In 1973 I worked at WHK, one of the nation's heritage stations and the oldest in Ohio. I was only there for a few months but I learned a lot of radio from our consultant Mike Joseph.
This was a complete staff and format change from the guys that read the back of album covers to our group that all came from rock stations. Our PD was Roy Cooper from rocker WSAI in Cincy and our morning man was Tom Dooley who had worked at several legendary rockers. I started out in Middays and took over the morning show when Tom left.
Our format was rather strange and incorporated cuts from Cleveland's best selling albums and softer rock hits. This would mean we might play a great Neil Diamond cut and follow it with something from Billie Holiday. The format didn't last long and all of the staff left. I headed back to WKLO in Louisville to do morning drive.
I did manage to liberate many of the old albums that were being tossed out by the handtruck full. I also found this old WHK weekly program schedule from the late 20's.
Below are a couple of airchecks of me in middays and AM drive.
This was a complete staff and format change from the guys that read the back of album covers to our group that all came from rock stations. Our PD was Roy Cooper from rocker WSAI in Cincy and our morning man was Tom Dooley who had worked at several legendary rockers. I started out in Middays and took over the morning show when Tom left.Our format was rather strange and incorporated cuts from Cleveland's best selling albums and softer rock hits. This would mean we might play a great Neil Diamond cut and follow it with something from Billie Holiday. The format didn't last long and all of the staff left. I headed back to WKLO in Louisville to do morning drive.
I did manage to liberate many of the old albums that were being tossed out by the handtruck full. I also found this old WHK weekly program schedule from the late 20's.
Below are a couple of airchecks of me in middays and AM drive.
midday morning drive
I got my first shot at country music in 1979 and I've been with it ever since. An old friend Bill Coffee called me at WFBC in Greenville and asked if I'd be interested in doing country music. When Bill and I worked together in Hartford at WPOP we had always talked about how we would like work at a country station. Bill had become program director of northern Ohio's heritage country station "Whistler" WSLR. I packed my stuff and headed for Akron to do afternoon drive.
morning drive 1980 afternoons 1979
The legendary "Jaybird" Drennen had been switched to the all night shift and I soon found m
yself in his old spot in morning drive. I stayed a year until my old employer in Owensboro called and I headed back to Kentucky and "Jaybird" went back to mornings where the country fans of northern Ohio had been entertained by his big booming voice for many years. I would like to add that Jaybird and I changed places every morning at 6:00AM and in many cases that would havebeen uncomfortable when someone is doing your shift but "Jaybird" could not have been nicer. He was a TRUE professional and I learned a lot from him about how to handle yourself and how to treat your fans.Above are air checks from morning and afternoon drive at WSLR "whistler" radio.
At WSLR we played a complete schedule of softball and basketball games In this picture we're playing the University of Akron alumni. That's me in the middle taking a shot. The team mate in the background with the moustache is Rick Carderelli and Ken Douglas has his back to the camera.
