![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
Radio?!! That's awesome! What did you do?
My parents had their own radio show in the 1950s.
I did
everything. Started off as an 18-year old kid working as a disc jockey in AM radio, I was also there when FM became the dominant band, and worked pretty much every format and shift. When I started we were still playing records, then we moved to recorded carts, followed by CDs, (which we promoted as being in 'laser digital stereo.')
I was also around for the conversion to completely digital broadcasting.
Started as an announcer, then Music Director, worked my way up to Program Director, and was General Manager of a public radio station for a number of years.
I began in a mid-size market in Mississippi, and eventually weasled my way into a top 100 market in Louisiana. (As you know, the higher the market, in terms of population, the better the pay.)
Your comment about your parents brings back a memory of a bit I once did on morning radio.
It was 1988, and Baton Rouge pentacostal televangelist Jimmy Swaggart had just been caught in a scandal involving a prostitute somewhere near New Orleans. I 'informed' the morning guy on the air that I had come across a monumental discovery regarding the story.
I played him an elaborately constructed (fake) 'interview' I had done back in the 1950s, complete with reverb on the voices, 50s music and 50s commercials. In the studio with me was a rising young singer named Elvis Presley (done by one of my radio pals from another station who did a perfect Elvis.)
We started out with me congratulating him for 'tearing up the charts' with his releases. I asked him who his influences were, and he did a bit on how much he liked Frank Sinatra, which was damn funny. Then I asked him what he thought about Jerry Lee Lewis and things took a turn.
Elvis said 'I wish you wouldn't have asked me about that. I really wish you hadn't.' I asked 'why?' He answered, (building up to an angry tirade), 'Because I just do. I think he's a stinker,and his whole family is a buncha inbred idiots.' He said 'there's something in my records. If you were to listen to 'em funny some day down the line you might, you know, hear somethin'.'
I inflamed things by telling him that Jerry Lee Lewis was calling himself The King of Rock and Roll, which Elvis didn't seem to like very much. I don't remember what he said back to me in the dialogue, but it ended up with me saying 'You can't say that' and us getting into a huge fistfight on the air (via SFX) and a 1950s commercial suddenly coming in to end things.
Segue back to me on the morning show in 1988, where I tell the morning guy that I'd just listened back to that tape and decided to check out some Elvis records. We played a recording done backwards of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" with my friend doing an overdub of Elvis talking about his plans to 'get back' at Jerry Lee Lewis with a series of 'kamikazee brides' who would commit suicide (he'd had a number of wives who had died mysteriously.)
He also announced plans to set things up, perhaps even after he himself was dead, so that his vendetta would continue on with Jerry Lee's other family members, such as his cousin, Jimmy Swaggart ("I never liked that man"), perhaps involving a prostitute on Highway 61. He said "Highway 61 Revisited. That could be a song, you know?"
As a part of the preparation for this bit I had constructed an even more detailed story of my 'career' in radio that was never used, which began with a radio show my parents had done shortly after WWII, and into the early 50s, and was my start in broadcasting. The idea was based on the 1950s TV show "Ozzie and Harriet" which featured Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, as well as their son Ricky, who became a star in his own right.
Needless to say, when I read your post about your parents having a radio show in the 1950s I immediately thought about my own fake radio 'history.'
I'm an avid student of radio, and I would
love to hear about your parents show. If you don't want to post it here, please send me a PM so I can learn who they were, what they did, and their contribution.
I'm envious. I would have loved to have been raised by radio parents.
I've often wished that I had been born earlier and could have been involved in radio broadcasting in the 1930s and 1940s, when it was the dominant form of mass communication. My other regret is not being in the medium during the 1960s during the 'boss jock' era and being able to introduce a 'brand new record from the Beatles!'
That said, I have to live vicariously through the wonderful stories of folks like your parents who got to participate in those times.
