KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO ~ Part 14

"Zap! You're Morganized!"

Bill Drake: With Jacobs and Morgan there was this kind of love/hate thing. Once Jacobs called screaming, “Morgan’s driving me fucking nuts, man, I’m not talking to the sonofabitch. ” I guess those guys weren’t talking for a couple of days. And then Morgan calls. So I met him at some Chinese restaurant for lunch. I listened to all his gripes about Jacobs. It was something about promos. Like, “I’m helping to cut the damn things and Jacobs this and Mouzis that.” And I just listened — and I loved that guy to death — but I said, “Robert, unfortunately, when we figured on this job, one of the reasons I wanted you is that I thought you had a great voice.”

And I said, “We had pretty well designed things so that the morning man would be the perfect guy to voice promos. Unfortunately, that’s the job we have.” He looked at me and sort of laughed and said, “What you’re saying to me, Drake, is I better talk to Jacobs, right?” And I said, “That’s right, Robert. You better work it out with Jacobs.”

Shelley Gordon: The first time I met Robert W. Morgan was when I reported to work the day after Labor Day in September 1965. This rumpled , cute, blond guy who looked like he had just gotten out of bed, wearing his inside-out sweat shirt, jeans and brown leather slippers came into “my” office and asked where Ron was. Ron was late, as usual, for their production meeting. We sat and talked about the station until Ron arrived, a virtual whirlwind. Ron handed me a stack of papers and told me people would be coming in to claim prizes — trading them for pennies — and could I handle that? I said that I could. He then said, “C’mon, Bob” and went into his office and shut the door. No more than 45 minutes later he emerged with a new promotion in place, copy for Robert to record, instructions and a jock memo for me to get out. And that’s how it started. It was a great job during a very fun time.

Scotty Brink: The first time I encountered Ron Jacobs on the job was my first day in the building at KHJ. I was sitting outside his office with his secretary, Shelley, while Jacobs and Morgan were having one of their screaming matches inside. It was hardly a soundproof office. Morgan stormed out, with Jacobs on his heels and the loquacious expletives continued down the hall. After a couple of minutes, they came back, went in Jacobs’ office and slammed the door. Thirty seconds later, Morgan poked his head out of Jacobs’ office and asked, “Are you Scotty Brink?” I nodded in the affirmative. Morgan presented his warm, wonderful smile and continued, “Welcome to Boss Radio.”

Carol Morgan: Ron was just so completely engrossed in radio. There were times when Robert needed a break from that, you know. He sometimes would go to an extreme and get too engrossed in it. His personality needed downtime.

Kevin Gershan: Robert W. Morgan loved to fish, but he really loved the water, the boat and going real fast. Faster than anyone else with a Bass Boat. Over the years, I went fishing a lot with Morgan. He did everything he could to make sure his boat was something James Bond’s “Q” would be proud of. The latest and greatest tackle. Radar that would allow you to see the contour of the lake bed and where the fish were. Unfortunately, as he said many times, “It doesn’t tell you which ones are hungry.” Morgan would race from one end of the lake to the other in hopes of reaching the “magic number.” The “magic number” being whatever speed was considered the fastest! I remember at one point, 70 miles per hour was the gold standard. And, we always had a rule. “Once you hit the launch ramp, no talking about radio.” This was truly one of his great escapes. As good as he was at it, I don’t really think he ever cared if he caught a fish. It was more medicinal and for the meditation than functional.

Frank Terry

Frank Terry: I think Jacobs influenced Robert W. Morgan. From where I was and from what I could see before we even went on the air back in Fresno, Morgan’s personality kinda jibed with mine and Jacobs’. We became friends quite quickly ’cause Morgan was just a real, good-old, down-home boy from Galion, Ohio. He had worked for the railroad and had just gotten out of the army at Fort Ord in Monterey. He loved to fish, just a good-old boy. He was a humorous guy and he loved to laugh and he thought Jacobs was real funny. Morgan and I would sit around all day and tell Jacobs stories. “Did you see what Jacobs did the other day out there?” “Yeah, groovy.”

Kevin Gershan: (Email to Ron Jacobs, May 26, 1998): I am glad to hear that Morgan considered me his best friend. I always believed it to be you. There wasn’t a time you were ever mentioned that he didn’t say, “I learned this from Jacobs.” Always, “I learned that from Jacobs.” He would go on, “Jacobs this, Jacobs that.” Of course with an occasional, “motherfucker — fuckin’ Jacobs” thrown in, in a loving family way.

Milo Perichitch: Robert W. Morgan was a star in his own right but sometimes he would forget himself, forget his manners especially. I remember one day we were doing something in a side TV studio, some kind of dubbing or whatever. There was a kid in there, the son of someone who worked at KHJ. And Morgan started cursing and saying crazy things. He had that side too. He had his dark side but so did everybody else. Morgan and Jacobs could go at it pretty good. And loud, man. Melodramatic brouhahas, but also no big deal. It was, after all, Hollywood and those were creative and emotional people. On the radio Morgan was very smooth. I’ve always had difficulties defining what you call the “persona” of a disc jockey. Yeah, they say distinctive things and so forth but to me they basically all do the same thing. I knew most of these jocks off the air and they were just your regular variety of crazy people.

Shelley Morgan and grandson Jacob in 2007.

Shelley Gordon: It was a challenge working for Ron Jacobs. Every day was different. The days flew by whether it was a 40-hour week or a 60-hour week. He was a highly-motivated, hyperactive, programming genius. His mind was going 90 miles an hour, coming up with promos, contests, motivating the jocks. Exhorting them, constantly peppering them with slogans, like “Preparation, Moderation, Concentration.” George Allen was coach of the Los Angeles Rams then. I think Ron wanted to be the George Allen of RKO General. Ron railed about the jocks a lot but I think he truly respected what they did. He could be rude, boorish, insensitive, but it was all in pursuit of excellence and higher Hooper ratings and he was, for the most part, forgiven, because everyone shared the same dream — being #1 in Boss Angeles.

Ron Jacobs: There was the other side. Our arguments ignited sessions of violent screaming behind closed doors. Sectors of KHJ had thick walls but a ruckus still sent people running down the halls, away from what sounded like pending mutual homicide. What was the blood-chilling conflict? Oh, usually it would be Morgan demanding that we use eight seconds from the intro of the “Bridge on the River Kwai” movie soundtrack in place of a cut from “Fire Down Below” that I called for. Or perhaps we disagreed on the merits of Jackie DeShannon’s singing style. Whatever our melodramatic disagreements, most of them dealt with a mutual passionate concern for putting only the very best out on the air.

Shelley Gordon: What Ron forgets were all the times Robert spent sitting in my office waiting for Ron to arrive to work on the promos. Those bursts of temper weren’t staged; they were real. Unless they happened during the first couple of months before I arrived on the scene. I’ve forgotten a lot, but I still remember Ron eating a Spanish omelet at Nickodell’s while he interviewed me to be his secretary.

Mitch Fisher: Nickodell’s makes me think about the jocks and the record promoters getting sauced there. No, I didn’t frequent the place. I just would go for a lunch or two. All those luncheons with all that greasy food. Ugh. I gained a few pounds at Nickodell’s. Across the street from KHJ you could get good Mexican food at Lucy’s El Adobe. It was also the headquarters for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. I actually saw him there, yeah, Bobby Kennedy eating enchiladas there. The big music hangout was Martoni’s. Jacobs and I didn’t go to Martoni’s that much. Jacobs was generally anti-social and I was married during that time. Wasn’t into the Martoni’s scene very much.

Bones Howe: I walked into Martoni’s one night in 1969. I’ll never forget it. Bill Drake was sitting in the second booth and I’m walking by and this hand comes out and grabs me and he says, “I just heard ‘Aquarius.’” And I said, “Yeah, you know I’m really excited about it, Bill, you know it’s gonna be a big record.” I’m trying to be a promotion man suddenly. He says, “It’s a little long don’t you think?”

And I said, “Well, you know, it takes time to build, we had to do this thing where we did a medley,” and I’m trying to do all of this creative talk. Drake says, “Why don’t you sit down for a minute.” And I learned about music. He taught me about music sweeps in fifteen minutes. He said “Well, we’re gonna play that record because it’s gonna be a hit, we’re gonna have to play it. But, you know, we’re not gonna play it very much because it’s long.”

I said, “It has to build.” I went through all of that with him and he said, “Although ‘El Paso’ is six and a half minutes long, everybody played it when they had to go the john. But you’ll really get it played a lot more if you can shorten it.” And I began to listen to what he was saying. And he said, “These guys know if they got two and a half minutes before they come up to the logo, they’ll stick your record in there if it’ll fit.” I went back to the studio that night and made three versions. “I’ll give him 2:59, I’ll give him 3:59, I’ll give him anything he wants. How’s this, Bill?” We sent three acetates over to him the next day and KHJ was the station that broke that record. And I’m eternally grateful to Bill Drake for that lesson in music sweeps, which everybody copied.

Humble Harve: Ninety-million wannabes heard of Jacobs back then but he did a great job of staying aloof and unreachable. All the record promo schmucks and hacks that lived in Martoni’s wanted to get to Jacobs but they had to settle for Bernie Torres or Bill Watson. Jacobs was always considered to be above the fray. You wanna hear something bizarre? A guy I knew from back in Philadelphia called me and offered me some bread if I could “Get to Jacobs.” (Laughs.) I told him he had a better shot at getting to Lyndon Johnson.

Ron Jacobs: On one occasion in 1967 I pulled up to KBLA in Burbank in my black Cadillac and grabbed Humble Harve as he came off the air and out the back door to the parking lot,. His reaction would have fit right into The Sopranos, had it been on the air then. He freaked out in another way when I told him that I had come to offer him a job at KHJ.

"Humble" Harvey Miller

Humble Harve: When I was on KBLA I went up to San Francisco because I had never been there. I heard KHJ on the pier there in San Francisco. I said, “I gotta be on this station, bro!” You can hear the damn station in San Francisco. Here I am on KBLA in Burbank and you can’t hear it past Colorado Boulevard. I want to be on the station that’s got a wire, Jack.

Johnny Williams: Harvey’s a great guy. I used to enjoy listening to him. Sam Riddle was on right before midnight at first. Then Harve — for the longest time. He didn’t do anything special in the studio. He just sat in the same seat that everyone else sat in and did his thing. It’s amazing how many different personalities came out of the same seat. And nobody had any props. There weren’t any special props to make this happen. You just sat down, you didn’t have anything to work with. Nobody brought in any huge stacks of material either. But on the other hand, whatever we needed was there. I probably became spoiled, but I came to expect all that after a while. I remember when Jacobs turned KHJ into the home of nonstop contests. There was always something going on. It was just spectacular for the sound of the station. I also remember being disappointed the first week we ran without anything happening. I was thinking how terrible everything suddenly seemed.

Humble Harve: When I was on KBLA, fighting the KHJ promotions was a drag. Promotions rolled out of KHJ nonstop. I had no idea what the impact would be. All I know is everybody was listening to Boss Radio. It was pushing me against the wall ’cause I had to come up with more and more innovative things to do on the radio to counteract this thing. And there were people listening to KHJ for long periods of time where before they would listen to one jock or something specific. But now they kept the radio on KHJ because of how many times the hits were played, because of the song rotation. This was the first time I had come up against a station where the audience listened to the radio for the radio station. I mean it didn’t matter who was on, the same good records were going to be played over and over again. That wasn’t the case before KHJ did it.

Scotty Brink: Despite Jacobs’ volatility and generally terse demeanor, I have always considered him to be the brightest, most creative person I ever worked for. I learned more radio from Jacobs in that short time and in the whirlwind that was KHJ than I have in any other ten years — even if I could pick them individually — that I have been in the business. Ron Jacobs was and is a major influence in my perception of what works.

Jon Badeaux: Everyone both loved and feared Ron Jacobs. Let’s just say it was best to stay on his good side. During my first year at Boss Radio, I worked both the 9 a.m.-noon shift and 3-6 p.m. I believe Sam Riddle was doing 9-noon then. Everyone in those days, of course, smoked. One morning I emptied the ashtray and threw it up by the console. It bumped a cartridge tape start button and a jock logo played over a song. Moments later, Jacobs flew in the room demanding to know what happened. He figured it out before I could finish the first sentence and stormed out, saying it better never happen again. That afternoon, while sitting across from The Real Don Steele, I was telling one of the other engineers what happened. As luck would have it, I demonstrated by tossing the ashtray up onto the console and it started the jock logo for Steele. The other engineer ran out of the room while I held my breath. Thank goodness Jacobs didn’t hear it. Or, as I thought many times, he did and just wanted me to suffer.

Frank Terry: Even back in Fresno, Jacobs was doing stuff that was so far off-the-wall. And he instilled some of that in you. He kind of goosed you along to come up with something creative, something brand new and he would tell you if he didn’t like it. If he liked it, he said he did. And if it made him laugh, man, that was the greatest compliment in the world. And he would take just anything and it would become — I don’t care what it was — it would become a promotion. It would become some kind of a production that you couldn’t imagine. And he also liked to think of himself as a coach. And that’s what he was. You screwed up, he was there to tell you about it and wouldn’t tell you in a nice way either. It’d piss you off! You’d want to smack him one.

I mispronounced a word one time. I’ll never forget this. The word “jubilant.” I said “joob-you-lant” on the air. Jacobs came in screaming his ass off at me that it wasn’t “joob-you-lant” it was jubilant. I wanted to say, “Fuck you, get out of my face!” and quit. But I got to thinking that he was absolutely right. He’s like some of the great football, basketball coaches. He would take you to that place where you’re about ready to say OK, screw you, and walk out. Then he’d get you right back in to be part of the team and you’d go out and run into a Mack truck for him. He’s the one that got me wherever I am now and a lot of other people too, not just me. It was Ron Jacobs sharing what he knew.

Carol Morgan: We were in San Francisco and Robert and Don (Steele) were working at KEWB. It was 1965 and I was in the hospital. I remember Robert talking about going to Los Angeles. I remember him getting more and more excited about the possibility. But Bill Drake had to talk him into it because we were really content in San Francisco. I know I didn’t want to leave. It was the first time I balked at any kind of move. All the other times I was ready to go wherever he wanted to go, do whatever he wanted to do. But we were having a really good time, such a good time that I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. We were out all night around the clock, a “burning the candle at both ends” kind of life. And we were really close with Don and Gracie, his lady at the time.

Ron Jacobs: Morgan and Steele were very tight in San Francisco in a way that they weren’t in Los Angeles. It was always Bob, Carol, Don and Gracie. Great movie, eh? (Laughs.) Steele had his shtick and he was a hard-working professional. This meant more to him at KHJ, in the sense of doing well in his own hometown. You know he’s Donald S. Revert from Hollywood who has made this whole loop and he’s reached the next-to-the-top step, which is San Francisco, with Morgan.

The Real Don Steele: I started using “Real” in Omaha. I was working there as Don Steele — (sings) “Be aware, I’ll be there.” So I’d been there pushing a year, which is a loooong motherfuckin’ time to be in Omaha, Nebraska. A nice place to fly over. By that time I was totally disgusted. I wanted to get out of the goddamn town, was drugged with the station, drugged with the management, drugged with the city — by that time it had gotten to me. The program director called up and said, “Why don’t you call yourself the Real Don Steele?” I looked at the receiver and I thought, “You rotten, stupid, son of a bitch, asshole, motherfucker.” He wasn’t asking me if I wanted to call myself that. But I thought, “Right, I’ll take your order, you dummy.” Well, all of a sudden people on the street no longer called me “Bob Steele” (the B movie Western star.) They called me The Real Don Steele. A phonetic thing. People react to certain words.

Ron Jacobs: Steele was, above all else, a totally professional guy. He was an absolute minimalist. He was almost like a mime, to make that kind of a comparison. Steele could come on KHJ and do clichés that became part of the language — at least in Southern California. He did it with vocal inflection and with energy. Like if we took air checks of Steele and broke ’em down into transcripts, “Ooooh baby! The Supremes” — or whatever — really didn’t mean anything. But the way he does it he could sound like 86,000 people watching a touchdown by reading a piece of paper that said “Yay.”

The Real Don Steele: My style is hard to verbalize. Hey, I’m a hard-sell radio announcer. I have a phonetic hang-up. Maybe, why I’m liked is because I’m funny, but what makes me funny is not that I’m telling a joke, per se. I dig sound. You don’t have to know what they mean. Preferably, they should have, not a double meaning, but a quadruple meaning. Like, “It ain’t that bad if you fry it right.” I actually did hear that. I was sitting in a bar near some fellows and they were talking about catfish or something. This guy was the typical beer drinking, scratching, hard hat and he said, “It ain’t bad if you fry it right,” and I said, “Hey, I like that.”

What does it mean? I think it sounds GO! I think it means a lot of things. How about LIFE. How about having to EAT SHIT! Having to PAY YOUR DUES? Or, “If you got it, flaunt it!” And I use these for my IDs. Our format requires that you must give the time and I came up with, “It ain’t that bad if you fry it right,” at 3:30 and “If you got it, flaunt it!” at four o’clock. You know, “Spread your love,” at 5:30. “Take that piece of meat, put it in your pan and fry it, baby!” Now you tell me what that means!

The One, The Only, The Real Don Steele

Humble Harve: Before I worked at KHJ my favorite jock was Steele. Why? Because he had tumult! He was L.A. man, that’s why. He was what I considered Top 40 to be. He sold the music. He sold the action. He made the music sound better. He got you excited.

That wasn’t my shtick. My shtick was to get you excited about the music, not about peripheral shit. And if you could do that, it made the records that more important. It made the artists more important. It made the whole format more important.

But if you latched onto a particular kind of music and you milked it for what it was worth just like Steele did and I did, you got known for that genre. With Steele the idea was that he would kick it in the ass. There wasn’t one dull moment on his show.

Ron Jacobs: Steele was all energy. His timing was the best. I could appreciate him because I thought I was fast as a jock, and wacky and tight and throwing in sounds, ka-pow! But Steele operated in another dimension.

There are people behind the scenes who get no recognition. With all the jocks working with someone on the other side of the glass at the controls — I’ve always said that’s like driving with one person’s foot on the gas and someone else’s on the brake. For a while the youngest KHJ board operator, Ken Orchard, was assigned to Steele. I once asked Kenny, “What was it like on the intercom with you and Steele?” And he said, “Shit, sometimes it was better than the show!” Orchard wished he had a second tape running of just the intercom. Steele was professional but sometimes he’d wait ’til 16 seconds before the record ran out to tell Orchard what the next song was going to be — just to mess with Orchard’s mind.

2 B continued . . .

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KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO ~ Part 7

Allen Daviau, c. 1969. He would go on to earn five Oscar nominations.

Allen Daviau: There is no question that what was going on in the KMAK-KYNO, Jacobs-Drake radio wars was far more fascinating and entertaining than anything in my years listening to L.A. radio. From my first visits to my parents in 1962 I was aware that these Fresno stations were playing hardball. The ’Thons, the contests, the very basic, serious focus of every disc jockey let you know that this was war. As I got to know some of the combatants from the KMAK side, I knew that I wanted to be involved in some way. I was not interested in a radio career but perhaps I could be of use in the publicity or promotion aspect. I could offer still or motion-picture photography and stage lighting.

Ron Jacobs: Frank Terry and I were bachelors and roommates. As soon as we got to the weekends we’d rush down to L.A. or go to San Francisco. Each for different reasons. In Los Angeles there was, uh, female companionship provided by friendly record promoters. Having laid to rest such matters we’d drive the next weekend to San Francisco. In the fall of 1962 we saw some 49ers games in Kezar Stadium where the seagulls would shit on your head in the fourth quarter. And we would make the pre-hippie Beatnik scene. Like the City Lights Bookstore and Sausalito, before there was Haight Ashbury, and music at the Purple Onion. That was cool because several Honolulu schoolmates who became the Kingston Trio had made it there. KYA was picking up steam by then. I remember this one jingle, man (sings) “San Francisco, everyone every day, listens to KYA.” Only thing I didn’t like about San Francisco was the frigging weather, for me, barefoot jungle boy, I would always freeze my okole.

So Terry and I spent our Fresno weekends escaping from the place. South to get loaded and see Lenny Bruce at the Unicorn and look at the Watts Towers — anything just to get out of Fresno. It was still great to listen to KFWB, but by then each of us tacitly thought we could give them a run for their money. Like the mystique had worn off.

Frank Terry: I’m on the air one day at KMAK in Fresno while they’re removing railroad tracks and digging up the street. They told us “We’re going to cut your water off for the day.” So I start bitching about it on the air: “Can you believe this? We have no water here at the KMAK. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we have to …” I was just talking about how hard it is to exist without a day’s water. You can’t go to the bathroom, what are you going to do? Jacobs and Morgan are out in the hallway listening. Then they come in the studio. “Hey, got an idea! Why don’t you have the listeners bring you water? Let’s see what happens.” I go on the air and start asking for water. Well, this other guy came on after me and it mushroomed.

Jacobs put together this thing called the “First Annual KMAK McKinley Avenue Festival of the Water” — or “Water Festival.” We had an inflatable pool out there and Jacobs got the Beach Boys to play live on our roof. We had a National Guard tank circling the tower, a Miss McKinley Avenue Beauty Contest with chicks out there in bathing suits, a woman doing ice sculpture and people throwing balloons full of paint at the back wall of the building. Jacobs was mumbling “Jackson Pollack” and we had no idea what he was talking about — but we had a water festival! It became an acronym: The “KMAK AKMAFAF — Annual KMAK McKinley Avenue Festival of Arts and Flowers.” Stuff like that would happen. And KYNO was sitting there playing “The Peppermint Twist,” giving away $10 to the lucky caller.

Bill Drake: Let’s face it, Ron Jacobs is a hell of a radio man. I love Ron; he’s a great programmer. But I played a lot of psychological games with him in Fresno. It was a dog-eat-dog situation. His guys would follow me down the street in the middle of the night with two-way car radios playing private eye — tailing me — trying to catch me doing something illegal. It was unbelievable. I’ve told everybody I ever met, I’m convinced either one of those two radio stations in Fresno at the time could have come into L.A. and kicked ass.

Ron Jacobs: What we did in Fresno was frenzied. After meeting Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Parker in 1957 in Honolulu and watching him operate, I used to think of our promotions as “Circus Radio.” The crazy stuff we’d first done at KPOI in Honolulu was more in the Chuck Blore, KFWB style.

Tom Rounds: At KPOI, the “Circus Radio” concept continued to evolve. Unpredictability and chaos ran rampant over a tight play list and constant jock-to-jock interaction and cross-promotion. We competed like mountain goats. Driven by Jacobs, who fancied himself “The Lombardi of Waikiki,” we were a fiercely loyal team. When we weren’t behind the board doing combo we were in the production studio, often 18 hours a day, six days a week. Jacobs went way beyond simple cross-promotion. We each assumed roles in his “Theater of the Midway.” As the audience got larger, they started to know the “Poi Boys” as larger than life characters.

Frank Terry: Fresno is where a lot of the creative stuff really started happening. Talk about a nucleus of people — there was Ron Jacobs, of course, kind of the quarterback of the whole thing, Robert W. Morgan who, as we know, went on to become one of the greatest radio personalities ever. A guy named Tom Maule who was very talented. He eventually worked at KHJ. Jim Mitchell was there. He became KHJ News Director Jim Lawrence. We talked a lot about what we’d do if we had an opportunity to work in Los Angeles. We didn’t know it at the time, but people who happened through Fresno and heard our radio station would stop and say, “Wait a minute!” The record promotion people from L.A. used to come there. Once a month, somebody would come through and drop in and they would all say, “Wow! I can’t believe this is Fresno. You guys are doing some radio here!” It was that “Circus Radio” stuff Jacobs first did in Honolulu, something wild-ass going on all the time.

Allen Daviau: Getting to know Frank Terry and Sunny Jim was a great preparation for getting to meet Jacobs. That happened in a crowded KMAK hallway and consumed about eight seconds. But I was now the official photographer to the K-MAKErs. A few weeks later I was at the Fresno County fair shooting stills of the KMAK Newscruiser, containing a not very “Sunny” Jim Price, hanging from some type of crane above the fairgrounds. This was the KMAK Hang-A-Thon and Sunny Jim was broadcasting from the cruiser every day and supposedly never leaving it. I realized that these people were not only crazy, they would do anything to win.

Ron Jacobs: Can you remember the first time you and I ever actually saw each other? ’Cause I can.

Bill Drake: The first time I remember was at the Fresno County Fair.

Ron Jacobs: Right, right . . .

Bill Drake: I remember this weird looking dude and somebody said, “That’s Jacobs over there.” (Laughs.) And you were going like, “Hmm.”

Ron Jacobs: Right. right, right. And do you remember what we had going on and you had going on?

Bill Drake: We had the Money Monster giving away like one and five dollar bills, the ancestor of the Big Kahuna.

Ron Jacobs: You had the Money Monster over there. We had Sunny Jim Price hanging from a crane and his wife Gail screaming at me every 30 minutes: “Do you have life insurance? Show me the life insurance policy! Does Jim have diapers?” And someone said to me, “That’s Drake over there.” I thought, ‘tall son of a bitch.’

Bill Drake: Yeah. (Laughs.)

Ken DeVaney: On a visit to Fresno, out of idle curiosity I monitored KYNO. By that time it had switched to a rock ’n’ roll format not unlike that of KFWB, but much sharper, cleaner, and an altogether superior sound to anything Los Angeles had to offer. I was impressed.

Jim Mitchell: I actually got a job that Morgan had applied for. Nobody will believe this. Robert W. Morgan sent a Fresno air check to KGB in San Diego, way before Drake was there. The KGB-PD was a guy from St. Louis named Dick Drury. I did a news tease on Morgan’s KMAK show. Drury heard the news tease on Morgan’s tape and called me. I told him that I wanted to be a jock, not a newsman. He said to send a jock tape, which I did, from a Sunday morning gig on KMAK, and he offered me a job at KGB. I did three months there, but it was so boring and that station so pathetic that I was already planning a switch to life insurance sales. Then Donn Tyler left KMEN — where he’d gone with Jacobs to be one of the original K-MEN — to return to Honolulu. Jacobs called to offer me the 9-noon jock show and be production manager. San Bernardino with Watson and that crew? I grabbed it, and started having fun again. Morgan never stopped kidding me about beating him out of a job. This still makes me laugh: I was blah and he was maybe the best jock ever.

Tom Rounds, 1969

Tom Rounds: I learned the basics in New York at 1010 WINS from people like Rick Sklar, Tom O’Brien and Mel Leeds. I was 20 when I started working summers there. When I moved to Hawaii in 1959 I encountered Jacobs for the first time. I had no idea that we’d work together on this new station with as-yet-secret call letters. I discovered a young guy who was not trying to emulate Martin Block and the Make-Believe Ballroom on WNEW. He was doing his own thing, learning from his great anti-hero, J. Akuhead Pupule, and Top 40’s original consultant, Mike Joseph. Jacobs was a veteran jock, promoter, music guy and master of street theater all rolled up in one cute, roly-poly red-haired drag racer at the age of 19.

When KHON became KPOI 1380, hitting #1 in the Hooper ratings in what seemed like five minutes, I was a very serious newsperson who jocked on weekends. Within six months Jacobs had psyched me into launching my career as afternoon-drive jock. He staged a promotion that had me risking my sanity, if not my life. It was called the Wake-A-Thon. For 8 1/2 days I staggered and mumbled to thousands of Hawaii’s residents at the Wigwam Department store. Jacobs actually spun it all into front-page coverage every day in both morning and afternoon papers reaching most of the population of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the seal population on French Frigate Shoals. I was a hero, big enough to cover for my dubious talents as a jock.

Ron Jacobs: When I first got to California in 1962 all I knew about promotion was the wild stuff we did in Honolulu at KPOI. The studios were at the entrance to Waikiki, just across the street from the Ala Wai Canal. Back then, when your station hit #1, the artists made it a point to visit you first. Some acts like Paul Revere & The Raiders, Bobby Rydell and Connie Stevens came straight from the old Honolulu airport in a flimsy helicopter. It flew parallel to the canal opposite the station, made a hard right and landed on the roof. Pretty wild: A chopper sitting on top of KPOI. Hundreds of hysterical girls waited for hours in the parking lot if a “teenage idol” was due to land. Going “remote” meant running a long mike cable out to the sidewalk. A bizarre star arrival was when Fabian flew in for a visit. When the chopper swooped sharply starboard, Fabian’s manager, Bob Marcucci, hung out over the side and rained vomit down on some of our unfortunate listeners. Those deals could get ca-ray-zeeee.

Tom Rounds: During the KPOI years in Honolulu, we’d take as many field trips to L.A. as we could. We went just to listen to Chuck Blore’s “Color Radio” format on KFWB. We’d walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard and accept free drinks from George Jay, one of the few record promoters who knew KPOI existed. Impressed as we were, we all agreed that, “Hey, maybe this town could be taken.” After Jacobs moved to California, I flew over as often as I could to visit him and his troops in such lovely garden spots as San Bernardino and Fresno. Definitely not as nice as Hawaii! But these were the proving grounds for Jacobs’ unsystematic system. Rather than rest on tried and true tactics, like other PDs who had already worked up to the biggest markets, he never stopped pushing the envelope.

2 B continued . . .

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KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO ~ Part 6

Confucius Say: Gypsies, Tramps & The City of Angels

Bill Drake (above) and I came from such geographic and psychic extremes that one must resort for insight to the longest chronological record in history. The Chinese Lunar New Year Calendar dates from 2600 BC, when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac. The Chinese believe the animal ruling the year in which a person is born has a profound influence on personality, saying: “This is the animal that hides your heart.” The Chinese New Year begins in late January or early February. So although both of us were born in 1937, Bill Drake arrived at the close of the Chinese Year of the Rat and Ron Jacobs was born in the Year of the Ox.

Therefore, about Bill Drake, Year of the Rat: “Rat people are born under the sign of charm and aggressiveness. They are expressive and can be talkative sometimes. They like to go to parties and spend quite sometime chatting with their friends. Rats are self-contained and keep problems to themselves. And even though they can sometimes be talkative, they never confide in anyone. The Rat is quick-witted. Most rats get more accomplished in 24 hours than the rest of us do in as many days. They are confident and usually have good instincts. Stubborn as they are, they prefer to live by their own rules. It won’t be an easy task to work with Rat people, why? Simple, because they are also 100% perfectionists.

Sometimes narrow-minded in outlook, Rat people are nevertheless honest. They can always make a success of their lives as long as they manage to master their perpetual discontent and their insistence on living for the present moment. They are very organized and talented; perhaps that is why the Rat makes a good businessman or politician. Unfortunately, as soon as the Rat earns money, he spends it.”

As for Ron Jacobs, Year of the Ox: The good news. “A born leader, inspires confidence from all around. Conservative, methodical, and good with their hands. The Ox would be successful as a skilled surgeon or a general. Some Oxen: Walt Disney, Clark Gable, Rosa Parks.” Not so cool characteristics of Ox people: “Guard against being chauvinistic and always demanding your own way. The Ox would be successful as a hairdresser. Some Oxen: Napoleon Bonaparte and Richard Nixon.” Ah yes, Richard Nixon, the ultimate oxy-moron. And the Oxen who pose a major dilemma: He was called, “A painter with masterly control and power of observation, a mind perfectly capable of integrating the elements of its chosen activity.” How to categorize a visionary and artist when it comes to radio, a medium that stirred to life about the time of his death? Oh yeah? Who would want a program director that mutilated his own ear, Vincent Van Gogh?

Boss Radio was born in the spring of 1965, Year of the Snake. Ending our metaphor of KHJ as a giant fortune cookie, if the KHJ format were a person, it would be, “Charming and popular. Snakes are spotlight magnets, and they will not be ignored.” And on the Chinese Zodiac Animal Compatibility Chart (1 = least compatible, 100 = most compatible), guess who ranks #1 and #2? Ox at 85 (“This union can be a good one.”) and Rat at 67 (“Better be friends than lovers.”)

What does all this prove? That Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs should have open ed a chain of Chinese restaurants? That they were not lovers? What follows is the twisted path that highlighted disc jockeys as Gypsies, programmers as Tramps and most radio station owners as Thieves. And what more appropriate place than Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.? Where else would two radio junkies born over 5,000 miles and seven months apart join forces to take over America’s second largest market?

Historically, the starting point would be “The Battle of Fresno” in 1962. The town's #1 station, pulling 60% shares in the C.E. Hooper ratings, was Gene Chenault’s KYNO. It was the only Top 40 station in the market.

The Roots of Boss Radio

Ken DeVaney: It was 1953 in the era of Hydrogen Bombs and cold-war saber rattling. I was a full-time student at Fresno State College and a part-time radio announcer at KYNO, Fresno. The manager and part-owner was Gene Chenault. I was in my third year of a four-year ordeal at Fresno State and a cadet in the Air Force ROTC program, a sure deferment from the Korean War. My duties were pretty much the norm for that time and place — making station-break announcements when the Mutual Don Lee Network gave local stations the opportunity to scoop up a few advertising dollars — playing “middle of the road music” — reading news reports ripped from the noisily stammering Associated Press printer down the hall.

I graduated a year later, having returned to KMJ from whence I had come because the salary was better. In 1957 I began three years at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, working part time as a rock ’n’ roll DJ at KOBY in San Francisco (the first rock station in the Bay Area) and later at KEWB, the Crowell-Collier flagship station in Oakland. I was aching to get my law career on the road.

Ron Jacobs: I arrived in California to work in radio in 1962. Coming from Honolulu, my thing was that I had few outside influences, which was really great. Anything that I did at home in Honolulu wasn’t stolen from the next city. I don’t mean to say “everything” because to our General Manager at KPOI, his idea of a newspaper layout was to take an ad from BROADCASTING magazine, tear it out, rip off the call letters, put our KPOI call letters in and send it to the paper. We did the “KPOI Pay Phone Jackpot” in Honolulu, a slightly modified version of something done in Canada. OK, we didn’t create everything new but some things we did because we were crazy and we didn’t know what to copy. I remember coming to L.A. in 1958 to listen to KFWB. I was so stoked by the total entertainment of it that if they had contests I don’t remember them.

Frank Terry: I was about eight years old when I first got interested in radio. My father was a sales manager at a radio station in San Bernardino, California. KFXM. He was kind of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s manager. Tennessee Ernie Ford worked at KFXM playing hillbilly songs. My dad used to take me down to the radio station when Tennessee Ernie did his show, a Saturday Night Jamboree kind of thing, and he and I became friends. Later in Los Angeles his career just took off.

Ron Jacobs: I started doing teenage radio shows as a kid. Television didn’t come to Hawaii until three years after we became a state in 1959. By then I had been a PD for a year and had worked with and learned directly from Mike Joseph and Bill Gavin. Pretty incredible how that came to be, but Polynesian karma is heavy. By 1962 I was programming VP of a two-station group that bought KMAK in Fresno. I mean how does that sound, “A two station group?” Hey, the max limit in those days was seven.

Frank Terry: I was working at a radio station in Riverside, California when I found out that this Jacobs guy had actually come in to our station with some of his boys, sat down with our station manager and convinced him that it would be to our advantage to change format and stop doing Top 40 because Jacobs’ people were coming in to San Berdoo and we better get out while we could because these new guys were going to kick our ass. And that’s what they did!

Back around March of ’62 I got an appointment to see Jacobs. We went to breakfast. A couple days later he called me to come to KMEN out on Baseline in the middle of a cow pasture. When I got there he said, “There’s nothing here, the whole staff is set. We’re ready to go here,” but he continued, “I’d like you to hang out for a while, kind of be an advisor, help us with some of the local stuff we don’t know about.” Then he said, “You and me’ll go up to Fresno and we’ll set up the radio station up there.” (Laughing)

Ken DeVaney: In 1962, after a brief stint in a rather unsuccessful law practice in Sacramento, Joe Drilling, a broadcaster I had known for years in Fresno, called me. He was the newly-named president of Crowell-Collier Broadcasting and he offered me the job as his administrative assistant with offices at KFWB in Los Angeles. Since the salary was well above my subsistence earnings in the law office, I accepted.

Ron Jacobs: After kicking off KMEN in San Bernardino in March of 1962, I left it in the hands of PD Bill Watson. Terry’n me took off in his Corvair. You know, Ralph Nader’s “unsafe at any speed” car. We had a U-Haul trailer bouncing around back of us. All our earthly possessions were in that damn toy wagon. I knew that if Terry cranked the steering wheel too hard that a quarter-ton of vinyl records would shift violently and flip over the whole fucking setup. But we lived to tell the story.

We arrived in Fresno, “Agribusiness Capital of the World,” center of the San Joaquin Valley. Good cheap wine and stuffed grape leaves. The goal was to remake a station as

we had 90 days earlier in San Bernardino. By sunset the day I arrived “Sunny Jim” Price was hired as the new PD. His enthusiasm — the first time we shook hands he pumped mine like he was out to break the Rotarians’ Squeeze Record — and experience convinced me to hire Jim on the spot. He was another format pioneer who worked at KOBY, San Francisco. An ex-marine, Jim then did a major career favor for me. “There’s a guy who just got out of the army,” he blurted out, “name of Bob Morgan. He’s on KMBY in Monterey. You gotta hear this guy! Now, man.”

Robert W. Morgan: In 1962 KYNO had the market to itself. They had a 60 share. The only ratings back then were Hooper. But KYNO was sloppy. They had this old guy in the morning. A good guy, but he was older and there was nothing for the kids to listen to. “Sunny Jim” Price was one of the jocks at KMJ, a big old-line station in Fresno. I idolized him. In those days I idolized all deejays whether they were good or bad. When I was in Monterey, I was able to connect with him just to let him know I existed. Sunny Jim came through. He called me soon after I got out of the army. He was moving to KMAK to be the new PD and said there are some gigs coming. And I said, “It sounds pretty good. I need a job.” He called back and said, “We want you to do mornings.” That was all it took. I signed up. I was elated, of course.

They had some 26-year-old boy genius, Ron Jacobs, in charge of group programming. Before I got there, Sunny Jim called me again, “I’ve got bad news, Morgan. This Jacobs guy wants to do mornings. We’re going to give you noon to three.” I was crushed.

Ron Jacobs: Sure, I remember the day we met. Morgan and I peered suspiciously at one another through the double glass windows between studios in the small brick blockhouse on McKinley Avenue that passed itself off as a radio station. This was not just a casual first impression. For both of us it could easily have been a look in a psychic mirror. We began with both of us circling verbally, a few soft jabs. Sumo check shoves, very Zen. But our monosyllabic grunts and nods signaled the start of as intense a relationship I have ever had with anyone, in or out of radio.

Carol Morgan: You know, once he got out of the army, Robert was just thrilled to be doing what he really loved to do. When he went to work in Fresno, it was the first time he had gotten a radio job that was totally divorced from the army. That was when he considered that he really got into radio. And he just loved working with Ron Jacobs.

Frank Terry: KMAK went on the air in May of 1962 and got to rolling. Jacobs was doing mornings, I was doing 9 a.m. to noon, Morgan did noon to 3 p.m. It wasn’t long after we were on the air that everybody — Jacobs was the first — realized that there was an incredible talent in our midst and it was Robert W. Morgan. Jacobs was doing his executive thing. He was like the national PD for the whole Colgreene Group. He had to go out of town a lot and they’d put a part-time guy in there for the morning show. Jacobs realized that the logical thing was to put Morgan on in the morning and let him go, turn him loose.

Bill Drake: In mid-1963 someone named Gene Chenault from KYNO in Fresno had been trying to call me at KYA in San Francisco. He did this for a long time, but I never returned his calls. The only reason that I finally did was because Knox LaRue, who owned KSTN in Stockton, California, was a friend of Chenault’s.

Ron Jacobs: Drake is a reclusive person. He didn’t require new people. Drake wouldn’t return Chenault’s phone calls because they were from someone he didn’t know or know about. Drake has always been that way. It took a third party to vouch for Chenault. Later on, I had to light bombs underneath Drake to meet with Bill Watson and Tom Rounds, both of whom were in on the beginnings of RKO’s great run.

Bill Drake: When you look at it logically as far as people and things — the important decisions — it’s not just one station. It’s not just L.A. or other towns in California. Or even Honolulu. I mean, Jacobs discovered Morgan then got out of his way and let him take his best shot. I heard Morgan. Morgan put me onto Jacobs. Jacobs put me onto Tom Rounds. There was Frank Terry, there was Bill Watson and so on.

Ron Jacobs: Immediately Morgan and I fell in Love/Hate. We sat around Fresno dreaming of the Big Time. Three years later we had our shot. When we were in a total groove — say cutting tracks with Bill Mouzis at the board in what was ridiculously called “the KHJ production room” — we were always on the same page, literally. By then, as I wrote copy, I knew his rhythms and heard his incomparable voice in my head. Morgan emphasized the right words at the right time, performing them as intended, usually on the first take.

Bill Drake: A friend of mine, Jane Swain, former General Manager at WAKE, Atlanta, was working with Knox LaRue. She convinced me to meet Chenault. He, LaRue, and I met at Jane’s house. Chenault was from Oklahoma, an actor who got into radio right after World War II. KYNO in Fresno was his first radio-station-ownership deal. He also was involved with KRAK in Sacramento. I had never heard his Fresno station. He said he had the market to himself, and then some people came in and bought KMAK and started doing wild things. And they really kicked his ass.

Robert W. Morgan: Fresno was the big time. So, we go on the air. Sunny Jim worked afternoon drive, I worked noon to three. We started out with a one share. There were two AM, Top 40 stations: KYNO at 1300 and us, KMAK, at 1340. When we went up to a 35 share, KYNO went down. We beat them the first half-week. We were a lot better and the word had just gotten out about KMAK. All the stations in our group were doing wild promotions. But that was a long ass battle, boy. Meanwhile Jacobs had a seven to my 37, so they put me on in the morning and he took himself off the air. Jacobs has a tremendous ego, but he’s also very practical.

Frank Terry: Jacobs was the first to admit that Morgan was a better jock than he was, and Jacobs was no slouch, you know. He had Morgan switch from Bob Morgan, which is how he started, to Robert W. Morgan. And Jacobs got the “Good Morgan” thing going. Never again say, “morning,” it was always, “Morgan.” And he told all of us that. (Imitating Jacobs voice) “You don’t ever say, morning, it’s Morgan, God damn it. Shape up!”

Bill Drake: When our meeting ended, Chenault said, “Will you come down to Fresno, do your thing, listen to KYNO and talk to me?” I went down to Stockton again to talk to Jane Swain and she said, “I think this guy is OK.” So I met Chenault again. I had listened to his station and I looked at him and I said, “Gene, you’re in fucking trouble!” (Laughs.) He knew that I knew — and I knew that he knew — or I wouldn’t have been there. What else could I say, “You’re cool”? He knew he was in deep shit. I told him, “You got real problems here.” I didn’t tell him a whole lot of details about anything; just that he was in trouble and this radio station, KMAK, was killing him. Obviously the difference in the radio stations was vast.

2 B continued . . .

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