Working out my 13 week notice in LA, I looked at a number of really fascinating offers. But, psychologically, I felt in need of mental “comfort food.” Dallas was home and it was calling me. So, when the offer came to do mornings at KLIF,[…]

I was home! So, let me be honest. Some of my friends had a great relationship with Paul Drew and have very warm feelings about him. I had a very different (maybe you could just say “complicated”) relationship with him. The morning opening on KHJ[…]

WLS signed on in 1924…long before there was any rock to roll. After the lunch meeting in Chicago with WLS Program Director Mike McCormick and Paul Abrams, a General Manager I would learn was a cousin of Satan, I knew there was no chance I[…]

When I was doing mornings on KFRC, Ted Atkins and I flew to Los Angeles. Ted wanted me to sit in and watch Robert W. Morgan weave his magic on KHJ. I didn’t know that RKO had a corporate apartment in LA on Sunset Boulevard..[…]

When I first met Buzz Bennett, he was Program Director at WTIX in New Orleans. He was really energetic, but he still seemed “normal,” at least normal for a radio guy. He was eager to share details of a new in-store record research method he[…]

Well, this story will take two chapters. First about San Diego, one of the most beautiful places on earth to live. Well before the current airline security measures, I had the opportunity to sit right behind the Captain in the cockpit on a flight from[…]

What’s not to love? Doing morning drive…on a Drake station…and assigned to breathtaking San Francisco! Does it get any better? Well, there was some work to do. KFRC had fallen on hard times. As I recall, the station was #13 when Ted Atkins began the[…]

The Drake format, especially on CKLW, was described as “a cross between an Omega watch and a well oiled machine gun.” It was a monster in the Motor City (and in other cities as well). A coverage map only hinted at its reach. I was[…]

Before heading north for some stories about CKLW, I’d like to circle back and expand on something from the KLIF chapter. I met Don Barrett when he was appointed National Program Director for the McLendon stations, which owned KLIF. Don was based in Dallas, so[…]

So, who came up with the concept of Top 40? Was it Gordon McLendon or Todd Storz? I’ve never heard a definite answer. The story I heard most was that the two men (both of whom already owned their own chains of stations) were together[…]