KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO ~ Part 11

Gary Mack: As the rest of the crew was hired -- Robert W. Morgan, Roger Christian, The Real Don Steele, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle and Johnny Williams-- we set about the business of getting organized. Ron Jacobs was brought in as Program Director -- the best I’ve ever met.

Charlie Tuna: The Real Don Steele was the rock star leader of the Boss Jocks. Very mysterious, said very little off the air, but when he did, people listened. Sam Riddle was the businessman, always had a million outside deals going on in addition to his KHJ-TV show. It all paid off down the road; one of Sam’s productions was “Star Search” with Ed McMahon. Johnny Williams was the perfect all-night man, soothing voice, relaxed presentation and always right there with the quips and perfect feel for the format. No one could sound like he was having a ball during the really slow and lonely times any more than Williams.

Sam Riddle: When the time came to get ready for the new Boss format, I’ll never forget practicing on KHJ-FM so no one would hear me. Ron Jacobs said, “OK, you’ve got seven seconds to say what you used to say on KFWB and KRLA in forty-five seconds.” We had an engineer running the board. Dexter Young was my engineer and he took care of me. I thought: that’s fantastic. I’ll have more time to be on the phone to book Bobby Sherman concerts.

Gary Mack: It was grueling. Jacobs and Drake stood in the control room with an engineer while the future Boss Jocks practiced this new format. Every word and every nuance was critiqued on the fly. “More up! More energy! End up! Faster!” I remember the distinct odor of flop sweat. But every day got better, and we made our mistakes off the air.

Claude Hall: Bill Drake assembled a good staff. One of the smartest things he did was hire Ron Jacobs because Jacobs was a very, very hard-working guy. He’s extremely bright. Drake may not be that bright, but he thinks. He just sits back and thinks a lot. His major role, I think, in RKO during his time as consultant, was a thinker -- as a brain to figure things out. A lot of people think Drake invented the tight play list, that he invented this and invented that. He didn’t. But like a genius and the role of a genius takes in many different facets what he was able to do was synthesize. Einstein didn’t “invent” E=mc², he synthesized it. And this is what Drake did with Top 40 radio.

Ron Jacobs: When I got to KHJ I felt a rapport with Bill Mouzis. He was a pro who sensed what we would be doing in production, which was totally different from KHJ’s old-school sound. I asked Chief Engineer Ed Dela Pena if he could assign Mouzis to production. It was Mouzis who did all of the tedious razor splices. Mouzis sat there unconcerned when Morgan and I got into one of our screaming sessions about how he was ruining my copy — or how I was writing crap that a cave man couldn’t work with. Both of us running back to the “production library,” which was, at best, maybe 30 movie sound-track albums in a room where it was legal for us to touch turntables and argue some more. Morgan and I started our love/hate relationship in Fresno in 1962 and each of us knew that the other would be looking for any reason to provoke a confrontation. That was wonderful fun. It made us feel like we were “creative.” After a while, we were bringing in tons of money for RKO, more even than the mighty Channel 9. We could carry on, bellowing and slamming around and the suits just had to put up with it. (Laughs.)

Carol Morgan: I remember how important it was to Robert; he wanted Ron Jacobs there. He also got them to hire Don Steele. There weren’t too many people in radio that he really connected with. He loved people who were really bright and quick. Ron fulfilled something for him that he and I had always had between us up to that point.

Dexter Young: I worked mainly with Sam Riddle. I used to see Sam in the hallways. He was doing his TV show on Channel 9, KHJ-TV, but working for our competitor, KFWB, as a disc jockey. I used to ask Sam, “Since you have your TV show here, why don’t you have your radio show here too?” There had been a rumor that he was coming to KHJ and he finally did come with us. He and I became very good friends while working together. My wife and I were invited to his wedding.

Ron Jacobs: Roger Christian was known in the market. He was even very big at KFWB. Roger gave us a degree of instant credibility, as did Sam Riddle. Roger had a name in Southern California because of his association with The Beach Boys. He was very helpful in getting us established in the record industry. Even though Drake and I had done well in other markets, there’s an L.A. snob thing. Ironic, since most of the record dudes were from somewhere else originally. Roger contributed something neat right at the beginning. For some reason I could hear “Little Deuce Coupe” by The Beach Boys as a tune that could be used for a KHJ promo, sort of a long, produced jingle. Thanks to Roger, we got permission from Brian Wilson to use the instrumental track. I banged out some words. The thing was a grabber. Who hadn’t heard the song?

Ron Jacobs: Since the jocks couldn’t sing — HA! — we wrote the thing so that they could sort of talk in rhythm. Like:

"I’m Robert W. Morgan and I’ll be startin’ your day,

Six ’til nine every mornin’ on the new KHJ ..."

Then Roger brought in some real singers to do it and they may as well have been the Beach Boys because these guys sounded just like them. They were Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher. They performed as The Rip Chords and as Bruce & Terry. Melcher produced The Byrds and Paul Revere and the Raiders, and other artists. And Bruce Johnston joined the Beach Boys on the road. They sang the chorus:

"It’s the new KHJ, You don’t know what we’ve got.

While Los Angeles goes, now, It goes all the way.

And we know that you’ll go for the new KHJ.

It’s the sound of success, Boss Radio, in L.A.– KHJ.

It’s the new KHJ, And here’s what we got."

And the other jocks would come in:

"My name is Roger Christian, You’ve an invitation

To join me nine ’til noon for some rockin’ relaxation."

"And every day at noon, you’ll hear me, Gary Mack.

Remember that name: Mack, Mack, Mack"

"In the afternoon, bab, Accept no substitution:

Get the Real Don Steele -- And wipe out air pollution."

"When the workin’ day is done and you point your car towards home,

Just dial Dave Diamond, and you’ll never be alone."

"From Hollywood A-Go-Go ’til twelve o’clock at night,

Sam Riddle is the man to make your day end right."

"If you listen late at night ’til the morning shadows creep

A guy named Johnny Williams might be talkin’ in your sleep."

Ron Jacobs: Lemme tell you, when this started blasting out of moldy old KHJ, people really took notice. Starting with this little promo, I discovered that being the #1 station in Los Angeles you could ask for and get just about any goodie you could imagine. I mean the key word really is “imagine.” Another station could have set up that jingle with Roger but no one thought to. When I pulled that off in 24 hours, the jocks, who never worked with me like Morgan had in Fresno, began to respect me a bit. And as to the air sound, between Roger and Gary Mack you had a nice midday thing. (And how cool was it to collaborate on a song wth Brian Wilson and Roger Christian? I began to occur to me that we really had made it in Hollywood.