All you can eat at the KAAY buffet!

I encourage you to save all the audio available on this blog that you are interested in. Soon I will be transferring everything to one website. Currently the audio files are on 4 different sites. PodOMatic costs me as much as a website, so I will be transferring those files first. I urge you to save what you might want now in case something gets lost in the shuffle. Please contact me any time a link doesn't work or if you have any problems copying audio files or photographs. For new readers, please checkout the archives all the way back to the start of this blog. This blog is in no particular order. I post items that are sent to me or that I uncover in my search for old KAAY material, or what happens to be on my mind for the day. After a fun afternoon visiting with Richard Robinson, I got to wondering if he was preparing my obituary, which wouldn't be a bad idea. I will always remember Pat Walsh, before his death, sending me an obituary that he had written about himself. He ask me for comments, editing, or additions. I'm sorry to say, that I never was able to respond to that request. Mainly because the obituary didn't measure up to my regard and respect for Pat. Larger than life is a trite expression that is aways used in connection with Pat. Oddly very little of the biography dealt with KAAY. That's what he wanted. he told me, there was much more to Pat Walsh than KAAY. I was never able to add or change in any way what was written. I didn't look it up, but what was in the papers was very close to what Pat had written. From the first day I met Pat, until our last telephone conversation, Pat was always a friend, mentor, father-figure and critic. He drove his family for Little Rock, AR to Blue Mound, Illinois, to be in my wedding. Amy, his youngest daughter was the flower girl. At the end of her walk down the isle, she still had a basket full of rose petals. She would drop only one every few steps.

The first day I met Pat, I'm sure his first words were something like "heard your show last night, you need a lota help". Pat became more mellow in our last few conversations. If you're new to this blog, put Pat Walsh in the search box in the upper left and search this blog. Those of you who have only heard KAAY on the radio, need to get to know someone who was there from the beginning, and became GM. Those of you who worked at KAAY, it's great to revisit those memories.

For those of you who may be thinking, "old Doc Holiday" is just living in the past and wanting to return to those glory days, I do have a life now, thank you very much. It is hard though, after you have been "The Emperor" it's mostly downhill from there. This blog was created with the purpose of gathering enough material for a book, or putting down a history of the best time in my life and sharing it with anyone interested.

As far as my obituary, all I want is "he is a Christian".

Help!!!!!!!!!!!

In my on going quest to gather and perserve a bit of our history, I am running into a brick wall in two areas. Over the years KAAY printed and distributed music surveys of the top songs every week. I think we printed several thousand each week. Some were exotic. I remember searching for a printer who would print the survey on "silver" coated paper. The silver dollar survey was really silver for several months. I don't have one copy. In fact, I only have three KAAY surveys that were supplied by readers of this blog. I need many more. I will be happy to copy and return it to you if you don't want to part with it. Or even purchase it. If you have a KAAY music survey, please email me at ajlinds@yahoo.com. To see he surveys I do have, go to the upper left hand search window and enter "music survey" and then click search.

Once there you can double click on the survey to see them larger.

More Cuban Missile Crisis

Double click on the articles to read.

From the Arkansas Gazette (purchased by the Democrat) and the Arkansas Democrat, are two press accounts of KAAY's envolvement.

Now more of the the paper from Richard Robinson (see below):

That Monday night nine stations, including two commercial shortwave stations, WRUL in New York, New York, and KEGI in San Carlos, California participated in the broadcast efforts for the government (Sorensen, 1968. New York Times, 1962).

Seven commercial medium wave stations carried the president's speech that evening. They included stations WGBS, WMIE, and WCKR in Miami, Florida; WSB in Atlanta, Georgia; WCKY in Cincinnati, Ohio; WKWF in Key West, Florida; and WWL in New Orleans, Louisiana. An eighth station -- KAAY in Little Rock, Arkansas -- joined the network on Wednesday (October 25, 1962), and began broadcasting the Voice of America programs from 11 p.m. until dawn, the period when their signal reaches into Cuba. KAAY asked to join the network ("U.S. Blanket of Words...", Kansas City Star, October 26, 1962).

This was the first time in history that private radio stations in the United States had cooperated with the government to broadcast programs from its own propaganda agency to a foreign country (USIA, 1983).

KAAY and the Cuban Crisis

There have been references in this blog to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the use of KAAY to reach Cuba with VOA broadcasts.

Richard Robinson has written two papers on the subject and I have ask his permission to use excerpts in this blog. Richard and I have been in touch over the years as he worked on the papers. I found his research and conclusions to be right on target as related to KAAY. I started at KAAY soon after the crisis was over. Tom Bishop the first manager was gone, Len Carl became General Manager. Jim Hankins a/k/a Mike McCormick was program director and probably the main player in this interesting story. I will have more details and excerpts in later posts. To get started , below is a promo that ran on KAAY during the crisis. It was voiced by Wayne Moss. a/k/a Sonny Martin. The writing is very obviously Hankins. This recording is a dub from the actual cart that was used on the air.

http://kaay.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2007-07-19T06_56_47-07_00

And here is the opening of one of Richard's papers:

"THE UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY USE OF COMMERCIAL RADIO STATIONS DURING THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS"

By Richard C. Robinson

Arkadelphia, Arkansas

This study focuses on a little-known event that happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The United States Government, through its United States Information Agency, asked ten commercial radio stations throughout the country to broadcast Voice of America programs to Cuba in Spanish. Broadcasting began with the speech by President John F. Kennedy on October 22, and continued from late-night until dawn each evening for a period of more than three weeks. Examination of previous literature revealed little on this subject.

The study was conducted utilizing a number of sources. They included the "Internet," newspaper accounts, government publications, oral history transcriptions, books and interviews. Research revealed that this was the first time in the history of the United States that the government utilized commercial broadcast media for propaganda purposes. Government used a number of methods to provide the official point of view of the United States to the people of Cuba, both prior to and during the period of crisis. Even though some publicity was generated about the effort, apparently most of the people in the United States were not aware of persuasive techniques employed by their own officials.

The findings raise a number of questions for the news media. President Kennedy was criticized for his "manipulation of the media" during this period. While Kennedy and U.S. officials praised the radio stations for their help and "patriotism," there should be concerns over how a democratic government can issue official propaganda messages through "free market" media outlets. This study could serve as a historical reference for future research about government control and media manipulation.

More on Eddie Graham

This is a comment left by Richard Robinson on Eddie Graham. I am putting it here as a post because I know some of you out there never read the comments:


First, let me explain my relationship to Eddie Graham. He is my father in-law, as I am married to his daughter, Frances Anne. Pat Walsh once told me that Eddie had an uncanny spell on broadcast equipment. According to Walsh, "equipment would simply refuse to malfunction in his presence." That's true, although sometimes as soon as he left the room, it would fall apart. Carolyn (Eddie's wife) retired from teaching elementary school in the Bryant School District in 2000 and Eddie sold his stations (KVRC AM 1240 and KDEL FM 100.9) and retired in August 2002. They bought another home just outside Arkadelphia, and added on additional space. These days, Eddie and Carolyn are active in First United Methodist Church, the Clark County Fair Board and other organizations. Eddie is a long-time member of the Arkadelphia Rotary Club. He hunts and fishes every chance he gets, which is often. In their spare time, they visit their children and grandchildren. The eldest son, Doug, is married to Margaret, and they have three children - Maddie, age 4, and twins William and Aaron, age 2. They live in Evergreen, Colorado. Fran and I live in Martin, Tennessee. Fran teaches dance classes and I am on the communications faculty at the University of Tennessee at Martin. We have no children together, although I have a daughter from a previous marriage. Larry and wife Gayle live in Franklin, Tennessee (outside Nashville) and have two children, Landon, age 16 and Bailey, age 12. Eddie and Carolyn are quite busy, and have been described as "salt of the earth" people. I know of no one who would disagree.

What ever happened to Eddie Graham?

Eddie Graham has no a/k/a at KAAY. He was Eddie Graham when it was KTHS and he was studio engineer. He was Eddie Graham when it became KAAY and he became production manager. Eddie was everyone's friend regardless of their ego size. (and we had some big ones) Eddie could fix anything and built a great home out of old Ampex parts. That was just the beginning. Eddie played on the KAAY Komando basketball team and was always a team player. He made the move from the Channel 11 building to the location on 7th street work. From this you might have pigeonholed Eddie as a techie. Not so, he didn't want anything to do with on air work, but Pat Walsh urged him into sales were he displayed the same talents for great work, it the money side of the business. Someone can help me with the total number of years he was with KAAY. He saved his money and bought his own radio station in Arkedelphia, AR. Eddie and his family are the living example of a TV sitcom like Father Knows Best, except Eddie and his family are real. I wish that Pat Walsh could have written this blog. He was probably Eddie's biggest fan.

Even more visitors

So many visitors, so few comments.

Welcome to KAAY

These are just a few of our recent visitors. We'd like to hear from you. Especially where you were and what you were doing when you listened to KAAY. Email me at ajlinds@yahoo.com. I'd like to publish you comments. If you don't want is published please indicate that in your email.

More KAAY Skywave Airchecks

Several months ago I received this from Greg Barman and failed to process it. Sorry Greg. If any of you send me something and don't see it posted in a few weeks please remind me.

From Greg:

Here’s an aircheck from the early morning of June 2, 1974, received on the skywave at my home in Evanston, IL, north of Chicago. There’s some fading, but the signal is usually good and sometimes downright awesome, strong as a local station. The jock is Don Marcus and he’s cranking out the jingles and the hits including some “hard core rock’n’roll at the 50,000 watt Mother of Arkansas”. Since the jocks usually assumed the names of the LIN board members, who this really was is anybody’s guess.

The aircheck starts with the opening for “Beaker Theater” at 2:00am, followed by the overnight rock format from 3:30-4:30am. Note the nighttime Voice of Arkansas promos – “greetings to the Great South” and later to “Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.” KAAY loved to use big voices on its imagers, you’ll hear Gary Gears on several of them and also that of WLS/Chicago morning newsguy Lyle Dean on the News IQ contest promo. Answer the news IQ questions and you could win $10.90! I figure that’s about $45 in today’s dollars.

As always, I’m eager to trade KAAY airchecks, especially Beaker Street. Contact me at

gbarman02(at)msn.com

Greg Barman

Denver, CO.

Here is the aircheck:

http://www.podomatic.com/podcast/tell/kaay?p=1

KAAY Prizes, Prizes, Prizes

We liked to give things away at KAAY. There were always a couple of major contests running and lots and lots of record giveaways. "Name It and Claim It" "Spin It and Win it" "Nap it and Grab It" and I am sure there were others. Once we produced contest intros for every record giveaway phrase we could come up with.

We also liked to give away radios. Pictured above is an actual tiny 8 transistor radio. It measures slightly over 2 inches square. Very small for its day, mid 1960s. Most transistor radios were only six transistors and about 4 times larger. Pat Walsh made several trades for them. Not an easy item to trade out because of the consumer demand.

If we were on the air today, we would be giving away iPhones. (Hmmmmmmm Rush Limbaugh is doing that).

Oh yea, it was AM only.

More KAAY Skywave

I need a little help identifying the first jock on this skywave aircheck from Ron (see posts below)
If you can identify him please email me at: ajlinds@yahoo.com. There is a brief pause and then you hear a brief segment from Clyde Clifford that is not Beaker Street, just regular programming.

http://kaay.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2007-07-10T07_14_40-07_00

KAAY Record offer

Another skywave recorded clip from Ron Henselman. Thanks for the restoration work

and equalizing this clip. It was recorded

in 1962 by Gary Wegner in the Chicago area.

I think this offer was before I started to work at KAAY in 63 so that would make it
1962. This is a very early (per inquiry) spot. It doesn't mention who the record is from and the money goes directly to KAAY. Later, when I joined KAAY we were running Custom Records spots. Custom, out of Nashville, did "cover" or "sound alike" versions of the hits. The PIs generally ran at night. There was 40 combs for $1 and on and on. Len Carl, the manager when I started became known as the PI king, in that he did most of the voice work pitching the junk.
The jocks mostly looked down on the PIs but they brought in money as KAAY was getting started and established. In those days, selling top 40 radio was still a difficult task. Many advertisers looked on top 40 radio as a medium for kids.
http://kaay.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2007-07-09T08_00_56-07_00

Kool KAAY

Michael writes:

I Grew up listening to KAAY in the late '70s in North Little Rock and loved it. I had a tiny hand-held radio that I dragged along for everything I was doing. It was one of several things that later pushed me to get into radio. Today I work in Miami and occasionally, when co-workers and I are talking about radio stations we heard growing up as kids, I try to explain the many things that made KAAY so cool.

Thanks Michael for the comments. I found that listeners were very loyal. We had competiton, HiFi KAJI, they advertised "HI-FI" and WE were always yelling more music. Both were lies. The listener loyalty had little to do with the music. It was what was between the music that made the difference. It was getting out all over the state. It was constant fun. The Djs were having fun and transmitted that to the listener.

When FM came along, it was all about the music. How much can you play without interuption. What do they have to show for this? The Ipod. Non-stop music, no DJ, no news, no contests, no fun. The difference with Ipods and today's radio, is that anyone can be a DJ. With a small investment in equipment, anyone talented or not, can have a podcast and be heard world wide. But the market is too fragmented. Do any of you know a good podcast? Let me know. I use a podcast service, but I use it just to have a way of linking audio to this blog.

By the nature of it, podcasts are not live. And here is another key ingredent. KAAY was always live. We had a play list. We simply rotated 45s (records for you young folks)from the front to the back. The DJ had the liberty of going down three or four records in the stack to find the record that fit the moment. Same way with the oldies. He could pull his own selections.
I always had a certain feeling for what to play next. That feeling continued through the disco era. I seemed to know what to play next to keep them on the dance floor. I did a class reunion a few years ago and played all the music off computer....what a terrible feeling. I did have a snow machine that blew snow on the dance floor. That was kool.

Rare KAAY Sign Off

Thanks to Ron Henselman for a lot of work cleaning up, and equalizing this clip. It was recorded off the skywave in 1962 by Gary Wegner in the Chicago area. The voice you hear is the first Buddy Karr a/k/a Tom Bigby. Here's the clip: http://kaay.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2007-07-07T06_14_47-07_00

KAAY & 19 Foreign Countries

We used to claim 18 foreign countries in our night time coverage. It was mindblowing, knowing that when you clicked that mike switch, you better make it good. I found it best to forget all those watts, and speak to one person.

The internet has the capacity to reach far more than any radio station or satelite service. It's a shame music licensing on the internet have made it difficult to make it a viable service. Radio simply paid Ascap, BMI and Sesac fees and could make a buck. Additionally, record companies needed radio stations for exposure.

Today, Apple has shown its marketing ability with iPhone. They have created a whole new media with iPod and iTunes. They have demonstrated people will pay a premium for quality and status.

Radio is quickly losing its ace. LIVE! Many stations are tracked. Management has always loved automation. Satelite radio is what I would call semi-live. They could be live but still have that automated feel.

Has radio done anything to try and tie in to the Apple bandwagon. Even Rush Limbaugh is giving away 10 iPhones. Look on the store shelves graced by dozens of iPod accessories.

I started this to write about international reach. How did I get off the subject. Simple...."i" is on everyone's mind. I was writing this blog to welcome some foreign visitors:

Leiden Zuid-Holland

Abidjam Cote D'Lvoire Africa

Those are the ones I could see, could be many more that show up as unidentified.

To tie this together, remember iPod, iPhone, and iTunes are all USA concepts, even if the components are made offshore.

WKRP Update

Those of you who read this blog know of my great enjoyment of the TV series WKRP. Anyone who has ever worked in radio can relate to this series. If was in syndication for years and you could catch it often. Then it dissapeared. Now an obscure cable network "American Life" is running it on Monday nights, several episodes. If you can't catch it there, Fox has released it on DVD. However, there is a lot of discussion about the editing of the original records that were part or many shows. The syndicated version had a lot of these cuts but apparently the DVD is worse. It's just a matter of time, til some enterprising video geek goes back and edits in the correct songs from the original. Read this blog and you will find a detailed explaination of all the cuts. http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2007/03/wkrp-dvd-not-ok.html

The is also a You Tube clip of the imfamous "Turkey Drop" and many other video clips. Do a Google search for WKRP and be sure and click on the "Video" tab.

A WKRP trivia quiz for you: What was Venus Flytrap's name? Not the actors name but his a/k/a on the show.

Jim Pitcock a/k/a Ron Owens 1963

Jim sent this great 4th of July link:

http://mybeautifulamerica.com/mybeautifulamerica.htm

Happy 4th of July from KAAY

On this patroitic occasion, listen again to "Day For Decision" :

http://www.freewebs.com/ajlinds/Day%20For%20Decision.wma

Read the awards and info about Day For Decision by going to the upper left hand box and type in Day For Decision and then search.

Another "What ever happened to?" Tom Bigby a/k/a Buddy Karr #1

Many thanks to Tom Bigby for an email to set the blog straight on a glaring error. Tom was the first Buddy Karr and the bio that I posted was for Buddy Karr #2 Bob Mullins. If I had checked the date at the bottom, I might have figured it out. Tom fills us in on where he is now and what he is doing. Read his email, while I go look for the correct bio.

Tom Bigby has left a new comment on your post "The First Buddy Karr a/k/a Tom Bigby":

You never know what one might find on the internet. My son found this and passed along the URL

The Bio for me is wrong, not sure but it might have been the Bio for the second Buddy Karr...the Picture is right, the aircheck is right..(damn was I bad)..

Still working for CBS Radio as a Corp. Programming Consultant...almost to the end of a great 25 years with the company..

Living in Dallas working in New York and Philadelphia..

Regards to any of you that were part of one of Americas great radio stations

Tom

Pray for Nancy Jennings, George's Wife

Those of you who follow this blog, know of the passing of George Jennings. What you may not know is a couple of years ago, Nancy, his wife, had breast cancer that had spread. George took care of her through all the chemo. She got a great report after the chemo that she was in complete remission. Then George's health deteriorated and Nancy again, had to take care of him. Today, July 1, I received this email from a neighbor on Nancy's:

Hello Everyone, I am Nancy's neighbor I am emailing you with some sad news. Nancy went into the hospital on Tuesday June 26th to have her lung drained of the fluid from the pneumonia she has been fighting since March. Nancy called my husband and told him she has 4 to 6 months to live. She has cancer everywhere in her body. He sister is coming today July 1st to pick her up to take her home to Bay City to die. My husband (Grady) and I (Cynthia) went to see her Friday. She does not have about 4 to 6 months. She has gone done hill very quickly. She cannot focus or remember anything. Our hearts are broken and I am having a very hard time dealing with this news. I Love her very much and I have known her for only 9 years and she has been a joy in our lives. She was so helpful in our times of need and was a grandmother to my son. She was literally my second mom. Please pray for Nancy. Please pray she does not suffer. I do not know who all she used to email as we cannot get her to remember. Please pass this on to her friends.

Please pray for Nancy and her son Dean and all those who love her.