They are killing the mother of rock and roll...

         The auto industry is moving to take AM radio out of cars. Without radio kids in the 50'-70's would never have been able to "cruise" and rock and roll may never have become a cultural force.

        This is a bit of long cruise, a personal and impressionistic history as I drive to the point that if AM radio had not existed, neither would rock and roll. 

        We heard the music on AM. That spurred record sales that made the stars who

choreographed our lives.  

        It was a skill to pre-set the buttons to the exact AM rockers that you could hear in your area. Punching in and out to get your favorite tunes or hear your favorite DJ was part of driving.

        At age 11 I  heard Little Richard wailing Tutti Frutti coming out of transistor radio. It was on the sunning deck at the concession and dressing room building at the "Reservoir Park" on Clinton Street near downtown Fort Wayne. That was the first rock and roll song I heard. It just jumped out at me and attacked me with a rock rhythm. It was a total experience. Life changed. 

        My brother and I started saving money to buy a transistor. Before that radio was the floor model we listened to as younger kids. The Lone Ranger, Johnny Dollar, Lights Out, Jack Benny, Lux Theatre and so many more dramas, serials and comedy shows

        Or it was the bakelite radio that sat on a window sill in the kitchen where we listened to the news as mom prepared dinner. It was from that kitchen radio I first began to think about being a foreign correspondent or radio newsman. I was fascinated by the voices coming in from distances, sometimes fading in and out as they observed events. That seemed a life of adventure. 

        Like most boomer teens it was the new rock and roll music that filled my ears until the day that flipping up the dial I landed on a station playing jazz. It was coming from an Indianapolis radio station playing local jazz and blues artists  and what  I learned were legends. Some of the DJ's were also players and that became one of the go to preset buttons on the car radio.  

        The world of AM radio was magical. At night you could pick up signals from distant stations...WLS Chicago, WABC New York, and my favorite WLAC Nashville playing rhythm and blues. Hoss Allen, John R. or Gene Nobles were the DJ's. Exotic music, accents, commercials for Randy's Record Rack, Moon Pies and RC Cola filled the night with AM magic. 

    On weekends there was also Monitor from NBC. It opened a new world-with an ongoing live nationwide broadcast from Saturday morning to late Sunday. It was a mix of everything in life, in a fascinating format that was powerful enough to draw the attention of this kid away from rock and jazz. 

        A pending death of AM radio is a personal thing.

        My first radio news job was at WERK, a six tower, small watt AM radio station in Muncie. It was great training ground learning from news directors Ron Branson, Jack Gardner, who was also a county sheriffs deputy and then the legendary Fred Hinshaw, who was also a highly regarded state legislator, and a published poet. Before he landed in Muncie he had been an NBC announcer. He and Lorne Green, later of Bonanza, were the networks star talent. Muncie got lucky.

        It also helped to pay the college education expenses, since I ended up working so many hours. I ran the police beat, managed all of the weekend news and even had a record show-after all it was small town radio. It was a new station, signing on in 1965 and it was a sensation in Muncie.

        In the frame above our air staff was being given hearts bye local ambassadors for our public service support. That's your correspondent front right. All over America AM station DJ's were celebrities and in most markets- it was the place  people heard rock and roll and personalties. The line up was Big Joe London, Wild Bill Shirk, Mr. Show Biz Gil Hole, and your's truly, Tommy the C.

        Being Muncie, home of one of winningest high school basket ball teams in the nation, the WERK KREW were expected to shoot hoops as well, by golly! We did, fielding a team that traveled to high school gyms around the area, playing the faculty team or a team of all star Alumni. It was decent basketball and we filled gyms.

        Above Tommy the C, Wild Bill and Lar on the Air McCabe and the Union 76 car stoppers in a promotional shoot. 

        There was a cache to being being a college lad on the hit radio station at a time when dorm rooms, fraternity houses, sorority suites and businesses blasted your station rock and roll. AM and Rock was a powerful cultural institution until it changed.

        Up the road in the state capitol of Indianapolis a 50 thousand Watt powerhouse and well established radio station owned the market. It was a mix of personality and music, special events programming and a sense of community. Everything a good AM radio station was supposed to be. It was old school.

        Personalities like Jack Morrow, Bouncing' Bill Baker and Jim Shelton were 

genuine celebrities.

        And then the Good Guys came to town with their top 40 format, sensational news style, big promotions and the mid 60's radio battles heated up. It was not long before WIFE with their promotional give away's overtook the old standard WIBC.

        Enter James C. Hilliard. He had done a tour as a radio star on WIBC and had gone off to bigger markets. He returned to manage WIBC and to change radio in historic ways.

        Hilliard created a new image for the staid WIBC. It became more contemporary, and  fun. It emphasized community and featured enormously popular personalities, exciting contests, and creative engagement of listeners. It played to one of the stations's strengths, the powerful news department.

        Award winning news director Fred Heckman went on to become a bit of legend in radio news. At the time he was known as a no nonsense hard boiled newsman. Here again my life and AM were to be intertwined.  The giant 1070 WIBC lurked in my future

        When Lana and I honeymooned in Europe in the spring and summer of 1969, I asked a friend to fill in on my WERK shift. That's the kind of world it was back then. The friend was Dave Letterman. He told me on my return that Heckman had called looking for the "young charger" news reporter in Muncie. Dave told him I was in Europe and Heckman said "have him give me a call when he gets back." I did.

        He hired me to join his state capitol news team and told me to get a hair cut, even though Lana had extensively cut my near shoulder length hair the night before the interview.    

        My first days on the job I was "broken in" by another legend, Bob Hoover. Hoover entered journalism in the 20's as a newspaper photographer. He'd been a friend of Hoagy Carmichael, even played drums for him, played poker with Harry Truman, used to jump on the running board of squad cars and ride out with the police. After a shoot out one mortally wounded cop fell into Hoover's arms and pled with him to look after his daughter. 

        Bob had a vault of memories and extraordinary stories. He also had a "grapevine" of news sources and after he figured I was alright he introduced me around. The other guy who I shadowed was Bruce Taylor who conducts  the Oddball Observations blog and about whom I have written. Bruce remains a dear friend. He also started on AM, in the wilderness of the Dakotas.

        Radio news departments battled for scoops, leads and listeners in those days. It was a street war. Radio stations had more staff than some television newsrooms.

Where once newspapers fought circulation wars, radio stations waged that fight and AM listeners benefited. AM radio invented the idea of breaking news, continuing coverage, and keeping the public informed. It was the first place people went for information.

      The Historical Society asked me to write a magazine article on one of the nations most famous hostage situations. Tony Kiritsis held mortgage banker Dick Hall at the end of a shotgun, wired to his head, for three days. I covered the incident as part of our continuing coverage night and day. 

    Kiritsis called Heckman during the crisis. Media from around the world swarmed to the Indianapolis apartment complex. For the first time the FBI sent a "hostage negotiator" a new thing then. The principles, all of the other media and law enforcement listened to our AM coverage to get the latest. 

    Films have been made about our team coverage and the issues it raised. It was a time before rules and protocols about hostage coverage.

    With the popular and culturally nuanced entertainment side and the news and sports department dominance, the old AM station had become a staple in people's daily routines and their lives.

      Along the way Hilliard had turned the old AM giant into one of America's great radio stations and I was delighted to be a part of it.  But he had other plans and they have become part of American radio lore, but it may also have been an opening chip in the erosion of AM radio.

     A book, countless articles, documentary films and stories have been done about what was about to happen. 

    WIBC had an FM station as well WIBC FM.  Like most FM stations it played background music. Hard to believe now, but in those days very few people had FM radios. Once the station was off the air for hours, and no one called to complain. A lot of folks had never heard of FM. But in San Francisco and in New York FM's had been turned on to become progressive music rockers. 

    In Indianapolis they changed the call letters to WNAP, hired a few young DJ's and became one of the earliest FM rock and roll stations. They upgraded to stereo and started pushing the sale of FM receivers and sound systems. It was all fledgling and  a start up but it showed promised.

    Hilliard spotted a creative young DJ and gave him the reigns to program the station in a fresh, innovative and imaginative way.

        

        Cris Conner, "King Freak," "Naptown's Night-Time Baby Driver," "Moto Groove"

were the nick names he used as he created a surreal world of rock, personality, hip culture and life style news.

        Cris reached out to one of the AM DJ's he had worked with up state.

        Mike Griffin, a Notre Dame journalism student had worked at a South Bend newspaper and was eventually hired at a radio station, where he had a music show. That's where Conner and Griffin met. In the interim Griffin joined Naval Air and was stationed to a base in San Francisco, where he absorbed the culture and music and spent weekends photographing the city's mid 60's vibe, music and clubs. 

        As soon as Griffin was separated from the Navy, Conner hired him to join the new WNAP. Griffin brought his first hand knowledge of the emerging San Francisco music and lifestyle cultures. He and Conner were ready to turn on the city and Hilliard was ready to step up the radio war and its widening impact.

Cris with head phones and Tom in sport coat  along with Tommy Chong greet drivers who created a massive traffic jam who drove by the studio to meet the Cheech and Chong star and to get free tickets. (You can see a television crew on the scene covering the jam that had down town traffic tied up.)

    WNAP needed a news voice and it eventually came around to me to start creating a new kind of news cast for this new kind of radio. I grabbed a type writer, set up in the studio and became part of the morning programming. Originally with Griffin, then with the late Bob Richards and eventually with Cris and a growing cast including Bruce Macho Munson, Mister Ron Below,  and Fast Freddie Fever in one of the first off the wall entourages. We took the show out of the studio whenever and however we could.

    We created theatre of mind festivals, parades, and we even did a couple of days  imagining the city in the year 2093, thanks to sophisticated electronic gear. It was a sci-fi event that was scheduled for only one day, but it was such a success we extended it, working around the clock to write and record the sketches.

    We did wine tasting on the air and then followed with wine tasting events. We created the Free Money give away, at first just dropping in on offices and handing out cash. Once we created another traffic shutdown by asking if people would be silly enough to brave a driving thunderstorm to catch free money thrown to them from the roof of the station. 

        Celebrities were frequent guests. One morning Cris and I decided in that very moment to see if we could get a plane, get to Boston and watch the Marathon all the while reporting on our adventure. We spent a week camping in the wilds near a beaver pond and doing it live. Ditto spending a night in jail, or broadcasting from a bedroom in a department store window. 

        I had an easy job, to be the straight man, the voice of sanity, the journalist reporter amidst a team of entertainers and personalities. I used new and emerging news sources in addition to the traditional wire services and network feeds. I brought in Earth News, Zodiac New Service, Lou Irwin's reporting on culture. We created new information units and formats. It clicked.

        Soon WIBC and WNAP in combination dominated radio listenership. WNAP was a laboratory for new radio concepts. In the meantime Hilliard had moved Fairbanks broadcasting into a position of ownership of stations in other major markets.

        Canadian AM broadcaster George Johns was hired to be the national programming director. He worked with the Indianapolis stations, tweaking and joining the experimentation. Eventually he exported ideas and concepts to sister stations around the country. They too were FM stations going into markets to knock off once dominant AM stations. 

        By 1979 I was leaving radio to try my hand at long form television journalism.

WNAP and WIBC were golden. The long hairs in blue jeans at WNAP had become  huge winners, and ideas we experiment with were being deployed by our stations and then copied by the growing list of FM radio stations that had become the norm. 

        The chain of stations Hilliard assembled was hugely successful.

                                                            

        AM radio became something else. You've heard it.  All things have a life span and so much of what AM used to be is dispensed or available in other media. 

        It was all great run. Radio was the most personal of media. But as I read of the pending demise of AM, already in critical condition, it started me down memory lane and I wanted to pay tribute. I also wished to reflect on the role AM played in bringing rock and roll to America and then how that rock and roll culture changed including in radio.

        It's interesting to me that over the years, basketball has remained the same essentially, same court and rules and game. Ditto baseballl, football. Law is still the same, and teaching has made some adjustments but it's the same profession.

        Media is different. Newspapers had their day, AM radio had its era. Now in a digital world it's all fusing and changing. But I have to think that pod casting is in the last analysis a kind of return to AM radio. A voice, a listener, the engagement of the mind and a relationship is built.

        Still, there was nothing like hearing a great DJ play your favorite song coming through the night from some distant capitol. It was a sweet world!

        Thanks for taking this cruise.

        

        See you down the trail. 

CONTOURS OF BLACK FACE & PAYING DUES ON THE ROCK ROAD

     ocean rock off fiscalini ranch preserve  cambria

      A place of sanity and civility is a tough spot to find these days. The most recent black face blow up might offer a ledge, precarious though. 
     And ahead in this double post is a photo essay on paying dues on the music highway.

the rutted road of black face

       spanish moss tunnel on jack creek road templeton 

       Black face had its origins in Europe. It was used in theatre to permit white actors to play dark skinned characters, including Othello. It did not begin as an act of racial denigration.
       The "racism" of black face began in the early 1800's in  theater when characters with demeaned qualities were played by actors in black face. British theatre of the 1800's also used black face to portray Black people in stereotyped and derogatory ways. They were portrayed as stupid, lazy, slow talking, sexually aggressive, easily frightened, and worse. That same hurtful poison was poured by American theatre. By the mid 1800's actors in black face did music and comedy skits feeding the stereotypes. Minstrel shows toured and carried the racist stereotypes far and wide. 

even disney

     In the 20th century film, animation and even Disney cartoons perpetuated the stereotypes.
     This occurred in an age when racism was rampant, but ignored. White government and majority white society functioned as though it was blind to, insensitive of or ignorant about the damage and hurt caused by the perpetuation of the stereo types much less the under girding de Jure and de Facto segregation and racism. Such behavior is inevitable in a nation where many of the founders owned slaves.
    These are undeniable truths. It is also true that not all people who have put on black face are racists. They may be stupid, but not necessarily racist. 

stupid

    If this nation did a better job of teaching real history, and respecting the truth of our heritage, contemporary Americans would know how hurtful it is. 
    I wrote here earlier that Megyn Kelly was not automatically a racist when she raised the issue of black face, stupid probably, ill advised and her network bosses succumbed to perceived outrage and she was released. 
    Now that black leaders and community leaders have come to the defense of the Virginia Governor, it may offer that ledge to have a conversation about a couple of things.

in the national dna

     First, the US must acknowledge its racist and genocidal heritage and then teach it. Our government, our system of life, perpetuated, enabled and encouraged racism and ethnic genocide. 

not fully human

    People of color were not recognized as full human beings, that was in our charter. Before that we did not recognize the sovereignty of the first citizens of this continent. As terrible as it has been for African Americans, it has been worse for native Americans. This nation slaughtered millions of native inhabitants. When the murder stopped, we then lied to and cheated them. That is who we are, and what we did. Thank God men and women of conscience and increasing intelligence have reshaped, refined and corrected our national establishment, but it has been a long battle and it continues.

reason, don't screech

    Second, and this needs saying. Stupid things done by a student 35 years ago should not be the automatic disqualifier for a person who otherwise has demonstrated good judgment, citizenship and character. Who did not make poor judgments in their youth?
     There are limits here. Dressing up like Michael Jackson, or Al Jolson may have been stupid but it is not like doing a crime of violence. Being overtly racist, abusive, discriminatory or committing sexual assault are more serious than dressing up. We need to acknowledge that.
     There is a screeching factor in American politics today that borders on hysteria. It is loud and it drowns out common sense, civility and due process. It makes victims of the system and can injure people more grievously than some of the so called alleged offenses.  To those who are calling for the Virginia governor's dismissal, I urge you to point some of that venom toward the American mass culture and educational system that has failed to teach just what black face is, the whole story. 
      It is offensive and dangerous when a society fails to know and learn from history. We have much to learn, and a lot of making amends to do. 

 the music road

   the pour house  paso robles

    Davy and the Midnights do a sound check at a tap room in Paso Robles. Their tour of the California coast takes them from LA to San Francisco and north.

   Haven't heard of them? You may someday. They play country, blues, rock and the sort of fare that keeps you alive playing bars. Their own music is good and they are refining it in an LA studio. 
   They are young, on the road and paying their dues.
   Lead singer Davey Allen is also the keyboard player for Eric Burdon and the Animals and has played with other big name rockers. He's got a great band.

    Guitarist Greg Cahill is a superb player. Full disclosure-His dad is a life long friend. We've watched Greg from when he first sat at a piano as a tyke.  He's true LA pro. 
    But that doesn't make life on the road easy.

      cayucos saloon and card room  the"tav"  cayucos

     After the Paso gig it was on to a place to sleep, briefly. An early morning wake up put them on the road to Carmel Valley for a three hour acoustic performance at a winery. The long drive back slammed into showing up in Cayucos to set up for the Saturday night show at the old Saloon.

    These guys are not in the music royalty, yet. They are their own roadies, engineers and set up men.

     On the road, you never know what kind of set up and acoustics you'll find.

     It takes a little psychology and musical alchemy to get a sense of the crowd, what they want to hear, and then feed them.

     There's no time to perfect the "room" for sound or staging. Just get up there and do it.

      After the second set at the Saturday night show, I told him it takes someone a lot younger than me to keep up the pace.                        

      In the next 8 days they'll be in San Rafael, Sacramento, San Francisco, Fairfax, Blue Lake, Arcata, Brookings Or., and Crescent City.

    Rock on!

     See you down the trail.

PERPETUAL LIGHT-SELFIE HELP-HE'S BACK

BRIGHT

BRIAN WILSON

Living Legend

     If there was a Mount Rushmore of rock and roll, Brian Wilson would be up there.  More than two hours of high energy performance and what you get is hit, after hit, after hit.

    The principal Beach Boy was joined by his pal and an original Al Jardine for a powerful evening at the Vina Robles Amphitheatre in Paso Robles. Jardine lives just up Highway 1 in Big Sur.

    When you open with California Girls, Dance, Catch a Wave, Hawaii, Shut you Down and Little Deuce Coup you set a mood and the audience was into it.

     Wilson has assembled about as tight and solid a band that a living legend can get. Scott Bennett and Darian Sahanja lay in vocal support that is every bit as good as what Wilson got from the Beach Boys. He is a musical savant and still pushes the edge. Who else would stage a live performance of Heroes and Villains-a tricky number even in the controlled environment of an edit studio? He introduced a fully instrumental Pet Sounds and asked the audience to "just listen what a band can do without vocals."

     Wilson's rapport with the audience was warm and genuine. It appeared as though he and Jardine enjoyed sharing the stage again.

      The maestro introduced God Only Knows as his "greatest song writing accomplishment." His "best!" But there were plenty of others, In My Room, Little Surfer Girl, Then I Kissed Her, Don't Worry Baby, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B, Help Me Rhonda, I Get Around, and etc. It seemed as though the Amphitheatre jumped up in mass when they played Do You Want to Dance. And the place practically levitated when he lead into Good Vibrations.

      By the way, Jardine's voice is magic. He still sounds like a kid in his 20's. Brian is older, the band is bigger, but he's still a musical magician and can make you feel like kid and as if you are in perpetual sunlight. 

Here's how some of the big kids arrived-

A MESSAGE FOR MALES

Are you paying attention NFL?

HELP FOR OUR AGE

WITH A SMILE EVEN

     A HAPPY UPDATE

     Those of you who have been following this blog for a few years will recall the posts about my friend and former colleague who wrote of his battle with leukemia including a bone marrow transplant.  I'm happy to include recent thoughts and a photo from Bob Foster.

   Photo Courtesy of Iowa State/Bob Foster

Never did I imagine that I would again be testing the wireless broadcast system on the sidelines at Jack Trice Stadium before a Big 12 game.  Resuming duties as a game site producer on a Big 12 Football radio broadcast seemed no longer possible.  Saturday afternoon was very emotional.  I wept several times and knelt in sprayer of thanksgiving before the game began.  Now, I am better prepared mentally and emotionally to approach with intensity the game broadcast at Texas on 10/18.  It is all because of Jesus I am alive.
Bob Foster.

See you down the trail.