Jack (and Guerilla) exited Ktown for WAKY in Louisville before settling in for a many decades' gig at WAMZ in Louisville as Coyote Calhoun.
Here's my journal entry from Jack's arrival...he exited in September.
More WBIR Radio memories from a faded and yellowing file folder.
The trove includes a tattered old WBIR AM-FM weekday work schedule from 11/1969. At this time, there were very few pre-produced spots from national accounts. Those that did exist came in on 2.5” and 3.5” magnetic tape reels, delivered via Air Mail.
So, all local accounts and almost all national product accounts required local production work. That demand drove the Production work assignments shown below.
Subtract the ad copy read on-air, and each broadcast hour had up to 20 ads that played from tape carts. I wish BJ had drawn a picture of the cart stacks which DJs had to pull for each hour.
Advertisers, pre-Walmart? There were scores who were on radio. The two radio salesmen — Carson Chapin and Bill Minnoc — must have spent hours and hours in those pre-Walmart days, walking between dozens of accounts located throughout the downtown.
And starting right after Thanksgiving, when the tobacco auctions were running, WBIR was sold outwith local car dealers angling for their share of the checks issues by the area’s half-dozen tobacco warehouses.
Radio back then was indeed local, and the ads so well documented the commerce of the time.
_______________
Bill Jenkins (5:00 AM - 10:00 AM) & Doc Johnson (7:00 AM - 10:00 AM)
Art Miller - News (4:30 AM - 8:30 AM)
Doc - production, after 10:00 AM, as needed
Jim Riddings (10:00 - 2:00 PM)
Production (2:00 PM - 4:00 PM)
Ken McGavock (2:00 PM - 7:00 PM)
Production (12:00 noon - 2:00 PM)
Jim Ellis (7:00 PM - 12:00 midnight, sign-off)
(Production 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM)
Jon Mack, Bick Berney & Jay Beeler
news feeds from TV all day
Walt Martin
Promotion as required
BTW...The Beachman is still cranking out the hits at his very own Global Radio Daytona.
Does anyone know what happened to the green-and-clear plastic WIBK 850 AM electric clock which hung for decades in the main dining room at Bill’s Restaurant? It was brightly lit and about 20” tall. Located at Kingston Pike and Carr Street, Bill’s was a regular stop for travelers on U.S. 11-70 in Knoxville’s pre-interstate days. It was crowded 20 hours a day. It was also a popular early-AM dining location for Knoxville Police. Ruby and her daughter, Little Bit, were great hosts to 3rd Shift police, county deputies, the KUB overnight electric trouble truck crew, and State Troopers. Bill’s eventually morphed into a drive-in, tried to compete with Shoney’s Big Boy situated 4 blocks west. Nothing is forever. The Blue Circle, across from the Pike Theater, went first. And Bill’s eventually succumbed some 30 years ago, this as Bearden went downhill. Neither Bill’s nor the Blue Circle could survive as the Interstate roared around the clock, West Town flourished, and numerous other restaurant options opened. I hope the WIBK clock is also not lost to history.
So great to see the note from Larry Solomon and hear that he’s back on the air. I have no idea if he would remember this, but when I was a student at UT in the late ‘70s the association of broadcasting students would write and deliver a morning newscast on WUOT and he and I worked on some of those together. After graduation I moved to Nashville and through a series of improbable events ended up producing and hosting a medical news interview show for a while on public station WPLN — a gig I never would have gotten had it not been for that little bit of student broadcasting experience. So that time with Larry, short as it was, helped me in my career at that time, and I have always been grateful for the chance. I seem to recall that for a while he went by the on-air moniker “King” Solomon, but I may be remembering that wrong!
Wayne Wood
"My life changed forever 45 years ago today. Jim Dick decided he wanted me to do middays at WIVK. Did that for 20 years and we were fortunate to have the #1 radio station in the USA...all formats! It was a wild ride. Worked with legends like Claude Tomlinson, Ed Brantley, Bobby Denton, Jimmy Vineyard and many more! And met a lot of people" (Bob Thomas)
fotos are...me and Bob a few years back in Florida, and my journal entry from that day in 1980- Mickey Gilley had the #1 song at WIVK, and I DJ's that night at Sam Houston's, we had The Steppe Brothers on stage that evening.
And the rest is simply...a blink in the eye!
Congrats Bob!
PS- Bob is still on the air, filling in regularly at WIVK sister station NewsTalk WOKI.
I was the original midday jock in 1979 for ROCK 104 (WBIR-FM, now 103.5 WIMZ.) After a research career in the federal government, I'm back in radio in a part-time role at WCOM-FM in Chapel Hill and Carrboro NC. On Thursdays between 6 - 8 pm, I host "Deja Vu" which features deep album rock tracks - inspired by early progressive FM radio. Listen via this link:
Larry Solomon
