Boss Radio: Revealed at Last
    Ron Jacobs & Bill Drake
    June 19-20, 1999       home

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First Radio Job at 93 on the Dial

BILL DRAKE: My basketball coach was a guy who had been a basketball star at the University of Georgia. His first coaching job was at Seminole County High School. Of course, he wasn’t making a whole lot of money so he had a roommate and lived in this young men’s boarding house. His roommate at that time was doing a show out of Donalsonville that he had done by telephone line to the Bainbridge radio station. Donalsonville didn’t have a radio station. It was done over a telephone line and he had a show called “Breakfast with Bill” every morning. The owner of the station wanted to do a thing in Bainbridge but he also figured if he could get a local thing out of Donalsonville which was closer, it’s 20 miles away, that he could get commercials out of there. So, Bill Fowler was doing two hours a day out of Donalsonville.

RON JACOBS: Over a telephone line.

BILL DRAKE: Yeah, and playing records, too, down that line. Had a little studio. And as a matter of fact, the studio was put in what used to be the old People’s Theater, the movie theater which closed down. And the studio itself was actually put in the ticket booth! Yeah.

RON JACOBS: Cool-looking thing, huh?

BILL DRAKE: Yeah, well, you know.

RON JACOBS: This was your start on the air?

BILL DRAKE: Yeah. And so a friend of mine named Jack Hall, who was in my high school class, he knew Bill Fowler.

RON JACOBS: Who was older.

BILL DRAKE: Yeah. Well, he at that time was what, 24, 25.

RON JACOBS: Which in those days seemed real old.

BILL DRAKE: Yeah. I was a sophomore in high school. So they wanted to do a weekly teen-oriented disk jockey thing to fill FCC commitments at the station for education. So, Bill Fowler had asked Jack Hall if he wanted to do the show. Jack didn’t want to, so I eventually said, “Hell, I’ll do it.”

RON JACOBS: Was it sort of exciting?

BILL DRAKE: Yeah, I thought hey, I’d like to do that. I remember that I liked the music so I figured that’d be good. And it was called Teen Time.

RON JACOBS: Sorry, mine was called Teen Town.

BILL DRAKE: Well, la di dah!

RON JACOBS: See, it’s amazing because I did Teen Town Topics and you did—

BILL DRAKE: Teen Time. Came out of this Donalsonville studio at the former movie theater. The rest had been closed off. All the seats were still there but they were all sealed off. A backfire out front in the street would shake the whole goddamn building.

RON JACOBS: So you were doing this by yourself? Spinning records out of nowhere?

BILL DRAKE: I remember the first time I was on the radio, I had everything laid out. And the first song that I played on the radio was “Unchained Melody” by Roy Hamilton. And there were three versions—that’s the only time that three versions of the same song were in the top five at the same time. There Les Baxter, Al Hibbler, and Roy Hamilton.

RON JACOBS: Why did you choose the Hamilton version?

BILL DRAKE: ‘Cause that’s the only one we had! (Laughs)


RON JACOBS: OK. No, because the Baxter version was the big orchestration and the Hibbler version was the soul one. But, there’s nothing the matter with the one that you played. And that was by then, a 45.

BILL DRAKE: A 45, yeah.

RON JACOBS: OK, so were people looking at you from the street?

BILL DRAKE: Yeah! They had things in there—

RON JACOBS: Loudspeakers?

BILL DRAKE: Well, no—you have to realize Donalsonville is a very small town.

RON JACOBS: But I mean could they hear you out on the street?

BILL DRAKE: I really can’t remember. I’m sure we probably had little speakers out there.

RON JACOBS: And you had blind faith that somehow your voice and the record was going down some telephone wire and going into where the transmitter was at?

BILL DRAKE: The telephone line went to the Bainbridge studio and they took that and sent it up to the transmitter. But by the way, the station was at 930 on the dial. Like KHJ.

RON JACOBS: And what were the call letters?

BILL DRAKE: (Sings to the tune of the KHJ jingles) 93, WMGR! (Laughs.)

RON JACOBS: When are we talking now, Bill? What year are you in school?

BILL DRAKE: Well, “Unchained Melody” had been, what, 1954.

RON JACOBS: So were you like a junior in high school?

BILL DRAKE: I guess so, yeah.

RON JACOBS: So it’s 1954 and was it before or after the basketball season?

BILL DRAKE: I don’t remember.

RON JACOBS: But wait a second. “Unchained Melody” was the number one song at that time, right?

BILL DRAKE: Yeah. Well, of the three versions that were in the top five, I don’t which was number one, but I’m saying Roy Hamilton’s version was the only one that we had so I liked that song and I played it.

RON JACOBS: For me to pin this down accurately, I’m going to come in and say that the first record you played in the box office of the People’s Theater was “Unchained Melody.” Like, I happen to remember the exact day I got my FCC license because it was Christmas Eve, 1952.

BILL DRAKE: I don’t know. What happened was: I had everything pretty well laid out, trying to plan and I got everything ready. And I remember starting “Unchained Melody” by Roy Hamilton. The record was supposed to be 2:05 or 2:20. And all I remember was that sucker couldn’t have been more than 3 seconds long because when it ended I was not ready.

RON JACOBS: And thus the Drake Format is born! (Drake laughs.) In 1954. And this is why years later, some 7,000 disc jockeys have had the shit beaten into them: BE READY!! Right?

BILL DRAKE: It was just over! And I was not ready.

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