The KAAY Denim Machine

Thanks to Barry Mac, who posted this picture over on Facebook, and a member enhanced the picture a bit for the post in a reply...Barry said he didn't have any Christmas pictures for the KAAY FB page, so here is what he had:

And Barry's original:

Thanks, Barry! Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Montage 1970 Clyde Clifford, Jonnie King

 Once again, Greg Barman has produced magic!  But the back-story...

A few months ago, I was talking with some guys on Ham radio; a fellow Amateur Radio operator, Marliam Lee (callsign KC5BMW) came on when some of us were talking about KAAY.  Marliam (pronounced more-or-less MAR-lum) mentioned he had some reel-to-reel tapes with some KAAY material on them.  To shorten the story, we made arrangements to meet, I got the two tapes to Greg Barman and he painstakingly went through them.  What it boiled down to, there was only a little over 6 minutes of KAAY material on hem, and some other material from anther radio station, which isn't of concern here.

Bringing up the present: Greg suffered some computer problems (still getting fixed) but was able to wrangle the audio over from his laptop over to Internet Archive.and here it is!

https://archive.org/details/kaay-montage-1970-clyde-clifford-j.-king

Most of the material is of Clyde Clifford and unfortunately, all of Jonnie King is just a snippet, what some call a "radio check"...but it's positive identification.

Many, many thanks to Greg for everything he does- and thanks to Marliam for donating the material!

Bud S. (callsign KC4HGH) (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Blass Building, KTHS Studio

 

Thanks to Michael Hibblin on Facebook, comes this old postcard picture, via the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.  The caption reads:

"Little Rock, 1958: The heart of the shopping district was still along Main Street. To the left is Woolworths, remembered for civil rights protests at its lunch counter, but gone today. The flagship Blass store is an office building today. Towering in the distance is the Grady Manning Hotel, the site today of the Little Rock Convention Center. KTHS to the right was in the first Gus Blass building, now restored. Arkansas Postcard Past, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, AR 7220" 

Link:  https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/26/arkansas-postcard-past/?features

Thanks, Michael!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Another AR Beat TX Bumper Sticker

 Courtesy of Doug Virden, also posted at Facebook:

Thanks, Doug!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Bumper Sticker: Beat Texas

 

From Doug Virden on Facebook.  He's hoping Arkansas will beat Texas this weekend (9/11/2021).

Thanks, Doug!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Walt Sadler, a.k.a. Ron Owens, KAAY

 

Barry Mac posted this at the KAAY-AM, The Mighty 1090 Facebook page

KAAY-AM, The Mighty 1090

" Pretty sure this would be the late Walt Sadler, who went by Ron Owens on the air. Walt went on to work with several stations in the '70s and '80s, but ended up back at KAAY doing overnights in the '90s."

Others confirmed his thoughts.

Barry had further comments:

" Just to further share, I first met Walt when he was doing news for KLRA in 1985, as David B. hired me part time after the sale of the "old" KAAY. I'm not sure where Walt worked immediately after KLRA (I know he was gone before they changed formats in '89 or '90), but he eventually was hired to do overnights with KAAY in, I think, 1993, replacing another crusty old radio veteran with a good voice by the name of Skip Elliott. Walt stayed with us through the Citadel sale in November of '98, and our move to the KARN building in March of '99. Walt had some health problems not long after that, associated with his diabetes, and went in for surgery to have part of his foot amputated early that summer. I remember talking with Pat Walsh, former KAAY GM, who went up to visit with Walt before the surgery, and he said that Walt told him he was hoping to be out within a week after the surgery. Unfortunately, there were further complications, and Walt died, though I don't recall if it was post-surgery or before he even had the surgery. Anyway, there's a lot more detail in regards to Walt, just in case you or anyone else had some interest."

 

Thanks, Barry!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Pep Rally?

 

Neat poster, compliments of Doug Virden, first posted on Facebook...thanks, Doug!

 

His words: " This is the same area where pep rally’s (sic) for Razorback games were held."

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY QSL Cards

 

Thanks to Doug Virden, friend of the blog for this QSL card (front & back views).  They were given to him by the late Larry McDonald...they are blank because they were never filled out for a listener.

"QSL" came from early Amateur ("Ham") Radio days...when operators were communicating via spark gap (now outlawed, due to tremendous noise capabilities!) and then Morse Code, "Q codes" were used to communicate.  Instead of tapping out the entire word, "communicate" or "conversation", one would instead use the code "QSO", with other abbreviations, such as "FB QSO U", which essentially means, "It was great ("FB" meaning 'fine business') having a conversation with you ("U").

There were other "Q codes" that sped up communications.  One of the more familiar communications abbreviations is "SOS" (save our ship), which was used as a marine "Mayday", although not a Q-code.

Radio operators and listeners have collected QSL cards for many, many decades.  These are a verification of reception.  In their heyday, many radio stations would also send out other neat things along with the QSL card, such as bumper stickers and other mail-able items.  But these QSL cards came at a cost!!!  The listener had to correctly note date, time, frequency, program details (music played during the time noted) and any other details.  Sometimes, the listener would (and should still!) include some First-Class postage stamps for freight back to the listener.

Sometimes, the QSL would arrive back in days; I have known some listeners/operators to wait for a very elusive station for YEARS.  Since so many stations are now conglomerates and corporately-owned, many will not QSL, because the radio statin you're hearing in Anytown, USA is streaming material from a studio hundreds or even thousands of miles away.  And that one "jock", whether actually human or computer-generated AI personality, will never see that mail.

Hope is not lost, however; there are still plenty of stations out there who may still have staff on-board who can and still do read mail- it might take them some time, but the wait, in your case, MAY be worth it.  There are still a few shortwave stations who QSL.  If an AM or FM station no longer has actual cards, sometimes a letter from the station manager, engineer or other personnel is still counted as a QSL. 

Have fun!  QSL collecting is still a hobby these days, although not as prominent as it once was...but I still cherish those that I have collected!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Joe Leroux, Friend of Pat Walsh, Visited KAAY

 

Thanks to Barry Mac, who posted this picture on Facebook.  According to the comments:

"I know who this is and he did not work for KAAY. He was friends with Pat Walsh and was obviously a guest.  It's Joe Leroux of the marketing and advertising department at AP&L." per Randi McCoy Evans.  I suppose that was Arkansas Power & Light?

Thanks, Barry!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Little Rock Stations Carried Football....

 

Per Doug Virden, friend of the blog:

"This pic represents all the radio stations in Arkansas that carried Razorback Sports.  I believe most stations just carried football in those days.  It was also free for stations to carry the games unlike today where it costs about $50k a year for football, basketball, and baseball.  KAAY was one that only carried football at that time.  About ten years later KAAY added basketball games.  By then football games were $35 a game to air and basketball was $10 a game"

Thanks Doug, for sending this on!  Keep up the good work!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

George Beasley Dead At 89 Years Young

 Blog friend Doug Virden mentioned that George Beasley owned KAAY at one time....

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/george-beasley-radio-pioneer-who-built-a-broadcasting-powerhouse-dies-at-89-1234962155/

https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/208034/george-beasley-founder-of-beasley-media-group-dies

Thanks, Doug!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Ratings, From Mark Larsen

 

More ratings per Mark Larsen, posted at Facebook, May 27, 2021:

"More Little Rock radio ratings: Here's a GREAT snapshot of the Little Rock radio scene from April/May '75 thru April/May '78. It's from Radio & Records, which published special ratings tabloids every year. While KAAY was already in an upward trend, Spring '78 was a major pop. In radio, we used to say, "the morning show drives the station." When you look at the chunk we bit out of Z98 in the April/May '78 sweeps, it's clear Stinkin' Ray Lincoln was driving the bus! There were more people tuning in KAAY every week (#1 cume) than any other station in Arkansas."

 

Thanks, Mark!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Mark Larsen & The Watermelon

 

Here's Mark's post from Facebook May 25, 2021:

"Still going through old archives & scanning. Found this nugget from 1978 when I hosted the Hope Watermelon Festival! This was shot in the Cottondale Lane control room. "Hey, is that a watermelon in your lap or are ya just glad to see me!?" "

Great material Mark!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Anonymous Guy At KAAY

 

Barry Mac posted this photo on Facebook with the following message:

"I have no frame of reference for this one, though with all the tapes and reel machines, I'm guessing this was either a production room or the news room on 7th Street. Anyone know who the guy is threading up the reel?"

 

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10225896825477995&set=gm.10159322519374313

 

If anyone knows, please let him know at the link above, or me via my e-mail address below...thanks Barry!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

PS: someone revealed this to be Dave Woodman of Channel 4....

KAAY Ratings Article

 

Former KAAY DJ Mark Larson posted this article at Facebook:

"I'm in the process of digitizing boxes of career clippings, air checks, etc. Just found this article on the 1977-79 resurrection of 1090KAAY. It's hard to believe that a market the size of L.R. only had 1 ARB ratings sweep per year (spring) back then. This is on the spring '78 ARB.

In the fall of '77, PD Carl Hamilton came down from WROK Rockford, which was just named Billboard Magazine's Grand International Station of The Year -- we beat everyone. He brought most of the staff (including yours, truly for 6-10PM) and stole Ray Lincoln from Z98 for mornings. The result was the hottest, personality-oriented, full-service CHR I have ever been, AM or FM (including B97 New Orleans), and a massive leap for KAAY. A lot of credit also goes to Gary Fries, our GM. He could be tough, but he was willing to spend the $$ it took to re-float the old battleship.

 

Even though my most successful years were the last 40 here in Tampa Bay, I've never had more radio fun and excitement than the 2 years I spent at KAAY, living in Little Rock, and attending UALR."

 

Thank you, Mark!  And thanks to Doug Virden who alerted me to Mark's post! 

BUd S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Unknown Man At The Helm

 Barry Mac posted this at Facebook, asking if anyone knows who this is...perhaps just another fan having his picture taken?

Thank you, Barry!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Funmobile At Barton Coliseum

 Posted by Bill Harper and Ron Pitts on Facebook:

This is during the Fleetwood Mac tour in 1977.  Bill Harper said, "Question regarding the Fleetwood Mac Rumors tour stop at Barton in 1977.  Anybody else remember the concert being originally scheduled for March 11th but being rescheduled to June 25th? This actually happened if I remember correctly, right? Tickets are stamped Friday March 11, but every tour date I find on the web (including Fleetwood Mac sites) state the date was actually Saturday June 25th. Thoughts? What do you all remember?"

 

Note: Someone else mentioned that they opened for Loggins and Messina...

 

Thanks, guys!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Control Room, Plus A Beautiful Lady!

 Barry Mac posted this on Facebook on 4/9/2021:

"A pretty good shot of the 7th Street control room, circa 1968. I have no idea who the young lady is, but I think I DO recognize the cart deck, as I'm pretty sure it was donated to KABF here in Little Rock back in 1984, which means I used it many times over the course of about a decade."

 

Someone mentioned this would possibly be in the early '70s, due to the 12-button phone- prior to '69, they were 10-button phones, that the # and * buttons were added after '69....

 I have been told by some other KAAY folks that they often invited listeners and fans to have their pictures taken at the board, etc. in the station...hence, the unknown name of this beautiful lady...

Thanks, Barry!  Keep up the good work!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KTHS Article

 Doug Virden posted this in Facebook recently; it's an article about Hot Springs fighting to keep KTHS from moving to Memphis:

Thank you, Doug!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Possible Sales Material from Barry McCorkindale

 "Barry Mac" posted this on Faccebook recently, I thought I'd share it here also:

Per Barry: "Not sure when THIS design came along, but that's a pretty different looking pig from what we've been looking at for a few decades. I believe this was included in a sales staff package circa 1971."

 

Thank you, Barry!  Looking forward to more goodies!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

''Beaker Hour" on KCCK-FM

One of our readers, Steve, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sent us this information about a Beaker-Street tribute program that runs at a local station:

FWIW our local FM station has a Beaker Street tribute hour. It's KCCK-FM in Cedar Rapids IA. kcck.org is the website. It's on at 9:00 PM Friday's CST. John Hein has Clyde's blessing as he has appeared on the show. I love it, Steve

I checked the  kcck.org  website, and the station's playlist is pretty impressive, especially if you're looking for a station that goes beyond the usual "smooth jazz" stuff.  Unfortunately, the timing of KCCK's "Beaker Hour" clashes with Clyde's show on  arkansasrocks.com,  but folks around here are pretty creative about dealing with these things, so I thought I would post this and let you take it from here....

--Dave S.

 

Happy Birthday, David B. Treadway, 2021

 Barry Mac posted this picture on Facebook and I had to steal it to post here:

David B., you are sorely missed...you touched a lot of lives, including this poor ol' boy from Alabama.  See you in heaven one day....

Thanks, Barry McCorkindale.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY Request Lines

 Friend of this blog, Doug Virden, sent in some interesting phone information:

"This past month the radio stations currently located at 2400 Cottondale Lane have dropped their 433 prefix studio numbers.  I will go into the reason for that and the reason for the establishment of the prefix for radio stations in Little Rock.

Thanks to having some old phone books I was able to gather information on the studio phone numbers for KAAY.

When KAAY premiered in September 1962 the studio and main office shared one phone number which was FRanklin5-5311.

 

Sometime after moving to 7th Street the name prefixes were dropped by the phone company and the 7th Street number became 375-0105.  The offices kept the 375-5311 number. When KAAY moved to 2400 Cottondale in the fall of 1976 the studio number was 661-1212.  Within about a year or two KAAY's studio number became 433-0059.  According to someone who currently works in the Cottondale building KAAY may have been the reason the 433 prefix was established for radio stations in Little Rock.  The prefix was set up to be able to handle a large amount of  calls without blowing up phone circuits all over town.  These were also known as choke lines.

 

The reason the radio stations currently in the Cottondale building discontinued their 433 numbers is because those particular phone lines won't transfer to the digital system and if the lines went down there is really not anyone from the phone company that knows how to work on those lines anymore since all those workers have pretty much retired."

 

Yes, folks who actually know analog technology are few and far between now. In fact, in our area of Alabama, the phone company is quietly encouraging people to drop their terrestrial phone lines in lieu of all cell phone coverage.  I personally know (being in the emergency power generations field) that cell sites can go down because of power and emergency back-up generator failure.  Those cell phones are only portable radios that are linked to physical phone lines somewhere, just not at your domicile.  You're friendly, neighborhood phone technicians are slowly retiring and all you get is someone in India who can't speak in English wanting to tell you that your cell phone is at fault.

Enough of that.  Speaking of call-in lines to radio stations, my wife used to be the Chief Operator at a local hospital and had a bank of lines available to her; when a local station had a contest going on, she could start calling and put them on hold, then come back and answer them.  When she was the "nth" caller, she won!  I know, that was "loading the bases", but she was so successful, she won a lot of loot...and had to pick it up in different family's names, like her sisters and her mother's names.  In fact, one of the biggies was WABB (now defunct, so I guess the statute of limitations is over!), which was where Wayne Moss worked for a bit.  I'll have to look back at the timeline and see when she was calling the station, but I think Wayne was long gone before then.  And another tning- the hospital was only two city blocks away from WABB!

Thanks, Doug!  Keep the interesting stuff coming!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Undated Herman's Hermits Photo

 Thanks to Barry Mac, from his post on Facebook:

Per Barry: "I don't think I've done this one before, but if I have, it's been quite awhile - Herman's Hermits and a lucky KAAY listener! And based on the expressions I see, Peter Noone is pretty much the only one putting on a really good face here."

 

Thanks, Barry!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com

Barry Mac's Birthday 2016, with Doug Virden, Oct. 2016

 

Per Doug Virden:

"Picture with Barry Mac at his birthday celebration this past weekend. Gave him a vintage KAAY sticker from the 70's. Glad I had the opportunity to celebrate his birthday with him. The 2nd pic is the phone that was out at the transmitter building for years. Barry got to take it home when he was out at the transmitter building last year (2015)."

Thanks, Doug!  Barry and I are only a few days apart, I can't remember who's gt the lead, but I ain't fussing!

I am weeding through some e-mails that Doug has sent me, when I was in a bad period of my life.  Things are much better now, an I am able to play catch-up.  I apologize for the delay on some of these posts.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Old KAAY Transmitter Remnants From Doug Virden

 Folks, when I visited the transmitter in April 2012 with David B. Treadway and Jerry Sims, we could have carted away a truckload of stuff in the junk pile, if we knew we wouldn't get in trouble.  Good friend of this blog Doug Virden visited the transmitter site back in 2017 and grabbed a couple of items and shipped them to me.  At the time I received them, there was a lot going on in my life, so I didn't get to mention them and they went into storage.  Here's what Doug said in his e-mail to me:

"Let's not forget the reason I was able to visit the KAAY transmitter building, the reason being was to pick up a remnant from the old RCA transmitter for Bud.  I  ended up taking a meter and some tubes which I sent Bud a few weeks ago.  I  got to take me home a meter and some tubes too (see pictures below).  I will let Bud do the honors of posting what he received, here are pics of mine."

 

I need to be ashamed of myself...and they got here safe and sound.  Here are Doug's:

 

 These pictures are of part of a pre-driver power deck (the tubes) and modulation meter (percent of modulation) that Doug has.

The pictures below are the articles Doug sent me, a kilovolt meter and more driver tubes:

These tubes are sitting on a little different deck than Doug's tubes...

The tubes in my picture are "813" tubes, and are high-wattage tubes many of us Amateur Radio operators "(Hams") use in our high-wattage amplifiers.  Our amplifiers for our service are limited to 1,500 watts of power, so I think these had to have been driving the much larger tubes for full 50,000 watts potput.

The kilovolt meter is just that: it measures how many thousand volts are flowing to a particular part of the system.  It's no wonder safety switches abound in high-power transmitters, if you touch something in error, you're history!

Thanks, Doug, for sending these to me!  I apologize for taking so long in getting them posted...

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Info on Buddy Carr/Tom Bigby, per Doug Virden

 Folks, some sad news on Tm Bigby from Doug Virden:

"One of the original DJ’s at KAAY has passed away.  Tom Bigby passed away Monday January 4th (2021, bs). 
Not long after KAAY launched he was kicked out of the studio by government officials to bring the people of Cuba information concerning The Cuban Missile Crisis.

He later rejoined Mike McCormick at WLS in Chicago.  Are there any of the original DJ’s from KAAY who are still alive?"

 

 https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/203183/tom-bigby-veteran-radio-programmer-passes-away

 " ALL ACCESS hears from several sources that TOM BIGBY, the sports radio programming pioneer who developed stations like WIP/PHILADELPHIA into powerhouses, died MONDAY (1/4)(2021, bs) in TEXAS. He was 76.

BIGBY spent 15 years as PD at WIP, shepherding the station's caller-driven "guy talk" format into national prominence, and programmed KRLD-F (105.3 THE FAN) and WXYT-F (97.1 THE TICKET)/DETROIT before adding corporate duties as VP/Strategic Programming for CBS RADIO. He also programmed KRLD-A and KLUV/DALLAS, WIFI and WPHT-A/PHILADELPHIA, WNEW/NEW YORK, and KFI-A and KOST/LOS ANGELES, and served as OM at WYSP/PHILADELPHIA before retiring and launching a consultancy in 2011."

 So many of The Greats are heading to Radio Heaven recently...rest in peace, Tom....

Thanks to Doug for this news.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Wayne Moss airchecks from 1976 & a Beaker Street anniversary promo

Happy 2021 Everyone!

Here's a couple of new aircheck posts, courtesy of Russell Wells.  He obtained these and posted them on a KAAY Facebook group, and approved the re-post to this Blog.

The first is a composite aircheck of Wayne Moss doing middays on KAAY on various days in 1976, some of them from August 29 of that year.  Wayne is in his usual good form here.  The aircheck includes two promos of interest, celebrating Beaker Street's "8th anniversary on September 10".  That would indicate that Beaker Street began on about that date in 1968.   Other accounts, including one written by Clyde Clifford, have put the beginning of the show as late 1966.  So, was this promo in error on the anniversary year?

Here's the entire aircheck:

(or download here)

Here is one of the promos: (or download here)

---Greg Barman