “The Singing Brakeman,” or the pop singer. Since the former died in 1933 it would have been rather difficult for me to interview him. I did have the great fortune to interview the “pop” artist Jmmie Rodgers back in 2006 on “The Class Reunion.” As I was preparing to write this article I once again listened to my interview and found it was quite surprising ho much I had forgotten. The pop signer jimmey Rodgers was born in 1933, and was actually named after his uncle. He told me that in later years he got to know several members of the country singers family, and has a rather large collection of that artists music.

Jimmie Rodgers was on my “A list” of people and thanks to his good friend Johnny Tillotson I got the opportunity to talk with him. I rememebr when I first called to set up the interview his wife Mary had me hang on the line while she interrupted his gardening chores. We both laughed about it as when he answerd the phone I told him that I felt he needed a break.

After Jimmie's discharge from the Air Force, he went to New York city in search of work. After several failed efforts to find a job, he told me he was outside the CBS Studios, and saw a bunch of musicians going in to audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. “I had my old guitar so I just walked in with the rest of them,” Jimmie said. He got an audition went on the show and won $750.00. Jimmie said, “it was a good thing I was just about out of money.”

Jimmie's first hit “Honeycomb” was recorded in just two hours at Roulette Records. “In those days we didn't have all the fancy equipment there is today, just a microphone for me, one for the band, and the back up singers leaned in over my shoulders.” Jimmie said, “Today, with all the modern technology, someone who can't sing can make a hit record.” Jimmy, who was still active in record production, got a laugh when I told hime that if her ever wanted to record someone like that, just call me.

Jimmie is survivor. Back in 1967 he was attacked and severely injured. The incident effectively stopped his career for nearly 18 years. He told me at one point his weight dropped to 88 pounds. Jimmie told me that it took a lot of hard work but eventually he fully recovered and went on to run marathons. His road back eventually took him to Branson, Mo where for 12 years, ending in 2003, he had the “Jimmie Rodgers Family Show.”

Jimmy is another one of those entertainers who is more than just a recording artist, he runs two music publishing companies and has written over 300 songs. Jimmie related that when he is on stage he tell the audience,”I'm going to sing the biggest hit I ever had,” launching into “Oh, Oh ,Spaghetti-O's” Of course that was derived from his 1958 song “Oh Oh, I'm Falling In Love Again.”

I asked him if he had ever done the Dick Clark tour, he said, “No, because Dick Clark couldn't catagorize my work, I never shook my rear end, I just sat on a stool and sang folk songs.” Speaking of touring, Jimmie was supposed to be on the tour with Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper that saw them die in a plane crash. “I quit flying in those rickety planes and started doing more nightclubs after that,” said Jimmie, “I wasn't on the tour as I was home with the flu.”

The last time Jimmie made the charts was in 1966 with a song called “It's Over.” “there was no formal score for the song the song, that he wrote about a conversation he had with a woman who was in love with one of his band mambers. The song, featured then studio musician Glenn Campbell on guitar, an acustic bass and drums. That song also was a hit for Elvis and Eddy Arnold.

Trivia Time: What company sponsored The Arthur Godfrey Talent scout TV show. Godfrey would always do their commercials live and sample their product on the air.” None other than Lipton Tea, Arthur would always brew a cup on the air, and sip it. I sometimes wondered what was REALLY in the cup? Was it like the rumor about Jackie Gleason's cup that was filled with Gin?

2010-03-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

In the movie “Grease” Sha Na Na, performed as Johnny Casino & The Gamblers for the Homecoming dance at Rydell High. That segment is one of my favorites in the movie, as it takes me back to the time of the Friday night dances at the local fire hall in my hometown of Montoursville, Pa. From the moment I turned the ripe old age of 12, the minimum age to get in the door, I attended the dances faithfully. It was there I got to know the local disk jockeys, and watch them apply their talent. I was what was called a “gofer,” meaning I would run errands for the disk jockey, such as run to the nickel Coca Cola machine, (the local bottler sponsored the dance), for liquid refreshment. Gee, I even got to help carry the equipment before and after the dance. Eventually I was allowed to “spin the stacks of wax” when the disk jockey took a break. The dance was three hours with the first two hours being “live on the air.” During that time I would help with music selection, keep track of the requests from the dancers, and once in the while I would even be allowed to run the equipment.

Having grown up in North Central Pennsylvania, I always felt I had the best of all the music possibilities. One one hand I was exposed to that great “Philly Sound” with an unbelievable array of talent from Bobby Rydell, The Crystals, The Ronnettes, to The Teddy Bears. On the other end of the state in Pittsburgh, Doo Whop was King! If you have watched the P.B.S. Specials from Pittsburgh, you have had the opportunity to see some of the best groups ever to record. Such artists as The Vogues, Perry Como, Lou Christie, and The Lettermen all trace their roots back to Southwestern Pa. One of my favorite groups was and still is The Skyliners. The history of The Skyliners dates back to 1958 when Jimmy Beaumont, Wally Lester and Jack Taylor, joined forces with Janet Vogel and Joe Versheran. Their name came from the classic big band song by Charlie Barnett. With out a doubt The Skyliner's biggest hit was “Since I Don't Have You.” The song was inspired by Joe's girlfriend breaking up with him. That song defined the Skyliner's sound. Jimmy told me that within 6 weeks of appearing on Dick Clark's Bandstand show, those days based in Philadelphia, it really took off. “We never got to number 1, as Frankie Avalon was in the top spot with Venus.” Since I Don't Have You actually went #1 on the Rhythm & Blues charts, and they were actually booked into New York's Apollo Theater as the promoters thought they were a black group. Jimmy said “ when we went on stage you could hear the collective gasp from the audience.” The Skyliner's hit the charts several time with such songs as Pennies From Heaven, This I Swear, and even Since I Fell For You. As happened time and time again, the British Invasion of the early to mid 1960's made it impossible for American Groups to have hit records.

As is the case with most of the groups from that era, The Skyliners have undergone numerous personnel changes over the years, due to retirement or death. The one constant being leader Jimmy Beaumont. On The Class Reunion I had the pleasure of talking with Jimmy and of course along the way some good natured kidding about his golf games. He and Chuck Blasko from the original Vogues are good friends and play often. As good friends Jimmy and Chuck always accuse each other of cheating when the other one wins. I asked Jimmy if time has caused him to change the key in which he sings, to that he laughed and said that he still can hit the high notes and always brings the house down when he does. Jimmy started out his music career as a bass, and told me “ I still enjoy singing bass.” The group has never wavered from their original sound, and that is apparent on even their latest CD. Today's group consists, of course, of Jimmy Beaumont, Second Tenor Dick Muse, Female Lead Vocalist Donna Groom, and Bass/Baritone Nick Pociask. Each of the members of the group have their time in the spotlight. Donna Groom, has according to Jimmy and Nick “Perfect Pitch,” and your can hear her on “One More Mountain”, the title song from their latest CD. Nick Pociask is the joker of the group, every one has to have one, but there is no lack of talent there. Nick has a 4 to 5 octave range and signs lead, he says “he loves to hurt himself when he sings falsetto.” Nick hits the high notes on the CD with “If You Want To”, and Jimmy said “during the show Nick sings some Frankie Valli, (Four Seasons) songs.” The Skyliner's have recorded two Christmas Classics “Your My Christmas Present” and “Another Lonely New Years Eve,” and both of those songs are on the CD.

Trivia: What other Pennsylvania group had a chart hit with “Since I Don't Have You?” It was The Vogues from Turtle Creek, Pa. Hugh Geyer told me they included the song on one of their albums as a tribute to The Skyliners.

Sha na Na

2010-03-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well I see by the ole' clock on the floor it's time for another Class Reunion. I always enjoyed doing that show, because it gave me a chance to try certain ideas I had over the years but never could use because of station format. One of my favorite things, even though it usually involved a lot of extra time, was to do special shows. Themed shows like, one hit wonders, names in songs, artists or songs from A to Z, were only a few I did. Someday I hope once again to be able to bring Payson “the Greatest Music of All Times”, a lot of things have to fall into place before that could ever happen.

One of the themed shows I did was novelty songs. To be sure there were lots of them between the period of 1952 and 1975 (the years I used for the show). What brought that to mind was last weeks trivia question: “in 1962 Claude King hit the charts with a song based on an actual location and person.” The song was Wolverton Mountain, co-written by Claude. According to what I have been able to learn, Wolverton Mountain is located in North West Arkansas near the town of Morilton. There are also Wolverton Mountains in Canada and Arizona but the subject of the song is the one in Arkansas. Yes Clifton Clowers had not one but two daughters, no one said if they were pretty or not, or if Clifton really could talk to the bears and birds. Mr. Clowers passed away in August of 1994 at the age of 102.

“Grease for peace,” is a phrase that former Sha Na Na member Jon “Bowzer” Bauman used to end the TV shows that aired from 1977 to 1981. While I never got the chance to interview “Bowzer” we have talked several times about “truth in music” legislation. Such legislation is designed to protect to the rightful artists and prevent the public from being hoodwinked by fraudulent acts. Sha Na Na is as busy today as ever performing their style of nostalgic music all around the world. During “The Class Reunion” I had the pleasure of interviewing drummer and original member “Jocko” Marcellino twice. As is the case of a lot of my interviews, it took a totally different path than I had imagined. Even though I know the “Greaser” image is an act, I felt going into the first interview that “Jocko” would come off as his alter ego. Oh to be sure we had a lot of fun with that, but I found him to be a very interesting person with a great sense of humor who on more than one occasion left me speechless. Did you know that he was with Sha Na Na when they appeared at Woodstock? Bye the way that was ONLY the groups seventh performance. Jocko said, “and we never got paid for it either.” He holds a Masters Degree in Drama from New York University and in addition he is an accomplished actor, producer and songwriter.

As was the case with so many of the groups and artists I interviewed, Sha Na Na, at that time, was in the process of releasing a new CD, named “One More Saturday Night.”. What really was “neat and a real gas man” (sorry I was transported back to the 50's) was the fact I got to play several of the cuts before the final album mix. One of my favorites was “The Cat In The P.T. Cruiser.” The song has all the flavor of 1950's rock and roll which was what the band wanted to accomplish. The whole album of songs could have very easily been released in the 50's or early 60's and would have been a hit. For those of you who saw the movie “Grease” “Screamin Scott” Simon, the co-writer of the song “Sandy” sung by John Travolta in the movie, has the opportunity to show his musical talent on the CD. Anytime I do a disk jockey gig I am sure to play one of more cuts, as there are some great dance songs. To order the CD see their web site is www.shanana.com

Trivia: In the movie “Grease” what was the name of the group, played by Sha Na Na, that performed for the dance at Rydell High? The answer, Johnny Casino & The Gamblers

Till next time, “keep smiling it will make everybody wonder what you've been up to.”

Jan & Dean (W or K how do they know?)

2010-03-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

We'll be back with todays trip into the world of musical trivia right after station identification. Did you ever wonder how radio stations got their call letters? To be sure the F.C.C. is the final word on issuing call letters, based on a very old policy. It was only in late January of 1923 that the Mississippi River, the current standard, was adopted as the dividing line. This meant new call signs west of the Mighty Mo were K's rather than W's. However, existing stations west of the Mississippi were permitted to keep their now non-standard W calls. Thus, pioneer broadcasters in the west were permitted to keep their “W” calls, as were old time stations like KDKA Pittsburgh, and KYW Philadelphia in the east. Some stations call letter, reflect the town they are in like one I worked for in Pa. WMPT was the abbreviation for Williamsport. Others reflect the founders name like WRAK stood for Rudolph A. King. Locally KMOG gets its moniker from the Mogollon Rim. One station that I was involved in had the call letters WKAD and those stood for the three founders Kelly, Alan, and Dave. I think sometimes the people who made up call letters looked for the most difficult ones possible, I worked at including WBPZ and WLYC. (Oh because the stations simulcasted on AM and FM the legal station I.D. Made you say the call letters twice, once alone, for the AM station and once adding the FM.

Let's go surfin'! When you think of the era of surfer music, several names come to mind. Probably most prominently the Beach Boys,and Jan and Dean. Jan Berry and Dean Torrence had a string of hits in the 60's. I talked with Dean Torrence back in November of 2006. Since the death of his long time partner Jan Berry, who was injured in a traffic accident Dean has spent a lot of his time as he describes it as a “Bus Driver” running his kids and their friend to and from soccer games. I asked him if he still surfs as much as Dave Somerville (The Diamonds) says. Dean said, “no,it is not like when I was younger and the waves were easier to take and the water was not so cold.”

“Baby Talk” was the first song released by Jan and Dean in 1959. Dean had recorded a top 10 song called Jennie Lee with Arnie Ginsburg. Arnie, along with Jan & Dean was one of the 10 to 12 guys who hung out together and wrote songs. Dean said, “It was the first song that actually went from beginning to end,” so Jan and Arnie recorded it. Arnie Ginsberg , according to Dean really didn't have much of an interest in music after high hchool and he and Dean Studied Architectural Design in College. “Arnie wanted to be a designer, and I was there because my parents wanted me to get a real education, because this rock and roll crud won't last forever.”

Back to Baby Talk; that song like so many of that era were recorded in facilities that by todays standards would be considered “low tech.” The echo chamber actually was a big tiled room located somewhere under the studio. It had a speaker at one end and a mic at the other and captured the “natural echo.”

The next hit for Jan and Dean was Heart and Soul in 1961. They got the song from Beach Boy Brian Wilson. Dean told me that “Brian had written about ½ the lyrics and chorus, and lost interest in it.” “Even half finished it was still better than 99% of the songs other writers were doing,” he said.

Did you know that Dean sang the lead on the Beach Boys remake of The Regents 1961 song Barbara Ann? If you remember the song, the end of it sounds as if they forgot the lyrics, when I asked Dean about that, his answer was, “I wasn't sure it had lyrics.”

Jan and Dean's string of hits included, “Heart and Soul”, “Linda”, and “Surf City,” “Honolulu Lu Lu,” “Cartune (sic) Classics” “Drag City” and “Dead Man's Curve”. A slight change of pace followed in 1964 with “New Girl In School.” The next Jan and Dean song I consider a classic. “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.” was inspired by the obnoxious car salesman character played by the late Frank Nelson on the Jack Benny TV Show. Jack was looking to trade in his Maxwell automobile, and Nelson's character told Jack, “this car had only been driven to church on Sunday's by a little old lady from Pasadena.” Dean says, “this is still the most requested Jan & Dean song.” By the way, Dean's favorite song is “Dead Man's Curve,.” partly because of all the special effects using limited recording capabilities.

These days he still teams up with Al Jardine, David Marks, David Logeman and others in a group called Surf City All Stars. They play the music of both Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys.

Trivia: What do B.J. Thomas, Duane Eddy, and Dave Somerville have in common? The answer is one of my favorite records called “Rock and Roll Lullaby. Dave is singing back-up, Duane is on Lead Guitar, and of Course B.J. is singing lead

Bobby Vee Part 2 and The Blooper Bug

2010-03-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Hi again on our trip into the 5th estate. I just felt like I was Rod Sterling introducing “The Twilight Zone.” Over the years I felt like I was a resident of that place when things didn't go quite as planned. Bloopers. I do not know a single person in the broadcast media that has not been bitten by the “Blooper Bug”. As a matter of fact, a fellow named Kermit Schaefer produced at least 5 albums called “Pardon My Blooper.” To be sure, I have made hundred if not thousands of “mis-speaks.” One that sticks in my mind happened during a news story,that I was reading very early in my career. It was about Homecoming Weekend at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa. The story was supposed to read “as part of the festivities they will be roasting a full black Angus steer.” However this young announcer, read it as “a full back Angus steer.” Of course, at this point the on duty control room person, my friend the late Mike Sarlo, let out a loud “MOO” and started running around the control room using his hands for horns and charging the newsroom window. That was the end of anything that made sense for the rest of the news cast, as every time I would recover, Mike would moo so only I could hear him. The late Harry Von Zell, announcer for Burns and Allen, referred to the then president as Hoobert Heever. A reporter assigned to Washington, DC said “according to a high White Horse souse,” Even the Legendary Paul Harvey broke into un-controllable laugher at a story about a poodle. I remember that, as we were covering a network commercial with a local live commercial, so I was listening in the headphones. After that happened and Paul's announcer was in stitches trying to read the network fill commercial. Other times we announcer types get stuck on the most simple things. Mine is “Cinnamony Applesauce,” from the school lunch menu of the Horseheads, NY High School, My mentor Dick Crownover never could say “Social Security”. Our boss once told Dick that “you will be in big trouble if the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic ever gets social Security.' Even the Late Don Holcombe from KMOG, who I admired for his command of the language, got stuck one day on Tsumani.

1962 was a hot year for Bobby's label Liberty Records. They sold more records than any other label. As I mentioned last week they had the biggest acts in the country. Bobby had “Run To Him,” which hit #2 on the charts and sold over a million records. He also recorded one of my favorites “Take Good Care of My Baby.” I actually used the term “Pizzicato strings.” I think I impressed Bobby, since I had told him, rightfully so that my technical knowledge of music is very limited. That was the song Bobby sang at his daughters wedding. Bobby said, “I thought it would be easy, I slowed it down and changed the words as bit. When it came time for me to sing, it was so tough, my little girl getting married. I couldn't look at her. To me it was a magic memory.” The slow version of the song was released in 2003 in England on an album, that is available from Bobby's web site www.bobbyvee.com. That little aside story was one of the many special moments that occurred during my Legendary Artist Interview Series.

Bobby's personal favorite song is “Run To Him.” That 1962 song was written for the Everly Brothers, and his producer accidentally picked up the wrong pile of music, and before the mistake was discovered by the record label, “we had already recorded it,” said Bobby.

I had the pleasure of playing two Bobby Vee songs as a new records, “Devil or Angel” and “Come Back When You Grow Up Girl.” I hate to say that the Bobby Vee interview was one of my favorites, because I really enjoyed talking with all the legends of rock and roll. It was a D.J.'s dream come true!

Trivia: What song did Bobby Vee sing on American Bandstand that upset host Dick Clark? Bobby Vee was appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, and sang his latest hit “Please Don't Talk About Barbara.” After the show, Clark asked Bobby, “What did you sing that song for?” Unknown to Bobby was that Dick Clark was in the process of getting a divorce from his wife BARBARA.

Bobby Vee (the story behind the scenes) Part 1

2010-03-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

Back when we moved Cruise Port Travel in July of 2009 it remined me of another time in my radio career. It reminded me of one of the more difficult times I ever spent in radio immediately following the Agnes Flood of 1972. At the time I was working for WMPT AM FM in South Williamsport, Pa and was doing a variety of jobs, as I always seemed to do. Well anyway the station received some 9' of back water which would not have been too bad except all the offices and studios were on the first floor! Once the waters receded, and after days of cleaning and washing, we managed to get back on the air with very limited operations capabilities, wires strung across the floor, limited equipment etc. That fosters an expression I still use today. “Anything that is temporary for more than three weeks is permanent.”

“Like A Rubber Ball I'll Come Bouncing Back To you” and “Take Good Care of My Baby” are just two of my favorite Bobby Vee songs. I had the opportunity to talk with him back in 2007 during the time he was performing at the Dick Clark Theater in Branson, Mo. As was the case with most my Legendary Artist Series interviews, I came away with a lot of new stories and facts about the artist. In an early article I mentioned how Bobby Vee (Veline) got his start, I would like to expand on that story a bit. It was February 3, 1959, the Richie Vallens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper were scheduled to perform in Morehead , MN, a suburb of Fargo, ND. 15 year old Bobby Vee came home from high school for lunch and when he came into the house he heard the radio talking about the plane crash that killed those three artists. The local promoter decided to go on with the remaining acts, and local talent. Bobby at the time had a “garage band” and called the station to volunteer his band to help fill in along with scheduled acts Dion & The Belmont's, and The Crickets (Buddy Holly's Band), that at the time had the Legendary Waylon Jennings as a member. Anyway come show time and Bobby said “ the M.C. asked the name of the band, we didn't have a name, so I thought a minute and said The Shadows. “Then our moment of truth came when we were introduced, my life flashed in front of my eyes, and we started to play I thought I was going to die. It was one thing to volunteer, but now I've got to do this.” Bobby was planning to go to the show, “I even had a ticket,” he said.

In the audience that night was a fellow named Bin Bingson, who managed a chain of Drive In Theaters in the Fargo, Morehead area. After the show he came up to Bobby and said “if you want work give me a call.” A couple of days later Bobby did just that and that was the start of a music career that has spanned five decades. Some four months later Bobby and his band went to Minneapolis and recorded a song called “Susie Baby.” According to Bobby, “for a five hundred dollars we got 1000 records, we jumped into an old Oldsmobile and went around to radio stations. Every one of them said come in they interviewed us and played the record and by September of 1959 it was the #1 song in the upper Midwest.

Bobby and I talked about the “Dick Clark Experience,” as I mentioned before this was a party that Dick threw for the acts, and everyone drew the name of another act and did their songs at the artist party. Bobby said, “it was a lot of good natured fun.” What did he do? Well he was Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon.

1960 took Bobby to Liberty records, one of the hottest labels at the time, with artists like Gene Pitney, Dick & Dee Dee, The Fleetwood's and more, to record “Devil or Angel.”

Bobby said, “If it hadn't been a hit it, would have been the last shot for me at Liberty Records.”

Trivia: What movie did the Bing Crosby classic song “White Christmas” come come from? This classic Irving Berlin song originally appeared in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn staring Bing and Danny Kaye and then again as the title song in the 1954 movie. The song has been recorded by dozens of artist and has sold in excess of 400 million copies!

I will continue the look at an artist I referred to as “Durable, the next time.

Kel's "List Of Shame"

2010-03-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

Ok boys and girls, snuggle up close to the radio it's time again for “The Class Reunion.” A large percentage of we “Baby Boomer's'” were born at a very unique time in history, well at least from my perspective. The “Golden Age of Radio” was winding down, and TV was just getting underway. I can remember as a young lad growing up in the Williamsport, Pa area or being glued to the radio for The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, Gunsmoke, Mystery Theater and more, this truly was a fantastic time for some really great programming. One program that stands out in my mind was on N.B.C. Radio on the weekend. That program was “Monitor.” Even thpough I never worked at an NBC Affiliate during that time, I was a regular listener. Such great acts as comedians Bob & Ray, news, interviews, special features and more. I still credit “Monitor” as a very early forerunner of today's talk radio format. As I was sitting her typing this I can easily remember ABC Radio's “Don McNeil's Breakfast Club” and the great “Art Linkletter's House Party” on CBS. By the late 60's these shows were gone, replaced by music formats on radio.

This time I have decided to deviate from writing about on specific artist and pass along some thoughts about unusual things I have heard and seen in my time in radio, I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

Records that NEVER should have been released: There are a lot that fall into that category that I, and a lot of other people, consider to be just plain BAD MUSIC. Right at the top of my list was an album of Beatles music. I may surprise you that even though I grew up during the “British Invasion” I was not a Beatles fan, BUT that said, I did like their music. I think that all of their songs at one time or another have been covered (re corded) by another artist. Some of the best, in my opinion came from Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66. If you get a chance to pick up a copy of their CD, I am sure you will like it as well. Ok, now the worst cover of a Beatles song belongs to none other than Bing Crosby. Bing's late 60's version of “Hey Jude” is without a doubt one of the worst songs I have ever heard. I can remember at the time I was the Music Director of WMPT in South Williamsport Pa. And they had just put the first Stereo FM station on the air. The owner, not wanting “Rock and Roll” on the FM at night contacted for a music service to be run on the stations home brew automation system. One element of the service was a show called "Music With Mc Master." I often listened to the show partly because I had just installed a brand new combination 8 track track, stereo FM radio in my car! Anyway I was on my way to the station and heard old, Bingo “groaning bo-do-oh-dooby oh- do.” When I got there I went to the automation pulled the reel off the tape machine, (a news cast was on the air) and threw it in the station dumpster! I told the supplier if they ever sent that cut again I was canceling the service. BTW if you have a wish to ruin your ears, Bing's version of "Hey Jude" was released on CD in 1997 by Rhino Records under the title "Golden Throats IV -- Celebrities Butcher the Beatles."

Don't get me wrong, I like Bing, I also like Peggy Lee, but she had another of “Kel's Despised Records” “Is That All There Is.” The song asks the same question over and over, like 'is that all there is to the fire?” “is that all there is to Love, life,” ETC. On the plus side Peggy's version of “Fever” is a real classic song. For the Disney movie “Lady and the Tramp, Peggy wrote a great deal of the songs and did four different character voices.

Some of the other songs on “Kel's List of Shame” Include, My Sharona, You Light Up My Life, Which Way You Goin' Billy,” and high lighted by records released by William Shatner, that included Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Even Mr. Spock , Lenord Nimoy, got into the act covering “Hey, Mr Tambourine Man”. To be sure there are many others, some of them got to my list because I had to play them so many times while they were popular.

Trivia question: Who did the sound effects of Jack Benny's Maxwell Automobile? The answer, none other than the very highly talented Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc is probably the best known voice artist ever, giving us Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Barney Rubble, and he was even the first voice of Woody Woodpecker, before he left Walter Lance to go to Warner Brothers.I think every disk jockey in the business looked to Mel Blanc for inspiration for their character voices. I know I did adapting Foghorn Leghorn as my character “General Confusion,” and have always loved to do Elmer Fudd, a role Mel inherited in later years. The original voice of Elmer, by the way, was Arthur Q. Bryan and most of the "Woody" cartoons were voiced by Gracie Lantz, Walters wife, who won the role in a blind audition.

Gary Pucket (part 2) and D.J.'s are "Turkeys"

2010-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

Hi again, from the “stacks of dusty wax, right here in “The Groove Yard.” I can not tell you how many times I have sat in promotional meetings trying to come up with the next big station event. I don't think I ever came out of a meeting with less than a ½ dozen idea's. One of my favorite promotions was a Thanksgiving promotion called “The Great Turkey Race.” The idea each D.J. Was a Turkey, Ok we all were, and they ran a race like a horse race. The prize for picking the correct “Turkey” was of course a Thanksgiving turkey. Some of the names I came up with for the racing turkey's included Dave's Drumstick, Stu Stuffing, Sue's Sauce, and Kel's cole Slaw. Another favorite of mine was “Next Prize.” We had a tape of all kinds of different prizes, I would get the caller on the air and run the tape, the contestant would listen and say stop, then what ever the next prize on the tape is what they won. Some were good and some were not really prizes, like Kel's used coffee cup. One promotion that was very interesting to me was back in the early 70's when I worked at WILQ in Williamsport, The station had just changed call letters and was promotion then selves as “Q 105.” The idea was the most creative ways that the listener could show the logo. We had cakes, pictures of people with Q 105 tanned on their body, to a very large hay field mowed with that legend. The farmer who did that flew over the field and took a picture. The previous two were very successful promotions and created a lot of interest. One promotion that got the station into trouble was the parking meter stuffer. Each DJ had a regular shift and a route in the business district, armed with a couple of rolls of nickels and a stack of cards that said “your parking ticket was prevented by WLYC/WILQ. We ran this promotion for a couple of weeks until we got a visit from the Police Department Parking Enforcement division. According to them by putting money in a parking meter where a car other than your own was parked was against the law. I really don't remember the outcome but I think we stopped the promotion.

The last chart hit for them was “This Girl Is A Woman Now,” I liked the song and once again featured Gary's powerful voice. It was about this time that he made a business decision by refusing to cut another ballad, that decision proved to be the end of a very promising group career for the Union Gap. They did release a high forgettable song called “Let's Give Adam And Eve Another chance.” I do remember playing the song, BUT not for very long as it was a “bomb.”

These days Gary Puckett still tours and often appears with his good friend B.J. Thomas. During his shows Gary does a tribute to the veterans called “Home.” in our interview Gary described that segment of his show as “A moving experience.” He says it is not un common for Vietnam vets to come up to him after the show and tell him they remember his music on Armed Forces radio. Something that Gary said surprised him was the they vets tell him “it was your music we took with us to the battlefield.”

About the time of our interview, Gary was in the process of releasing a CD called “The Lost Tapes.” These were songs that Gary and his brother wrote back in 1974-75. While the songs were recorded, they were never released. Gary told me “the record companies did not know how to define the music, so they did not want to put it out.”

I did a follow up show with Gary, and we featured cuts from “The Lost Tapes.” The music is good, but if you think you are going to hear the traditional Gary Puckett ballad then you will be surprised. If you would like to order Gary's music and check out where he is appearing his web site is www.garypuckettmusic.com

During the run of “The Legendary Artist Series” I have interviewed over 50 different artists, most of the artists were good interviews, but Gary was one of the outstanding ones.

Trivia: What Union Gap song was re-released in 1974 in England and hit the top 5 becoming a “Certified Silver Record.” It was Gary's next hit from 1968. That hit was the classic “Young Girl.” Gary's next hit of “Over You” I felt that was a return to the more traditional sound with Gary really belting out a song. As was the case with all the Union Gap songs, the orchestration was great.

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Gary Puckett (part 1)

2010-03-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another installment of my memories I always hope that you find the artists' stories and my stories about broadcasting of interest and amusement! I got thinking today about some of the most colorful characters I ever worked with. To be sure Lynn B. (last name omitted) was one of the most. As is the case of way too many people in media he had a problem,with alcohol. He did morning drive at a station where I was the All Night D.J. A few times a week he would appear at the station around 2:00 AM and sack out on the couch. Since he was my relief person, it became my job to awaken him for his shift. This man looked like everybody's grandfather, and was a nice enough guy, except for the periods when he was over-served. I could always tell if it was going to be a challenge, for he would come into the control room and say something to the effect of “well Senator, I'm going to take a nap. Get me up for my shift.” He wore the worlds worse looking toupee as it had yellowed with age, and when he was in “that” condition, it would be crooked on his head. I did feel sorry for him, as he was a decent announcer, but after a pretty short period of time management got tired of his antics and fired him.

Gary Puckett and the Union Gap sold well over five million singles in the the period of time from 1967 to late 1969, plus probably a very close number of albums. In 1968 they were the #1 selling artists and the record trivia people point out they outsold all other artists INDLUDING THE BEATLES. When Gary and I talked about that fact, he said , “Well maybe the Beatles were having a bad year.” That was typical of our chat. I found Gary to be a very down to earth, humble, well spoken guy who was not afraid to poke some fun at himself. Of all the artists I have ever interviewed I think he was the most well spoken.

In talking about the group and their success Gary said, “we had a little good luck, we put together a talented bunch of guys, to be on stage, and I kind of handled it like a business.” Jerry Fuller our producer at Columbia (Records) came to see us perform in San Diego, and afterwards came up to the stage and said, let's go make records.” Gary gives a lot of credit to Jerry for his choice of matching the music to the artist. “If you had given “Woman Woman” or “Young Girl” to Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones) it may not have worked. Or if I had tried to do “Time Is On My Side” or “Satisfaction,” it might not have worked either .”

The story of the Union Gap really starts in his family's garage in San Diego. He and his family had moved around a lot with his father's job as a department store executive. Gary said, “I like to say we were a garage band when we started. We borrowed a stage in a club to perform for a person we wanted to be our manager.” Fortunately he liked them and booked them gigs in West and Northwest Coast. It was on that trip Gary had the idea for the group to wear Civil War Union uniforms. The Union Gap name came from a suburb in the Yakima, Wa. valley. Gary said, “the band would probably tell you I got the idea from the TV Show F Troop!”

Their first hit “Woman Woman” from December of 1967, (Written by Jim Glaser) actually was also a minor county hit for Tompall Glaser and The Glaser Brothers. Columbia producer Jerry Fuller liked the song and said “If I find the right guy to do it, I'm going in the studio.” Gary, on a visit to Columbia records, handed Jerry his portfolio and he liked it and said “I've got a song for you.” The rest, as they say is history, BTW, Glen Campbell was also interested in that song. Somehow, as much as I like Glen's work, I don't think the song would have had quite the impact it did with Gary's tremendous voice hitting those high notes. Gary laughs today, and says “Well, I could in those days. I've had to bring all the songs down a step, I can't hit those notes anymore.”

1968 saw the release of “Young Girl” about which Gary Puckett says, “I was fortunate to work with a producer and writer like Jerry who wrote songs to follow other songs, we were fortunate to have a guy who understood that.” Gary, I think, liked the comment I made that I felt the song was a “commercially good sound.” Well it certainly had all the right things including a 30 piece orchestra behind them in that song.

As is that case when I listen to these interviews I have way more material than I can fit in one article, so I will continuein another post with notes from my Gary Puckett Interview.

Trivia the 1960's group that appeared in Civil War uniforms?” That group was none other than Gary Puckett & The Union Gap. Their series of songs, that, when you put the titles in order tell a story

Diane Renay (More Than just "Navy Blue")

2010-03-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

This time I wanted to mention one of the lesser known legends of rock and roll. I never use the term legend lightly and even though this artist was a “one hit wonder,” I feel she deserves to be called a legend. Diane Renay was born in Philadelphia as Renay Diane Kushner and is best known for her 1964 hit “Navy Blue.” As happens all too often an artist who has a lot of talent only has one hit record. I had the opportunity to interview her on The Class Reunion, and play several other songs that by all rights should have been hits. But remember this was at the height of “The British Invasion,” and even Elvis could not get a hit. If you have the opportunity check out her web site and there you can order a double CD of some really great music. CD 1 is vintage Diane from the 60's and CD 2 is a very interesting mix of some excellent music showing her wide rage of talent. One of the cuts on this CD set is a “disco” sounding version of Navy Blue and I think it is a great dance tune.

During our interview Diane was telling me about a story about the time she appeared on a local Pittsburgh, PA TV show with Lou Christie and Bobby Goldsboro. The DJ who hosted the TV show also did record hops and he somehow managed to get all three artist to agree to make an appearance. Diane and the other artists thought is was to be a local event. Not so, as they were driven to the airport an put on a single engine six passenger plane; the record hop was in West Virginia. Diane said that after they had been flying for a while she noticed a funny smell in the air, and heard the aircraft's radio with a voice saying “aircraft in trouble, this is Pittsburgh tower.” The pilot told them that the plane was having engine trouble and that he was going to try and make it to a small airstrip nearby. It was then Diane said, “I grabbed hold of Lou Christie's arm as tight as I could.” As the minuets passed she noticed a light haze of smoke in the cabin and at that point inflicted lacerations on Lou's arm with her fingernails. A fact that she denies, but Lou Christie told me, “Oh yeah, she drew blood.”
Diane said as they went along, “Bobby (Goldsboro) was talking about the next three legends of rock and roll to die in a plane crash, ( in reference to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper), and making those darn cricket sounds.” This continued until Diane lost it and told Bobby to “be quiet,” or word to that extent.

They managed to make it to the small airstrip someplace in West Virginia and as they completed their approach the engine died! Fortunately for music fans they landed safely and continued on by car to the record hop. Diane said she went on and did her performance, and afterwards called he father who was back in Pittsburgh. He had just heard on the news about her plane and was greatly relieved when her heard her voice. Diane said “it was then I lost it and started to cry and collapsed on the floor.”

The story doesn't end there. While Diane, Bobby and Lou were at the record hop, the plane was fixed and they were told they were going to fly back to Pittsburgh. “No way,' said Diane, “I don't care if I have to walk, I am NOT getting in that thing.” She won, and the three artists were returned in a limousine. All three artists still are performing today, with Lou Christie being the busiest.

Trivia What was the name of the only group and song by an an American Group made the Top Ten in the first half of 1964. A hint, it was a “girl group” that shares the name of a drinking device. That Group The Dixie Cups hit the Top 10 With (Going) To The Chapel Of Love.

Brenda Lee (maybe my first love)

2010-03-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

As a male growing up through the 1950's and 1960's I fell “IN LOVE” many times. Let's see there was Annette and Sharon on The Mickey Mouse Club, Gretchen Christopher from The Fleetwoods, Patty Duke, and then there was Brenda Lee.

My crush on Brenda Lee came a little later than the rest, and has lasted a long time. I first saw Brenda “live” in 1965 at the Bloomsburg, Pa Fair. I vividly recall that performance, as she was the first of countless artists I met in person. I was sitting in the front row of what was called “track seating,” meaning that I was right at the stage. Most times Brenda was only a few feet away from me as she sang her hits. When she sang “I'm Sorry,” which is one of my favorites, I could see tears in her eyes; she packed such emotion into the song that there was not a dry eye in the house, including mine. After the show I got the chance to meet her in person and I collected my first autograph.

Fast forward to 2005; I learned that she was going to be performing her Christmas Show in “The Valley.” NO question in my mind that I was going to see it! At the time I was just starting to think about doing an interview series on my radio show, The Class Reunion, so I thought how great it would be to have her on the air. I looked up her website and sent an e mail fully expecting that I would receive an answer from her agent. The very next day my e mail contained a reply from Brenda herself telling me she would be very happy to do my show and gave me contact numbers for her. I called fully expecting to get a secretary, but to my amazement the voice on the other end was really Brenda. I must have stuttered and stammered for what seemed like an hour, but finally I calmed down and we chatted about the date and details. As the date drew closer I received another e mail from her stating that she would not be in the office that day and would I mind if she did the interview from home. At the appointed time I called her and we stared the interview. Brenda had told me the reason she would be home was because she was babysitting her five year old grandson. The irony of that struck me; here is a lady that sold over 200 million records, is a member of both the Rock & Roll and country Music Hall of Fame, and she's babysitting! Just as we went on the air her grandson opened her cupboard and pulled out some cooking pots making quite a bang! I jumped as I know Brenda did and then we both dissolved into laughter. During the interview I recounted the first time I saw her and she thanked me for remembering her and was flattered that I did. Why would I not remember her, she was 20 and I was 18 at our first meeting!

I remember making the comment to her as we finished playing one of her hits, “Golly that piano sounds just like Floyd Cramer.” Brenda told me that in fact it was and that she had the good fortune of having such talented musicians as Floyd, Boots Randolph (Saxophone) and others as they were also studio musicians. Bye the way, you will hear a great Sax lead by Boots in Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

All too soon the interview was over and I looked forward to seeing her performance. The 40 years since I first saw her have done nothing to her voice except make it better, what a show! Afterward I got to spend a few minutes with her at the autograph session and thanked her for all the great music and memories. A picture of Brenda with me along with her autograph and my recording of that interview has center space on my “Wall of Fame” in my office. Today Brenda still tours and not long after our meeting she released a Gospel album called “Gospel Duets with Treasured Friends” with guest stars Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Brooks & Dunn, Pam Tillis, George Jones and others.
hope you are enjoying these articles that share some of my favorite times in broadcasting. In the future I will take you behind the scenes of a radio station and talk about the side of the business that you didn't know existed. But first the housekeeping duties, the answer to the last trivia question. No you don't win anything other than expanding your reserve of totally useless information. The question “What “precious” Canadian group recorded a song called “Gretchen” in honor of Gretchen Christopher?” The answer, The Diamonds. Lead singer Dave Somerville presented her with a copy of the song during an appearance with Dick Clark''s Caravan of Stars.

As a male growing up through the 1950's and 1960's I fell “IN LOVE” many times. Let's see there was Annette and Sharon on The Mickey Mouse Club, Gretchen Christopher from The Fleetwoods, Patty Duke, and then there was Brenda Lee.

My crush on Brenda Lee came a little later than the rest, and has lasted a long time. I first saw Brenda “live” in 1965 at the Bloomsburg, Pa Fair. I vividly recall that performance, as she was the first of countless artists I met in person. I was sitting in the front row of what was called “track seating,” meaning that I was right at the stage. Most times Brenda was only a few feet away from me as she sang her hits. When she sang “I'm Sorry,” which is one of my favorites, I could see tears in her eyes; she packed such emotion into the song that there was not a dry eye in the house, including mine. After the show I got the chance to meet her in person and I collected my first autograph.

Fast forward to 2005; I learned that she was going to be performing her Christmas Show in “The Valley.” NO question in my mind that I was going to see it! At the time I was just starting to think about doing an interview series on my radio show, The Class Reunion, so I thought how great it would be to have her on the air. I looked up her website and sent an e mail fully expecting that I would receive an answer from her agent. The very next day my e mail contained a reply from Brenda herself telling me she would be very happy to do my show and gave me contact numbers for her. I called fully expecting to get a secretary, but to my amazement the voice on the other end was really Brenda. I must have stuttered and stammered for what seemed like an hour, but finally I calmed down and we chatted about the date and details. As the date drew closer I received another e mail from her stating that she would not be in the office that day and would I mind if she did the interview from home. At the appointed time I called her and we stared the interview. Brenda had told me the reason she would be home was because she was babysitting her five year old grandson. The irony of that struck me; here is a lady that sold over 200 million records, is a member of both the Rock & Roll and country Music Hall of Fame, and she's babysitting! Just as we went on the air her grandson opened her cupboard and pulled out some cooking pots making quite a bang! I jumped as I know Brenda did and then we both dissolved into laughter. During the interview I recounted the first time I saw her and she thanked me for remembering her and was flattered that I did. Why would I not remember her, she was 20 and I was 18 at our first meeting!

I remember making the comment to her as we finished playing one of her hits, “Golly that piano sounds just like Floyd Cramer.” Brenda told me that in fact it was and that she had the good fortune of having such talented musicians as Floyd, Boots Randolph (Saxophone) and others as they were also studio musicians. Bye the way, you will hear a great Sax lead by Boots in Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

All too soon the interview was over and I looked forward to seeing her performance. The 40 years since I first saw her have done nothing to her voice except make it better, what a show! Afterward I got to spend a few minutes with her at the autograph session and thanked her for all the great music and memories. A picture of Brenda with me in posted on the picture page of my web site. Today Brenda still tours and not long after our meeting she released a Gospel album called “Gospel Duets with Treasured Friends” with guest stars Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Brooks & Dunn, Pam Tillis, George Jones and others.

Time for the trivia question: Where did Brenda Lee get her nickname of “Little Miss Dynamite?” The answer next time. At 4 ft 9 inches tall, she received the nickname Little Miss Dynamite in 1957 after recording the song "Dynamite";

A Look Behind The Microphone

2010-03-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

Today lets take a look behind the scenes: Did you ever wonder how music directors picked what songs should be on the air? In the 60's and 70's during my time a a Music Director or Program director we would receive 50 to 100 records in an average week. Of course you could not play all of them, so each of us developed our own methods. The first thing I did was separate them be record company. The hot labels such as Warner, Liberty, Motown, ABC Dunhill, etc would get first look. Any known artists from the major labels I would “play” first. In my case the play amounted to listening to the opening, "dropping the needle" in the middle of the record to see how it progressed and then checking the end. A dirty little secret, many Music Directors looked with extra favor on records with LONG intros, yes D.J.'s loved to talk over them. After that I pared the stack to possibilities and sent them aside to look for any new artists that might have been reviewed in the trade publications. Once they had been “played”, I would try to pick between 10 and 15 records to add to the play list. If the song was on the national charts and showed potential to be a hit I would add it. The rest of the music, well they went in a box on the shelf just in case I was wrong.

Back in the 50's-60's and even into the 70's it was not highly uncommon to have regular visits from record promoters. They came in all shapes and sizes but probably the one I got to know the best was the rep for ABC-Dunhill, a fellow by the name of Matty Singer. In the business he got to be known as Matty “Humdinger' Singer, I suspect because he used to put stickers on the records he was promoting that said “this record is a humdinger.” I can remember going round and round with him if I didn't get decent record service. Often I would be forced to go to the local record store and buy a popular record because we did not get a promotional copy. That was something the owner of the radio station didn't like. He felt, and rightfully so, that we should not have to buy the record to promote the song. As much as I tried I could never get regular service from Matty, so I devised a plan to hopefully solve the problem once and for all. In those days it was very common for radio stations to produce a local top 40 list, the station I worked for was no exception. Each week we would call the local record stores for a sales report, coupled with telephone requests we would then develop our own music chart, which we would use on the air and furnish to the record stores. We also would send the charts to the record distributors so they would have an idea how well their songs were doing in our market. It came to me that I should make up a chart without any of the artists from Matty's labels; I did and sent it to him and waited. As expected I got a phone call from a very unhappy promoter. To make a long story short, I made my point and after that we received excellent service.

Also during those days it was not unusual for the artist to drop into the local radio station, if they were playing in that town or nearby, to promote their latest record. Of course we would interview them on the air. Today this still happens once in a while, but mostly with regional country music acts hoping to get airplay for their songs. Today many radio stations use programming services and a lot of good music NEVER gets played on a national level. I sometimes wonder how many artists that we love would have survived the test groups they use today and would they have gone on to become hits.

Trivia Question. I asked, “What was Ricky Nelson's real name”, well for your storehouse of useless musical knowledge his real name was Eric Hilliard Nelson. His middle name Hilliard was his mother Harriett's maiden name. By the way did you know that Harriet was a singer in the big band era?

Tv Stars "Sing" (Sometimes yes, sometimes no)

2010-03-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

Hi again from the your old Disk Jockey right here in the “stacks of wax.” Before we get started we need to pause for a word from our sponsor! OK, so I am not really going to do a commercial here, but it did get your attention.

Speaking of TV leads me into the subject for today: Young TV Stars who also had hit records. Thinking about this topic I came up with a total of six who had notable songs, I am pretty sure there are a few more, but they probably didn't make the charts. Three of those artists; Johnny Crawford, Annette, and Paul Peterson got their start on The Mickey Mouse Club. Johnny Crawford, who hit the charts with Proud and Cindy's Birthday was only on the first season of the show, he then went on to more fame as Mark McCain in The Rifleman. When I interviewed him he told me the first day he was on the Mickey Mouse club set he went ape over this cute little brunette, yes it was Annette. Johnny has never really been away from show business and is very active today with his own Orchestra that specializes on 30's style dance music. His CD, “Sweeping The Clouds Away, was one I had the pleasure of playing several cuts from during his interview. If you like big band music check if our at www.crawfordmusic.com. Another Mouseketter alumni, Paul Peterson had chart hits with She can't Find Her Keys and My Dad, Paul, unfortunately, is one of the artists I never got around to interviewing. He is still active and was recently interviewed along with Donna Reed Show co-Star Shelly Fabres on Bill O'Riley. I think I included Shelly Fabres as one of my youthful crushes her hit of Johnny Angel was a great dance song. Shelly is married to M.A.S.H. star Mike Farrell and is active in promoting her husbands autobiography. Even though I had a huge crush on her (Anna) Patty Duke's song, Don't Just Stand There, it goes down in my list of all time bad records, if she is reading this, I am sorry but without the studio enhancement it would have been even worse. Fortunately for her she is a tremendous actress winning Oscars, Emmy's and Golden Globe awards.

I saved the two most successful artists for last. Annette Funicello was discovered by and hired by Walt Disney himself. Her record releases were on Walt's own Buena Vista label , I think that they may have been the only contemporary songs ever on that label. Her hist included Tall Paul, Pineapple Princess, and First Name Initial, to name a few. She of course stared in the “Beach Movies” with Frankie Avalon later she was a spokesperson for Skippy Peanut Butter. Her last film Back To The beach was made around the time Annette was diagnosed with MS. She appeared in a cameo role in the TV movie “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes, The Annette Funicello Story. Sadly, her M.S. has progressed to a point where she had not made any public appearances in years.

Ricky Nelson: was probably the second biggest heart throb in the 50's and 60's after Elvis. As part of the Ozzie and Harriet Show he had a great vehicle for promoting his songs. His real life Dad, Ozzie, was a band leader and a great promoter and launched a career for Ricky that included over 30 top 40 hits from 1957 to 1962, behind only Elvis and Pat Boone. Ricky died in a plane crash on December 31, 1985 on his way with his band to do a New years Eve gig. Bruce Belland of The Four Preps, who was a supporting actor on The Ozzie and Harriett Show, told me he was on his way to a party when he heard the news. “Kel, I was crushed, I had worked with the Nelson's and felt like I was part of their family, “ he told me during one of our two interviews.

Trivia: One of the shortest songs to make the Top Forty Charts was about a very popular amusement park, performed by Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon. Can you remember the songs name of the song and who the writer was? A hint the writer went on to host a show that at times could be VERY noisy. The answer Palisades Park written by TV host Chuck Barris. Yes, the same Chuck Barris who gave us “The Gong Show” and the “$1.98 Beauty Pageant”. Bye the way, the shortest Top 40 song ever belongs to our good friend Duane Eddy for "Some Kind-a Earthquake".

Johnny Tillotson

2010-03-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Probably the question most often asked of me during my radio years was “what type of music do you like?” I have never been able to pin down one particular type or and individual group or artist that I prefer. Now there are some I like better than others, but I find my personal music tastes run from big band, through the rock an roll era, and even into some disco. Yes, I do have to include some country and even classical music that will quench my musical appetite at a particular moment. When I did my artist interview series I found myself “A listing” those artists I personally felt had something extra in their music. Such an artist was Johnny Tillotson.

I had the please of interviewing him twice, once on “The Class Reunion,” and once on my morning show on KMOG. Johnny is one of the truly nice guys in music, and that comes across instantly and is backed up by the fact that nearly 50 years later he is one of the busiest performers in the business. Johnny was raised in Palatka, Fl, decided on a singing career when he was about nine years old, and had the support of his mother and grandmother in his efforts. BUT, they made him promise to get an education just in case this singing thing didn’t work out. In case you are wondering, Johnny holds a B.S. in Journalism and Communications. One of his favorite stories about his youth happened when he was 12 years old; it seems the local radio station had a live talent show every Saturday Morning, and Johnny would walk to the station and perform. He told me that if he thought he had a good performance that day he would go home the same way he went to the station, so he would get praise along the way.

His break came when he submitted a tape to the National Pet Milk Contest, and he was chosen as one of six national winners. That gave him the opportunity to perform on the “powerhouse” radio station in Nashville, WSM . A Nashville music publisher took Johnny’s tape to Archie Bleyer, band leader (Hernando’s Hide-a-Way) and owner of Cadence records and he recorded his composition of “Dreamy Eyes”. From there Johnny went on to have 18 records that made “the charts,” including such classics as Poetry In Motion, Without You, and It Keeps Right On A Hurtin‘. The last song has been recorded by over 108 artists and also gave Johnny his first Country Chart hit.

When I interviewed an artist I, of course would play some of their hit records, and we would talk off the air, about how the interview was going to that point and what we might want to talk about next. I remember that Johnny and I got talking about a particular song, but neither of us could remember the name of the song or the artist. The discussion continued off the air and eventually on the air as well. And wound up with both of us laughing about it and Johnny promising me to call me when he thought of the title, even if it was 3 AM. Fortunately, a few minutes after the interview, I got a call that he had remembered.

One final thought on Johnny, for my Christmas show one year, I sent an
e mail to all the artists who had appeared on the show and asked them to record a short greeting. Johnny responded right away and then called back to extend a personal greeting to me and my family. That simple act confirmed that he was as nice as he seemed. If you want more information on Johnny Tillotson, his website is www.johnnytillotson.com

Trivia: “What was the name of the only American group and the song title to make the Top Ten on the music charts in the first half of 1964?” The answer was The Dixie Cups with their song (Going to) The chapel Of Love. If you remember that period, of time the British Invasion was in full swing, and all the American artists could not get a top ten hit because of groups like the Beatles, Stones and others at the top of the charts.

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The Fleetwoods and why I like radio

2010-03-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about radio is that you don't have to dress up, shave, or worry about “other” things while you are on the air. Most people who read this column would be surprised to learn that during my career I was also worked in TV. My first such work was done just after I graduated from high school. I helped out in a local cable TV station in Williamsport, PA. Later when I was the “Morning Drive” person at WENY AM in Elmira, NY, I did extra work at their sister station TV 36. Being a small market TV station TV 36 relied a lot on the employees of the two radio stations it also operated in Elmira, WENY AM and WLEZ FM for staff. During the several years I worked for the WENY Stations I had the opportunity to appear “on camera” as the “Weather Guy,” a sports anchor, co host of several telethons, on camera field reporter, and behind the scenes I worked as an audio person, studio camera operator, field videographer, and I even got to drive the news van! It was an interesting experience, but of the two electronic media I prefer radio better.

Trivia:

The Fleetwoods consisted of founder Gretchen Christopher, Barbara Harris, and Gary Troxell, and came out of Olympia, Washington. All were friends in high school and got together and began performing at high school assemblies. Their classmates wanted a record of the now classic "Come Softly To Me" written by Gretchen Christopher. Several months later their demo tape came to the attention of Bob Reisdorf founder of Dolphin Records (later Dolton Records), and it was recorded and of course became a hit. Oh, the accompaniment consisted of a guitar and Gary Troxell shaking his car keys. Dolphin Records told the group they needed a professional sounding name so entering unto the music scene was "The Fleetwoods" named after the telephone exchange the group members lived in. Barbara and Gary are retired, but Gretchen continues to perform today with two new back up singers and has a new CD called "Gretchen's Sweet 16." I had the honor of being one of the first DJ's in the country to play cuts, even before the final mix was completed, during my three interviews with Gretchen. You can hear those interviews at www.gretchenchristopher.com.

Truth in Music (phoney groups are everywhere)

2010-03-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

The hardest thing for any person who writes, whether it be a column like this, a book, news story, or even radio commercials is to come up with an opening line. In the four decades I spent in radio I wrote literally hundreds of news stories and thousands of commercials; once I had the opening the rest was easy. Such is the case with today's article. I thought about an attention grabbing headline like: “legitimate performing artists bilked out of thousands of dollars,” or thousands of people swindled by fake performing acts.” .

Ok, now I bet I have your attention. Let me set the stage; several years ago I purchased a CD by “the Vogues.” a group I had interviewed twice back in the 1960's. I was excited to see a new CD as they were one of my favorite groups of the 1960's with such classic hits as: Five O'Clock World, Magic Town, Turn Around Look At Me, and My special Angel. When the CD arrived, I looked at the cover, those guys didn't look familiar. Granted it had been over 35 years, BUT! I played the CD, the sound was OK, but certainly was missing the great harmonies The Vogues were famous for. Lastly, I looked at the liner notes, and I did not recognize one single name, very strange. This all happened not long before my move to Payson, so I put it on the back burner hoping to some day satisfy my curiosity.

One day not long after I started The Class Reunion show, I was doing some research and got to thinking about the Vogues as I was going to be featuring a year that had a couple of their hits. Well anyway, I decided to do some digging. I searched the name Hugh Geyer, (first tenor) and found a reference to Chuck Blasko's (second tenor) web site. It was there I learned that Hugh had rejoined Chuck Blasko. Also I found references to Chuck Blasko, along with Jon “Bowzer” Bauman of Sha Na NA fame, appearing before a House Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee. The basics of this involved the fact that Chuck was not allowed to perform as “The Vogues” since the copywrite name was now owned by Stan Erlich who had his own group. At the time none of the original Vogues were a part of that group, but since then Vogue's originals Hugh Geyer and Bill Burkette have joined the group. As I read the testimony I found that there was a large number of artists who were in the same position, I.e.that of being a founding member of the group and yet, because of sometimes shady dealings, these artists could not appear using that groups name.

At any given time there are numerous groups that use the name Drifters, Platters, the Coasters and many more. These groups are fakes and should not be supported. Not all the fault lies with these “pretend” groups; the general public sees the name, warm fuzzy memories appear and they go buy tickets without checking to see IF there are any original members in the group. Common sense would tell us that if the group had hits in the 1950's or 60's and we were teenagers that these people stand the chance of being well up in years, if they are even alive. Also the ticket price can be a dead give-a-way; original groups command a higher price for their tickets and deserve it. Knock off groups, maybe even the groups that own the copy write name go for less money and the tickets would be cheaper. Several states, unfortunately not Arizona, have laws in place that if the group does not contain at least one original member they must advertise that fact. One of the driving forces behind “Truth In Music” is the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pa founded by Tony Butala founding member of The Lettermen. If you would like to read more about the efforts toward “Truth In Music” and the Vocal Group Hall Of Fame their website is www.vocalhalloffame.com . If you see a group from the vintage era of rock and roll scheduled to appear check them out BEFORE you buy tickets. Such sites as wikipedia.org will give you the history of the group, including the names of the founding members and then you can compare them with the current groups members.

I urge you to contact your representatives, I have on numerous occasions, and ask them to look at this legislation aimed to protect you.

Trivia: where did the Four Seasons get their name? The group. Was originally known as “The Four Lovers,” but didn't meet with much success, they decided a name change was in order. The name four Seasons was taken from a Bowling Alley Lounge in Paramus, N.J.

Why Is The Music so Important?

2010-01-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite lines has to do with playing the best music "because life is too short to listen to bad music!" On "The Class Reunion" I pride myself in trying to play ONLY the original version of a song. There is something about hearing a particular favorite song the way you first heard it on the radio. Of course the songs I play today come from my CD collection and are usually very clean copies minus the cue burn, clicks and pops that became a part of radio in the days when we played nothing but vinyl. I can remember every control room of my early days had between 2 and four turntables and someplace on or near them was a stack of pennies, paperclips, or other light weight items to keep the tone arm from skipping s the needle wore down. lately there has been a move back to vinyl by music "purists" and I can understand it completely. One of my artists and I were talking about the return to vinyl and came to the conclusion that there is a certain warmth that the record has that just isn't heard on a CD or mp3. Anyway, I like CD's when the original masters are used in their making and not a newly recorded version. When you buy a CD, flip it over and see if it says "original recordings" or "music recorded by the original artist."

These days I find myself playing a lot of songs during the show I played as "new" songs! As I said in an earlier posting I started my radio career in 1964, but had experience with record hops for a couple of years before that. I first worked in a Top 40 station in 1966, that seems like just yesterday but in reality that was 44 years ago. I watched new artists and music trends come and go and each time I had to wonder, "What was next?" To be sure I had some favorites along the way such as the Vogues, Skyliners, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Chicago, Gary Puckett, Mel Carter, the Diamonds and many many more. If I had to pick just one artist or group as my absolute favorite I probably could not! My musical taste runs in many directions from top40 to easy listening, jazz, to country, and what I listen to depends greatly on my mood. What might surprise you is that I never cared that much for The Beatles! To be sure I liked most of their music, BUT when it was done by other artists, except the horrid album or Beatles songs by Bing Crosby! Because I worked in Top 40 during the "Beatles Era" I had to play their music but it was not uncommon for me to turn off the monitor and headphones til the meter stopped moving. The same thing with Elvis. I can take nothing away from the talent of either of them but I just did not care for a lot of his music. Funny, now here I am some 40+ years later, and I am playing their music and for the most part enjoying it! I guess it is because it takes me back to a time when I was young and the pace of life was simple.

So, this has become a very long answer to a short question. Why is the music so important? Because it is a part of who we are and what we at "Baby Boomers" had that neither we nor our children and our grandchildren will never have. With "the Class Reunion" and the "Legendary Artist" series I hope in a small way I can help you keep those precious memories alive!

The mission statement of "The Class Reunion" is simple, "Preserving the greatest music of all time by the original artists!"

Never Say Never, "The Class Reunion" rides again

2009-12-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

If I have learned one thing in over four decades associated with broadcasting, is nothing is permanent, definite, or that you should never say never!

I was on vacation in late August of 2009, when I received an E mail from KRIM President and General Manager Steve Bigham telling me that Suzanne Michales had left. I won't go into any details, as I can only guess what might, or might not have happened that caused her departure. Anyway, I sent Steve a note and told him I might be interested in doing part time radio again, especially if it was OLDIES!

When I got back Steve and I corresponded and spent quite some time on the phone and it was decided that "The Class Reunion" would return to the airwaves in late October. When I did the show before it was 3 hours once a week on Friday, but Steve and I thought that a daily two hour show might be the way to go. Initially I felt that I might do a mix of a particular year each day along with the stations normal play list. As further discussions went on it was decided that I would use the same format that had been successful on the previous edition of the show. That format being each day would highlight and play ONLY music from a specific year. One feature that I, of course, wanted to do was "The Legendary Artist Series Interviews." The change for them would be that the interview would now air on Wednesday, and I would try and keep them in the range of 20 minutes or so, and add more music from the artist to the interview. I also had the brilliant idea that each Friday would be a special show day like Names In Songs, One Hit Wonders, Destinations In Songs, Songs From A to Z, and so on.

I must admit I found myself to be a little bit rusty going back on the air as a D.J. after over two years off, BUT it was not long before I settled back into a routine and the show was off and running yet again.

One thing I had not counted on was the total amount of work it takes to keep the show fresh and not burn out my music library. I found I could not trust the station library as it had many songs in it that were not the original version or certain songs were just not there at all. In fairness to the station, Joanne, who was appointed Program Manager, is doing her best to clean up the library. Anyway since I have been back on the air I have added over 200 cuts to the library from the years 1953 to 1970. I am still feeling out exactly where the top end year for a complete highlight day will be, I do know that it will be in the mid to late 70's as the average age of Payson is around 56. Unlike when I was working at some other stations, where there was a pre programmed rotation or format, I create a play list of my own for each show. This is somewhat time consuming and I usually reserve that for a quiet time on the weekend as each show takes from 15 to 30 minutes to create, with the special shows taking longer. one of the harder things I have found to do is getting artist interviews. To be sure many of the people I had interviewed before are willing to come back on the show, and this can be very positive since so many of them have new product out and of course it is interesting to catch up with them on their careers.

"The Class Reunion" is a labor of love, some shows are better than others, but the mission remains the same, 'the preservation of the greatest music of all time by the original artists." Join me if you get the chance you will hear some music that you may not have heard in 40 years, as well as notes about the artists and more. You can listen on the web linking through my website at www.kellywattsclassreunion.com.

GOOOOOOOOOD Morning Payson! KMOG

2008-07-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier I replaced Suzanne Michaels on Morning Drive on KMOG AM in Payson, in October of 2004. I am not sure of the reasons leading Suzanne to quit, BUT, knowing her M.O. it probably was a power play on her part for more money or other things. Regardless of that, I became KMOG's "Mild Mannered Morning Man," and the "Grand Exalted Leader of the Royal Order Of The Grungy Coffee Mug." I am not really sure IF Payson was ready for the East Coast former top 40 jock, I can be a shock to the system! As people who have listened to me over the years know I can be every so slightly irreverent! Country music was not new to me as I had done that format at WLYC, WILQ, WCKR, and WIQT, the only thing that worried me was the newer artists. Fortunately Music Director Mazatazal Mike (Shulte) had the approved cuts in the library marked and I had the Country oldies book so between the two I faked it till I got more familiar with the music.

I would like to say that people welcomed me on the air with open arms, well not so. I received more than one phone call complaining about my on air style etc. I later found out that some of them may have very well been staged by my predecessor in Morning Drive, not something that I would put passed her! But as time went along I became a part of Payson and was more accepted by the listeners.

Before I go a bit further let me tell you a bit about KMOG. This station was pretty much a throw back to the days when I first started on the air. Lost dog announcements, Community Bulletin Board, Rim Country Forum, the local talk show, Trades and Sales, Paul Harvey News, local sports broadcasts, remotes etc. KMOG broadcast on 1420 AM, with a daytime power of 2,500 watts and 500 watts directional at night. the equipment was generally pretty good with a new console, three CD decks, and a Smartcaster computer. One thing I liked was the set up allowing in studio interviews. Two mics and space for 4 people on the other side of the console. This was the first station I had worked that did not use broadcast carts. I guess that means I came full circle on those from seeing carts arrive to seeing them depart. The station was live 6 AM to 6 PM Monday Through Friday and live Saturday and Sunday Mornings. The rest of the time it was satelite programmed from The Jones Network. The on air quality was good courtesy of an Orban Processor and the fact it was a studio transmitter location. The news room had a small mixer for the use of the newsperson and production had a slightly bigger Mackie mixer and a production computer a couple of CD players and a turn table, just in case! All in all not a bad setup, but sometimes lacking in preventative maintenance as is the case with a lot of smaller stations.

The staff was older, with me being one of the youngest! The General Manager was Blaine Kimball, he didn't have an extensive background in radio, but was a good salesman, and willing to listen to idea's. I got along with Blaine pretty well and we had many discussions about radio. Dan Happala was the News Director, when I started he was on leave as he was running for Country Supervisor. Dan and I got along well and had many fun times on the air. It is always tough to come to a new station, bad enough when it is in a market where you are known, but here I was the "new kid" in a new town. One person who I always felt went out of his way to befriend me was Don Holcombe. Don was the host of the talk show that aired right after my shift so it was not un-common for him to "help" me along with morning drive usually any time after about 7:30 AM. Don had been an artist until diabeates caused him to become legally blind, but he had a very sharp mind and loved to carry on. Don and I became friends and continued to be until his untimely death in 2006 a day short of his 60th birthday. Don was the founder of a Barbershop Group called "The Beeliners." Most people don't realize that I am a fan of vocal harmony, and Don's group was one of the best I had heard! We had many running jokes, especially who could be first to call a key change in a song, or if I played The Eagles, Don would call, no matter what hour and say "I hate the friggin' Eagles". He was a great guy and with Dan mornings really sounded first rate in Payson. Mid days was "Rockin" Ron Gibson, he had his own country/rock brand and was the drummer, Ron was a fixture at the station and very popular on the air. Afternoons was Ken (Seaman) Brooks the oldest guy on the air in his early 70's. Ken had done some network radio appearing on radio dramas in the 1950's.

Part timers included Mike Schulte, who I mentioned before, J.R. "Doc" Holiday. Doc was raised in Southwestern Pa, and had worked at KAAF in Flagstaff, before coming to KMOG. I had an instant friendship with Doc, as when I started he was subbing for Dan on local news. Doc had a laid back "cowboy" delivery and I really liked that! Another part timer who became a good friend was "Cowboy" Carl Hall. Carl was the senior man in radio experience and we loved to sit and chat about the old days in radio. Carl like me, had done just about every job in the business. In addition to fill in duties Carl did a 3 hour show on Sunday morning called "Country Gold." That show featured the classic country of the 1940's-50's and 60's, Carl's style with his "stage" and stories about the artists, many of them he knew well, was and still is a delight to listen to.

Support staff, included Linda, Blaine's wife, and Joanne, who took turns as the receptionist, in the sales deparment was Lynne Geyer, a very talented sales person who hailed from Michigan, and Jackie Cramer, a lot of fun, I really enjoyed heckling her. In production was Jan O'Neil, I really hit it off with her and she loved to use me for creative commercials. What Jan lacked in experience she more than made up for in creativity.

Say K instead of W

2008-01-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

(Author's note) For those of you who do not know, radio station call letters East of the Mississippi begin with the letter W, and West of the Mississippi begin with the letter K, with few exceptions)

Once my family and I arrived in Payson and unpacked some of the truckload of boxes it came time to look for a job. During the year that preparations were underway for the move to AZ, I had been in e mail contact with Steve Bingham the President of the Payson Council For The Musical Arts, a non-profit corporation that operated KRIM-LP FM. While Steve was impressed with my resume and air check, as well as Blaine Kimball the General Manager of KMOG AM, neither had any openings. One of Steve's Friends was Chris Salgot who owned and operated C & M Communications a two way radio dealer and repeater service. After a while I managed to catch up with Chris, and we agreed with my background that I might be of some use to him selling radios and repeater service. Along the way I helped him with his radio advertising and covered his office when he was out of town. Oh, did I mention it was only commission?

During this time I talked with Steve Bingham and he was having some problems with his sales, called underwriting in non-profit radio terms. I agreed to take the dead accounts and see what I could do. I also proposed doing a once per week oldies show on Friday Afternoon called "The Friday Class Reunion." The idea being taking one year each week playing nothing but music from that year along with news and whatever else rattled my headphones. Eventually I added the top 10 countdown for that exact week from that year. I must say it was pretty interesting seeing what was at the top of the charts. Looking for the music was interesting, I found that there are several download services, "legal of course," that were quite useful. One was Limewire and the other was Napster, between them I found 99% of the songs I needed. At the time KRIM's staff consisted of Randy Roberson, Station Manager and "Good Morning Payson" co-host, Donnalyn Williams, Co-host of G.M.P, Jim Duncan the Underwriting Manager, and Joanne who did office work and of course Steve and Bobbie Bingham.

The equipment at KRIM was at best SPARSE, with the main, and only audio board, a Mackie 8 channel mixer. Coupled with it was a good quality Shenheiser Mic, Gemini commercial grade CD player and, two computers that ran the on air programming. If the equipment was bad, then the "studios" were even worse, located on the second floor of the Club House/Office of The Payson Campground. The on air studio and business office were located in one room about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long, there was no air conditioning, save what might have filtered up from an ancient swamp cooler, that's the Arizona form of air conditioning, of course no heat either, except in the summer. The bathroom was downstairs and around the building, it actually was the shower/locker room for the campground. On the air monitoring was with a Radio Shack tuner, and you had to turn it down when you opened the mic as there was no monitor muting. Prior to working at KRIM the worst studio I had ever seen was the old WPGM studio in Danville, Pa from their early days.

Surprisingly the audio quality was not too bad, but the studio was labor intensive to do a live air shift if you didn't use the computer for music. The program they used for on air was never designed to be an automation program so it was nearly impossible to run. In addition to the main transmitter KRIM had two translators that covered a pretty fair part of Northern Arizona. At that time KRIM was also carried as the background for the community access channel on the Payson TV Cable, and also on the Town Of Payson's Web Site, yep world wide coverage.

When I did "The Class Reunion," I used CD's, but since the station only had one CD player, I brought one of mine in with me. As I said it was labor intensive, no cue system, no monitor muting, and a VERY uncomfortable studio. But the show went on and quickly developed a loyal listening audience.

After about a year Randy Roberson decided to leave and pursue other ventures and Steve hired LeLani Dawn who had been Operations and News at KISS Fm in Globe, AZ. LeLani and I hit it off instantly and while I felt she was put in an impossible position, she did a pretty fair job of updating the computer software into something designed for 'On Air" and making the overall sound a bit brighter. Of the managers I worked with at KRIM LeiLani was probably the most supportive. Jim Duncan retired and the station hired Marty Stuckenberg for the Underwriting Manager Position, in addition I also was handling a few accounts as well. I might point out that sometime not long after I started on KRIM I was offered the Morning gig on KMOG, more about that in the next entry.

Not long after LeiLani came to KRIM it was decided that KRIM needed to move, Mike Farrell President of KMOG and Blaine Kimball the General Manger had a room available in the KMOG building, so while the studio was smaller, at least there was heat and air conditioning and a bathroom! The arrangement of equipment was a bit better, but it was still the same old stuff. I often said I had better equipment for my D.J. gigs that KRIM did, and I still believe that.

A few months went by after the KRIM move and Steve decided that LeiLani was not the person he wanted on the air for Morning Drive. I personally felt she did an adequate job, but she had replaced a duo. Anyone who has ever worked in radio knows that if you have a two person show and those people click, replacing them with a one person show is not the best idea. Steve's next big idea was the hire Suzanne Michaels to do mornings. She had been the morning person on KMOG, and when she quit I replaced her there. In the radio business there are two types of people, the "Prima Donna's" and the people who really do the work. Suzanne is a Prima Donna complete from her greatly retouched publicity photos, to her fake smile and on air persona. LeiLani and I knew that LeiLani's days at KRIM were numbered as Suzanne advances herself by stabbing others in the back. Such was the case in a matter of weeks, LeiLani was out and Suzanne was in! I found out about Suzanne's appointment as Station Manager when I came in to do my "Class Reunion," and saw her new business cards! Not long after that Marty was released and Cathy Hall, wife of KMOG's "Cowboy Carl" came to be Underwriting Manager. To Cathy's credit, she did a fine job getting new accounts and bringing back some of the old ones as well. Cathy eventually fell victim to "Suzannegate" as her accounts were taken away one by one and given to Suzanne's brother KIP, who suddenly appeared on the scene. Cathy stuck it out a lot longer than I would have, eventually moving across town to KCMA LP.

Knowing that she would try to do me in next, I set about putting "The Class Reunion" under contract with me being a vendor provider and having complete control over the content of the show.

"The Class Reunion" was a lot of fun to do, all in all, it gave me the opportunity to try many different things along the way. I was always doing some special program with some of my favorites being, Names in Songs, Groups A to Z, One Hit Wonders, and Summer Songs being some of my favorite shows. After about one year, I got thinking about the 60's group The Vogues, I saw them in concert twice and met them at the height of their career. Over the years I wondered what happened to them, I looked the group up on the web and found "The Vogues," and they had a new CD. WOW! I ordered it and when it came I did not recognize faces or names on the CD, it sounded OK, but was missing that unique harmony they had. On a hunch I searched Chuck Blaskos name and found his website and the details became quite clear, he had lost the right to use the name do to some possible underhanded dealings by a former manager and record label. There was an e mail site and I sent a note saying that I would tell the story on my show and how much I enjoyed the group then. I received a reply from Keith Dix, one of the members of Chuck Blasko's Five O'Clock Reunion telling em that if I wanted an interview Chuck would be happy to do one. A few days later he called and we set a date. As luck would have it Chuck had a family emergency and could not do the show, BUT he made arrangements for Hugh Geyer to do the interview. As with all the artists I interviewed I tried to talk with them in advance of the show so we would be comfortable with each other. The interview was the first of over 50 I did in "The Legendary Artist Interview Series." In later postings I am going to tell some of the stories from the artists that made "The Class Reunion" an unforgettable experience for me.

Thanks for reading, still more to come on my time at KRIM and on KMOG.

On To Arizona

2008-01-08T13:06:00.000-08:00

Even though this post will bring you close to the "current times" in my life and career, it won't be the last. Do I know what I will write about? Heck no!

Sometime in early 2000 I received an e mail from the daughter of a long time friend of mine who's family had moved to Arizona in the late 60's. Over the years as they would come back to Pa to visit relatives I would have the chance to see them. But as happens all too often I lost track of them so the e mail was a shocker. Anyway, to make a long story short there was the usual pleasant exchange of e mails, some of them containing my complaints about the Pennsylvania weather. It was from them I learned that Arizona is not all flat and desert, but had beautiful hills and places where there was a moderate change of seasons. As luck would have it I had some airline miles due to expire, so I decided to come out and take a look around. I was amazed at the beauty of the desert and found out that it did not look like a set from Lawrence of Arabia, but it had color, vegetation and more. The drive from Phoenix to Payson had me saying "wow" a lot. Magnificent mountains deep valleys and a constant change in vegetation. This was the first week in April of 2003, and I spent some 5 days roaming all around "The Rim Country." During that time I talked with my wife back in Pa, she was unable to come along because she was taking care of her elderly father, and one day I was sitting in the sun at Roosevelt Lake, about 40 miles S.E. of Payson, the temperature was in the mid 70's and there were boats on the lake. At the same time Pennsylvania was getting hammered by a snow storm that eventually left over a foot of snow on the ground. It was then the decision was made to "head west old man."

It all sounded so simple, until you consider I had a successful business, a house in which my mother was my tenant, my son was at college in Allentown, and none of us had a job waiting in Arizona. But we were determined to figure out how to make the move. My mother was needless to say rather upset that we were planning on such a move and told us quite firmly she was going to stay in Pennsylvania. Fortunately in Canton there is a nice senior housing project owned by the Yoder Brothers of Turbotville. I had known the Yoder's for many years as they at one time were the dealer/builder for Ridge Homes and had been one of my advertising accounts on WMPT. I checked out some of there other projects and talked to the local officials in each area they had apartments and as expected the Yoder's got a great recommendation. So mom's name went on the waiting list, and in January of 2004 she got her apartment.

It was about the same time that we were able to place my father in law in a nursing home as he was getting too much to handle, my son finished college and moved back to Canton to help us prepare for the move. The house was on the market and I very quietly went about selling my company. I felt that a customer would be a logical choice since they were consumers and liked the products. I pared my list from 12 names down to five and sent them each a letter with the offering. Several expressed some interest with Carl and Linda Cox of Knoxville in Tioga County, the most interested. Carl had been a customer for well over 10 years in his capacity as Public Works Foreman in Knoxville Borough. We met with them and a deal was struck. Now the house, it had been on the market for several months but with very little action, so I decided to take a rather radical approach to selling it. Each Monday I reduced the price by $2,000 and stated that would happen every week till the property was sold. As luck would have it during a yard sale, Gary Wright, who I had known for years and his wife appeared at the sale. I had worked for Gary for a period of time as a salesman for his wholesale flower business in Wlliamsport. Well anyway Gary was looking for investment property, knew the house and was impressed at the improvements we had made. I took him through that day and he made and offer the next, I countered and it was sold. Early on we thought it would make more sense to sell most of our furniture and buy what we needed when we got to Arizona so we scheduled an auction two days before we were scheduled to leave. All the time we had been packing boxes and stacking them in a designated size area. The auction went as planned the 'Budget Truck From Hell" was packed, and we started off across country with Carol, Karl and two dogs in the van and me with the rental truck and a trailer towing my sons vehicle. Bad roads, one run out of gas, a blowout of two tires on the truck and several episodes of the truck just plain quitting and we arrived at our new digs in Payson some 5-1/2 days later. Karl and I had been out to Payson early in the month and had rented an apartment and had all utilities ready and even made arrangements for the truck to be unloaded. Even though the trip was tiring and stressful it was good to be in Payson.

Next time jobs, where do you find them?

WIQT-WQIX Kel returns to early morning

2007-12-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when you write a bolg such as this, it is very easy to get off an a tangent and forget what you were going to do next. In my haste, or whatever, I completely missed the almost three years I spent at WIQT-WQIX Horseheads, N.Y. As I mentioned in a previous entry Dave Campbell stopped into Radio Shack, where I was working part time and told me that they were looking to make a change on WIQT AM, an Oldies Format, and I should contact Dave "Rocky" Rockwell the Program Director.

Since some of this was hush hush, I called Rocky at home and yes he was very interested and we talked and came to terms. It was kind of unique as I was a straight hourly person and was on the air 6:00 to 10:00 am only Monday through Friday and paid for a half hour of show prep time and that was it. no remotes, meetings, or production. If there was a required meeting then I was on the clock, a fact I found to shorten meetings considerably.

WIQT AM was at 820 Khz on the dial with 5,000 watts non directional days, and 500 watts on a four tower directional antenna array at night, it shared studios with WQIX FM a "Modern Country format." The studios had been located just of Hanover Square in Horseheads but moved to 111 N. Main St. In Elmira, the Mid Town Building, after part of the back wall of the Horseheads location fell down. Both stations were owned by Panosian Enterprises, a retail company that operated clothing, shoe, and furniture stores in the "Twin Tiers" area of N.Y. and Pa. I had known most of the Panosians for many years and they liked me and I liked them. But, for every piece of good equipment in the station, there was a piece of equipment or other stuff that was crap. The AM control room had a fairly new Broadcast Electronics console, two Gates turn tables, 4 Revox reel to reels and an old Spotmaster 3 deck cart machine. In addition it had a digital transmitter control unit that would automatically change power and directional patterns by timer. The audio and transmitter controls were on a shared STL with WQIX with the audio and controls "double hopping" to get to the transmitter site on county Route 64 just west of Horseheads.

For the most part everything worked pretty well with the exception of the cart machine which constantly blew through cues, if you forgot to pot down the audio then you had crap on the air. One thing that really caught my attention early on was the control room chair. Talk about cheap, it only had three wheels, the fourth caster long gone and replaced by a brick! The irony struck me that here the station was owned by a company that sold furniture and yet we could not get a decent control room chair, a fact that got stated on the air MANY times, till finally they replaced it! WIQT had always been in "format identity crises" and the oldies format was the latest effort to get some numbers in the market. On air we used a combination of pre-recorded reels from TM Productions and vinyl. The format really did sound good and I was in heaven playing the oldies! When I was at WENY I had very good ratings, I, to this day feel that the Pansoians never really promoted the station or me properly as it had a great signal, it could be heard in Williamsport, PA, always felt that if they had the station would have done very well. The line up included Dave Pal, who I worked with at WENY, Jackie Dee, Bill Russell the News Director, George Kay (WQIX Mornings), Rocky Rockwell, Jim Appleton Engineer, Ron Ferro Station Manager, Jim Barrett part time, and several other whose names escape me now. Pretty decent talent on the air, but no support from the parent company.

Elmira was an Arbitron rated market, and had a full diary survey in the fall and a short survey in the spring, after a year or so that I was there the powers that be decided that they were going to change format yet again, from oldies to something they called "Great American Country!" I was loudly opposed to the change as my morning show was gaining ground in the market and I truly felt that with some time and promotion it could be either # 1 or #2. I had experimented with some specials like "The Friday Class Reunion," sounds familiar doesn't it, and other special programming like featured artist, etc. I also did some phone stuff on the air with listeners, including Elliott Blauvelt, a local realtor, who I called "The Mad Haranger," adoptable pet reports from the Chemung County Humane Society and a lot of other stuff. I was somewhat outspoken on the air and usually had poor Bill Russell stammering as I would add my own spin to one of his news stories and talk with him about it after his news cast. Well, the dye was cast, it was decided that I would kick of the Country Oldies Format on a Monday Morning completely unannounced. How the phone did ring, people were "mad as hell." and I can't say I blamed them, I didn't enjoy the format and I guess it showed on the air. As I mentioned earlier my father passed away July 5, 1991, I was informed while I was on the air when Rocky came in and told me I had to go. I stayed with WIQT for a about year after that and left in June of 1992 when we moved back to Canton. WIQT continued to flounder with several format changes eventually becoming WWLZ (Wheels) a sports, news, talk station.

WQIX was the first place I did a totally oldies format and served as a testing point for what would many years later become "The Class Reunion." at KRIM FM in Payson.

KISS FM a "legend (?) returns to "Billtown"

2007-11-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

Last time I talked a bit about the period of time leading up to my election as Mayor of Canton, Pa. The Honorable Kelly Watts, Mayor, seems like an oxymoron doesn't it, well more on that after I talk about my time at KISS FM in Williamsport.

I spent a lot of time on the road during my days of owning Watts Multi Services and that of course meant a lot of listening to the radio. To this day I am not sure when I discovered KISS Fm (WKSB FM) but I liked the oldies format and as well they had some good people on the air, many I had known since my Williamsport Radio days. Their lineup included Gary Chrisman, who I knew from his days at Twin W (WWPA) and his regular gig at Bourbon Street Night Club, Lou Kolb, who I had worked with briefly at WLYC, Tom Benson (The PD) who I didn't know personally, but by name as he was Program Director at WHLM in Bloomsburg, George McKay who I had worked with at WLYC-WILQ, and Maggie Mae (Jennifer Lunt) the daughter of one of my classmates at Montoursville High School. Part timers on the air included Jackie Robinson and Tom Turner who I worked with at WMPT. Most of you know that KISS FM was the old WRAK FM a station that I long feared coming of age when I was at WMPT. 53,000 watts of power from the top of 1,800' Bald Eagle Mountain, in the 60's and 70's I can remember the late Ev Rubendahl telling me they had listeners in Canada. Even with the saturation of radio signals KISS FM still covered a very large part of Pennsylvania in the 90's. The Sister station was of course WRAK. Many of that staff that I knew from my earlier "Billtown" radio days including Frank Barber, Ken Sawyer, who was WRAK's PD, and Skip Smith Chief Engineer. So going to KISS FM like coming home again.

Anyway, when we moved to Canton in 1992, I decided it might be fun to work at KISS FM, it was the sound I had always wanted to do, tight board oldies format. I can truthfully say that at that time KISS was one of the best stations in any size market that I had ever heard! No wonder the line up of veteran radio people was first rate. I took the opportunity to call Tom Benson one day and he of course remembered my name from my WMPT days, and the fact he had hired Vicki Metz at Bloomsburg, Vicki had worked for me in Canton. Well anyway, Tom wanted to hear an air check at that point all I had was my morning drive air check from WIQT where I was playing country. I took it an a resume to Tom he listened and told me that Sunday Morning was available as he was going to do some schedule switching He asked if I would be interested, I of course said YES! My training was to amount to coming in with him on a Saturday afternoon and getting the feel of the board and format.

KISS FM's studios were still in the same building that had been WRAK's home since 1957 and the days of Steinmen Broadcasting ownership, the actual on air studio had at one time been the home of J. Wright Macky's Lowery Organ going way back to the days of live local music. The on air and production equipment was first rate and Skip Smith was a great engineer, he had studied under the late Glenn Sherman long time WRAK engineer. The Control room had an ARAKRIS slide pot console,(first time I had ever used one on the air), Dennon Pro CD players, with the cassete insert so you didn't handle the CD, and Broadcast Electronics cart machines, all in plentiful numbers!

I remember hitting the air at 2:00 pm and by 2:30 I had had several calls asking if in fact I was the same Kelly Watts that had worked at WMPT. I was flattered that people remembered as it had been 14 years since I had worked in the Williamsport Market. That continued even after I started working Sunday Mornings with people calling and saying "I turned on my radio and heard that voice and knew it "HAD TO BE YOU!" That, to a radio person, is very flattering to be remembered for all those years, and it showed me the impact that WMPT had on the community in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Around the station I got to be known, and kidded a lot, being called the Legendary Kelly Watts. My reply to that was always the same, "Hell, Elvis is a legend and he's dead."

All in all I worked for KISS FM for 4 years, till 1996, and for the most part I did Sunday Mornings. Some time around 1995 Tom Benson was promoted to Group Program Director and was re assigned to their new purchase in Albany, N.Y. the legendary powerhouse WGY. A couple of things influenced my decision to leave KISS FM the least not being Tom's replacement Reginald James Pettiford, air name, "J. B.". In all my years in radio I have NEVER met a person who was so totally un-qualified to be a Program Director. We went at each other tooth and nail, with him leaving memos about such trivial things as my playing a "B" format song instead of and "A". I remember asking him "who the hell he was programing for?" The last time I spoke with him it was over a particularly scathing letter telling me I had "better focus," what ever that meant. Anyway my final comment to him was, "Jim I was programming in this town when you were still _ _ _ ing in your diapers." The next Sunday I came prepared with my resignation letter and that was it. KISS FM was, until J.B.'s arrival a good place to work, and I really enjoyed the people. Toward the end of my tenure at KISS FM I was always afraid I would say "102 point 7 KISS MY _ SS! KISS FM, when I worked there, was owned by Dame Media a pretty good company who owned stations in State College, Altoona, and Harrisburg. After I left they were sucked into the Clear Channel Communications Company "vortex" and lost their unique and great sound.

His Honor? Me?

2007-11-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

For those of you that have known me for a long time, it might come as a surprise the have the term His Honor, or The Honorable put in front of my name. Over the years I had toyed with the idea of taking an active role in the political process. When I lived in South Williamsport I was approached to run for council, but at the time Dave Castlebury and I were in the process of planning the radio station in Canton. While being a stranger to serving in public office, over the years I had held positions such as President of a Jaycee chapter, Fire Department Secretary, Fire Department Line Officer, Lions Club Board Member, etc. In addition, during my radio career, I was involved in the coverage local government as the reporter governmental body meetings. I must admit I did have an interest in the political process and felt that I could do the job as well as those sitting around the table.

When we moved back to Canton, Pa in the early summer of 1992 I became active again with the Canton Business and Professional Association, (Chamber of Commerce) and Canton Fire Department. The Mayor of Canton at the time was James Arnold, I had known Jim for many years as he had been active in the fire department, Lion's Club, was a teacher at Canton High School, and had been Mayor when Dave and I built WKAD FM. As I spent more time in the community it became clear to me that a change was needed in Canton politics, so I made the decision to run for Mayor against Jim. The political process involves getting a nominating petition and obtaining signatures of registered voters in the party you belong to. Being a registered Republican, bye the way so was Jim Arnold, that was the party I had to seek the nomination in the Primary election. Pa law says that the candidate must be a resident of the community for one year prior to election. When the May Primary Election came, I had only been in Canton for 10 months. A call to the Bradford County Board Of Elections confirmed my interpretation of the Election Code, with the key words "at the time of election the candidate must have resided in the municipality for a period of one year." Since this was only a primary and the General Election did not take place until November, I could run in the Primary.

When I went seeking signatures on my Nominating Petition I found that several people were reluctant to sign as they felt if I lost the election there might be reprisals on them or their business. But I did manage to get the required 20 signatures and was certified as a candidate in the Primary Election of 1993, running against Jim Arnold for the Republican nomination. In the period leading up to the Primary Election I went to every open meeting, as I had been doing since my arrival back in Canton, and spoke to every group that wished an after lunch/dinner/supper speaker. My platform was pretty simple, the modernization of the Police Department, rebuilding of the Canton War Memorial Swimming Pool and the updating of the Borough Codes.

While the office of Mayor in a Borough was largely a figurehead position, having been stripped of its powers over the years, the Mayor was in charge of the Police Department, could perform civil weddings, also the Mayor was in complete charge in the event of a State of Emergency, which the Mayor could declare, and was required to sign all ordinances into law. The lack of the Mayors signature meant that Council had to approve the ordinance by a 2/3 rds majority, with the President of Council then signing the ordinance in place of the Mayor. One other interesting throw back to the days of old, was that the Mayor would open and conduct the re-organizational meeting, held ever two years, and preside over the election of a Council President. Once the Council President was elected the Mayor would administer the Oath Of Office (as he did for all employees, Borough officials, and fire officers) and then turn the gavel over to the newly elected Council President who ran the Council meetings.

A few weeks prior the the election I received a call from Chief Of Police Doug Seeley wanting to talk with me. I had known Doug since he went on the force, around the time Dave and I were building the radio station. When I went to see him the first words out of his mouth were, "I understand if you are elected you are going to get rid of me." I must say that caught me a bit by surprise as I had never stated that either publicly or privately. I assured Doug that firing him was not in my plans and that I would not make any staffing decisions, if elected, till I had time to study the operation of the department and form my own opinions firsthand. Doug was satisfied with my answer and we went about discussing what he felt were the needs of his department. I must say, I never envied the Chief's job in a small town police department, if you do it and make arrests you are a jerk, if you don't make arrests you are not doing your job. The police department at that time consisted of Doug and Sgt. Ed Larcom as the two full timers and several part time officers, many who had been with the department for 10 years or more. The Borough of Canton did not have 24 hour police coverage, with any after hours emergencies being handled by the Pennsylvania State Police from Towanda, 26 miles away, or by calling out one of the officers.

As time for the primary drew closer I had a feeling that I stood a very good chance of being elected. I might point out that there was no candidate on the Democratic side as that party had a very small enrolment in Canton. I also got the feeling that Jim was not taking my challenge too seriously, a pretty common mistake in politics.

Election day arrived, and I made it a point to be at the polls greeting the citizens when they arrived to vote, something that Jim chose not to do. When the polls closed and the ballots were counted I had won 78% of the votes on both the Republican and Democratic ballots, the Democratic was a write in, and had handed Jim his defeat after 16 years as Mayor.

The next time, I will look at the changing of the guard, my time as Mayor and my decision not to seek re-election.

Here's your sign! Watts Media/Multi Services

2007-10-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

The title sounds like a line from the Redneck Comedy Tour, but it sums up a venture that lasted some 15 years until I sold the business in 2004. When I was at Chemung County Transit and working on the Southerntier Tourist Information System, I found a lot of the companies were looking for representation, so I signed on a the local rep for a few along the way, including Eastern Metal/USA Sign of Elmira. I used them in the Southerntier project and was very impressed with the quality of product. Eastern Metal was founder by John Knapp and Burley Maines in a small garage in Elmira Heights, N.Y. and had grown into a well know maker of traffic and architectural signs. I signed on as a full line dealer, but was primarily interested in information signs. Some projects included an information system for The Strassburg Railroad, and very large signs for the Delaware Turnpike. Along the way, my father, who was a Township Supervisor in Ward Township in Pennsylvania, asked me about road signs. I must admit I didn't know road signs from shinola but I told him I would be happy to get some pricing together. I did, and he was happy with the prices, so a new dimension was added to the business.

Watts Media Services was originally founded as a marketing and promotional venture for small business and along the way I did marketing for a children's book, a limousine service, and some other small businesses, and local government. Dad suggested that maybe I should consider opening a business, he would give me some contacts and after much soul searching it was decided that was the route I wanted to pursue. As I mentioned I was working at WIQT AM doing morning drive and part time at Radio Shack in Grand Central Plaza in Horseheads. Since I was adding two way communications to the product line I viewed it as a conflict of interest with "The Shack," so I turned in my resignation to Dave Cooper. I did however keep the Morning Drive slot on WIQT and when I was off the air at 10:00 am I either hit the road (two days a week), or went to my home office.

I decided that I would call on parts of Tioga, Lycoming, Bradford, Clinton and Tioga Counties as my area eventually adding Sullivan and part of Columbia and Montour Counties. There was competition from Bradco Supply and Chemung Supply in the sign end, and MANY two way radio companies. Had it not been for people like my dad, Jim Merrick (a long time friend) Street and Park Supervisor in South Williamsport, Pa and Fred Pifer. Borough Manager in Montgomery, Pa I am not sure I would have made it. They were my first accounts, with South Williamsport being my overall best account throughout the time I operated the company.

Watts Media Services was a blend of what seemed to be unrelated products; such things as signs, two way radios, hand cleaner, safety equipment and even shoe grease, but after you thought about it for a time and realized the area I covered was rural municipalities who never saw a salesperson, it made sense.

When I wanted to add two way radios to the line, I approached Motorola about becoming a dealer. After quite a bit of discussion I felt that their dealer requirements were way more than I as a start up business could handle. I talked with another firms, Chemung Communications who I had done business with while I was a C.C.T.S. however they just wanted a bird dog. I felt that I had to have the final control on products and service so I decided not to affiliate with them. Enter Joe Nunn, Nunn Electronics in Rochester, N.Y. I got to know Joe during my time at Chemung Transit, he helped me out with products and radio programming when another firm could not. Anyway, I called Joe and gave him my proposal, he said that he had a couple of field people like I wanted to be and would certainly be pleased to add me. I asked him if I could get some demonstration radios as I had two possible sales. To Joe's credit, he was more than willing, and sent me radios and antenna's resulting in the sales of several radios. Joe eventually went on to buy Rochester Radio and add product lines and service. My relationship with his company lasted the whole time I was in business.

All during the first few yeas of business I knocked on a lot of doors, did every trade show I could and even started a direct mail piece I called "The Wattsline."

In 1991 my father passed away, and still another change was going to happen. It was decided that my family and business would move to Canton, Pa. to be near my mom and to more centrally locate in the territory. As long as I was making the move I decided that a slight name change was in order to better represent what the company did. I must admit it was not easy, but finally it was decided that the new name would be Watts Multi Services. I liked the name since it did not limit me to products and services, yet at the same time would still be familiar to my ever expanding customer base.

My years as the Owner/Operator of Watts Multi Services really kept me busy an because of good products, I only represented family owned companies, I got many referrals from my customers. One of my best known customers was Little League Baseball Inc., still today I see my products whenever there is TV coverage of the championship series.

Someone said the life is an ever changing adventure, and such was mine. In the next edition more on my time in Canton, Pa as I enter politics.

Moving on in radio and other things

2007-09-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

If you have ever lost a job you know that there is a lot of self examination that goes on in the days following your dismissal, such was the case with me. I finally figured out that life would go on, but probably not in full time radio. My friend Kevin Doran who ran WLEA/WCKR in Hornell put out the word I was available, but nothing came of it. I had a few offers locally, but I was not really enthused by the stations that wanted to talk.

For a couple of years I had worked part time for Chemung County Transit, starting as a part time driver, being promoted along the way to part time supervisor. After my release from WLEZ I called another friend, the late, Dave Abbey the Operations Manager at WCLI/WZKZ in Corning. I had known Dave for several years and even though we were competitors we got along well. Telling him of my situation I asked if he might have any part time work available. In radio, if you have experience and want to work part time it is pretty much a guarantee of hours. He had me come in and I met with Scott Fisher (Bloor) the General Manager. They hired me immediately for fill in on both stations. I have to say that the years I spent there were quite enjoyable with a genuine respect in both directions.

During the same time period I once again worked for Dave Cooper at Radio Shack In Horseheads. There were some fun days there as Dave and I were about the same age, and he respected me for my knowledge of the products and the "parts wall" and I liked his management style. One understanding we had was that I did not want any responsibility, or to be considered a full time employee. By virtue of the fact I had been around a long time, I knew most of the store procedures and Dave would feel comfortable leaving me alone or with a new employee. When Radio Shack first got there computer check out system, there was a lot of problems with it and many times we had to the the daily reports by hand, something I could do but even some store managers couldn't.

After the first of the year Tom Freeman at C.C.T.S. offered me a full time position as a combo Marketing and Road Supervisor. During that time that I worked for C.C.T.S, a division of American Transit Corp. I was even as a Relief Manager at Dutchess County Transit in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Working for American Transit was a job I held for nearly 4 years until I had gall bladder surgery and was off from work for 4 months. When I got back in November of 1989 I found that my position was not to be funded in 1990, here we go again! During the time I spent at C.C.T.S. I worked on a number of projects including a pilot project of a tourist information radio system, that project would eventually lead me to starting my own business, more on that later. After I found out I was being "un-funded" at C.C.T.S. I asked Dave Cooper at Radio Shack to use me heavy for the Christmas Season, which he did, while I continued part time at WCLI/WZKZ. Dave Cooper and I had a lot of fun during that Christmas Season working together again.

During that time I was back to looking for full time radio again, and was talking to the parent company of WCLI/WZKZ who owned a property in South Jersey. I found out during my talks with them that Jane Steele, wife of former WENY Inc. Corporate General Manager, Mike Steele was working there. Mike had left the cold of Minnesota and returned to work for Howard Green in Atlantic City. The station was losing money financially and would have been an interesting challenge, but it was one that didn't come.

One day while I was at Radio Shack Dave Campbell from WIQT/WQIX in Horseheads came in to get some stuff for the station and talk of course turned to radio. He said that Ron Ferro The General Manager, who had been Program Director at WELM/WLVY when I was at WENY was thinking of making a change of air talent in the morning on WIQT and would I be interested. WIQT was an oldies station and who better than this "oldie but goodie" to go there.

In the next edition I will talk about my time at WIQT/WQIX and the start of Watts Media/Multi Services.

The Green WENY part 2

2007-09-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

One thing certain about broadcasting is that there is NOTHING certain. When Mike Steele decided to leave The Green Group the station lost a good manager, and I lost a good friend. Mike had been with Howard Green for quite a number of years and I am pretty sure he was getting burned out, so he and his wife Jane bought a station in Walker, Mn. That of course left an opening for Corporate General Manager, the liaison between the department managers, such as me, and Howard. The Corporate G.M. was responsible for the overall operation of the Elmira stations.

Right before Mike left, Dick Ireland was transferred to WOND/WMGM in Atlantic City, and a fellow named John Richer was hired to replace Dick as WENY AM Manager. John came to Elmira from Syracuse where I believe he was the victim of a station sale. Anyway, John was a different type of person, and we actually did get along pretty well in spite of the fact that I was doing my best to take away the AM's business.

Anyway, back to the story! With Mike's departure that left John, Bob, and myself to run the property, which was OK, except for items that were beyond our scope of authority such as spending any large amount of money. Even though I had been Manager of WLEZ FM for only a bit over a year I applied for Mike's position. Needless to say I didn't get it, with the reason given that I didn't have enough TV experience. Looking back, I suspect it was because Howard didn't think I could make the change and treat John fairly. One day a fellow named Pat Parish appeared at WENY with Howard. I spent part of the day talking with Pat, he talked a good game, but there was something that was clawing at my insides that I could not put my finger on, I soon would know what it was.

Pat came from Atlantic City where he had worked for the Merv Griffin Group, yep, the same Merv who was an entertainer, talk show host, producer, etc. The station Pat ran in A.C. NJ was from what I was given to understand losing money, no big surprise there. Once Pat was in place the troubles started. He tried his best to violate my contract and make life miserable in general for me and the other managers. John Richer was the first to leave and was replaced by Don Murphy who had been manager at WQIX/WIQT in Horseheads and for a period of time had run his own advertising agency. I had known Don since I had been in the market and we got along well, making many agency trips together and working on getting national business for both stations. I think Don lasted about a year till the Coup! More about that later, it could be a whole chapter by itself! Also around the time that Mike left, Bob Edwards retired from WENY TV and Lew Robelyer was named Manager of TV 36 and Meade Murtland who had been doing sales for WENY AM moved over to TV Sales. I believe the Lew lasted about a year also and he too was butting heads with Pat Parish when he left Meade was named TV Manager.

My relationship with "Puff the magic pipeman, as we all called Pat Parish," was bad at best. Several times there was no communication between us for a month or more. Every time I went to him with a request he would never give me an answer so I finally started to run the station the way I thought best. By the way, the bottom line showed that! How did he get his nickname? That was courtesy of his always smoking a pipe, it was given to him by John Richer after a particularly frustrating managers meeting.

During this time, a lot of people came and went in the organization, my staff turned over again with Laura being transferred to I.T. Department Head in charge of all the new computers for logging and billing on all three stations. I replaced her with a very bright lady named Deb, Donna Pulito left as did Byron and they were replaced by "Smilin" Jack Ryan who had retired from Corning Glass and Jim Flynn. Both were really good salespeople and we made a lot of progress. As far as the three stations went I was one of the "old timers" with about 7 years to my credit. I was definitely the senior manager on the property and had the station that was actually increasing in revenue. Finally Don Murphy had enough of Pat and left to go sell cars, and once again I took care of the National business for both WENY AM and WLEZ FM. Little did I know that when I met Art Kendall, I was meeting my replacement! Art had been a partner in Howell and Kendall Advertising in Elmira and was some backdoor relation on my mother's side. Pat brought him in to manage WENY AM and in the spirit of cooperation I helped Art settle in took him to meet the regional agencies and brought him up to speed on all the national business.

In late September of 1986 on a Friday, I arrived at the station and immediately received a call to come to Pat's office. At that time he informed me my services were no longer needed as Art Kendall would be managing both stations. I could not believe it! I was handed my severance pay and yearly performance bonus and given an hour to clean out my desk. My performance bonus was based on the amount of increase over the previous year, I can tell you it was a rather large check, so it was not a performance issue, but rather a "I didn't hire him so he is gone," issue. Those of you who have worked in media know that this is the rule rather than the exception.

My time at WENY left a very bitter taste in my mouth for corporations and media in general and was my last broadcast management position. I researched many possibilities, but looking into the organizations I found that they were not any better than what I had just left.

I may sound very bitter but I can only hope that Pat got what he deserved in life as well as Howard, they were two men who climbed the ladder on the backs of others, only to shaft the very people who brought them success.

Now it was time for a career change, that story is next!

The Green WENY, my times at WLEZ FM

2007-09-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

In my business life I have always tried to run any business with integrity and customer service, along the way I have found that personally you can not survive, doing that, UNLESS you own the business.

As I mentioned the last time WLEZ FM was part of "The Green Group" owned by Howard Green and Donald Simmons, that group included WENY AM, WENY TV 36 in Elmira and WOND AM, WMGM FM, and WOND TV 40 in Atlantic City, N.J. and at one time an AM FM combo in Utica/Rome, N.Y. Each station in Elmria had their own manager, (who reported directly to Corporate General Manager Mike Steele),when I started to run WLEZ, the manager of WENY AM was Dick Ireland, and Bob (C.Robert) Edwards was the manager of WENY TV 36. Each station had their own sales team and shared other administrative, news, and support staff. I always felt that WLEZ got the short end of the stick, but at the time I took over from Ted Hodge, the station was floundering in revenue.

WLEZ in 1982 was programmed "Beautiful Music" using TM Productions music package operated by and SMC automation system. AT 92.7 Mhz it was a Class A FM with tower facilities on Comfort Hill to the South of Elmiria. The signal was a pretty good one in spite of the age of the transmitter. Ray O'Donnell the Chief Engineer had it peaked nicely and with an Orban processor it had a clean sound. The station did not have any live capabilities when I took over the thinking even then was that FM was not important. Back in what the insiders at the station called "the bomb shelter," was some production equipment that was bought as part of the Emergency Broadcast Service. There was a generator for power as well, but when it was in operation you could not hear yourself think, plus the room had no ventilation to speak of and got terribly hot in the summer. It, as I was given to understand was built as a fallout shelter and came complete with Geiger counters! The one thing, in addition to ventilation, they forgot was bathrooms, I am not sure what they though you would do in the even you had to spend a long time back there.

When I took over WLEZ my staff consisted of myself, John Savino as Sales Manager and Mary Ellen Pannell as and Account Representative. The remainder of functions were handled by shared staff and the jock on duty on WENY was responsible for keeping the automation supplied with music reels, Ted Hodge agreed to stay around and do morning news, and production. One of the first things I did was to add additional local news in the morning drive as well as weather forecasts and community announcements.

As with most computers the SMC Automation suffered from a bad case of "GI-GO," garbage in, garbage out. Ted Hodge was a great guy, but I soon found that he knew very little about the programming of the unit. There were a number of commands to move it through the different routines and sub-routines, time corrects and the like. I can remember spending one entire weekend re-writing the routines and sub routines to change commercial availability and music flow. One thing was to add more vocals to the mix, giving the station a somewhat brighter sound until I could do a complete format change. My first priority was to try to increase sales based on what we had and I instituted several new policies most of which were not to popular with John who I found out felt that he should have been chosen to replace Ted.

While I was doing that, I started shopping around for a new format, I felt that an oldies based "Easy Listening" format would be the way to go. No one in the market was playing oldies and a lot of really good "baby boomers" music was not being played by anyone. I finally got hooked up with a fellow by the name of Dave Nelson at Century 21 Productions in Dallas. Tx, C-21 had just the format elements I was looking for and were willing to talk with me. The problem, we still had almost 2 years to go on our TM contract. By a stoke of fate, TM dropped the format into a station in Binghamton, N.Y. The TM contract we had gave us market exclusiveness for 75 miles, Binghamton was 70 air miles from Elmira! This was the way out! In addition to being able to cancel our contract the station got a complete TM production package at no charge, I suspect this was to keep us from suing for breech of contract.

Now the road was set, except for equipment! As luck would have it, WMGM FM in Atlantic City, our sister station was doing away with automated programming, so I requested that I be given my pick of stuff! Surprisingly I managed to get 3 commercial carousels, and three reel to reel machines, this crammed the equipment racks full. By this time Ray O'Donnell had left and was replaced by an old time engineer Vaughn Richardson. Vaughn and I hit it off and had many lively debates about things that the automation system could and could not do. Usually I would ask Vaughn if we could do this and that and he would say no way, well in a few hours he would be back in my office showing me how we could do a certain function. One thing that really amazed me was the unit he rigged up to record ABC news. Using the clock on the automation he rigged a system to switch the satellite, arm the recorder, start it and put an advance tone on at the end of the newscast. The recorder, an old delay cart machine from the WENY talk show. As is was recroding the new ABC newsacat, would erase the previous news it was recording the new newscast from ABC. It would then cue up and be ready to go at the top of the hour. Pretty amazing as as soon as the ABC news feed was done the satellite had to switch back for NBC news for the AM.

I would like to say that the format change went smoothly, and from a technical standpoint it did, but from a public view it didn't! The station received many phone calls from angry business people who used WLEZ as their "in store" music. They loved it because of the "elevatorness sound." These were the same people who would NOT buy advertising on the station, but could not understand why we changed to format to something that could be sold! One of the the most vocal was the Director of The Corning Chamber of Commerce Cy Levine, who would not accept that it was a business decision on our part. I often told people that it was also an effort to keep me awake while I was in the office as I remember falling asleep one day while sitting in my office at the station. But as time went along people discovered the station and the format was a big hit financially and ratings wise.

Once the format was squared away, I set about the task of increasing sales. The Green Group was represented nationally by McGavern-Guild and I became a regular caller to their offices following up on national business. In addition I began making regular regional agency trips to Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton to meet with the agencies that placed business in the market. I really enjoyed the challenge of the agency visits and became quite successful in landing quite a few major accounts.

Locally the sales effort was, for a long time, stymied by the sale people I had. Over the course of time I completely changed the staff, first by adding a part time traffic person, Laura Peck to the staff. While she did not have any radio experience, Laura quickly became my right hand person and defacto Assistant Manger. New sales people included Donnalee Pulito, Byron Palmer, and Debbie Lusk. Both Byron and Donna had radio experience and Debbie was a natural sales talent and the bottom line started to show it.

WLEZ was off and running, but then Mike Steele my boss, friend and ally left to buy his own property, it was the beginning of my end! More next time when "Puff The Magic Pipe Man" appears!

WENY AM-WLEZ FM and WENY TV 36

2007-08-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

After I left WKAD, I worked for Smith Printing as a salesman in Central New York State, on one of my trips I happened to be stopped at a traffic light North of Horseheads, N.Y. on Route 13 and noticed the WENY studios there. Well, I thought why not drop in and see if they could use some weekend help. The first person I met there was the Program Director Steve Christy. Steve was a legend in the market and even I knew who he was. He asked if I had some experience and when I told him I had about 15 years, he asked me to come in the following days for training. My first shift was a Saturday mid-day, a lot of fun, WENY had a pretty good play list and was gold on the weekend. As luck would have it the following Monday I received a call from Smith Printing telling me that my territory was being eliminated. I figured that I could probably pick up some hours at WENY AM, so I called the Station Manager Dick Ireland and told him I was available, later that day he called me back and asked me to come up to the station. When I got there I met with Dick and the Corporate General Manager Mike Steele. They told me that I was the "talk of the station," and the Sales Manager Duke Sechrist wondered why I was only a part time employee. At that point they offered me Morning Drive, 6 to 10 am six days a week. Now to this point in my career I had never done morning drive on a steady basis for more than a couple of months. The up-side to the offer, decent pay and benefits, the down-side, I would be driving from Canton, Pa. about 1 hour away everyday! Well after some discussion I told them that I would do it for 6 months and if we liked each other then we could talk about something more permanent.

Six months turned into nearly 3 years as I became the "Mild Mannered Morning Man," the Grand Exhaulted Leader of "The Royal Order Of The Grungy Coffee Mug." WENY was a pretty good place to work, the shift was busy and I got to do some remotes, and learn quite a bit about television, more on that later. The staff was a pretty good one. I replaced Dave Weeks, who I had hired in Canton, he went over to nights. Mid day was Steve Christy, who had been at WENY for over 20 years. Steve also was the weather guy on WENY TV on the 6:00 pm newscast. I liked Steve, he was a easy going fellow who liked his adult beverages and once told me "can you imagine what it is like for someone who doesn't drink waking up and knowing that is the best they will feel all day." Afternoons was John Anthony Slick, a damn good jock who eventually went to ESPN. The station had a talk show called Voice Of The People and it was hosted by Ted Hodge, a long time radio guy who managed WLEZ FM. I had met Ted many years before when he managed WUNS (aka WITT and WUDO depending on the owner) in Lewisburg, Pa. We had worked out an agreement for them to share an ABC Network line with WMPT. Ted had been at WENY before in the 1950's as station manager and one of his claims for "fame" was that he fired Howard Green. Howard eventually went on to own the WENY properties in Elmira, as well as WOND-WMGM, WOND TV 40 in Atlantic City, and The South Jersey Sentinal Ledger. Nights, as I said before had Dave Weeks, and all night was a young fellow Dave Parsons, who liked to put on an L.P. and take naps in the office. More than once as I was driving to the station I would hear "click-click-click" as the LP have ended and Dave's nap had not! John Anthony Slick eventually left and they hired Dave Cochran, (Who appeared later on in the movie "Grumpy Old Men" as the weather man), when Dave Weeks left Dave Pal (Paltrowitz) came on board for the evening shift part timers John K. Scott, Dina Losito. Rob Benson(Maloney, and many others. I can't forget Tom Mailey, who came from WQIX-WIQT, he later went on the WGY in Schenectady/Albany, N.Y. and worked for Program Director Tom Benson, (from KISS FM IN Williamsport). Others along the way included John Kobelt,(a first class asshole) who had worked at WKAD after I left, he was a thorn in my side when I managed WLEZ since he had no interest in taking care of the automation letting music reels run out or it get out of sequence. I was certainly glad when he was finally gone.

There was a pretty big news staff since they all did TV news as well. My morning news guy for a time was Nick Drinker, pretty decent news guy, who did all three stations morning news. It used to be interesting to see Nick leave the TV studio, after his 7:25 news update and run across the parking lot full bore over to do the 7:30 on WENY AM. In the winter it was not uncommon to hear a crash as Nick slid into the side of the radio studios, on the ice. The News Director was a fellow named Jeff Stone, who was named "Bubbles" by his staff, along with Loraine Dyjack, Edd Harnas, Dan Johnson, and Todd Ulrich, who had also worked for me in Canton. Over the time I was there other news people came and left names like Ginny Panchoe, Mary Ellen Plubell, Holly Hunter, Dan Johnson, and Gary Turner come to mind. As news teams in small markets usually are, they were young and pretty inexperienced and there was a BIG turnover. In addition to the news team there was 4 sales people, Duke Sechrist, A.J. Malone, Sam DeLuca, and Meade Murtland. There was a full time copy and production person, Candy Friends (her real name), and Florence Sabatini, full time traffic, who also did a interview show on TV 36. The Chief Engineer was handled by Ray O'Donnell, with Ron Swasta and Conrad Schwenzer in TV. WENY was a busy place with the three stations and staffing for all of them. TV 36 was managed by Bob Edwards (The silver fox) with sales from Bill Miller, Lew Robelyer, and Darryl Miller (no relation to Bill), John Herrick was Program Director, and Scott Reed, Ellen Painter,and Steve Reynolds did TV Production. In The office were Hazel Rydell, Lois Paul, Marie Kendrick and Audrey Link, Jeanne Kennon was the receptionist, and of course a variety of TV switchers, engineers, camera people, like Tracy Sweet and Elaine (can't rememebr her last name), and at least one or two more. Of all the broadcast properties I have worked at WENY was definitely the biggest. I stayed on morning drive till 1982 when I found out that Ted Hodge was planning to retire. It was at that point I made yet another mistake in my radio career, asking for the managers job at WLEZ. More on that next time as I was headed toward getting the "Green WENY."

WKAD continued

2007-05-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

Now that the station, equipment wise was coming together, we needed a staff. To accomplish this I advertised in the "trades", Broadcasting Magazine, and took any applications we had in house at WMPT. I can remember talking to the late Floyd Avery at a little restaurant called "Our House" just south of Canton. Floyd had a keen interest in the station and the fact that Dave and I usually met there for breakfast on Saturday mornings he was pretty much in the fold. Well anyway, I decided that if Floyd did not mind, I would conduct interviews in his back dining area. He felt that would work since mid days he was not that busy. The advertisements in Broadcasting were quite successful and a large pool of potential employees were gathered. I, of course can not remember all I interviewed but, I do remember the first employees. The first one hired was a young lady named Vicki Metz from the N.Y.C. area. She was a graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Broadcasting and looking for her first job. As a side note, I found out as the first day on the air approached that she had never been on the air, I still to this day wonder how anyone who had a degree in broadcasting could accomplish that without any air experience. Next up was Ted Saul. I had worked with Ted at WILQ in 1973 so I knew he was very talented and I hired him for sales. Well because we were still a ways from air, Dave decided to put him on at WMPT, and like in the case of Cliff Horton, I lost another good employee. But anyway, Ted did contribute in the actual construction of the WKAD studios, and helped me in the hiring of several employees. Next hired was Dave Weeks, who was a student at Mansfield University in broadcasting. He actually had on air experience at WNTE the college's FM station. Dave was hired for evenings, and later would move over to mornings, and eventually follow me to WENY in Elmira. Next hired was a young man named Scott Deschane, I don't remember a lot about him, he was not with us a very long time. Other people on the original staff were Stu Streeter, the head of the AV Department at Canton Area Schools. I had known Stu for a number of years and he was looking to augment his income. With his connections I tapped him for news and to do an oldies show on Sunday night. Todd Ulrich was a local Canton lad, who also was in school for broadcast journalism, I hired him for weekends and vacation schedules. Patty Stroble had been a friend of mine back in my WILQ/WLYC days, she was also attending Mansfield and was hired as a part timer. Additionally local high school student Brian Greenough, and WMPT's Nancy Fay who had been in the Explorer program at WMPT was hired to do fill in when she was not doing the same at WMPT. Now that brought us to sales, I got the idea to hire local lady Anne Preston for sales and to do news in the Towanda area. Anne had worked many years earlier at WENY in Elmira, and her family were long time friends of my family. Sometime not long after we went on the air Rob Dee (aka Rob French) joined the staff. Sheila Bellows was hired to be my traffic and billing staff, a job she never actually did, as I moved her over to sales. Dave Johnson was our Chief Engineer, this was double duty for him as he was WMPT's Chief as well. As for me, I was the Station Manager, the Morning Drive Personality, did the logs, billing, P.R. some sales, and just about any other thing you could think of. As you can see it was quite a line up, some experience and a lot of raw untested talent.

Well the stage is set, with the help of a lot of people. Vic Michales, former owner of WMLP Milton, Pa did the tower work, the guy wire layout, supervising the raising of the tower, and installing the antenna and feed line. Larry Reinhart of Canton Telephone Company, personally supervised the installation of the leased broadcast quality telephone lines to the tower. Larry said when I ordered the lines, "well we've never done them before, but that's not a problem." The effort to get the station on the air could not have been accomplished without people like our local contractors. People like S.E. Williams Redi Mix Cement for the tower base and guy anchors, Lloyd Herman excavating contractor who built the tower road and did all the digging for the tower base and guys, William "Sweede" Eckman excavating contractor who did a lot of extra clean up around the site, Gene Segar of Morse and Segar our flooring contractor, and Herm Seeley, Seeley Electric who responded to my rather odd requests almost immediately.

I can not to this day remember the exact first air day, but I know it was Labor Day Weekend in 1978. I signed on at 5:00 AM and the first song was The Carpenters, "We've Only Just Begun," kind of fitting huh? I played that at the top of the hour all day long. There were a few bumps along the way, but the first day on the air went pretty well.

A bit of trivia,the first advertiser was T. Burke and Company, a family clothing store in Canton. The owner Mil Burke had been a friend for years and told me she was proud to be a part of something great in Canton. The first sporting event on the station was the "Old Shoe" Football game between Canton and Troy in 1978, Bill Byham came up from WMPT and I did the game with him. The first remote broadcast was from J.C. Penny in Troy and the second from Morse and Segar Furniture in Canton.

I stayed with WKAD until just after New Years in 1978, there were some very frustrating times, due to the lack of help and support from WMPT and I eventually decided it was time to move on. After a brief time selling for Smith Printing in Williamsport, I went to work for WENY in Elmira following Dave Weeks who had been doing Morning Drive on a temporary basis.

The experience of designing and building WKAD is something I will never forget, I hope that Mike Powers, who is the current owner (call letters WHGL, Wiggle 100) can appreciate all the time and effort that went into building that station.

WBPZ AM-FM Lock Haven

2007-05-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Before I continue on with the WKAD story, I noticed I had forgotten a very interesting part of my radio past, the 11 months I spent as the "Evening Guy" at WBPZ in Lock Haven. Some time after I left WLYC in 1966 I went to see the late Harris Lipez at WBPZ looking for a full time job. He had none, and told me to come back in early 1967 as he felt he would have an opening at that time. True to my word, I appeared in January 1967 at the station, and true to his word he said that he was in fact going to have an opening for the night shift, 5:00 PM to Sign Off (1:05 AM). I guess that Harris admired the fact I had remembered for so long and he hired me to start in February, just prior to my 20Th birthday.

WBPZ was a very interesting place in many respects, Harris' brother, Judge Abe Lipez was a stockholder as was Bill Piper Jr. or Piper Aircraft, all in all, there were a passel of stockholders, I believe over 20 some owning as little as 1/2 %. The station was located down town on the third floor at 132-1/2 E. Main St. Below the station on first floor was the Lock Haven Lunch, (best chili dogs and fries I ever had) and a furniture store. On second floor was a J.W. Church meeting hall. I remember how much I hated to arrive late, as I drove 55 miles one way and had to run up the steps arriving out of breath for the 5:00 PM station I.D. or when there was boxes of teletype paper to bring up. The delivery driver would stack them on the landing and the first few steps and each employee (male) was expected to bring one up with him.

When I first started there the control room equipment was the original stuff they had signed on with some 20 years earlier, an old RCA board, and turntables, one of the old EV long mikes, some newer cart machines and a Gates Spot Tape unit. That was an interesting idea from the days between producing commercials on reel to reel and the first broadcast carts. The unit had a manual slide track selector for one of 42 different tracks that could run up to 90 seconds. The tracks were recorded on a very wide magnetic tape belt, that would break at the most inopportune moment, causing all tracks to have to be re recorded, usually my job. The dis advantage, other than breakage, is the you could not play tracks back to back, and the rewind made a horrid noise like someone shoveling scrap metal. The control room also had two Magnacorder reel to reels, one (PT 6) dedicated to Unkle Joe's Woodshed's 5 minute commercials. Unkle Joe's was a discount store "on the hill in Flemington." The other was a "maggie" 1023 a great machine to do editing and recording. The usual assortment of remote controls for the AM and FM, monitors (both modulation and frequency) and one great patch bay that you could do just about anything with. It was not too long after I arrived, 4 or 5 months that the owners sprang for a new console a Gates "Gatesway", new turntables and another cart machine replacing the Spot Tape unit. I remember stying overnight as Al Stratmon the Chief Engineer and I installed the new board between 1:00 Am and 6:00 AM, we made it, but morning man Jim Eckert had to put up with Al and me under the console running wires to the patch bay.

The staff ws quite large, as you may imagine, for all programming, with the exception of 3 hours a day from Mutual Radio Network in the evening shift, was live, and even that was tended to by yours truly. When I first got there Jim Eckert was doing mornings 6:00 am to 12:00 noon. After Jim left to go teach at Career Acadamy Broadcasting School in Milwaukee, he was replaced by Chuck Studley. Jim Remick (JRZ) was on Noon to 5:00 pm and I was 5:00 Pm to 1:00 AM. John Lipez, Harris' son was the News Director along with Keith Kline, and Joe Hutchinson, Sales was handled by Dick Yohe and Benny Mathews, in the office was Jane Edwards (I think) Barbara Yohe and Ray Reese the Comptroller. Part timers included Barry Stott, Marc Sommer, John Salomone, and Randy Dory. The station was busy commercial wise and carried a lot of sports. If I remember correctly Harris Lipez was inducted into the Pa Sports Hall Of Fame a few years before he passed away.

My shift at WBPZ started as I said at 5:00pm, from 5 to 6 I played kind of an easy listening format and lots of comemrcials. On the Half hour we had Mutual News and a short sports feature. From 6 to 7 was the news block, local, and then Mutual commentary. 7 to 9 was more Mutual feature programming. I can't for the life of me remember when they were. This time was spent by me in one of two ways, either doing my production, or sitting at the back of the control room, looking over Main St in Downtown Lock Haven. That was pretty nice in warm weather, in that college town! One other thing I did while I was on the air was to write the local news for 11:00 pm, making police and fire calls. I started my music shows at 9:00 with "The Music Hall." From 9 to 10 I played Top 40, from 10 to 11 is was country, 11 to midnight big band/easy listening, and from midnight to sign off at 1 am it was classical. I really did have to do much in the last hour as Dick Lipez, and son of Harris, recorded the intros and outros to the show and left a music list. During that time I usually finished up my production and caught a bit of the Tonight Show on TV. At 1 am, I did a 5 minute news cast and signed off. The station also carried Philadelphia Phillies baseball. Not being much of a sports fan, it was quite boring and my attention span was to say the least, short. My duties during the games was to do the station I.D.'s and insert any local commercials. The games were fed on lease telephone line, like Mutual Network, and if that system when down, we had an agreement to pick up WRAK's FM signal for the game broadcast. That was a good back up EXCEPT, that station I.D.'s could be a bit tricky, since you had 10 seconds you had to "pot down" the feed and insert your call letters and pot back up for the game. If someone, or everyone, was a bit slow, or the game announcers called for I.D.'s too quickly then you might hear far more than your own. That happened one night, I suspect everybody was asleep at the switch, and at least three sets of call letters made it on the air before WBPZ's.

As I mentioned earlier WBPZ carried a lot of local sports, Harris Lipez and Keith Kline were the play by play team. Since this was way before cell phones we had a system. They would go to the school set up and if they were within range listen on the FM. I was instructed when to monitor the line, in cue, and when they asked send a tone over the air to let them know I was receiving them. This usually worked pretty well, notice I said usually. One night they were, I believe, in Bellefonte for a game, I was listening, and they came on the line right away. Keith called for a tone and I sent one, there was a push button on the console, no response from him. I hit is again, still nothing. In the mean time he is calling for tones, I keep sending them. I was monitoring the air signal, so I know they were going out. I even cut the audio and sent nothing but tone for 10 seconds. Keith and Harris were getting pretty agitated with ME because I was not answering them, which as I said I was. I got listening to the line carefully when they were not talking and low and behold they had a State College station, close to WBPZ's frequency on their radio. Finally Keith said something to the effect "I'm going to go call Kel and read him the riot act." Well, I was READY! A few minutes later the unlisted line rang I answered and Keith was in high boil. I interrupted his fuming, and said, "I've been sending you the tone, but you won't hear it with your radio on the wrong station!" Keith said, "oh," and hung up. A few more minutes went by and I hear Keith back at the microphone. Harris asked if he got through to me and set me straight, Keith said, I think we are listening to the wrong station. I hear them tuning it, and all of the sudden they finally had the station. They called for a tone, so I cut audio and laid on the tone for a good 30 seconds. They laughed and apologised to me and said "looks like we've got you now."

Keith Kline was not my favorite person at the station, but for the most part he left me alone. He was usually doing morning news so he was long gone when I came in. I remember he left sometime while I was there, but I don't remember where he went, or for that matter even care!

I left WBPZ in November of 1967 to become WMPT's News Director, that chain of events is mentioned elsewhere in this BLOG. I did return to WBPZ in 1970 for a few months to do the Saturday overnight shift. All in all WBPZ was not a bad place to work, a good staff and a lot of talent. I had the opportunity to see Harris one last time in about 1996, I was in Lock Haven making calls for my business, Watts Multi Services, and stopped at the station. It was almost as if I never left! They had moved to Belefonte Ave, but there was John Lipez, Jane, Randy, and Mark, it was nice to see them all and I will cherish the time I had with Harris that day as we talked about the old days!

Well that is my look back at WBPZ, I hope I remembered everyone and the good times we had there!

On the road, Canton Here We Come!

2007-02-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sometime in 1976 it became clear to Dave that operating more than one station had certain advantages, shared staff, equipment, selling, and buying power. Several afternoons were spent talking about potential locations for a new radio station, with the decision being reached the the new station should be located in a town that didn't have primary radio service. After more discussion we decided to do a market potential study on Canton and Troy, Pa. I was born in Canton, Pa and spent many summers of my youth there at my grandparents. Of the two communities Canton was the largest by about 400 people and seemed to afford the best facilities for the station and tower. My parents who had recently retired owned a mountain top location, perfect, so we thought, for the tower, and there seemed to be a wide variety of buildings available for studios.

I was dispatched to spend a few days in Canton to do some investigation, very quietly, so we could make a decision about our next move. I could not even tell my parents of our plans, since at that time there was no frequency assigned to Canton or Troy and we would need to apply to the F.C.C. to amend the table of assignments to add an FM frequency to either community. The only person in Canton who knew anything about our plans was Paul Burr the Canton Borough Manager. He proved to be a valuable source of information about the commercial and statistical base of Canton. With this information in hand Dave and I sat down and took a hard look at the potential cost of building this station. After determining that it was financially feasible, finding a potential frequency, 100.1 MHz we forged ahead with the paperwork to have that frequency assigned to Canton. It took about three months for the F.C.C. to act, and even then there was no guarantees that Dave and I would be successful in securing a license, as the frequency allocation was open for anyone who wanted to apply for it.

The process of completing the application meant spending a lot of time in Canton, and the surrounding area meeting with "community leaders", an FCC term, and doing a programming needs assessment. Once that was completed the over 1 pound application was filed with the FCC and it was set back and wait for the cut off date to see IF anyone else would file. After what seemed to be an eternity, the FCC finally granted a Construction Permit in the late fall of 1977, too late of course for us to do anymore than get the tower site cleared and obtain a studio site. By this time I had met a fellow named Dave Seagren. Dave S. was President of The Canton Business Association and Manager of Beacon Consumer Discount Company's office in Canton. Dave had come from California where he had been a C.H.I.P.S. officer. He had recently purchased a house up on Center Street hill and was in the process of converting the bottom floor to his home and and office for a collection business he ran. Dave S. offered us the second floor for $50.00 per month, we jumped at the chance. In retrospect, we should have gone elsewhere because we got what we paid for! Anyway, weekends during the fall ,winter of 1977-and the spring of 1978 were spent putting together studios What a job!! The house was well over 100 years old, had been through a fire and years of neglect as an apartment house. To add to the fun, nothing was square or level, we wound up building new walls and floors throughout.

During that time we were on the lookout for a used tower, finally locating a former AM tower in Orange, Va. So one day Dave C. and I along with one other person climbed into a U Haul truck and made the round trip to get the tower, all 180' of it. We had to sandblast and paint the tower in WMPT's parking lot and truck it, yet again, to the mountain top where it was assembled on the ground.

I must admit that Dave C. allowed me a bit of freedom in choosing equipment for the station. I ordered the studio equipment and he took care of the transmitter and antenna. For you technical junkies here is the list. Transmitter: a C.C.A. 500 watt FM Transmitter, a Orban stereo generator and processor, Belar Frequency and Modulation monitors, and a Celwave 4 bay antenna. Studio Equipment: (NEW) Ramko DC-8MS stereo audio console, (NEW) 2 CCA 12" turntables, (NEW) Revox reel to reel, (NEW) Shure RE-10 Mics, (USED) 2 B.E. cart machines, (USED) 1 Stereo cart Machine. The transmitter controller was designed and built by Alan Preuss who had once been the Chief Engineer of WMPT as was working in aviation electronics for Bendix in Florida. Also the way we also obtained a used and abused, Gatesway mono console for the production studio. Equipment wise we were pretty good, staff wise, well that needed to come together. (to be continued)

Head South Part 3, The Final Chapter

2007-01-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

My role at WMPT, as I mentioned before was pretty much as "catch all" position. I did Sales, the Public Affairs show, called "In-Sight", wrote commercials, did production, and finally after Bob Evans decided I didn't "totally suck" on the air, did some fill in airshifts, and TONS of remotes!

If I had to pick a time in Williamsport Radio History that was exciting, this would be one of them, WLYC or course was under different ownership, WWPA came out of the "dark ages" programming wise, and WMPT was really promoting. The market was hot for radio and my fellow staff at WMPT was looked upon as one of the best, even by some of the competition. Vince Sweeney who was at WWPA has commented many times how he wished he would have been a part of it all in South Williamsport.

The biggest downside of that era, was a pretty steady staff turnover. Greg Isadore left, as did Bob Jackson, Jim Sortman, and quite a few sales people. In either late 1975 or early 1976 we hired Cliff Horton (Cliff Edwards on the air) to the staff. He and I clicked, and did many remotes together including the now famous Corvette Club Remote on VERY HOT summers day at John Powell Chevrolet. Notice the words "VERY HOT", now Cliff and I were in the air-conditioned show room, so we were nice and cool, but being a "VERY HOT" day the female attendees of the show were in short, short shorts, and halter tops! To say the whole event was very distracting would be a classic understatement. Our job was to promote the Corvette show, and there was a great crowd, well over 100 cars to view, I remember Cliff saying, "well Kel, there are a lot of classy chassis here today." My reply, "sure are Cliff, and the cars aren't bad either!" that was the end of it, we were both pretty worthless the rest of the remote. One reason we had hired Cliff is he came from Canton, Pa, and Dave and I were planning on building a station there, we felt Cliff would be a natural add to that staff. As it turns out, he didn't want to go to Canton but was a valuable part of the WMPT staff later leaving to replace Bud Berndt at W.A.C.C. as a broadcasting instructor.

Other staff during this time included Sue Andrews, who was a winner in our "Guest Disk Jockey" Promotion, along with Steve George, who came back with me to the "South Side", Pete Brown, Bob Ramsey in sales, and Glenaire Snyder in the office. It was also during this time that a group of young people started "the Citizen's Press" a weekly newspaper and daily radio news feed, unfortunately it didn't last, possibly because of their high staff turnover and being a bit ahead of their time. If I rememebr correctly they furnished news feeds to both WMPT and WRAK something that was totally unhead of in those days. Also during this time Dave and I hired the services of Paul Douglas who was a student in meteorology at Penn State in the class of Dr. Joel Meyers the founder of Accu-Weather. Paul came to us and I remember Dave saying something to the effect of "well, let's have you do forecasts for a week and see how good you are." I remember that Paul accurately predicted a "dandy" snowstorm when everybody else missed it. The biggest hitch in having Paul was we could not call him a Meteorologist, seems when we started to use that term, Dr. Joel and WLYC, Accu-Weather's station in Billtown, strongarmed Paul and to save him, changed how we referred to him on air to Weather Forecaster. Eventually Paul wound up at WNEP TV 16 in Wilkes-Barre, and then on to the Satellite News Channel during it's period of operation.

During this time, WMPT had its 20th birthday, Gary, Cliff and I spent a lot of time putting together a pretty good promotional package, if I remember we gave away 20 prizes a day for 20 days, a lot of fun and a good audience builder. WMPT through this period was #1 in the Professional Research Surveys in age 18 plus, something that did not set too well with the folks at 4th and Pine in Williamsport, in part because each time the Arbitron would come out we would counter the limited research of that survey with a comprehensive market survey.

Part of WMPT's community participation was participation in the Boy Scout Explorer Program with Post 99.3. At one point we had upwards of 15 young men and women in the program with Bob Evans as the Leader and help from myself and others on the staff. The post had a show on the air each Sunday night and were schooled in broadcast operations including how to obtain their F.C.C. license, required in those days.. A couple of the people, Nancy Faye (Place), and Mike Doyne went on to work in the media. One interesting sidelight from this era, Dave had a firm policy that did not allow voices from other stations to be on any of our commercials. That was pretty much the policy in all the market, I do rememebr that I was on WRAK and WWPA with commercials for the First Ward Fire Company Carnival. I guess they were treated differently since it was a non profit organization. During that time also there were a few free lance people around such as former WWPA Personality John Archer. John did commercials for a political party and once in a while for some other people. I never minded having John's voice on the air as he was one of my early radio heros.

In 1976 Dave and I announced plans to build another radio station, a new FM in Canton, Pa. my home town. I will look at that station in detail in a future entry.

I think that this time in South Williamsport was my most productive time working for Dave, at times a lot of fun, exciting, and frustrating. I often think fondly of the good days I spent at WMPT and being a part of Williamsport's Radio History.

Head South part 2

2007-01-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

When I returned to WMPT in 1975, there had been a lot of improvements equipment wise. Two new consoles, one in the Master Control and one in Production, new audio processing, new turn tables, new reel to reel machines, and the control room had moved. The on air sound was pretty solid with Bob Evans, Program Director and Morning Personality, Bob came to WMPT from WSBA Susquehanna Broadcasting in York. He had a warm easy going charm that really had the market solid in the mornings. I think Bob was the first one ever in morning drive to beat Rube and WRAK in that time slot. Mid days were handled by Greg Isadore. I don't really know a lot about Greg, except to say he was good on the air and a nice guy. If I remember correctly Johnny Knight (Crawford) was doing Afternoon Drive at the time. Johnny was solid on the air, but loved to do engineering, so he did that as well. Evenings had Tom Turner a young man from Loyalsock Township, lots of raw talent and energy. Overnights was Glen Watkins, what he lacked in experience he made up for in energy on the air. Part timers included Mona Patt,Jim Sortman (who later became a District Justice) Dave Wollett, Jackie Robinson, (not the baseball player) and Al Hoover. Al's show "The Hall Of Fame" was what I consider to be the benchmark for oldies shows of that period in small market radio, it was on Saturday Night, and I often stopped in to "Help him" do his show. Other staff included Bob Jackson, sales and fill in on air, Gary Strausser also in sales, and the best sports staff with Bill Byham, Mike Fogarty, and Scott Lowery. In those days WMPT carried Montoursville and South Williamsport Football and Basketball, Lycoming College Football, Williamsport High School Basketball, and of course the Little League World Series. Additionally we carried Little League action when one of the area teams got to playoff level. It was not uncommon to have one game on 1450 Am, one of 99.3 FM and be taping another, with three play by play teams, I was with Bill most times, we really had the market covered for sports and it was a money maker for the station and GREAT P.R.

Head South Young Man

2007-01-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hi again, I probably will write this in a few different parts as there is a lot of history to talk about at WMPT from 1975 to 1979. After a big mistake in working at WLYC/WILQ I took some time and worked for a friend of mine selling of all things cut flowers, plants, and floral supplies, wholesale, in a large part of Central Pa. I must admit is was at times a nice job, I covered a lot of ground every week. Well then came the recession of 1975 and the floral industry dried up, so I was laid off. As luck would have it, I ran into Dave Castlebury on the street one day, and told him I was looking and explained my situation. Dave asked me if I would be interested in a short term position, maybe 3 or 4 months doing license renewal for him. In those days the F.C.C. license had to be renewed every 3 years, and the process was quite exhaustive, surveys, and tons of exhibits that the station was serving the "community interest." Well anyway, I took him up, as he was offering a steady pay check, at least for a few months, and the hours were good, and a lot of the work I could do at home and only come into the station after hours to use the copier. As I progressed along in the project I soon found that WMPT was adrift. No one was really at the helm, and while the air sound was decent, with Bob Edwards as the P.D. and a good staff on the air, sales were slumping and critical items were not being attended to. I should point out that after Chuck Hoffman left and Harry Seltzer left, Bob was not given the authority to do a lot. Well to make a long story even longer, after I finished the license application and follow up corrections and additions, Dave asked me if I would be interested in staying on and "helping out." I was given the title of Public Affairs Director. That job involved producing a 30 minute weekly informational show as well as coordinating the station "public file" and other public service programming. Behind the scenes I was looking at all area's of the operation, sales, expenses, facilities, etc. It was quite a job, and at first Bob Evans was, I think, figuring I was out to get him. After a time, he saw what I was up to and we became allies and worked hard in promotion of the station. I had a good track to Dave and Bob knew it so we all benefited. The biggest problems I saw were sales and expenses. I found things like lease program lines that were never used the station was paying for, no one followed up on collections, etc. On the sales side was Bob Jackson and Gary Strausser, I had worked with Bob before and knew Gary for a long time. Both were decent sales people but not really motivated. Well as I looked over the inactive accounts, I decided to take a shot at some of them as I had serviced many of them before. The result, I took a cold list, and with some additions turned it into the hot list on the station. One mistake I felt Dave always made was the sales staff was on salary, no commission. While I never could change that per say, I did get bonus deals for the staff in the form of dinners, clothes, and other stuff that the station traded out. It was a hit, and along the way I added another sales person to the staff. One thing we did was to use the stations two way radio system to a real advantage. Each person had a two way in their car, so we could instantly handle sales calls, breaking news, etc. We even covered the arrival of the Freedom Train with Dave following the progress from the air in his Cessna 150 from Bellefonte to Williamsport. Using the two way radios was a real advantage to sales as well. One day Jack Lowery (Dodge) called in from Jersey Shore to talk to Gary, now I knew Gary was in the area, but was not scheduled to see him that day, well I called Gary on the radio and he was at Jack Lowery's doorstep in less than 5 minutes. Jack was impressed to say the least! More to come soon, I promise!!

The Class Reunion "Legendary Artist Series"

2006-11-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

During the three year run of my show, "The Class Reunion" I had a very unique opportunity to interview some of the greatest stars of all time. In keeping with the mission of "The Class Reunion", the "Legendary Artist Series", I talked only with original or long time members of groups, and if there is a question as to the validity of a person I check it out thoroughly before I schedule an interview. During this time I have come to deeply respect the work that so many artists are doing in "Truth In Artist Advertising." Many of the best know artists of the rock and roll era have banded together to seek passage of legislation to protect the public from "impostor" groups. "The Class Reunion" fully supports that work and has interviewed several members of the various groups involved with this project.

I have been fortunate enough to interview the following "Legends":

Legendary Artist Series Interviews:
Brenda Lee
Hugh Geyer (The Vogues)
Neil Sedaka
Sonny Turner (long time member of The Platters)
The Skyliners 2 times (Jimmy Beaumont Founder/leader and Nick Pociask, long time member)
Buckinghams (Carl Giammarese)
Sly, Slick, & Wicked (John Wilson) 2 times
The Coasters (Carl Gardner)
The Guess Who (Garry Peterson)
Sha Na Na (Jocko) 2 times
B.J. Thomas
The Tams (Charles Pope)
The Union Gap (Gary Puckett)
The Manhattans (Sonny Bivens)
The Kingsmen (Dick Peterson)
Johnny Tillotson (KRIM & KMOG) 2 interviews
The Four Preps (Bruce Belland)
Lou Christie
Dowop To Woodstock Productions (John Lumpkin)
The Diamonds and Y.B.S. (Dave Somerville 2 times)
New Christiy Minstrels (Randy Sparks Founder)
Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon
Diane Renay
Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells & LaBelle (Sarah Dash) 2 times
Danny & The Juniors (Joe Terry, founding member)
Surf City All Stars (David Logeman) 2 times
Lenny Welch
Shirelles (Beverly Lee)
Mel Carter
Dick & Dee Dee (Dee Dee Phelps) 2 times
The Association (Jim Yester)
Frankie Ford
The Lettermen (Tony Butala) Founder of the Vocal Group Hall Of Fame
Jimmy Rodgers
The Four Aces (Joe Giglio) 3 interviews
The Reflections (Tony Micale, founder)
The Fleetwoods 3 times (Gretchen Christopher founder/female lead)
The Champs (Jerry Cole long time member)
Joey Dee (Joey Dee & The Starlighters ) interview included Bob Valli & Dave Brigati
Duane Eddy 3 times
Dave Brigati (Young Rascals)
Gary Puckett 2 times
Johnny Crawford
Freddy Paris (the Five Satins)
Trini Lopez

I feel fortunate to have made many friends along the way, and for the assistance of such people as Joe Giglio, Dave Sommerville, John Lumpkin, Nick Pocisak, and many more artists.

I continued the "Legendary Artist Series" until September of 2007, a couple of months after I purchased Cruise Port Travel when the work load and the "B.S." from Suzanne Michaels got to be too much. I consider myself fortunate to have continued to be friends with several of the artists to this day. Today I am sharing some memories of my broadcast time and The Class Reunion in a weekly column in the Rim Country Gazette.

Sue Andrews checks in

2006-10-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

One of the best talents to come out of WMPT's Guest D.J promotion was Sue Andrews, I was really surprised to see her comments on the blog, but since a lot of people might not take the time to click on the comment section here is her posting! Thanks SUE!!!

WMPT's Midday Music Lady Sue Andrews, middays on WMPT, I was there from March 1975 until February 1979! Then, I found myself working alongside the truly greats of Williamsport radio when I joined WRAK later in the spring of 1979. I was thrilled to be offered a job at WRAK by none other than Ev Rubendall. Foster Gaines turned his show over to me for a week that summer when he went on vacation. Bud Berndt, Glen Sherman, Wright Mackey--all the powerhouses of Billtown Radio before Stainless bought the station late in 1979. To think that Mr. Mackey thought that 53,000 watts of FM power was a liability, while Stainless couldn't believe their good fortune.

But, back to MPT--

What a trip down memory lane,growing up listening to Fatman and Ribbon and the crew at WMPT in the 60' and early 70's, only to find myself on the air there in '75.
Bob Evans was PD and morning man in '75, Greg Isador was doing middays, high schooler and very talented Tom Turner in the evening (having replaced Todd Stewart) and "Ton of Fun: Glen Watkins doing overnights. Part-timers then were Dave Wollet aka Jackson Reed, Jackie Robinson and me as I recall. Kelly was in sales with Bob Jackson (This is Bob and Bob for Beiter's), Bill Byham and the Irish Mafia--Mike Fogarty and Scott Lowery on sports and I don't remember if we had a news director.
At that time, Al Hoover's Hall of Fame played every Saturday from 11pm until 2am.
Dave C. The bossman when he wasn't playing County Commissioner, was messing around with canned music at night on the FM and AM was left to Top 40 and live jocks on the AM.

We almost tore the station down when flood waters threatened again in 1975.
Explorer Post 99.3 was up and running on Saturday mornings with Bob Evans and later with me. Nancy Fay, among others, emerged from that group.

The Jingles--Thank goodness it's Friday, Really Friday her on WMPT and Time to Turn to prevent sunburn!

I could go on and on, but who wants to listen to an old music lady reminiscing--I'm still too young for that.

Kelly and I locked horns several times in that time period, but I had the utmost respect for one of my radio hero's.

A few years back, Kelly and I met for the first time in better than 20 years when I ran into him at the ice cream stand in downtown Canton. We talked too long into the night, but weren't as bad as when we would close down the Caboose from time to time on a Thursday night which was Lady's night.

There are great memories of WMPT for me.

After 1450 AM, and WRAK, I joined the PA Radio team and did middays on WLYC with the Music of Your Life. Barb Evans was on the other side of the glass and the midday hostess on the Q. None of the kids at the Q could understand how I could live the pop scene to play all the old, old music that belonged to my parent's generation. I loved it and played it as Andrea Scott. The name was a result of not wanting to be remembered as being associated with WJKR 104 for a short stint.
I would spend 8 wonderful years from 1984 until 1992 on the air at WLYC.

Barbara Evans from Q-105 checks in

2006-08-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

The power of this BLOG even amazes me, the number of people I have heard from is amazing, some people I had not heard from in years, some that I had never even met. Such is the case with Barb Evans, I had moved from the market by the time she came in, but never the less I recognized her name instantly, Here is Barb's addition to the blog!

Back in the 80s and 90s my air name was "Barbara Evans"..

I was the 7p-12m announcer at WILQ from July 83 to Feb Thenthen promoted to mid-day and Program Director at the Q until LAMCO sold the station circa January 1996. When I started at the Q, some of the names at the station were John Ellis-engineer of course, Joe Dalto-Sales Manager, "Jungle" Jim Cameron-making a return as Assistant Sales Manager. Cecil Hook..top AE and Bob Cunnion as GM-from LAMCO. I like to think that I was/am the only female PD Williamsport ever had, or at least longest run at it 12 years. I worked part time for a short period at WKSB on the weekends for fun. I am now on Âthe dark side, selling for cable television in Lewisburg, Sunbury, Danville, Watsontown areas. Not as fun as being a dj, but more profitable for me! People ask me if I miss radio, yes, but its the old days (ok, the 80s weren't that long ago) with live shows, back-timing, carts, vinyl and those new cd things that made it cool. Williamsport is mostly "voice tracked" after 10am and is basically two radio groups Backyard Broadcasting and Clear Channel.

My career started 1982 ish at WBPZ Lock Haven. I had never known Harris Lipez started in Williamsport.

I really enjoyed your history of the market..John E was the source of most of my history lessons in days gone by.

Mistakes come in three's, back at WLYC again

2006-07-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Writing this blog have evoked both good and bad memories, the same can be said about my second and third times at WLYC and WILQ. Now as you may remember I started my radio sentence at 1050 AM and 105.1 FM, in 1964, at the time they were owned and operated by Keliher Construction Company. In 1972, J.T. Keliher sold out to a company called Alpha Broadcasting, as Chuck Hoffman wrote earlier the broadcast end was part of a company that primarily was into computer services. When they bought it many changes took place. Most of the original staff, was either fired, or quit, save Ann Davis in Traffic, George McKay on air, and John Ellis the engineer. Vince Campana the G.M was out, and replaced by Henry Kirk, new announcers started appearing almost instantly mostly from the State College area as the station was switching to a more top 40 format. Wendell H. (Wendy) Williams was brought in as the Program Director. Wendy had once been at ABC owned and operated KQV in Pittsburgh. I remember that Wendy had actually applied at one time to WMPT and Dave didn't hire him, (MISTAKE) because he said, "why would anyone that had been in major market want to work in Williamsport." Wendy actually wanted to attend Williamsport Area Community College for airplane mechanics of all things. Also appearing during this time were Harry E. Gahagan, a young hippy type, Steve Migdon, and Steve Suskie, John Bower, Steve Hurr (Helms), Steve George, Teddy Genevish, Tumblewood Ted (Saul), John Bower, and Chris Walsh (News). All were pretty talented air people and WLYC was throwing a ton of promotion at the market.

I had left WMPT after the flood and for a brief period of time I was working for a small privately owned company selling emergency equipment, the only problem, neither I nor any of the suppliers got paid! So I finally decided that maybe WLYC might be a place to try as I didn't want to go back to WMPT as Harry Seltzer and I were still feuding. At first view WLYC seemed like the "hot" place to work, lots of enthusiasm, promotional money, and the pay was not too bad either, so I landed a part time job. It was about this time that a decision was made to split WLYC FM off and make it a country station, well sometimes! In the evening after WLYC signed off, ( A day timer) WILQ would continue to rock till midnight. I was approached about starting the overnight show on now renamed WILQ. The shift amounted to coming in at 11:00 pm, doing production, and going on the air at midnight playing top 40 till 2:00 am and then changing to country for the remainder of the shift, talk about block programming! Well I did the shift, at the time the FCC was looking for stations to do a lot of public affairs programming and the idea was put forth that 12:00 to 1:00 am might be the time for a WILQ music/talk format show. So that is what happened, I would come on at midnight play music in between phone calls and then at 1:00 am after the news switch back to all music. The show for the most part went pretty well save the fact that there was a half assed delay system, created by inputting the air signal into one Ampex, running the tape down to another Ampex reel to reel mounted below it in the rack, feeding the output from that machine back into the board and on the air. WHAT A mess! Well anyway, being one of the very few stations on the air, I got a lot of calls, and it was quite often that the talk show would continue till 2:00 or even 3:00 AM. The rest of the night was country pretty much wall to wall, as there were few if any commercials. I did that shift for about 1 year, somewhere during that time I was getting regular complaints about my production, missing, bad quality, Etc. I made sure I checked and rechecked the production before I put it in the control room, I can only think that someone, for some reason was sabotaging it! Finally one night I came in and there was a rather nasty note from now Manager Larry Knapp that I had better get my act together, I snapped and walked out, leaving poor Steve Migdon with his mouth hanging wide open. Do I know who, not for sure, but I have a couple of candidates in mind. Anyway, several months passed, and I actually had applied at WWPA and was going to be hired to do part time when I received a call telling me that WILQ was going to 4 hour day shifts, and would I be interested in doing a combo position or mid day and afternoon news. The money was right, and I accepted. So in late 1973 I came back and settled into mid days. As far as fan appreciation that was one of the best shifts I have ever done, lots of feedback from the listeners, and a fair amount of freedom on the air. I for the most part even enjoyed the afternoon news, I did both WLYC and WILQ local news live, two times and hour for 3 hours. I had done news before, so I still had contacts and it really did sound pretty good. I stayed with that till mid 1975 and I was offered a on road sales position working for a friend of mine selling of all things cut flowers and floral supplies!
But that is yet another story!

During time there I had the chance to work with some very unusual people, with my rather conservative upbringing I was somewhat surprised at the people, let me profile them:

Wendy Williams: He was a Morman, who at times would get fed up with the church and let loose in private. Wendy was one of the more inventive persons I have ever known, and was quite controversial on the air. There are several famous Wendy stories that I wonÂ’t take time to tell here, but ask me, they are classics. I of course worked with him in afternoon drive during my news duties.

Harry Gahagan: I described him as a hippy type, long hair, nervous type, he always played with a pen while he was on the air. Harry was tapped as the Program Director at WLYC after Wendy started school and resigned. I got along with Harry most of the time, as I really didnÂ’t work directly for him except when I was doing Top 40. Harry eventually went to WOND in Atlantic City, N.J. owned by the Green Group, yes the same company I worked for in Elmira, as Howard Green owned WENY/WLEZ/WENY TV 36.

Steve Migdon: was a nice quite kind of guy who loved pranks, and we were always working each other over. I never saw him too much except at station events as he worked evenings and I was gone by the time he came in. I remember once after a station softball game, he and I tackled several bottles of Boones Farm wine, neither of us were worth much the next day. I really don't know what ever happened to Mig, although for some reason I think he might have gone to Harrisburg.

Steve Suskie: I was probably closest to him of all the WLYC staff, we worked a lot of promotions together, not the best voice on the air, but a hard worker.

Joe Dalto: We had other names for him, he was a kid that just didn't grow up.

On the WILQ side were the following:
George McKay: I had known George a long time, I believe he actually replaced me when I left WLYC in 1966. He was promoted to Program Director of WILQ when the split happened and did a fair job. George did not have the greatest radio voice, but he was a good guy. We got quite close as for several months I dated is sister in law. George stayed at WILQ for a long time, I eventually worked with him again in 1992 at KISS FM.

Lynn Bloom: "Big Time Bloomie." Now there was a real character, looked like everybody's grandfather should look, was probably the biggest lush I have ever worked with. It was not un common to get a call from the city police that they found him passed out someplace or he would stager into the station at 2:30 am and tell me to wake him up for his air shift. More often than not he would go on the air totally plastered, but you would never know it when he turned on the mike. "Bloomie" had the absolute worst rug (wig) I have ever seen, it was yellowing from age and neglect, and when he got drunk it would wind up crooked on his head. Eventually he was fired and I think went to Roaring Springs.

Bill Wilson: He replaced "Bloomie" That was not his real name, but for the life of me I can't even come close to spelling his real name. He has worked with Harry Gahagan and Wendy in State College and if I remember was pretty good on the air.

Ron Shobert; Yes that is right after I left Ron was hired to do the all night show, he like a lot of other people got shafted by "Moose and Squirrel." (more on them later)

Chuck Hoffman: He was hired as the "Group" Program Director for the Williamsport stations and WGGO AM/FM in Salamanca, N.Y. I liked Chuck, I am not saying that just because he reads this, he was my kind of P.D., a bit laid back, and had a pretty good sense of humor. I used to stay around and "help" Chuck do his show when I was doing all nights. Chuck was not well liked by the "State College Crowd" who called him "Huffy Chuckman" behind his back. Be sure and read Chuck's notes about his time on the second floor of the Carone Building at 4th and Pine Streets, it is very interesting.

Larry Knapp: He became the General Manager, and his wife was one of the sales staff. In my opinion Larry was not the most honest of persons, I don't believe he had much radio experience, except working for Cary Simpson (Allegheny Mountain Radio network). I believe he was always out for Larry, and didn't care who got the shaft along the way. I understand that there was some questionable tactics used in assigning commercial accounts, with some being listed as house accounts on the lists given to the other sales staff and his wife being paid commission of those same accounts. By the way, we used to call them "Moose and Squirrel" as George Vadja who was Mr. Alpha Broadcasting looked like and had an accent like the Rocky and Bullwinkle character Boris Batenov. Larry eventually opened a motorcycle and recreational vehicle business in Galeton, I talked to him just once, when I was managing WLEZ in Elmira, as he was trying to convince me to give him a glowing reference, as he wanted to advertise on TV 36 and wanted credit approval! YEAH RIGHT!!!

Looking back over the last 41 plus years in radio Alpha was probably the absolute worst operator I ever worked for. They we constantly late with paychecks, would fire you for no reason and were on your back constantly. One of Alpha's favorite tricks to fire people was to remove their name from their mailbox. If you went in and you didn't have a mailbox then you were done! The other was to fire you by letter in your mailbox. I remember that Steve George, who was going to college in Bradford, Pa, came home one weekend to do his shift and walked in only to find "the letter." But that was Alpha's and Larry Knapp's style, backhanded and underhanded in dealing with employees and customers. Vince Campana who was fired not long after Alpha took over filed suit against them and won, the day it was announced all of us who disliked Alpha cheered loudly!! Learning Alpha's tactics and how they operated really was benefical when I went back to WMPT in 1975. With the ground work that Chuck had laid at WMPT and what I was allowed to do, we really cut into Alpha's bottom line. It was not too long after the start or 1975 that they sold out to Kerby Confer and Paul Rothfuss, but that too is another story for another time! Thanks again for your kind words, till next time, when I once again cross the river and head down East Central Avenue!

My Life and Times at WMPT 1966 to 1972

2006-06-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

WMPT Staff from 1965 to 1972

Before I get started let me say how honored I am by the nice comments I have received about my efforts to preserve a part of small market radio history. Those of us who lived and had the privilege of working in those great days of radio are fortunate. The kids coming out of broadcasting school today will never know the pleasure of searching for the big 50,000 watt stations at night and as young disk jockeys trying to imitate our favorite jocks of the day such as, Herb Oscar Anderson, Cousin Brucie, Murray the K, Joey Reynolds, Dick Biandi, Jerry Blavitt and so many more names that graced the airwaves.

When I went to WMPT in 1966, I became part of a pretty seasoned staff, I hope that after 40 years I don’t forget anybody.

At the time the Program Director was Dick Crownover a person I had known since the late 50’s and for the most part the last of the very early staff. He came to WMPT from Lewistown, PA, to study electronics at the old Williamsport Technical Institute. In Lewistown he had worked for WMRF and WJUN (k) as he called it.
Dick was the kind or person who would ask you to do something once, and if it didn’t get done, then he would go ahead and do it. While he never said anything directly, you knew that you had screwed up big time! He was probably one of the busiest guys in the station in addition to doing the mid morning show, he sold and at one time did the Disk Jamboree show at 4:10 pm everyday. Dick also was, at the time the record hop king of Williamsport, having done hundreds of record hops. By the time I got to “The Mighty 14-50” the only dance still running was The Coca Cola Hi Fi Club on Friday night in Montoursville. In addition to all that Dick was responsible for a lot of engineering around the station and usually the first one who got called when some of the antique equipment crapped out as it often did. I can’t exactly remember when Dick left, but I think it was around 1970 to take a job with Sylvania Electronics and pursue his first love.

Ron Shobert: Ron was the big jock doing the top rated “Night Train” on the station at that time. Ron came from Jersey Shore and to the best of my knowledge he was a product of WMPT’s in house training, which at times meant, “here’s the board, the log and the records, good luck.” I liked Ron, he was fun, had an eye for beautiful ladies and never hesitated to do someone a favor. I remember he once did a tape for me for our after high school play party and dance. Some of My best memories of Ron come from 1967, at the time I was working full time (5:00 pm to 1:15 AM at WBPZ in Lock Haven) and Ron from 6:00 PM to 1:00 AM at WMPT. Well he lived in Jersey Shore and I lived in Barbours out the Loyalsock, so when we left work we would meet usually at his house. Both of us had C.B. radios and would talk to the “late nighters” along the way till we met up. Then it was coffee and conversation for a couple of hours at his house till I would be on my way to my next stop Mr. Donut! Also in 1967 we were asked to participate in the Jersey Shore Town Meeting over July 4th, and play music to warm up the crowd for the feature act The Tremeloes. But before that, Ron and I played host to the group most all day, taking them around to radio stations and giving them a taste of rural Pennsylvania life. Both Ron and I were disappointed that a Philadelphia TV celebrity(?) Wee Willie Webber was the Master of Ceremonies. Practically no one in the crowd knew him, but when the Tremeloes introduced us and thanked us for being their host for the day, we received a large round of applause. Bye the way, Wee Willie was the host of a Kids TV show in Philly and if memory serves me correctly he was married to a woman from Jersey Shore who had a relative on the committee and that was the ONLY reason he was the M.C. and not Ron and I.

Ron was at WMPT till the mid 70’s when he left to go to WLYC/WILQ and do the all night show. He later helped build and was the first General Manager at WJJR FM, a station in Mifflinburg, Pa. I have to believe that was Ron’s downfall as it took a real toll on him personally. Unfortunately he passed away in 1991 at a far too young age.

Harry Seltzer: Harry was another one who had worked at WMPT before being drafted into the service and came back in late 1966. He wound up doing the Platter Party and when Dick Crownover left became Program Director. Harry and I got to be friends early on, I had known him before he went into the service and for some reason we became close when he returned to the station. He even sponsored me in membership at First Ward Fire Company in 1967 and for a number of years we were quite close. After Dick left and Harry became P.D. I felt there was a change in him, I guess part of it may have been my disappointment in not getting that position. Anyway, after Dave was elected County Commissioner Harry was promoted yet again to Station Manager and the riff between us became even more pronounced. It was during that time I left and came back a couple of times trying my hand at selling cars at Larry Herron Lincoln Mercury and for a very brief period of time as a Broadcast Instructor at Career Academy in Milwaukee, Wi. Around the same time Harry also became Chief at First Ward, and I was a Captain, so no matter where I went he was still my boss! Harry left sometime after I did and worked for Bob Bieter and eventually as the Local Government Sales Representative for Motorola Two Way and was well respected. It took a long time but we finally mended our fences and became friends even though we were competitors in business.

Bill Thomas and Rob Thomas: To the best of my knowledge the Thomas brothers were the only brother combination WMPT ever had. Bill did mornings and Rob weekends. Bill went on to work for ABC and Rob stayed in radio for a number of years.

Fred Burdge: While not an on air person, Fred was a very important part of the staff as he sold advertising and wrote a lot of copy. Fred had this mop of very thick hair, prompting Dave Castlebury to call him “Rughead” a name that was never to be said in his presence, well of course like the “kids” we were, it did slip from time to time. Fred loved alliteration in his copy and one time wrote a complete spot for Super Self Service Shoe Store with most of the words starting in “S”. I must say I hated his live copy and vowed NEVER to write stuff like that myself. I am not really sure when Fred left the station but I think it was sometime in the late 60’s as I believe his health was failing. Fred was an amateur radio operator and was highly proficient in CW or code transmission.

Ken Breon: Ken was a person I did not know very well till after he left the station to start his own business North Central Amusements. He had been there a long time and also worked at WMLP under the air name of Brian K. Ken and Ron Shobert were good buddies for a number of years, and again the time frame in which he left is foggy.

In the late 60’s early 70’s the “Terrible Trio” was formed, it consisted of myself and to following two characters.

Caesar Mattioli: He came sometime in late 1969 from WWPA to do WMPT‘s evening shift. Caesar actually got his start in Philadelphia at WWSH which was a beautiful music station. Of the people who graced the mic’s at WMPT he probably stand out in my mind as one of the better voices ever on the air. Caesar was legally blind, a fact that most people did not know and he certainly never seemed handicapped by it on the air. He had a highly creative mind and that got him into trouble more than once with Harry Seltzer and Dave Castlebury and eventually led to his firing. After his demise at WMPT for insulting a paid religious program, that yes, really was a bad as he said it was, he went to WMMR in Philadelphia, and from there to top rated Z93 in Atlanta, and the “Powerhouse of the South” WSB in Atlanta. I remember one time in the early 80’s listening to him while I lived in New York State thinking “how cool is that?” Over the years he stayed in Georgia and worked in Athens, and Macon. He is currently at WGAU in Athens Georgia and has been there for a number of years. I feel fortunate that we managed to keep a friendship going over all these years even though we have not seen each other since he left Williamsport in the 1970’s.

Jon Paul: The third member of the “crew.” Mattioli and I always felt that he needed a last name, and at times we supplied various ones including “Reporting” when he did a newscast. Jon came to WMPT in the very early 70s’s and did afternoon drive. I can’t remember if he had any actual air experience, but it seems to me he worked in Babylon N.Y. where he was from. In those days to make adjustments in the station or to do engineering work or work at a high power or directional station you needed a First Class Radiotelephone License. I tried several times for get one and failed, Jon had his courtesy of a “six weeks wonder” course. At the time Dave hired him I think he felt that if you have the license you can engineer. Such was NOT the case with Jon and he freely admitted it! So Jon was the guy who was one of the very few Chief Engineers I worked with who never opened a piece of equipment without someone like me or Harry Seltzer being around. Jon was there during and after the flood of ’72. Jon and I were very close during his time at WMPT, I even introduced him to his wife Bonnie and was in their wedding. Recently after over 30 years Jon and I re-connected courtesy of the internet. He and Bonnie came and spent an evening and how much fun it was, he later told me that Bonnie had said “listening to you two it was like you just saw each other yesterday, not over 30 years ago.” That was the case with us, very close on and off the air, and ALWAYS pulling pranks on someone, or each other.

In my mind this period of time was one of the greatest in the history of WMPT. We were a brazen bunch, always challenging authority, I can remember one time when Dave Castelbury posted a kind of management schedule, Harry was on it and so was he, only he wrote G.D. (Galen David) Castelbury, of course someone immediate asked the question what G.D. stood for, Dave’s reply was “It DOES NOT stand for that G - - Damn Castelbury!”

It was during that time that WMPT really came of age in the transitional period from the early pioneer days of Rock and roll radio that was coupled with traditional block programming to a modern contemporary sound. Block programming disappeared at the hands of Watts, Mattioli, and Paul and was replaced with a strong Contemporary Top 40 format in drive and evening times and a quality Easy Listening Contemporary sound overnight and in mid days. It was without a doubt one of the better programming sounds I have ever heard. Caesar and I still say to this day “if we would have only known what we were doing, we would have sold the format and been rich!”

Also during this period of time, 1968, came WMPT FM Stereo. Dave had a knack of looking forward and believed that FM was the wave of the future, boy was he right! When the FM went on the air, it was the first FM STEREO in Williamsport, one of very few in the state, and was the first with separate programming. Evenings the station ran pre-packaged programming with very easy listening music and a disk jockey from the west coast named Don McMaster and his show “Music With McMaster.” The first automation was one reel to reel (a Skully) a carousel commercial machine and a single deck cart recorder/playback machine. It worked pretty well, a Alan Preuss had built the homebrew components to make it so. Parts of it were still in service when I left in 1978 to go to Canton. Having the FM also gave WMPT the advantage of being able to broadcast more than one sporting event at a time, often during both football and basketball season we would have one game on AM and one on FM, a nightmare for the "Board" person. Phil Lane and Woody Ott from WWPA once told Dave, “That FM thing will never last, can’t see the value in it.” I consider it somewhat ironic that what was WMPT FM, at 99.3 is still around while 1450 is dark.

I certainly hope that I have not left anyone out of this time period, I always have that fear that my mind has forgotten one of the people who was a part of 14-50 (Fourteen-Fifty) W M P T.

Till the next time and Bill Byham always said “That’s 30.”

Dave Castlebury

2006-06-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the pleasure of receiving an E mail from Galene Castlebury Reynolds, yes, she is the daughter of Dave Castlebury. She sent me some pictures of Dave taken not long before he passed away, I share one of them with you now. The last time I saw Dave in 1996, he didn't look a lot different from the picture and that was not a lot different than the way he looked in 1979. Also a picture of a VERY young "Sky King". Thank you Galene for the pictures!

More from the WMPT files of Mike Sullivan

2006-05-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Hello again, from the hills of Northern Arizona. The WMPT History blog really has gotten a life of its own. Mike Sullivan has chimed in again with a couple of more gems, so here they are!

A quick F.P. (Fred Plankenhorn) story: (You're gonna love it). He was doing his on-air record hop from the First Ward Volunteer Fire Co., and I was the board man back at the station. My job was to get him on the air and intersperse messages from "Charlie and Kay," the Sociables, who were hawking Pepsi-Cola. (on disk). Well, I either became inattentive or was on one of my 33 1/3 long-playing phone calls and missed several cues. At first, Fred was just mildly unpleasant: "Well, I guess Charlie and Kay weren't paying attention....now here IS a word from Charlie and Kay." But things went downhill from there and as I missed more cues, Fred got more exasperated on the air. "Hey, listen now....Charlie and Kay may have better things to do but they were hired to bring you these paid-for commercials. Charlie? Kay?
And finally it was: "Now listen up, Charlie and Kay, you better get on the ball or you may find yourself on the unemployment line. If Charlie and Kay would get off the phone, we'd probably hear from them. And we better, "Sully." Of course, Fred was right. But to bitch me out on the air made him seem like a malcontent.

Lot’s of folks over the years have used air names, I did on a couple of occasions when I needed to usually because I was either working at another station or at a place where it might be viewed as a conflict of interest such as when I was placing advertising for Chemung Country Transit and working for KZ 106/WCLI in Corning. Mike’s reason I suspect was a bit different!

My name: I first used the handle "Gene Grayson," but with my cross bite, it was too hard to say: ssssshhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen grayshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn. I heard a guy on mutual news while in Jamestown and really liked the way he sounded when he signed off with his name: "This is John Sullivan," Mutual News. I figured I would keep my initials (M.S., which stood for, gulp, yes, "Mathias Schunk." In '75, I made Sullivan my legal name. A good decision! That's how I began using that name. Funny story! Some Irish guy came in to talk with Dave and said (while I was standing there) what a great deal it was that he had hired an Irish person. I chimed in with the news (remember the doorbell Dick installed as a time tone?) that I wasn't Irish at all and that it was simply an air name. I could read the disappointment in the guy's face.
Dave was pissed and told me after the guy left to NEVER make such revelations in the future. In other words, he reasoned, what's the harm if I simply go along with it? I took his advice. In St. Cloud, Minn., my next door neighbor, Fred Hughes, said it was great to have an Irishman in town instead of all those "Germans." (I never let on that I was a "Hun.")
Fred Burge was able to sell time to JP & M Sullivan based on my presence on the air.
He also threatened to punch my lights out for making fun (on the air) of a commercial he had done. He kept going in and out of the studio, muttering threats to me, as I was doing my show. I finally (in between records) told Dave, admitted I was wrong, but Dave turned his ire to Fred for threatening me and really lit into him. Fred apologized but I felt I sort of deserved the threats for being so unprofessional. The crisis soon passed. Fred was sort of hokey but he could sell time, no doubt about it

A Golden Goodie from another WMPT Alumnus

2006-04-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most surprising thing about having a web site or a BLOG page is who read it. Recently I received a big surprise when one of my early idols on WMPT, Mike Sullivan sent me an e mail saying he found my site while "surfing." I remember Mike as a person with a great on air presence, and wild sense of humor and an extremely creative mind. One of my favorite "Sully" stories involves him when he was doing sign on back in the days when WMPT was located on the second floor of the South Williamsport Borough Hall. When you got to the top of the stairs and went in a big counter greeted you, to the left was the ever present nickel Coke machine, legend has it that Mike would come in turn on the lights, plunk two nickels in the machine and get two bottles of cherry soda. One he would drink while turning stuff on, the other during sign on. From the time I got there in 1966 till I left in 1979 the cherry soda was always referred to by the entire staff as "Sully Soda." That being said, here, with his permission, are some of Mike Sullivan's memories of the early days in radio for him:

Kelly: While surfing I stumbled onto your WMPT site and I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed reading it – and marveled that yours truly (Mike Sullivan) was included in your remembrances!

Here’s a brief “rundown” (you can take that literally) of my career:

Hired by Dave Castlebury in 1960 after he listened to my “superb” air check from WMLP. “What kind of a microphone was that you were using?” (typical Dave comment).

Actually, I had been fired from WMLP, and also cut loose from WBRX in Berwick, WJOC, Jamestown, NY and WHTG in Asbury Park, NJ. Had Dave not hired me, I would have quit the radio biz.

I got drafted a few months after Dave hired me. But he took me back in 1962 (full time!) even though I was only a part-time employee. Some folks hated Dave. But he and his station were just what I needed at that point in my career.

I left WMPT in Oct., ’63, for WMID, Atlantic City, where I was indoctrinated in “back-to-back” commercials during the summer season. June thru Sept. we played 3 records an hour. I know. It sounds as if I made that up.

In Oct., ’65, I joined Susquehanna broadcasting (they owned WARM in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton.) I was hired at their “new” station, WGBB in Freeport, Long Island, NY. What a wild place! (Not a place to work if you were (1) in radio and (2) married.

I got canned at WGBB because the manager, Bill Musser, hated me – I guess because I wasn’t from PA.

I was hired one day later at WGLI, Babylon, Long Island, where the signal was quite strong – if you happened to be a fish.

On land, we couldn’t be heard 17 miles from the station.

From there I went to the big time: Chicago stations WGRT, WJJD, etc. Mostly news and 10 years with a black station, owned by John H. Johnson of Ebony/Jet magazine fame.

I spent 5 years in Minnesota, all radio years, all cooooooooooooooooold radio towns.

Returned to Chicago in ’84, worked at one big FMer which canned the entire news department to make way for a high-paying morning announcer (Tom Joyner, who is now syndicated nationally on black outlets.)

I gravitated to newspaper work in 1986, spent 12 years in suburban Chicago radio (in news) before retiring (voice problems) in 2005.

I am now on staff at the Elgin (Ill.) Courier – News as a business reporter.

I am a grandfather of two boys and still married despite the rocky radio road.

Yes, I do remember you hangin’ out with me during my air shifts at ‘MPT.

I feel fortunate to have worked at WMPT.

I feel very fortunate to have spent more than 40 years on the air. I did it all, Kelly. Played black music at a black station, was news director for several stations and did production work that was decent.

I still lose my voice on occasion, but it’s good enough for print journalism.

Thanks Sully, I look forward to more posings from you as well as anyone else who survived radio in Williamsport, Pa.

Chuck Hoffman's Williamsportgate (part 2)

2006-02-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

My Thanks to Chuck for his time in writing this addition to the history of Williamsport radio. It was during his time at WLYC/WILQ that WMPT was de-throned if only briefly as the king of Top 40 in the Market. The biggest problem was, as Chuck mentions, outdated programming policy and the wrong people in the wrong place. So now here is part 2 of Chuck Hoffman in Williamsport.

I sent Kelly a copy of the story of my radio career and he asked if he could post it on his blog. It was written for another venue so naturally the focus was not on my time in Pennsylvania. I've been asked to expand on my experiences in Williamsport so in Part Deux I will do just that:I arrived in Williamsport around Thanksgiving of 1972, having been hired as the Group Program Director of Alpha Broadcasting. It was headquartered in New York City's garment district and shared offices with corporate sibling,Alpha Computer Group. The principal owner, as I recall, was George Vajda. There may have been other stockholders but I was never privy to any of the information at the New York headquarters. Along with my duties of overseeing all of the programming for WLYC AM and WILQ FM in Williamsport, and WGGO in Salamanca, New York, I took over the morning board shift at Top 40 WLYC.” Following that was a one-houraudience-participation talk show that I also hosted, a remnant of the block programming that was still prevalent in smaller markets in those days.The other air personalities at that time were Harry Gahagan (nominally the program director of WLYC), Steve Migdon, Wendy Williams and Kelly Watts. OnBig Q Country (WILQ FM), were Lynn Bloom and George McKay, Big Q's PD. If memory serves, news was being handled by Ted Genevish and Henry Kirk. In those days, Big Q Country was only heard during the day because the FM was switched to Top 40 after WLYC's sunset signoff. I seem to recall that Wendy Williams had served as PD or group PD of Alpha for some period of time but resigned because he was not getting any backing from corporate. I should have seen that as a sign of things to come but didnot. More on that further down the page. I plodded onward, doing my board shift four days a week and making Fridaytrips to Salamanca to mentor the staff there. That was an interesting market. Salamanca is 70 miles from Buffalo and, of course, the Buffalo stations boom in. Because of that, WGGO - a daytimer - was not able toestablish any presence in its own market. The only solution was to blockprogram what the sales staff could sell. I perfunctorily did my dutiesthere but largely concentrated on WLYC and WILQ. As group PD, part of my responsibility was to devise and implement programming that would appeal to listeners and improve our ratings. At least, I believed that to be true. Henry Kirk and I devised a rudimentaryinvestigative news philosophy for WLYC and began to shake up some of the -up to then - unreported shenanigans of municipal government and localbusinesses.That got the community buzzing and some of it spilled over into my morningtalk show. On one occasion, a caller's remarks bordered on the slanderous and I had to use all of the skill and experience gained in two and a half years of handling talk shows in another market to diffuse the situation. But, as luck would have it, corporate heard about the flap and I was called on the carpet in Manhattan. I was told in no uncertain terms that it was not my place to make any changes to the station's programming. I, too, resigned as group PD and let it be known that I was available.That came to the attention of Lycoming County supervisor G. DavidCastlebury, the owner of rival WMPT, a full time Top 40 station in SouthWilliamsport. After a little more than a year, I was recruited away from Alpha and took over the programming duties at WMPT. First, however, Dave gave me the task of moving an entire production studio from one room to another and pulling a bundle of cables thru the attic to the patch panel in the control room. With that done, I had time to consider the task ahead of me. Morning drive was being handled by Ron Shobert, who - in all candor - justdid not fit the image that Dave and I wanted WMPT to project. Traffic clerkDolly Wilt was doing an insipid half-hour mid-morning homemaker show,probably left over from the era of block programming. High school senior Jim Sortman was doing the 6-midnight shift. He had a modicum of talent but, as frequently happens with the very young, he had a fragile ego and a world-sized self-image and wouldn't accept constructive criticism from me.The rest of the staff is a blank. I just have no recollection of them at all.The air sound was typical of a small-market rocker when I arrived so I implemented some playlist and format changes to soften the sound during"wife" time. I restricted what was the early years of psychedelic and heavy metal music to afternoon and evening hours when the audience was much more amenable to those sounds. I also made some subtle changes to the mix and placement of the station's considerable library of oldies.To update the sound during the morning, I eliminated Dolly's show and that prompted Shobert to walk out. That was a blessing for two reasons: 1) he didn't fit the new image, and 2) he was hired by WLYC and took his uninspiring personality there. At about the same time, Bob Evans (who had been working elsewhere in Pennsylvania) began visiting with Sortman, whom he apparently knew. I determined that he was available and had some moxie so I hired him to do the morning drive shift.There seemed to be no money for station jingles so I had to improvise. Gary Gears, with whom I had worked in Omaha, was then at WCFL in Chicago and agreed to voice some image tracks for a nominal fee. I don't know why they didn't pass the "Sortman test" but he voiced his displeasure at the "WMPT Plays Favorites" campaign. He loudly and constantly complained that "his audience" didn't like it. I tried to explain to him that a half-dozen of his high school buddies didn't comprise an audience and that I was striving for something bigger. The end game was in progress but I was not yet aware. When Dave hired me, Harry Seltzer, the general manager, apparently saw me as a threat. He made it a point to comment that my resume stood taller than his. I never deliberately gave him any reason to fear that I was undermining him. Conversely, he seemed to be undermining me. What I did not know until decades later is that Seltzer had been the program director of WMPT at one time and the changes I was making probably were superseding things he had put in place. It all came to a head one afternoon and I decided I was tired and had enough.I tried consulting for a short time but after being stiffed out of a fee by a station in Corning, NY, in early 1974, I turned my back on radio. And for ten years thereafter, I didn't listen, not even in the car.

Chuck Hoffman chimes in

2006-02-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Chuck Hoffman was the Group program director for Alpha Broadcasting, and worked out of Williamsport at WLYC/WILQ. I had the pleasure of working with him for over a year. In addition to his programming duties Chuck did morning drive on WLYC AM and the talk show. Chuck recently found this blog and send me some information about his time in radio and gave me permission to share it with you! So now heeeeeere's Chuck!

My career in radio broadcasting should not have begun as it did. Unlike the vast majority of aspiring disk jockeys and newsmen, I started at KOIL, the most popular station in Omaha,then the 44th largest radio market in the country. Most radio beginners labor for months - or even years - at small stations in obscure markets, honing their craft and developing the voice techniques that mark them as professionals. In my case, however, there must have been a serendipitous alignment of the planets.While a member of the US Air Force, I had the good fortune to have Bruce Haines as a friend and roommate. Some of you may remember Bruce. He worked for years under the name of David Haines in the New York City and Baltimore markets before his untimely death in 2005.Bruce and I had been stationed together along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.Before joining the military, he was an announcer at WMYR in Ft. Myers, Florida. During one of the hurricanes that regularly batter the Gulf Coast region, I recall him telephoning live news updates to WMYR. After technical training, Bruce and I were reassigned to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and worked together for a couple years as computer technicians in the SAC Headquarters underground command post.While still in the Air Force, Bruce secured a part-time job as a weekend newsman at KOIL. As my discharge date approached, he told me I had a good radio voice and suggested that I meet with his boss, news director BobBenson (who retired a few years ago after a long stint as vice president ofABC News Radio). I did as Bruce suggested and was hired, to drive a truck. In the mid-1960s, KOIL had a Dodge van that had a sign with moving letters on its top called the Visual News Cruiser. Mobile reporter LJ Lancer and I split the duties ofparking it in highly visible locations in and around the Omaha area. Itspurpose, of course, was to prompt motorists to tune in to KOIL.When Election Day, 1966, neared, Benson apparently noticed my "pipes" and gave me a mobile news assignment covering polling places in Omaha in the BigRed mobile unit. I was to report on the number of voters at each of myassigned stops. I must have done fairly well because that led to further mobile news assignments and weekend studio news shifts. At about the same time, Star Stations, then the parent company of KOIL, was looking for someone with a first class radiotelephone license to be the overnight babysitter of the transmitter of KISN, the Star Stations outlet inPortland, Oregon. Since I had been trained in electronics in the Air Force,Mike McCormick (KOIL's program director) asked if I thought I could up grade my license. I told him I probably could. To keep me employed while I studied to secure the "first phone" ticket, McCormick created an overnight studio news shift, to which I was assigned.Morning "cop shop" beats along with other mobile news assignments rounded out full time hours.But, as often happens, something unforeseen occurred. Just before Christmas of 1966, Jim Hunter (Hal Widsten) and I were cruising Omaha in the Big Redmobile unit and stopped to view the KOIL Carol Tree, which was set up onNorth 30th Street in the parking lot of a furniture store. Parked next to us were two girls in a new Chevelle Malibu and we struck up a conversation.One thing led to another and I no longer wished to move to Portland. I have now been married to the driver of that Chevelle for over 35 years.That became a bone of contention over which KOIL and I parted ways in the spring of 1967. I taught electronics at the Radio Engineering Institute in Omaha for about six months and then landed a news reporter job at KRCB inneighboring Council Bluffs. After a few weeks, I also began doing board shifts and learned how to be a disk jockey. At that time, KRCB was a 1000 watt daytimer that played anawful mix of swing, big band and middle-of-the-road standards sprinkled with a few light contemporary hits. New owner Jim Conroy finally was convinced that Top 40 was the way to go and we made the format switch. Not since KOWH abandoned Top 40 a few years earlier had KOIL experienced any competition for its audience in the Omaha market. Needless to say, we got their attention. A short time later, KRCB's new 100,000 watt FM went on the air and we simulcast until the AM's sunset signoff, the FM continuing(officially) until midnight. It was a young consultant by the name of CJ Jones who helped convince Conroy to switch formats and Jones implemented the Boss Jock sound along with theBig 15-6 playlist. Most of the KRCB personalities adopted or were given new names. I acquired a new first initial and became J. Charles Hoffman, which was shortened to Jay Charles when I took over the morning drive board shift a few months later. In early 1969, KRCB's program director, Buddy Scott (Mike Bothell), was recruited by KOIL. They thought they were performing a surgical kill but, no, KRCB continued its assault on ratings in the Omaha market. I don't know if we ever beat KOIL in any day part but we sure had fun, the competition was fierce and I learned a great deal in a short period of time. Around Christmas of 1969, I moved on to KLWW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a few months after that became the program director of Top 40 WSJM in St.Joseph, Michigan. I stayed for two and a half years and delivered a Pulsebook showing improvement from fourth in our own market to first in 18-49's in all day parts. That put us ahead of Chicago giants WLS and WCFL, which were just 55 miles across the lake and - up to then - had badly beaten WSJM's ratings. I attribute a great deal of the success I achieved to the things I learned from McCormick, Jones, et al, at KOIL and KRCB. From Michigan, I went to Pennsylvania, where I served as the group program director of Alpha Broadcasting, which owned WLYC AM and WILQ FM inWilliamsport, and WGGO in Salamanca, New York. Even though it was a daytimer, WLYC was the dominant rocker in the Williamsport area and my tenure solidified its status. The following year, having been recruited by the owner, I went "across the street" to fulltime WMPT in South Williamsport - the other Top 40 outlet -which had been laboring under less than competent management and programming direction. I made the necessary format and personnel changes, tightened upthe air sound, implemented a revised playlist and knocked off WLYC. But the general manager - who had formerly been the program director - took umbrageat the things I was trying to accomplish and in early 1974 I realized that I was exhausted and decided to leave the world of radio behind. The career that began so remarkably ended rather inauspiciously - a victim of broadcasting's incredible egos. I went on to a successful twenty-five year career in software engineering and high tech consulting in Silicon Valley and recently retired. I'm now attempting something of a broadcasting comeback. I've been a part time video news stringer for San Francisco and Oakland television stations for the last couple years and I'm looking toward full time TV news writing and producing. On air? Not me. Not anymore

The Flood Waters Came and Went

2006-02-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

A lot of former radio people from Williamsport have found this BLOG by accident, believe me I am glad you did! Thanks for your input and contributions.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story."

Agnes, Was No Lady!

If I remember somewhere around June 20, 1972 the rains came to Williamsport in the form of what was left of Hurricane Agnes. Now rain is nothing new to Pennsylvania and Williamsport, many severe floods over the years had struck including the "Great Flood of 1936" remembered by many as the worst ever! So when heavy rains were forecast from Agnes, nothing more than a few eyebrows raised at WMPT, after all, urban legend was that cows stood on the little knoll where the station was built during the '36 flood and didn't get wet, so surely this little storm would not threaten "The Mighty 1450." I might point out that WMPT was located outside the dike system that protected South WIlliamsport.

n 1972 WMPT was the "Powerhouse" of radio broadcasting, holding off challenges by WLYC, under the new ownership of Alpha Broadcasting as well as changes at WWPA, and even staid old WRAK was picking up steam. At the time I was working the all night show, called oddly enough "The Watts Watch." It was the first, and at the time the only 24 hour station in Williamsport, I must say that show was one of the more interesting things I have ever done. There is a whole strange yet wonderful class of people who belonged to "The Land Of The Living Dead." Mrs. Louise Swartz, who was the overnight switchboard operator at Williamsport Hospital, named it that! The WMPT lineup at the time included long time veterans Ron Shobert, and Harry Seltzer, Myself, Caesar Mattioli, Jon Paul, Bill Byham, Clyde Thompson, Dolly Wilt, Steve George, and David Lee (Mosteller). We had done away with block programming and had adopted a top 40 AC format with the all night show being easy listening contemporary, you couldn't beat the sound. Dave was opening his pocketbook, we had new jingles, he was upgrading equipment (new transmitter, audio processor, etc) and Caesar was doing a great job of getting us music service.

The day that the rains began in earnest, I had a first date with a girl I had met when she and a couple of mutual acquaintances stopped into the station to pick up a prize. Anyway, she was going on vacation at the "Jersey Shore" with her folks and at lunch that day we made plans to get together again after she came back, as I too was headed out of town to Indianapolis to visit an old friend. I think it was that day WMPT received a brand new CBS Volumax Audio Processor, at the time it was "THE THING" to make your signal really HOT, that in conjunction with the new CCA transmitter and new ground system would really improve our signal. Anyway, Dave and I mounted it in the control room equipment rack planning to hook it up when I got back from my time away. It never was on the air before it had a complete factory rebuild.

At the time of the flood I lived with my parents along the Loyalsock Creek in Barbours. The land was actually "creekfront" but the house was some 75' above "The Sock" so no flood waters ever reached the house, although there was damage in the cellar to the furnace, and water pump from groud water. As I said I was woking the all night shift at WMPT and I remember I went home looking at the creek at "Slabtown" and Shore Acres, Best Beach and other places thinking "Wow that is really high." Normally I would have stopped at Bud and Betty Bells' Airport Restaurant for breakfast, but that day I chose to go home and get some sleep as I had been up early the day before for my lunch date. Anyway, I was sound asleep when my mother knocked on my door, sometime about noon and told me the Plunketts Creek Fire Dept. was being called out to evacuate people along the creek. I was a member there and at First Ward in South Williamsport and my Father was Asst. Chief at P.C.F.D. so it was only natural for me to get up. As I drove over the old Barbours Bridge the water was higher than I had ever seen it, there was water in the roadway at the end of the bridge. As I looked around I saw Plunketts Creek Engine 25 in front of Hank Borowski's General Store. So I stopped to see what was up. They were "at draft" in the cellar and trying to move his freezers out. Before long the water was rising so fast that it was decided to abandon that task as we might lose the only pumper the department had. Well to make a long story even longer I spent the next 4 days with P.C.F.D. and our firehouse became the emergency center for the area. We were fortunate that the Ladies auxiliary had purchased a generator for the department just the week before and that kept some lights, the base radio, freezers, and coffee pot going. We were also fortunate to have L.P. gas stoves in the kitchen so with the food we got from Hank's we fed fire fighters and residents. It was during that time, while the phones were still working that I learned that the staff was ready to abandon WMPT. We actually had phones for a while and I filed reports with WRAK.
Fast forward to June 25 or so, I took and ambulance call into WIlliamsport so I found a way to get from Barbours to town. While I was in town I called Caesar Mattioli and asked if I could crash at hisapartment. He told me about the station and how he Steve George, Bill Byham and Jon Paul had to wade through deep water to get out. He didn't know how much water the station had received but said before they left they set stuff on top of desks and the office counter. The next morning the water was down enough for all of us to go to the station and assess the damage. I remember after our initial inspection of the station and finding the water had just about made the ceiling we were all standing in the parking lot talking. I looked at Dave and said , "ya' know if cows stood here in '36, they were mighty damn tall ones." We then set about the task of moving stuff out of the station to the sunny parking lot hosing it out and using case after case of Dow Bathroom Cleaner on all the electrical stuff.

As luck would have it, I had some of the remote gear, a Shure mixer, a portable turntable, and a couple of mics from the sports kit in my car, so as an experiment we set them up jumpered the FM control line to get it back on the air, and started to play some music late that afternoon. Dave said, "I wonder if anyone is listening, why don't you give the phone number and ask for requests." SO I did, and YES I got some, we had one phone set up, one that was in Dave's second floor office and we were surprised. By the next afternoon, with the help of Glenn Sherman from WRAK, Carl Steinbacher from WWPA, and Warren "Lommie" Lomison from Lomison Sound (he had a music service way before Muzak) we had the Gates Dualux working on one channel, which was ok, The old Gates 16" turntables, one cart machine, and the CCA AM transmitter all in operation, well sort of! When we got into the CCA Transmitter we found that the modulation transformer was shorted out, BUT someone got the bright idea that if we insulated it from ground it might just work! What did we have to lose? Now what can we use? AH HA! old vinyl L.P.'s, we had to pry the record library apart with a fire department portapower so most of albums that were on the outside were damaged. It worked! Dave figured that we could only get about 110 watts at high power out of a 1 KW transmitter, BUT the ground system was so wet, we had damn near as strong a signal as we did before the flood at 1KW. We set up operations in the old lounge/production studio and gradually got back to normal? Since for the most part we had no production facilities, we either dubbed stuff while we were on the air, when we got the second channel of "the board" working, or did production after signoff. We started back on the air with regular programming within 5 days of when we first came back in the building. Cables across the floor giving way to my now famous line, "if it is temporary for more than 3 weeks, it is considered permanent! During that time we actually did two remotes, 3 days from the Lycoming County Fair, and I did a remote from Tri-State Discount Center. That was probably the last time I saw ALL the staff really pull together as we had a goal, sound as good as possible, and make sure the listeners didn't turn their dials to the left!

One bad thing we found, was that the cinderblock walls held water for some time, and it was not un-common to find a stream coming out from under the wall. Oh then there was the fish! The back half of the property was quite low and held a pond for some time. Yes, people came in to fish but the pond dried up before they got them all, so, we wound up with lots of dead fish. Eventually Lyle Keeler, Fire Chief of Independent Station 9, used them in his garden that he had just outside of the ground radial system! Lots of good stuff to eat that year!

I stayed for two or three months after the Agnes flood, but by then I noticed that WLYC was really putting a move on in the market. J.T. Kelliher had sold to a company called Alpha Broadcasting, who owned WGGO in Salamenca, NY and also was a computer services company. I applied and was hired part time and shortly there after I started the second all night in Williamsport on WILQ (WLYC FM). So, for a brief period of time, once again I was the ONLY all night voice from WIlliamsport.

The next time, my life and times and the characters I met at 1050 LYC and Q105, it was a lot of fun! (at times)

More from WWPA from Eric Mease

2006-02-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

Below is a posting from ERIC Mease antoher escapee from the Williasmport, Pa radio market, Eric worked with Vince Sweeney at WWPA. He was kind enough to share some details of his life and times at "The Twin." Thanks Eric
I started at WWPA in August of 1974 while a sophomore at Williamsport Area Community College which recently morphed into Penn College. I did weekend gigs, Saturday night and Sunday afternoons on "Quality Radio for Williamsport, WWPA." Vince notes that he succeeded Rob Reynolds. I like to point out that he succeeded me, as I filled in on afternoon drive for a couple of weeks until Vince arrived from the Scranton area. And God was I terrible! My worst snafu was the daily 5 p.m. Local/CBS newscast. The network ran ten minutes of news at 5 o’clock which was recorded at WWPA and played back at 5:15. The DJ was supposed to record the CBS cast and do a local live newscast at 5. Both the CBS report and the local report were sponsored. Too many times, in my rush to put the newscast together while doing a DJ show, I would forget to start the CBS tape. Frank Barber, the PD, was a little upset, but he never showed it to me very much. The sales manager, Phil Lane, was not as subdued... and understandably so. Once Vince arrived, I went back to my weekend gig while I continued to go to school. In the fall of 1975 I went away to Penn State, leaving my radio career on hold. I returned in the summer of '76 as a reporter, weekend DJ, and anything else I was asked to do. At some point, Frank Barber left to be PR director at Williamsport Hospital and Ken Sawyer became PD in addition to his morning man duties. Many a time the other jocks talked about pushing Vince into the morning slot. He and Ken never took the bait. I still think he would have been perfect for the job. In the summer of 1976 Ken asked me to become the News Director, full time, but I turned him down, as I wanted to finish my senior year at Penn State. Upon graduation in May of 1977, Ken renewed his offer and I accepted. I was news director from 1977 until I left in the summer of 1979 for Wilmington, Delaware. Here is one of many side bars to the Government place fire story. When the Market Street facilities opened, the newsroom had no recording or dubbing equipment. All of the stories I produced I had to do at the charbroiled Government Place studios which were kept up and more or less running until the Market Street equipment was installed. I remember I had to do all of my phone calling, interviewing, tape dubbing, and story writing at Government Place then literally run over to Market Street for the noon news block. If a call came in at Market Street, I'd have to tell the caller I'd call them right back from Government Place and I'd run over there, do the story, and run back to Market Street. If this sounds complicated, it was worse in real life... but lots of fun, now as I look back on it. Working with Ken, Vince, Gary and Jack Frost had their moments. Vince is right, WWPA-The Twin, never quite made it in the Williamsport ratings wars... even though we had some tremendous talent. The group of us spent many an evening talking about how we would run the station if it was ours. Maybe what we discussed would have worked. We'll never know. Radio was evolving then, maybe more so than it is now. But, like I said, it was a lot of fun. Eric Mease

Vince Says! From Vince Sweeney WBRE 28

2006-02-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I received a wonderful e mail from Vince Sweeney from WBRE TV 28 in Wiles-Barre. Vince and I got to know each other back in the 1970's when he worked at WWPA in Williamsport. In the e mail he shared a lot of his memories of "Quality Radio-WWPA" also known in later years as "The Twin". It is with his kind permission that I share his thoughts with you!
Thanks again Vince!

I'd come in the Fall of '74 to replace Bob Reynolds, who, as you know, eventually ended up making a career for himself at WNEP-TV. Back then, WWPA was up on the second floor along Government Place, and it was a dump. It had the look and the feel of a radio station as you'd imagine it looked and felt on the day the bells went off announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor. And it sounded equally as dumpy, despite the never-ending efforts of Frank Barber, who was PD at the time. Frank and I swap an occasional e-mail, he's still in radio, working in Tiffin, Ohio. Great guy, always thought the world of Frank. From a quality standpoint, WWPA sounded extraordinary, thanks to Carl, but programming-wise, forget it. In fact, you might remember this, the station billed itself as Quality Radio-WWPA.

It was astounding to see Woody Ott's name in print on your blog. By the time I got there, Woody's health was in serious decline, the place was essentially being run by two of his surrogates, Phil Lane and Cecelia Shick. WWPA was heavily block-programmed at the time, with a ton of superfluous CBS stuff, and an equal amount of local crud that Phil Lane had managed to sell. It was classic "program what you sell," rather than "sell what you program."

Thinking back on it, I have no problem remembering how depressing it was to be at WWPA, at least for the first few months, especially after realizing that there were some "real" radio stations in town, namely WMPT and WLYC. I so wished I'd managed to land a job at WMPT. Instead, there I was in a dingy antiquated studio, playing drab music that's hard to describe. We were JACK, long before JACK was invented. WWPA had an enormous LP library, and we could play just about anything we damned well pleased, and that is pretty much what I did. Interspersed with obscure album cuts, you'd also hear current singles, which Frank Barber was bound and determined to get on the air one way or the other. Frank just would not give up in trying to make some sense of the sound of the station, and to some extent, he succeeded.

An example of the craziness at the time would be Ken Sawyer. Kenny did mornings, 5:30-9:30. At 9:30 it was time for Here's Elaine, starring Elaine Rauff, a local woman who somehow they'd managed to put on the air for a half hour each morning. Elaine was a lovely, lovely woman, but just how she ended up doing a radio show was a complete mystery. Then at 10:00, it was back to Ken Sawyer, who'd do a talk show until noon. If that talk show had a name, it beats me completely, I have no recollection that it did. The delay was achieved by recording the show on one Ampex, but winding the tape down and playing it back on the Ampex below it, if you can get that image. Frank was on noon to 2:00, then it was me from 2:00 'till 6:00. But I wasn't quite finished yet, no sir. I'd come on back at 6:15 and read a ten minute news cast, THEN I could go home. As was standard, we all worked a six day week. Oh, they paid me $140 per week, which for Williamsport wasn't half bad at all. And full BC/BS, along with hefty Christmas bonuses, cash bonuses.

Everything changed when Woody died in, I believe, late '75. His son Bill, probably to his never ending regret, left a big job with NCR in Dayton, Ohio, and came back to run the station. Bill had a vision, and he immediately set out to make it a reality. Quickly, he morphed the place into a full-service AC, including a name change to Twin-W Radio, The Twin as it came to be known. (Although some would challenge me on this claim, I am the one who came up with the name The Twin.) In the middle of drawing up plans for a relocation over to Market Street, the place burned on a Saturday night. More accurately, the floor below burned, the station suffered mostly smoke and water damage. That damage chased the staff out of Government Place and over to Genetti's until the new studios/offices were finished high atop Market Square, a name we tried to force on listeners, but it never did catch on at all. No one wanted to call the corner of Market and Third, Market Square. While the office staff had split, we continued to broadcast from The Ruins, as we wasted no time in nicknaming the place. An already dumpy building had been made even dumpier, and the air-staff all went to work there every day for what had to be six months. By that time, two other names had joined the line-up, one of which is likewise synonomous with Williamsport radio, Gary Chrisman. The other guy, Jack Frost(Paul Mowery), did evenings, and sad to say, I doubt most folks would have even the faintest memory of him.

We then made the move over to Market. What a gorgeous facility it was. So much so that Broadcast Management and Engineering magazine made The Twin their Station of The Month at one point, a copy of which I have somewhere. We were all tickled by that.

For all his vision, and for all the hard work by a lot of people, maybe even me, The Twin never got the recognition it deserved. Within the business, yes, it did achieve a bit of a name for itself as being a great little radio station. But in terms of audience, nah, it just never happened, at least not while I was there, which was until late 1978.

Goodbye My Friend

2006-02-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

This past Friday morning, Feb 10, 2006 Don Holcombe host of KMOG radios Rim Country Forum passed away at age 59. Since I have been at KMOG Don and I became friends, he won my admiration for his courage in the face of severe medical problems. Don was a highly gifted artist and for many years was in residence at the Grand Canyon where his work gained the attention of scores of people including Paul Harvey, who purchased several of Don's works for his two homes, Chicago and Phoenix, and several other items Don created to give as gifts. Diabetes caused Don to lose his sight until becoming legally blind. Many other things happened to Don's health along the way, but he kept on going hosting the Forum for over 9 years.
Don and I would have a running battle on the air about anything, but it was all in fun, with each of us trying to best the other. Being the "newbie" at the station was tough, but having Don come in to "help" me along made my settling in that much easier. Along with News Director Dan Haapala we formed "Dufas Cubed" as one of the listeners named us. Our love of trivia and bad jokes and music, did I mention Don was a great singer and a founding member of The Beeliner's Barbershop group? Anyway, the mornings on KMOG were a lot of fun, probably the most fun I have ever had in radio.

Don, my friend, I will miss you, your humor, no matter how bad you were feeling, your bad jokes, trying to beat you at calling a "key change" in a song, and trying to stump each other with trivia. Goodbye buddy, you had an impact on everyone you touched with your life, including this old DJ.

My Life and times at the Mighty 1450 and other places I have RF’ed part 2 (1966 to 1972)

2005-12-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

My Life and times at the Mighty 1450 and other places I have RF’ed part 2 (1966 to 1972)
Thanks again to everybody who has made comments regarding this humble attempt at writing the history of Williamsport Radio, WMPT, and yours truly. I am going to be as careful as possible since my writings have been reviewed, with a red pen, by my high school drama teacher Laurie Jones.

Back to the story; in early 1966, January, I was getting pretty upset with the way things at WLYC were going, Vince Campana and I could not see eye to eye, and I was not getting any raises, or days off, I was working 7 days a week. So one morning, I really don’t remember what set it off, but I came in and Vince have some trivial thing to say to me, and I walked out, probably telling him what to do with the station etc. At the time Kobacker Shoes was opening a store, Pic-Way Shoes, in the Big N Plaza and I applied for and was hired as a manager trainee. While it was not a bad place to work, I never have been that fond of retail, but hey it was income. Not long after that I started to pester Dave Castlebury for a part time job. Finally with the help of Dick Crownover and the late Ron Shobert he decided to give me my chance. I remember, I was to work a Saturday night shift and IF I did all right, I would be hired. I was most certainly nervous since I was working at the number 1 station in town and I had to do a good job or else! Well, I guess my performance was ok, since Dave hired me for the shift permanently. So there I was hustling shoes around Monday through Saturday and rushing over to WMPT on Saturday night and working 6 PM to 1 AM, ah but I was young then!

Here's a bit of Kel Trivia, the first TOP 40 song I played on WMPT was Bus Stop by The Hollies. Why you asked? The true story, I had a big crush on a beautiful young lady from Loyalsock Twp. who probably should remain nameless. As I remember this some 40 plus years later that was her favorite song and she asked me to play it for her. I did, and to this day I can not play it without thinking of her. Over the years we saw each other many times and dated from time to time but unfortunately, nothing became of this relationship. Good or bad, radio D.J.'s, in those days, always attracted a pretty good following, mostly young ladies, and all too often they formed a mental picture of a handsome young disk jockey, very glib, and exciting. But all too often they were let down when they finaly met the "super jock" who they many times secretly listened to on their transister radio.

I continued working at Pic-Way Shoes as well as WMPT whenever I could, but I really wanted to be in radio full time. One place I had applied after I left WLYC was WBPZ in Lock Haven. In February of 1967 on my way back from visiting Mike Sarlo, who by then worked in Warren, I stopped in at WBPZ AM FM. It seemed that Harris Lipez had told me he might have an opening coming up around that time. I think Harris was surprised to see me. My timing could not have been better as in fact he was looking for a fulltime night man, to work from 5 PM to 1 AM Monday Through Friday. I jumped at the chance! Now what about WMPT? I told Dave I thought I would have to quit, which didn’t make him happy, as by that time he found out I was not too terrible on the air and actually showed up for work! Anyway I remember him placing a call to Harris Lipez and the two of them agreed that since the stations were some 35 miles apart, I could work for both! WOW, big time for a 20 year old kid! Anyway, I talked with Dave about switching my shift so I would have a night off, and he agreed giving me Saturday morning from sign on, 7 AM to Noon. So what would happen, I would leave WBPZ about 1:15 am on Saturday, drive to WMPT and crash on the couch, my mom, who was an early riser, would call the station to wake me about 6:30, so I could be ready to sign on at 7. After my shift I would go home and take a nap leaving Saturday night free for fun and games!

From time to time I would switch with WBPZ’s Sunday night person, Barry Stott, so I could have both Friday and Saturday nights off and work in Lock Haven on Sunday night. Anyway, I continued on this schedule till November of 1967, a period of some 10 months, when I finally convinced Dave to hire me as the News Director at WMPT. Not that I really wanted to be a News Director but it was the only full time position that was available. I must admit I was getting a bit weary of driving 105 mile round trip everyday to Lock Haven, and I was even doing that on the weekend as I had started to date a gal from there at that time.

One day, after about two weeks as the News Director, I came into the station from making my rounds of the local sources and Dave called me in the office. He told me that one of the salespeople had just been arrested and taken to Virginia where he apparently had skipped out on alimony. Dave asked me if I had ever sold, well other than shoes I had not, he went on to say he really would like me to consider selling advertising. Dave gave me to the next day to think it over and I agreed to give it a try. I look back and laugh at my training, Dave showed me the rate card, how to read it, gave me an account list, taught me how to write a sales order and wished me luck! I stayed with Dave either selling, on the air or both till 1973, except for a couple of times when we would get mad at each other and either I would quit or he would fire me. Usually after a couple of days we both would come to our senses and I would be back at WMPT in some capacity.

I mentioned in another posting that Harry Seltzer returned from the Army in 1966 and we became friends. In late 1970, Harry was promoted to Program Director, after Dick left WMPT, then Station Manager when Dave was elected as County Commissioner of Lycoming County. I thought that I should have been named Program Director when Dick Crownover left, so Harry getting the position did not set well with me being the stubborn person I am, I bucked him everyway I could. During this time I was asked to start the first all night show in Williamsport, called “The Watts Watch.” Looking back, I think that was one of my favorite shows I ever did on WMPT because I got to try a lot of programming ideas and had a pretty large following since WMPT was the ONLY station on the air during the overnight hours. One side benefit was that I NEVER saw management and they had very little input into the programming of the all ngiht show. In addition to the “Watts Watch” I did one overnight a week, Saturday, at WBPZ in Lock Haven as they went 24 hours not long after WMPT, and I found out they wanted a someone to work The Saturday overnight shift. I did both for about a year, and then concentrated on WMPT and my summer record hops and some other part time jobs. I continued doing “The Watts Watch” until Agnes filled the station with 9 feet of water in June of 1972. One other person to note from this time period was Byron Comp who worked in sales, he may have been hired after Fred Burdge left. Byron was a pretty nice guy and was a part time 7th day Adventist Minister. Eventually he left and got out of radio and the ministery completely.

The next time, Agnes did what the other stations in town could not do, put WMPT off the air, AH, but wait, like the mythical bird The Phoenix, WMPT rose from the ashes, err waters, to once again rule the Williamsport Market. Till the next time thanks for reading!