Merry Christmas To All!

Dear visitors and blog friends,

I apologize for not being here, posting KAAY-related material lately; in fact, we've pretty much come to a close on everything we've been able to tap out there.  Oh, we've had promises of material, but those promises have not been fulfilled yet.  Dave S., Greg B. and I hope that one day, things can align in those folks' lives and we can hear from them again, hopefully with a sledful of goodies...

To be sure, all of us- Dave, Greg and I- recently have had quite a few challenges in our lives- some pretty large, some just piled up.  I myself am guilty of coming home, after working both jobs and not having the energy to turn on this computer...but you all are on my mind (what's left of it!).  I check into Facebook for a few minutes, as I eat a hurried breakfast at 5:15AM every morning and dash off to open the main job...and, quite a few too many nights, I drag in about 11PM, haul myself through the shower and drop into bed.  Maybe things will change as soon as I can get these massive medical bills out of the way, but I don't want to get into a pity-party or a political monologue, there's enough of that already on the web.

Needless to say, I was wondering WHAT I could offer at this 20106 Christmas...then, it hit me as I was searching...why not offer EVERYTHING we've done for Christmas?  Dave Montgomery's Jonnie King's, Barry McCorkindale's, Eric Thomas', A.J. Lindsey's and others comments in one link?  WHY NOT?!?

So many memories, so much to choose from, audio, visual, notes, everything in one link, so enjoy!

http://mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com/search?q=Christmas

From 2009 to 2016, we have been blessed with loads of material.  This little niche blog has done quite well for itself, far outliving what I'd hoped for.  Still, the material is becoming finite...

But I want to speak for all of us- Dave, Greg and I- that we appreciate your comments, your visits and your support.  We wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Season's Greetings!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Happy Thanksgiving! (?)

Regardless, here's hoping everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Anniversaries

Thanks to Doug Virden to remind us:

"This month marks key anniversaries for KAAY, first this month marks the 50th anniversary of Beaker Street and the 40th anniversary when KAAY moved to the brand new building @ 2400 Cottondale Lane."

Happy Birthday, Bo Ryder

I know Bo Ryder, a.k.a. Andrew Williams, is in Radio Heaven today with the other Greats, but I still wanted to wish him happy birthday today.  That's his lovely daughter, Jennifer Eversole, standing with him in the 2nd picture.

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Phil North from May 18, 1971 - Repost

Here's another repost of an aircheck from the old Podmatic servers, with a bit of technical cleanup for speed/pitch and overall sound.  It's Phil North (Eric Chase) from midday on Tuesday, May 18, 1971.   First, here is the original post with more information on the aircheck:

http://mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-phil-north-aircheck-2.html

And, the upgraded aircheck:


(or download here)
Greg Barman

A Comment from John Kassen

"I have about 30+ hours of Beaker Street would anyone be interested in these? I have put a lot of time and money to converting these from cassette to cds. Also I have the original cassettes. Anyone interested? on Beaker Street Head Bed - updated re-post"

John Kassen, would you please contact me?  We have tried contacting you on Facebook, to no avail.

And if anyone knows John, please contact me, as well!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Happy Belated Birthday, Barry Mac!

I apologize for not getting this on earlier in the month...what with my work/sleep schedule, I've been a zombie for a while.  Nonetheless, happy 58th "victory", Barry McCorkindale!

Barry is pictured here with blog friend Doug Virden, obviously at a function (party for Barry?).  Barry is just days older than I am.  Barry also contributes heavily to the blog with audio programs and is highly appreciated!  Dave S. loads the programs for us on the blog...thanks, Dave!

Again, in celebration, and thanks to Doug: Happy birthday, Barry Mac!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com).

Phil North from April 17, 1971 - repost

During the earlier days of this Blog there were many airchecks posted and stored on the Podmatic servers.  But gradually some of those audios are disappearing from Podmatic.  We plan to repost some of them so as not to lose them, and in some cases see if we can improve the quality.

Here is an untelescoped aircheck of Phil North, aka Eric Chase, posted in 2010.  The original posting puts the date as Wednesday April 14, 1971.  But based on the comments in the aircheck, it sounds to me like the date is more likely Saturday morning, April 17 1971.  It's a weekend morning show where Phil is subbing for Sonny Martin, and Holiday does the news.  The original aircheck was noticeably slow, and it is corrected here for speed/pitch and levels.

It's pretty funny when the intro to the news gets messed up, and Phil and Holiday try to talk their way out of it.


(or download here)
Greg Barman

R.I.P., Jim Parr

As reported by blog friend Doug Virden:

"Jim Parr, the last Farm Director at KAAY, passed away on Monday Oct. 3rd. His funeral will be tomorrow (was Oct. 7, bs) at Griffin ,Leggett, Healy, and Roth on 12th St. tomorrow @ 10am (was Oct. 7 bs). After KAAY went all religion in 1985 he went to work @ AM 1010 KLRA and finally finishing up his farm broadcast career @ ARN."

 

Jimmy Van Parr, 80, of Conway, died October 3, 2016. Born November 21, 1935 at Tuckerman, Arkansas, he was the son of Van Kermit and Jenny Belle Williamson Parr. He enjoyed farming in the Wheatley, Arkansas area before moving to Little Rock where he became a farm broadcaster for the Arkansas Radio Network and later owned and operated the Blue Plate Special Restaurant with his wife, May. He was a member of First Baptist Church of Little Rock.
Preceded in death by his parents and his first wife, May Phillip Puryear Parr, he is survived by his wife, Mary Flanagin-Parr; children, Jimmy Parr (Wendy) of Long Grove, Illinois, Lisa Anne and Mary Kay Parr, both of Germantown, Tennessee, and Bill Parr (Wentz) of Collegeville, Pennsylvania; sisters, Nancy Roylance of Spokane, Washington and Judy McGaugh of Chesterfield, Missouri; a brother, Kenneth Parr of Hurst, Texas; grandchildren, Cassie Farrier, Mark Farrier, Emily Parr, Ellen Parr, Michaela Parr and Chase Parr; and one great-grandson, Noah Farrier.
Funeral Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. Friday, October 7, 2016 in the chapel of Griffin Leggett Healey & Roth, 5800 W. 12th Street, Little Rock, 72204, (501) 661-9111 with Dr. Jonathan Curtis and Dr. John Wright officiating. Entombment will follow in Forest Hills Mausoleum. Visitation will be from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. today (Thursday) at the funeral home. Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society . To sign the online guestbook, go to www.griffinleggetthealeyroth.com

Thank you, Doug.  May Jim rest in piece.  Does anyone have any audio of Jim, anywhere, at all?  It doesn't necessarily have to be from KAAY....

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

Beaker Street as heard from Cuba!

Much has been written here on the Blog about KAAY's influence in Cuba -- how strong its' nighttime signal was on the island, how the US Government used KAAY to broadcast to Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and how listeners in Cuba wrote fan letters to KAAY, especially for Beaker Street.

Recently we were contacted by someone who not only listened to Beaker Street in Cuba -- he even recorded some of it!  He found his old cassette tapes of Beaker Street and digitized them for us to share.

His name is Gueorgui Lazarov Stoychev, George for short.  He's from Bulgaria, lived in Cuba from 1966 to 1975 and again in the late 70's.  Here is his story:

"Every Cuban in ages from 16 to 30 was into WQAM (that's Miami) during the day, and KAAY during the night, especially for Beaker Street.  So was I.  The recording of the 3 files I sent you are mp3's and were done some time between 1970 and 1975 in Havana where I was living at the time. I edited them now, just for this purpose. At the time I didn't own a tape recorder or a radio cassette recorder, so I always had to borrow one from some friend that had one. Sometimes there was only a tape recorder and I had to use a mike to record from the radio. Cables? No such luxury. 

The purpose was to tape all the music that I liked but there was no way to get in Cuba or in any of the communist countries, and by the way, was forbidden.  Cassettes were expensive like gold and scarce, so space in the cassettes for music was more important and not the DJ's comments or any commercial or radio station ID. Anyway, being the show very late at nite, it began at midnight Cuban time, sometimes I fell asleep while recording and some things got recorded and survived at the end of a tape.

Decades later, when I was digitizing the tapes whose music was nowhere to be found on any format, I discovered KAAY The Mighty 1090's Beaker Street's relics. Not much, but it's something new for anyone interested in preserving what was, if you ask me, the radio station and the radio show that made a mark and history in the industry never unbeaten by no one. People living in America or anywhere else outside the Iron Curtain took all that for granted, but for me and a whole bunch of Cuban friends, all those bands, songs, albums, were something like given by God. The DJs knew what they were talking about, knew about music, had and gave information, not like now when radio is ... there are no words to describe the kind of crap radio is now days. 

So, that's basically, there are many other details, perhaps some other time, if I find something new, undiscovered.  Thank you for allowing me to share with all the KAAY and Beaker Street fans the few minutes I have with the hope that if there are some people out there, that have Beaker Street shows or/and daily programming, please share them complete with the music, not only the airchecks. Listening to complete shows is like traveling in a time machine to better times and better music.

Thank you. Kind regards,
Gueorgui Lazarov Stoychev"

Here are 3 airchecks George recorded in Cuba, around 1974 or '75, one with DJ John Roberts and two with Ken Knight:


(or download here)
After living in Cuba, George also spent time in Mexico where he worked in radio for a while and was involved in the music business:  http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Gueorgui_Lazarov/127549

Thank you, George, for keeping the KAAY flame going and for bringing those old Beaker Street tapes back to life.

Greg Barman

J.J. Stone aircheck from June 1973

We haven't had many airchecks of J.J. Stone, but here is one that's posted on YouTube, by "Rockford87".   It's from the evening of June 7, 1973 and sounds like DX reception but we don't know from where.


(or download here)
Greg Barman

Poster From Doug Virden

May have shared this before since the Arkansas Razorbacks play an old Southwest Conference rivalry on Saturday had to share it again.

 

Thanks, Doug!  We'd shared one of these years ago, good to see it again!  Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

 

Beaker Street Head Bed - updated re-post

Over time, internet sites can disappear along with the historical information contained on them.  We want to preserve the information on the creator of the spooky music bed used on Beaker Street --  Nik Raicevic and the 1970 Buddah "Head" LP.

There used to be a writeup about the Head LP and Nik on RedTelephone66.com, a psychedelic music site about obscure and out of print albums from the 1960's and 70's.  But that site has recently disappeared.  Here is a capture of the info from that page:

https://archive.org/details/BeakerStreetHeadBed

Fortunately the information about the Head LP on the Hippy.com site -- "dedicated to the hippy in all of us", ha! -- is still up:

http://www.hippy.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=477

And finally here is the music used for the Beaker Street bed, from the 17:00 minute cut "Cannabis Sativa".   

(or download here)

Greg

Birthday Boys!

Today, September 20, is the birthday of two of this blogs good friends, Doug Virden and Richard Robinson!  Happy birthday, guys!

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmeil.com)

Martin & Jennings show from October 13, 1972

There several airchecks of KAAY that have been making the rounds either on YouTube or other aircheck sites.  We were alerted to this one, an aircheck of Martin & Jennings on Friday morning October 13, 1972, from 7:19 to 8:02am.

It was found on the Airchexx.com site, which picked it up from yet another aircheck site.  It was a bit off-speed and the original contributor is unknown.   We have re-processed the recording for proper speed/pitch and some noise reduction, so now it sounds better to present to you:



(or download here)
Greg Barman

Beaker Street with Ken Knight on July 29, 1974

Our series of airchecks from Monday July 29, 1974 comes to an end with a "new" Beaker Street show, hosted by Ken Knight, who did the show for a year or two.  This telescoped aircheck starts from 11:13pm to Midnight, with music from Mahogany Rush, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sparks, Deep Purple, Bad Company, Black Oak Arkansas, Nectar and others, plus that famous spooky 'Head' bed.  And there is a bit of a spot from a regular advertiser, the Texas band Baby.

There is a break in the aircheck after Midnight, and it resumes from 3:40-4:13am when KAAY goes back to top-40 and Ken Knight keeps rocking.

A big Thank You goes out again to Joe Martin of Wichita Falls TX, who sent us an old reel of these airchecks for us to digitize and share on the Blog.  We've always known there are STILL plenty of tapes of KAAY in people's attics or basements, just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed again.   Do you have any old tapes of the Big K?  Let us know!


(or download here)
Greg Barman

Poster From Doug Virden

In antipation of the Arkansas Razorbacks game against the TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday,  here is a vintage KAAY poster.

 This was before all the trademarks on sports names and logos.

Thanks, Doug!

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)

Steve Scott on July 29, 1974

Here is #6 in the series of airchecks made by Joe Martin on Monday July 29, 1974.  Joe's goal was to capture something on tape from all 7 KAAY DJ's who were on that day.

This is Steve Scott from 8:00-8:46pm.

Steve has been mentioned on this blog many times before:
http://mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com/search?q=steve+scott




(or download here)
Next week -- a new Beaker Street aircheck!

Greg Barman

Buffalo Bill Edwards on July 29, 1974

We're moving on to afternoon drive in our series of KAAY airchecks from July 29, 1974.  And, it's Buffalo Bill Edwards having a high-energy time, playing the rock'n'roll and relating a lot of severe weather warnings.  And, at one point he refers to WLS' John Records Landecker, just for the fun of it. The aircheck runs from 4:00-5:13pm.

Thanks to Joe Martin for this series of contributions.

(or download here)

Greg Barman