Funny KAAY Shotgun Story From Mark Moss

 Dear visitor,

 

Mark Moss told me a funny story and sent pictures (three here) of a shotgun the staff kept on-hand at KAAY.  Pat Walsh said it was gonna be there for protection.  Wayne Moss took the bird shot out of it and loaded it with buckshot!  It's a Marlin magazine-fed bolt-action model, no telling what vintage.  Wayne had painted it with camouflage colors... after all, he WAS a hunter!  But now Mark has a great piece of KAAY and his dad's history.

Per Mark: "It was located in the main long hallway, hung on a pair of hooks above the door before you got to the rear parking lot exit.  It was very close to my dad's office (which was probably no accident).  Dad was notorious about having a pistol with him when he went to work.  Dad was a firm believer in people having access to protection in the station, particularly in the late hours, as the station wasn't in the best part of town."  Mark mentioned that this particular studio was near the Capitol building.

 

 

Thanks Mark, for sharing!

 

Bud S.

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)

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)

A "Beemobile" For KAAY?

 

 

From Facebook, posted by Barry McCorkindale and commented on by Dale "Clyde Clifford" Seidenschwarz:

 

"

 One of the LIN chain at the time. WBBF didn't want it. Pat Walsh somehow snapped it up.

I did a bunch of remotes in that thing. We did a lot of Toy Hills in it.

It went down in it's own funeral pyre on the way back from a remote in Conway.  I was in the Marine Reserve unit and my best friend Wayne Moss did a couple Toys for Tots events glad we got to work together."

Barry: "I KNEW Dale would have some insight into this, thanks!"

 

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

 

 

Bobbie Walsh, Wife Of Pat Walsh, Passes On To Radio Heaven

Thanks to Richard Robinson, on Facebook...the entire message here:

 

"For those KAAY fans who knew or knew of J. Pat Walsh, who was a manager of KAAY and a broadcast media consultant for many years in Little Rock, I have some sad news to report. His widow, Bobbie Walsh, died on August 18, 2020. Her graveside service was held on Saturday. Bobbie loved the Arkansas Razorbacks, Pat Walsh and her family. When Pat was managing KAAY, Bobbie used to sit at home, listening to the competing stations and taking down the names of all of their advertisers for use by the sales staff at KAAY. I'm posting the link to her online obituary for your information. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Walsh when I interviewed Pat in their home and later Bobbie after Pat's death. It was a pleasure to know her and I am sorry to hear of her passing."

https://www.arkansasonline.com/obituaries/2020/aug/21/bobbie-walsh-2020-08-21

Thank you, Richard, for your info on this....

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Michael Hibblin, KUAR Staff Win Awards

Michael Hibblin, of KUAR (and friend of this blog) and the staff won several awards for their news coverage; Michael's coverage of KAAY is of particular interest:

http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/former-employees-kaay-mark-anniversary-day-music-died#stream/0

Several Greats, including Barry McCorkindale, Bob Robbins, Sonny Martin, Pat Walsh, George Jennings, Charlie King, Clyde Clifford and David B. Treadway, were mentioned.  Also, this blog was mentioned by Michael- thank you, sir!  There are also several pictures, the header with Felix McDonald in the background, while Clyde speaks.

For the entire article of awards given, here is the link:

http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/kuar-news-staff-wins-10-awards-arkansas-ap-competition#stream/0

These awards were also mentioned on Facebook, from which I got Michael's permission to post this.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Happy Independence Day

Here's hoping everyone has a safe Independence Day, and please reflect on our Forefathers, who paid such dear a price for securing our freedom.

It's what Pat Walsh would want you to do....

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Pat Walsh

Reader & friend of the blog Doug Virden reminded me of this:

"Next Thursday Jan. 21st will mark the 10th anniversary of Pat Walsh's death.  Hard to believe its been 10 yrs. since he passed away.  Knew he died in Jan. sometime and went to the library to find the exact date.  Read in his obit. that he spent a majority of 2005 hospitalized due to an infection he received from surgery in 2004.  Thought you would want to mark the solemn anniversary."

For more info on Pat Walsh, you can check this link for MANY more entries:

 

http://mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com/search?q=Pat+Walsh

 

 

Thanks to Doug Virden!

 

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Retro: David B. Treadway and Cottondale Studio

November 1, 1976 was a historic day for KAAY; I'll let "Doc Holiday", a.k.a. David B. Treadway's words describe it, from A. J.'s blog post on Oct. 9, 2006:

"On November 1, 1976, we moved to the new studios at
2400 Cottondale Lane. The Riverdale section of town is
now thriving and crowded, home to Alltel world
headquarters among other notable businesses. In 1976,
it was regarded as swamp land and Pat Walsh caught a
great deal of grief from his peers about his decision
to move the station there. As usual, Walsh had the
last laugh.

There was a certain "magic" about KAAY; it was a
living, breathing entity--apart and complete unto
itself *without* the human beings who made it run. For
the past thirty years, I have been convinced that the
magic did NOT make the move with us from 1425 West 7th
Street to 2400 Cottondale.

It would take the clueless Multimedia almost the next
ten years to run KAAY completely into the ground, but
the Final Approach began on November 1, 1976."

Here's the Cottondale location as it appeared in 2012, when Jerry Sims drove me around town:

http://kaay1090.blogspot.com/2006/10/doc-holiday-1976.html

A. J. Lindsey was the second "Doc Holiday", David B. Treadway was the last.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Felix McDonald And The RCA Transmitter

I was reminded of a story by an anonymous commenter, one that has been recanted over and over.  It is the awesome, fantastic, wonderful story of when Felix McDonald had repaired the RCA transmitter when NO ONE else could.  Here it is as it was related to me....

Seems as if he was on vacation in Texas and the transmitter had gone down.  Technicians had been called in, even those from Channel 11.  No one could seem to get "Big Mama" (as David B. Treadway lovingly calls her) back on the air.  Pat Walsh was so desperate to get KAAY back on the air, he chartered a private jet to go and get Felix and bring him back.  When the plane landed, Pat picked Felix up and screamed though the traffic, getting him to the transmitter site.

Upon arriving, some wise guy said, "Let's see YOU get this thing going, boy!"  Felix methodically put parts back where they should have gone, then asked someone to hand him a broom.  He reached over and shoved a contactor back into place that had been opened (for what reason? No one knew) and the RCA roared back to life!

When I was in Little Rock on vacation back in 2011, Jerry Sims, David B. Treadway and I visited Felix; David B. had to take his son back to town, so Felix and his wife invited Jerry and I to come in and visit a while.  Here's a picture of these three Greats before out visit:

 

As to the aforementioned legendary story above, Felix went and got a commendation written by then Operations Manager Wayne Moss:

 

 What a story- what a man- what a legend!

When we left to leave, Jerry was almost out the door when Felix pushed past me, grabbed Jerry by the shoulder and turned him around.  It had been SO long since he'd seen Jerry that he didn't relate the Jerry Sims/"Sonny Martin" of yesteryear with the Jerry Sims of that day...but he said that he FINALLY put together who he was.  Then the tears almost began to flow for all of us.  I was so moved and stunned, I forgot to "roll tape" or take pictures of this now great reunion of these two Greats.

Now, I'll bet that Felix and Jerry are in "radio heaven", if there is such a place, having some good laughs and great memories.  I was SO blessed to become friends with these men- and hope to see them once again, myself.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Beaker Street with Don Marcus - February 1974

This is an untelescoped aircheck of the mysterious "Don Marcus", with the opening 44:11 of Beaker Street in February of 1974.  This aircheck is courtesy of former KAAY PD Wayne Moss, who has contributed many airchecks to the Blog.

According to Steve Morris ("Steve Scott", 1972-74): "Don Marcus was a bit strange (as we all were).  He was a very small guy with great long hair ala; 'Kenny G'.  When he moved to Tucson, I moved into his apartment out by the U of A @ L.R.  I inherited his telephone number, waterbed, furniture, etc.  (back then when ya moved to another radio station, you never took more than you could carry in the trunk of your car).  Of course he worked  from 11pm 'till 5am...By virtue of his shift, he very seldom appeared at any KAAY functions."

Steve also remembers that maybe Wayne Moss hired Don Marcus from Kansas City "or somewhere like that"...I called Wayne later and he didn't know very much about him, it had been so long. Wayne told me that Don had left for a very lucrative offer in Arizona while Wayne was on vacation; Don had told GM Pat Walsh that he couldn't pass on the offer and then left.

Steve also adds: "Don Marcus replaced O'Brian (Mike Verdicchio) on Beaker Street, O'Brian came downtown to do 8-11pm.  When Marcus departed for Tucson, Ariz., Wayne hired Ken Knight (Bill Jackson) from Joplin, Mo., to do Beaker Street.  Of course I took over 8-11pm from O'Brian when he left to go to KLZ-FM in Denver."

We have been unsuccessful trying to reach Don Marcus or to find out anything about his whereabouts after leaving KAAY.  If anybody knows more about him please let us know here at the Blog.

And now: "Greetings QSL'ers! This is KAAY Little Rock!"  Lou Reed, Suzie Quatro, Slade, Alice Cooper and more artists await your ear, as well as an ad for The Warehouse on February 21, 23, 24 and 25 with loads of artists - enjoy!



or download here


Bud S. & Greg B.

Bob Steel, A.K.A. "Michael O'Sullivan" Checks In!

OH BOY!  I'd tried to reach Bob Steel via several means- and had missed him by mere minutes when I was in Little Rock back in 2011- but it was through LinkedIn that I was able to get a message to him- and he replied almost immediately!  Bob is a consummate broadcaster and many, many people love his style.  We've posted about Bob a couple of times here on the blog...just type in "Bob Steel" in the upper left-hand corner in the search box.

Here we go!  Without further delay, is what Bob sent me for the blog:

"It was nice to hear from you.  I worked at KAAY in the News Department Monday through Fridays and on Saturday mornings I did “Solid Gold Weekend” until noon.  We all worked six to seven days a week but always at least six.  They gave me the name Michael O’Sullivan.  Michael O’Sullivan was actually the Chief Accounting Officer for the LIN Broadcasting System.  I thought that was kinda funny because I was never very good with math and I thought Bob Steel was a pretty good air name.  It’s my real name too!  Pat Walsh explained to me that he had purchased signs on the back of Yellow Cabs with caricatures of the jocks –and if any of them left, he didn’t have to change the signs.   “You're Michael O’Sullivan,” he said.

 

I started at KAAY during the summer of 1971.  Pat Walsh was the General Manager.  Sonny Martin (Matt White) was the morning man with George J. Jennings doing the news.  I worked as a field reporter until 3 o’clock in the afternoons and then I anchored the news across from Bob Robbins. (Bob Spears)  Nick Markel was the News Director (Mitch Michaels.)  Jack Lee (Gary Souheaver – pronounced sigh heaver) did mid-day news.   There were 4 of us in the news department but I was the only guy that ever went out to news conferences.

 

I did fill-in once for Dale Seidenschwarz, air name: Clyde Clifford when he was on vacation.  He was the voice of Beaker Street.  I will never forget doing that shift.  I only had a 3^rd Class License and so I did the show from the studio and an engineer was at the transmitter.  In those days the FCC required an on duty engineer to be at the transmitter.   I got two letters the week after I did Beaker Street…one was from a sailor on an Aircraft Carrier and the other was from Cuba!

 

It was a great radio station.  We carried the Arkansas Razorback football games and Pat Walsh was a brilliant marketer of the station.  We had all kinds of contests and promotional events.  We did remotes from the “Fun Mobile” and they were frequent.  The station was a powerhouse number 1 when I worked there and the signal went miles and miles at night –north and south – it truly became the “50,000 watt Giant.”

 

I got the job in a weird way.  The News Director, Nick Markel, was fishing on Lake Conway on a weekend when I was working at KCON in Conway.  He heard me reading the news and contacted me the following Monday and asked me if I would like to apply for a job as he was losing one of his reporter/anchors to Memphis.  She was African American and I can’t remember her name.  I was in summer school at UCA going to work on the GI bill and only lacked 16 hours to graduate with a major in Journalism.  I thought I would just take the summer off and work there for a while and then go back to school.  I never returned!  I have spent the majority of my life in broadcasting with a couple of breaks at advertising agencies as an public relations account executive.

 

The funniest thing I remember:  I was on my way home from work one night.  My radio was tuned to KAAY even though “The World Tomorrow” was on.  We featured famous radio preacher Garner Ted Armstrong from 6 'til 7 each night and then went back to Rock n’ Roll.   As I was driving through downtown Little Rock this booming voice came over the airwaves:  “Steel, you forgot your lunch pail.”   It was Jerry Don Pitcock (Jim Pitcock’s brother).  I turned around and went back to the station to retrieve my lunch pail and then went into the control room.  I said, “I can’t believe you did that!”  Without missing a beat…Jerry Don said, “No body listens to that (stuff).”

 

I was at KAAY for a couple of years.  It remains one of the best times of my life.  I was young and just out of the service.  It was fun and KAAY was on the cutting edge of everything cool.  I remember riding with the winners of a KAAY contest in a double decker English bus for a rollin’ party with the KAAY staff and Paul Revere and the Raiders….or at least with the lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders, Mark Lindsay.  He was a great guy and the staff and the contest winners had a ball that night.

 

I was the voice of “Aunt Blabby” for the Castle Shop.  I did impersonations of Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Ed Sullivan and others for “The Little Red Barn” – a local head shop.  The impersonations were pretty good but I now realize that everyone I impersonated is dead.  LOL

 

I remember going into the production room after my air shift to cut a spot one night.  There was a cardboard box in the chair.  I picked it up and the lid flew open.  It was full of money!  I counted it.  It was $10,000 dollars!  I called Pat Walsh.   He said, “oh that money is for Children’s Hospital – it’s from the benefit concert that Black Oak Arkansas did last night.  Just leave it there and I’ll get it to them on Monday.”

 

Wayne Moss was the program director.  That was his real name.  He was a strict taskmaster.  Phil North was the evening jock.  I don’t remember his real name but his voice was amazing and he was big time.  He got a job in Chicago right before I left KAAY.  I remember doing his shift while they were looking for someone to replace him.  They sent in a guy to observe me running the board --- they were going to hire this guy.  The show was fast paced and very busy.  I was showing off a little – cueing records, punching spots, answering the phone and recording listener requests with the reel to reel and then retrieving the records… going as fast as I ever had.  The guy didn’t take the job. When he turned down the job, Wayne Moss said, “What did you say to this guy?”  I said, “I didn’t even talk to him much.  It was a wild night.  The phones were on fire and I didn’t have time to talk to him.” .  I think watching me run that board scared him off.

 

I left KAAY to take a job as a reporter for KATV Channel 7.  I remember the day I told Pat Walsh.  I said, “Mr. Walsh, I’ve been offered a job at Channel 7 to be a reporter there and it represents quite an increase in pay.  I’ve got a wife and a baby and I need to take this job."   He said, “You don’t need to take that job, you’re only 23 years old man and you’re working at a 50,000 watt radio station, one of the top stations in the country!”  I said, “I know, I love it here but I can’t eat those watts.”  He laughed and wished me well.  We remained friends throughout my career and until his death many years ago.  I had lunch with him at least once a month.

 

Hope this helps.  Thanks for preserving KAAY broadcast history.

 

All the best,

 

Bob"         

KAAY - Phil North on February 22, 1972

This is another contribution from the Gary Pfeifer aircheck collection, and as you'll hear from the voice at the beginning, this is originally from the collection of KAAY GM Pat Walsh.  Here is Phil North on a Tuesday night, February 22, 1972.  Untelescoped from 8:39p to 9:25p. 

The sound quality isn't the best -- this aircheck was recorded on a cassette at very low volume, requiring a lot of noise filtering to pull the audio from out of the tape hiss.


(or download here)

Greg Barman

FOUR YEARS OLD TODAY: Some blog history, an update, and a request

By Dave Schmidt, the tech-support person:

This blog, "mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com", came to birth four years ago today, on July 15, 2009.  Many of the current readers do not know the history and evolution of the blog, so now is a good time to fill it all in!

Some History:

A.J. Lindsey ("Doc Holiday II") started his blog, "kaay1090.blogspot.com", in 2006.  (You can still read his posts!)  Doc presented the history of his station, posted photos and recordings that he owned and received from Pat Walsh (KAAY's famous General Manager), and encouraged others to contribute. 

One of A.J.'s enthusiastic readers and contributors was Bud Stacy, from Mobile, Alabama.  Bud listened to KAAY in the "glory days" and he shared Doc's desire to document what he remembered.  Bud shipped a lot of audio files in Doc's direction, who saved them in Heaven-Only-Knows-how-many different accounts and servers and linked his blog to them.  Sadly, A.J. passed away suddenly in May, 2009.

Bud couldn't rest, knowing the story was incomplete.  He contacted me (I had posted a few comments on Doc's blog), and proposed that we contact other contributors to Doc's blog (Greg Barman, Ron Henselman, Jonnie King, Richard Robinson, Russell Wells, and others) about continuing the work.  That We Did, commencing on this day in 2009.  We scrambled to salvage all Doc's audio before it disappeared (just in time, too!), and we backed up all Doc's web pages.  (Thankfully, Google Blogger is now an archive --- whatever is posted there stays forever!)

Our plan was to continue what Doc/A.J. started: document the history of the classic, Top-40-oriented, KAAY radio --- the jocks, the engineers, the listeners, the times.   We posted articles that were informative, scholarly, and fun to read.  We wanted a textual, visual, aural archive.

Bud contacted everybody he could find on the Internet, soliciting stories, photos, and recordings.   Many, many KAAY people contributed, far too many to list here, but if you scan through the archives, you will see their names, all acknowledged for their contributions.  Bud knocked himself out to do this right.  He even made a field trip to Little Rock and visited the people and places of KAAY, all documented here on the blog.

An Update:

If you study the Blog Archive list in the right column of this page, you see a summary of the results: Roughly one article per day the first year-and-a-half, and about one article every other day for the next two years.  Readership has grown to two hundred views per day, even on days when nothing new is posted.  There is now a community of former KAAY employees who stay in touch.  There is also a KAAY discussion/chat group (via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/198469254312 ).  

Several key people kept this blog going:

• Bud himself, the heart and soul of the endeavor.
• Jonnie King, the smooth-talking, classic-car-loving jock, who contributes great stories and maintains his own huge website, http://www.jonnieking.net
• Greg Barman, who has rescued, restored, and digitized many of the audio files on this blog as the tapes literally fell apart in his hands
• Richard Robinson, David B. Treadway, and Russell Wells, who supplied key contributions of scholarship, anecdotes, and audio.  (Russell rescued and submitted the now-famous Pat Walsh tapes of KAAY from May 18, 1971.)
• Barry Mac, who rescued reels and reels of KAAY ads from the old transmitter building and incorporates them each and every week into his weekly webcast of Tin Can Alley.  (Find it over there at the top of the right column!)

There are also many many other people who submitted great items at great times (thank you, Hollis Duncan, Dave Montgomery, Greg Fadick, Charlie King, Phil North, Wayne Moss, Fritze Prentice, Gary Pfeifer, and many others --- sorry if I've forgotten a name or two here!).  Alas, we have lost some people too, most notably the blog's great friend, Jerry Sims.

A request:

As the blog starts its Fifth Year (amazing in itself for a volunteer effort!), there will be more articles, photos, and audio.  But it is getting harder and harder to dig up the material.

To make things tougher, everyone here at the blog has a full-time job, and in Bud's case he now has two full-time jobs due to unplanned medical expenses.  So, the posts are a bit less frequent than what they were a year ago.  But we are still going and will keep going.

Here's what you can do to help:

• Contact us if you have any stories, memorabilia, and (especially) audio to share.  Our intent is to archive for posterity the history of KAAY and have fun while doing it.  Everyone can contribute!   Email your materials to Bud and me at the addresses below.  
• When you use materials from this blog --- photos, stories, audio --- please include a link back to us at   www.mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com    This helps new readers, who might have important archival material, to find us.
• Send Bud an email to thank him for his work!

So, Happy Birthday To Us!

Contact info:  Bud Stacy   staceys4@hotmail.com
      Dave Schmidt   schmidt1953@gmail.com

KAAY: Michael O'Sullivan Aircheck

Another great snag by Dave S., here is an aircheck for you to enjoy, recused from A. J. Lindsey's blog.  Again, the players on A. J.'s blog have ceased to function, hence, our bringing the audio back to you here on this blog!  Now, in A. J.'s original words:

"I got a great email from Bob Steel who was the only Michael O'Sullivan KAAY ever had. As was Pat Walsh's custom as an inside joke, the actual Michael O'Sullivan was an accountant with LIN Broadcasting Corp. Along with some additional names, Bob sent a newscast with an exclusive interview with V.P. Spiro Agnew as he visited Little Rock. This is another great example of a real functioning radio news department. As you hear this great newscast you will probably be blown away with the commercial for "Black Ceasar" showing at the Capitol Theater and a couple of drive ins. Someday maybe I will tell you the story of the movie theater account at KAAY. Here is the aircheck:"

---A.J. Lindsey, Sept. 19, 2006


(or download here)

Bob Steel...I'll have to do some research to see if we have ever been in contact...my mind is swirling at this moment.  I find it harder all the time to snatch details of things that happened so many years ago.  Like David B. Treadway told me several times before...the grey fog obscures things that happened so many years ago!  I find this comes from being TOO busy at times, when the job and other responsibilities tend to come to the forefront of my memory and hobbies get pushed back....

Have I ever asked anyone here for information on newsman Jack Lee?  If anyone has information on him, could you contact me at the e-mail address below, please?

Thanks again to Dave S. for his tremendous help in the archiving and linking of these audio treasures!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY: Tommy Riggs' 45 Record, The Cotton Bowl Ambush

Another great record (remember records?) from the A.J. Lindsey audio archive --- we'll let A. J. explain in his own original post:

"At least it was good television. And the score was good through 3/4 of the game Arkansas fans are very frustrated. No longer is the entire state one big pep rally. The radio stations are just semi involved. It's been a long time since there was a Razorback record or CD produced.

In 1975 Tommy Riggs a/k/a Rock Robbins had left KAAY for Pine Bluff. He was Program Director and later Manager of KCLA. Pat Walsh needed a Razorback Record for the Cotton Bowl so he called Tommy to come up with a song. At the time "Convoy" by C.W. McCall had been a big hit and served as the inspiration for this song. Tommy picked a new name for himself, "T. Tommy & The Gray Ghost Crew". Greg Fadick a/k/a Hot Scott Fisher of KLAZ fame did the engineering. Recorded off the air, and for educational purposes, here is "Cotton Bowl Ambush"

---A.J. Lindsey, Oct 21, 2008

Tommy Riggs was a consumate performer; for much more information about Tommy, please use the search box in the upper left-hand box and type in "Tommy Riggs"...there's lots more about Tommy on this blog.


(or download here)

Although I haven't heard from him in quite some time, I presume Greg Fadick is still alive and kicking- I'll have to direct him to this post, maybe he can give us more insight into this record having been made!

Thanks to A. J., Tommy, Pat Walsh and Greg Fadick...and thanks to Dave S. for his rescue efforts and computer wizardry to bring back these formerly lost historical audio bits!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

KAAY: Light Hoss Harry Jones, By The Rivermen

Another 45 RPM record, produced for/by KAAY!  In A. J.'s words:

"If KAAY were a music station today, it would probably be playing a song about Mitch Mustain.

KAAY was always involved in Arkansas Razorback promotion. Many records, (45s with the big holes) had their beginnings at KAAY. In the era of payola, Pat Walsh wisely decided the station didn't need to be directly involved with the records. Also, if a Razorback song came from KAAY, other stations wouldn't play it. Enter J. Paul Scott. He wrote and produced may of the Razorback records on his labels and with his talent. Today's feature is a song about Light Hoss Harry Jones. As best I can date it. 1965. The group is The Rivermen, sounding a lot like the Kingston Trio. The flip side is "Quarterbackin' Man" which also got a lot of play. For legal purposes this was recorded off the air and is used here strictly for educational purposes.

Where are the radio stations today doing anything like this? "

---A.J. Lindsey, Oct 9, 2006

(or download here)

Yes, why aren't more radio stations doing anything like this?  In some cases, of the stations that ARE doing this, I have heard some raunchy stuff done by "shock jocks" (now an old term?) who barely skirt the law regarding slander and good taste...and, numerous years ago, I remember a duo who left Mobile, AL, worked in Birmingham, AL and I think in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, who got busted several times by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) for their raunchy lyrics.  They got the ratings up at the stations who employed them, but at what cost to decency?

Where's the original, quality programming?  The cookie-cutter conglomerates just keep pumping out "the hits" (I wonder WHO decides some of this stuff is a hit?) via a computer base, located hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of miles from the targeted audience.  I still cruise the AM airwaves for something fresh, but rarely on the FM band, because the latter's stations all sound alike....

They don't make 'em like they used to....my hat is off to those deejays who are still in the business, doing what they love- but I'll bet they're not having as much fun....

That's my rant- thanks to Dave S. for all his help in linking this audio for you to enjoy!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Life In The Funmobile‏

The recent picture of Ron Owens (and Sonny Martin III, just to his left) at a remote broadcast in 1969 made me go time traveling again, back to the days when taking KAAY on the road was a pretty big deal. Now, you just stick a DJ with a cell phone into the store of whichever client is willing to pay the freight, send along a few t-shirts and the station banners and it's called going "On Location." It's also supposed to fill the store with customers, but it mostly never does--unless there are some Monster Trucks or Pro Rasslers on display.

In the Glory Days, a KAAY remote broadcast took some doing. We rolled our portable studio--the Funmobile--to the client location, hitched it up to a specially-ordered telephone line and cued up the 45 RPM records on QRK turntables (we called 'em Rumble Kings) positioned to either side of what is, to this day, the smallest audio console I have ever seen: a Sparta four-pot with a single VU meter. It was identical to the one below (ignore the microphone; we had a duplicate of our studio mic in the Funmobile).

 

We did use a gooseneck--a fair bit longer than the one above--to mount the Electro-Voice 667 A (I've never been sure of the model number, but it was a big honking beast that made voices sound huge on the air). It was nice to cuddle up to something nearly as big as your head:

In a time before widespread use of Marti remote pickup transmitters, a specialized phone line had to be ordered a week or two in advance of the remote. It was known as a 15K equalized loop, the "15K" referring to the highest audio frequency that it would carry: 15,000 cycles per second, now referred to as Herz. The human ear (especially the female human ear) can detect frequencies a bit higher than 15K, but such a limit was plenty good for music and voice. (Ah, we always went for Maximum Sound Quality, didn't we?) One end of the loop would be installed at the client location, the other end would come to the 1425 West 7th Street studios and terminate at the studio patch panel in the control room equipment racks.

In my memory, it generally fell to the unfailingly cheerful Dave Montgomery and his all-around assistant, Larry, to hitch up the Funmobile to what we'd now call a big SUV and tow it to the location. Larry would get out the jacks and set about leveling the unit, while Dave powered it up, connected it to the loop and sent a test tone to the studio. Depending on the time of broadcast, all this would have to be done early in the day or the day before. It was also important to ensure that there was enough AC power on-site to pull a rather large air conditioning unit; the Funmobile could double as an oven in the summer.

Music Director Jonnie King, a mighty man his ownself, kept a duplicate set of the 45's that we were playing in a sturdy wooden box in the Funmobile, divided by category and stored out of direct sunlight to prevent warping. Music and DJ content would come from the remote, with commercials inserted by a board operator back at the station. When the spot break ended, the board-op would hit a jingle and we'd take it again.

The Funmobile was what you'd probably call a camping trailer. We got it second-hand from WBBM in Chicago, where it was the BeeMobile. I am pitiful at estimating dimensions, but it looked about twenty feet long by ten feet wide by ten feet high, with huge windows to the front and to either side of the DJ position. There were horn-type speakers on the front and Pat Walsh (who must surely have been the P.T. Barnum of his time) had heavy cardboard signs printed for each DJ to put in the windows.

And did we draw some crowds or what? The Razorback football pep rally remotes with Sonny Martin and George Jennings on game days would pack 'em in downtown for a block or so. I remember one Jackpot self-serve gas station remote where the traffic got so bad that the police had to show up to break the jam and try to restore some semblance of a flow. Once when I ran out of prizes, I noticed that Sonny had left his hairbrush in the Funmobile, so I forged his initials on the back of it and gave it away on the air. Six women immediately showed up to try to win it! (I have never before confessed this. Sonny, this is what happened to your brush back when we were all famous.)

Remotes then were a bunch of work, but that Funmobile helped KAAY to always be bigger than life.

David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday VII
The Last PD

Answers At Last (David B. Treadway)

I don't know if it was a privilege or a curse, getting to watch from the inside as KAAY moved from 1425 West Seventh Street to the new building at 2400 Cottondale Lane in 1976. A few things troubled me from the moment Dave Montgomery unscrewed the white key from the microphone switch and told me to make sure it got onto the RCA console in the new control room. Now I think I've got 'em figured out--and I'm afraid they are the definition of Tragedy. That move across town was the beginning of the end.

It only took a few days in that wonderful new facility to convince me that something was Not Right. There were some intangibles that had not made the move with us. That old KAAY Spirit never set foot in the new building. The magic just did not transfer when the people did. For years, I wondered where it went, and now I see that it already had been killed off. It was dead before we tore out the last turntable in the old studio.

There were a couple of craters in the Promised Land. Operations Manager Wayne Moss was gone, along with General Manager Pat Walsh. They had both been replaced shortly after LIN Broadcasting sold the station to Multimedia, and if the new guys had a clue at all, it didn't show. Yeah, that's my opinion, but you'd have no trouble finding other insiders who'd be a bunch more blunt.

Replacing Pat Walsh was a huge and fatal mistake. You're getting rid of the only GM in LIN Broadcasting's radio division who once billed a million dollars in one year with a stand-alone AM station? "There ain't but one set of ratings that matters a damn, and that's how much money did you make." Pat told me that when I was 26 and I have yet to meet anyone who can counter it.

The image of Pat Walsh as a hardboiled, obnoxious, money-mad ogre is a fair one--and I believe he cultivated it. But there was a lot more to Pat. His genius was in his belief that you hire the best possible person for the job, then just let them do it. Reward them when they succeed, chew their hindquarters like a starving alligator when they fail--but leave them alone as much as possible and let them work!

Wayne Moss thought like Pat. If you were good enough to be on the air at KAAY, you didn’t need somebody hovering over you. If you screwed up beyond a certain point, Wayne would be on you like two coats of paint (ask me how I know this), but he mostly laid out the path and trusted you to follow it.

The new Multimedia Program Director seemed to take pride in being the exact opposite of Wayne. It was like he never trusted his staff. It seemed as if he was waiting for us to mess up so he could pounce. Very quickly, the perception was that we couldn't be counted on to do our jobs properly, that we needed constant correction. It was a rude slap that long-timers deeply resented, and I think it was a main reason that Sonny Martin III soon bailed out for a new gig at KSSN across town. It wouldn't be too long until Bob Robbins followed him.

You can't be trusted to do your job. Somebody's got to watch you at every moment. There's the difference between KAAY's glory days and the shell it soon became. It's an attitude that's been stifling and crippling Radio from that day to this. It's such a simple thing that it's taken me nearly forty years to figure it out: complete control destroys the soul.

I don't blame New PD 1 for the way he ran things, nor do I blame the ten or twelve who followed him for their methods. Likewise, New GM 1 was just doing things the Multimedia way--as were the half dozen or so who came after him (all of this turnover in well under ten years). The blame rightly belongs to Multimedia Radio, which could not stay out of its own way long enough to let KAAY function.

I look back now and am reminded of the day in April 2011 when I touched the ruins of that glorious RCA BTA 50-F transmitter in Wrightsville. All they had to do was leave it alone…

David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday VII
The Last PD

MY KAAY CHRISTMAS IN ENGLAND !

Since my Great-Grandparents on my Dad's side came from Ireland & England, and due to my acting for many years and having great insight into the works of Shakespeare, I've always wanted to travel to England & Ireland.  What better way to spend Christmas than in the land of  Dicken's "Christmas Carol" ?

Which brings me to 1969 and my working at KAAY:

 I began at the Mighty 1090 on April 21st and, being single, occasionally found some nice girls to date.  But, in September of that year I saw a show at the Arkansas Art Center and was very impressed by one of the very attractive dancers in the show.

I found out from the program that the girl's name was Kerry, and sometime after the show got in contact with her and - since the feeling was mutual - we began dating in October...starting the beginning of a lengthy relationship.  But one of the things that really entranced me was that Kerry was from England !   She had actually grown up there, and later took up residence in Little Rock.

Since the Holidays were upon us, she asked me to spend Christmas with her and her family to which I agreed, but had to get the approval of the PD (Barry Wood) & Pat Walsh, GM.  They both gave their blessing, travel arrangements were made, and on Christmas Morning, 1969, Kerry & I headed for England to join her wonderful family for a most-unimaginable feast, and a day to remember...the first of many I would spend there.

How could we do it all in one day ?  Well, it was only about 26 miles from where we lived in Little Rock to England...England, Arkansas.  But it WAS England !

God Bless Us, Everyone, and especially Kerry...wherever you are.

Jonnie King  http.www.jonnieking.net