Sonny Martin (Matt White) At Pfeiffer Blass

Compliments of Barry Mac, folks! The more we dig, the more audio history erupts from files all over! It is only due to diligence, passion and drive that memories are awakened, opened and, someone says, "Yeah, I remember something about that...it's GOTTA be up in the attic!", and badda-bing, badda-boom, we get to share it with YOU!

This comes from the 1971-1974 era...someone (I think it was Dave M.) positively identified this as Matt White, which would be about right in the deejay line-up:

Sonny Martin at Pfeiffer Blass (stream) | (download)



Barry Mac is able to supply us with clear, great audio he's downloaded and recorded, free of static, hiss and atmospheric noise. I had a great conversation with him about a week ago from this post and I had an absolutely great time visiting with him.

Keep 'em coming, Barry!

(Thanks to Dave S. for all that audio help!)

--Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

My Thanks To You...

Dear readers,

I wanted to give thanks for all who contribute to the blog; without them, there would be no blog, nor little tribute to one of the greatest stations ever to grace the dial, KAAY. The deejays, engineers and everyone who worked at or contributed in some way to the station, my hat is off to you. Your stories, anecdotes and contributed materials are of utmost value to us. To the audio and memorabilia collectors, you have also helped in a great way to add to the memories. And to the listeners, your comments and memories further enrich the history of KAAY, as well.

I cannot even BEGIN to be able to thank Those Greats Who Were There: Jerry Sims, David B. Treadway, Greg Fadick, Dave Montgomery, Don Payne, Jonnie King, Phil North, Mark Larson, Barry McCorkindale, and others, who have given of their time and talent to sift back through the years, to contribute and share their valuable memories, recordings and materials with us. The same warm gratitude goes out to Dave Schmidt, Richard Robinson, Ron Henselman, John Shultz, Greg Barman, Tom “The Voice” Perryman and others, who either put in sweat equity, time, talents or materials, to keep this tribute site going. And, especially to you, dear reader, who takes the time to visit, leave a comment, or gives insight on your KAAY enjoyment- I thank you.

This is NOT “my” blog...it belongs to everyone. My passion, drive and love of great memories of KAAYs’ Top 10 heyday compels me to constantly search, research and do the best possible to bring even more history “to the page”. I constantly beg, plead, cajole, entice and otherwise harass the aforementioned Greats for their memories- and they so willingly and graciously comply, all because of their love of the station and the fun they had while at KAAY. I cede authority to Them in matters of KAAY history. However, without EVERYONE’S contributions, this blog would have died a quick death.

Have I made mistakes? Yes, I have, I humbly apologize...and I’ve done my best to correct them, when alerted to the fact. I depend on everyone connected with the station to keep me straight! Only the true history of the station is coveted here. I understand opinions abound, at times; that is to be expected. They’ll be left to the “comments” section of the posts, if they warrant merit, OR, if deemed important enough, as in the search for more history, posted appropriately. However, as I’ve mentioned to the various contributors as I’ve contacted them or interviewed with them over the phone: we do not run an “Enquirer” here and “dirt” will not be tolerated.

My humble thanks to all...and may we all be able to keep this blog alive for some time to come. Your contributions of audio, station memorabilia, memories and what-have-you are always welcome; we’ll share them here for all to enjoy!

Bud Stacey (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Re: The Don Marcus Question

Although this was during my tenure at KAAY I don’t remember Don Marcus nor do I recognize the voice. However, if I were going to risk conjecture, I think he may have been there, perhaps as a short-timer in between Clyde Clifford and Stuart McRae. This is only a “SWAG” and I most humbly bow to anyone with better information.

Dave M/

Don Marcus, June 2, 1974

Greg Barman has contributed a 6:44 scoped aircheck of Don Marcus's overnight (post 2am) shift on KAAY.  Greg previouly submitted this clip to A.J. Lindsey with this comment:

Here’s an aircheck from the early morning of June 2, 1974, received on the skywave at my home in Evanston, IL, north of Chicago. There’s some fading, but the signal is usually good and sometimes downright awesome, strong as a local station. The jock is Don Marcus and he’s cranking out the jingles and the hits including some “hard core rock’n’roll at the 50,000 watt Mother of Arkansas”. Since the jocks usually assumed the names of the LIN board members, who this really was is anybody’s guess.

The aircheck starts with the opening for “Beaker Theater” at 2:00am, followed by the overnight rock format from 3:30-4:30am. Note the nighttime Voice of Arkansas promos – “greetings to the Great South” and later to “Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.” KAAY loved to use big voices on its imagers, you’ll hear Gary Gears on several of them and also that of WLS/Chicago morning newsguy Lyle Dean on the News IQ contest promo. Answer the news IQ questions and you could win $10.90! I figure that’s about $45 in today’s dollars.

(download here)


So, who was "Don Marcus"?   Where is he these days?  Anyone know?

Thanks to Greg for contributing the audio clip!

---Dave S.

Hearing Jerry "Sonny Martin" Sims....

Jerry was the only Sonny Martin I ever had the honor of hearing at my location near Chicago. Maybe I missed a lot by being only in skywave range of the station, but I still cherish every bit of what I was able hear. I'm sure I missed many wonderful personalities.

Ron H.

(Ron, I, too, heard Jerry...when he was in Mobile a few weeks ago, we did the math and it was apparant that I heard him as well, when I was a kid...we had fun talking about a bunch of things along that line!  I wish I'd have been as wise as you and others who recorded things, but a kid doen't normally think of things like that...otherwise, I'd have Jerry on tape!  Bud S.)

Jerry"Sonny Martin" Sims, Setting The Record Straight

Anonymous (I wonder who that was) got several facts right, but was confused on just a few. Possibly I can fill in some blanks....... A.J.'s first hire was me (to replace Wayne Moss/Sonny Martin) and Tommy Riggs did not come along for a while. You might look up an early blog comment about Tommy calling me while I was on the air one night....."Please tell me that you are Jerry Sims, and please get me a job there!". He was traveling with his band somewhere in the upper mid-west. Tommy and I had worked for A.J. when we were first starting in radio back at KXLR in Little Rock. I told A.J., they got together and Tommy took over the 8pm-Midnight shift as Rock Robbins. I am thinking that is when I took the Sonny Martin Program to mid day. I believe it was Jim Hankins who always said it was a "Program", not a "show", 'cause you couldn't show anything. Well, we tried to!

Also Matt White was not an "early" hire.....'cause it was me, and I did not leave until 1967. Matt took my place and name. And George J. Jennings did not leave "soon" after A.J., because he was still there in 1967 when I left. I listened to Bruce Jenkins after I left, but we never worked there at the same time. So "Mr. A.", (or is it Ms. A.?) has some real inside knowledge, and we appreciate it. If these little "fill in" details really matter........... "now you know.......the rest of the story".

I just turned up some new pictures, along with the Bob Mullins one, and will send one of Tommy Riggs (awarding a contest winner a new Lawn Boy Mower) out in front of the KAAY 7th Street location. Also a "not so clear" shot of the building. For those familiar with Little Rock, the location was adjacent to the State Capital Building. The street right in front of the capital building, which was called Woodlawn back then, ran right up our driveway on the southern end. The building, that one that David B. and I would pay big bucks to re-enter, was torn down after the station moved to Cottonwood Lane.

I enjoy all comments on the blog. Thanks to those who put in all the time getting them out. I will try to do my little part too.

Jerry "Who was really there as the middle Sonny Martin" Sims

Farewell, Pernell Roberts....

Bonanza star (and star of other shows, as well) Pernell Roberts passed into the hearafter, January 24, 2010.  There are a few reasons I mention him, even though he wasn't involved with the radio industry: he starred as Adam Cartwright on the show Bonanza, which started in 1959 and was the Number 1 show from 1964 to 1967...during some of the greatest years (some consider) of KAAY...and it was a great show to watch growing up!  In ten of its 14 years on the air, it was in the Top Ten, as well.  He also starred in, "Trapper John, M.D." which I didn't watch much, but he played the character as a spin-off from another favorite show of mine, M*A*S*H.

Pernell Roberts cut a folk album, "Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies"...which, I doubt any of which aired on KAAY, but still, was a musical endeavor of his.  He also served in the Marines before acting in the 1950's...Ooh-rah!

I wonder how he rode off into the sunset: in a jeep or on a horse?  Nonetheless, good memories....

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Bob Mullins, The 2nd Buddy Carr

I was excited to find among my old stuff a picture of the old control board at KAAY. This is from the original control room upstairs in the KTHV Television station. This was home to KAAY from the start and for a few years after. I am not certain of the year we moved from there to the 7th Street location. (Help me somebody! ...1965 or 1966?) We did not take a lot of pictures back then, unless they had a promotional purpose. This one is of Bob Mullins, the second Buddy Carr. There was one after him, Richard Wiethan, who was number three. The station retired the name after Richard was killed in a National Guard training accident in 1967.

There were lots of exciting times behind that board. These were the most popular days of the station ( in my opinion). You can see one turntable off to the left....there was another off to the right. The white labels are carts with all commercials, jingles and promos. You can see three cart machines behind Bob. In the upper right corner you can see a little of the window that provided a view into the KAAY Comex News booth/room. The phone on top of the board was left alone for transmitter calls, etc.

Just to the right of the board was a phone with ten lines. They were flashing most of the time at night. Most of us would answer when we could. It was always fun to see who was listening and from where. I recall that when I was working the 8pm to midnight shift, the lines would start to light up about ten minutes before we returned from our religious block (6:30 to 8pm) to good ole Top 40 fun for our part of the world. Salesmen, who made lots of money off the religion, would prefer we come out of the religion with one of our softer sounding records. I, on the other hand, thought all those listeners had waited long enough, and might prefer some Mitch Rider or Paul Revere and the Raiders. I never got any negative thoughts from A.J. (Program Director) or Len Carl or Pat Walsh (General Managers). Always, they let us do our thing. It seemed to work very well.

Many times regular listeners from other states outside Arkansas would travel to Little Rock and want to visit us there. Visitors after hours was a definite no-no with the TV station. That did not usually slow us down. I always thought that if a listener traveled to Little Rock, and wanted to visit for a while in person it was the least I could do. I do not remember any visitor not being in full surprise, that all that fun was coming from just one guy, behind that board with a stack of 45's, many more recorded voices, and the greatest jingles in the world. I suppose I am now kind of amazed too, looking back on it. Lots of credit goes to Felix McDonald and his crew too, for cranking that signal out so far to so many. I sure am proud to have been a small part of it.

Last time I saw my friend Bob Mullins was many years ago when he flew through Little Rock delivering a small airplane from California to someone back east. He made a short stop in Little Rock to refuel. He called, and we got to visit for a while. Possibly some day he will get word of the blog. He was a great Top 40 DJ with a great voice. I promise he would have some interesting stories of the glory days of KAAY.

Listeners were not the only ones having fun.....can you tell?

Jerry Sims......Sonny Martin .....The middle one

Beaker Street New Year's Eve Aircheck Question

Guillaume Lanfray said...


Glad I could help! Now can someone tell me the name & artist of that "grizzly bear" song at the very end of Part 4 of the Beaker Street airchecks?

(Guillaume is referring to the 12/31/1971 New Year's Eve Aircheck in reply to Greg Barman's "Thank you"...anyone know the song he's referring to?  Bud S.)

KAAY-Megalomania Info

Bruce M said...


Bud, this aircheck came from me, I had it on a tape segment. The album reference puts a reasonably close date stamp. I'm thinking it was recorded beyween Aug 75 - 76. There's another aircheck..."77/stuar...." that I found & posted, accurately dated, as it mentions Rush's new album, Farewell to Kings.

KAAY Tidbits

Wayne Moss (Sonny Martin) was on the air from 12:30-3:00 (following Marvin Vines 12-12:30) and he became PD when Jim Hankins (Mike McCormick) left the station in early '64.

It was Hankins who was the mastermind when the KAAY signed on with the new format and call letters. He would go on to PD positions at WLS, WABC, and top stations in Houston.

The afternoon drive 3:00 - 6:30 was Bob Mullins, (Buddy Carr). Garner Ted and others were on 6:30 - 8:00.

Moss left the station after a very short stint and was replaced as PD by A.J. Lindsey, (Doc Holiday.)

Also leaving during the approximate time period was George Jennings, (replaced as News Director by B. Bruce Jenkins), who went home to Texas and KBOX in Dallas. He would later move to WOAI and San Antonio. Jennings returned to Little Rock in the 70s but would go back to Texas and briefly New Orleans before retiring from WOAI in the late 90s.

A couple of A.J.'s first hires were Tommy Riggs for the night shift, and Matt White as the new Sonny Martin. Riggs was a talented musician in his own right and would leave for Nashville in the mid-70s. (His bother Steve continues to live in Little Rock.)

White would leave 1090 for KSSN and was allowed to taken the "Sonny Martin" name with him. He retired from broadcasting a few years later and moved to s resort on the Little Red River near Heber Springs which his wife's family owned. He can still be heard on stations in the Searcy market.

(Good info, left as a comment from an anonymous source...thank you!  Bud S.)

Beaker Street Megalomania Aircheck

I can't recall where I got this aircheck; it is labelled, "Beaker St KAAY 1975-08 or Later Megalomania".  It's just a 33-second aircheck at the end of a Black Sabbath selection.  The announcer sounds like Clyde Clifford.  Give a listen- can anyone verify who this is?

(download here)


Just one of those curiosity things of mine....Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)
(Thanks to Dave S. for the audio link!)

Wayne Moss & The WOAI-KAAT Bet

Dave M. and David B. Treadway identified Wayne Moss as the voice behind the WOAI-KAAY bet, previously posted.  Wayne was a "Sonny Martin", left KAAY then came back and used his own name, which was a rare case, since the moniker was already in use (Was Matt White using "Sonny Martin" at the time, does anyone know?  I'm supposing so...Bud S.).

Dave M. sends along some goodies gleaned from A. J. Lindsey's old blog that we gladly share here:

Note that the date on the personality profile is 9/27/62 and Wayne Moss was 25 years young at the time this was released.

Click on the attachments, they should expand for better viewing.  Thank you, Dave M.!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Jan Gabriel Comments

Denise Dorman said...

Thanks for remembering Jan. He was a very special person who touched thousands of lives.

(...and...)

I think Jan touched more than thousands. Many of his fans never knew his name, but they knew his voice. He inspired many of us who wanted to sound like him, but even more important than that, he made every commercial stick in every listener's mind. I was testing transmitters yesterday, and each one had a slight digital delay. I found myself saying, "Sunday, Sunday." Thank you for your comments. Ron Henselman

1972 KAAY-WOAI Bet

KAAY always had SOMETHING going on!  Sometimes two or three promotions at a time.  This time, it was a bet between KAAY and WOAI down in Texas, regarding the 1972 Razorback-Longhorn football game.

If the Razorbacks won, the WOAI had to send 100 lbs. of prime steak to KAAY; if the Longhorns won, KAAY had to send 100 lbs. of ham.  In addition, the losing station's deejay  (between KAAY's Wayne Moss and WOAI's Bob Moody) would have to go to the winning deejay's city and treat him to a fine meal.

I like the spunk in this announcement- the announcer said, "...when the Longhorns lose..."...but it was not to be:  Arkansas lost to Texas, 15-35 on 10/21/72:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Razorbacks_football,_1970–1979

Can anyone identify the announcer in this audio clip?  By the way, Barry McCorkindale donated this audio clip for all of us to enjoy...thank you, Barry Mac!

(download here)

(Thanks to Dave S. for help with the audio!)

(Dave M. says it is Wayne Moss...thanks, Dave!  Bud S,)

BE THERE! SUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

In 1971, Phil North and I would cut the Carlisle Dragway spots on Thursday, to start on Friday with a heavy schedule that would wrap up at the last possible minute (roughly noon) on Sunday.

Phil would set levels in the production room by having me yell at the top of my lungs into both microphones in the voice booth: an Electro-Voice 667 and an RCA 77DX. He would roll tape on an Ampex 350 (the left-hand rear machine) and join me in the booth, where it was literally off to the races.

“SUNday at Carlisle Dragway” was how they always began, with Phil taking the first line. We’d go from there, trading back and forth as loud as we could, as fast as we could. I remember “O.D. Brazil in his top fuel dragster” figuring prominently in the spots—after that it was a litany of racers’ names and their “stocks, super modifieds and funny cars!” “Time trials at 10:00 AM, racing starts at noon!”

Inevitably, we’d get the giggles somewhere in the first or second take. I’d blow a line and start laughing, but Phil always stayed in character. “I can’t BELIEVE you screwed up (NOT the term he used) something that simple!” he’d shout, just like it was in the script. “I’m working with a MORON!” We’d waste a bunch of tape before I could get it back together.

We usually had it by the third take and Phil didn’t have to edit the track for time. This was because of the considerable copywriting chops of Kaye Risser, another of the great women of KAAY. Before she turned in any piece of copy, she’d read it aloud and put a stopwatch on it.

The backing track was contained on a gray Fidelipac tape cartridge labeled “Drag loop.” Phil had found maybe ten seconds of music that sounded like the intro to the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” on steroids and had looped it out to a full sixty seconds—probably took him all of five minutes. The drag race sound effects came from the Major Production Library and featured the unmistakable roar of supercharged hemi-head Dodge engines from California strips.

The Carlisle spots were about the only ones where Phil would use the built-in limiter in the Collins tube-amp console. You had to lift the lid and turn a couple of knobs to get what Phil called the “big fat” sound. (To this day, my pet name for any good compressor/limiter is “fat box.”) When he had finished the mix, the needle on the VU meter barely moved.

Phil and I were by no means the only voices of Carlisle. I remember Mike McCormick (Barry Wood) and George Jennings taking their turns. No doubt, everyone who had ever been on production duty appeared on at lest one Carlisle spot. It seems that the raceway started advertising on KAAY shortly after the Great Debut of 1962 and was thoroughly integrated into the station folklore by the time I got there.

I don’t think even one of the Carlisle spots from Phil’s tenure made it to his extensive archives—and I sure hope I’m wrong about that.

“Carlisle Dragway, thirty miles from Little Rock, ninety miles from Memphis on I-40! Be there! Sundaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

I swear I can still smell burning rubber…

David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday VII

Ron H. Comments On Jan Gabriel

Take a look at this link to YouTube. The person doing the show, who is Bob Sirott, brought an antique radio to my former employer to be restored. Since I like Bob, I restored it on my own time and donated the parts from my dad's forty year old stock.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMqhq67xei0&NR=1

I never realized Jan Gabriel was the voice in the dragstrip commercials; I remembered him as a guy who hosted a show on TV called "Up Tempo." It was sort of an "American Bandstand" show which originated in Chicago. If Jan Gabriel only knew how many times I tried to mimic his dragstrip commercials, he would have had a good laugh. He became the announcer for Santa Fe Speedway. It was advertised as the only speedway with a track of clay. I was never there for the races, but the wooded and unpaved parking lot was the site where at least three major hamfests were held during the summer months. I'll bet I was there at least thirty or forty times on a Sunday, but there weren't any races while I was there.

I forgot to mention Bob Sirott was one of the WCFL deejays during the station's most popular years.

73,

Ron

(In the Ham radio world, "73" is short for "best regards", originating in Morse Code, when we abbreviated as much as possible.  Both Ron and I are Ham radio operators...Bud)

Drag Race Announcer CD!

In regards to Dave M.'s post about Jan Gabriel, I started to snoop about the 'web, looking for information on the old Carlisle Dragway...and found an interesting CD offer, "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Be There!"  You can click on the link within the link below to hear a sample of the CD and find how to order it.  Fun stuff for drag race fans!

http://www.hotrodder.com/trackforum/dragstrips.html

There WAS some discussion there about dragstrips around the country, including Carlisle Dragway, but the latter has since been purged.  Well, there's the CD!

Did anyone remember KAAY being on-site for any races?  Does anyone have any photographs they'd like to post here from Carlisle Dragway?  Send the attachments to my address below and I'll post them!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

"Greetings!"

I was listening to a Don Marcus 6/2/74 aircheck, which contained the announcement:

"Greetings, to the great South: Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Sunshine State of Florida, this is the nighttime voice of Arkansas, KAAY, Little Rock!"

...in that deep, rich voice we all love to hear!!!!

Another announcement later in the aircheck includes, "Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Caribbean..."
And, as deeply south as the signal reached, I'd also like to say "Greetings!" to San Jose, Costa Rica, who just checked in!

We've had well over 6900 "hits" since we started this blog- not as many as others- but we serve a niche audience, and a loyal one at that, from all over the North American continent...plus, we have visitors in Europe and Asia, as well.

Welcome all!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

"SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!"

We recently lost Jan Gabriel, who made these dragway spots famous.
======================================================

SAD DAY! SAD DAY! SAD DAY!

Hail and farewell to Jan Gabriel, long time Chicago voice talent and inventor of the iconic "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!" ads for Chicago's U.S. 30 Dragstrip in the 70's.

Mr. Gabriel, 69, passed away after a long battle with kidney disease, appropriately enough on Sunday.
========================================

KAAY advertised for “Carlisle Dragway, I-40 in Carlisle, Arkansas” in a style that mimiced this historic radio voice. I don’t remember who did the spots for KAAY, but maybe DBT does – there were several as I remember.

There’s a good video on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDYzidMqq4o

BE THERE! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

Dave M/