The song intros, I recall. That was in 1971 and Ken Draper had been gone a few years, having been fired by William A. Lee, the head of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Lew Witz had complete control. He was program director and music director. He, not the music director, picked the music, for example. We had to wait when doing the survey, to see what songs Lew would tell us to add. What a great situation, just ripe for payola, and I recall the time I was told we HAD to move a song up at least 3 places on the survey even though sales had gone down. The reason, my boss, the music director told me, was that the particular Chicago singer, a female, was appearing at a club in Old Town in which Lew had a financial interest. It's what I was told ... so we did it. This illustrates the kind of control Lew exercised. So when Paul Christy was made music director and program director, he tried to act like one. He was an exciting person to have as a boss. I recall when he hired me to re-design the WCFL survey. I had returned home on a Saturday to find a phone message from Paul. THAT was nervous time for me. Why would the PD / MD be calling me at home on a Saturday? Oh-oh, don't show up for work Monday? But, quite the opposite! It turned out Paul had seen a mock-up LP cover I made, as a gag, for DJ secretary, Connie Szerszen, who was proud of her Polish heritage. Connie had a 4 page flyer printed with photos, the way models and TV radio personalities do. I had asked Connie for an extra one. I used it to cut up for the photos and made up a "Connie Sings Beatle Hits -- in Polish" LP. Song titles like "I Want To Hold Your Piwo." (Sorry, you must know Polish to find out what "piwo" is) I still have the original flyer in my file.
Well, Connie loved it and obviously showed it around, as I later found out, and Paul's phone call to me was a result of that. He called to ask me to move into the music department and design a new WCFL survey. Naturally I accepted! Paul was a somewhat dynamic personality and I REALLY felt like I was part of a team under his direction. My first day there, Paul called me into his office and told his secretary that we were not to be disturbed. He shared with me his programming philosophy. He so wanted to "beat" WLS in the ratings. He had so many ideas. For someone so "into" radio like I was, from childhood, it was a head-spinning time. Paul was a motivator. Ironically the program director at WLS at the time was John Rook, and it was not until a few years later, when John was hired at WCFL and ALSO spent some time with me expounding his programming philosophies, that I had the same feeling of being part of a team. John, like Paul, was a motivator.
What does all this have to do with song titles? The problem is, in explaining the result of Paul Christy, not Ken Draper, having ordered those song intros, one has to realize it was Paul's motivation of making WCFL the top station in its target audience that prompted him. The problem, for him, was, he stepped on toes, undermining authority. He did not get permission.
I was coming back from lunch one day soon after and Dick Biondi called me into the DJ office, when he saw me walk by. Dick was preparing his show. He told me NOT to blow my cool. I always remember that term because I didn't realize I had any cool! I looked at him so puzzled he knew that I had not heard. Paul had been fired. It WAS a shock. His assistant took over as music director and was my new boss. A really nice person, too, but even the record promo guys knew that he was a figurehead. The real power lay with the general manager, or, put another way, my new boss knew how to keep his job!
So, truthfully, this has very little to do with song titles, but more to do with how they resulted in the firing of Paul. On a personal note, Paul, who went out to San Francisco to program KCBS-FM, apparently had plans for that station and he phoned both Kathy Agnew, his former secretary, and me asking if we would be willing to go to San Francisco to join his team. What an honor! Earlier I had mentioned John Rook. In an interview I got from John in preparing a never-produced WCFL audio documentary similar to the one I did for CKLW on its 50th anniversary, John related an interesting fact of how he was hired to program WCFL. John, perhaps, knowing the track record of programmers at WCFL, insisted that in his contract he be given total control with no interference. It was the only way he could operate, he said, and John DID bring WCFL into a winning position beating WLS as much as 3 to 1 in audience during Ron O'Brien's time slot and substantially in other time periods. John would make people feel like being part of a team, by posting the ratings for all to see. Of course, he had something to be proud of. Otherwise, before him, often it felt like WCFL operated on a "need to know" basis. That interview with John, amongst others, like former morning man Jerry G. Bishop, who I interviewed from San Diego and, in fact, the late Paul Christy,who was in Detroit when I got his interview, I hope to use in a book I will prepare, using the file drawer of WCFL photos, negatives,and slides. Having to take the DJ photo each week for the survey I built up an extensive collection of pix and many folks have urged me to share them before I join Paul again. There are photos of visiting celebrities and fun shots behind the scenes, some of which probably should NOT be seen! I'll copy down the exact text of each interview and use with reminiscences amongst the photos. Why not the audio documentary? Well, it would be fun but knowing how I see copies of CKLW one being sold on e-bay and how people just take things and put them up on the internet, the motivation is not there. I may make the audio interviews with the 10 people or so, of whom I have interviews, available on a CD with the book, at least. Then one could hear, for example, Big Ron O'Brien talking about the final days of WCFL when HE was program director!
That's a lot of reminiscing for just one topic: song titles! You can see, how once I get started, the mind rambles. I was mentioning the clever song intros once to Paul Kirby, who was PD immediately after John Rook and Paul, said something interesting. When he was at WRIT in Milwaukee, that station had done this gimmick and he said audience reaction was negative! Essentially, Paul told me, the audience was saying "Don't mess with the music." Unlike WRIT's, the ones made for WCFL never aired. The songs were one by The Carpenters, "Loves, Lines. Angles and Rhymes" by the Fifth Dimension, "She's a Lady" by Tom Jones and, I think one by then popular Bobby Sherman. I could be wrong. Dave Schuessler, the board operator for Dick Biondi and, later, Larry Lujack, made copies for me, luckily, so they were preserved. Ironically just days ago I heard from Pat Schuessler, Dave's sister, who was delighted to find I had saved her brother's birthday appearance on Larry Lujack's show. We reminisced a bit about Dave and I learned a few facts about one of the nicest guys I ever knew ... like when he died, the family buried him in a Super CFL T shirt with his beloved radio! This, in fact, is what prompted Pat to run across my yesterdial website. She was searching for a WCFL T shirt for her's and Dave's other brother, Fred, who is in a hospice. Fred is a radio fanatic and Pat hopes to do Fred the same honor as Dave. It is just so curious who one can find on the internet. Like, I have BBC Radio 2 on as I type this. Years ago, who would have thought one could just tune in radio all over the world this way ... so long, DX!
I had better quit before I ramble too much. It's already too late for that, though. See what happen when you hit me with a Gary Owens-like memory flogger!!!!
I continue to twist his arm in hopes that he will produce an audio documentary on WCFL, but I'm failing miserably. We just might have to wait on his book.
Bill T. in Fort Worth, Texas
Interesting email ... thanks, Bill ... be sure to tell Tom to check out what we've run so far (and let him know that HIS comments are now posted here as well.) With several of the key players mentioned in Tom's email ALSO being regular Forgotten Hits Readers, it'll be interesting to see if we receive any future comments on this topic! (kk)
Here are a couple of those early '70's WCFL promos:
And we just LOVE OUR WCFL T-Shirt, available through Radio Logo Land ...
