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Once upon a time, automation wasn't a horrible thing. We had fun on the AM and the Colonels listened to the FM. Good trade. Some day I'll tell you about the first live assist systems...
But in 1968 here were the liners for AFKN-FM.
Monday, March 18, 2019
AFVN Paul Bottoms
We recently lost AFVN vet Paul Bottoms. A while back he told his story:
By Paul Bottoms,
AFVN Saigon 1968-1970
Well, AFVN meant a lot to me because I spent almost two
years ---two tours---on the air in Saigon. We were the network and had seven AM
stations up country carrying our signal.
They were required to produce three hours of their own programming each
day.
Music was the central part of what we presented and we
tried to emulate stateside radio in its various formats. But besides the music,
we copied the elements of programming we had either learned or heard on stateside
radio.
I did the allnight show , The Orient Express from 1 to 4
a.m. for much of the time I was there. I was on the board until 6 a.m. when Pat
Sajak (he spelled his name Sadjak then) would take over. To show you the variety, after my three hour
show ended, we had an R&B show by Herman Griffith at 4 a.m. and a country
show with Joe Allison at 5 a.m, both shows from AFRTS.
We had a ten minute newscast at 6 a.m., a five minute
sportscast then a feature that ran about three or four minutes….a chaplain
giving us a dose of religion. A
different chaplain would come in every week and record five programs. Then came
the famous "good morning Vietnam" show opening.
Later, after Pat left, I was moved to days and also did
the Dawnbuster which ran until nine (although at 8 a.m., the up-country
stations cut away to do one of their local hours). The war was winding down in 1970 and we had
fewer people to work with. After 9 a.m.,
there were two hour-long shows from AFRTS then from 11 a.m., we had another
local show. So by 1970 the guy who did
the morning show also had to do the 11 to noon show. There was a half hour newscast at noon and
from 12:30 to one, a lady from the USO came in.
One of our jocks, Roger Ashworth married the USO lady at the time.
it was very hard to please everybody. In fact, we didn’t. We only had an AM and an FM in each
area. The FM in Saigon had a morning
show geared to older people then later in the day, they aired what we call
beautiful music. On the AM, we did what
stations did in the old days before a station specialized in just one kind of
music: "block programming". So
we'd have a two hour top 40 show from 7-9 p.m., a two hour country show in the
afternoon, a morning show that played the top 40 stuff, except the hard stuff, and even throw in a march.
We tried to cover all types of music including "underground,"
those guys were always ticked off at us. They didn't want to hear the hit from
the album, they wanted the other cuts. We had a Hispanic sergeant on the
weekend with a program of Spanish music called “Bolero." We also had a two hour oldies show on Saturday
night.
We had a good news department. There was a newscast at the top of every
hour around the clock.
They had to walk a tricky line because of what they could
report about the war. We also carried
Paul Harvey who didn't like the Vietnam war and kept throwing in phrases like
"that dead end war" that they edited out.
For sports, we also carried some big games live, like the
World Series which means that because of the time difference the game might
start at 3 in the morning and end about 7 or so.
Radio stations stateside have commercials. But we had PSA’s,
public service announcements which stateside broadcasters use for charities and
other good causes. They were our commercials. We tried to make them as
interesting as possible, often with nothing more than some talented people, an
idea, some copy, music and
sounds effects.
We made every reference possible to home, stateside, the
world. Getting out of the Vietnam, if
even for a week on R&R, was a very big deal and we made it sound as
glamorous as possible. We had
announcements about taking the weekly malaria pill (guaranteed to give
you the runs although we never brought that up).
We ran things about the dangers of getting VD, warning to
buy savings bonds and announcements about re-upping and doing another tour. Once, we ran an announcement saying the mayor
of Saigon wanted us to ask our maids in our hotel not to hang out uniforms so
they could be seen from the street. It
ended with something like "for a better looking Saigon."
I'm very proud of my association with AFVN. In more than
45 years of doing radio, in some pretty big cities like Chicago, D.C.,
Dallas/Ft. Worth and Phoenix, I think
the audience at AFVN may have been the
most responsive. But they usually didn't
have a lot of choices. They needed us
more.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Chris Noel 1967
Chris Noel in "Get Yourself A College Girl"
And another great hour of music. Chris had been doing the show for almost a year and she connects.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
AFRS Alaska 1944
TIME OUT from pool game to listen on the radio. Portable radios are furnished by the Special Service division of the Army. Radio reception is not too good in most sections of the Highway, due perhaps to mountains, mineral deposits, and Northern Lights. Pool tables are, however, a late addition to most camps. They were furnished by the American Red Cross.
(The Alaska Highway "Truck Tracks" 16 Feb 1944)
Iwo Jima 1945
Here's the other one of those USMC official records about the battle of Iwo Jima. Pretty incredible. They tell the story and talk to the troops, presumably recorded by the Mosquito Network.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
AFVN Gary Gears 1968
After 1968...
So Gary Gears was drafted, promptly aggravated the higher ups and was taken off of his DJ shows. After that Gary spent a lot of hours in the production room practicing and keeping his chops..
Monday, March 4, 2019
Charlie Tuna 1973
Charlie at KHJ
Winter won't go away in the heartland. In 1973 it was a Thursday and a Charlie Tuna morning.
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