Great article on the Biondi event. Thanks for getting the word out there!
Dean Milano
Nice scoop!
Phil
Congratulations on pushing this through! Can’t wait to see the film!
Rich
Some nice photos from the party … but where are you and Frannie???
David
Believe it or not, we never had a single photo opp! That’s ok ... I was more interested in capturing the excitement of what was going on on stage … I mean, that's what we were there for ... and even then, we still had to rely on a good portion of these coming from other attendees. (Hey, I’m not in the film either!!! Come on ... at the very least you’d think she would have at least asked me to talk about my “Who Played The Very First Beatles Record In America” article!!! Lol) kk
http://forgottenhits.com/who_played_the_very_first_beatles_record_in_america
Kent,
I have to admit that due to other circumstances going on in my life at this time, I have been away from Forgotten Hits for a little while now … but I have to say that reading your latest piece on the Dick Biondi fundraiser was a wonderful reminder of what a special writer and musicologist you are.
I was trying to explain your blog / column to my wife, but couldn't capture the depth and uniqueness of your work.
After showing her this latest piece, she said, "Wow … now I see what you're talking about ! " :)
You now have a new fan and apostle!
Aside from The Reader's Steven Krakow, I've never known anyone so knowledgeable about Rock and Roll and its impact and history.
Thanks again.
Keep on Keeping on.
Jack
Thank you so much for the kind words … and the use of your photos from the event. We both invested a fair amount of time and effort in making this a success and the big payoff is finally here … folks all over the country will soon be able to see Pam’s final work … a fitting tribute to one of America’s Greatest Disc Jockeys, Dick Biondi. (kk)
WLS:
Kent,
I had to weigh in on your WLS comments. After all, WLS IS my favorite subject!
Indeed, there was LITTLE warning when WLS took to the airwaves. AND despite spending two hours with Gene Taylor in 1991 interviewing him about the Big 89, I don't THINK I ever asked him about the playing of "Alley Oop" to open the station's top 40 format!
Here are a few clippings from May, 1960.
The advertisement in the trades looked like this. It really does not SAY what the new format is, so I guess it was the "Alley Oop" format!
AND for those who worried about
"WHERE is Dick Biondi?" ... this from a month later:
How great! The Sunday
TAPED shows were the best rated on WLS!!!
WLS Clark Besch
I found this interview with Ralph Beaudin, the
Man In Charge at the time of the WLS switch-over to the Top 40 format. (In fact, he was brought in special to
oversee this transition.)
From the Stew Salowitz book “Chicago’s
Personality Radio: The WLS Disc Jockeys of the Early 1960’s” …
STEW SALOWITZ:
How did you wind up, finally, at WLS?
RALPH BEAUDIN:
Well, ABC bought KQV in Pittsburgh and they were looking for a general
manager to come in down there. I knew some
of the guys at ABC because they’d ween with Storz. So ABC hired me as general manager for KQV in
Pittsburgh when they bought the station.
It was a middle-of-the-road station and I switched it to Top 40. That was the first Top 40 station in the ABC
chain. Then ABC bought WLS in 1960 and I
went in there as president of WLS.
SS:
Whose decision was it to change it from the Prairie Farmer station to
rock and roll?
RB:
Mine.
SS: Did
you catch any heat from that?
RB: Oh,
yeah. Not from the agricultural part of
it, but the station was carrying forty hours of commercial religion a
week. We received ten thousand letters
protesting the dropping of the religious programming. And we answered all of those letters.
SS:
What precipitated the format change?
RB: The
market was right and there was nobody really doing the format in town. The strongest personality then was Howard
Miller on WIND and then Wally Phillips was doing a Top 40 show on WGN in the
evenings. But there was nobody doing the
full format.
SS: Was
there some doubt that it would work?
PB: Oh,
sure. At that time, in Top 40 radio,
you’d go from market to market and they’d say it worked there, but it won’t
work here because we’re different.
SS:
Chicago’s a different place than Pittsburgh, obviously, and these people
who were brought in [the new crew of WLS deejays – kk] became instant stars.
PB: The
personalities did, because we hit the market rather quickly and we were
consistent in our formatting. We had the
gold records as well as the Silver Dollar Survey and would go back five, six,
seven years and play some of the older artists.
And we had it heavily day-period according to morning, mid-day,
afternoon drive and evening.
SS: And
the signal was just so great.
PB:
Yeah, fifty kilowatts. We had
listeners all over the place. Some of
the major agencies in Chicago had been buying Top 40 radio in other parts of
the country so they got on the bandwagon rather quickly. Wrigley Gum was one of our bellwether
accounts during the early sixties.
Budweiser came on rather quickly.
And so a couple of key accounts and then it began breaking, and at that
time, a large percentage was national business.
And the national buyers in New York and Chicago knew KQV in Pittsburgh
and knew WBNY in Buffalo, and so they bought in to WLS early.
The format is really what carried it and we
just had damn good guys that executed and worked darned hard. They were out doing sock hops and speaking at
high schools. They were out all the time
doing something. Hell, those guys would
drive two hundred miles to d a hop. The
worked their tails off and everybody was working for the radio station.
If you’re a WLS radio fan, you owe it to
yourself to find and pick up a copy of this book … but I'll tell you right now that they’re VERY hard to come by. (I saw one advertised on Amazon last week
with an asking price of $495!!!) I kick
myself for not buying two dozen copies at $14.50 each when I had the chance!!!
(lol) Who knew?!?! (kk)
This And That:
Last night's edition of Me-TV’s new "Collectors Call" program
featured the guitar collection of Jim Peterik.
You can catch this episode (and several others that have
already aired) right here …
And you can buy a copy of Jim’s Guitar Collection 2018
Calendar (it’s awesome) right here …
(The guy's got 193 guitars in his collection! I don't know that I can ever see him parting with any of them ... and I'm SO glad he ... spoiler alert ... turned down the trade that closes each show ... there's just WAY too much history attached to that Gibson Gold Top!)
New episodes of Collectors Call air Sunday Nights at 9 pm
Central Time on Me-TV. (kk)
I hope you caught Jim Peterik showing his guitar collection on the ME-TV
series "Collector's Call" Sunday night. It was excellent, but I haven't
found a link to view it online yet.
David
It usually takes a day or two before they show up ... but if you check the link above, you should have an opportunity to see it. (When I checked last night they only had a Sneak Peek posted.) DEFINITELY worth checking out ... as are ALL of the episodes that have aired thus far. (kk)
Ultimate Classic Rock tells us about the nine movies that
COULD have starred The Beatles … https://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-unmade-movies/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=newsletter_4572276
