Jim shared this 1969 picture with Al Jardine of the Beach Boys.
Picture was taken at AFRTS and is copyrighted Playground Productions.
Used with permission.
I'm thinking SUMMERTIME, cue the Jaymies, Billy Stewart or Eddie Cochran. Jim Pewter knew these things. Every day an encylopedia of the music. I learned a lot.
The weekend is coming up. You can be sure because it's time for a Don Tracy Friday show. He always kicked it up to get us ready. Don has some projects in the works. Hope to hear from him soon.
It was a discussion we had many times ""There's no one good in Milwaukee, Miami, Dallas or anywhere else?" In 1983 the network bid out contracts with talent from all over the country. Joe Ferguson from Portland OR was with us for a while. On this show, Joe talks about being a dependent and in the radio club at AFN.
Ron Landry was later a part of Hudson and Landry. He started in radio in 1954 at WJMA in Orange, VA. After a few years the lights of Roanoke called. 1958 Ron was drafted into the army and worked for AFRTS in NY. Private E2 Ronnie Landry was picked up by the network.
When he left the military, it was the big time, WDRC, WBZ. 1969 he conquered Los Angeles.
Joe Allison was a songwriter, performer, record company executive and a DJ. Joe came along around the time of "Modern Country" and was responsible for modernizing "Hillbilly" radio. It was great. I just remastered this, enjoy.
Wolfman was the only one that we'd get complaints about. First thing I did at SCN when I could was get his airtime changed from 3am to 8pm. There was only one Wolfman, I'm proud we had him.
Melody Roundup was the "country show", In the 1940s many local stations did live country programs. Sometimes they'd send copies to AFRS. The network would edit these to fit in the 15 minute program.
Roy Acuff was country music from WWII until well through the 1980s. Lets visit Roy in 1945.
In 1963 the loss of Glenn Miller was still fresh. Here's part two of Andy Mansfield's tribute. He did a great job and talked with a lot of the people that knew Glenn.
So when in you're in Los Angeles, or streaming Los Angeles radio our friend Roland Bynum is making it happen weekends on Stevie Wonder's KJLH Saturday mornings from 6-8 (Los Angeles time). Click here
Don Browne has some insights: Not all AFRTS-LA radio show hosts methodically recorded their programs at the beginning of the RU8-week cycle-to-air. Of course, all AFRTS stations and networks held the RU "on the floor" for an additional 3-weeks as a protection for four-class mail delays enroute. The only exception was AFVN in Saigon, RVN who aired the RU and RP ("Date With Chris") the week that it was received. Saigon had daily flights from Travis AFB, CA and didn't have to worry about delay in four-class mail deliveries.
Bill Stewart, and a few other hosts, recorded and stored their shows at AFRTS-LA for four to six months prior to air. Although the programming was 5-55:00 at the beginning, it was considered "ever green" by the LA producers. Bill Stewart never mentioned "it's the Monday edition" or "it's the Tuesday edition" the way Roger Carroll did for his 5-55:00 series. I believe this was due to the inordinate delay in recording the Bill Stewart Shows. He just didn't know what day the show was to be aired!
When Bill Stewart says "this song is a new release", it really isn't. . .it's four to six months old!
Because of the long "lead-time" in recording the Bill Stewart Shows (at the request of Bill himself), I reviewed and logged a year of the Bill Stewart Show to determine if there was a detrimental effect on the program. This took about two weeks of auditioning the pristine discs in the Library of Congress. I saved the "Bill Stewart logs" when I retired from AFRTS in January 2001.
The core artists most likely to be featured on the 1-110:00 series Bill Stewart Show were: Mel Torme, Buddy Greco, Damita Jo, George Shearing, Andre Previn, Les Brown, Ted Heath, Artie Shaw, Peggy Lee, Anita Kerr Singers, Nelson Riddle, David Rose, and Burt Bacharach. The "Bill Stewart logs" began with #733 RU 41-9 (April 1969) and ended with #790 RU 47-0 (May 1970). In this series, Bill Stewart used Hugo Montenegro's rendition of "Palm Canyon Drive" as a bridge (or bumper) between Part 2 (the "b" side) and Part 3 (the "c" side).
In #734 RU 42-9 (April 1969), Bill Stewart remarks "This is the beginning of the Twenty-fifth Year of AFRS (nee AFRTS). . ." in the beginning of Part 4 (the "d" side).
In #749 RU 5-0 (August 1969), Bill Stewart remarks that Henry Mancini's rendition of "Crocodiles Go Home" from the soundtrack album "Hatari" was his "bridge theme" (between Part 1 and Part 2) when the show was 5-a-week (5-55:00).
Although the AFRTS-LA records are not accurate, due to the numbering scheme, the first Bill Stewart Show was probably #1M in RU 27-6 (January 1966). Around #651 in RU 1-9 (July 1968), Bill Stewart was demoted to 1-110:00. An easy way to rank AFRTS-LA radio show hosts was by the number of disc sides that they recorded. 1-25:00 or 1-30:00 was one side; 1-45:00 or 1-55:00 was two sides; 1-110:00 was four sides; 5-55:00 was ten sides. So moving from 5-55:00 to 1-110:00 was considered a demotion.
Bill Stewart is back for another swinging hour. It's a little jumpy near the beginning but it fills the Bill..
Just had a nice chat with Chris. Great lady. "The Voice of Home" at it's absolute best.
You should read her story"Vietnam and Me", Chris's republished first book. Highly recommended.
The face of home to thousands of Vietnam era troops was Chris Noel. She has spent the past several years running a homeless shelter for vets, in Florida "Ceasefire House" click here. Our less fortunate brothers need your help. Please consider helping.
A few years ago Chris sent her collection of shows to us so that we could hear them again. Thanks Chris!!!
Something very cool that our network did in the early 1980s was do a series of shows from personalities all over the country. Joe Ferguson from Portland OR radio donated his set of shows. Suddenly it's 1983...
Gene Price updates us on the benefits of joining todays all volunteer force! These programs would run on local radio here in the states and be credited as 25 minutes of Public Service time. Very popular on Sunday morning.
Couple of years ago I found many of these programs. Joe's style was a graceful transition from Hillbilly to modern country. Mr Allison was a songwriter, music executive and a bit of a philosopher.
Roger's back with a 1970 visit. On today's broadcast Roger gets a mola from SCN, wonder if it's still around. He's really having fun on this one, enjoy!
Chuck Cecil started playing the music of "The Swingin Years"s on KFI in the late 50s. Those oldies were popular and he was on AFRTS in 1960. On the Big Band Countdown, Chuck would pick a time and Count 'em down. The show ran well into the 1980s.
The majority of our programming was created at the McCadden Avenue studios. A lot of US syndicated programming found its way to us.
In 1983 they tried something different. AFRTS-LA reached out to jocks all over the country to do a series of shows for the worldwide audience. Joe Ferguson from KUPL in Portland OR was one that signed up.
"Actually my first radio was as a dependent high school student in the radio club, but it was in the castle at AFN Frankfurt..
Then after college as a DA civilian with Southern European Network, or SEN as it was known then."
When I arrived in Panama and was settled into the temporary quarters in 1980 there was Gene Price. Gene and Leonard had a long run on the network. Gene followed fellow KFOX vet Charlie Williams as one of the AFRTS country voices and truly made the show his own.
In the late 1940s, radio was changing. AFRS had a mission of educating and did several productions of their own with great casts. In 1947 Daws Butler and Howard Culver starred in this production of "Pearl Of The Orient" a story of the Philippines.
From the "familiar love theme" to the ongoing silliness. Gary did some wonderful radio. Gery's last big job was the announcer on AntennaTV. On this show Gary has some guest to talk about old movies. He'll be missed.
Los Angeles radio is Charlie Tuna. Charlie went from KOMA to WMEX then one of then to KHJ and made that happen. Charlie went to the network in 1971 and was there until the change in 1976. Woke a lot of people.
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