it-registrationsstlmediahistory

Nearly 7200 letters and post cards have been received by Charley Stookey, announcer and advisor on the Early Morning Farm Folks Hour, since the program went on the air on October 3rd.

Replies have come from all but six states of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Panama and New Zealand, and the program establishes a record not only with volume of mail but listener coverage. Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and Utah are the only states who have not either sent in a reply or some gift characteristic of their sections of the country.

Illinois leads all the states with 1010 replies, Texas is second with 410 and Missouri third with 386. More than 100 letters have come from Canadian listeners.

This early program heard from 5:30 to 7 a.m. each morning features Wyoming Jack, the lovable cowboy; Len Johnson and his Ozark Mountaineers; Sunny Joe and his banjo; Sad Sam and his accordion and Ken Wright at the organ. Scarcely a day goes by without a gift of some sort coming to the group in the form of food for immediate consumption or some oddity of the section from which it comes. A curious counter has been set up outside the KMOX studios where the presents are displayed. They include everything from bottles of water and sand from the Gulf of Mexico to cocoanuts and fruit from Florida.

A sample letter:

Deering, Alaska

Dear Mr. Stookey:

Just a note to say your program is coming in fine. It’s just 5:45 a.m. your time and 1:30 a.m. by ours.

Please have “Jack” sing “Strawberry Roon” over again sometime if this letter reaches you, as he sure comes in clear.
I am at a trading post just south of the Arctic Circle, and the store is full, all sitting around taking in every word you send out.
Your weather report stated 38 above, light snow for St. Louis. Ours is clear with 20 degrees below zero.

Warren Ferguson

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 1/21/1933).

Even before St. Louis had radio stations, it had radio broadcasts.

A group of enthusiasts calling itself the St. Louis Radio Association would get together to share information about building transmitters and receiving sets. By 1922, they had gone beyond technical talk and had begun producing programs as well. But the problem of how to let other interested people know about their broadcasts loomed.

This was a time when many people were building crystal sets in an effort to be a part of the very small audience that was hearing a very limited number of radio broadcasts. A couple stations had been licensed in the country, but there were several others broadcasting without a government license.

Word of the St. Louis broadcasts was spread by the St. Louis Star, which claimed to be working with the local association to further “the development of the wireless telephone in this district. Of the 1,200 owners of wireless receiving sets in St. Louis and the adjacent territory, more than 350 belong to the association, which has been a pioneer in the field.”

The Star, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, referenced the working relationship with the association as “one of the most important steps forward in the history of newspapers and wireless telephony in this section of the United States.”

Robert Coe, who was selling radio reception equipment at the time, mentioned in his memoirs that he would often arrange in advance for an amateur broadcast to be held at a specific time so he could conduct a successful reception demonstration. At times, his arrangements involved a small monetary payment to the broadcasters of $5.00.

What made these few early local broadcasts even more interesting is the fact that some were concerts produced in private homes and sent out over transmitting equipment housed within the homes. For example, on Feb. 16, 1922, the broadcast originated from 3148 Halliday, the home of Dr. Charles Klenk. He and his son Carl had built a transmitter capable of being heard 1,000 miles away under favorable nighttime conditions.

The amateur station, designated 9AAU, had received confirmed reception correspondence from Denver, New Orleans, Buffalo and Savannah. The good doctor and his son produced a musical program for broadcast that would rival many later network efforts. Acts included the Vessellas Italian Band, Rega Dance Orchestra, Hawaiian Guitars, soloists Fredric Persson, Mario Chamlee, John McCormack, B. Hubermann and Paul Frankel and the Esplanade Hotel Orchestra. While there is no knowledge of how this could have been done, it does appear that many musical performances were “live” rather than simply playing records.

Dr. Klenk, a medical pathologist, was the president of the radio association. In an earlier broadcast from a member’s home in Webster Groves, Klenk had been a featured speaker, along with author Harlan Eugene Read. Entertainment that evening included Max Steindel, a cellist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with an act that was currently performing at the Orpheum Theater.

The Klenk broadcast was heard throughout the metro area, with phone calls coming in from listeners who had requests for specific songs to be played. A subsequent report in the Star indicated Dr. Klenk had burned out “two vacuum tubes and had to work with three tubes. However, this did not interfere with the transmission.”

A week later the broadcast came from the Benwood Company at 1110 Olive downtown, which had constructed its own broadcast studio. That studio had made its first local broadcast two weeks before. Company owners Lester Arthur “Eddie” Benson and William Wood were actively involved in building radio transmitters. Less than a month later KSD was conducting experimental broadcasts from studios a half-block away from the Benwood Company, using a transmitter the two men built.

She was known as Susie, The Gal from the Hills, but the simplicity of the name was misleading. This was a woman who knew music!

Born in 1919 and named Mary Louise Wesnitzer, the Casey, Ill., native was playing classical piano by age 9. Three years later, she developed a fondness for what she called “simple home folk songs,” and that was the basis for her long career as a radio performer.

In 1937, fresh from graduation at East St. Louis High School, she began hosting a regular program over WTMV called “Can You Stump Susie?” The premise was that this teenage girl knew over 5,000 songs, so it was unlikely her listeners could come up with one she didn’t know. A gifted musician on piano, harmonica, mandolin, Gibson guitar, banjo and bass, Susie kept the listeners of WTMV entertained for six years.

Those years at WTMV had sown the seeds for Susie’s national prominence. She was named the National Hillbilly Association’s female champion vocalist in 1938. A year later she was asked to be a part of the Hillbilly Stars’ Championship Jamboree. She’d formed a band, The Sons of the Ozarks, in 1939. It consisted of five men and Susie, but World War II forced a breakup when most of the men were called to the service.

Susie moved her radio show across the river in 1942, appearing on WEW. By 1943, she was a regular on KWK’s Shady Valley Gang program, which also meant national exposure over the Mutual Network. An unexplained wanderlust took hold in 1944 when she left the St. Louis area for a radio job in Baton Rouge, but she returned to the Shady Valley gig by the fall of 1945.

That affiliation was officially terminated by the end of the year. By this time she had written over 30 songs. This was an era when songwriting could lead to a substantial income stream, with writers getting fees from sheet music publishers as well as record sales. It appears she also did a lot of club appearances while actively seeking another job on the radio.

That job came at WTMV in 1948, where Susie landed a Sunday afternoon request show. That exposure led to a job offer from WIL in 1949, which was apparently patterned after the WTMV program.

It was at WTMV that Susie displayed a sort of copycat creativity in which she took a cue from Les Paul (a former St. Louis radio personality on KMOX.)

As described by writer Chuck Acree: “Suzie (sic), the ‘Girl (sic) of the Hills’ on station WTMV in East St. Louis, has added to her program the trick of singing a duet with herself. The trick is accomplished by means of a recording. Suzie sings the melody of a song and it is recorded. Then the recording is played on the air and Suzie sings harmony.

“Suzie planned on building herself up to a quartet by this method but the station management squelched the idea on the basis that she might demand a quartette’s pay.”

“The more I did it, the more I liked it.”

That’s how Lou “Fatha” Thimes describes his entry into radio.
The beginning was inauspicious. Thimes was sitting in the barracks at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa when the captain came in looking for a volunteer disc jockey to play black music on the base radio station. Things went well on the air, and the experience paid off when he returned to civilian life in St. Louis.

He started out playing gospel music on Saturdays at KATZ in 1958. “I guess I had a good enough voice,” he says, “because soon they took me off the gospel show and had me playing rhythm and blues.”

The setup of the studios back then was very different from what most people may have envisioned. The announcer sat at a table with a microphone on it. In another room, behind soundproof glass, an engineer took care of the technical work, playing the records and commercials and keeping audio at the proper level.

And it was up to each disc jockey to pick his own music. “That was before owners decided they could choose music.”

During the week, the other jocks on the air were Dave Dixon, Robert BQ and Doug Eason. They also played R&B and gospel.

Soon another local owner came calling. Richard Miller offered Fatha more money to jump to KXLW, the market’s other R&B station.

The KXLW studios, located on Bomparte Avenue at the station’s tower site, were smaller and the studio operation was different. The DJs had to operate their own control boards and the only engineer Thimes remembers was Jimmy Mitchell, whom he says was always tinkering with transmitter.

At first, working for a local owner was no different than working at a station whose owner lived in another city. “We were trying to beat KATZ, so Richard left us alone at that time. Later, he decided he knew music.”

Like most of his fellow deejays, Thimes had gigs on the side to make money. He pursued his comedy career with partner John Smith in a team known as “Lou and Blue,” in various clubs around town. This sideline gave him a perfect opportunity to cross paths with some well-known musicians, who would later end up as guests on his radio program – people like Dinah Washington, Louis Jordan and Otis Redding.

Other disc jockeys were also moonlighting. Dave Dixon and Roscoe McCrary would produce talent shows at the YMCA at Sarah and Page. They’d bring in people like Smokey Robinson and Gladys Knight.

KXLW also opened the door for announcers to pick up lucrative contracts.

“I remember when Anheuser Busch bought shows on KXLW to sell their beer.

“There was a gentleman at the brewery, Mr. Porter, who didn’t like blues. He almost killed some of those contracts. When he asked me what kind of music I played, I’d tell him it was requested music.

“A-B had salesmen on the street, and the disc jockeys would travel with the salesmen to different taverns and buy beer for people in the taverns. I couldn’t go anywhere without somebody yelling ‘Hey, Lou. Let’s have a beer!’”

Thimes says he was surprised when he found out white kids were listening to his show “A white kid called me one day and asked what I was doing working at that black radio station. They thought I was white!”

When the music changed and management began telling the announcers what they had to play, Thimes knew it was time to hang it up. “I only knew blues and that’s all I wanted to do.

“I would like to do another blues show on the radio but nobody’s playing that music on the air. How can you not play the blues?”

In 1938, radio was soaring in popularity. But when St. Louis radio station managers were asked to predict radio’s future in 1938, they got it all wrong.

The nation was on the tail end of the Depression, and 82 percent of households had radios. Television was still being developed. Radio’s programming was part of what is now called its “Golden Age.”

Here in St. Louis in September of 1938, KMOX put local station owners and managers on the air in a roundtable discussion to talk about the business.

Merle Jones of KMOX was quick to note just how much radio contributed to the local economy. Just ten years prior, he noted, the city’s largest station employed 20 people. Ten years later the situation had changed dramatically. The smallest station employed 35 full-time workers and the largest had 120 full-timers and another 50-75 air staff members on call. That station, KMOX, had an annual payroll then of over $400,000.

Local stations were also making a mark nationally. Hundreds of local programs were being run over the four major radio networks, which was seen as a way of promoting St. Louis as a progressive city.

So things were going well. But when they were asked about radio’s future, none could foresee the coming world war and the part Edward R. Murrow and his peers would play in making radio a necessity in every home in the nation. Instead, they focused on a new technical development, radio facsimile.

George Burbach of KSD said his station was ready to begin testing the new system of news delivery within the next 30 days. The system involved using radio waves to sent special facsimile versions of the Post-Dispatch into the homes of subscribers.

Initially, Burbach said, testing would be limited to a few receivers in the city and county. The special radio receiver contained a clock but no frequency dial. Owners would set the clock to turn on the machine at a certain time in the very early morning hours, and the news would begin printing out. It was a slow process, requiring several minutes per page, but radio people and Post management were excited about the possibilities.

For the paper, it meant readers would receive their copy in the morning, which would compete with the Globe-Democrat. For radio stations, it meant respectability that up to that point had been called into question.

That’s because the so-called “Press-Radio War,” which pitted newspapers against radio stations, had shut radio out of many aspects of the news delivery business. Newspaper owners had successfully banned broadcasters from the Congressional press galleries and had forbidden the Associated Press from selling its service to radio stations.

If radio could provide a printed news summary, it could get around many restrictions.

William West, then-manager of WTMV, said his station had already applied for a facsimile license and was planning to apply for a license for television as soon as possible.

Facsimile news officially began in St. Louis December 7, 1938. It that world premier, 15 homes received a special, abbreviated edition of the day’s Post-Dispatch, with the transmission beginning at 2:00 a.m. and usually taking around two hours to complete.

But the “wow factor” of facsimile was limited, and the system never really caught on. The “experiment” died after two years. By that time, all ears were focused on the live reports from Europe, describing a developing war. The U.S. didn’t want to be a part of it, but many citizens still had relatives living in Europe, and live reports on radio trumped newspaper reports. In 1941, 13 million radio receivers were sold in the U.S.

After Pearl Harbor, all technical development in broadcasting was halted, and radio became an even stronger medium in the dissemination of news.

Many people tend to think that radio’s “golden age” ended in the 1940s, but one local media veteran has memories of that golden time extending into the ‘50s in St. Louis.

In 1950, the KMOX studios in the Mart Building were the site of a veritable beehive of activity. Ollie Raymand was there, newly hired as a staff announcer. “At that time,” he says, “St. Louis was the network’s third-most-active radio production center.”

That meant that the multiple radio studios in the massive downtown building were kept busy, often with two programs being broadcast live at the same time – one to St. Louis and another to the CBS affiliates around the country.

“We started in the morning at 7:30 feeding the Ozark Varieties Program around  the country,” says Raymand. “We’d occasionally feed our noon news to the network. There was the Housewives Protective League. From 3:00 to 4:00 we produced Matinee.

“That featured our 26-piece KMOX orchestra. Curt Ray and I were emcees. Jack Hill was our male singer. The female singers were Dottye Bennett and Fredna Parker.”

The high cost of Matinee led to its demise after about nine months. But KMOX still fed a lot of nighttime material to the nation. Big band remote feeds often featured Stan Daugherty and the KMOX musicians, and other bands could be heard appearing at the Jefferson Hotel and the Chase Hotel.

Saturday at the Chase was, as the name indicated, a remote from the famed hotel’s Starlight Room. The program featured whatever big-name talent might be appearing at the hotel at the time or, occasionally, stars from the Muny Opera.
Jazz Central originated from the Ambassador Hotel. Raymand says with that much activity going on, the job was full of surprises.

“One time an orchestra leader whose band was scheduled to go live on the network in a few hours became, shall we say, indisposed. I got a call from the manager of the Sheraton Jefferson Hotel. He knew I played trumpet, and he called and asked me to come in and take over the band. I’d never played with them and, of course, didn’t know their arrangements, but I did it and went on to finish out the final two weeks of the band’s engagement there.”

The KMOX production facility and offices occupied over 40,000 square feet of Mart Building space. In addition to talent, the programs required a staff of writers, since nothing in those days was ad-libbed. Engineers were needed to operate all the equipment, and there was a large news operation.

Raymand captured the atmosphere of the place when he said, “I used to love the job because it was so exciting. We’d rehearse and go through the script. You could work directly with the writers to make changes so the phrases were more natural for the way you spoke. It was totally different from what radio people have today.”

CBS had built the KMOX Mart Building studio complex at the height of the Depression, pumping much-needed money into the local economy. But the death of network radio’s Golden Age was looming in the ‘50s. That, along with a notice to vacate from the building’s owner, who needed the space for a larger tenant, forced KMOX to relocate to smaller quarters in 1957.

The programming changed too, and St. Louis’ position as a CBS Radio production center soon evaporated.