Houston Retro Radio
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Send us your cassettes
If you have any original airchecks on cassette, please send them to me now. If I don't receive any soon, I may get rid of my last cassette deck.
I was one of the first people in Houston to own an audio cassette machine and carry it around. This was so far back that if you played it in public, everyone assumed it was a radio.
I was once listening to a cassette of Sgt. Pepper on a city bus. This was decades before iPods. It was even before the Sony Walkman, so I was listening through a speaker. I don't recommend that you do that on a bus today.
Some high school girls, only slightly younger than me at the time, recognized the music. One of them exclaimed, "They are playing the whole album!" The "they" in the statement meant whatever radio station I was playing.
They didn't realize that I controlled the horizontal, I controlled the vertical, and I controlled the audio. Music was moving into the outer limits of portability.
Eventually, I owned hundreds of cassettes, most of them spoken word recordings ranging from poetry to business management.
Starting in 2004, I copied all of my cassettes to mp3. The oldest educational cassettes had been around since 1972. All my cassette recordings now fit on a single hard drive. The physical cassettes have been physically cleared out of the room.
My current car doesn't have a cassette player. If I want to listen to material from a cassette, I have to burn the recording to an mp3 CD. The audio cassette format seems to have had its day.
I don't like having a lot of unused equipment gathering dust. That's why I just sold my darkroom enlarger and Kodak Carousel slide projector. It was clear that those items where part of my photographic past, but not part of my future.
I used Craig's List for the first time. It was great to be able to sell things without risking money on ads which might not sell.
The last time I received a new aircheck on cassette tape was in 2007. Are there any more out there? Please send them now while I am still set up to copy cassettes myself.
Of course, I am also accepting reel to reel tapes, but I have to dub them at the nearby home studio of a former program director.
A Facebook page for your questions and remarksI have set up a blog just for the people who visit this web site. It is not a place for ME to answer radio questions. It is a place for ANYBODY to answer a radio question. If I happen to know the
answer, I will write one. However, the chances are there will be
someone else out there who is better equipped to give an answer. Houston Retro Radio on Facebook Grady McAllister May 5, 2011 |
"I tell my lecture audiences to never, ever
watch local TV news."
— Ray Bradbury (Playboy Interview, 1996)
Above: Tupelo, Mississippi, January, 1983. Click the image for a larger
view. The bigger picture includes my 1982 metallic burnt orange Ford
EXP. A sporty two seater based on the Escort, it became the poor man's
Mustang.
KEY PAGES ON
THIS SITE
The James Thomson Poetry Works
Alamo Page: Final Appeals from Travis
The Civil War:
"Chiefly About War Matters"
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Weird Tales of the Jazz Age: "May
Day"
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
An Unhurried Look at Time Management
All Business and Training Articles
Weather Over, Near and Surrounding Houston
Bertha Rita McAllister (1924-2OO2)
Off Site Links
The above link is part of a link exchange program. The Vasthead web pages (on line since 1997) are accepting link exchanges for the first time. If you would like a link to your site from The Galveston Arrow, Houston Retro Radio, or another Vasthead web page, you can contact us at the email link below.
Desperately Seeking SixtiesAlthough this web site has a reputation for being about Houston radio in the sixties, there is no set cut off date on either end of the period covered. The most recently recorded item is a KNUZ oldies format aircheck from 1991. I also have a good amount of New Wave era material from around 1980.Actually, the early 60's are woefully underrepresented here.
Only a very few items were recorded before October, 1964. I am asking for more Houston radio material from the 60's, especially the first half of the decade. Top 40 recordings are welcome, particularly if they are unscoped recordings not previously heard on the internet. I also want to make a special appeal for adult format materials from the early and mid 60's. That would include such AM stations as KXYZ, KODA, KPRC, KTRH, and KTHT (Demand Radio 79) plus all the Houston FM stations of that era. I am asking you to think about about what old reel to reel tapes you may know about. Those materials may be gathering dust in someone's attic. They may be about to be thrown into the proverbial (and literal) dust bin of history. That is what will happen to those tapes if someone dies and the person in charge of the estate fails to understand their historical interest. If you own those tapes yourself, the person to whom I just alluded who will hypothetically die someday is you. — Grady McAllister Write to this web site |
All of my airchecks are now online!In fact, I have nothing left except my Apollo 11 material. I am holding the moon landing material back indefinitely. That way I will still have something to trade if that is the only way to get something I want. I have given everything else away. I must be sent new material for this site to grow. Reel to reel tapes from the first half of the sixties get top priority. Adult format tapes get even higher priority. — Grady McAllister How this web site is organizedThis radio section grew to the point where had to be split into more than one page. The new pages are listed toward the top left. No system of classification is perfect, and once you put a station into a category there can be some misleading implications. KILT won't be listed as an adult format, but it was not just for teenagers. It mainly aimed for ages 18-35. On the other hand, some teenagers listened to the KXYZ beautiful music format in the 60's. I was one of them. Here is the question I use to separate the adult formats from the not so adult formats: "Is this a station which a young punk would put up with?" In the 60's and 70's, a young punk would have listened to KILT and KLOL, but he would not have put up with KPRC, KODA, or KYND. I listened to all those stations, including the ones that a young punk would have laughed at. I was young but I was never a young punk. (I credit the Alex Bennett recordings for teaching me the usefulness of the phrase "young punk.") There will also be overlapping categories. The Alex Bennett group is big enough to rate a separate section. Yet among his material you can find entire recordings which are the regular KILT music programming, not just the talk shows you expect. You also find the opposite situation: A talk show on page devoted mainly to DJ's. The Beau Weaver talk show follows the Captain Jack DJ materials on the Mainly 80's page. That is because I didn't want to break up my "Night in the Life of KILT" set. There are also newscasts embedded within talk shows and music shows. I hope to eventually copy all of the newscasts and list them separately on the news and public affairs page. This home page is the one you should mark in your browser. The specialized radio pages will undergo additional reorganization and renaming, so always begin your visit here. Clicking on the "Houston Retro Radio" flash text banner will return you to this page from any other radio page. If you wander onto another part of VASTHEAD.COM, you can return to this radio home page by using the cyan colored link marked "Houston Retro Radio." Houston Retro Radio is hosted as part of VASTHEAD.COM,
a web site which has been on line since 1997. You can also access
this page directly by going to If you don't want your name to be used, or for an email to be quoted, please state that at the beginning of your message All writing, including my own, is subject to continual revision to better meet the current needs this site. In some cases, an incoming message may be rewritten slightly to improve clarity or to conform to generally accepted editing practice (for example, not beginning a sentence with a numeral). Please write to me if you notice any typographical errors, bad links, skipping mp3 files, or any other problems in these pages. There is little point in writing to me seeking a specific aircheck. Nearly everything is already here. Grady McAllister The above recordings are archived for their historical value to researchers. They may not be used for any commercial purpose. The material is made available under U.S.C. Title 17 Section 107. Any given item may be covered under international copyright law even if no copyright notice appears. Houston Retro Radio is hosted as part of VASTHEAD.COM. You can also access these pages by going to http://houstonretro.com. |
Send all your specialized radio questions to: Houston Retro Radio on FacebookThe Facebook page is an adjunct to the Houston Retro Radio site. It takes a cabal of radio people to create a clearinghouse for all radio questions. If you are a radio veteran Houston Retro Radio on Facebook You can still write to me directly: However, questions about who was morning drive in what year and general rants will be referred to the Facebook page. Do not for any reason send me an email reading:
I have set up the Facebook forum for a very selfish reason: I don't like dealing with questions like the one in the above example. |
Larry King on How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere
Post all questions, opinions, and requests for airchecks
on this radio Facebook page:
Houston
Retro Radio on Facebook
Groovy, baby!
Or, A typical aircheck request: "Could you possibly find more of these and put them on your site? That would be so groovy, man...LOL"
— from an April 27, 2010, email
My Response:
Somebody has been watching too many Austin Powers movies.
The above message complained that this site has only short "snippets" of KILT in the 70's. That's quite a shame, isn't it?I am going to explain the aircheck situation one more time.
This page began just as a place to list my own recordings of radio stations. Later on, other people made contributions, but this site was never intended to be the Listener's Clearinghouse for All Airchecks.It takes quite a bit of time just managing the current collection. I am not in the business of finding specific additional airchecks for people. The reasons are thoroughly explained on the FAQ page.
If you have something to contribute, fine, but don't expect me to locate new airchecks for you.
If you would like to make a public appeal for a specific type of recording, you should place it directly on our public Facebook page.
Do not request an aircheck in an email to me. Everything I have to offer is already on line, so what is the point in asking for what I obviously don't have?
Don't write just to complain about what isn't here. I am not here to apologize for what I don't have.
I set up the public Facebook page so people would have a place to appeal for airchecks, ask questions, and express opinions.
Houston Retro Radio on Facebook.
Added April 16, 2010
Remembering Richard Dobbyn
KBRZ, Freeport, 1974, Richard Dobbyn
Ken Tyner sent this material from Freeport, Texas...Grady, I was in Houston today getting my car serviced, and I left a message on your voice mail.
I went by Bill Young's studio in Sugar Land and they were kind enough to transfer (from cassette) a voice over Richard Dobbyn did for me back in 1974. I got them to make me, Bill and YOU an extra copy. So, write me back and let me know where to send it and I will mail it to you.
The reel-to-reel kept fading in and out and could not be transferred. Anyway, at least I have this for you and will be glad to let you have it.
Regards, Ken Tyner
Thanks to Ken Tyner for sharing this material. This is the first new, previously unpublished, radio station recording I have received in almost two years.
I never met Dobbyn myself, but my memory of him goes back further than most people. I was just twelve years old, and I used to listen to him doing a two man DJ show on KXYZ.Most people remember him from a later period when he did news on KILT and on KIKK.
On my news and talk radio page, you hear Richard Dobbyn, then news director at KILT, covering the Kennedy assassination as a hard breaking story.There is also a gory KIKK aircheck in which Dobbyn talks about a rape victim's throat cut "ear to ear."
This site has a recording of Richard Dobbyn late
in his career. You hear him doing news on a 1991
KNUZ aircheck with Bob Edwards (Bob Parker).
Host your Web site with PowWeb!
Powweb has hosted The Vasthead since 2003.
In 2003, I clicked on a Powweb ad on the KILT-FM web site. Presumably, they received a commission for that sale. Now, you can help this site by choosing Powweb and clicking through to the above link.
Added December 2, 2011
KRBE, Houston, recorded in the 80's
Tom Mckenzie has sent us another great aircheck from Arlington, Texas. He recorded this KRBE material sometime in the late 80's. My guess would be 1988.
Not counting an oldies recording from 1991, this is the newest aircheck on this site. In other words, it is the newest recording with music that was still new at the time of the recording. It includes New Order, the Information Society, and—can you bear it?—Samantha Fox.
"What a way to go-go!"
— Line from the Batman TV series, 1966
Below: A window into the past. A dancer in a window at the Act III A-Go-G0 on South Main in Houston, October 1, 1966. Photo by Grady McAllister.
This is not the interior of a strip club.
The girl is dancing in the window of a go-go club just south of Houston's Texas Medical Center. Anyone cruising down South Main could give a passing glance at the dance.
I took this picture through the window. I was 18 and still too young to go inside. Even then, I sensed that this would have historical value.
Typically, go-go girls danced in cages on raised platforms at regular night clubs. You can still see them gyrating in movies and musical film clips from the 1960's.
The term "go-go" could refer to any occupation purported to be high energy, such as radio DJ's or even mutual fund managers.
For more about the Go-Go Days of 1966, see the KILT airchecks below.
Grady
Added June 15, 2011
KILT Airchecks from 1966
Come with me now mentally to the go-go era of Houston radio. Think of 1966 as a way station between the British music invasion days of 1964-1965 and the psychedelic daze of 1967-1969. If you were to pick one year to stand for the entire decade, 1966 might be it.
By this time, we knew that we were deep into the 60's and that it was a decade very different from the 50's. By this time, we knew that the Vietnam War would not be a quick and short one. By this time, we knew that our own society was in rapid change with a future unknown.
Here I will paraphrase something I recall Alex Bennett saying at the end of August, 1966:"Do you realize that two-thirds of the 60's are already over?" Indeed they were, but the most exciting part of the decade — for better or worse — was yet to come.
Appearing below for the first time on the internet is a collection of airchecks we received from former KILT newsman Dan Lovett.Click here to hear all these airchecks as one continuous recording.
You will find some duplication as a result of different edits for some of the material.
KILT, Houston, Concert Commercial
KILT, Houston, Richard Dobbyn, Sound of Home 1
KILT, Houston, Richard Dobbyn, Sound of Home 2
KILT, Houston, Faithful Listeners
KILT, Houston, G0-Go Jingle with Dobbyn
KILT, Houston, G0-Go Team Jingle
KILT, Houston, Russ Knight (Weird Beard) and Dan Lovett
Bob "Blade" Parker converted these open reel tapes to mp3. A former program director for KFMK and KNUZ, Bob has also used the name Bob Edwards.
Click here for Bob Parker's SHOUTcast internet station. A new window or tab will open.
Dan Lovett was the newsman KILT owner Gordon McLendon sent to Vietnam. In 2011, Dan Lovett provided the three tapes which contained this material. You also hear Dan Lovett on our Mainly '60's page in a recording I made myself on January 24, 1965.
Russ Knight was the main KILT night DJ from 1964 to 1967. He continued to work at KILT until 1968.
The late Richard Dobbyn was a prominent Houston newsman who worked at KILT, KIKK, and KNUZ. Elsewhere on this site, you hear Dobbyn on each of those stations, as well as KBRZ in Brazoria County. On the News & Talk page , you hear Dobbyn during the breaking KILT coverage of the Kennedy assassination.The music Dobbyn uses in the greetings to servicemen is by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. It is "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," a song from the American Civil War.
For more about the War between the States, see our own archive of “Chiefly about War Matters,” an essay by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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Unless otherwise indicated, all commentary and photography on this site are by Grady McAllister.
Below...
Galveston 1980 to 1988
Above: It's December, 1980, and a Sears Ricoh 35mm camera on a tripod captures a skater heading toward Galveston's historic Buccaneer Hotel. The Buccaneer was demolished in 1999.
All photos in this left column were taken by Grady McAllister in the 1980's.
Photographer's note: The Seawall Boulevard photos were shot from 1980 to 1983. An especially high percentage are from the mild winter of 1980-81.During that period, I was there nearly every weekend to practice my photography.
I took the other photos at East Beach, Stewart Beach, and The Hut Club, and the dates run from 1980 to 1988.Additional vintage Galveston photos are on the on the Outlying Stations page.
Most images can be clicked for a larger view.The first black and white image below is from the summer of 1980, and it is the first 35mm picture I ever took in Galveston.
It was one of the hottest summers ever experienced in the Houston area. The temperature was going up to about 104 every day. In fact, there was a nationwide heat wave -- I still have a Life magazine with a blazing sun on the cover.At that point, I wasn't a regular visitor to Galveston and had not been there for several years. A friend talked me into going down on a weekday. We went to East Beach and discovered two ladies who had found their own way of dealing with the heat.
I had just bought my first 35mm camera, and I barely knew how to use it. I was just playing around with photography at that point, and I didn't even keep the negative for this picture.
     Notice the convenient plug for Igloo coolers. The last time I checked, they were still being made in Houston. I still use one I bought in 1984.      
The anamorphic photo below is adapted from a slide shot in Galveston in 1980. The arrow, which pointed to the 61st Street fishing pier, is no longer there. Hurricane Alicia may have destroyed it in 1983. This arrow image is the emblem for all of The Vasthead web pages.
Image on right: The Galveston Buccaneer Hotel on a foggy afternoon early in 1981. Click for a full view. |
    
     
|
Above: The Galveston seawall, a summer Sunday at dawn in 1982.
Above: The Flagship Hotel in December, 1980. Damaged severely by Hurricane Ike, it is now demolished with only the pier remaining. Since 1965, the hotel has served as a sort of dividing point for the Galveston seawall sidewalk, the longest continuous sidewalk in the world.
Below: Skaters take babes in arms along for the ride in 1981. Don't try this yourself. Visible through the lifting fog is the Buccaneer Hotel, demolished on New Year's Day, 1999.
Above: November, 1980. It's twilight and time to
return the skates after an afternoon on the Galveston seawall. Below:
The same two skaters a moment later. This time, they knew they were being
photographed.
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To extended resume of Grady McAllister
KRBE & KILT from the 70'sAdded January 25, 2012 KRBE, Houston, 1976, Shotgun Cook The above aircheck is the latest contribution from Tom McKenzie of Arlington in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He recorded all these airchecks at Texas locations far from Houston. Added October 26-29, 2011 KRBE, Houston, 1977-1, Roger W. Garrett KRBE, Houston, 1977-2, Roger W. Garrett McKenzie wrote this about these recordings:
KRBE, Houston, 1975 or 1976, Wizard Later, Tom sent the above recording of Wizard, another KRBE jock from the 70's:
KILT, Houston, 1979, Captain Jack Tom also sent this KILT recording of Captain Jack:
When I first heard Mr. Blue Sky, a song on this recording, it seemed to call for an end to the gray, constantly drizzling winter of 1977-1978. The sun didn't come out for four months — at least that was how it seemed to me. I first heard the song on KILT. During the last years of the decade, I spent most of my time working at KIOX in Bay City . That's only 80 miles southwest of Houston, and the KILT reception is very good. Port Mansfield is much further down the coast, and it is one of the last coastal towns before the border. If you are ever curious about the weather in Port Mansfield, it is on my Gulf Coast Weather page. KRBE, Houston, Papa John, 1976 KRBE, Houston, Tom Rivers, 1977 These two airchecks arrived with this message from Tom Mckenzie:
Tom originally recorded these items on cassette and did his own transfer to mp3. The files are small enough that he was able to send them in regular emails. By the way, I still have my last remaining cassette deck. I keep it around in case someone sends me an aircheck on cassette. See the item about cassettes in the column to the right. If you need me to copy some original cassette airchecks, get them to me while I still have a cassette deck. |
No Shock and Awe Frenzy! Some points to ponder before writing to this web site...1, The purpose of this web site is to receive radio recordings from people, mainly material that has not been widely heard before. It is not the purpose of this site to take requests for airchecks or to find specific airchecks for people. It is not the Aircheck Factory Warehouse. 2. The only airchecks available from this site are the ones that are already on line. All the aircheck pages are listed in the upper left of each radio page. If you don't see an aircheck of your dad, your brother, your ex-wife, or whoever else you are seeking, I don't have it. I don't consider airchecks a major hobby, and that is why you see only a limited amount of material. I like having a web site that looks good and is well written. That means a lot more to me than having airchecks piled higher and deeper than everybody else. I am not interested in making wholesale downloads from other sites just to have every Houston aircheck on the planet. 3. Messages which complain that a particular DJ is "missing" from this site will be ignored. Probably, the only way I could get such a recording would be to steal it off another web site. That is not what I am here for. This is not the Open-All-Night, Worldwide, Web-Wide, Clearinghouse for All DJ Recordings. 4. Please don't send images such as pictures of DJ's or scans of music survey sheets. You may, however, put those items on our Facebook page. 5.If you really want an answer to a question, you need to expose it to a wide audience. Sending it to me in an email is not the way to do that. Please place your questions on our Facebook page. That way anyone can respond who knows the answer. One of the quirks of Facebook is that they limit the number of words in a posting. If you can not get in all of your words, you can add the remainder of your message as a comment to your own item. Houston Retro Radio on Facebook 6. Most of the airchecks we receive fall into the top 40 category. However, during the period we cover -- the 60's in particular -- there were other popular formats which have all but disappeared. They included classical, MOR, jazz, and beautiful music. I am also thinking of the early versions of adult contemporary, news and talk, album rock, and country. We would like to uncover more recordings in those categories. My personal favorite is the KXYZ beautiful music format which ran during most of the 60's. This is a place where a select number of air checks appear on line, are written about, and are given their proper place in Houston radio history. This site started as a place for recordings I had made myself. Later, people sent me other airchecks. The emphasis was always on recordings that had never been heard on the internet, not on materials available on other web sites. Naturally, I'll be glad to make an exception if the air personality himself sends me a recording. A while back, a KILT DJ from the 60's sent me a cassette, and I used it even though the same recording was already on another site. Nonetheless, the main emphasis is on Houston area airchecks which have not been widely heard. The Free Corps of Free Lance Advisors: "You gotta believe we wuz groovy babies back in the day!"Every now and then, I am contacted by the Free Corps of Free Lance Advisors. They want the world, and they want it now. They inevitably "suggest" something that is well beyond the mission of this web site. For one thing, it is not the mission of this site to set up web page shrines to particular DJ's. One advisor sent a "request" that I set up a separate Facebook page to pay tribute his favorite '60's night jock. He claimed to be a web technology expert, but for some reason he expected me to do this for him. There are aging teenagers out there who expect me to slip into a Shock and Awe Frenzy at the mere mention of a 60's DJ. Their attitude is something like this: "Let's all party like it's 1969! You gotta believe we wuz groovy babies back in the day, so you had better get excited and come up with exactly what we want! "Your mission (whether or not you choose to accept it) is to turn this radio site into whatever we tell you to. If you don't, we will tell the world your web site isn't worth a [characterization deleted]!" They think this site is the Super Quickie, Just-in-Time, Air Check Order Window. They think that since I have some airchecks, I wallow in airchecks day and night. They think I should drop everything to devote a little more thought to their Boss Jock of All Time. In the case I just mentioned, the importunate emails became more and more insistent and downright abrasive. I had to bar him from my existing Facebook page. That kind of advisor I can do without. The fact is I have plenty of ideas of my own which I have not found time to implement. Another person wrote to ask for a recording of a rap artist from the 90's. Anyone who has really looked at this site knows it is not the place for rap. That is really the crux of the problem: People write wanting this or that without taking a good look at what is already here or at my explanation of why the site exists. For more information about this main radio site, go to this page: No Country for Young Punks!And, once again, you can place your questions and comments on our Facebook page: Houston Retro Radio on FacebookThis radio Facebook page is open to the public. In other words, you don't have to be approved for a 'friend" list in order to comment. All you need is your own Facebook account. |
Audio File: Airchecks of Grady McAllister, KIOX & KIKK
This radio page has been on line since 2003, and this is one piece of material which I have held back until now. These are my own personal airchecks. They cover the time I worked at KIOX in Bay City, Texas, and at KIKK, Houston-Pasadena.
There are a couple reasons to put them out now. For one thing, most of the people I know today have never heard me in a radio broadcast.
Another reason is to support my current job campaign. The recordings add a voice to the words on my resume and show something about my skills as a public speaker.
A few notes of explanation are in order:
- I recorded all of the DJ airchecks live as the material went over the air.
- I recorded all of the newscasts off line. The first newscast is not the news for a particular day but a compilation of Bay City stories collected over several months. i wrote all the items for that first newscast. Written Samples of News Stories.
- The material is generally in reverse chronological order. As you get near the end of the reel, you are listening to me during my first year in radio.
- Those flanging effect promos were recorded in my home studio. I did it the old fashioned way, by running two copies of the recording simultaneously. In those days, I always owned at least three reel to reel units. All my money seemed to go to audio.
- My main role at KIOX was as News Director. I rarely cut commercials, so I did a lot of news and weather promos to serve as samples of production.
- KIOX was mainly a country station, but we played rock at night. I was the DJ who launched the Night Rock, but after I became News Director, I only did it on Saturday nights. On one of my promos, you hear me refer to the rock show as "The Other KIOX." This was a take off on KILT calling its FM side "The Other KILT." Their FM station was album rock at the time, and KILT-AM was still aiming at a top 40 audience.
- The last item on this reel is a KILT promo, and the lead voice changes to Frank Haley. I am including this item because you hear me interviewing a student about her LSD experience. That promo was the first time anything I recorded was heard on a commercial station.
- I'm no audio engineer, but I do know how to make a few simple enhancements such as adjusting compression ratios and reworking equalization. A few of these files have been compressed, and all of them have been normalized. Yet the audio from item to item is still uneven. There is still much that can be done, and if you download this material a year from now, you may find its audio is improved.
Airchecks of Grady McAllister, KIOX & KIKK
If you have a comment about radio, a question about airchecks, or a request for a particular kind of aircheck, please place your remarks on our public Facebook forum.
KILT 20/20 News Promos
Circa 1967. Jay Marks sent these recordings four years ago, but I just around to setting up a link. Only half of these promos were actually heard on KILT.
In a recent Facebook message, Jay explains:The 1st, 3rd and 5th cuts are the real promos. Cuts 1 and 3 are voiced by KILT's PD at the time, Bill Young. The voice on cut 5 is John Bass, who worked with Bill at KDOK in Tyler and later did news at KLIF for a while. I'm sure all three were produced by Bill, one of the greatest production guys and PDs of all time. Cuts 2, 4 and 6 are word for word re-dos done by me, for no particular purpose, except to see how close I could come to the originals.
New KPFT-Pacifica Airchecks
More KPFT-Pacifica
For the Sesquicentennial… A famous Civil War essay by New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne:
“Chiefly about War Matters”
Along with his friend, former President Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne had hoped to see the war avoided.
The name of this web site,The Vasthead, is based on a phrase which Hawthorne used in The House of the Seven Gables.Now Seeking Employment
To come to the point at once:
Your web master is looking for a job. If you appreciate what is on this site, please take a look at my resume and think about how I could contribute to your organization.Comments on Houston Retro Radio
I have a background in:
- Broadcasting & radio news
- The writing & editing of training materials in corporate and university settings
- General media services with an emphasis on writing,
photography, and web site development
- Research & writing for organizational development
- Management of learning resources with an emphasis on audio-visual media
Extended On Line Resume of Grady McAllister
Personal Home Page (The Vasthead)
Essays that previously appeared on this page
This page last changed
January 27, 2012 2:36 AM .
A Radio Sound Museum for Houston
Feeding all your hungry eyes: The rise of music video Patty Smyth and Scandal from 1984. Don't say anything bad about Patty Smyth. She's married to John McEnroe.
One of our airchecks is missing!
On 8/4/2010 10:42 PM, Ken Tyner wrote:
Hi Grady, Was on Houston Retro Radio web site today and cannot find the Bob Edwards/Richard Dobbyn tape when they were on KNUZ in 1992 or 1994, I think. It was on the "KILT-KNUZ Wars" page, but it is gone.Did you get rid of it or was it put somewhere else?
Since I worked with Richard, that was one of my favorites! Let me know OK? Also, how are you doing? I did get a chance to talk with Mr. Parker on the phone.We had a lot of stories of Richard. Thanks Grady.
Ken Tyner
My Response:
That aircheck is actually 1991.
I just went back through my archives (I make a copy of the entire site every New Years Day), and as recently as January 1, 2009, the Bob Edwards/Richard Dobbyn material was on the KILT-KNUZ Wars page.
One thing thing that I am trying to do is get the materials more logically organized as I go along. Sometime during the first half of 2009, I created a Mainly '80's page. It now includes my five KILT segments from March 25, 1980, and the KNUZ recording you are seeking. Just go to the Mainly '80's page and scroll down to near the bottom of the center column.
I realize that an apparent 80's collection might not be the first place you would look for a recording from November 20, 1991.
I'll have to try to explain my logic: The inclusion of the word "mainly" is a hint that there may be some things which are not exactly the 1980's.Since the Edwards/Dobbyn recording was my only item from the 90's, it seemed to make sense to keep it with the 80's material. It doesn't make sense to create a 90's page for just one aircheck.
That Mainly 80's page also includes a KAUM New Years Eve countdown from 1979. Although most of the recording was made during the last hours of the 70's, I wanted to put the emphasis on the fact that the show was leading us into the 80's.
Another reason I moved the KNUZ 1991 recording was because the heavy KILT-KNUZ rivalry was confined largely to the 60's. At that time, most cars had only AM radios, and FM didn't offer even a small challenge until 1967. Once the 70's were well underway, both stations were competing with a number of FM formats as well as with each other.
This leads me to another point:
Just a few days ago, I split the KILT-KNUZ Wars into Mainly '60's and Mainly 70's pages. Again, my use of the word "mainly" is to allow some flexibility in how the material is organized. For example, I don't have any KILT aircheck from the '50's, but if I did have just one such recording, I would put it on the Mainly '60's page.I still use the phase, "KILT-KNUZ Wars" on the Mainly '60's page, but I don't use it on the Mainly 70's page. Also. please note that, although both of the new pages are replete with KILT and KNUZ airchecks, neither page is named after a particular station. Mainly 70's also includes all the KULF materials and one KENR aircheck.
There are probably people who would like me to just list all of the airchecks for a particular station on a single page, but I am avoiding that.
I decided a long time ago that this site would never become a shrine for a particular radio station, a particular format, or a particular personality. And I definitely don't want shrines to mere call letters.The KXYZ-FM of 1964 is nothing like the KXYZ-FM of 1970, so they hardly belong on the same page.
I am trying to put the materials in their historical context. That means organizing according to programming patterns and the spirit of the times in which the stations operated.Grady McAllister. M.S. (Occupational Education)
August 5, 2010
PS
Another recent change was to move the Dayna Steele blog from the crowded Mainly 80's page to the Album Rock page. This allows space to run more of her blog items. Steele was recently inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
By the way, my KRBE recording from 1970 is also on the Album Rock page. It's there because KRBE really was album rock at that point, not the top 40 station it became.
July 1, 2010
"Let them rap together on all the problems of the world."
KXYZ-FM, American FM newscast, July 4, 1970
Is anybody here old enough to remember Red Skelton? Listen to what he had to say on July 4, 1970.I recorded this myself off of KXYZ-FM (Later called KAUM).
Skelton's remarks were part of an ABC radio newscast. ABC had split into four networks, and their FM service was aimed at a younger audience.Notice how the word "rap" is used. The connotation was a little different back then. A PSA tells about a plan to have young people from all over the world get together to "rap."
That didn't mean that they were going to do a rap talk version of "We Are the World."To fund the project, the message tells listeners to wrap $2 in an envelope and mail it to "World Rap" in New York. Hopefully, no dishonest person with the Post Office heard about those envelopes. Two dollars back then was worth more than $10 today.
This recording is 40 years old this weekend.
KXYZ-FM, American FM newscast, July 4, 1970
Entire KXYZ-FM recording for July 4, 1970
The second link above is the entire 64 minute recording, not just the newscast.
The politics of the local Fourth of July broadcast contrasts dramatically with the conservative perspective of Red Skelton. Bear in mind that it was a very divisive time, only a few weeks after the Kent State killings.
Skelton's July 4th discussion of the Pledge of Allegiance was a re-creation of a a monologue from his TV show. The audio became a top 40 single, and Burger King gave away a paper pressing of the recording.
Grady McAllister, M.S. (Occupational Technology)
Enjoy the silence
It's amazing how a casual remark can sometimes echo through the decades.
In 1981, a now forgotten Houston program director said to to me: "Every year, something else takes another piece out of radio."That was well before the World Wide Web, iPods, and cell phone rants in supermarkets.
That was even before CD's. The speaker was thinking of things like CB radio, eight track units, and Walkman cassette players.
VHS and Beta video tapes were still emerging .
On August 1 of that same year, a thing called MTV pounced upon the scene. It's first song? Video Killed the Radio Star.
That assault against local radio has continued with time.
I admit in several places on this site that I haven't been a heavy radio listener since the early 80's. This is due to both the quality of the material filling the airwaves and the availability of other better audio choices.
Even before I had a big collection of educational audio, there were plenty of times when I preferred to leave the radio off and enjoy the silence. I just wasn't reacting to radio as I had in my youth.
With radio continuing to fade, Richard Sands in Australia has brought one recent development to my attention. It seems that AFRTS (the American Forces Radio and Television Service) is gradually abandoning its local overseas media in favor of the internet:
How The Internet Killed The Military Media Empire
My only personal exposure to AFRTS has been their international short wave broadcasts. I expect that after everyone has taken their last shot at radio, and after most of the local wavelengths have gone silent, short wave will be the last signals standing.
Grady McAllister
July 2, 2010
Image Below:The Moon in June
Doris Day: By the Light of the Silvery Moon
I recently saw the movie By the Light of the Silvery Moon for the first time, along with On Moonlight Bay, another Doris Day movie from nearly 50 years ago.
With lyrics by Edward Madden (1878-1952), the two songs on which the movies were based are now about 100 years old.If you buy or rent On Moonlight Bay, the DVD includes an interesting film clip from the 50's. It explains how Madden wrote By the Light of the Silvery Moon while working undercover for police in sleazy New York bars. It seems that his moon songs began as an escape from the dismal surroundings of his work.
How did I get off on this subject? I heard the Beatles TV version of On Moonlight Bay on the Anthology 1 album and became curious about the age and origin of the song. It is one of those songs I remember hearing in the old cartoons.
Above: Galveston 1900 Storm Memorial. Moonrise,
June 26, 2010. Photo by Grady McAllister.