Monday, March 16, 2009

More on Mark Winston

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mark Winston":

Mark was actually the afternoon drive jock and music director in 1977 and 1978 at KAAY. Mark produced most of the commercials for MidSouth Productions for the big regional concerts by the Doobie Brothers, REO Speedwagon, Queen, HeadEast, and many, many others. KAAY was known as "Sunshine Radio" playing Top 40 currents and oldies and was the number one station in Little Rock during that era. It was also referred to as the "Mighty 1090...K double A Y". During that time Little Rock and much of the US was still an AM radio market. The Program Director and AM drive DJ was "Dick Downes" from the big Top 40 station in Nashville. Mark was the first DJ in the country to announce the "silent" emergency ambulance arrival at Graceland in Memphis when Elvis was rushed to the hospital and he later announced his death. It was brought to Mark's attention by a listener who lived next to Graceland in Memphis and noticed the silent ambulance that had pulled into the Graceland circular drive. The 10 request lines were jammed with callers from all over the country wanting to learn more about the news. KAAY was known as the leader in news for the entire region. Mark was heard in 47 states and 13 foreign countries after the nightime pattern switched over. Mark was on the air every night Monday through Friday just before "Beaker" came on. On the walls of the newly constructed 3 story state of the art studios built on the mighty river running through Little Rock were pictures of all the great DJ's that had once graced the airwaves of KAAY. Amoung them were the legendary "Wolfman Jack" who made a special on-air guest appearance at the grand opening of the new studio facilities. To be on the air at KAAY was a memory I will never forget. Mark says, "to talk into the Electrovoice RE20 microphone that fed the Urei LA-4compressor/limiter then through the 31 band eq that was eque'd by the KAAY master audio engineers was incredibly inspiring to listen to through my KOSS Pro 4AA headphones. Just a hint of the really BIG sounding reverb unit made it even more of a DJ delight!
It was truly an on-air experience I will never forget and a wonderful stepping stone in my radio career".

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