Jacobs and Drake On The Record
AUDIO • BUSINESS • PEOPLE • TECHNOLOGY
Boss Radio: Revealed at Last
Ron Jacobs & Bill Drake
June 19-20, 1999
In 1999, Ron Jacobs was on the mainland to visit his daughter, Miki’ala Jacobs DeVivio, and was preparing to return to Hawaii. While in Los Angeles, Jacobs met face to face with Bill Drake and together they recorded an unusual free-wheeling, candid exploration of their lives in the rock and roll radio business. In his introduction of the 1999 interview written by Jacobs for this website, he named this historic meeting, “The Candy Canyon Confab.” 
And now, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs….
RON JACOBS: So, it’s 1999, and do you want to tell us about where we are?
BILL DRAKE: This is the world famous Candy Canyon. And this is Ron Jacobs and Bill Drake.
RON JACOBS: And is this Topanga?
BILL DRAKE: It’s Woodland Hills on Topanga Canyon Blvd.
That “Radio Name”
RON JACOBS: You were born Phillip Yarbrough, so how did you get that radio name?
BILL DRAKE: Oh, it wasn’t my idea. You have to realize at that time—back in the late 1950s—companies would go in and buy radio stations. They all would copy one another. But the stations weren’t paying anybody any money. So a guy would go into a market and if he was good, somebody from across the street at another station would offer him more money and hire him. Bartell Broadcasting Company figured a smooth way around this. They assigned everybody a different name and Bartell then owned the name.
RON JACOBS: The company.
BILL DRAKE: Yeah. So the station I went to work for was WAKE in Atlanta.
RON JACOBS: Which was a big station.
BILL DRAKE: Well, a 250-watt radio station. It was the biggest 250 watt station that I ever saw. We wound up with a 42 share [in the local radio station ratings]. They were going to name me Blake. They wanted something that rhymed with WAKE. So I said how about Drake? That was my mother’s side of the family. Drake.
RON JACOBS: So the whole thing about San Francisco and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and all that, is bullshit.
BILL DRAKE: What was that?
RON JACOBS: People say that you got to San Francisco after Atlanta and you changed your name to Drake when you get there. Because of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. That’s bullshit, right?
BILL DRAKE: I’ve seen that published. A lot of people talking about that–talking about how it actually happened. But, no, I was Drake in Atlanta from 1958 and then went to San Francisco in 1961.
Georgia Roots
RON JACOBS: So, you grew up in Donalsonville in a corner of the state of Georgia.
BILL DRAKE: I was born January 14th, 1937. In Waycross, Georgia.
RON JACOBS: Not Donalsonville.
BILL DRAKE: No. Waycross. Right at the edge of the Okeefenokee Swamp. Don’t you know about Waycross? (Laughs).
RON JACOBS: All the published stuff says that you’re from Donalsonville.
BILL DRAKE: Well, that’s where I grew up. I mean, I was born in Waycross, and my parents moved from there to Donalsonville when I was like a year old.
RON JACOBS: How far is Waycross from Donalsonville?
BILL DRAKE: A hundred miles. A hundred twenty miles.
RON JACOBS: Waycross is more well known, right?
BILL DRAKE: Well, yeah, anything is more well known than Donalsonville. Waycross is almost on the coast. The Atlantic coast. Like a little north of Jacksonville, Florida. ‘‘Cause Jacksonville, Florida is in the northeast corner of Florida and then you got that Okeefenokee Swamp and then you got Waycross, Georgia.
RON JACOBS: So you’re born 1937 in Waycross and why were your parents there do you think?
BILL DRAKE: Oh, I guess ‘cause my daddy had a job. He was an auto parts guy.
RON JACOBS: And your mom?
BILL DRAKE: She was a schoolteacher. Second grade.
RON JACOBS: Brothers, sisters?
BILL DRAKE: None.
RON JACOBS: Why do you think your parents picked Donalsonville?
BILL DRAKE: Well, they’d grown up around Donalsonville anyhow. My grandfather, Papa Drake, lived five miles from Donalsonville and my father was like fifteen miles from there in Blakely. That’s where they met and got married and then my father got a job and they moved to Waycross and that’s where I was born.
RON JACOBS: What was your mother’s maiden name?
BILL DRAKE: Maxine Drake. But they called her Pat for some reason, I don’t know why.
RON JACOBS: Where did that side of your family come from?
BILL DRAKE: The Drake name supposedly they have traced it pretty much back to Sir Francis Drake, who was a fucking thief and a pirate. On the Yarbrough side of the family—the Yarbroughs I don’t think anybody had inspected them too carefully. I’m not sure they wanted to know. But the Yarbroughs were all from that area of the country. From all around the state of Georgia. But from what I was told as a kid, I never paid attention to that stuff. But they were talking in English and German.
The Day FDR Died…On The Radio
RON JACOBS: When do you think that you can first remember hearing the radio and what was on it?
BILL DRAKE: Well, I remember listening to the radio as a kid but it was just sort of there. I was amazed by it. It astounded me the day that Roosevelt died. To me, up until that point in time radio was just a box that talked and there was music in it and I never paid that much attention to it. But, I remember that my grandparents and my mother who were the strongest people I knew. I remember that particular day. I went in to the house after playing outside. The radio was on and I heard: Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, Georgia [April 12, 1945]. And everybody went ape shit.
RON JACOBS: How far were you guys from Warm Springs?
BILL DRAKE: Well, it was a hundred and fifty miles or something like that. But, that wasn’t the thing. The thing that amazed me was that the radio, which I’d never thought that much about before, could absolutely and totally destroy the three strongest people that I knew. And I thought to myself, what the fuck is that? Having no idea that it was because of Roosevelt and that it was a once in a lifetime occurrence. All I knew was that whatever happened, it was because of that damn radio. My grandparents and my mother went fucking nuts.
RON JACOBS: In my mind, the radio could connect us on the little island in the Pacific to the mainland. And it was more of a communications thing. But what’s interesting in your experience was radio was this inanimate object and it could have such emotional impact. It was all of a sudden impacting these people who were the strongest people you knew. So, when this radio impact happens, you learn that the box becomes this thing that could carry emotion.
BILL DRAKE: Well, I was intrigued but I couldn’t figure that out initially. And didn’t maybe think about it a whole lot after that. It stuck with me for a while and then after the war and everything else, those thoughts sort of go away. But I started listening to the radio as I got older and into high school and the music.
RON JACOBS: Okay, just a second. So what you’re saying is the notch of awareness of what radio could do was cranked up when FDR dies. But, from then on you knew that it could deliver more than just words. It wasn’t any big deal until you got interested in music?
BILL DRAKE: The thing is, my interest in life changed because then, you know, when you get to be a teenager you start getting interested in girls and listening to music and you’re thirteen, fourteen. That was five, six years after Roosevelt died.
Father Figures
RON JACOBS: What’s the first thing you remember in Donalsonville? At what age? ‘Cause I can’t remember much about anything at a really young age.
BILL DRAKE: Well, before my father went into the Army—I must have been what, five years old at the time.
RON JACOBS: 1941, the war starts, and you and I are four years old.
BILL DRAKE: It was actually 1942 because it was at the end of 1941. And then he enlisted in mid 1942 so I was five and a half years old.
RON JACOBS: I was living seven miles from where the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Do you remember when your father left to go to war?
BILL DRAKE: Um hm, I remember that, yeah.
RON JACOBS: How old do you think your father was then?
BILL DRAKE: I think he was 30. During that time, we lived with my grandfather, my mother and I. My grandparents, Mama and Papa Drake had twelve children, and they were all grown and had married and moved from home. So when my father went in the army—it was very usual in those days that people would move in with their parents so while Daddy was in the army, we lived with Mama and Papa Drake.
RON JACOBS: And your grandfather was retired by then?
BILL DRAKE: No, he was Mayor of Iron City, Georgia and the Postmaster. And had a farm, stuff like that, and owned some property.
RON JACOBS: So that’s a prestige thing, right?
BILL DRAKE: Well, it was particularly good during the war because with the Post Office thing it was a necessary thing so you had gas rations and had food.
RON JACOBS: So for you, that must have been sort of cool if you’re living with your grandpa and he’s got it made. Plus the kids are out of the house, so you’re with your mother and your grandparents and both of them are alive and they’re probably not all that old.
BILL DRAKE: No, well Papa Drake died when he was 98 years old, my grandmother died when she was 87 I think. My father didn’t get back home until about eight months after World War II was over because he was wounded over there. And so he spent a lot of time in hospitals after the trip back over here. And the war ended in 1945 so it was 1946 before he got home. And he was back here but he was in hospitals. They had to give him two steel hips and half a diaphragm.
RON JACOBS: Jesus! From some horrible infantry thing or what?
BILL DRAKE: Well, it was shrapnel.
RON JACOBS: In Europe?
BILL DRAKE: He eventually wound up in those days—they can do wonders today—in those days that would put the steel things in and it worked. He could operate all right for like maybe about five years.
RON JACOBS: Operate?
BILL DRAKE: I mean he could function.
RON JACOBS: Did this happen in Europe or in the Pacific?
BILL DRAKE: It was in France and Italy.
RON JACOBS: When the shit was hitting the fan.
BILL DRAKE: Uh huh.
RON JACOBS: Jesus! So he got purple hearts and stuff?
BILL DRAKE: Oh, he got more than that.
RON JACOBS: So tell me.
BILL DRAKE: No, no, I don’t know a lot about medals, not familiar with that, but I know that he had half a diaphragm—
RON JACOBS: Well, I’m not talking about the physical part—
BILL DRAKE: —one lung, half a diaphragm, cut from here to here (pointing to his midsection). Steel things to replace his hips. And those things in those days didn’t last too long so eventually happened was that his legs wouldn’t function.
RON JACOBS: How did you deal with that emotionally?
BILL DRAKE: Well.. I dealt with it. I figured if he could deal with it I could deal with it.
RON JACOBS: So in a way that was probably character building.
BILL DRAKE: No, I wouldn’t say it was character builder.
RON JACOBS: For you?
BILL DRAKE: No, it’s basically a natural thing. I knew that it was bad and I knew that he would prefer that it hadn’t happened, but it had and he was dealing with it as best he could. And if he could deal with it then sure as hell I could. It was him that was hurting, you know.
RON JACOBS: I know but to me looking at it, journalistically or whatever, it sounds like character builder to me because we all have within us some Freudian thing for or against our father.
BILL DRAKE: Oh, that was a pretty natural thing I think, at the time. It was part of the mood of the whole country. People were like that back then, in the South. I mean I don’t know about you coconut boys over there in Hawaii. (Laughs).
RON JACOBS: I’m just saying had your father—I don’t want to belabor this—but had your father gone to the war, nothing happens to him, OK, everything happens normal. But, your father comes back with this terrifying physical stuff which doesn’t just wing him in the shoulder or whatever. Goes through the rehab which is nothing compared to today, and so you’re not just a guy seeing your father come back, you’re seeing a guy go through a lot of stuff and you’re saying if he can do it I can do it. And I think that’s character building.
BILL DRAKE: I don’t know if it was even that or not because you have to realize I didn’t see my dad’s point. And when he came back I didn’t see him right away. Neither did the family. My mother went down there. He was at a Veteran’s Hospital in Florida .
RON JACOBS: But you were aware when he finally showed up.
BILL DRAKE: Yeah, but you don’t see that. When he did get back they had him pretty well pieced back together. And he didn’t complain—
RON JACOBS: That’s what I’m saying!
BILL DRAKE: —and so I figured that was cool and of course when that happened you know, with him later eventually those things, those steel things they put in started wearing out the bone.
RON JACOBS: I don’t know, it seems to me—because I can’t think of a time—and of course you and I have professionally known each other. But I’ve never seen you come close to blowing your cool. And I think that that is maybe where that starts, I don’t know.
And then also if you want to talk about genetically, you talk about a grandfather that’s such a respected person and you’re growing up. Probably when you were living with your grandfather, you realized you couldn’t even try to get away with anything.
BILL DRAKE: Oh, I tried.
RON JACOBS: Like, what’s the worst that you did?
BILL DRAKE: That he did to me?
RON JACOBS: Well, let’s start with what’s the first thing you did?
BILL DRAKE: Oh. Well, first of all—
RON JACOBS: Now we get to the good shit.
BILL DRAKE: I must have been—God, I think it had to have been before my father went back from the army—he used to smoke cigars and pipe and also chewed tobacco.
RON JACOBS: Jesus.
BILL DRAKE: Well, everybody did down there. But I remember when I was a kid I stole one of his cigars and it’s a large house. I went back to see it later. It didn’t seem nearly as large now but it seemed very large then. So at the far end of the house there was another fireplace and chimney so I’d go underneath the house and get behind that chimney with the cigars that I had stolen.
Well, I ‘m back there puffing on this son of a bitch—
RON JACOBS: Did you get sick to your stomach?
BILL DRAKE: No. Well, I’d just started. And all of a sudden I hear “PHILLIP BOY”!
RON JACOBS: That’s what he called you, PHILLIP BOY?
BILL DRAKE: No, he just called me PHILLIP and when he was pissed he called me PHILLIP BOY. So this was PHILLIP BOY. I knew this was bad. ‘Cause he could see the smoke coming into the house, like the goddamn place was on fire.
RON JACOBS: Wasn’t he the fire chief too?
BILL DRAKE: No, he wasn’t. We didn’t even have a fire department then. But he hauled me into the house and said, “You’ve been smoking out there haven’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“So, you want to smoke.”
“Uh huh.”
Now I wished at that point in time that he’d beat the hell out of me, which he didn’t. He said “Well, come on with me.”
So he had a big screen porch about half as big as this bar and sat me down in the chair opposite him. Lit another cigar. He lit one up, said “You want to smoke? Go ahead.”
Well, he made me smoke that cigar, I got so goddamn sick I wished he’d beat the hell out of me at that point.
RON JACOBS: Now this we call a character builder.
BILL DRAKE: I got so sick.
RON JACOBS: So it seems to me then at a time when it’s all formative that you really benefited from being around your grandfather.
BILL DRAKE: Oh, absolutely. I mean I used to totally try to impress him that I knew what was going on. I remember he had cotton fields and he had onion fields and he had different vegetables and this, that and the other, and one thing that he used to like to quote even when I was out here and would go back when he was still alive—
RON JACOBS: And he lived to?
BILL DRAKE: 98 years old.
RON JACOBS: What year, do you know?
BILL DRAKE: I can’t remember. But at any rate, he used to love to tell the story of when I was a kid that I would walk around behind him like this and—
RON JACOBS: With your hands on your hips?
BILL DRAKE: Because he’d be out talking to the people and he would do this, that and the other, and I would say, “Oh, Papa Drake, this cotton soon’s going to be big enough to eat!” (Laughs.) I didn’t even know what the hell they did with cotton! He used to love to tell that story. And he used to say, “How bright can you be, PHILLIP!”
(continue reading this interview)
©1999 Ron Jacobs. Presented here with his permission.
