Radio Articles

For the Shumate Brothers, it wasn’t a stage mother but a stage father who did all the pushing. The push moved them through the Chautauqua circuit to a radio station in Iowa and finally to KMOX. After consulting with a music professional, the elder Shumate decided saxophones were the key to his boys’ future. In 1922 you could find the four of them playing local dances around their home town of Forest City, Mo. Several years later, after their Chautauqua work took them through 40 states, an appearance offer came from radio station KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa. As 1928 came to an end the station manager there hired them.

Radio in the ‘20s was still struggling to achieve its identity, looking for the right programs to attract an audience, so a regular musical act was valuable to any station. But being a radio star sometimes had its drawbacks. KMA was one of two major radio stations in Iowa owned by seed companies, in this case the May Seed Company, which used the station to promote its product throughout the Midwest. When musical talent signed on at the station, they were usually expected to work in the plant next door to the studios packaging seeds when they weren’t on the air. It was apparently an acceptable arrangement for the Shumate Brothers, who were on KMA for several years.

In 1931, they caught a break with an offer to join the KMOX music staff where their instrumental prowess and their singing and entertainment abilities made them a perfect fit for the local radio powerhouse.

At KMOX, there was no time for factory work. All four brothers were kept busy with other duties in addition to their musical on-air work.

Don, the eldest also played trombone with the station’s musical groups. Lewis was drafted into singing the theme song for the Uncle Remus Show and he played the character Ollie on the Country School Show. Paul wrote scripts and played Henry Spickelmeyer on Country School in addition to playing trumpet when needed in the bands. Ray, the youngest, also played trumpet and was the character Mickey on the Country School.

The group was known as “The Four Irishmen” on the Uncle Dick Slack show on KMOX and they were also called upon to sing 15 minutes’ worth of hymns each morning at 6:00 on the station.

Ray was also asked to join the 10-piece KMOX orchestra. In a 1998 interview, he told the St. Louis Review, “One day I played a solo, not on purpose, on the whole CBS Network. When everybody finished,” he said, “I was one note behind.

“Afterward the director looked around for the guilty, but nobody told on me. When I got into the group the fellows told me, ‘If you make a mistake, don’t look at the director,’ and I never did.”

The Shumates’ gig at KMOX was beneficial in one other way. Ray met his wife Marie there. She was a singer with the Harmonettes.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/09)

By Meryl Friedel
Delving into the past of radio artists reveals  that most of them reached their present high spots on the air firmament through lucky breaks or a series of them, or by hanging around until someone noticed them.

That’s usually the case, but the four gifted Shumate brothers were different, as they are different as entertainers. They were forced into radio against their will. Imagine anyone not wanting to be starred in radio! But that was in 1928, when successful stage artists were still a bit shy of this radio thing. And there were extenuating circumstances.

The boys had just come home (Forest City, Missouri) for Christmas vacation, and the day before Christmas, their booking office called and said they must go over to KMA immediately to broadcast that week. There was much objecting, cussing and discussing, but finally, like good troupers, they did as told, and they’ve been in radio ever since. They’ve been with KMOX for over six months.

Their radio success was inevitable, for rarely does one find four young men who are, each in his own right, such versatile entertainers. And more rarely, they are brothers, harmoniously and equally gifted.

Their first appearance in public as entertainers was while the three older brothers, Donald, Lewis and Paul, were in high school as leaders of the high school orchestra. After high school , with Raymond already developed into as talented a musician as his older brothers, the four boys, with two of them still wearing short pants, engaged for a vaudeville tour. That was nine years ago. From then to now, they’ve consistently been headline entertainers.

Donald, the oldest brother, plays both the saxophone and trombone. He is five feet ten inches tall, with blue eyes and dark brown hair, happily married and the father of two children.

Lewis, next oldest, plays sax and trombone. He is five feet eleven inches tall, with greenish gray eyes and black hair. He too is married and has one child.

Paul, third son of the proud Mr. and Mrs. Shumate – they should be proud with such unusually gifted sons – plays sax and trumpet and is very popular as the stuttering Henry Spickelmeyer. He is five feet ten inches tall, has green eyes and black hair and is also the father of one child.

Raymond, youngest of this talented quartet of brothers, also plays the sax and trumpet. He is five feet eleven inches tall, has blue eyes and brown hair and is the only unmarried one of the four.

All the boys sing, both individually and as a quartet, as KMOX listeners have found to their satisfaction. And besides their marvelous musical talents, these versatile brothers write and act comedy skits that have made them as famous for humorous programs as for their music.

Too bad there isn’t space to tell you more of these four who are still young enough to have a tremendous future ahead of them, although they are already veterans in the world of entertainment, are interesting people who have had an interesting career that makes one wish to go on and on about them.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 8/6/1933).

by Catherine Snodgrass

Radio listeners are familiar with WIL’s 2 o’clock Police Releases, a feature that has been heard for several years and has never lost its interest appeal. The broadcasts are from Headquarters, bringing news which Police Chief Gerk feels is of value to the public. This includes information about “missing persons” and “stolen machines.”

Nightly, Mr. Fixit answers the hundred and one questions about taxes, laws and public affairs. But still Mr. L.A. Benson, president and general manager of Radio Station WIL was not satisfied. He felt that WIL could be of further service to the people of St. Louis. He noted the increasing accident and casualty list and decided that WIL could be of assistance in helping to curb this growing menace. He knew that as the radio reached into the homes it was the best means of educating the entire family, and the quickest and most impressive lesson would be to present the actual happenings of the Traffic Court over the air.

Immediately, Mr. Benson began to formulate plans and make arrangements. Mayor Bernard Dickmann was in full accord with this new Safety Campaign. Police Chief Gerk lent his assistance and judge James P. Finnigan obligingly agreed top allow the broadcasts to be made from his court.

Several microphones were placed at vantage points in Police Court No. 1, one before Judge Finnigan, another on the witness stand and still another for the Prosecuting Attorney.

Elmer Miller, the remote operator, arranged his amplifiers, power packs, faders and mixer control, etc. A test was made. It was satisfactory, and so one of the most interesting, yet one of the most difficult broadcasts ever attempted in St. Louis was put on the air by WIL last Wednesday at ten o’clock. Judge Joseph Dickmann made the keynote speech on the opening day.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 9/24/1933)

 

Robert Hyland, the late general manager of KMOX, was famous for his on-air auditions of talent, bringing people into St. Louis for a one-time shot at membership on his elite staff. History shows he was simply following in the tradition of the station’s founders, known as the “Voice of St. Louis, Incorporated.”

After putting the station on the air in late 1925, the group of investors held a competition to find their chief announcer. They were riding on a huge wave of public interest in the fledgling station, generated, in part, by vast amounts of coverage given its development by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. This was no coincidence, since the newspaper was one of the “Voice of St. Louis” members. The paper even provided the station with Associated Press news dispatches so a regular, nightly news broadcast could be aired.

The 17 local businessmen who formed the Voice of St. Louis, Inc., made up one of the panels that sat in judgement of the candidates for the chief announcer’s position. There was also a special committee of monitors listed in one news article, although no details was given regarding their identity or function. Candidates for the job were given several opportunities to appear on the station to be heard by the judges and the public.

The winner was George Junkin, an announcer for the S.W. Strauss Company’s radio station in Chicago, WSWS. Junkin had been in St. Charles visiting his in-laws during the tests and was invited back to KMOX to be heard again shortly after the judges heard his first effort. His quoted reaction, published in the Globe-Democrat, has all the qualities of a PR man’s best efforts: “‘I consider KMOX one of the five leading broadcasters in America,’ he said following his appointment yesterday. ‘Its financial condition, its management, personnel, equipment, facilities and program material place it easily within this group. It has all that is necessary to build into a popular presentation of programs of the air.’” It’s notable that his assessment of the station as “one of the five leading broadcasters in America” came after the station had been on the air a mere three months.

His previous employer is quoted in the same article as saying Junkin was “a reader of unusual ability, a former motion picture actor, and a professional director of theaters.” Rounding out a flawless resume, Mr. Junkin was a veteran of the war (World War I) in which he served as a flying instructor, had served on the faculties of three institutions of higher learning, and had been a farmer in Colorado.

He and his wife, Martha, moved to St. Louis 13 years after they were married here. Their son, George, Jr., was four years old at the time. The move was a good one professionally for Junkin. Within a year of his appointment as chief announcer, he was elevated to the position of managing director of KMOX and later became secretary of the Voice of St. Louis, Inc.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 2/1999)

Del King, a radio announcer here for many years, was not content to sit in one place and make money. He’d go wherever there was a gig. Even in St. Louis that meant moving around from station to station as opportunities arose.

He began his local career in 1930, having spent four years on the radio at KMBC in Kansas City. In radio’s first decade, workers seldom performed single functions, and King followed suit, working as a male vocalist and announcer at the KWK studios in the Chase Hotel here for four years.

But early on it was obvious that he’d have to truncate his given name a bit, so KWK’s owner suggested he shorten Delmar to “Del.” The KWK gig also provided Del King the chance to team up with his wife Dorothy.

The two of them played the parts of “Helen and Henry” on KWK in the early ‘30s. He moved to KMOX in the Mart Building from 1934 to 1936 to perform many of the same vocalist and announcing functions.

He then decided to go the free-lance route, heading to Chicago where several network shows originated.

An opening came at WLW in Cincinnati in 1940, which is where Del King hooked up with a comedian named Red Skelton. His voice was heard as staff announcer for Skelton’s “Avalon Time” and “The Red Skelton Show” which originated from the network’s huge Merchandise Mart studios.

Then it was on to Hollywood with Skelton where King also landed announcing duties on “Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt” and “Sherlock Holmes,” both of which were heard on NBC. King’s experience as a network staff announcer was put to good use upon his return to St. Louis in 1942.

His voice was regularly heard on “The Falstaff Hour of Music” on KMOX, and he also hosted “The Del King Show.” This time the KMOX gig lasted four years, after which Del King entered the local free-lance market, picking up staff announcer duties on Pet Milk’s “Mary Lee Taylor” program which originated here and was broadcast on the NBC network.

KSD radio hired him in 1948 as his 40th birthday approached, and when the Laclede Gas Company moved its award-winning production of “The Land We Live In” from KMOX to KSD, King was given the announcer’s slot. This was a huge weekly production, complete with the full KSD orchestra directed by Russ David and voiced by local actors and KSD staffers in character. It was performed before a live studio audience.

His tenure with the Pulitzer station lasted seven years, the longest of his career. Then it was off to KBBM in Branson, Missouri, but Del King bounced back to KSD in 1962.

Working as a staff announcer at KSD carried an extra benefit in those days. KSD-TV had signed on in 1948, and announcers were expected to perform similar duties for both of the company’s electronic media.

Del King was a newscaster on both stations. King looked the part of a sonorous-voiced announcer, dapper with full moustache. But his health had begun to fail. After a two month illness, Del King died of a heart condition at the age of 56. His last stint at KSD had lasted two years.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/04)

If anyone ever compiled a list of troubled radio frequencies, 1380 kHz in St. Louis would probably be in the nation’s top 10.

The first broadcast license for what was to become 1380 was issued April 3, 1925, for the call letters KFVE. Lester Arthur “Eddie” Benson, who was also responsible for building the transmitters at KSD and WIL, built this station’s original experimental transmitter. Benson and his brother C.A. Benson operated KFVE for two years before selling the station to Thomas Patrick Convey, who had been the general manager of KMOX. He changed the call letters to KWK and moved the studios from University City to the Chase Hotel.

There were technical problems for all stations in radio’s early days. They were forced to share frequencies, which meant fights among KFVE, KFQA and WMAY over who would be on the air on their shared frequency at what time. The Federal Radio Commission then assigned KWK to 1350 kHz in 1928, which meant it would share the frequency with WIL. WIL was soon moved to 1200 kHz, but WIL’s owners sued the commission seeking a reversal. The legal action dragged out six years before the radio commission ruled in favor of KWK.

An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in November 1928, reported that the frequency change resulted in poorer reception of all stations moved down the dial.

Owner Convey didn’t live to savor the victory. He died in 1934, a week after his appendix burst, and his son Robert took over operations of KWK. In 1941 there was another national frequency switch and KWK ended up at 1380. Management wanted a different frequency (680) and more power, but their request died when a freeze was placed on all such actions during World War II.

The station saw a couple of subsequent quiet decades, with an ownership change in 1958. The new owner, Andrew Spheeris’ Milwaukee Broadcasting Company, paid Robert Convey more than $1 million, with Convey maintaining a 26% ownership share. It was under Spheeris’ ownership that KWK lost its license in 1966. The problems began in 1960 when some of the station’s listeners complained to the Federal Communications Commission that KWK had conducted bogus treasure hunt promotions.

KWK’s general manager, William L. Jones, Jr., was spotlighted in the ensuing hearings. An employee testified that Jones ordered him to hide the contest prizes only a few hours before the prizes were found by listeners. He also said Jones told him to lie in the hearings. Jones testified that he had talked with Spheeris about problems if the prize were found early in the contest and “I know we decided to hide it later in the hunt.”

The hearing examiner decided not to revoke KWK’s license, but that decision was overruled by the full F.C.C. KWK appealed, but the Supreme Court upheld the commission and the station’s frequency was awarded on an interim basis to Radio 1380, Inc. The license was issued to Vic-Way Broadcasting in 1969 and the station went dark early in 1973. Efforts to get the station back on the air ended when the owner was placed in receivership.

It took a broadcasting conglomerate the size of Doubleday Broadcasting to get KWK back on the air several years later. In November 1978, KWK was reborn, but many AM stations in the market were having problems with survival by then. It was assumed Doubleday would go after an FM frequency to help support their AM at the right-hand side of the dial. That happened when the company acquired WGNU-FM. In the next 25 years the ownership of KWK went to Robinson Broadcasting, Chase Broadcasting, Zimco, Inc., Emmis Broadcasting and the Northside Seventh Day Adventist Church. Call letters evolved from KWK-AM to KGLD, KASP, WKBQ-AM, KRAM, WKBQ-AM (again), WKKX-AM, KKWK, KZJZ and KSLG.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 9/1998)

Art Ford really wasn’t sure what he’d do for a living, but he probably didn’t envision union busting. After getting a degree in journalism at the University of Missouri in the 1940s, he ended up working at a newspaper in Evansville.

But when he learned his wife was pregnant, he left that job and they moved back to St. Louis to be near family.

Ford quickly landed a job at the INS wire service, and it wasn’t long before a friend suggested some extra money could be made by doing weekend work at a local radio station, KSTL.
That inauspicious beginning in the broadcast business in 1953 led to a career that spanned four decades.

KSTL wasn’t a particularly glamorous place to work in 1953. The studios were located in a quonset hut on the east side of the Mississippi just under the MacArthur Bridge. The station had been put on the air by Grove Laboratories in 1948, but it was licensed for daytime only broadcasting. After about a year-and-a-half on the air, Art Ford was bored, and one of his managers suggested he move over to the sales side of the radio business.

That also meant a physical move across the river. It seems the station’s sales offices were at co-owned UHF KSTN-TV at the corner of Hampton and Berthold. It wasn’t long before circumstances evolved that catapulted Ford to a position of making radio station management decisions. This was when the real challenges began.

Running a daytime radio station in a major market can be extremely challenging. There were union contracts to fulfill and overhead costs to cover, but the limited power and number of hours of airtime meant there weren’t as many ad availabilities.

Ford says he got around this in two ways: The mornings were filled with religious programming which brought in enough money to cover operating costs. In the afternoon, Carson’s Furniture Store bought a daily time block and put country disc jockey Johnny Rion on the air to represent them. This allowed KSTL to turn a profit, although the Carson’s sponsorship forbade any ads for competitive products like furniture and jewelry. Rion was never actually an employee of the station. He was paid by his sponsor.

In the late 50s rock and roll swept into the market and Ford thought it would be a good idea to counter-program with “good music.” He hired the market’s only black disc jockey, Spider Burks, to do his jazz show from 1:30 – 3 and then brought in TV personality Chuck Norman to deejay until sign-off. “We had the best music programming in the city,” says Ford, “but the fact that we were a daytimer really hurt us.”

In 1965, Art Ford was made the station general manager, and country music soon returned. Jenny Jamison, a singer who had a couple of successful country records, was added to the on-air staff. KSTL became the top country station in the market, and the station’s studios were moved out of the quonset hut and into an office on Laclede’s Landing.

1975 was a rough year in the history of the station. The owners had sold their FM frequency three years earlier, but the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers insisted that the company maintain its full engineering roster.

This meant keeping four full-time engineers on the staff to operate one daytime AM station, a station that was limited to 9 ½ hours of daily broadcasting during the winter months of November, December and January. Ford says he brought this up each year during labor negotiations, even offering to find another job for one of the engineers, but after three years of negotiating, the union threatened to “walk” if the contract was not signed. “I said ‘I’ve worked with those guys for years, but if they walk it’ll be the saddest thing they ever did,’” Ford remembers.

That’s when the going got rough. The engineers walked out and management continued operating without them. There were charges and countercharges. Management hired a consulting engineer and continued operating. In the end, the union lost their battle and KSTL went on without their services. Art Ford, the former newspaperman, eventually moved on to manage WGNU and later retired from the business.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 11/04.)