Radio

by Larry Hoffman

The passing of legendary St. Louis radio personality Don Pietromonaco was recognized by various media outlets in St. Louis including a detailed obituary in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Pietromonaco, who was perhaps the most theatrically gifted broadcast talent in the history of St. Louis radio, was remembered by a retrospective segment on KSDK-TV and by KLOU jock Mike Jeffries. Jeffries commented on the Post article, noting that KLOU listeners who lived here during the heyday of Johnny Rabbitt on KXOK, 1964 – 1968, surely remembered Pietromonaco and his antics.

Former KXOK employees and associates of Pietromonaco offered tributes in interviews conducted by the St. Louis Journalism Review. Delcia Corlew, former owner of the Delcia Agency and spokeswoman for Famous Barr in the mid-60s as Delcia Devon, told SJR, “I was really saddened to hear about it,” after which she offered fond memories of this dynamo of a disc jockey and his remarkable radio ventriloquism.

Voiceover artist and former KXOK News Director Robert R. Lynn recounted the hilarity of one Saturday morning during a Johnny Rabbitt remote broadcast from the downtown Stix, Baer & Fuller store. Lynn agreed to appear as Rabbitt sidekick Bruno J. Grunion and arrived in full attire, including several stick-on pimples. During the bit he had some sort of cake thrown in his face at which point a few of the pimples transferred to his dessert. After he cleaned up, somehow a couple of fake pimples ended up in a piece of cake being served to the crowd.

An astute kid confronted Lynn and said, “Hey, you’re not Bruno, and one of your zits is in my cake!”

SJR was fortunate to receive a call from former Storz-era KXOK Station Operations Manager Bud Connell who is currently a California-based writer, director and producer of “anything except full-length motion pictures.” Connell’s company is known as BCTV.

Connell went on record with the history of the Johnny Rabbitt name and its eventual stellar achievements for St. Louis’ premier rock ‘n’ roll radio station during the ‘60s.

“Johnny Rabbitt is my invention,” Connell told SJR. “The roots of the name and the character began in Miami in the late winter of 1961 with an Easter promotion which used a character named ‘Daddy Rabbitt.’ Eventually we borrowed a first name from Johnny Carson, grafting it onto what we already had, and Johnny Rabbitt was born. I originally voiced the character on WFUN in Miami. Then, when I moved to KXOK in July 1961, I was given free reign under General Manager Chet Thomas to build KXOK into what it eventually became. I hired Ron Elz as the first person to use the name Johnny Rabbitt on the air at KXOK. He was adequate, but he had some serious shortcomings.”

Connell went on to say that he continued to improve KXOK, and by mid-1962, the station was #1 in the Pulse ratings survey. “Don Pietromonaco came along after Elz was no longer with the station and became the definitive Johnny Rabbitt – he became the figure, the image – he fulfilled the potential of the character. Pietromonaco lived the part 24 hours a day and rose to the occasion due to his inherent sense of show business.”

Connell saw KXOK through its best years, indeed the best of Pietromonaco’s career, according to an interview in SJR in 1996. Pietromonaco said, “By the time I left KXOK in the summer of 1968, the owner, Robert H. Storz, who had no concept of broadcast programming other than to make money and imitate others…began to downplay personalities in favor of turning the station into a jukebox. That was the end of KXOK as we knew it during those unforgettable years.”

Pietromonaco continued as a disc jockey in Phoenix after his departure from St. Louis, winning numerous industry awards including Billboard Magazine’s Personality of the Year in the early ‘70s. He had returned to his native California during the early ‘80s, teaching broadcasting and operating a voiceover studio at the Don Martin School of Radio/TV in Hollywood, according to former associate Darrell Wayne.

“What energy this man had, punctuated by old radio stories from his days in St. Louis,” Wayne told SJR.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/97)

​The former KHTK at 97.1, KXOK-FM, “Mix 97” urban format came to life under the ownership of Saul Frischling in November of 1992. In April of 1998 the format was abruptly changed to classic rock, but Frischling was bought out by Sinclair Broadcasting in September of 1998 which led to a subsequent ownership swap involving Emmis Broadcasting in October of that year.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine life in the “old” days, especially when those who have firsthand knowledge are no longer around. Such is the case when it comes to remembering St. Louis’ first black disc jockey.

Wiley Price, Jr. got his first radio job in 1944 at WTMV, then a local powerhouse station with studios in the Broadview Hotel in East St. Louis. He was 31 years old. The country was at war and Negroes were considered 2nd class citizens. What would possess a radio station to hire one and put him on the air into a high-profile job?

Even though WTMV was only operating with a 250 watt output at 1490 Kc., the station had an excellent reputation for news, sports and entertainment in the region. It once boasted in a promotional article that 35 of its people had graduated to “big time” radio within a five year period.

In the 1940s and ‘50s, a person could carve out a radio career by being a savvy self-promoter. Station owners were always interested if money could be made, so many announcers would buy their own time in hour-long blocks and then sell ads on their programs. Wiley Price III says, “My father could talk his way into anything.” But talk wasn’t always enough. According to radio veteran and historian Bernie Hayes, a Negro announcer would “have to convince management that he was articulate and that he could pay for the time.”

Once Price had made his case to WTMV management, he was given a late night air slot. To his listeners, he became known as “Mrs. Price’s Boy Wiley.” His radio shows were a mixture of gospel and rhythm & blues music, with gospel artists often performing live in the studio. His on-air approach was smooth and intelligent, according to the late deejay Roscoe McCrary, who would have his own program on WTMV in 1951. It was said Wiley was a “class act” on the local airwaves.

The rhythm & blues music of those days was called “race music,” according to Bernie Hayes. It was actually a mix of r&b and jazz, featuring artists like the Ink Spots, the Five Blind Boys, Ethel Waters, Andy Kirk’s Band, Cab Calloway, and many others from the Chitlin’ Circuit who emulated the sounds of the white musicians. Wiley Price’s son, Wiley III, says his dad was personally acquainted with the great jazz artists like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and he grew up in North St. Louis with Clark Terry.

Wiley Price, Jr. was a St. Louis native, raised on Aldine on the north side, a graduate of Sumner High School with additional schooling in accountancy, and a military veteran. Hayes says of Price’s place in radio history, “He was something to be idolized by the Black community. On the air he was laid back, very sincere. Everybody liked him.”

Price moved on to work as a deejay on KXLW and KSTL, playing the same mix of music he’d become accustomed to on WTMV. He left the business when station owners insisted he start playing a new form of music that was being called “rock ‘n’ roll.” His son says Wiley Price, Jr. called it “the ignorant man’s music” and said it would never last.

The first Negro to have his own radio show in St. Louis suffered a stroke in 1961 and died at the age of 56 in 1969. The death of the market’s first Negro disc jockey did not even merit a story in either of the city’s major newspapers.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 12/02)

KACO 107.7 mHz

KACO was granted a construction permit October 20, 1965 as an 82 kw station broadcasting at 107.7 mHz. Several extensions of the completion date were granted to owners Apollo Radio, and by the time the station went on the air in 1969, the power was 100 kw.

Joan Colegrove was hired as the station’s office manager, and studios were on the second floor of a vacant nightclub building in Gaslight Square on Olive. She remained the company’s only local employee, except for an engineer, and the middle-of-the-road format was broadcast about 36 hours a week. The owners, based in Houston, had told the F.C.C. their format would feature classical music.

Colegrove was told prior to the station’s sign-on that they wanted her to handle the broadcasting chores, so she studied the F.C.C. license handbook, took her exam and received her third-class license. Then, when the station signed on, she was in charge of running the tapes and occasionally spinning records.

Although she was not aware of it, the F.C.C. was unhappy with Apollo’s activity, fining the company $1000 in 1969 for failure to demonstrate the ability to expand operations. Joan Colegrove says the corporate executives who occasionally visited the St. Louis station had been telling her they were trying to find a buyer for the property.

In January of 1970 the commission granted Apollo the authority to suspend operations after two fires destroyed the studios and much of the equipment.

The station signed on March 16, 1970 from its new facilities at 12th and Cole under the call letters KGRV.

 

by Larry Hoffman

Is this town big enough for two Johnny Rabbitts? Is a six-gun showdown on Market Street imminent? Not exactly. It seems that a swirl of controversy, claims and counterclaims found their way onto the pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during the past several months.

At issue is the rightful ownership of the Johnny Rabbitt name and legacy, though the actual trademark, registered by the now-defunct Storz Broadcasting Co. in early 1964, expired over 12 years ago.

After a late May 1996 “Everyday Magazine” profile of former Rabbitt Ron Elz, who currently holds down the morning slot on WRTH, the Post received several letters and phone calls challenging certain statements, among which was a lengthy fax from Elz’s successor on KXOK, Don Pietromonaco.

The St. Louis Journalism Review decided to visit Pietromonaco in California for an update and retrospective of his years in St. Louis – from mid-1964, after Elz’s relationship with KXOK had ended, to 1970 when Pietromonaco returned to KRIZ in Phoenix after his act had run its course in St. Louis.

When the second Post article was published, a Rabbitt runoff was launched, inviting readers to phone in a vote for the DJ they felt influenced them the most. Discounting 500 votes for Elz which were determined to have been generated by auto redial from the same phone – the work of an “overzealous fan,” according to the Post – Elz still prevailed, trouncing Pietromonaco 1600 to 1100 votes.

Dick Weiss, Post features editor, was astounded at the number of responses for a poll of this nature. Unfortunately the airchecks which were to be used to refamiliarize readers with the two Rabbitts’ broadcasting styles were not ready in time for the voting. How this would have changed the tally, if at all, is not known.

What does all this mean in 1996? It means absolutely nothing. It’s ancient history. But it’s also interesting ancient history.

Both men, each with his own radio presence, have benefited greatly since the first time Johnny Rabbitt hopped onto the scene on KXOK in the early ‘60s. Each continues to thrive using the name. Elz appears on WRTH as Johnny Rabbitt, and Pietromonaco currently runs Johnny Rabbitt’s Voiceover Studio, offering demo tapes placement through agents, and individual coaching in the art of voicing commercials.

The baby boomers who blabbed it to the Rabbitt or who were thoroughly entertained by Pietromonaco’s special brand of radio ventriloquism really don’t care which Rabbitt was best. The only people for whom this dispute holds any significance are Ron Elz and Don Pietromonaco.

Elz at 58 in 1996 can look back at a widely varied and successful career as a disc jockey, format creator, broadcast school owner, record company representative, program director, newspaper editor and columnist, AFTRA president and college instructor. His contributions to the community are numerous. He is busier with his current endeavors than ever before.

Though Pietromonaco’s ties to St. Louis in 1996 are via his two daughters who still live here, at age 61 he can reflect on a star-studded six-plus year run on KXOK during the station’s rock and roll monopoly years. KXOK blew away the competition following the British Invasion , driving WIL to ill-fated talk and all-news formats, and forcing the disappearance of also-ran KWK as a rock and roll station. Pietromonaco’s Rabbitt/Bruno act was the spearhead, and the money rolled in, making KXOK Storz’s most successful property. By the time FM radio posed any threat to Storz in St. Louis with the advent of Bartell’s KSLQ-FM in the fall of 1972, Rabbitt’s years here were long finished.

Pietromonaco help raise several million dollars for medical research, and many laudatory newspaper articles appeared in local papers.

He was a clean-living, upbeat influence on his teen audience during those years. He resisted sleaze and corruption in an industry that got worse, not better, following the payola scandals of the late ‘50s.

“They called me a candy-ass,” Pietromonaco told SJR during an interview on his boat in Marina del Rey, Near Los Angeles. “I was the embodiment of my middle-class Italian values, and instead of accepting unlimited offers of anything I wanted – women, drugs – all I asked of the record companies was that they give me a thousand new record albums to give away to listeners. After they went along with it, I bought my audience. It worked.”

After the second Post article, sources close to the paper told SJR that all of the non-poll-related phone calls received were from fans of Pietromonaco, most of them women offering treasured memories of those “high rocking years.” One fan cited the Rabbitt as the person who helped her blossom into a fun-loving teen during the mid- to late-‘60s.

In person in 1996, Pietromonaco’s eyes still sparkle with enthusiasm as he relates classic stories of his interviews with the Beatles, celebrity friendships and on-air antics. He also recounted tales of a malevolent and imperious program director (the late Mort Crowley), duplicitous fellow KXOK jocks (William A. Hopkins and Nick Charles), and repressive and retaliatory station management. He offered high praise and heartfelt recollections of someone we both agreed was one of the greatest guys in the business, the late longtime KXOK newsman Bob Shea. He added that KXOK production director Richard Ward Fatherly’s technical wizardry saved him on several occasions, even though the two men clashed frequently.

Pietromonaco was a nationally prominent success during those six years, but he says he wishes he were a better businessman as he spoke of the frenzied teen clubs he ran such as Bruno’s Bat Cave and Cloud Nyne. Frequent flyers will remember his in-flight entertainment voiceovers for several airlines, including TWA. He has to his credit a long-standing voiceover training and production studio using the Johnny Rabbitt name in its title, and he lives comfortably in the marina amid pleasant surroundings.

He’s in regular contact with industry colleagues and calls his years doing the Rabbitt show with Bruno on KXOK the best of his long career as an on-air talent. Prior to beginning his radio career at KROG in Sonora, California in the 1950s, Pietromonaco was a child actor in Hollywood, acting in 37 pictures. His most memorable role was his appearance in the opening scene of “An Affair to Remember.” Since leaving live radio broadcasting he has done well over 1,000 commercials and currently writes and produces advertising, as well as offering instruction to aspiring voiceover talent.

A career highlight was his selection as “Personality of the Year” by Billboard magazine in the early ‘70s. In the mid ‘80s Billboard editor Rollye Bornstein wrote in her column that Pietromonaco was the only Johnny Rabbitt remembered by listeners, and the one who was a nationally known runaway ratings success.

Recently during a nationwide search for a morning host on KLOU-FM, both Rabbitts were offered the job. Elz decided to stay with Heritage because of their dedication to him during recent surgery which saved the vision in one eye. Pietromonaco passed up the opportunity when his proposal to do the show from 4:00 – 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time via a Switch 56 hookup was rejected by program director Dave Dunkin.

So instead of being hopping mad at each other, both Rabbitts should be thrilled at this unexpected burst of publicity. It jogged the memories of countless fans who, in the ‘60s, had one hand on their homework and the other poised to dial FOrest 7-6000 to “Blab it to the Rabbitt.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 9/96)

When Joan Colgrove took a job at KACO in the late 1960s, she didn’t mind the fact that she was the station’s only employee. She changed her mind the day the building caught fire and she was trapped inside.

KACO was a blip on the FM dial at the time. It was owned by Apollo Radio Corporation, which was based in Houston. As she remembers it, the company hired her to manage the offices, which were located along with the studios on the second floor of a three-story building in Gaslight Square. The area had suffered its big decline, and about the only business left on that block of Boyle was O’Connell’s Restaurant across the street.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Apollo’s operation here. The company had begun seeking an FM frequency in 1963 with plans to put studios in the Continental Building. By 1967 the company was seeking a studio site in a trailer in Crestwood adjacent to the KSHE studios, but that town’s board of aldermen turned down the request. Apollo had told the F.C.C. that it would be programming classical music, but when it finally got on the air, the music was MOR, which is the industry term for middle-of-the-road.

There was also the problem of KACO’s broadcast day. Because it had only one employee, Joan Colgrove, the station was on the air for only a small portion of the day. She’d been hired to answer the phones “if they ever rang” and pick up the mail. The company told her it was trying to sell the station so it had gotten a special ruling from the F.C.C. allowing it to broadcast only 36 hours a week.

“The people from Houston would make periodic trips to St. Louis,” Colgrove says, “And on one trip they told me ‘We’ve decided it’s silly to hire a deejay. Anyone, even a chimpanzee, can operate a radio station. Joan, here’s the book. Study it and get your license.’ So I did.

“Then came the day when they came in from Houston and sat me down at the board. We had an Ampex tape machine in the studio, and a tape would play for 45 minutes. There were three turntables for records, and I’d use the tape when I had to use the restroom or go across to O’Connell’s to get something to eat.”

What she wasn’t aware of was the fact that the F.C.C. was putting pressure on Apollo. The Commission threatened the company with a $1,000 fine because it had not adhered to its promise to play classical music. In addition the Commission questioned the short broadcast day.

Colgrove only knew what she was told to do and she did it.

“I used to come in at 10 in the morning, unlock the door and flip the transmitter switch. I’d check the meters and start playing music. The transmitter was on deBalliviere at the KCFM tower.

I seldom had a problem, except that I was so totally tied to this, and there was no one there to relieve me. The people in Houston told me I was doing very well. ‘Why don’t you get creative? Start running public service announcements. If you want to talk and introduce a record, do whatever you want to do.’ Up until then I’d only opened the microphone to give the station ID.”

It was, for all intents and purposes, a station that went on the air only to play music. There were no advertisements. It appears, in retrospect, that Apollo simply wanted to keep the signal active until it could find a buyer for the FM slot at 107.7.

“Occasionally a couple of the guys who worked as disc jockeys at KSHE would come up to the studios because we had such good equipment compared to theirs. Gary Bennett and Steve Rosen even backed me up once in awhile when I needed a break from my airshift.”

Then came the fire. Colgrove says: “Our engineer, the man who was supposed to monitor our signal, was never at the station. One day he called me and said there was nothing on the air. I knew something was wrong because my meters weren’t working. When he didn’t call back, I picked up the phone to call him and the phone was dead. I went to the reception area and smelled smoke. The door to the main second floor corridor was hot. So I went to the window and opened it. It was about 10:30 in the morning in February and no one was out of the street.

“I was in a panic. I figured I was going to have to jump or find another way out. I went to the front door and got down on my knees because there was so much smoke. I knew there was a large room on my floor that had a window in the back that opened onto a first floor roof. But when I got to the door it had been nailed shout. I pounded and pulled and finally got the door open, but when I got to the roof it was covered with ice, but there was a fire escape about five feet from the roof’s edge.
“I started yelling for help and finally a man walking through the alley saw me. He called the fire department and came back, climbed the fire escape and helped me across the gap.”

This was the first fire at the radio station. After damages were repaired Colgrove went back to work, but a second fire destroyed everything.

“Apollo kept paying me, even though we weren’t on the air.” But the company had finally found a buyer. In July of 1970, Intermedia, Inc., of Kansas City announced plans to purchase the frequency, which had been renamed KGRV, with studios at 1215 Cole. The MOR signal gave way to “music for groovy adults.” As for Joan Colgrove, she made the switch to KGRV for awhile, taking to the airwaves as “Kay Groove.”

She later designed restaurant interiors. Among her credits: the old KSHE Café.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 4/1999).