Several weeks back, I began going through my radio career memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion, and sharing larger and/or in-color versions of the photos included in the book; obviously, you’ll find that some have appeared on this page previously … so, please forgive the repeats.
When we ended the previous chapter, I had just reached the mid-1970’s … when our Bonneville programming and consultancy operation was getting on a roll.
At this point, we had just begun to do an occasional special holiday show, and what better holiday to focus on than Valentine’s Day! Who better to host a show dealing with Love than Johnny Mathis? It just so happened that Fred Seiden, whom I had sent out from New York to be Program Director of our Bonneville-owned Los Angeles station, KBIG, had gotten to know Johnny as they would meet up when taking their cars to the car wash there on Sunset Boulevard, not far from the KBIG studios.
While making a swing through the West Coast to visit a few of our client stations, I stopped at KBIG to produce Johnny’s voice tracks for the special.
At the beginning of 1976, we were approached by the owners of a radio and TV station in Perth, Australia, who wanted to give it a try and see if Aussies would go for the Easy Listening/Beautiful Music sound which had become so popular in North America … and they could think of no one better to take on the challenge than us at Bonneville! Two key elements of the contract were 1) we had to come up with Australian-produced musical recordings which fit the format, as there was a government requirement (the same for Canada) where a certain percentage of all music played must be Australian artists/recordings – it was my job to come up with them. Plus, Frank Murphy, our client services director, and yours truly were expected to make a trip to Perth to train the station staff – they, however, would provide around-the-world first-class plane tickets for us and the hotel stay in Perth. I can place a date on this trip … it was late June of 1976, as we’d be arriving home just in time for America’s last big birthday bash in early July 50 years ago!
We first flew to Hawaii, then on to Sydney, Australia, before flying across that nation to Perth on its very west coast. Our route home would be via London, England, with a stop in India for refueling… hence, our around-the-world trip!
While it was a term I never really liked … as we were telling the listener it was – it was always my feeling that that should be what the listener determined it was in his or her own mind! However, thanks to our competitor, that was the label which had been applied.
One year at the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention and show, well-known English conductor-arranger Norrie Paramor decided to visit; he in particular wanted to stop by our suite to thank us for including so many of his recordings in our programming – it was a pleasure to do that, as his orchestral arrangements fit so well within the boundaries of our format genre!
Another of our treasured English conductor/arrangers is John Fox, along with his wife, Joy. We at Bonneville first connected with John around 1980 when our sources for instrumental/orchestral arrangements were running dry; hence, the need for us to begin producing our own recordings to keep our programming fresh. Over a period of something like eight years, John would arrange and assemble a 34-piece orchestra in CTS Studios – which sat next to Wembley Stadium on the north side of London – and record 260 orchestral performances, most of which were of popular melodies from the second half of the 20th century. For a listing of the titles, visit surreyhousemusic.com
This photo was taken of John and Joy during one of the multiple visits they made to the United States, and they were guests of Alicia and me at our home in Bergen County, New Jersey, not far from Bonneville Broadcast Consultants’ headquarters. Likewise, when I would go over to be present for a series of recording sessions, I’d stay with them.
Again, on Page 150 of my memoir is this photo of yours truly standing by this poster, which makes the point that our programming as heard on stations in markets across the country is becoming an ever greater audience-building force! Listeners to our stations not only heard great arrangements of their favorite melodies, but they also got to experience hearing unique artists such as Gheorghe Zamfir, a native of Romania and master of the ancient Eastern European wind instrument known as the panpipes or pan-flute … which you see him playing here.
This is where I spent a fair portion of my time … in our record library. Most days I would arrive quite early in the day so I could have a couple of hours of quiet before the rest of the crew arrived. Of course, that’s where Tony Bennett wanted his photo taken the day he chose to drop by. I happened to be away that day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t ask to see where his albums were! For many years, Tony had a home in Englewood Cliffs, just a few minutes’ ride in the direction of the George Washington Bridge from where we were located.
In the Fall of 1987, after 18 years with the Bonneville organization … first as Manager of WRFM, then as programming head of all seven of the Bonneville-owned FM stations, plus the packaging of our programming and the providing it and consulting services to stations in non-competing markets, it was time for Marlin to make a change. While our format was still commanding a healthy listenership and generating solid results for advertisers, some station management folks were getting antsy to switch to a more youth-oriented format in the belief that it would increase station revenue.
However, it wasn’t long before I was approached and lured back into the fray to be the music chief for a new weekly two-hour show designed especially for Easy Listening-formatted stations.
And, if you wonder about this building with a radio tower on the roof? The location is the City of Spokane, Washington, and the building was named the Delany Building, and the antenna was for an AM station whose call letters were KRSS … one of the city’s oldest stations carrying the call letters of KSPO. In mid-1987, I somehow connected with the current owner who convinced me the station was on the right track; it just needed some additional funds to become profitable. I bit … the second dumb mistake of my broadcast-related career! I did not do some good basic homework – I tend to be too trusting. While the station and its rooftop antenna were a holdover from a bygone day, it still provided a great signal with solid coverage over a great expanse of eastern Washington. And its format was solid, even if a little ahead of its time … contemporary Christian music … and was fortunate to have a good air staff. While the station’s facility and the format were both what you’d call “secondary,” the basic problem was that the economy of Spokane and eastern Washington State was just not strong enough to support the many TV and radio stations attempting to survive in the marketplace.
If you know anything about AM radio station transmitting, you might know that the tower or towers that you see are only part of how it gets its signal out. In a typical station today, at the base of every tower you see, there’s a great series of copper wires which extend out in all directions from the base of the tower, simply known as ground radials. In a rooftop installation, the ground radials typically run down and are attached to all sides of the building; in KRSS’s setup, the majority of the wires were attached to adjoining buildings … except by this time, many of the neighboring buildings had been torn down, so few of the ground radials remained; yet, the signal didn’t appear greatly impacted.
I thought this would wrap up my sharing of pictures and posters from my memoir, but there are just too many left to try to cram them all in … you’ll be bored looking … we’re just arriving at my satellite radio days!
Thank you for reading and looking! I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!
