KAAY Article

Thanks to Bud for finding the article that was for sale on Amazon about KAAY.
I'm not trying to hurt their business but why pay $6 for something available free.

Article Excerpt
FOR A FEW MAGIC YEARS, for music fans throughout a figure-eight centered in Little Rock and stretching from Canada to Cuba, one radio station was king of the nighttime airwaves: KAAY-AM, The Mighty 1090.

Launched in July 1962, KAAY was the state's only 50,000-watt station.

"KAAY was an unusual radio station," said station announcer and engineer Clyde Clifford. KAAY--with Clifford, station manager Pat Walsh and a host of others--is credited with hipping many an ear beyond the state's borders to the new sounds of the '60s.

"It was a powerhouse station in a smaller market ... We literally got bushel baskets of [fan] mail," said Clifford, who was host of the station's groundbreaking progressive-rock Sunday night program "Beaker Street."

By the time KAAY arrived, radio had already faced down the threat of that upstart broadcast medium, television. But the parents of many of those Beaker Street fans could remember a day when broadcast was strictly an agricultural word to describe the scattering of seed.

It is difficult to imagine the sense of wonder Arkansawyers had in hearing their first radio broadcasts. In an era when cell phones also take snapshots for us, the very extent of current technology seems to make us increasingly hard to impress, much less amaze.

The state's own broadcasting history can he traced to 1922, when commercial licenses--which then had to be renewed every three months--were granted to stations WOK in Pine Bluff and WSV in Little Rock.

The elite with radio receivers prior to this time could sometimes pick up out-of-state stations, but broadcasting was still very much an emerging field. Few had sets; fewer still had stations.

But through the years, the radio craze spread. Entrepreneurs started stations across Arkansas. Station KTHS ("Kum To Hot Springs") set up in the rebuilt Arlington Hotel in late 1924. In August 1928, KTHS officially notified Arkansas Sen. Joe T. Robinson of his nomination for Democratic vice-presidential candidate.

The Hot Springs station also was the launching pad of comedic radio stars Lum and Abner and country music's first female million-seller, Patsy "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" Montana of Jessieville, among many others. KTHS was additionally a stated inspiration for song-writer Henry Glover, the Hot Springs-born producer and musician who wrote...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.