When I first took on the task of attempting to write a history of radio station KHJ in Los Angeles during its glory days in the 1960s, I really could not foresee what I was getting myself into.  The biggest lesson I learned from my work on researching this subject dating back to the late 1970s up to today is this:  Writing about the past is dangerous.  Writing about the past pisses people off. 

Ironically, concern over history and specifically “The History of Rock and Roll” (the rock and roll radio documentary) from the 1960s continues to work people up emotionally.  Some people will just not let it be.  The past is behind us.  The people who really are deserving of credit are who they are.  Time has not changed any of that. 

Let’s look back at what was so that we all may understand:

“The History of Rock and Roll” is famous for being the first rockumentary when it was originally produced for and broadcast on 93/KHJ in 1969 as a 48 hour program.  Despite all the rumors and attempts at revisionist history, the truth is this ambitious production was led by Ron Jacobs and was produced by a highly talented and passionate team at KHJ forty years ago.

In the 1970s, Drake-Chenault (the radio programming and syndication company that no longer exists) crafted a derivative and updated 52-hour version that was distributed on tape on a syndicated basis to other radio stations.  The syndicated Drake-Chenault version should not be mistaken, however, with the first and original version from 1969 narrated by Robert W. Morgan. 

You can listen to the opening couple of minutes from the Drake-Chenault syndicated version in 1980 that was narrated by none other than Bill Drake, himself: HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL OPENING (2:29) MP3, 3.43 MB

Why am I referring to myself in the third person?

When KHJ was on its way to becoming the number one radio station in Los Angeles, I lived 200 miles north in San Luis Obispo where--believe it or not--the hottest thing on radio at that time was a country music show hosted by “Mac the Scotch Hillbilly.” In 1970 I became news director and eventually station manager at KCPR-FM, the college radio station licensed by Cal Poly State University. Many of us in college radio listened to airchecks of 93/KHJ and we would fantasize that someday we would get to work in what 93/KHJ called “Boss Angeles.”

We felt a strong lure to move to the sprawling metropolitan area of Southern California, not only because Los Angeles is the number two radio market in the United States. The lifestyle of Los Angeles--swimming pools, movie stars--were certainly exaggerated and satirized by television shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, but the City of Angeles was an intense magnet nonetheless for small-town boys and other dreamers, then as now.

Getting a chance to work in Los Angeles radio happened for me without a warning. I was one of several college radio boys who would dream of someday working in Los Angeles radio. But, few of us thought it would actually happen since it seemed like an impossible dream. We felt stuck in a small radio market hundreds of miles away. We may as well have lived on another planet.

We could not listen to 93/KHJ where we lived because the AM signal did not travel very far beyond the Los Angeles basin. Late at night we would often tune in KRLA, however, since it had a much stronger signal that bounced its way to us far, far away.

Listening to tape recordings and late-night signals that bounced off the sky was how we familiarized ourselves with LA radio. Of course, we read Claude Hall’s column in Billboard magazine, so we knew of the legendary radio pioneers, Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs. We hero-worshipped these men and others--like air personalities Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele--that we viewed as very uniquely talented. There was also that “other Don” on the radio that we couldn’t resist--Don Imus.

Preparation for Real-World Careers

At KCPR-FM in San Luis Obispo, we came to understand the reality that very few people would actually end up working in the Los Angeles radio market. What KCPR-FM did for us, however, was give us the chance to develop our skills and talents on the air. When I was involved at KCPR-FM, the music programming on the station, and how the station sounded across seven days a week, deliberately emulated successful commercial radio stations. College radio for us in the early 1970s at KCPR-FM was the exact opposite of free form radio, where the person on the air has the freedom to play or say whatever he or she wants. Free form programming on FM--particularly college radio stations--was very common in those days, and young people in their college years tend to measure the value of their life in terms of freedoms.

If they mature emotionally, however, young people may learn how short-sighted is their preference for freedom to do whatever they want on the air on a radio station. Without careful guidance from professionals who have worked in the real-world of broadcasting, a college radio experience can become nothing more than a time of escape and play for young people, who never intend to pursue professional careers in radio. That’s fine if you’re a young person and you want escape and time to play stuff on the air freely and without the discipline of a format. But, that can largely be a waste of time, money, and state-owned facilities.

If you’re smart and worth anything professionally in communications, you should be able to sharpen your skills and talents in college, graduate, and then end up with a professional career in a top twenty media market. That’s solid proof of your skills and talents. Even if you don’t remain in the broadcasting field, ending up with a professional career in a top twenty media market speaks volumes about what you’ve got to give. In the early 1970s, KCPR-FM was a proving ground where some of us deliberately emulated real-world, commercially successful strategies and techniques for how a station should sound. Doing so prepared us for careers in larger radio and television markets outside of San Luis Obispo. I wonder whether college radio participants today are being given a proper real-world context and appropriate audience adaptation mindset to prepare them for major market careers in radio or television broadcasting after they graduate.

Apparently, what the Cal Poly Journalism Department and KCPR-FM trained us to do can pay off professionally. Without warning, one of my college radio friends from Cal Poly escaped the confines of San Luis Obispo and made it to the neon fun jungle that is Los Angeles. His LA radio name was “Hurricane Hines” and he opened the door for me to work at K100.

My arrival in LA was not glitz and glamour as I had fantasized it would be. On my first night in Hollywood at K100 for my first and only radio gig in the Los Angeles market, ironically somebody broke into my 1970 Volkswagen Beetle and stole my radio. My car was parked in the garage behind 6430 Sunset Boulevard, where the station was located.

Since the Hollywood police station was just a few blocks away, it wasn’t long before a squad car arrived in response to my call. The cop was a stunning stereotype from the television cop shows--a lot of muscles and blond hair. As Hurricane and I stood in the crunchy windshield glass on the parking garage floor next to my VW, one of LA’s finest asked us, “Didn’t I arrest you two guys earlier this week for pimping on La Cienega?”

We are floating in the fog and the Redwood trees of Northern California. You see the brilliant blue Pacific Ocean below and the unforgettably powerful scent of the lumber industry overtakes you. How did we get here together? Maybe you’re just sharing space in my head, locked in on my memories with me.

Just go with it and stick closely with me. We are back in 1975 together.

You watch me convince my communications professor at Humboldt State University to approve my idea to study Boss Radio, a 1965 rock and roll radio programming success story in Hollywood. Even though we are in 1975, and Boss Radio happened only 10 years before, my proposal to study what happened in Hollywood is very risky. No pressure.

All I’ve got to do is convince an impressive group of radio industry heavyweights (who had never before–or since–been interviewed together for one publication) to share their thoughts and insights with me. Sure, that will work. I’m 25 and I’m going to succeed doing what nobody else before had ever done. The pressure on me is palpable. I am living in the pressure.

I keep playing that 1975 Joan Baez song “Diamonds and Rust” over and over and over.  It’s an eerie song that teaches me the importance of memories because the passage of time can turn coal into diamonds and once shiny medal into mere rust.

Escape from Los Angeles

People go to Humboldt County, California to escape pressure. People escape from Los Angeles all the way up north to Humboldt because it is hundreds and hundreds of miles away from all the hustle and overcrowding that is Southern California. I did exact that. So, I know. I had worked in Hollywood until I lost my job at a rock and roll radio station. And then I had to come up with a plan for what I would do with my life and get over the hurt.

I chose to move to Humboldt so that I could get as far, far away from Hollywood as possible and still remain in the state of California. I had worked on Sunset Boulevard for the people who in 1965 had become legends in the radio programming industry with their Boss Radio format. But, now it was time to say goodbye to all that and I chose the California state university in Humboldt County to work towards my master’s degree in communications.

My communications professor at Humboldt approves my proposal to study Boss Radio because, even though I recently had chosen to leave Southern California and move all the way up to Humboldt, I still had connections to people down in Hollywood. Never burn bridges. Always stay connected. Today we call that networking. So, I interviewed people like Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs about their work in the radio business during the 1960s.  I helped to preserve important memories, to defy the passage of time, and to make up for the significant losses caused by the passing of so many talent individuals.  Now the memories of what was can be shared with you.

Thank you for visiting here today!

I was not there in Los Angeles to see with my own eyes what happened at KHJ, and since I chose to study this thing called Boss Radio, I had to go out and conduct primary research. This was not something that you could learn about by going to the library and checking out a book.

I did not expect to get a clean, orderly, logical explanation from people--even from eyewitnesses and participants. Real life is rarely that clean and orderly. We never ever do anything nice and easy. And, what a surprise! I did not get anything clean and orderly. I got a lot that I had to untangle and sift through to get to the heart of the matter.

The structure of this site echoes what I uncovered in the real world. You won’t find a clean, sequential order of pages that you must follow because the whole story is not necessarily a connection of orderly events. You’re invited to skip around using the links on the left side of the screen to check out whatever attracts your attention.

Preserving Something Important for You

Why I think this site is worth reading: I feel responsibility as the first to preserve for readers on the Internet what happened in Los Angeles radio starting in 1965 in a professional way backed by research. This site is not about pushing one guy’s viewpoint on a website. It also is a tribute to the many talent people who contributed much to the radio industry. Some are dead and some are living, as the Beatles song lyrics say.  Bill Drake, the architect of Boss Radio 93/KHJ passed away in 2008.  I hope that he and others who were involved in Boss Radio will be remembered thanks to this website, especially the 1999 interview that Drake did with Ron Jacobs, which you can find here on this site.  When you look at the primary and secondary sources I used for this work, you will understand that this site exists because of well-documented research and fair, accurate reporting of what really happened.

One of the most bizarre--and thus the most memorable--email messages I ever received in my entire life was from Ron Jacobs, who wrote this about me: “...for years you have gone to inordinate steps to bask in the glory of KHJ while contributing nothing to it...”

Here I am, photographed in the early 2000s, caught incriminatingly basking in the glow of a desk lamp. Writing and producing this website was not for glory, and anybody who attempts to make money from writing a history of one radio station surely will starve to death. My purpose in writing all this grew out of an obligation I felt back when I began researching the subject of radio programming to seek the truth and to report what I found. I’ve done that here even though doing so may have pissed off some people. What matters most to me is that you have access to this information that otherwise is unavailable anywhere else.

The truth is:  Ron Jacobs speaks his mind, usually quite freely.  I have at various times in my life been both on his shit list as well as in his good favor.  Sometimes simultaneously. 

I have attempted to present definitive information built upon standard journalistic principles of honest reporting, proper attribution of sources and writing without any axe to grind. When you spend time with the material here at this website, I hope you will have an enjoyable visit. And I promise you a clear and unbiased understanding of people, events and radio programming trends that began some 40 years ago in California.

But, there were conflicts with which I had to deal while making this site. When I began my research into radio programming, I was young and inexperienced in dealing with show business people. Although I was 25 years old and lived 700 miles north of Los Angeles in Eureka, California, I convinced Bill Drake, Gene Chenault, Ron Jacobs, Bill Gavin, Claude Hall and others to participate in face-to-face interviews with me for the record out of sheer determination and dedication.

In order to analyze the radio programming endeavors started by Drake and Chenault, I conducted primary research because in the mid-1970s there was no in-depth information on this subject. Trade magazines of that era--most notably Claude Hall’s Billboard magazine column--covered Boss Radio, Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs and others. Periodicals such as Time and Newsweek had also run stories on Boss Radio and Bill Drake. But, none of these sources provided information of much length or depth.

I travelled by air at my own expense from where I lived at the time in Eureka to San Francisco to interview Bill Gavin; to Los Angeles to interview Bill Drake, Gene Chenault, Claude Hall and others; and the greatest distance, to San Diego to interview Ron Jacobs. A few months later in 1976, I incorporated information and quotations from the interviews into my masters thesis which was published at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California in fullfillment of the legal requirements for my master’s degree in communications.

Billboard magazine radio columnist Claude Hall wrote This business of radio programming : a comprehensive look at modern programming techniques used throughout the radio world. Claude Hall’s book is an industry insider’s perspective on the radio and music business which came out the year after I completed my primary research into the Drake-Chenault radio programming efforts and my masters thesis. Published by Billboard Publications, New York, 1977, you may be able to find it at a large library using the Library of Congress call number: PN 1991.75 .H3.

In contrast, my primary research covered a broader range of topics and people and provided me the foundation upon which to write analysis and evaluation of the efforts of Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs, and others associated with Boss Radio at KHJ in Los Angeles, later with the RKO Radio chain of radio stations, and finally with K100 in the early 1970s.

Sharing with a Wider Audience

As you know, it is quite common for people who write a master’s thesis or a doctoral dissertation for a graduate degree to later publish their work in other forms to share their findings with a wider audience. That’s exactly what I did. That’s what this site is all about. I have a unique perspective because I was on the scene and I witnessed with my own eyes what happened in Los Angeles in the 1970s with the programming efforts of Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. Nowhere else will find the information that I have gathered together here for you all on one webiste.

In 1979 I earned my Ph.D. in Communications from Indiana University and taught communications at universities in Kentucky and Connecticut.  Then, I had a career in the cable television programming and management in Massachusetts and Arizona.  Since 1995, I have been working in the Washington, DC area in editorial management. In 1996, I launched a website about Boss Radio, then named the “Boss Radio Information Site.” All of my research (interviews, letters and so forth) plus the conclusions I drew, and the typewritten text contained in my master’s thesis are my intellectual property and I have owned the rights to that material since I created the work.

None of the participants who spoke with me in face-to-face interviews put any restrictions whatsoever on the use of their names or what they said to me for publication. Of course, nobody in 1975 could have envisioned the important changes in technology there would be as the 20th century ended, so nobody knew the Internet would be available as a way to share knowledge. Just as others before me chose to later publish their work in other forms, I chose to use the Internet to share my work. You can benefit from my knowledge by learning all you can from what I have to offer you at this very special website.

Aftermath

Crucial to the success of Boss Radio was Ron Jacobs, whom I interviewed in 1975 in San Diego. Ron Jacobs was crucial, also, to the success of this Web site. I started regular electronic mail communications with Ron Jacobs after he had read the first version of this site in 1996 called the “Boss Radio Information Site.”

Ron Jacobs disliked what he saw. And, as an industry insider who never hid his true feelings, he went public, letting Southern California know how much he disliked my website.

His negative comments appeared in a newspaper, The Orange Country Register, published in Santa Ana, California on September 1, 1996. Ron Jacobs told the newspaper his views, which were published like this: “I wrote him [Woody Goulart] that he had no right to print material from an interview granted from a 26-year-old discussion [1975] intended only for an academic paper, that his ‘report’ was superficial, and that he had no direct knowledge of what happened at KHJ during the important years (in my opinion, from 1965-1070; I was there from the start in May 1965 through mid-1969), and his work with Drake in later years did not qualify him in any way as knowledgeable about the subject of KHJ.”

Ron Jacobs was claiming that I was not qualified to write history. He went on to say this in the newspaper: “It’s nice that someone remembers KHJ, however, incorrect and revisionist facts serve no purpose.”

Of course, Ron Jacobs was wrong about my qualifications to write history. He has a right to his opinions, but he is simply wrong about me.  At the heart of Ron Jacobs’ displeasure with me was not that I was unqualified. Ron Jacobs was displeased that, although my website reminded people about KHJ, it was written by an outsider, whom he felt should not have taken on the subject matter.

But, there was also the issue of how I chose to approach the subject--with objectivity and without prejudice. As the radio industry trade press had done during from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, my website referred to terms like “the Drake sound” to describe the radio programming on KHJ, other RKO Radio stations, and K100. The reality is that terms like “the Jacobs sound” were never used to describe Boss Radio even though it is arguable that without Ron Jacobs, there never would have been Boss Radio.

Given the nature of publicity, it was no surprise to me that one purpose served by the Ron Jacobs commentary in The Orange County Register in 1996 was to increase the number of visitors to my site. The attention Ron Jacobs drew to my original Boss Radio site encouraged me to expand what I had electronically published into a more detailed website. Of course, I never had any personal concern about what Ron Jacobs thought of Bill Drake, nor whether the two men remained best of friends after Jacobs left KHJ, but I recognized that I had touched a nerve.

I rewrote the 1996 website and within a few months, I completed the second version. Even though I had rattled Ron Jacobs with the first version of my website, I was surprised when Ron Jacobs emailed me to say how “improved” he thought the second version was compared to the first. I considered this high praise from someone who does not readily offer compliments to the unworthy.

Collaboration

I ultimately convinced Ron Jacobs to collaborate with me on revising my Boss Radio website to include his views and comments about Boss Radio from the perspective as its creator looking back some thirty years to review what it all meant. That led to what turned out to be the third version, which was published online in 1997. Evidently, I must have “proved myself” to Ron Jacobs as a writer of history. Although I really did not care about gaining the approval of Ron Jacobs, or anyone else, I was pleased that, together with Ron Jacobs, I was able to craft an accurate historical perspective on radio programming for Internet users to read.

I use the word “collaborate” to describe how Ron Jacobs agreed to interact with me through electronic mail, through a lengthy 1997 telephone interview conducted by this writer and recorded on audio tape, through the editing of the typewritten transcript of the 1997 recorded telephone interview, and through numerous suggestions which Ron Jacobs gave this writer for rewrites, edits, and otherwise changing the content of the Boss Radio website. I was financially responsible for the approximately 60 minute long-distance phone call to Hawaii from the Washington, DC area to conduct that 1997 interview.

Throughout the efforts to complete the third version, Ron Jacobs provided much inspiration for me, and helped me discover a larger purpose of BossRadioForever.com--a way for a writer of radio history like me to publish the rarely-known truths about Boss Radio KHJ once and for all for others to read and remember. The fourth version, published online in early 1998, would not have been possible without his insights and candid comments.

Because Ron Jacobs is not someone who has granted a lot of access to reporters or writers, I felt a strong responsibility to report what he told me without filtering it or spinning it. I believe I succeeded in doing exactly that. But, you can judge for yourself.

I knew at the time Ron Jacobs and I worked together on this project that it was because of me and because of my website he was remembering for the record many of key events that led to Boss Radio and the success of the RKO Radio chain starting in Los Angeles with KHJ in the mid-1960s. And I did not take that responsibility lightly. To tell you the truth, I found Ron Jacobs to be a genius. That’s my honest opinion.

Ron Jacobs granted me permission to reprint some bylined material of his that had been published at the 25th anniversary of Boss Radio. He made certain that I received specific text to use that I otherwise would never had any way to acquire, and he told me how to properly attribute copyright ownership to him. I followed his instructions, learning what I could from him. And all of this led to what turned out to be the third version, which was published online in 1997. I made further refinements and additions to my website in 1998 following the suggestions of Ron Jacobs that I received by email from him.

I brought the right combination of Internet savvy, timing, and the contacts together to examine Boss Radio with objectivity. Ron Jacobs claimed that my being an outsider was a weakness, but I think that it turned out to be my strength. I could write about Boss Radio accurately because I had been close enough to the key players to convince them to talk to me about what happened, but not so close that I would tell a subjective story that I filtered through my loyalties or my friendships.

My interaction and collaboration with Ron Jacobs during the 20th century was completed in 1999. The product of our work together has now been published online for several years, and I stand by the accuracy of what I have written and reported here. I believe that the objectivity, accuracy, multiple perspectives from a variety of different people, and spirit of honesty at this website speak for themselves.

Into the 21st Century

I update this site with additional material whenever such a change is warranted by real-world developments. I plan to keep this site available free of charge online as a resource for as long as I can.  Ron Jacobs and I have interacted and collaborated once again in the present century.  The purpose was to update this website with previously unpublished content such as his 1999 interview with Bill Drake.  We shared many laughs during lengthy phone calls conducted at uncivilized hours and it would be difficult to determine which of us had more fun through all of this.  We sometimes talked at great length about his new book that traces the Hawaiian roots of President Barack Obama: 

If I had to pick only one favorite quote that I have from Ron Jacobs, it would be this one:  “I’m yelling, but I’m openminded!”

I met Philip at Georgia Teachers College (now Georgia Southern) in Statesboro, Georgia, in the fall of 1956. We went out on a blind date and took it from there. (Pictured: Ramona and Philip in 1960.)

He was attending classes and also doing the 9:00 PM to midnight shift at WWNS, the local radio station. His sign-off song was Hugo Winterhalter’s “Canadian Sunset.” If you were a freshman girl and were off campus somewhere and heard that, you knew you were in deep trouble unless you could get back to the college before the song was over! No, I was not preparing for a radio career; I was going to be a teacher--never made it!

Actually, Philip’s radio career had started prior to Statesboro. He had an afternoon teen show at WMGR in Bainbridge, Georgia. They had a small studio in Donalsonville where he lived and he worked out of there. I think he was about 16 when he started in radio.

We both ended up in Atlanta in the summer of 1958. I started work for the State of Georgia and he had gotten a job at WAKE doing the midnight shift. We got married in February of 1959 and were married for seven years. We did not have any children and divorces happen to the best of people.

Everyone wants to know about the famous name. “Bill Drake” was created so that his name would rhyme with WAKE – and it is his mother’s maiden name so it seemed appropriate.

It was not long before the station manager, Jayne Swain, realized that she just might have something in this young kid from South Georgia. I don’t remember the timetable exactly, but eventually, he became Program Director and did the 9:00 AM to Noon shift, plus a week-end shift.

WAKE was a remarkable radio station, considering it was only 1000 watts during the day (I think) and I know it was cut to 250 watts at night. When Philip started programming, it took the city by storm, and as you know, 250 watts will not go very far! The station was number one in a short period of time and stayed there throughout his time in Atlanta.

WAKE had an incredible sound, of course. I would say this was really the starting point for “boss” radio. He just kept honing and improving the format so that when he hit other markets like San Francisco, Fresno, San Diego, etc., there was no turning back. And when he got to Los Angeles and KHJ, he was ready!

Bartell moved us to San Francisco in October of 1961, and he was program director and also did the morning drive shift at KYA. This was the first time I could listen to him driving to work! There were some great jocks at KYA also – Peter Tripp, Bobby Mitchell (later Bobby Tripp at KHJ) and “Big Daddy” Tom Donahue. Johnny Hayes from WAKE also came with us and he is still in LA radio. Of course, he is remembered for doin a long stint at KRLA and has been at KRTH for a long time.

San Francisco was a totally new experience for both of us. At the time, Atlanta was just a small southern city, and San Francisco was so different from anything either of us had ever known. What an impression it made. I will always remember going to The Purple Onion and The Hungry Eye. We had a great time during the couple of years we were there.

Next came Fresno and KYNO, and Gene Chenault and the forming of Drake-Chenault. This time was the first I had ever heard of Robert W. Morgan and Ron Jacobs. They were the competition and what a battle that was even in a small market like Fresno. I think everyone knows the story from here on – San Diego and other RKO stations and then it was “big time” – Los Angeles and KHJ.

Phil and I still lived in Fresno (where this photograph was taken) when this “project” started but I remember the conversations, the plans, the negotiations, etc.

I did go down to LA when it hit the air and talk about excitement! I was amazed at the sound. I thought the other stations that he had programmed had sounded good, but nothing like this.

It was unbelievable. Everything just melded together perfectly. The jocks were awesome, the jingles were perfect, the newsmen were great. I was so proud of all of them.

The rest is history! I do not think there will ever be another station like it. It was, indeed, the best ever.

We divorced in 1966 and I moved to Dallas for almost two years. I moved back to California and to Los Angeles in September 1968 and it was after this that I actually became friends with the radio personalities, as well as lots of record people. My best friends were Bernie Torres and his wife and family and through them I met lots of people in the industry.

I spent a lot of time in Martoni’s as well as a couple of other places where the industry people frequented – like The LaBrea Inn and the Villa Capri. The staff of KHJ spent a lot of time at Nickodell’s next door to KHJ. None of these places exist any longer, unfortunately.

Phil and I remain good friends and I would run into him from time to time. It was always a pleasure to see him.

I think the group of jocks that were at KHJ is probably the best that will ever be assembled in the same place at the same time. Morgan and Steele were a tandem that will never be equaled in my humble opinion (and I know it is shared by lots of people.) They were the very, very best at what they did. I loved listening to both of them. I loved listening to the station – my dial never changed – was there another station in Los Angeles???

I did not know Ron Jacobs very well. I do know, however, that he was bright and creative and that he and Phil were also a team that would be hard to duplicate in this day and age. The complemented each other so well. It was really amazing what they did.

The 25th Anniversary of Boss Radio in 1990 was a trip. Sharon Nelson (who worked at KHJ during these glory days) had been invited and I wanted to go. It was by invitation only! I was not to be outdone. I called Betty Brenneman (I knew her) and said I wanted to be included – no problem – just send $93! It was in the mail the next day. As the plans progressed, Shelly Morgan called Sharon and asked if she would be willing to give out tickets. Sharon said yes and could I help?

So, we gave out tickets at the door and I got to see so many people that I had not seen in years and years. It was like a class reunion! And the program was terrific – lots of laughs and memories and more laughs and more memories. It brought back so many happy things for me that I had not thought about for years.

Spent some time with Philip and joined him and several other people the next day at the Century Plaza Hotel for drinks. During the ten years, more or less, covered here, I had more fun, met more interesting people, got to do so many things that I otherwise would have missed – and always had great seats at shows, concerts and in Vegas, plus I never had to buy an LP! I certainly look back and say yeah--it was quite a trip!

How women have increased their participation in the radio broadcasting industry over the years is one subject that people like Ramona Palmer think about. She was there with Bill Drake, who was her husband during the early days of top-40 radio. Those where times when men held most, if not all, of the important career positions in the industry. Ramona Palmer offers her observations today on this subject:

There were not many women in radio back in the “old days.” Jayne Swain was the general manager of WAKE, Atlanta and she also was in San Francisco in the same capacity when Philip and I were there. I know Betty Brenneman was essential to KHJ, as was Sharon Nelson.

I have tried to think of any other women back then who had any role at all in radio. At the station in San Diego, Les Turpin’s wife did the radio logs for the station. Other than that, the only roles women played were receptionists, answering request lines, and so forth.

But when you think about it, that was true in almost any business other than teaching, nursing, secretarial work, and similar trades. Women did not have much choice. At least we thought we did not have much choice in getting jobs that were then traditionally thought be be “men’s professions.”

I think the first time I realized that women had arrived in the radio and the record business was one year when I went to one of the conventions (probably Radio & Records or the National Association of Broadcasters) at the Century Plaza Hotel. I remember sitting in the lobby with “old” friends and as I looked out over the place. I saw women--lots of young women, and they were doing jobs that had previously always belonged to the “good old boys.” I was thrilled to see that the field had finally opened up to us. Today, we all know now there are lots of women in “high places” and doing a damn good job I might add.

In the 1950s and 1960s, women were conditioned to just being able to accomplish certain things, and unfortunately we accepted that. I know that I was always impressed with people like Jayne Swain and Betty Brenneman because they had broken the mold. I am glad the attitudes have changed and women can do anything a man can do.

Talk radio has certainly changed the face of radio. I am not fond of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Are you? And of course, television has as many women as men on the air now for news, talk shows, and the like.

I remembering watched a biography of Barbara Walters and it was amazing to me to learn what she endured when she was co-anchor of the news with Harry Reasoner. I know if a man pulled some of those things on the air with any woman today, he would be really, really sorry. Thank goodness times change.

I was always impressed with any women that did something we were not supposed to be able to do. If I were young now, I certainly would take advantage of the many opportunities for women and even make a few waves if need be.

Los Angeles became known as “Boss Angeles” because of Boss Radio.  By whatever name, this city literally was the only place on the planet where Boss Radio could have happened. This city is the nexus of what Joni Mitchell called “the star-maker machinery” and many of the hottest pop music stars of the day like Sonny and Cher and The Beach Boys were drawn to the magic of Boss Radio 93/KHJ in Hollywood.

The radio station owners needed something magical to rescue their financially underperforming property. This radio station at this time created a rare combination of financial exigence and an opportunity to try something bold and edgy like the Boss Radio format certainly was.

Being in Los Angeles gave the format and 93/KHJ a visibility within the radio broadcasting and entertainment industries that helped magnify the ratings success that the programming made possible. But, had this format been launched in a smaller market, the impact would likely not have been as great as it was in LA.

Who would have noticed, for instance, if this rock and roll radio approach had been launched anywhere else but in the entertainment capitol of the world? I posed this question to Bill Drake, asking whether he thought that there was something inherent in California that allowed for growth in the creative sense in radio programming as compared to other states.

Drake said, “I think that Boston and Detroit are pretty much like LA as far as operating a [rock and roll radio station]. I think it wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference [had Boss Radio started in the east instead of in the west]. I’ll tell you this: I sure as hell would rather have been living here and going to New York from time to time than living in New York and going anywhere. I’m sure that if I’d lived in New York at the time, I’d probably have been on the road 300 days a year.”

What about the differences between radio programming in Los Angeles versus San Francisco? After the success of the Boss Radio format in Los Angeles on KHJ in 1965, the parent company (RKO) had Drake and company bring the same sound to San Francisco on KFRC. Prior to making a success of the Boss Radio format in Los Angeles, Drake had previously worked in San Francisco, so he had a high familiarity with all that was San Francisco radio in the 1960s.

One well-known and uniquely San Francisco style or sound belonged to Tom Donahue in the 1960s. Drake told me that he knew Donahue quite well. “We were doing two different things,” Drake said. “Donahue and I had worked together at KYA. When I was program director at KYA, he was a jock there, and a damn good one.” Drake explained to me that the trade magazines’ commentary in those days about Donahue’s “aesthetic appreciation” of music programming versus Drake’s “product oriented” approach was a mischaracterization. Drake said, “I don’t think that I could ever try to explain away what I did by saying I was doing it for art’s sake. That’s bullshit. I think that anybody in this business who says they are--I don’t care if they’re a liquor company or a radio station or whether they are an artist or [musical] group or anything--anyone who says they’re doing it for art’s sake is either lying or a failure, one of the two.”

Clearly, what Drake did for radio programming was not about art for art’s sake. Rather, the sum total of what Drake did for radio programming was always all about reaching Drake’s own extremely high professional standards. Drake’s business partner, Gene Chenault, provided for me a unique inside view about he he evaluated his partner, the legendary radio programmer: “Drake is so much of a perfectionist that he is sometimes unhappy because perfection is not easily attained, Chenault told me.

5515 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood (see Google map) is the famous landmark where the original KHJ studios were located in the 1960s.

You can see the very often-photographed arches of Paramount Pictures in the lower right of this picture.

His proposal, which developed into his master’s thesis, was exciting to me, as I had worked as talent in radio back East, and I ultimately served as his thesis director throughout the project.

Woody managed to convince an impressive group of radio industry heavyweights (who had never before--or since--been interviewed together for one publication) to share their thoughts and insights with him. His thesis preserved and analyzed their comments, which now are an important part of radio history.

Through Woody’s efforts, those of us who lived through the era can relive and remember those “boss times.” Just as importantly, a new generation can read and learn from “the pros” Woody interviewed back then. I believe that this kind of social research enables future generations to know and understand events from that era, and the people who made them happen. I fear that without a record like this, researchers as well “radio enthusiasts” could lose a link to an exciting period of popular culture.

Which brings me to this Web site. I’m using BossRadioForever.com as a “required resource” for my broadcast history class. My students have found it to be a thorough and accurate narrative and analysis of one of the most creative and exciting times in radio’s history. I’ve managed to stay in touch with Woody all these years.

I now teach at a small, private liberal arts institution in New York. Distance and years separate Woody and me from those days at Humboldt when he first talked of this project. But, thanks to the Internet--a medium we couldn’t conceive in 1975--anybody can relive the fun, examine the radio programming, and meet the people who talked with Woody back then.

I’m extremely proud of Woody Goulart, his work, and this website.

Dr. Jim Seward
St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY

“If Vince Lombardi were a program director, he would have been Ron Jacobs.”--1990 tribute from the original KHJ Boss Jocks

Those who choose to think of Ron Jacobs only in the context of Boss Radio and KHJ are missing quite a lot. He will long be remembered for his role as program director at KHJ from 1965 through 1969, and, for his crucial contributions to Drake and Chenault’s Los Angeles efforts in radio programming that attracted national attention.  In the 21st century, he is one who demonstrates he knows how to use the power of the Internet.

Over the decades since the Boss Radio format was launched, there has been discussion within the radio broadcasting industry concerning who deserves the primary credit for the format. Was it mostly Drake? Would it have been possible without Ron Jacobs?

In an effort to provide some clarity, Ron Jacobs gave generously of his time during 1997 by providing very detailed answers for publication here at BossRadioForever.com to questions that I posed.

Ron Jacobs participated by telephone and electronic mail to my interview questions concerning many of his career milestones, and edited the copy before it would appear online here. He also gave permission in 1997 for BossRadioForever.com to publish additional historical information that he had written, which had been previously published elsewhere and is available online elsewhere.

The perspectives Ron Jacobs shared with me in the interview regarding The Real Don Steele, his Friday sign-offs, and other Boss Jocks gives special insight into Boss Radio:

RJ: I think Steele might have even been doing those Friday sign-offs before he got to KHJ. Could’ve been at KISN in Portland or in San Francisco after that. He brought that, along with his “Tina Delgado Is Alive” schtick along with him to KHJ. And any PD who would mess with those would be nuts.

WG: Right, because that’s got to be one of the most unusual and unique things.

RJ: Steele, if you analyze his style, is a terrific minimalist. And therefore, when you do a longer form bit, it stands out all the more. It’s just like most people don’t appreciate the value of white space in a graphic layout. One time a musician friend of mine said, “The most important thing about the music is the space between the notes.” If you transcribed what the Real Don Steele say’s in a show, there is not much to it, word wise. But when you combine it with his electric energy, where he puts what he says, and how he conveys what he does, when all of a sudden he rips out one of those things, it is visceral and transcends just words. Style wise, it’s not unlike what is now called “rap.” Content wise it goes back to what Col. Parker taught me, which is you don’t over expose. If Steele did that sign-off every day, it would be less effective.

WG: Yes, that’s right.

RJ: If he did it every hour, it would be less effective. And that was also like what I said going back earlier to each guy has strengths to build on. My concept was to give each guy a shtick so that on the one hand, we had a station consistency formatically, but Morgan’s thing was to use the phone, no one else did that. Sam Riddle and Roger Christian were to focus on Los Angeles because they were established there. Steele’s thing was to kick ass in the afternoon and move it because people had already had it during the day, and so on and so on. And we worked real hard at that. But it absolutely always equally comes down to a matter of what you leave out.

The competitive world of Los Angeles radio helped shape the lives of the participants involved at Boss Radio KHJ. Ron Jacobs gave the colorful details in my interview with him.

No one’s ever going to convince me that we weren’t the greatest rock ‘n’ roll AM station in the world.--Ron Jacobs

RJ: Drake, me, and the jocks didn’t give a damn or think about the future, the influence on radio or anything. We had one thing to do which was to kill and be number one. And I wasn’t going to be involved with guys who weren’t ready to get in there and commit themselves 24 hours a day to climb that damn mountain, and that’s where the big rush is. I mean Morgan and me particularly, man, we didn’t believe in taking prisoners.

WG: Very serious business.

RJ: Yeah. On May 25, 1965, after the bizarre Muhammad Ali - Sonny Liston fight, Morgan and I went for a drink. After all, the fight was over in a minute. It was one of the few times I ever went to this record hangout called Martoni’s. And Morgan and I got into a screaming match with two guys from KRLA. And it almost got out of hand. We all were thrown out of the restaurant.

I mean we took that stuff real serious. And we were really young and we had a lot to prove. We had to prove ourselves to the people in our own building, the Channel 9 people. There were people who had worked in that building who had watched KHJ Radio change formats like diapers.

The engineers siting on the other side of the glass, they’d seen platoons of jocks come and go. So they just thought we were the format du’ jour. Then, when I could sense that we were having some influence on radio in general, I got a perverse joy out of leaving the air studio in the same horrible condition it was in when I first got there.

Guys would fly in from Cleveland, Omaha, wherever, to come and see what the secret thing was that made KHJ work. First he’d sit in the drab lobby, not a clue that any rock ‘n’ roll was going on. Then walk down cement hallways that looked like an old Navy building. And he would walk into the control room and there would be this old engineer and a board with pots, right? It could have been a guy with his ham radio.

The only thing I ever did in the studio was have a wooden frame built with a Lucite panel to hang up 5x7 cards for one-liners. And these out-of-town guys, who acted like they’re going to the Vatican or the Wizard of Oz--. They’d come in and see a jock sitting there in this 20-year-old room. It had one switch for a microphone and a beat-up turntable that they could listen to the records to on cue, which took a year to negotiate with the union.

If someone asked how we did “it,” I would point at my head and say, “Hey man, this is showbiz. What KHJ is doing is not based on equipment or any of that stuff, it’s based on this little thing called imagination.” That’s what I learned from Colonel Parker, it’s what I have always preached, and that’s what I have always gotten off on. I can do the mechanical stuff, formatics, scheduling. I’m a Virgo, I can do numbers and letters and color-coding. A part of me is really into that. The other side is like, “Wow, what do you do next that people are guessing about.”

My theory on the air used to be, they’ll listen if they don’t know what you are going to do next. That finally comes out almost word after word in the Howard Stern movie. Well, I was doing that stuff when Howard Stern was in grade school, or whatever.

I mean, after doing a high school show, I first got paid as an announcer when I was 18. I was a program director for the first time in 1958, when I was 20. And by wonderful, fortuitous circumstances, I was at KPOA, where we were running “Lucky Lager Dance Time,” which was programmed by an ad agency guy named Bill Gavin—and the three-station group had Mike Joseph as their consultant.

It was a great time to learn from guys who were really the pioneers of Top 40, along with Storz and McLendon. And I stayed in contact with Colonel Parker for 40 years. Tom Moffatt and I were honorary pall bearers at his memorial service in Las Vegas. The mechanics were the cake, but The Colonel showed me how to whip up the frosting.

WG: A lot of people really worked together well as a team at KHJ.

RJ: There are so many people that deserve credit. Ed Dela Pena, the chief engineer, and the way we were able to integrate our engineering department and our programming concepts, that’s a whole story. The fact that the TV station eventually not only settled down, but realized that interaction would help us both. We came up with a tremendous TV show. That’s another thing we had going. No other station in town had their own weekly TV dance show.

WG: That was Sam Riddle’s show?

RJ: Yeah. Sam Riddle had a show but that was replaced by the show called, 9th Street West.

WG: That’s right. I remember seeing that when I was a teenager.

RJ: It was a great promotional vehicle. I mean, the Big Kahuna would go on and do his thing. And in those days there were no music videos. Artists and record companies were anxious to be on the number one station and the TV show.

We had an exciting scene going. Like, in the summers of 1965, ‘66 and ‘67, not only was LA the center of the rock ‘n’ roll universe, but KHJ was the pulse of it.

You could drive down Hollywood Boulevard on a Friday night and with your car windows open and it was like just the this wonderful, AM, bass-booming sound. Boss Radio! Everybody was plugged in. It was just wonderful. In the beginning it seemed like Sonny and Cher were living at the station. Brian Wilson or one of the guys would come up to the entrance at ten o’clock at night and hand the guard a vinyl, and it would turn out to be something like “Good Vibrations“ or “California Girls.”

Those years will always be special. I have done other things that have been wild on other levels, okay. But to be there, sitting in the front row of the Hollywood Bowl when Bob Dylan played something electric for one of the first times. Watching The Doors grow from a neighborhood band to a Jim Morrison cult nowadays—know what I mean?

WG: Yeah.

RJ: To see the Big Kahuna go to Dodger Stadium and see the whole crowd turn away from Sammy Koufax to see this silly thing in feathers. It was a rush, man. Like they have “fantasy baseball” and “fantasy football,” I would love to be able to take my best or our best hour of KHJ, and put it up against WABC’s best hour. Because no one’s ever going to convince me that we weren’t the greatest rock ‘n’ roll AM station in the world.

The maintenance of the Boss Radio format would not have been possible without one essential invention--the telephone. Ron Jacobs explains why.

WG: The role of the telephone seems to have played a big role in Boss Radio.

RJ: Well, it was actually pretty cool to have a car phone. That was one of the best status symbols there was in those days. I mean the hippest bachelors drove along Sunset Strip in the car, talking on the car phone. You pushed-to-talk on microphones like a police radio. But the thing looked like a phone that was mounted on the hump between the front seats. And if I heard something happening when I was driving around, I didn’t hesitate to call in.

The other side of that coin is the way things get totally blown out of proportion over time. I’ve been told by second and third and fourth hand people that the hot line was ringing all the time, at least at KHJ. Well, that’s a crock. I mean I spent a long time as jock before I did that gig. And I know that in most cases, it’s not very productive to hassle someone during their shift.

I would call Morgan when I had an idea in the morning, because we could communicate so well and he could always implement what I suggested if we agreed it was worth trying. Morgan would always come up with what I imagined, or improved on it. Most times I talked to a guy after his shift or sent a memo to him.

WG: Yeah, if you disrupt him in the middle of something and it wrecks the whole pace. Time magazine wrote something about Drake having all those phone lines and calling in all the time.

RJ: Well, Drake had phone lines that he could listen to stations on, but Drake very rarely ever called a Boss Jock on the air. I don’t remember that during the time I was at KHJ, that Drake maybe called the jock more than a dozen times.

If he did, it might be just to say that sounded cool. I mean, because that’s not the way that things work. No one can deal with two different people calling the shots.

Drake would call me no matter what hour of the day. And I would deal with it depending on what it was, like talking to the guy after a shift when he got out of the booth, asking him to come into the office, or sending him a memo, you know what I mean?

One of the real joys of KHJ was that we had what I consider in a lot of ways the best all night guy ever, Johnny Williams. Not only he was great and consistent sounding on the air and a good guy, but I knew that I could go to sleep at night and not get phone calls like I had in the past when someone had taken a Volkswagen apart and put it together in the K-POI big main studio. Or the studio walls were covered with eggs that people were throwing around, partying in the middle of the night. Or people were arriving in the morning and finding someone lying in his own puke.

.......

Top 40 radio had to learn by experience how to cover news events. Two examples of overwhelming news events are the murders of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

WG: When you were in Fresno, JFK was assassinated. You refer to the fact that a Top 40 radio station had “no guidelines” for how to handle this.

RJ: The assassination of Kennedy to us who were essentially young guys—I mean in ‘63, I would have been 24-25—was such an incredible surprise, shock, and astonishing event just as a citizen.

WG: How did you guys deal with that at the radio station?

Ron Jacobs: To have been responsible for what went on the air when, you know, you had a news commitment that you were responsible for as well as religious programming--. In the first place, when John F. Kennedy was shot, it was the first time I had ever seen a wire service machine actually say, “Flash,” which you had always heard was going to happen.

The second thing is those days the stories always used to be punched in by teletype operators and there would be a perforated strip of what they had typed. And the reason those machines always clattered constantly is that the strip was usually thirty seconds or so ahead of what was feeding down the line. When the information came in about Kennedy, we stood over the machine and one or two letters would come out and then it paused.

And it was like, there was no CNN. I mean we just huddled over the machine. And then finally when the word came in, which I think the first one was a priest had just come out and said that Kennedy has been given his last rites. I just had to suppress what I was feeling personally because I was really an admirer of JFK. So to read that bulletin and then play Peppermint Twist—I don’t know. We grabbed whatever was in the building, which was probably a Mahalia Jackson or a Mormon Tabernacle Choir record and put it on as “appropriate music.”

And as a person I remember thinking to myself, well, ha, with all this forensic stuff they have these days at the FBI, at least this will be resolved unlike the Lincoln assassination, which in 1963 was still controversial. How ironic that was. Like, the real truth, at least in my opinion, about the JFK assassination, is still being suppressed.

There is one thing that I regret not having kept from that day. There are a lot of things I did in radio that I don’t have, but that’s okay. But on November 23, 1963, I wrote an editorial in which I said that it might take a long time to get to the bottom of this, but eventually history would record the truth. I actually tried to make a statement. Probably Robert W. Morgan read it and we replayed it with somber music and that’s about all that we could do. We canceled the commercials.

And then finally I was able to go home. And then just maybe when things got normal, you saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot by Jack Ruby on black and white TV. I mean, I don’t want to let my personal feelings about the Kennedy assassination get into it, because I don’t think we’ve been told anything about it that is even close to the truth. But at the time, dealing with it was totally new ground.

WG: In one of your emails you mentioned that you thought being in LA at KHJ was “Camelot” from 1965 until 1968. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in LA in 1968, and that must not have been easy to deal with.

RJ: The thing that hit home about Robert Kennedy was that one of his campaign headquarters was right across Melrose Avenue from KHJ at Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe. And that had been a place for local and visiting Democrats who would come in limousines, coming in and out of there.

.......

After Ron Jacobs left KHJ in 1969, he formed Watermark, from which the legendary “Cruisin’” series of record albums (pictured at the top of this page) and the famous “American Top 40” countdown with Casey Kasem originated. Jacobs also produced several other record albums for Elektra, including the cult classic “’A Childs Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy.” He subsequently returned to rock and roll radio programming at San Diego’s KGB.

In 2001, Jacobs used the Internet to express his opinions in a “Call to Action” to criticize Randy Michaels, who was at the time the radio CEO of Clear Channel. Later that year, Jacobs used a site named Balance Radio Broadcasting as a platform for his views about Clear Channel. But the site lasted only a few months before being pulled following a controversy over telephone calls between Jacobs and Randy Michaels that appeared online in MP3 form and paraphrased text. Jacobs used 93khj.com in 2002 to promote a vanity-published book about his years at the station. You can learn more by stopping by The Ron Jacobs Collection on ReelRadio.com.  In 2007, Jacobs wrote an angry commentary on LAradio.com in which he voiced his opinions that too much credit for the success of Boss Radio has consistently gone to other people besides himself.

...............................................................

There are at least two other historical footnotes worth mentioning about that restaurant on Melrose Avenue across from KHJ: Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe is also where California Governor Jerry Brown could be seen with Linda Ronstadt when they were dating. And, director Roman Polanski’s late wife, Sharon Tate, along with a few of her close friends ate dinner at Lucy’s Ed Adobe Cafe just hours before they became the victims of mass murder at the hands of Charles Manson and his cult.

The largest part of this sense of responsibility comes from the fact that, after all the years had gone by, there were very few people who chose to write about their experiences in radio with the Drake-Chenault team. By default, the Web site you’re reading now stands as the one, central location where you can read historical recollections from the essential group of radio professionals responsible for Boss Radio, who have never before--or since--been interviewed together for one publication.

You’re Fired!

I met Bill Drake and Gene Chenault in Hollywood in 1973 under very tense circumstances. I had been working for a year at K100 as production manager. The station owners were unhappy with the ratings of K100, so they selected Drake and Chenault to take over management and programming of the station.

It is very normal for new owners of a station to come and say those two most dreaded words, immortalized by Donald Trump, “You’re fired!”

The logic of this is very simple: If the staff at a station has not brought about the level of ratings and accompanying financial success that the station owners want, the business decision is to get a replacement staff. When Drake and Chenault came in, everyone at K100 was fired except for the bookkeeper and me.

Apparently, our knowledge and expertise were considered essential to the Drake-Chenault operation at K100. She knew all the financial information and I knew how to operate all the broadcasting equipment. I learned that my knowledge and expertise were necessary at K100 under the new management since the on-air staff--notably, Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele--had primarily worked for years in a union shop environment where they were prohibited by union regulations from operating the broadcasting equipment. Because they had many years of actual hands-on radio experience prior to working in Hollywood at 93/KHJ, Morgan and Steele quickly learned how to operate the then state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment at K100.

Of course, that brought about the inevitable day when Bill Watson, who headed day-to-day programming and production, said to me, “You’re Fired!”

I was treated with courtesy and respect in my termination, even though to the Drake-Chenault people, I was “an outsider.” Gene Chenault personally made sure that I got two weeks severence pay. And nobody said an unkind word to me. I report all this here to dispell a prevailing myth that the Drake-Chenault people were ruthless and heavy-handed. I never saw any of that at K100. The worst that can be said about the Drake-Chenault team at K100 is that they could not recapture the magic that was Boss Radio in the 1960’s, even though they tried very hard to do so.

Life After Hollywood

I was devastated when I was axed from K100. Who wouldn’t be? I had been working on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood for Drake-Chenault!  And, because I very much respected the legendary Bill Watson, it was almost an honor to be fired by him (at least in retrospect.)

A few words about Bill Watson: He had gained favorable attention because of competing against Drake and Chenault in another market. Bill Watson, who had programmed KCBQ in San Diego, was, at best, terse. His role as national program director for Drake-Chenault radio proved pivotal to the company’s success.

Watson was my immediate supervisor at K100 when the Drake-Chenault team took the helm at the station. I never could figure out how he could communicate so effectively using so few words. He could manage a very gruff expression on his face, but he was always fair and level-headed towards me.

Bill Watson gave a rare quote to a reporter in 1970 in which he explained why Drake-Chenault radio programming worked: “If [the format is] good and working right, then they [the listeners] know they’re listening to particular format, and they just keep listening.” That phrase, “...they just keep listening...” should have been the official, trademarked motto of Drake-Chenault’s national radio consultancy.

I did not know this at the time, but being fired from this Drake-Chenault radio operation in Hollywood was the best thing that could have happened in my life.

Ramona Palmer, who was his wife when he was just starting out in the radio business, remembers Bill Drake in an exclusive commentary that was first published here on Boss Radio Forever.

In early September 2004, K-Earth 101 (KRTH-FM) broadcast the legendary documentary “The History of Rock and Roll” accompanied by a rare interview with Bill Drake. During that interview, the 60-something Bill Drake articulated the importance of that famous radio format named “Boss Radio” on KHJ back in 1965:

“You have to realize that everybody had to adhere to the format. That was it. If they didn’t like that, then out of here. Don’t come here. So they knew that.  And we looked for people who believed in it. We used it as a backdrop, like an assistant to the whole thing.  Even if you have a bad day, you can only drop so far because the format, and the momentum, and the jingles and the music--just the mechanics of it will only let you fall so far.”

When Drake and his team came to Los Angeles, the found, as Drake explained in the K-Earth 101 interview, “There were some people who thought they were quote ‘personalities.’ If somebody was a ‘personality,’ we said fine.  Robert W. Morgan certainly was. Real Don Steele certainly was. The thing is:  Even they [Morgan and Steele] didn’t have something to say every time. And they learned that.  Do it when you got it and keep your mouth shut otherwise, and keep the forward momentum going. People tune in to hear the music.”

In 1990, Drake was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times about the 25th anniversary of the Boss Radio format at KHJ. He evaluated the contributions of his team this way: “We cleaned up AM radio. We put everything in its place. It was radio that was designed for the listener. Before us, disc jockeys would just ramble on incessantly.”

In 2006, Drake was quoted on http://www.top40timeclock.com as explaining: The REAL key to radio programming, is what you DON’T play…Anybody can come up with a list of songs to play…those lists are everywhere…What to leave IN and what to leave OUT is the REAL secret…and few people have that gift.

From modest beginnings, Drake and his business partner, Lester Eugene Chenault, assembled a team which initially gained national attention because of Boss Radio in 1965 on 93/KHJ in Los Angeles. The success of Boss Radio and all the descendant formats that were developed in the years following 1965 gave Drake the kind of power mystique which is usually reserved solely for motion picture or political celebrities.

Drake Power

He was called an “all-business bachelor” by Time magazine in 1968, and his power and influence was the subject of speculation by trade magazines and the mainstream media.

He had decided that he would no longer do interviews. Yet, Bill Drake agreed to a 1975 interview with me during which he said he had stopped doing interviews because of how he was quoted in the trade magazines and how they portrayed him. “I think that the trades a lot of times are--. I’m sure they don’t mean to be, but sometimes they are very prejudiced about things. I used to sit down and do interviews. It’s the reason I finally stopped all of that.”

He knew me from the radio station in Hollywood that he and Chenault consulted.  I was very low on the totem pole and hardly had any interaction at all with Drake.  But, he knew me, and for reasons I’ll never understand, Drake agreed to talk with me on the record about Boss Radio and Drake-Chenault radio programming.  So, I met him at his home in Beverly Hills. 

As we sat by the swimming pool, he told me what he had stopped doing interviews.  “I’d pick up one of the trades the next week or whenever it was going to be in, and I’d read something that hadn’t even come up. They’d say, ‘Well, your tight playlist has come under considerable criticism from the record industry.’ I’d answer, ‘Well, I’m sure a lot of people don’t like it, but that happens to be what we do.’ I mean, I would say something that simple, and the headlines would say something like, ‘Drake Blasts Record Men,’” he explained.

Drake elaborated on how this coverage of him centered around the Drake-Chenault team’s programming of WOR-FM in New York. “Music in New York was a little different because we were playing more oldies there and I think that’s one of the things the trades didn’t like. They [the trades] felt that we were going to stifle all current product if we played oldies. It’s funny how those things get started. People actually begin to believe them.”

The power that Drake had was the subject of a lengthy October 1969 True magazine story. “Most professionals in broadcasting agree that Bill Drake is the most powerful man in American radio today,” writer Gene Lees explained. “He is also the most powerful figure in American popular music. Record manufacturers, singers, songwriters, music publishers, all depend on ‘air play’ to make their wares into hits. Drake says that he doesn’t play favorites. His company, he says, programs only records that the public wants and that fit into his own conception of good programming.”

The story also noted how in Los Angeles on KHJ “Drake began hammering on a slogan of ‘Much More Music,’ backing it up by playing more records per hour – 14 of them – than the competition.” Drake is quoted as saying that he cut down on the amount of air-personality talk to make room for more music. “I tell them, if you want to say something clever, say it in 15 seconds.” Notably, however, it was pointed out in the story how “Drake also cut the number of commercials per hour, on the theory that when listenership goes up and the station can raise its advertising rates, the station would earn more money from fewer spots.”

In an August 23, 1968 Time magazine article entitled “The Executioner” because of Drake’s power to fire on-air personalities who did not measure up, the success of the Boss Radio format at KHJ was explained in some detail: “Once new jocks are hired, they are drilled for a couple of months in the Drake style. The big idea is to unclutter and speed up the pace. The next recording is introduced during the fadeout of the last one. Singing station identifications, which sometimes run at oratorio length else, are chopped to 1 ½ seconds on Drake stations. Commercials are reduced to 13 minutes, 40 seconds an hour – almost one-third less than the U.S. average. Newscasts are scheduled at unconventional times, such as 20 minutes after the hour. Thus, when the competition is carrying news, Drake-trained deejays run a ‘music sweep’ (three or four recordings back-to-back) to lure away dial switchers.”

“Drake has built a wall around himself,” observed True magazine,“ and Bernie Torres is its biggest brick. This is to keep record-promotion men and assorted hustlers from driving Drake to distraction. Drake is a night person who only rarely rises before noon. Part of his staff, including administrative assistant Bernie Torres, a stocky, good-looking type, comes to the house daily. Torres takes the phone calls, usually telling you Drake isn’t home. When he recognizes the name as that of someone Drake will talk to, he reverses his position and calls his boss to the phone.

“At one of his favorite restaurants, he had to lay down the law to the management that he wasn’t to be bugged by promotion men while he was eating. To those he admits to his circle, Drake is a gracious host, an agreeable and often quite witty companion. It is hard to find anyone who hates him personally, even among his bitterest critics.”

The Mystique

The legendary Bill Drake mystique itself was a creation, an invention that grew out of the “Hollywood flavor” surrounding KHJ radio in Los Angeles in the 1960s and continued into the financially successful Drake-Chenault Enterprises projects through the 1970s. The “real” Bill Drake--a very tall, well-groomed, polite, Southern gentleman--differed from his well-crafted corporate persona.

Bill Drake played up his image as a “rock and roll radio recluse” with a telephone at his side which he used to place calls to the radio stations he consulted. At the radio stations, whenever the “hot line” lit up, it could strike fear into the hearts and souls of the employees who wondered, “What if that’s Bill Drake calling me?”

That was the role or “performance” that Bill Drake honed to perfection because it enhanced his power and his mystique and celebrity. That image had a tangible dollar value for many years.

It was highly unusual for Bill Drake to grant face-to-face time with people he didn’t know--and even rarer when he talked for publication about himself and Boss Radio. But, in 1975 Bill Drake agreed to talk with me to cooperate with my masters thesis research.

As it turns out, in doing so he helped set in motion the preservation of a portion of rock and roll radio history that otherwise would have survived only in people’s memories. Think about it. How many people who worked in Los Angeles radio with Bill Drake and Gene Chenault have published a book or created a website to tell their side of the story?

To this day I have saved one small piece of note paper upon which Bernie Torres, one of Bill Drake’s closest associates, had scribbled directions for me on how I could get to Drake’s house on South Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, “south of Wilshire, between Magnin’s and Sacks.”

The reality is, Bill Drake behaved like a down-to-earth kind of guy. He answered all my questions and he was not egotistical. My take on Bill Drake was that he presented himself as a gentleman, all the while chuckling more than a little at how many people in the radio industry had ascribed such power mystique to him. Of course, he loved the attention and the image because it helped him make a living. Who wouldn’t have enjoyed that? Who wouldn’t laugh all the way to the bank?

To monitor the stations whose signals did not reach his home in California, Drake had a monitoring system in his house where he could dial up a number in any city where a consulted station was located. He could as easily dial to the stations themselves whenever he wanted to use his phone as a “hot line” to reach people at the client stations.

Mark Denis, KGB program director from 1966 through early 1969, explained to me what happened to the San Diego station after Drake-Chenault acquired consultancy contracts outside of California:

“I was in San Diego almost two and a half years. I saw him [Drake] two times in San Diego and maybe had three telephone conversations with him at the most...But my contact was through [national program director] Bill Watson. It was like a chain of command type thing.”

Two American news periodicals broke the story nationally on the monitoring device and the “hot line,” bestowing an air of mystique upon Drake along with the status as a “great aloof leader.” The magazines explained that “by the dial of a number,” Drake could “monitor any of his ten client stations across the country” from his “$200,000 Bel Air mansion that boasts Spanish decor, five ‘master’ bedrooms, a sumptuous swimming pool and 24 telephone (including one in each bathroom.)”

Aided by such media coverage, Drake’s power mystique grew to be as much a personal and professional trademark as his name itself. The public perception of what Bill Drake was during the national consultancy—at least within the radio and music industries—was that Drake was some sort of all-powerful, ever-watchful, and decidedly mysterious mogul. Read the Drake interview for more.

Robert W. Morgan 6 to 9 a.m

Roger Christian 9 a.m. to Noon

Gary Mack Noon to 3 p.m. 

The Real Don Steele 3 to 6 p.m. 

Dave Diamond 6 to 9 p.m. 

Sam Riddle 9 p.m. to Mid. 

Johnny Williams overnight

This site is dedicated to Christian, Morgan, and Steele:

Roger Christian

I first met Roger Christian in 1972 when I went to work at a Hollywood radio station with studios and offices at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga. This was before Bill Drake and Gene Chenault arrived. At that time, the station was called K100-FM.

Roger Christian’s amazingly smooth and mellow voice was just perfect for the soft-rock format that Drake and Chenault took off the air. I considered Roger Christian to be the first LA radio celebrity I ever met that I thought was worth spending any time with. Although he was one of the original seven Boss Jocks on 93/KHJ, and before that was already well known on LA radio because he was on the air at two legendary AM rock and roll stations, KFWB in Hollywood and also KRLA in Pasadena, he also wrote songs with Brian Wilson.  Yes, that Brian Wilson.

Roger Christian was into cars--very fast cars. With Brian Wilson he wrote car songs like “Shut Down” and “Little Duece Coupe” that The Beach Boys recorded in the early 1960s. He also cowrote “Deadman’s Curve” for Jan and Dean.

My most vivid memory of Roger Christian involved a very fast car. One day in 1973 he drove me in his beloved Jaguar from his home up on Mulholland Drive down to the K100 studios on Sunset Boulevard. If ever there were a land speed record for traveling down Cahuenga Boulevard, it should’ve belonged to Roger Christian for that trip! I expected if the past predicted the future, that one day Roger Christian would go out in a blaze of glory behind the wheel of a very hot British automobile.

But that’s not what happened. At the age of 57, he died in 1991 following a period of illness.  Roger Christian was one of the most unforgettable people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was grounded and unimpressed with himself—unlike other celebrities I had been before or since. There was a confidence that he radiated, but he was not pushy nor demanding.

Let me provide a memorable sample of his work on K100.  He had produced and narrated a documentary for Capitol Records about The Beatles in the 1960s, so of course I asked Roger Christian to narrate an updated music documentary about The Beatles that I wrote and produced in 1973 for the station. The excerpt you will hear contains the famous “turn me on, dead man” line from The White Album and some of the most memorable music ever played backwards:

Roger Christian (1:01, MP3, 483 KB)

My interaction with the most amazing morning man in radio was during the time when K100 was programmed by the Drake-Chenault team. Morgan was more like one would imagine a celebrity would be. He knew what he wanted and he wasn’t afraid to demand it of everyone.

To get on his bad side was hugely unpleasant (believe me, I know from experience), so you avoided that condition at all costs. His intelligent sense of humor was one of the most endearing aspects of his personality, both on and off the air. Celebrate his full life (1937-1998) at an amazing tribute site: RobertWMorgan.com.

I also worked with Steele at K100 when it was first programmed by the Drake-Chenault team. Suffice to say that I never met anyone like him before or since. To describe him as “unique” would be a complete and utter understatement. Although his on-air persona was one of high energy and drive, I was pleasantly surprised that in all his interactions with me, he was neither aggressive nor arrogant. This man had a vibe that is difficult to put into words. He gave off a sense or spirit of generous vitality and excitement, almost as if he didn’t belong here among us all.

He was totally LA—a wild ride at high speed without seatbelts. Anyone who ever heard his Friday afternoon sign-offs will never forget the experience. I was lucky to have worked with him in Hollywood at K100. He would ask in his sign-offs, “What do we know and believe?” I know and believe that he will best be remembered as cranking up the volume and the excitement in our lives, if only for a little while. He was with us and among us all from 1936-1997, but his sprit will live forever—never to be silenced. There is much to remember about him online here: TheRealDonSteele.com.

Newspapers traditionally regarded radio as competition, unless, of course, they owned the radio stations. Since KHJ was owned by the powerful Los Angeles newspaper, the station benefitted from the paper’s considerable promotional reach. Don Lee, a successful Cadillac dealer, bought the station from the newspaper and ultimately KHJ and the entire network (operated by Lee’s son Thomas after his father died) was merged into RKO General.

In the early part of the 20th century when radio was new, the Federal Communications Commission licensed radio stations with only three call letters—unlike today where four call letters are the rule. In those days it was also common to select call letters that stood for something specific. The three call letters were for “Kindness, Happiness and Joy.” As the early KHJ signed-off each night, the announcer would recite this poem:

May kindness, happiness and joy
be with you all the day.
And may the God who loves us all
Forget not KHJ!
God will not fail to watch thy sleep
And wake thee with his light.
And now dear friends of KHJ
I wish you all goodnight.

In these gloriously politically-correct days of the new century, imagine a station signing off a station with a poem like that. And unlike today when stations broadcast 24 hours a day, in the earliest days of radio, KHJ and all stations of the day, had to sign off for three minutes out of every 15 so that any potential distress calls might be heard from ships at sea.

Another major difference in those days before the invention of tape recorders was that radio, out of necessity, had to be comprised of live broadcasts. It was possible to make one-of-a-kind recordings on phonograph disks of actual radio broadcasts. But until audio tape was invented, recorded broadcasts were cumbersome and suffered from pops and cracks inherent to phonograph recordings of that era.

In the 1960s, KHJ was on the AM radio frequency at 930 on the dial. Popular music of the day on AM radio was the standard then. Popular music on FM radio became the standard in the 1970s. Young people today may not even know about AM radio because popular music hits are on FM, on television, and on the Internet.

KHJ employed many famous entertainers whose careers began at the station.Eddie Canter, and, George Burns and Gracie Allen are notable examples. The legendary Pat Weaver (father of Segourney Weaver, president of NBC, and creator of The Today Show and The Tonight Show) was an announcer at KHJ in 1934.

During the big band era, KHJ had its own 50-piece orchestra.In 1931, Bing Crosby made nightly trips to KHJ where he sang over the air for 15 minutes six nights per week. In the mid-1940’s, Steve Allen (the original host of The Tonight Show) led the morning team with his show called, “Smile Time.” Even in the mid-1960s, Steve Allen still had a morning show on KHJ.

But, by 1965, that type of live celebrity programming on radio was considered old fashioned and out of vogue in Los Angeles, especially in comparison to the rock and roll radio programming available on stations such as KFWB and KRLA. RKO General management knew that unless the programming on KHJ was updated to something more appealing to the widest possible audience, KHJ’s financial performance would likely get worse.

The Drake-Chenault programming on KHJ continued from the business success of Boss Radio in 1965 until 1973 when RKO ended its relationship with the programming team.

The KHJ call letters lived on until the end of January 1986. At that point, RKO made the decision to change KHJ to KRTH-AM (since their FM station was KRTH-FM). The KRTH-AM call letters lasted through the Smokin’ Oldies format after which RKO sold both stations to Beasley, which in turn sold the AM station to Liberman Broadcasting, operators of Spanish language stations KWIZ in Santa Ana, and KBUA and KBUE known collectively as “Que Buena”. They turned the former KHJ into KKHJ, which became known as “La Ranchera,” but in so doing, the original call letters KHJ had to be given up.

When the Libermans purchased the station, the closest call letters they could obtain from the FCC was KKHJ. KHJJ was already in use by a station in the San Joaquin Valley calling itself KHJ. But, one problem was that KKHJ could not mention its call letters on the air in Spanish. The reason may not be apparent to those who only speak English.

In Spanish, the letter “K” is not pronounced “kay” as it is in English. The letter “K” is prounounced as “kah” in Spanish. If you say “kay-kay” in English, that doesn’t mean anything.

But, when you say “kah-kah” in Spanish, it means (you must have already figured out where this is going!) waste matter eliminated from the bowels. That kind of station imagery would have trouble being a financial success. As a result, dating back to its inception, the station call letters were only given in English (“kay-kay-aitch-jay”) and referred to on the air in Spanish as “La Ranchera.”

In a drive spearheaded by KKHJ Program Director Alfredo Rodriguez and Chief Engineer Jerry Lewine, the station collected letters from listeners and community leaders explaining the problem the station faced. They forwarded those letters to and spoke with staff at the FCC with the request that they make an exception to their policies and permit the station to drop one of the “K’s” and return to the call letters that the station had for over 65 years--KHJ. Under the circumstances, the FCC made a rare exception to the rules and granted the request. As a result, the classic call letters KHJ once again returned to Los Angeles effective on March 15, 2000.

In the early 1980s, some of what was previously unfathomable from a business perspective became reality.  Technology changed in the radio business so that even small radio market stations could sound more professional by becoming part of a satellite delivered syndicated radio programming network.  But, there was a price to pay.  And it has nothing to do with the price of syndicated programming.

I wrote an article about satellite delivered syndicated radio programming in the 1980s and in the process of my research, I interviewed Steve Stagnaro, then vice president and general manager of a Santa Maria, California FM station, KXFM, which served parts of both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties.

“My first reaction to satellite-delivered radio,” Stagnaro told me, “as a programmer and business manager of a station was, ‘what a great idea!’ We could get a national, good-sounding DJ on the air and save some money. Then, I began to think it has a problem. I discovered that problem by this station once being fully automated.”

Fast forward: Radio programming of today is generating multiple millions of dollars with national on-air talent such as Howard Stern, whose programming reaches listeners because of satellite technology. My guess would be that Stern has ever not yet small towns in Central California where people live who likely have heard Stern at one time or another even though he originates from back east.

And that’s the whole point. A February 25, 2002 page one Wall Street Journal analysis of local radio under the control of megacorporation Clear Channel, for instance, quoted its then radio CEO, Randy Michaels: “I don’t think it’s at all wrong or deceptive to put together terrific programs that reflect local communities and sometimes use talent who may physically be somewhere else.” Randy Michaels compared the radio shows to films, which wouldn’t be “nearly as much fun if the camera kept turning around to show you it was just a set. I don’t know that the radio experience would be as good if we said every five minutes, ‘By the way, I’m not really here and I taped this 20 minutes ago.’ But that’s all part of the magic of creating entertainment.”

Advertiser-Supported Radio Threatened

It also may be significant that in June 1980 National Public Radio became the first American radio network to use satellite distribution on a full-time basis. Then, as now, advertiser support is not what keeps NPR on the air.  Perhaps it had to be radio broadcasters who do not rely upon advertiser support to take chances to get satellite technology to cook. NPR began distributing radio programming by satellite in 1979, well ahead of much of commercial radio.

In the years that followed, NPR satellite delivered multichannel programming such as opera, jazz, and fine arts along with public affairs and news programming. That multichannel programming paradigm apparently belongs to the future if Sirius Radio and XM Satellite Radio are any indication of things to come. 

But, what does the future hold for localization? And what about radio jobs? Let’s go back to the past to seek an answer.

Sam Kopper started a company called Starfleet in the late 1970s to produce and distribute live-by-satellite radio concerts. Emphasizing the national, built-in excitement of a live-by-satellite concert (as compared to a broadcast of a concert taped live), Starfleet dawned as a shining moment in the earliest efforts of satellite-delivered radio.

Any self-respecting Star Trek follower knows that the original “Starfleet,” of which the starship Enterprise attracts most of the limelight, personifies intergalactic command and distribution of wealth. Kopper’s Starfleet consistently commanded more kudos than wealth with concerts featuring a wide variety of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, Hall & Oates, the Charlie Daniels Band, Blondie, Tammy Wynette, and even the Boston Pops.

Threats to Localization and Jobs in Radio

Kopper sold his network to John Blair and Company, and there was a switch from being a network to being a producer of programming for networks. He admitted to me that he was concerned satellite radio networks operating on a 24-hour basis would likely jeopardize localization and hurt people’s chances of getting into radio careers. “One of radio’s great attributes is that it can be local and serve the people right around the radio station,” he said. Kopper typified the view in the 1980s that the round-the-clock satellite radio would be the doomsday machine for many who seek local employment in radio. “I think it would be bad for radio--having radio be less localized. I’d hate to see a significant number of people get blown out of chances to get into radio.”

Stagnaro explained the essential problem: “KXFM really died when it had no localization, when it was a voice from Dallas, Texas, and music picked from Dallas, Texas, from their view of the United States musically, with no idea that the coast of California and the beach, and our lifestyle here affects the music we like, and the way we like it presented.”

“I was forced to take KXFM from a full-automated station to doing our own music in-house,” Stagnaro commented, “and get live air talent again on the station in order to compete locally. I began to wonder ability the ability of a network radio station sitting in some city far away feeding programming to us. I wonder how they could relate to my listeners, for example, sitting out there in Nipomo, California, growing oranges.”

In 1965, one radio station in one American city could more easily distinguish itself from all the rest compared to today. For one thing, in those days there were far fewer radio stations on the air than we have today. There were also many more corporate and mom-and-pop owners of radio stations in contrast to today’s megacorporation control of radio stations in most markets across the United States.

As the song “Crocodile Rock” asks, “Do you remember when rock was young?” The year 1965 was that time. It was the first full year after The Beatles initially came to the United States, and the entire recorded music industry on both sides of the Atlantic was supercharded by a high energy competition between British and American rock and roll music artists.

This made the mid-1960s a major turning point for rock and roll music, which became “big business” for major record labels thanks to the exploding audience interest. Boss Radio was launched in this social and economic context in Los Angeles, a nexus for the record labels.

The Business Behind the Music

One person whose fate was linked to Boss Radio in the 1960s was Jan Basham, the renowned music promoter from A&M, the now-legendary music company formed by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. I would see her energetic, smiling presence regularly when I worked in Hollywood at K100 in the 1970s. I was saddened when she died in 2004 of cancer. Jan Basham was unusually honest, candid, and forthright--especially when I compared her to other music promoters that I encountered in Los Angeles.

Basham enjoyed a close working relationship with the programmers at KHJ in the 1960s during the tenure of Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. But, after Drake and Chenault were ousted by RKO, things became very different for her. “Nowadays, I feel I’m extraneous at KHJ. I don’t really think that they need me. [Music selection] is by the numbers [now],” Basham told me in December 1975. “You see, now there’s more secrets at RKO than there ever was when Drake was there. Everything’s a secret. For instance, I have to listen to the radio every Tuesday night to find out what they added because they don’t make the phone call anymore [to tell music companies about adding their product to the playlist].”

Basham explained in clear terms how powerful KHJ was in selling music industry product in those days. The April 1975 A&M album, “Diamonds & Rust” from Joan Baez was on KHJ’s album chart as a top 20 album for twenty-two weeks, Basham told me. But, “they never played the single,” she admitted to me. “So, we moved about nine thousand singles [in Los Angeles] without KHJ, which is a phenomenal amount of singles. I’ll give you the right figures. Most companies hype; I don’t hype,” Basham insisted. “That’s approximately what we sold: nine thousand singles, which is a smash. If KHJ had gone with [the single from “Diamonds & Rust"], it would have [sold] over a hundred thousand.”

The Hits of the Late 1960s

A dazzling choice of songs was available in 1965, the first year of Boss Radio. These are the number one songs in Los Angeles on KHJ, listed in the order in which they appeared on the charts:

Satisfaction—The Rolling Stones
All I Really Want To Do—Cher
I Got You Babe—Sonny & Cher
Like A Rolling Stone—Bob Dylan
Eve Of Destruction—Barry McGuire
Liar, Liar—Castaways
The “In” Crowd—Ramsey Lewis Trio
A Lover’s Concerto—The Toys
Yesterday—The Beatles
1-2-3—Len Barry
I Hear A Symphony—The Supremes
Let’s Hang On!—The 4 Seasons
Flowers On The Wall—Statler Brothers
We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper—The Beatles

By playing such intensely popular music, it would be difficult to fail financially--especially in Los Angeles. But, Boss Radio also went several steps further to capture and maintain the attention and loyalty of the radio audience. Boss Radio emphasized on-air personalities who were intentionally different from from the announcing style of the 1950s and early 1960s.

On Boss Radio, the Boss Jocks did not talk for lengthy periods of time as most other radio announcers did in those days. And when the Boss Jocks did talk, it was only over music—rarely (if ever) did they talk without music being under.

The Boss Jocks typically talked over the “intro” of a song, or as the song faded out to the end of music. The effect was to create a “tight” sound with little silence to mesmerize the listeners, allowing very little time for the listener to even think about switching to another station. The Real Don Steele referred to this as “getting the listener off.”

Then there were the singing jingles produced especially for Boss Radio, which were also very different from how radio jingles sounded in those days. For one thing, on Boss Radio, the jingles initially were acapella (singing voices only). They also were much shorter than any other jingles. Eventually jazzy music beds and high-power drum intros became standard on the so-called “Drake jingles.”

And then there was that great music of the era. In those days, the songs were very short compared to today. Most songs (until “Hey Jude” by The Beatles came along) were around three minutes maximum. This made it possible to play more music per quarter-hour than is possible today.

The combination of shorter songs, short jingles, and Boss Jocks that only talked over music made Boss Radio sound very distinctive compared to anything else on the air in those days. Within six months, KHJ became the number one radio station in Los Angeles.

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming

Here are the number one songs played on 93/KHJ in the 1960s after the station had become LA’s most popular station but before FM radio became the dominant medium for rock and roll music in the 1970s.

1966

Just Like Me—Paul Revere & The Raiders
These Boots Are Made For Walkin—Nancy Sinatra
California Dreamin’—Mamas & Papas
Soul And Inspiration—Righteous Brothers
Bang Bang—Cher
Monday, Monday—Mamas & Papas
When A Man Loves A Woman—Percy Sledge
A Groovy Kind Of Love—Mindbenders
Searching For My Love—Bobby Moore
Strangers In The Night—Frank Sinatra
Lil’ Red Riding Hood—Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs
Summer In The City—The Lovin’ Spoonful
Sunny—Bobby Hebb
Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby—The Beatles
You Can’t Hurry Love—The Supremes
Cherish—The Association
Psychotic Reaction—Count Five
96 Tears—? & The Mysterians
I’m Your Puppet—James & Bobby Purify
Good Vibrations—The Beach Boys
Devil With A Blue Dress On &
Good Golly Miss Molly—Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
I’m A Believer / Steppin’ Stone—The Monkees

1967

Ruby Tuesday—The Rolling Stones
Happy Together—The Turtles
Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye—The Casinos
There’s A Kind Of Hush / No Milk Today—Herman’s Hermits
Somethin’ Stupid—Nancy & Frank Sinatra
I Think We’re Alone Now—Tommy James & The Shondells
The Happening—The Supremes
Groovin’—The Young Rascals
Society’s Child—Janis Ian
Light My Fire—The Doors
The Oogum Boogum Song—Brenton Wood
I Was Made To Love Her—Stevie Wonder
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You—Frankie Valli
All You Need Is Love / Baby You’re A Rich Man—The Beatles
San Franciscan Nights—The Animals
Ode To Billie Joe—Bobbie Gentry
The Letter—Box Tops
Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie—Jay & The Techniques
Higher And Higher—Jackie Wilson
How Can I Be Sure—The Rascals
It Must Be Him—Vicki Carr
Expressway To Your Heart—Soul Survivors
I Say A Little Prayer—Dionne Warwick
Different Drum—Stone Poneys
I Second That Emotion—The Miracles
Hello Goodbye / I Am The Walrus—The Beatles
Boogaloo Down Broadway—Fantastic Johnny C
Itchycoo Park—Small Faces

1968

Spooky—Classics IV
Nobody But Me—Human Beinz
Green Tambourine—Lemon Pipers
Love Is Blue—Paul Mauriat
The Dock Of The Bay—Otis Redding
(Theme From) Valley Of The Dolls—Dionne Warwick
Mighty Quinn—Manfred Mann
Young Girl—Gary Puckett & The Union Gap
Cry Like A Baby—Box Tops
Honey—Bobby Goldsboro
A Beautiful Morning—The Rascals
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly—Hugo Montenegro
Tighten Up—Archie Bell & The Drells
This Guy’s In Love With You—Herb Alpert
Mony Mony—Tommy James & The Shondells
Jumpin’ Jack Flash—The Rolling Stones
Hurdy Gurdy Man—Donovan
Grazing In The Grass—Hugh Masekela
Hello, I Love You—The Doors
Classical Gas—Mason Williams
People Got To Be Free—The Rascals
Born To Be Wild—Steppenwolf
On The Road Again—Canned Heat
Harper Valley P.T.A.—Jeannie C. Riley
Hey Jude / Revolution—The Beatles
Girl Watcher—O’Kaysions
Those Were The Days—Mary Hopkin
Magic Carpet Ride—Steppenwolf
Love Child—The Supremes
Stormy—Classics IV
For Once In My Life—Stevie Wonder
Lo Mucho Que Te Quiero—Rene & Rene
I Heard It Through The Grapevine—Marvin Gaye
Soulful Strut—Young-Holt Unlimited

1969

Crimson And Clover—Tommy James & The Shondells
Everyday People—Sly & The Family Stone
You Showed Me—The Turtles
Mendocino—Sir Douglas Quintet
Baby, Baby Don’t Cry—Miracles
Traces—Classics IV
Indian Giver—1910 Fruitgum Co.
Time Of The Season—Zombies
Dizzy—Tommy Roe
Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In— The Fifth Dimension
More Today Than Yesterday—Spiral Starecase
Hair—The Cowsills
Oh Happy Day—Edwin Hawkins Singers
Bad Moon Rising—Creedence Clearwater Revival
Grazing In The Grass—Friends Of Distinction
Love Theme From Romeo & Juliet—Henry Mancini
What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)—Jr. Walker & The All Stars
Crystal Blue Persuasion—Tommy James & The Shondells
My Cherie Amour—Stevie Wonder
In The Year 2525—Zager & Evans
Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town—First Edition
A Boy Named Sue—Johnny Cash
Honky Tonk Women—The Rolling Stones
Sugar, Sugar—The Archies
Easy To Be Hard—Three Dog Night
Hurt So Bad—The Lettermen
Oh, What A Night—The Dells
Little Woman—Bobby Sherman
Suspicious Minds—Elvis Presley
Hot Fun In The Summertime—Sly & The Family Stone
Take A Letter Maria—R.B. Greaves
Something / Come Together—The Beatles
Someday We’ll Be Together—The Supremes
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head—B.J. Thomas

Since call letters are all letters--no numbers--it was necessary to find call letters that would suggest “100” somehow. The first choice was to have the call letters be KIOO since the “I” could be a “1” and the “OO” could be “00” but those call letters were already taken. Plan “B” was to go with an “I” followed by “QQ” so the letters “IQQ” could suggest “100.” Of course, pronouncing the call letters KIQQ as “kay-eye-cue-cue” would never suggest “K100,” so the station was promoted as “kay-one-hundred” and “kay-eye-cue-cue” was reserved only for the purposes of the legal station identification at the top of each hour.

The station was operated by Cosmic Communications until 1973 when Bill Drake and Gene Chenault signed a five-year contract to manage and program the station.

The studio and offices of K100 were located in Hollywood at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga, across the street from the landmark Cinerama Dome theater.

Ron Jacobs told me that KHJ in Hollywood in the mid-1960’s had a physical setting which was very ordinary, if not “institutional”--similar in look or feel to what you might expect from a United States federal building. The reality is that a radio station’s physical look bears no relationship whatsoever to how the station sounds to the listeners.

If you’re spending bucks on something, you should always go with what the listener hears. Apparently this was unknown to the owners of K100, who chose the broadcasting company name “Cosmic Communications” and enlisted some hip 1970s interior designers to “do” the look at the offices and studios at 6430 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The logo featured prominent bolts of yellow lightning.

This would have been fine, except those eye-jarring lightning bolts popped up everywhere as though the designers had significant unresolved emotional issues associated with power. And one couldn’t escape the irony: While Cosmic K100 had high-energy lightning bolts on the walls of its offices and studios that suggested strong flashiness and boldness, on the air, the station had a very relaxed and mellow sound that included music from Johnny Mathis and The Carpenters along with Lou Reed and The Beatles. This soft rock sound mix was new in the early 1970s and the format attracted a loyal, albeit small audience.

But Cosmic K100 was hampered by a signal that was not sufficiently powerful to blanket the entire Los Angeles radio market like the big FM stations with transmitters atop Mount Wilson could. The format also proved to be a problem. It may have been ahead of its time, but the soft-rock blend of current hits, recent favorites, and oldies--all intended as a mellow alternative to rock ‘n’ roll stations in LA was not a financial success.

This format on FM ultimately proved to be a ratings winner in various major markets, but not in 1972 and not on K100 in Los Angeles.

There also were some peculiar decisions made about the music played on the Cosmic K100. I admit here with major shame that as production director I had to edit out the “hard rock” part of Stairway to Heaven before the song was allowed on the air. Like nobody would notice.

The changeover to the “new K100” under the management and programming control of the Drake-Chenault team featured a major format change for K100 to rock and roll hits from the original Cosmic Communications’ soft-rock format.

“You know, initially at K100 here, everybody said it was doomed to failure...that KHJ was totally out of reach. Well, that’s nothing new. They said the same thing about KHJ in ‘65. They said the same thing about KFRC in San Francisco. They said the same thing about Detriot, and Boston, and every other place. They said it about San Diego. They’ve always said that. I’ve never gone into a market where people didn’t say, ‘Well, he’s really done it this time.’ So, they’ve always said that, and consequently you get used to it.” --Bill Drake

The original K100 format emphasized late 1960’s to early 1970’s oldies and the “softer” current releases. Although this format was far from a total failure in its first year on the air, the station did not achieve ratings sizable enough to please the four owners, who wanted a more immediate return on their investment than they were receiving.

Well before the first anniversary of their new station, the owners took an unusual step. In November 1973, approximately half a year after the Drake-Chenault consultancy had been terminated at RKO Radio, a contract was drawn up giving Drake and Chenault part ownership of K100 until the end of 1977.

The comeback was now possible. The contract gave Drake and Chenault control over programming, commercial time sales, and general management.

Roger Christian, who was one of the seven original Boss Jocks at KHJ, was out. Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele, the two most famous original Boss Jocks, were in. Bill Watson ran the day-to-day programming and production.

Watson was another man who, like Ron Jacobs, had gained favorable attention because of competing against Drake and Chenault in another market. Bill Watson, who had programmed KCBQ in San Diego, was, at best terse. His role as national program director for Drake-Chenault radio proved pivotal to its success.

Bill Watson became my immediate supervisor at K100 when the Drake-Chenault team took the helm at the station. I never could figure out how Bill Watson used such few words to communicate so effectively. He gave a rare quote to a reporter in 1970 in which he explained why Drake-Chenault radio programming worked:

“If [the format is] good and working right, then they [the listeners] know they’re listening to particular format, and they just keep listening.” That phrase, “...they just keep listening...” should have been the official, trademarked motto of Drake-Chenault’s national radio consultancy.

I remember early on at K100 showing The Real Don Steele how to use the control board in the on-air studio since, he, like Morgan, had little recent hands-on experience running their own control boards due to the union shop at KHJ.

If there is one “most favorite memory” I have at K100, it was this: I was the one who edited the stereo remix of “You Can’t Sit Down” by the Phil Upchuch Combo. You will recall that this 1961 recording was used by The Real Don Steele as the music bed for his Fractious Friday sign-offs. Because KHJ was not in stereo, Steele had used a mono mix of “You Can’t Sit Down,” but when Steele arrived at K100, he wanted a stereo remix. Under his direction and guidance, I worked with him in the K100 production room and did physical edits—the old-fashioned way using a razor blade and white splicing tape!—to blend both sides of the 45 rpm single into one stereo remix.

Remembering The New K100

After “The New K100” came under the programming and management control of the Drake-Chenault team, there were high hopes for the station’s ultimate success. These hopes were never realized.

My employment at K100 under the original Cosmic Communications ownership and management started in 1972. My responsibilities were production of commercials and public affairs programming.

At K100 I wrote and produced a unique format of documentary programming for the station. Each broadcast was no longer than 3 minutes running time so it could be played on K100 in a commercial break before going back to music.

I am especially pleased to have had the opportunity to examine Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek with this radio documentary format.

When Drake and Chenault took over K100 in December 1973, all but myself, the sales and secretarial staff were terminated—not uncommon following the purchase of a radio station by new owners. Drake and Chenault brought in a crew of their own, notably, the two most famous “Drake jocks,” Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele; Bill Watson, national Drake-Chenault programmer; and Bernie Torres, Drake’s perennial personal business manager and associate.

Bruce Johnson, president of the radio division of RKO General, told me in 1975 what his reaction was as their former employer:

“We knew they were going to do it. They announced that they were going to do it, that they were going to get a station [in Los Angeles.] We first heard they were getting KFI, and then KRLA. They finally ended up with K100 and they just took right out against us.

“In my opinion, the motive of the whole thing was one of revenge...I knew that for a long time; you know they never mentioned KHJ on the air but they said the ‘United California Bruce building’ [a reference to the RKO headquarters at the United California Bank Building in Hollywood], and they went on about Paul Drew [then KHJ program director] and did some fairly nasty things on the air to the point that we called them up and told them ‘cut it out or we’re going to sue you.’

“The listeners didn’t know what the hell was going on—they couldn’t care less. So they [K100] really took after us and I felt it was foolish. They weren’t going to win anything. They might have hurt us a little bit. They weren’t going to beat us. They just kept on and on with this thing and we ignored them.”

It was difficult to ignore Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele, however. The pair, whose public images as LA radio celebrities, gave K100 a high-energy announcing style that had originally been the hallmark of Boss Radio in 1965. In many ways, K100 was a reincarnation of Boss Radio nearly 10 years later. One crucial difference, however, was that the 1973 Drake-Chenault programming on K100 did not boost the station to number one in Los Angeles like Boss Radio has boosted KHJ in 1965.

While K100 was promoted on the air enthusiastically as “the dawn of a new radio day,” promising a new future in radio programming, Rolling Stone magazine, noted the obvious similarities between K100 and Boss Radio and commented, “After listening to K100 one gets the feeling that the future sounds a lot like the past.”

K100 1974

K100 “Only the Beginning” Promos:  These promos in 1974 promised the listeners that they were hearing “only the beginning” of the “dawn of a new radio day” in Los Angeles with the new Drake-Chenault radio format in stereo on FM (instead of in monaural on the AM dial on KHJ.) Robert W. Morgan is the main voice talent on these promos.

K100 Promo #1 (:36) MP3, 573 KB
K100 Promo #2 (:40) MP3, 634 KB
K100 Promo #3 (:40) MP3, 637 KB

Gone was the comfortable soft rock format that the Cosmic K100 had launched, and in its place was essentially a top 40 music station on FM that played longer cuts that the typical two and one-half minute variety. As reported in the trade publications at that time, under Drake-Chenault, K100 became the only top 40 station to play Bruce Springsteen’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and Roxy Music’s “Love Is The Drug,” and the first station in Los Angeles to play Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Peter Frampton’s “Show Me The Way.”

The “dawn of a new radio day” never came, and in 1975, both Morgan and Steele left K100. That was the beginning of the end. What could have been a Los Angeles comeback for Drake-Chenault radio programming was no longer possible.

Personal Observations and Commentary

I found Morgan and Steele both were fun to work with as they delivered to K100 the kind of on-air magic for which they earned their reputations in LA radio. Despite the on-air frenzy he created in his on-air persona, in person Steele was, ironically, very down-to-earth. He and I got along well. Contrast that with Morgan, whom I found was never someone very easy to approach, despite how friendly and warm he sounded on the air.

Yet, these two original Boss Jocks could not, themselves, make K100 seem more like KHJ, nor could the pair spearhead the efforts to keep K100 afloat. And K100 got weighed down with negativity, which stemmed from the very reason why Drake and Chenault came to the station in the first place. The atmosphere at 6430 Sunset was not genuinely “fun” in the way that a successful radio station should sound like fun to the listeners. The reason was an ever-present sense that the Drake-Chenault team had to “prove something,” that they wanted very desperately to “get back at” RKO for having been kicked out by Bruce Johnson.

The earliest months of K100 under Drake-Chenault sounded “forced,” at least in my opinion. There was a “faked fun” feeling which grew from the essentially negative vibes. Late-1973 on-air promos called “the dawn of a new radio day,” tried to make K100 sound like the answer to LA radio’s needs. Robert W. Morgan’s voice, however, did not convey “fun,” it sounded as through the script called for “fun,” and he obliged because he was a total professional. But, Morgan’s voice revealed the secret that K100 was in trouble.

In my 1976 interview with him, Gene Chenault admitted to me that K100 was “behind target,” and that K100 had essentially become a “manually operated automation” format in which the disc jockeys maintained a low profile. One of the programming formats that K100 ultimately carried before being sold was Transtar’s “Format 41” adult contemporary satellite service.

Ken Levine, whose LA radio name was “Beaver Cleaver,” arrived at K100 in 1974 after I had the station, so we have never met. He has enjoyed a prolific career in LA radio (at KEZY, KGIL, KTNQ, and KMPC), has done play-by-play for the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres, and has written and produced television programs for M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier, and The Simpsons. We have communicated back and forth by electronic mail communications, and he responded to my questions about how he remembers working at K100:

“I would have to say that K100 was the most creatively stifling job I have ever had. Between the rigid format and [Bill] Watson calling me 50 times a shift, it was all I could do not to mess up. What made it even more disillusioning was that I idolized KHJ so, and couldn’t imagine anything better than working with these Boss Jocks.

‘Steele turned out to be a joy, and we remained friends [after leaving K100.] Morgan was a different story. I remember once I had the winner of one of those big ‘secret sound’ type contests, where listeners were fed clues, etc. It had gone about a week, and the station had hoped to get the winner on Morgan’s show. A tip-off clue was scheduled to run on his show the following morning (excuse me ...’morgan’). But, as luck would have it, a contestant on my show, got the answer and won the big prize. Morgan was furious.

“K100 was never able to recapture the magic of KHJ. Lots of factors contributed. Different era, lousy signal, different competition, no Ron Jacobs.

“And although most of the same people were involved, it was not the same. I’m reminded of the talented actors and writers who gave us A Fish Called Wanda, arguably a classic. Then they tried to do it again and the result was Fierce Creatures. K100 was Fierce Creatures.

“With the exception of Billy Pearl, it was a very dull sounding station. One of the ["dawn of a new radio day"] promos you sent me said it all. Morgan is talking about all the ‘fun’ they’re all having, but his voice and the copy are so stiff that it completely belies what he’s claiming.

“There was nothing fun about K100. And the audience sensed it. KHJ was more than Steele, and Morgan, it was alive with a spirit and a freshness that was completely missing at K100.

“Sorry to seem so negative, and on a personal level, it was a thrill to finally be on the air in my home town, and to be hired by Bill Drake. But as a diehard fan of KHJ, it sure didn’t live up to expectations.”

Billboard magazine’s Claude Hall in 1975 told me his opinion of the Drake-Chenault efforts at K100: “It’s just never reached what I would have called the promise that a Drake should have had with it.”

Roger Christian, one the original KHJ “Boss jocks” was at K100 before the Drake-Chenault takeover and was among those let go in December 1973. He told me, “Because of the situation that had happened at RKO, it was kind of a vendetta I think just to show RKO that Drake could do it again.”

Irv Ivers, the original K100 general manager under Cosmic Communications, told me in 1973, “I think their priorities were all wrong...Between the time they were dumped out of KHJ and the time that they got to K100...the vendetta was beginning to grow and gnaw at them. And I think their priority at K100 was to approach it with a vengeance in order to seek some kind of revenge towards KHJ...Well obviously it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because the priority was wrong. They just tried to copy what was already in existence as opposed to trying to come up with something new and different.”

In the late 1980s, K100 was bought by Westwood One, which changed the call letters to KQLZ and the station was promoted on the air as “Pirate Radio.” Neither those call letters nor that imagery have lasted to today, however. The FM station at 100.3 MHz formerly known as K100 has had numerous formats and call letter changes over the years.

Money. It was really all about money. The end of the Drake-Chenault radio programming dominance begins immediately after the flow of money into RKO starts to drop.

In 1972, Bruce Johnson was selected as president of the radio side of RKO. As the new head of RKO’s chain of radio stations, Bruce Johnson’s prime responsibility was to keep the chain from losing ground to the emerging power of FM stations to attract and maintain loyal audiences.

Much like when television become a potential threat to AM radio in the 1950’s, it was now 20 years later, and FM posed an obvious financial threat to AM radio’s stronghold over the American radio audience.

To offset the loss of listeners to FM and to what was then called “progressive rock,” the RKO flagship station, KHJ, started changing its music format at least a year before Bruce Johnson was hired. Billboard magazine explained:

“The imitators would hardly recognize the new sound of KHJ today. Some of the programming foundation is still there—such as an image of being the station in town on which to hear oldies (called ‘goldens’ by the staff of KHJ), but even the goldens have been cut back drastically.”

And, as in the 1960’s, the other Drake-Chenault-consulted stations followed the lead of KHJ in order to “update the stations’ programming and be a little more a reflection of what’s being sold in the music market—albums as opposed to singles.”

The inclusion of album cuts on RKO stations, however, seemed to be what led to the chain-wise drop in ratings. Bruce Johnson was concerned about preventing further ratings slide. He described for me the situation he found:

“When I took the job I was told that the basic problem was the ratings of the RKO station which had all been dropping like a rock. They were down about 30% I guess, chain-wide.

The problem was, as a consultant, Bill Drake was not in a position to order changes, that the program directors had become very independent, that they were doing whatever they wanted to do and weren’t taking his advice. That was the reason things were falling apart…

“Their position was that they should be employees of the company: Drake and Chenault should be employees of the company. Their recommendation was they may be vice-presidents—Gene in charge of administration, and Bill in charge of programming. And we should also bring on the staff, Bill Watson as national program director and Bernie Torres as Bill Drake’s assistant…

“So that whole thing was presented to me and I said, ‘Okay, fine. If that’s the problem, let’s attack it that way.’” So it was that the Drake-Chenault team became employees of RKO Radio.

Bruce Johnson explained that one of the first things that Drake-Chenault urged RKO to start playing progressive rock in Los Angeles on FM by using the ill-fated “Stereo Rock” automated audio tape format:

“They [Drake-Chenault] wanted us to take the progressive rock format here at KRTH—it was then KHJ-FM. I didn’t want it. I don’t think Bill really wanted to do it, I think it was more Gene’s idea or somebody else’s idea. Bill was never hot about it...I didn’t feel, based on the type of service we had gotten in the past on oldies and hit music where we were waiting two and three months to get a reel of audio tape, I didn’t see how we could be competitive…

“I refused it and we decided to come up with something else which turned out to be the oldies rock format of the 1950’s and 1960’s which they called ‘Classic Gold’ and that was developed, I guess, in October 1972. It went on the air here in Los Angeles on KRTH and when it became such a tremendous success here, then it spread throughout the country.”

Out of a possible negative situation, something positive grew. The Drake-Chenault “Classic Gold” format became a proven hit. And, thanks to such a strong beginning with the format, KRTH in Los Angeles since the 1970’s has maintained a strong audience loyalty as a preeminent classic oldies station. On the AM side, KHJ finally faded away completely into memory in the late 1980’s when the station was sold and was turned into a Spanish-language station to serve LA.

The decline of Bill Drake’s and Gene Chenault’s clout at RKO Radio continued into early the 1970’s. Bruce Johnson was a strong management figure to which Drake and Chenault, as RKO employee, had to answer. Bruce Johnson explained what happened:

“When my regime came along, we would say, ‘Why? What factual data is there to support this thing that you want to do? Prove it to me that what you say is valid.’ And we would have arguments about that. ‘Who the hell are you to tell the ‘great man’ what he’s doing?’ I said, ‘I’m not trying to program the stations, I just want to know why we’re doing these things, and certainly these things are not going well. We keep losing, and I want to stem the tide.’”

Bruce Johnson told me that a key issue in the internal corporate friction between the Drake associates and himself was the fact that Drake and his associates were working for two companies, RKO and Drake-Chenault Enterprises:

“It didn’t matter in the beginning. It mattered to me later on when I felt that maybe too much time was being put in over there and not enough with us. I asked Bill at one time, I said, ‘Make a decision. It’s either us or it’s them. You know, if it’s going to be both, then it will be 50/50 and not 60/40 or whatever.’ That became a problem.

“We felt we were paying a great deal of money to then American Independent Radio, later, Drake-Chenault Enterprises. We thought we ought to have better service than we were getting. I got a little upset at times that some of the work that was being done by the music director was going to Fresno and other places, and we had a lot of discussions about that.”

The tensions grew until in 1973, Bruce Johnson canceled the RKO consultancy contract with Drake-Chenault. And so, after 8 years of setting in motion highly successful programming systems process on a nationwide chain of major market radio stations that generated a lot of revenue, on one day in Los Angeles, it was just all over. Shortly after that, Drake and Chenault and many of their team from RKO went over to K100.

After the Drake-Chenault team was ousted by RKO management from KHJ in 1973, for a dozen or so subsequent years, numerous consultants were brought in who kept changing both the sound and style of the station. In 1974, for example, superstars of rock and roll were invited on the air to do their own thing live on the air.

On September 20, 1974, the morning drive slot for one day only was held by John Lennon. His famous personality and wit are preserved in these rare recordings, where you also get to hear much of the late-1970s KHJ imagery and promos:

JOHN LENNON on KHJ part 1 (4:15) MP3, 1.95 MB
JOHN LENNON on KHJ part 2 (5:10) MP3, 2.37 MB
JOHN LENNON on KHJ part 3 (4:07) MP3, 1.80 MB

Emotions

As human beings, we need emotions.  But, sometimes, we let our emotions take over our lives.  I’m thinking about this because in March 2009 I was a recipient of group emails sent by various individuals whose goal was to engage in emotional discussions online about who was responsible for “The History of Rock and Roll” documentary that first aired on KHJ in 1969.  Over the years since 1975 when I first conducted primary research into KHJ, I wondered whether it served any reasonable purpose for me and others to engage in discussing KHJ and the past.  Logically, I thought that the past is the past and obviously the past never changes.  Of course, I was being too logical.  This has more to do with emotions than logical or reason.  People have an emotional need to keep remembering and talking about things in the past. 

This website of mine is an attempt to help promote a clear understanding about KHJ in the past and the people in the past who made KHJ the ratings success that it was.  You may work yourself up emotionally about what you read here.  But, the reality is that this website attempts to clarify once and for all what happened in the past at KHJ in Los Angeles without emotional strings attached.  Even so, I realize and accept that some people will continue to keep discussing their perceptions about what happened and work themselves up emotionally. 

Short Attention Spans

Because you are here today reading my website, you have a fighting chance to understand what made KHJ successful starting in 1965 when the Boss Radio format was launched.  Many answers to questions about who did what, and, who deserves credit are found right here on the pages of this site by way of the words of people who were there in person and saw what happened.  These website pages contain many decades worth of information and commentary from people who were involved in Boss Radio and KHJ and beyond Los Angeles from the middle of the 1960s onward.  Nowhere else will you find this degree and depth of collective wisdom about Boss Radio, KHJ, and the national radio programming efforts of Bill Drake and Gene Chenault.  If you are among those who have short attention spans, you likely will become overwhelmed.  However, those of you who actually take the time to read all that I have pulled together here for you at this website will be rewarded with sharing in the collective wisdom. 

  Let’s start by going back to the year 2007, when discussions about who deserved credit for KHJ in the 1960s heated up Don Barrett’s LARadio.com website to the point that Bill Drake wrote a very rare commentary that starts with an apology: I’m truly sorry that after all these years this response became necessary. This mess puts a cloud over some otherwise very fond memories. I find this very unpleasant. And sad. Let’s not try to rewrite history. Let it be. My God! That was over 40 years ago.

Drake (right), who died in 2008, was pictured at the 1990 Silver Anniversary of Boss Radio KHJ with his former business partner, Gene Chenault (center), and reknowned radio talent Casey Kasem. 

Impact of the “Drake” Brand Upon Others

After the success of KHJ in the 1960s, the so-called “Drake sound” expanded across America and into Canada. Several people who were involved in Boss Radio told me that the way the trade press and others started using the name “Drake” generically did not give proper credit to everyone involved in the creative process.

“Chenault’s point of view that night was that ‘Grant and Lee had been brought together on the same team.’ And of course, I’m going ‘Right on! Which one am I? ‘Grant or Lee?’ Drake’s rap to me that night was, ‘This is just the beginning. RKO’s got these other radio stations. After we do the job here in Los Angeles, Ron, well then, we’ll move on to other things. You’ll take the East Coast and I’ll take the West Coast.’ Or, vice versa—I forget which coast I was supposed to get.”—Ron Jacobs

Drake remembers that getting the contract to program the RKO Radio chain starting with KHJ was the beginning of the attainment of a goal which he and Gene Chenault had long held. They wanted to program several stations simultaneously. The reality is that their coming to Los Angeles to KHJ and creating Boss Radio was never intended as an exclusive LA deal:

“The reason I wanted to get into that in the first place was that I wanted to do a multiple-station thing. At the time we were doing Stockton, Fresno—those were the first two—and San Diego, there were three. Then with the advent of the L.A. thing, I had to drop Stockton, and there were still three. Just trying to put it together, whether it was a station like KFRC [San Francisco] or whether it had been some place else didn’t much matter to us.”

Bar Napkins Spawn Pop Culture Success

In the September 2004 K-Earth 101 interview broadcast in Los Angeles, Drake commented that the development of the radio format for Los Angeles happened as he and others wrote down “...a few things on some bar napkins...” at various places.

For his part, Drake was focused on the national expansion that was made possible by the work of the talented team at KHJ. “KFRC [San Francisco, California] was approximately a year after KHJ, sometime I’d say around the Summer of ‘66. I think that CKLW [Windsor, Ontario, Canada] and WRKO [Boston, Massachusetts] and WOR-FM [New York City] at the time, then WHBQ [Memphis, Tennessee] was six months to a year after that, I think. I forget the time. I don’t really know, but it was KHJ and then KFRC and then a little later the others.”

Drake further explained that he entrusted the programming management of KHJ to Jacobs because he believed in Ron Jacobs. But, there was more to the decision than that. Drake admitted that he, himself “being program director at KHJ was never the intent.”

When KFRC also succeeded in attracting a large audience as KHJ had done, Drake noted that some critics labeled the Drake-Chenault programming as purely a California phenomenon:

West Coast Radio Conquers North America

“They said at the time after Los Angeles and San Francisco, ‘Well, that’s West Coast Radio.’ You never know, so at that point we’d been approached by a guy from KAKC in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was good money and also it was a very interesting thing for us because I figured, ‘All right, if this is supposedly ‘West Coast Radio,’ Tulsa is the middle of the Bible Belt and home of Oral Roberts and all that stuff.’ So, we went into Tulsa and did it, and the same thing happened. We had actually tested [the format] there in the middle of Oklahoma before we did Detroit, Boston, New York, and all that.”

There is one infamous example of a major market where the format never had a chance. After the programming successes of the format in New York and Boston, efforts were begun in Washington, DC to replace a classical music format with the rock and roll format. Local protests against the intended format switch were so vocal that Washington, DC’s classical music format was preserved.

However, the execution of the Drake-Chenault format and imagery grew to be consistent from market to market. Newsweek observed, “The Drake sound is a deliberately bland, smoothly modulated mixture of pop favorites, and has been so successful in capturing mass audiences that, within the trade, its creator’s name is now used generically, like cellophane and aspirin.”

Drake, himself, told me that once the consultancy had grown to a nationwide scale in the RKO Radio stations and also at a handful of non-RKO Radio stations, the maintenance of the formats and sound involved the cooperation of a team of people, who followed directions on paper: “I think there were very few times where everybody was together at the same time. Generally it would be a thing of going into a market or one of the other guys going into each market. Or one or two of them individually coming out here. But as far as everybody actually sitting down in the same room at the same time, I don’t think it happened more than twice, if then. Even in those situations it was for that purpose. It might have been some RKO meeting or something like that...Of course it was also very highly designed on paper as far as what goes where and what’s done there and how it’s done and so on and so forth. It’s going to be pretty close anyhow if you’re getting anywhere near the proper execution of it.”

Drake characterized for me how he saw the group working together:  “You can, if you do it properly, get a lot of people sort of ‘thrashing things out’—a little different ideas and insights into things. That’s what we always tried to do was exchange a lot of information on all that between the stations. One thing would trigger something or another. The basic concept of the thing, the basic structure of all the stations was almost identical.”

Gene Chenault told me that he saw Bill Drake as the “architect” of the Drake-Chenault programming, and explained Drake’s low profile within the group efforts as intentional. Chenault stated that Drake could monitor the sound of consulted stations from the listener’s perspective—at the beach, driving in a car, at home—but away from the environment of the station itself.

But, how did people really feel about the use of the “Drake” brand name?

How People Felt

Ken DeVaney, who in 1965 was selected to be the general manager of KHJ when Boss Radio started, explained his opinion to me in 1975 about who contributed to the creation of the format, imagery, and sound besides Drake himself:

“I suppose it’s like any other organization. The more remote a figure becomes, the more there is a mystique...If I may use the Howard Hughes analogy: Power we understand he has because he controls the dollars; the mystique is a product of his absences. If he was a known quantity, that is to say, a guy who’s on the streets daily and making public statements. There is no mystique to President Ford or to Ronald Reagan principally because of that fact that they are very visible and we see their failings or the attributes daily—their good qualities and their bad. Well, Drake just wasn’t around.

“And it’s very easy once you have that kind of remote position from any given structure to have a mystique. As far as power was concerned, yeah, he had ‘life and death’ [hiring and firing power] over jocks. I felt some of his activities were not too healthy for the personnel—certain things he would do: his, seeming to me, unwillingness to allow credit, for example, to be accepted by the persons who had developed an idea, but arrogating this to himself.

“But, I’ve got to tell you: With Ron Jacobs and the staff that I had down there—and I’m not going to try to exaggerate my contributions at all; it was probably minimal—but that’s where the ideas were cooked and hatched and developed. And Drake wasn’t around.”

Given human nature, it would be unreasonable to expect that Ron Jacobs could be satisfied with the situation at KHJ, at least insofar as his not getting credit for doing what he did to make Boss Radio so successful. In the 1975 interview with me, Ron Jacobs told me that he met with Drake and Chenault at a Los Angeles restaurant called The Cock and Bull, “for dinner and drinks—which were referred to in the group as ‘winkiepoos.’ There was a lot of optimistic and euphoric talk about the incredible future that was ahead of us.”

“That’s the point where Chenault got carried away...Chenault was hoisting a winkiepoo and saying, ‘We have Grant and Lee together on the same team now, and we will toast the ratings gods, and beat everyone in Los Angeles...’ Chenault’s point of view that night was that Grant and Lee—or something equally preposterous—had been brought together on the same team.’ And of course, I’m going ‘Right on! Which one am I? Grant or Lee?’ Drake’s rap to me that night was, ‘This is just the beginning. RKO’s got these other radio stations. After we do the job here in Los Angeles, Ron, well then, we’ll move on to other things. You’ll take the East Coast and I’ll take the West Coast.’ Or, vice versa—I forget which coast I was supposed to get.”

Jacobs further elaborated to me: “I never felt myself as part of Drake-Chenault. I mean, I always feel I’m working for the people whose name appears on the paycheck. Drake-Chenault was, because of FCC requirements, at least technically not in the line management of the station. They were literally consultants. As they expanded, I had to pretty much restrain my emotions about their success on Xeroxing what myself and others had done at KHJ.

“So, I wasn’t spending a lot of time getting off on the fact that Drake-Chenault consultancy had elevated the RKO station in Boston from nothing to everything—except for whatever satisfaction you can get in knowing someone has taken your stuff and doing it at another station...It was important to me that the people that mattered knew and the people, more importantly, that I personally respected intellectually and hung out with knew… From then it got to be downhill. I was probably sublimating my bitterness about it and it resulted in my eventually splitting from there.

“If you were writing about McDonald’s, no matter what PR Ray Krock put out in his lifetime, you must remember that the whole deal was a creature of the McDonald’s brothers’ imagination. Krock cloned it, beyond, I’m sure, his wildest dreams. In this analogy, think of Drake and me as the brothers and Chenault as Krock. Is that metaphor subtle enough?”

Getting Screwed in the Aftermath of ‘The History of Rock and Roll’

Jacobs further clarified this for me: “Henry Ford’s name is on cars because he started that automobile company. But he didn’t invent the automobile.” When I asked him about Ken DeVaney and others had said to me, Jacobs responded: “Ken DeVaney very politely but pointedly stated the truth. I left KHJ when my contract ran out in June 1969 after, what I considered, getting screwed in the aftermath of ‘The History of Rock and Roll.’ There were a lot of broken promises.”

Drake has pointed to the many contributions of Ron Jacobs to the overall success of Boss Radio. Jacobs, himself, noted how Drake gave him credit in Claude Hall’s book.  But, clearly, the whole issue of who deserves credit will likely never been resolved to the complete satisfaction of everyone. Jacobs told me, “I can’t say that it didn’t bother me somewhat, but it felt more important that I got the job done and that the people in the business, as long as they knew who was doing what, okay--. Because inside the station everyone knew who was doing what and there was no question about that. And at the KHJ 25th anniversary in 1990, the guys with whom I got to number one with gave me a platinum CD presentation saying, ‘If Vince Lombardi comes back as a Program Director, he’d be Ron Jacobs.’ That meant a lot to me. I broke up on that one.”

Mark Denis, gave me some additional comments which clarifies the situation further:  “Every program director at the Drake stations—at least as far as I know—was basically in charge of his own ship. Promotions and contests either originated in the radio station itself...or else we’d work together with [national program director] Bill Watson or maybe one of the other program directors was doing a promotion or another one of the stations in the chain was. Or Ron Jacobs would have one at KHJ and so we’d do it that way.”

Roger Christian was involved in Boss Radio at KHJ as one of the “Boss jocks.” He later worked at K100 in Los Angeles preceding the Drake-Chenault consultancy there, and lost his job when the Drake team took over at K100. He gave me a “Drake-employee” perspective on Bill Drake and how employees were treated:  “He did hire some knowledgeable people—people who were very dedicated to him—who produced out of desire for recognition, out of fear, out of whatever...I think somewhere along the line if these people are not still with [Drake] whether he treated them right or whether he didn’t—obviously they went on their own.”

Ken DeVaney provided comments that went ever further: “I think Drake has managed—probably through the Machiavellian skills of Chenault—to arrogate to himself credit for a great many things he had absolutely nothing to do with because it was good for the Drake-Chenault company to present that kind of picture.”

This response prompted me to ask a follow-up question of Ken DeVaney: Did DeVaney think Chenault acted as the “image manipulator” at Drake-Chenault? DeVaney’s answer was direct:  “Oh God, yes. Oh, no question about it. He’s the guy with the skill to do and accomplish these kinds of things.”

Claude Hall, the Billboard magazine columnist, told me this about Drake: “He assembled a good staff. One of the smartest things he did was hiring Ron Jacobs because Ron Jacobs was a very, very hard working guy. He’s extremely bright...Drake may not be that bright, but the thing that Drake does: he thinks.  He just sits back and thinks a lot and his major role, I think, in RKO during his time as consultant, was a thinker—as a brain to figure things out...A lot of people think Drake invented the tight playlist, that he invented this and he invented that. He didn’t. But like a genius—and the role of a genius takes in many different facets—what he was able to do was synthesize. Einstein didn’t ‘invent’ E=mc2 he synthesized it. And this is what Drake did.”

Bill Gavin, the radio and music industry columnist, gave me his appraisal of Drake’s Los Angeles efforts with Boss Radio at KHJ: “When he came into Los Angeles, there’s no telling how his ideas would have worked out if he hadn’t had Ron Jacobs. I’ve always credited Ron with more than half of the credit for making Drake’s system work, and work so beautifully at KHJ. There’s no question about it. He had a great team and he motivated them. Drake didn’t have to do too much in the day-to-day and week-to-week operation except just sort of be a coach from the sideline. Jacobs was the captain, the big motivator, and he’s one the great guys in radio.”

Mark Denis told me something very similar, in the context of explaining the eventual decline in the popularity of Drake-Chenault radio:  “There was a tremendous respect for Bill Drake because he obviously had a successful record and so on. But, Bill Drake’s success was due, I think, in large part to the people he had working for him, Ron Jacobs, particularly...I think the reason for that [the decline in the popularity of Drake-Chenault radio] is the absence of Ron Jacobs...I really honestly believe that.”

Bill Gavin told me what he saw as the reason for the decline in popularity of Drake-Chenault radio. He said he believed that the nationwide Drake-Chenault radio programming grew to be “self-defeating to the extent that the tighter it becomes, the more sterile it becomes. The more you muzzle your jocks, the more you make them robots, the sooner you alienate any of your listeners with any sense of taste or maturity.”

Conclusions

Any writer of history should expect to get into disputes over “who deserves the credit” for a particular event, or, series of events that he is writing about. I wrote this website after I did primary research and did not base what I wrote for this website on my own subjective opinions. Nor did I attempt to spin what I wrote to curry favor with anyone because I don’t “owe” anyone in the radio business.

My conclusions, based on years of research and writing about the events surrounding rock and roll radio in America in the 1960s are these:

The name Bill Drake will be well remembered for decades in the radio industry (as will the names of Boss Jocks Morgan and Steele). Other peoples’ names associated with Boss Radio and KHJ—Chenault, Jacobs, DeVaney, Watson and the rest—may be less remembered. This may not be fair to those other people. Nor this does not mean that those other peoples’ names deserve to be forgotten.

We are aware how top motion picture directors’ names are remembered through the years, even while individual actors or technical personnel names from the movies fade from memory undeservedly. And so it must be accepted with radio industry names.

Does Bill Drake, single-handedly, deserve “all the credit” for Boss Radio? Of course not.

I do not wish to leave you with the impression that I credit “only” Bill Drake. Throughout his entire life, the simple fact is that Drake did not claim that kind of credit for himself. He was not the program director at KHJ. He was not one of the Boss Jocks on the air at KHJ. He was the one man, however, whose name widely became generically attributed to the radio programming style that was called Boss Radio. All that Bill Drake is credited with accomplishing at Boss Radio and later throughout the RKO Radio chain was made possible by the hard work of many people, whose names, over the years, may fade from memory undeservedly.

Boss Radio was launched as a business tactic to increase the ratings of KHJ and specifically help RKO General make a better return on its investment in the Los Angeles radio market. The corporation and the radio station each had four decades of history before the mid-1960s format change.

RKO started nearly a century ago. In 1925, Joseph P. Kennedy (the father of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy) purchased Film Booking Office (FBO) Studios in Hollywood. The elder Kennedy, who had a deep appreciation for the financial viability of motion picture entertainment, bought into other film companies so that FBO Studios ultimately included companies named Keith, Orpheum, and Pathe. Keith is the “K” and Orpheum is the “O” in RKO. Then, David Sarnoff, the founder and president of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the parent company of National Broadcasting Company (NBC), pooled his financial resources with Kennedy’s film interests, adding the “R.” The resulting merger created a company named RKO Radio Pictures.

The strongly positive reputation of RKO Radio Pictures was solidified with such classic films as the original King Kong in 1933, numerous Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, and most notably, Citizen Kane by Orson Welles in 1941. Billionaire aviator Howard Hughes bought controlling interest of RKO in 1948, then nearly destroyed the company with his eccentric approaches to the filmmaking business.

Desilu Productions, the pioneering television and movie company owned by the legendary husband-and-wife television comedy duo, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, purchased the RKO studio lot in Hollywood on Melrose Avenue in 1957, and later sold it to Paramount Pictures.

The motion picture side of the original RKO continued to exist in various corporate forms until 1989 when Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley purchased RKO Pictures.

The broadcasting side of RKO developed on both the east and west coasts. In 1943 the General Tire and Rubber Company entered broadcasting with its purchase of The Yankee Network, Incorporated and its stations, including WNAC-AM/FM/TV in Boston. The stations continued to operate under the Yankee Network banner. Then in 1950, the General Tire and Rubber purchased Thomas S. Lee Enterprises Incorporated, doing business as The Don Lee Network, Incorporated named after its founder, Cadillac dealer Don Lee (father of Thomas S. Lee), whose primary stations were KHJ-AM/FM/TV in Los Angeles.

In 1952, General Tire and Rubber purchased Bamberger Broadcasting Company, owner of WOR-AM/FM/TV in New York City and merged the stations into The Don Lee Network. After purchasing the former RKO Radio Pictures from Howard Hughes (minus the motion picture lot that went to Desilu), all of the stations that General Tire owned were merged into General Teleradio Incorporated. Two beneficiaries of the RKO motion picture library were channel 9 in New York, WOR-TV, and channel 9 in Los Angeles, KHJ-TV. General Tire merged its broadcasting and film operations into RKO Teleradio Pictures Incorporated, and ultimately changed the company name to RKO General Incorporated.

Bill Drake and Gene Chenault were programming consultants for the radio side of RKO General starting with Boss Radio at KHJ-AM in 1965. They expanded their programming onto the FM side with KHJ-FM in Los Angeles (later called KRTH or K-Earth 101) and ultimately programmed numerous FM and AM stations owned by RKO General across the United States (such as CKLW and WRKO) until 1973.

The End of RKO

Starting in the 1980s, based on charges that RKO General violated federal laws, the Federal Communications Commission forced the corporation to relinquish all of its radio and television broadcasting licenses and sell the station facilities to the new licensees at equipment value only. WNAC-TV channel 7 in Boston was the first station license of RKO General to be revoked. Channel 7 in Boston became WNEV-TV owned by New England Television on May 1, 1982. The name General Tire and Rubber Company was changed in 1984 to GenCorp, a major technology-based manufacturing company headquartered in Sacramento, California.

The RKO radio network was bought by United Stations, later known as Unistar. Corporate mergers followed and RKO/Unistar was bought by Infinity, ultimately part of CBS Radio, which, in turn, was bought by Viacom. RKO General’s KHJ-TV channel 9 in Los Angeles was the last station license to be pulled. Channel 9 in Los Angeles became KCAL-TV in 1990, originally owned by the Walt Disney company until 1995 when Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC and sold KCAL-TV to Young Broadcasting.

Today’s more convenient audio cassette tape technology had not yet been developed. But, there was available technology to play open reel audio tapes in a computerized system that diminished the need for a board operator to be on duty at the radio station. Toward the end of 1968, three RKO Radio FM stations, KHJ-FM, Los Angeles (which in the 1990s became KRTH 101); KFRC-FM, San Francisco (which changed call letters quite often, from its original calls to KFMS to KKEE and back again to KFRC-FM); and WROR, Boston (originally WRKO-FM) all switched formats to Drake-Chenault’s automated tape service called “Hit Parade ‘68.”

Drake told me that it was important to keep AM and FM programming separate for a very good financial reason:

“Initially what we did was started with sort of a middle-of-the-road type of thing not to really compete with ourselves. The next logical step was to make it more Top-40, or a combination of currents and oldies which was as far as a rock thing for specific markets. And from there we figured, ‘All right, you’ve got rock,’ and we wanted to do the oldies thing.”

One early Drake-Chenault format failed. Annie Van Bebber, one of the most singularly influential Drake-Chenault employees in their syndication wing, told me about the very unsolid emergence of the “Stereo Rock” syndicated format:

“Drake was never really into that kind of music. Basically, the whole format was put together by myself even through we had meetings with Bill. I don’t think Bill wanted that format. I think it was Chenault who did. Chenault started to run a little scared when he saw all these progressive rock stations popping up. He figured they’d better jump on the bandwagon. Drake at the time wasn’t into that at all, had no idea about the music.

“’Stereo Rock’ went on KPHD [in Fresno.] They changed KYNO-FM’s call letters to KPHD and at the time they had just bought KXOA [FM in Sacramento, California] with Mike and Willett Brown, so ‘Stereo Rock’ previewed on those two stations and one other station in Milwaukee, I think...So it went on the air and came right off. It was a good format. It’s just that Bill was never behind it, so it just didn’t last. They just sort of shelved it, tucked it away. It could have worked.”

Six other syndicated formats worked rather well for Drake-Chenault, in fact. By 1975--ten years after Boss Radio--Drake-Chenault radio had nearly 200 stations running automated radio programming in markets from small to large. The Drake-Chenault radio formats were “Hitparade,” “Solid Gold,” “Great American Country,” “Classic Gold,” “Super Soul,” and “XT-40.” Learn more at a website that preserves the history of Drake-Chenault syndicated radio programming on tape.

Annie Van Bebber put into perspective why the Drake-Chenault automated radio programming proved to be so successful:

“You have to remember at the time there was no competition for Drake-Chenault. I mean, I knew it was going to be successful. There was nothing around like it. There were no 24-hour music syndicated services that stations could buy. I thought it was a great thing for a small town to be able to pay $400 to buy the mastermind Drake’s format, put on the air and have these professional disk jockeys for the amount of money and cut their overhead at the stations like that.”

Clearly, Drake-Chenault had a central role in permanently establishing FM as the dominant radio medium for rock ‘n’ roll music. This crucial historical accomplishment often gets ignored because Drake-Chenault usually is remembered primarily for Boss Radio, which was strictly an AM radio thing.

Hear a demo of “Hitparade 68” (one of the earliest Drake-Chenault taped syndicated radio programming services) narrated by Bill Drake, himself.  This will give you a real taste of how KHJ-FM in Los Angeles and KRFC-FM in San Francisco sounded in the late 1960s: HITPARADE 68 DEMO (3:49) MP3, 3.5 MB

After The Real Don Steele reappeared on Los Angeles radio in the early 1970s on K100, Drake-Chenault produced the “The Real Don Steele Top 20/20” syndicated show for him.  Hear the lively and upbeat 1973 demo of STEELE TOP 20/20 (11:16) MP3, 10.3 MB

“The History of Rock and Roll” is famous for being the first rockumentary when it was originally produced for and broadcast on 93/KHJ in 1969 as a 48 hour program.  A decade later, Drake-Chenault crafted a derivative and updated 52-hour version that was distributed on tape on a syndicated basis to other radio stations.  The syndicated Drake-Chenault version should not be mistaken, however, with the first and original version from 1969 narrated by Robert W. Morgan.  You can listen to the opening couple of minutes from the Drake-Chenault syndicated version narrated by none other than Bill Drake, himself: HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL OPENING (2:29) MP3, 3.43 MB

You can explore more about Drake-Chenault syndicated radio programming on tape at the website DrakeChenault.org.

New York City’s WOR-FM, which is perhaps best remembered for a world-famous disc jockey, Murray “the K” Kaufman, became a focal point in the growth of FM as the dominant radio of rock and roll.. The station was a pioneer in presenting rock and roll in stereo on the radio on the FM dial.

Entertainment World, a trade publication of the entertainment media, in 1972 explained what happened at WOR-FM in a most concise fashion:

“Radio and music people literally laughed and daydreamed of Drake’s Waterloo when he entered the New York rock competition with his live AM format on an FM station. Among others, he was fighting WMCA and WABC, two extremely popular AM rock stations. In addition, there was, and is, the added factor that FM receivers are in a definite minority, which cut the listener potential before anyone even turned the transmitter on. In spite of the odds, when the latest [Pulse ratings] book came out, WOR-FM beat everyone in the market--FM and AM--except WABC. Although WABC was ahead by miles with 40’s while WOR-FM was No. 2 with 16’s, Drake sat is his office reading the Pulse book and chuckling, ‘An FM station with these kinds of numbers has never existed before,’ he said, ‘it’s just never been done.’”

Billboard magazine in 1967 publicly objected to the Drake-Chenault radio format change at WOR-FM which resulted in the ouster of Murray “the K.” But, in 1968, Claude Hall offered Drake an open letter of apology in the magazine:

“Not that I like any better what you’re doing, but it’s good radio...ratings are the name of the game and you’ve proven that the golden Drake touch can even work on FM.”

Just when it seemed as though Drake-Chenault radio would succeed on AM and FM regardless of the radio market, reality finally sunk in. Bill Gavin, the radio and music industry columnist, explained how Drake did not always succeed:

“In those days he was making spectacular successes wherever he went, until he went into Cincinnati at WUBE to try to consult that station. He made the mistake which he said he never would make: taking an inferior facility, a poor coverage system, and a poor signal. He was up against Pacific and Southern on WSAI and Drake got beaten. He pulled out of there in a year. So it was not a foolproof system at all because it required everything else that goes with a successful operation.”

A second failure occurred in 1972 in the Washington, DC radio market. RKO Radio’s WGMS AM and FM were classical music stations. RKO Radio wanted to allow for Drake-Chenault to change one of the stations to a rock ‘n’ roll format.

Advance word on the impending format change gave WGMS listeners time to prepare a protest against the RKO Radio plans. The company backed down and Drake-Chenault never got the chance to test their format out in the nation’s capitol.

Drake told me that failure was in how RKO Radio went public about the proposed format change:

“Well, I think the first mistake was having a cocktail party and announcing to everybody three to four months before it was supposed to happen...We weren’t talking about depriving the market of classical music at all. We were talking about putting the classical either on the FM or the AM, and using the other station. But, the thing is, there was eventually a lot of heat so RKO figured it couldn’t afford to go through all that.”

The choice of FM instead of AM as the preferred method for the transmission of rock ‘n’ roll radio formats changed both the world’s music and broadcasting industries starting in the late 1960s. Certainly, the Drake-Chenault success in New York City at WOR-FM was one factor in this trend. But, it was the Federal Communications Commission who pumped up the growth of FM. The FCC wanted to stimulate the growth of FM and changed the regulations to disallow owners of both AM and FM from simulcasting on both stations.

The FCC also mandated that all radios manufactured (over a baseline price level) had to be capable of receiving both AM and FM stations. This stimulated brand new markets for radio programming for FM stations, and Drake-Chenault jumped in quickly by developing a syndicated radio format.

A legendary date, May 9, 1990, marks a final celebration.  This was what was left of Boss Radio.  Don’t be sad for what we lost.  Be happy to remember what we had.

The opening night of the Radio and Records annual trade magazine convention at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Century City, California features a $93-per-person admission price to a reunion party. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The Johnny Mann Singers are performing the “93 KHJ” jingle live as Robert W. Morgan reaches the podium. A sense of anticipation and excitement flows through the audience.

You are in the presence of Bill Drake, Gene Chenault, The Real Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, and many other members of the radio and record industry in Los Angeles. Hal Blaine has a full drum set occupying a prominent position to the left of the podium. Johnny Mann, himself, leads his original Singers poised in readiness to the right of the podium. Few people have ever heard a live performance of a KHJ jingle before. So when Blaine, Mann, and the Singers jump into their work, you are helpless with awe.

The voice of Dick Clark booms down upon the crowd (on audio tape) and announces why this anniversary is being celebrated at all: No radio station before or since has had such a national impact, says the disembodied voice.

Casey Kasem appears in person, however, representing the historical Los Angeles radio opposition between KRLA and KHJ. He seizes the opportunity at the microphone to deliver a unique tribute by voicing the “93 KHJ” station identification—a phrase you never thought you’d hear him say at any microphone.

You listen to Bill Drake thanking everybody for their hard work in making Boss Radio KHJ as successful as it was, and watch in anticipation as Drake introduces his partner, Gene Chenault, who chooses to remain ever silent in the audience. The ones who say the least are clearly the most powerful ones in this room tonight.

Most of the talking is done by the others. You watch the original Boss Jocks, Robert W. Morgan, Gary Mack, The Real Don Steele, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle, Johnny Williams, and Frank Terry each take turns at the microphone. Once-secret anecdotes--and outright lies--about sex, booze, drugs, and rock and roll punctuate the memories. If you listen to these guys, there’s no way to learn what really happened 25 years ago. The Real Don Steele observes, “Twenty-five years later and we still can’t tell the truth!”

The rarity of their appearance together here in Century City tonight is really all that matters. Rarest and most special of all at this anniversary party is the appearance by a man named Clancy Imuslind. He does not look boss. He looks dignified, charismatic and spiritual.

It was Clancy Imuslind who coined the Boss Radio phrase as promotion director at KHJ radio in 1965, but here and now, Clancy Imuslind seems out of place, as if he belongs elsewhere—somewhere more important perhaps. He jokes about how, despite all the charitable work he has done, “...the one thing I’m remembered most for is Boss Radio.”

Rare Recordings: May 9, 1990

Several of the original people involved at KHJ in 1965 made remarks at this event. Here are some recordings so you can hear how they sounded that evening:

ROBERT W. MORGAN (1:46) MP3, 833 KB
CLANCY IMUSLIND (2:14) MP3, 1.03 MB
THE REAL DON STEELE (0:36) MP3, 287 KB
BILL DRAKE (3:56) MP3, 1.8 MB

The “free and easy” party atmosphere and the rounds of laughter conceal two unmistakable truths, however: The first is that the entire, original Boss Radio team is not really reunited here tonight. Robert W. Morgan makes a vague reference to the absence of original Boss Jock, Roger Christian, but never really explains why Roger Christian did not attend.

And that points to the second truth: To live the life of a Boss Jock was neither “free,” nor necessarily “easy.” Watch the celebrants at the 25th anniversary joke about drugs and alcohol, and you will see this truth worn on many aging faces.

Just over a year later, Roger Christian dies.

Next, lung cancer cuts short the lives of both The Real Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan less than ten years following the 25th anniversary of Boss Radio.

Thus ended an era.

On the occasion of the silver anniversary of Boss Radio in 1990, Ron Jacobs looked back at how it all began so many years before. He wrote about his memories to share with everyone:

Birth of Boss Radio

It couldn’t have happened if Glen Campbell’s manager’s wife’s father didn’t own a cabin at Lake Arrowhead in the early ‘60s. Eventually, those circumstances brought Bill Drake to Los Angeles as Program Consultant to RKO General’s floundering KHJ Radio. And yours truly as Program Director.

Historically, the place to start would be “The Battle of Fresno” which began in 1962. The town’s #1 station, pulling 60% shares in the C.E. Hooper ratings, was KYNO, operated by Gene Chenault. It was the only Top 40 station in the market. (In those days “CHR” meant “Career Home Runs.")

It All Started at a 5000-watt Radio Station in Fresno

I was Programming VP of a two station group which had bought KMAKe in Fresno. After setting up K/MEN in San Bernardino in March, 1962, I left it in the hands of PD Bill Watson, and headed for the “Agribusiness Capital of the World.” Frank Terry and I towed a U-Haul, full of mostly jazz LP’s, through the Tehachapi Mountains to a small, brick building on McKinley Avenue in Fresno.

Our target was KYNO and we threw everything at them. Terry’s Drum-A-Thon was the biggest thing in San Joaquin Valley radio history. KYNO relied on money giveaways. We did our thing, “Circus Radio,” which had made K-POI in Honolulu and K/MEN in “San Berdoo” #1.

Gene Chenault did not take this lying down. After a few short-term PDs, Chenault brought in a tall, soft-spoken Southerner working in Stockton. He was previously at KYA in San Francisco, until a new, diminutive owner arrived who couldn’t handle looking up at 6-foot-5-inch Bill Drake.

We fired our guns, and KYNO kept a’comin,’ now with Drake in command. KMAKe began with me in morning drive (my only airshift in ten years in California), Frank Terry middays and an Army veteran from KMBY, Monterey in the afternoon. He was so good he was moved to mornings within months. His name was Robert W. Morgan.

Drake had Gary Mack and Les Turpin with him, along with the late K.O. Bayley and others. And Gene Chenault’s checkbook.

KMAKe started a contest with a $1500 cash jackpot. Before I parked in my garage KYNO was on the air with a $2000 prize. KMAKe hid a “Golden Key” worth $2500—KYNO scattered duplicate keys all over town. We tailed Drake in unmarked cars with radiotelephones, trying to catch him doing funny stuff at motels at 3:00 a.m. (Never did.)

KMAKe launched a Bowl-A-Thon with 5-foot-6 inch Tom Maule, KYNO responded with their own, featuring the ominous 6-foot-3-inch Bayley. (KMAKe won that round with some schemes which would make “Tricky Dick” Nixon blush.)

“The Battle of Fresno.” It lasted two years. And, of course, there were no “Programming Guidelines” on how to handle the assassination of a President. Generally bummed, and with no company support, I threw in the towel and headed home for Honolulu in early 1964.

Pirate of the Pacific Rim

I wasted a year in Hong Kong working on a “pirate” station which never signed on. This was followed by a month in the Halawa Jail for possession of three milligrams (3/1000th of a gram) of “marihuana.”

24 hours out of the cooler, back in L.A. in early 1965, Morgan told me that the Drake-Chenault consultancy, formed after KYNO’s victory, had taken KGB to #1 in San Diego, a Top 40 merry-go-round city. And soon they would take on KHJ, Los Angeles, going for all the marbles. Morgan had signed on as morning man, since polishing his act in Sacramento and San Francisco. He touted a Hollywood native, who called himself The Real Don Steele, to Drake, who hired him for afternoon drive.

Morgan was at his manic best, screaming at me to “Call Drake! Call Drake! You gotta be the PD! Goddamnit, call Drake!” Now understand, 30 days in Halawa Jail wasn’t exactly a Super Bowl corporate bash. Low Esteem City.

Besides, Drake and I had never even met. We eyeballed each other once at the 1962 Fresno County Fair. KMAKe displayed “Sunny Jim” Price living in, and broadcasting from, a car hanging 85 feet over the fair grounds. KYNO offered a primitive Darth Vader-look-alike called “The Money Monster” handing out cash. (Advanced students will spot the genesis of “The Big Kahuna” here.)

“Call Drake!” kept ringing in my ears. I was broke, staying with my first wife and a Kowloon alley cat, out in San Bernardino with Bill Watson and his wife, Jodie, an angel. I called Drake. He didn’t hang up.

Winky Poos and the Future of Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio

Within 24 hours, I met Drake and Chenault for lunch at a La Cienega Boulevard restaurant. Our meeting ended and they told me to call Drake’s pad at 7:00 p.m.

I couldn’t handle the suspense. I phoned Morgan. “This was your big idea, now what do we do?” Morgan came down from his Laurel Canyon cottage, picked me up in his rumpled VW bug and we drove around L.A. in the rain, for hours, listening to KFWB and KRLA.

I repeated, “They won’t.” Morgan replied, “They will.”

Robert W. dropped me at a tall Sunset Boulevard apartment building. Inside I was greeted by Ken DeVaney, who I once met when he was a VP in the hot Crowell-Collier chain. He smiled big--and signaled thumbs up. Drake, Chenault and Turpin were there, along with DeVaney, drinking “Winky Poos.”

Chenault announced I was the new PD of KHJ. We celebrated at the erstwhile Cock & Bull restaurant. Chenault toasted Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs as “The two best damn radio programmers in America.” I was employed. Hooray for Hollywood!

Almost ten years later, Michael J. Brown, of Brown Broadcasting (KGB, KXOA, etc.) told me: The Rest of the Story. His dad, broadcast pioneer Willet H. Brown, had bought KGB in 1961. It was going nowhere. Mike Brown and his best buddy Roger Adams, Glen Campbell’s longtime manager, went skiing at Lake Arrowhead, above San Bernardino. Roger’s father-in-law had a cabin there.

Mike, always scanning his car radio, became fascinated with K/MEN. So, when the Browns wanted to make a change at KGB, Mike mentioned the zany “Inland Empire” station to his father, who asked him to check it out.

Mike Brown called the K/MEN office to contact whoever programmed the station. Sheila Brown, the secretary, was out to lunch. So was Bill Watson, the PD. The VP of Programming, yours truly, was in Fresno, fighting a ratings battle in mud and fog. So the K/MEN midday jock grabbed the ringing phone, in this blockhouse in a San Berdoo cow pasture, and blithely told Michael J. Brown that he, the jock, was the programming mastermind!

The deejay, who shall remain nameless (and who used the same first and last name, with an initial in between), was invited to lunch with the Browns at the defunct Luau in Beverly Hills. It took them about the length of a Shirelles record to realize this as a scam. And they were back where they started: KGB seeks PD.

Everyone in the business knew of Willet Brown. He co-founded the Mutual Broadcasting System; hung out with Howard Hughes; owned Hillcrest Motors, your Beverly Hills neighborhood Cadillac dealership; sailed a 93-foot yacht; kept his own Greyhound bus on standby and possessed the world’s largest collection of antique motorized popcorn machines.

Gene Chenault, who began as a radio actor, had been trying to reach the senior Brown about a new consultancy spawned by KYNO’s success. Meanwhile, while the K/MEN jock turned out to be a flake, Willet Brown decided to find out why Chenault was calling. They met. And Gene Chenault got what he wanted, a client: KGB Radio. Drake, along with Turpin, Maule and others, had the Browns on top in San Diego in 90 days, squashing KCBQ and KDEO. Bill Drake was riding in a long, black Cadillac Fleetwood sedan.

Thomas F O’Neil owned RKO General, Inc. Los Angeles radio was an embarrassment within the company’s broadcast division. WOR was a New York giant. WHBQ, Memphis, played Elvis Presley’s first record and was an established winner. The other stations were holding their own.

In 1965, O’Neil conferred with his confidant and associate, Willet Brown. He quickly learned of the KGB success story and asked if Brown thought Drake-Chenault could tackle The Bigtime, L.A., with their rock ‘n roll format. Yes, said the savvy 60-year old. And the rest is history.

Give Him A Shot

Just one other episode. When Morgan and I were riding in the rain, my fate hanging in the balance, Drake, Chenault and DeVaney were hung up on just one point. They were convinced Jacobs could do the job, but what about this “narcotics thing.” The man’s a convicted felon, just out of the Hawaiian slammer—Reefer Madness!

Drake looked at Chenault, Chenault at DeVaney (a lawyer), DeVaney said, “Call O’Neil.” Chenault telephoned headquarters. O’Neil said, “Let me think about it.”

Thomas F O’Neil picked up his phone and called Beverly Hills. Hillcrest Motors had a separate building, fronting Wilshire Boulevard, called “The White House.” It was Willet H. Brown’s working office. (He also had the largest office in the KHJ building, the one with the shower, but he never came around.)

The two tycoons shot the breeze, or whatever tycoons shoot, and finally, O’Neil asked Brown about, “This Jacobs kid. The marijuana business.” Willet H. Brown said, “The guy can program your radio station, that’s all that really matters. I say, give ‘em a shot.”

Understand, I never knew many of these facts until 10 years later when Mike Brown told me about skiing in Arrowhead—the fake PD shtick—the phone call to his dad. Had any of that not happened, I would have never walked into KHJ in April of 1965, to join Betty Breneman, Clancy Imislund (the originator of the phrase “Boss Radio"), Eddie Dela Pina, Bill Mouzis, Art Kevin and others who were already there and believed in us: The cocky newcomers who told anyone who would listen, “We’re gonna be #1!”

Five months later, we were.

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For WHB, in appreciation. May 9, 1990. Copyright © 1990, Ron Jacobs. All Rights Reserved.  Originally published at the Boss Radio 25th Anniversary. Reprinted here at BossRadioForever.com with permission given in 1997 by Ron Jacobs.

1931 KHJ (2:00) MP3, 1.84 MB

KHJ Two Minute History: Radio station KHJ at 930 on the AM dial in Los Angeles has been broadcasting since 1922. Using recordings provided for use on this site, I produced a history of the sounds of KHJ for people with short attention spans. You know who you are.

In this Two Minute KHJ History audio retrospective, you’ll travel very quickly from the earliest days as a Don Lee station to Bill Drake to the rhythm of Southern California to the country music format and finally to the Spanish language programming and the return in the year 2000 to the original KHJ call letters:

TWO MINUTE KHJ HISTORY (2:00) MP3, 947 KB

Listen to one of the earliest Boss Radio promos featuring lyrics written by Ron Jacobs, and music and singing by The Beach Boys (adapted from the hit, “Little Duece Coupe") with Boss Jocks Robert W. Morgan, Roger Christian, The Real Don Steele and others. This demonstrates vividly that some White guys can’t rap:

THE NEW KHJ PROMO, 1965 (1:40) MP3, 786 KB

Other promos successfully linked 93/KHJ with highly popular television shows at that time like Star Trek and Batman.

1966 STAR TREK PROMO (1:02) MP3, 491 KB
1966 BATMAN PROMO (1:15) MP3, 587 KB

The catchy productions that became known as Drake jingles were very popular with listeners and radio industry people. Here you can play back recordings of selected jingles and listen to them over and over.

The audio imagery on KHJ in the mid-1960s was very unique because it went against the traditions at the time. Long singing jingles and music beds (sometimes as long as commercials) were “normal” in those days. The Boss Radio format brought to Los Angeles in 1965 a very different sound--much shorter audio imagery and catchy, unforgettable melodies. Listen to these two “Motown-style” jingle melodies without any voiceover:

MOTOWN-STYLE MUSIC BED (:44) MP3, 688 KB

The audio imagery on KHJ is especially memorable even after decades have passed. This imagery included not only radio jingles, but also on-air promotional announcements known as promos, which relied upon a few well-chosen words and slogans that were repeated frequently.

Bill Drake, himself, voiced what become one of the most famous components of the Boss Radio KHJ. He could be heard saying, “And NOW, ladies and gentlemen..."—with a deliberate emphasis on the word “now"—leading into a singing jingle featuring the name of the on-air personality, like this:

Drake: “And NOW, ladies and gentlemen. The Real Don Steele...”

Jingle singers: “KHJ, Los Angeles.”

Listen to that here: DRAKE VOICEOVER: STEELE (:08) MP3, 102 KB

Here is a collection of the most memorable jingles heard on 93/KHJ:

KHJ JINGLE PACKAGE (5:38) MP3, 5.17 MB

Listen to a collection of Drake voiceovers, including a rare bonus track:

DRAKE VOICEOVERS (:54) MP3, 638 KB

After the success of the audio imagery on KHJ--especially the jingles--all the other radio stations that Bill Drake and Gene Chenault consulted started using what became known as “Drake Jingles.” The melodies of the acapella jingles are nearly identical whether they were played in Boston, San Francisco, New York City, Tulsa, Memphis and everywhere else.

ACAPELLA DRAKE JINGLES (0:41) MP3,656 KB

Although the Boss Radio format started on AM radio, FM radio in stereo started to emerge in the late 1960s, so stereo versions of the audio imagery were produced. Here are jingles, music beds and news theme from WOR-FM, New York.

STEREO WOR-FM IMAGERY (3:50) MP3, 3.53 MB

A Brief Jingle History in LA: “I remember when we were
going to do the jingles for KHJ, I first contacted Chuck Blore
who had been at KFWB. Well, he contacted us and wanted
to do the jingles. He had a production company that did
jingles and that sort of stuff. All I wanted was frequency, call
letters and maybe the jock’s name, and that’s it.” But Blore
warned,”’...it will never work in Los Angeles.’ So, we called
Johnny Mann and got five or six singers together, and went
down to the RCA studios and did it ourselves.” --Bill Drake

The Real Don Steele Sign-Offs: If I had to select only one most distinctive aspect of Boss Radio, it certainly would be the Friday afternoon sign-offs by The Real Don Steele. Never before had such a unique radio sign-off been done. Steele would shout his relevant rhymes in the “Neon Fun Jungle that is Los Angeles,” and assure us that “Tina Delgado is alive, alive!” Hear many frenetic audio recordings on reelradio.com since mere words on a screen cannot accurately describe how he sounded.

“You Can’t Sit Down” by the Phil Upchurch Combo (1961) was the song used by The Real Don Steele as his music bed.  Or, at least he used two minutes of it. When Steele arrived at K100, he naturally wanted a stereo music bed since he was now on FM and in stereo. Under his direction and guidance, I worked with him in the K100 production room in 1973 and did physical edits (the old-fashioned way using a razor blade and white splicing tape!) to blend both sides of the 45 rpm stereo single into a remix that matched exactly the original KHJ version he had used for many years.

Steele Sign-Off Music Bed (3:15) MP3, 2.24 MB

The U.S. music industry—what Joni Mitchell named “the star-maker machinery”—has for decades relied upon radio programming to present musical entertainment to Americans. Knowing what went on in the U.S. over the decades following the introduction of rock and roll music programming will help clarify the powerful interaction between current events, popular culture, and radio programming. What happened to the programmers of Boss Radio in Los Angeles is also tracked here:

1940s

American radio programming up through the late 1940’s and into the early 1950’s was built out of blocks. Radio stations would broadcast block segments of drama, mystery, soap opera, news, and music, both live and recorded. That so-called “block programming” stands in stark contrast to what emerged around 1950 and become known as “formula radio programming.”

The actual birth date of rock and roll radio is disputed. We can be fairly certain, however, that in the United States popular music took a giant evolutionary step as rhythm and blues mixed with country music and recording artists like Elvis Presley become the first rock and roll stars. In 1949 in Omaha, Nebraska, a crossroads event occured in the pop culture phenomenon known as rock and roll radio.

What we know is that 1949 was the year Todd Storz founded his company in Omaha. However, whether the first radio programming to be known as “Top 40” happened in Omaha is debated even today. It is true that Todd Storz, while visiting an Omaha bar, noticed that jukebox selections would repeatedly be selected again and again. Deciding that since most jukeboxes of that time accommodated 40 single-play records, Storz instituted “Top 40 radio.”

1950s

History also records that the format appeared in New Orleans in 1953 on WTIX. And while Storz may be widely credited with being “the father of Top 40 radio,” Gordon McLendon’s chain of radio stations in the early 1950s became nationally prominent because of using a formulated mixture of music, news, and spirited station promotion. In 1953 McLendon’s Dallas, Texas flagship station, KLIF-AM, became the highest rated metropolitan radio station in the United States through the use of McLendon’s radio format.

All programming formats since the 1950’s owe a great deal to McLendon. He not only pushed the envelope of formula radio, he went on to pioneer all-news radio, which was the essential first step toward Ted Turner’s all-news television, CNN.

Ironically, why McLendon and others of the 1950’s had to pioneer at all is because of television. When radio broadcasters noticed their listeners forsaking radio dramas, big band shows, and so forth, for television programming, there came about an almost immediate sense of urgency to do something to save radio. The radio broadcasters of that time could not sit idly by and watch their vast financial investments be challenged by the emerging medium of television. Thus the 1950s and 1960s saw the growth of rock and roll radio.

At this same time, gigantic cultural influences followed the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and the founding of the McDonald’s Corporation. The space age changed how people in the United States saw themselves and this planet. In 1957 when the Russians launched the first unmanned satellite, the cultural shockwave was felt around the world. So in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded to guide the United States in the race against the Russians to explore the moon and space.

1960s

The youthful John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected 35th president of the United States in 1960 demonstrating a new way of thinking: It was possible for young people to have dreams to grow up and lead the world. The rock and roll radio efforts that Drake-Chenault led in California in the early 1960s happened in this exact social context--a time during which people believed that almost anything could be accomplished if you only set your sights high enough. If nothing else is true, the people responsible for the rock and roll sound on Boss Radio in Los Angeles were young and visionary.

Meanwhile, the presidency of JFK--described as “Camelot” with an exaggerated legendary, fabled air--got into trouble. A botched invasion of Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs showed a surprising vulnerability of the U.S. military. But in 1962, however, JFK demonstrated extreme presidential machismo by ordering a military blockade of Cuba even while the action skirted the very edge of world war.

In August 1963 the civil rights movement in the U.S. achieved a new momentum when the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington, DC. Four months later, JFK was shot dead while riding in an open car motorcade on the streets of Dallas, Texas. Rock and roll radio in those days had a difficult time trying to put this shocking event into perspective amid the emphasis on musical entertainment.

Beginning in late 1963, the nation’s sensibilities were suddenly shifted. JFK was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beneath an eternal flame. Lyndon Baines Johnson became president and ultimately signed into law the Civil Rights Act that JFK had championed.

In a major cultural shift, the American rock and roll music scene was jolted in 1964 as The Beatles arrived, forever altering how both radio/television broadcasting and the recorded music industry handles rock and roll.

That same year, an African-American man from Kentucky who took the Islamic name of Muhammad Ali became the World Heavyweight Champion. The usually controversial Ali proved to be one of the greatest American athletes of the 20th century. In so doing, he drew attention to the Black Muslims in the United States. In early 1965, Malcom X, an African-American Islamic leader who announced his belief that there could be brotherhood between black and white, was assassinated in New York City.

And there was warfare. Washington, DC in early 1965 saw the first major rally to protest the U.S. military efforts in Southeast Asia, which was becoming the most significant aspect of the Lyndon Johnson presidency.

“Boss Radio,” a slang term that some felt had already fallen out of vogue in 1965, was chosen for the Los Angeles radio format that premiered on KHJ in May of that year. Simultaneously that spring, intense pressures created by racial prejudice continued to build in Los Angeles.

The concept of a black radio personality entertaining listeners of all races had not yet arrived back then. Boss Radio regularly played hit music of black entertainers. The very first song played on KHJ when Boss Radio launched was “Dancing in the Streets” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. This, and other, popular Motown hits were often played on 93/KHJ. But otherwise, Boss Radio essentially was all-white, and except for behind-the-scenes music and administrative people, was all-male.

As KHJ grew in popularity in Southern California during the summer of 1965, racial tensions heated up until early August of that year when an white police officer arrested a black man for drunk driving, sparking six days of rioting in the Watts section of Los Angeles.

A conservative shift in California politics immediately followed the LA riots. A most notable impact was conservative Republican Ronald Reagan’s rise in popularity at this time. Reagan blamed the riots on the incumbent governor, liberal Democrat Edmond G. “Pat” Brown (the father of Jerry Brown). Ronald Reagan unseated Pat Brown to became the governor of California--an essential stepping stone to his two terms as President of the United States, 1981-1989.

The year 1966 saw the establishment of the Black Panther Party. Ever larger protests were mounted against the federal policy of drafting young men into U.S. military service in Southeast Asia. And just when it seemed that the nation would implode from prejudice and protests, in 1966 the original Star Trek seried premiered with its sci-fi stories about the value of diversity. The series was filmed in Hollywood at Desilu studios (now Paramount Pictures) on Melrose Avenue next door to KHJ.

In June 1967, The Beatles released 40 minutes of music that changed radio and records forever. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band set very high standards against which all rock and roll performers will be measured. It was the first time anyone had deliberately put songs together in a particular order on one album with little or no spaces between tracks to create a unified listener experience.

Rock and roll AM radio stations at the time mainly played many different songs each hour-none of which lasted more than about three and one-half minutes. The then-new FM radio with stereo sound and no static embraced a less structured format that allowed longer songs, so the Sgt. Pepper album was aired mainly on FM stations. This was the beginning of the end of AM radio’s dominance in rock and roll radio.

Also significant was the psychedelic nature of Sgt. Pepper precisely at at time when the recreational use of drugs was rippling through U.S. culture. Timothy Leary, a psychology professor at Harvard, became the outspoken advocate of mind-altering drugs like LSD and others. The popular music of the time reflected the undercurrent of recreational drug use. Boss Radio KHJ and other RKO radio stations in those days regularly played songs by artists like The Beatles, The Doors, The Rolling Stones and others who did not complete conceal the influences of recreational drug use upon their art.

During this era, it may have seemed as though U.S. culture was trending toward more tolerance of violence. The manner in which violence appeared in society and culture changed rapidly as major motion pictures from this time period such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch radically shifted the public’s sensibilities regarding blood and death as portrayed on the silver screen.

But, blood wasn’t just in the movies. During the late 1960s violence was, indeed, increasing in real life. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis in April 1968. Riots erupted immediately in Washington, DC and other major U.S. cities. Because of social unrest in the United States created on two fronts-by racial tensions and also by protests against the war in Southeast Asia-in early 1968, President Lyndon Johnson shocked the nation by announcing he would not run again.

New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy--brother of the late president John F. Kennedy--emerged as the apparent frontrunner for the presidency in 1968. But, just minutes after RFK made his victory speech in the California presidential primary, he was shot and died the next day. KHJ staff members were deeply affected by the assassination for several reasons, but among them, the Los Angeles campaign headquarters for RFK was across the street from the KHJ studios.

A few weeks later, riots disrupted the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in full view of continuous, live network television coverage. In November of that year, Richard M. Nixon, pledging to bring order to a troubled nation, was elected the 37th president. He took office in 1969. It proved to be a complex year during which gay rights made it onto the national radar screen following the Stonewall Bar riot in New York City; the United States finally beat the Russians by being first to succeed at a manned landing on the moon; and a frustrated would-be rock star named Charles Manson perpetrated a grizzly mass murder in Los Angeles.

As Star Trek said would happen, human exploration of space exploration becomes a reality. In July 1969, the United States of America wins the space race with the Russians by successfully completing the first human mission to the moon and back to our planet.

1970s

When the new decade began, protests against the U.S. military efforts in Southeast Asia intensified. A riot near the University of California at Santa Barbara destroyed a branch of Bank of America, and in Ohio, four students attending Kent State University were shot dead by national guard troops during an anti-war protest. It began to seem that the war in Southeast Asia would bring down Richard Nixon as it had Lyndon Johnson.

Instead, a break-in at the Watergate complex along the Potomac River in Washington, DC led to the decline of the Nixon presidency. He ran for re-election in 1972 and won, but resigned the presidency to avoid being impeached in 1973.

Throughout these eventful years, the Drake-Chenault programming evolved from KHJ in Los Angeles and Boss Radio (a name that ultimately appeared on other radio stations) to a national syndicated radio programming effort using reels of recorded tape. The invention of the digital compact disc--the CD--like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band before, would revolutionize the radio and record business once again. Eventually, radio stations would switch entirely to playing music on CD and the era of vinyl disks on the radio was almost entirely over.

As a reward for how well KHJ performed in the Los Angeles ratings, RKO General signed the Drake-Chenault team to program AM stations in San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, Memphis, and WOR-FM in New York City with derivations of the Boss Radio format. Drake and Chenault expanded their reach outside of the RKO chain of stations. A national radio programming syndication company was formed (eventually named Drake-Chenault Enterprises) to provide FM stations with high-quality programming using prerecorded audio tape programs. In so doing, Drake-Chenault Enterprises played a central role in permanently establishing FM as the dominant radio medium for rock and roll music in the U.S., edging out AM.

But, RKO General was not happy to watch Drake-Chenault Enterprises grow while the ratings of RKO stations begins to drop. So, in 1973 RKO ended its contract with the Drake-Chenault team. After six months waiting out the noncompete clause in their RKO contract, Drake and Chenault begin a five-year contract progamming FM station K100 in Hollywood with yet another derivation of their famous format. The Drake-Chenault programming failed to turn K100 into a ratings success. Various other formats were attempted, including semi- and fully-automated varieties from companies such as Transtar.

1980s

Ronald Reagan was president of the U.S. for most of the decade. Ownership restrictions of radio and television stations continued to weaken at the Federal Communications Commission. K100 is ultimately purchased by Westwood One and the station became KQLZ, “Pirate Radio.” In 1989 Jones Intercable entered into a partnership with what was called Drake-Chenault Radio Consultants to create Jones Radio Networks. One of the biggest changes in popular culture came in the 1980s when video killed the radio star: Music programming on the radio received a formidable challenge with the advent of music videos shown nationally on MTV.

1990s

The 25th anniversary of Boss Radio KHJ in 1990 was the very last time that the radio pioneers and their entire team celebrated a reunion together. The Drake-Chenault taped syndicated radio programming business was sold by Jones in 1991 to Broadcast Programming in Seattle. At that same time, Jones boughts out the remaining interest Drake-Chenault had in Jones Radio Networks and the famous hyphenated brand name Drake-Chenault was no more. The FCC rules on station ownership are changed in the late 1990s during the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton. Some credit or blame the Republican-controlled Congress of the United States for sweeping changes in ownership that result in concentrating most U.S. radio stations under the control of a few huge corporations like ClearChannel. The late 1990s also were a time when hip hop grew from a strictly New York City neighborhoods cultural phenomenon of the 1970s to a cultural force that swept across the entire U.S. Just like rock and roll music in the 1950s and 1960s had done, hip hop in 1990s forcefully and similarly changed the U.S. music entertainment industry and radio programming as well. At roughly the same time, the Internet emerged as a potentially revolutionary new communications technology.

2000s

The first decade of the 21st century has proven to be a time of tumultuous change in the U.S. that is similar in its cultural impact to the time period of the late 1960s. War in Southeast Asia was the political focal point of the late 1960s. War in Iraq in the 2000s holds a similarly powerful significance upon life and culture in the U.S. The cultural ripple effect of the terrorist attacks upon U.S. soil in 2001 has included outspoken protests by entertainment and music industry celebrities to the subsequent warfare in, and military occupation of, Iraq by the U.S.

As in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the U.S. military endeavors in Southeast Asia prompted movies and music that presented opinions about political and military events, the early 21st century war in Iraq has led to equivalent popular culture expressions. There were antiwar protest songs showing up on the Billboard music charts during the U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, mainly in the form of rock and roll as well as folk music. In the 2000s, however, Billboard charted music that offers commentary about the U.S. military involvement in Iraq has expanded to include country and hip hop.

At this same time, the Internet has grown in popularity in the U.S. and around the world. This enabled rapid and hugely influential changes in technology such as downloadable music that is playable on cellular telephones. The methods of transmitting popular culture in the U.S. and around the world keeps changing. Once viable retail sales of popular music on CD now faces serious financial challenges in the U.S. Hip hop on the radio and in downloadable forms is enjoying a tremendous financial growth that is eclipsing the pop culture power of rock and roll on the radio. The British invasion of U.S. popular culture in the 1960s was accomplished by rock and roll artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who relied upon radio programming in the U.S. to drive the sales of their music.

In the 2000s, a second British invasion of U.S. popular culture began. Simon Cowell and other producers from the U.K. have overwhelmingly addicted U.S. audiences to American Idol, a star-maker vehicle using prime-time television programming such as American Idol to generate significant revenue from the sales of recorded music.

In those long-ago days before anyone envisioned opiods like Vicodin and benzodiazapines like Xanax and Vallium, there were winkiepoos and nicotine. A restaurant and cocktail lounge named Martoni’s was a favored Hollywood venue for Drake and company.

The use of alcohol and cigarettes was commonplace in those days, and it was very easy in the 1960s to find photographs of Drake and others holding a cocktail.  Such would not happen in the present day due to changed sensibilities.

Among the Drake inner circle at that time alcoholic beverages were affectionately called “winkiepoos.” The use of alcohol was not only a fact of life, it was a source of humor and camraderie.

At the 25th Anniversary of Boss Radio in 1990, for instance, you can hear reunited KHJ employees making joking references to Martoni’s, to “winkiepoos,” and to being ejected by the bartender. In response, the audience laughed and applauded.

The long-term consequences of such basic and readily-available chemicals to soothe the pressures of professional life did not have the public awareness that we do today. The risks of daily use of tobacco and its promotion of lung cancer, ultimately what claimed the lives of Bill Drake and Boss Jocks Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele, were not yet on anyone’s radar screen.

On May 5, 1965, a rock and roll music format called Boss Radio was launched on KHJ because the owners needed to reverse the AM station’s money-losing ways.

You can tell right away by the three call letters that KHJ was an old station. Started in 1922 before the FCC switched to requiring AM radio stations to have four call letters instead of just three, KHJ genuinely was one of the oldest AM stations in Los Angeles.

But, you have to think that the KHJ owners at some point must have asked themselves:  Does a station need to sound old-fashioned because it’s old?

Prior to the 1960s, KHJ did not play rock and roll music.  But, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the AM stations of the day that did play rock and roll often sounded as though they were programmed by the person who happened to be on the air at the time.  Some stations chose to use playlists of the 40 most popular songs.  Others placed no such limits on the number of songs played.  Typically, the person on the air not only could pick the music they played, but they also enjoyed the freedom to talk as much as they wanted.  Fully one third of the hour could be taken up by commercials on those stations.  Music jingles on those stations often ran as long as one full minute and were embellished with lyrics that promoted the station, it’s city, the person on the air, the weather, and what not.

The Boss Radio format offered a modern sound as an alternative on KHJ:  Only the top-selling 30 rock and roll hits made it on the air.  The format allowed on-air talent only to talk over the musical introduction of the songs (prior to when the vocal starts).  The musical jingles lasted only a few seconds and got quickly to the point before transitioning immediately back to another hit song.  Instead of 18 minutes of commercials in any given hour, KHJ cut that down to around 12 minutes maximum literally making room for much more music.

This emphasis on a tight playlist of 30 hits, less announcer talk, fewer commercials, and short jingles that led back to more hit songs may not seem revolutionary now, but it certainly was in 1965.  Or something similar.  Boss Radio turned KHJ from a money loser to the number one station in Los Angeles in only a few months.  The Boss Radio format then quickly spread to other California cities and eventually across the United States and into Canada.

Are there secrets behind these business successes in the radio broadcasting industry?

Yes! First and foremost, the rock and roll music of that time created a pop culture sensation that implicitly invited a buy-in from the listeners.

Rock and roll music was never meant to be enjoyed passively.  Quite the opposite is true.  Rock and roll always has been designed to attract the active participation of its listeners.

The “secret” behind the rapid success of Boss Radio is clear:  Rock and roll music was only about a decade old.  So, it was fresh and new.  Rock and roll music in the 1960s brought its listeners together into a literal community that embraced its freshness, its influence, and its various messages about life. A radio documentary called “The History of Rock and Roll” was conceived by Bill Drake and produced and directed by Ron Jacobs for broadcast on KHJ in 1969.  The documentary was updated over the years to keep pace with the fast-growing rock and roll music industry.  The significance of rock and roll was explained simply and directly in the 1980 edition of “The History of Rock and Roll” like this:

Unlike any music that came before, rock and roll has had a profound impact upon nearly every aspect of our lives, our feelings, and our opinions.  It reflects our deepest beliefs and concerns--from styles and hair and fashion; to language; to political and religious attitudes; to social and personal morals.  Rock and roll has discussed and influenced it all.

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