News from Our Archives

“Records” On Your Radio

In spite of what he said, “Records” was not his middle name, but that didn’t stop Gary “Records” Brown from becoming very popular among the St. Louis “oldies” crowd. Few people, however, know that he got his start here as a disc jockey on a “black” radio station.

Gary Brown was hired at KWK by Bernie Hayes in the summer of 1970. Hayes remembers him “asking to observe us while we did our airshifts…Gary also volunteered to relieve anyone who wanted time off. We utilized his services and he became our main substitute.” The stable of jocks at KWK during that time included Jim Gates, Al Waples, Donn Johnson and newsman Al “Scoop” Sanders, along with Hayes.

Gary Records Brown
Gary Records Brown

Gary Brown lived on The Hill and he loved to brag about his Sicilian roots, a trait that entertained the KWK jocks. He also loved the camaraderie of the radio world and the world of professional musicians. Bernie Hayes has fond memories of the night Gary accompanied him when they took Earth, Wind and Fire band members on an all night tour of East Side clubs.

In the early ‘70s Brown got a chance to move to Kansas City where he was a jock at KWKI-FM, again with a Black format. He always enjoyed telling the story of a personal appearance of all the station’s announcers at Municipal Auditorium there. Before a concert all the announcers were introduced. Brown, who was last on the list, came running out on stage to shocked audience silence. None of his listeners had realized what his ethnic heritage was. His fellow jocks whooped it up and the audience followed suit.

Gary once told interviewer Patrick Murphy that his interest in radio went back to the early ‘60s when he used to catch the bus to KXOK’s Radio Park on North Kingshighway. He’d hang around watching Ron Elz do the “Johnny Rabbitt Show,” picking up techniques he later used as an oldies jock at several stations.

Many of his years in St. Louis were spent working for the various incarnations of KADI-AM and FM. It was there that he developed his oldies persona as host of the “KADI Original Oldies Show” on Sundays. Ownership borrowed a slogan from another market, promoting “the music that was playing in the front seat while you were playing in the back seat,” and Brown used all the clichés to make the program a high-energy listener destination. The station’s listeners didn’t seem to notice that he’d sign off that show at midnight and be back in the studio to sign on the AM station six hours later.

In the late ‘70s, Doubleday Broadcasting came to town and started spending a lot of money. Brown was lured to their AM station when the oldies format was introduced in 1984 and he stayed at KGLD into the ‘90s, functioning as a DJ and program director.

Gary Brown also realized the dream of having his own radio station. He bought WJBM in Jerseyville and later added an AM/FM combo in Pittsfield. Fate brought him back to St. Louis in the form of a job offer from KLOU where he worked as the morning personality from 1996 – 1999. During this time he held his ownership position with the Illinois stations, and he confided to friends that he had finally, after many years, figured out the key to being paid well for his on-air work: Getting a job offer when you didn’t need it. He was fired from the KLOU job in 1999 on the same day he had been given a pay raise for his work in increasing the station’s ratings.

Brown died in his sleep a year later at the age of 51.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 7/04)

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

Relationships of STL Newspapers/Radio Stations

Newspapers and radio stations are usually portrayed as competitors for news stories and advertising dollars. But in St. Louis, as in many other cities, newspapers scrambled to be associated with stations, even taking ownership positions. Some were more successful than others.

(There is even a name given to the skirmish that escalated between the news providers: The Press-Radio War. It lasted from 1924 – 1939 and involved a series of efforts by print media to force radio stations to stop broadcasting news. At one point, the papers had radio reporters banned from Congressional press galleries.)

The most prominent newspaper/radio relationship was the Post-Dispatch ownership of KSD, which lasted from 1922 to 1978. The St. Louis Star jumped on the bandwagon with WEB in 1925, buying stock in the station, changing the call letters to WIL and moving the studios to the Star Building at 12th and Olive. No documentation has been found detailing the removal of the Star as an owner of WIL, but in the mid-1930s, the paper began application for ownership of another station, KXOK, which went on the air in 1938. The paper, by this time known as the Star-Times, built the station’s studios in its new building at what is now Tucker and Convention Plaza.

Through all of this, the city’s third major newspaper was left out of the radio ownership circle. The Globe-Democrat finally entered the fray December 19 of 1948 when it signed on with KWGD-FM. A brand new building was constructed at 12th and Cole with enough space for a radio station and, some said, a television station. The enterprise was short-lived. KWGD-FM went dark April 4, 1949, a victim of the very small audience listening to FM radio in those days. The paper responded quickly by purchasing minority stock interest in an existing radio station, KWK, owned by Thomas Patrick, Inc.

The agreement appears to be beneficial to both parties. The Globe was hooked up with a viable radio station and KWK got a facility big enough to house its proposed television station. Robert Convey’s station had been headquartered at the Chase Hotel from 1927-1949. The last program from that facility was broadcast May 8 of 1949. Quoting a newspaper account: “Then a staff of 75 will move in time for Ed Wilson, disc jockey, to greet the dawn from the new location, to be followed later in the day by such KWK favorites as Gil Newsome’s ‘Bandstand Review’ and Tom Dailey’s ‘Recall It and Win.’”

“From 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. tomorrow there will be a special program to mark the occasion, including a description for KWK listeners of the new quarters, which Robert T. Convey, president of KWK, has called ‘one of the finest radio stations in the United States.’” The new facility was called the Globe-Democrat Tower Building in all stories in the paper.

The Globe wasted little time in burying its old FM operation. Publisher E. Lansing Ray announced that the 98.1 megacycle frequency allocation had been returned to the Federal Communications Commission. It was expected that KWK would apply for the frequency later.

The announcement of the Globe-Democrat’s purchase of a minority position was greeted with surprise by the Washington commission. F.C.C. officials said they had received no notification of the paper’s purchase of stock in the Convey company, and such notification was required within 30 days of the transaction. All 29 employees of KWGD-FM had been fired and given two-weeks’ severance pay.

Finally, the newspaper could be on the radio ownership bandwagon riding in the same seat as its St. Louis competitors. It was no longer relegated to a second class radio operation hampered by an FM frequency few listeners could receive or were interested in receiving.

Within two months, the paper and its station planned a pair of parties. The first, an invitation-only affair, was for 1,300 ad executives and public officials, who were given private tours of the station. The second, two weeks later, was an open house for the public. Anyone wishing to take part in one of the three daily public tours was required to send in requests, along with self-addressed stamped return envelopes.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 6/00)

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

St. Louis Was Slow To Accept FM Radio

When Edwin Armstrong provided a demonstration of FM broadcasting to RCA’s David Sarnoff in 1933, he was successful in showing off “staticless” radio, but RCA and CBS were both eyeing a technology with even more commercial promise – one that sent live, moving pictures through the air.

Realizing that his project was not a corporate priority, Armstrong continued to develop FM on his own, and in 1941 the federal government authorized commercial FM broadcasting. It would be several years before St. Louisans heard regular broadcasts.

Part of that delay is due to the fact that the country was involved in World War II, but many other cities, some of which were significantly smaller than St. Louis, were active in FM development. It wasn’t due to any lack of support from Washington.

As early as 1939, several existing AM stations in the U.S. had been designated as Apex station operators, and two of them were in St. Louis: W9XPD (KSD owned by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and W9XOK (KXOK owned by the St. Louis Star-Times). Many of these Apex stations around the country evolved into FMs.

The FM band, like its predecessor AM, also underwent technical changes on the way to its current incarnation. Early frequencies ranged from 41.02 – 43.98 mHz for the Apex stations with 40 kHz separation, and by May of 1940, 15 FM stations were on the air in the U.S. A year later the number had risen to 24. In 1945 the Federal Communications Commission reallocated FM stations to higher frequencies, 84 – 108 mHz, with the lower end, 84 – 88 mHz set aside for non-commercial stations.

There were several false starts here. WIL-FM was authorized at 92.1 and later moved to 97.3; KMOX-FM was allocated 45.9 mHz but later dropped its application; KWK-FM was assigned to 95.3; KXOK-FM was at 93.7; KXLW-FM was at 101.1; KSD-FM went on the air in September of 1948 at 96.1; and KWGD-FM became a reality in December of 1948 at 98.1 in studios now occupied by Sinclair Broadcasting.

WEW applied for an FM station in 1942, received a frequency of 45.1mHz, and was later given 95.1. WIL-FM was also on the air in 1948, as was KFUO-FM at 104.1.

The early days of FM in St. Louis were not as exciting as the early days of AM. Government control precluded a lot of unauthorized experiments that had been the rule in the early 1920s.

The first programs on AM consisted of whatever station managers could find to put on the air. Most FM stations here provided simulcasts of what their co-owned AM stations were broadcasting.

By 1950, several stations had already pulled their literal and figurative plugs here, but some new ones had been added. The dial included KSLH (91.5), KXOK-FM (93.7), WEW-FM (95.1), KWK-FM (98.1), KFUO-FM (99.1), and WTMV-FM (102.5). F.C.C. records in 1958 list only three FMs here, KFUO-FM, KCFM (93.7) and KSLH. It appeared the fad of FM radio would not take hold in St. Louis.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 11/1997)

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

St. Louis’ Jinxed Frequency

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)

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

St. Louis Radio Was A Haven for Hillbillies

In the late 1940s, St. Louis radio was a sort of hillbilly heaven, and it seemed that every station had to have a group. In previous articles we documented the rise of Uncle Dick Slack’s Barn Dance on KMOX and the Carson’s Melody Makers, who managed to be live on three different stations every Saturday.

St. Louis stations that had network affiliation, like KMOX and KWK, fed several of their live hillbilly programs nationwide. We’re not talking music like today’s so-called “country” stuff. This was hillbilly, and more often than not, it was performed live in the radio studio. One local disc jockey, Glen Davis of WTMV in East St. Louis, even published the “Yearbook of Hillbilly Artists of the Midwest” in 1949.

Davis ran a daily lunchtime show called “Chuck Wagon Time.” The cover story in his yearbook was a tribute to Skeets Yaney, who at that time had been on KMOX for 19 years and later worked as a deejay at several other local stations. Skeets headed his National Champion Hillbilly Band broadcasting every morning on KMOX at 7:15 and Saturday nights at 10:30.

Across town was Grandpappy Jones, the leader of the Carson Cowboys. He and his group were appearing on KWK, WEW and KSD each Saturday. A quick check of the band roster in 1949 shows several members who had been in the KMOX band in earlier years, which ties in with stories told recently by Pat Pijut, who sang with Skeets once at age 4. She said many of St. Louis’ hillbilly performers would move between groups. The pay wasn’t all that good, but it was long-term work.

There were plenty of other groups on the local airwaves. KMOX also boasted the Range Riders. Roy Queen, who had done two stints on KMOX, had moved to KXLW, where he was often accompanied by his wife Helen and young son, whose air name was Sonny. Queen had built himself an empire that included his disc jockey show, his traveling show, a concert booking agency and the city’s largest hillbilly record shop.

Paul Turner and his Green Valley Hands were regulars on KXLW for a couple years after the war but they moved to a new spot on the dial when WIL made them a better offer. The group had their own female vocalist with seven back-up men, including an accordion player. They told a reporter they made the jump because WIL had just increased its power to 5,000 watts and they would be heard over a wider area. Tex Terry and his group also brought “authentic ballads of the Old West to KXLW listeners.”

Gene and Betty Lou, a husband/wife duo, could be heard on WIBV in Belleville and WOKZ in Alton. Betty Lou’s claim to fame had been a stint on KXOK as a member of the Dude Ranch Girls when she was 12, and, according to the yearbook, “since has appeared with most of the radio gangs in the Midwest.”

Ted Holly, a steel guitar player, had been part of a hillbilly duet on WIL known as Claude and Billy. He moved over to WEW, forming the Three Blue Notes. In his live shows, Holly made sure his German shepherd, named Baron von Iccumbottom was also on-stage. The dog was reportedly well-schooled in showmanship.

The Buckeye Four, who appeared on KWK each day, appear to have been a group that spent a lot of time on the road. There was a veteran who had been on radio for 20 years and a youngster from South Dakota who played a mean accordion. That youngster later went on to become nationally known for his accordion work with Lawrence Welk. His name: Myron Floren.

Listen to Barnyard Follies on KMOX, in 1950

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

“Skeets” Yaney

by Lambert Kohr, KMOX program producer (1949)

Skeets Yaney, the vocalist of the famous “Skeets and Frankie” team, has been in radio for 19 years and has the unique distinction of having been sponsored for over 17 of those 19 years by the same client, the famous Jolly Irishman, Uncle Dick Slack. A familiar voice on radio station KMOX and the CBS Network for all those years, Skeeter’s formal billing has always been, “The Golden Voiced Yodeler.” He has also won seven National Championships as a yodeler, while his sidekick Frankie walked away with a like number of accordion championships.

Born Clyde A. Yaney in Mitchell, Indiana, and inheriting the nickname “Skeets” from an older brother Jim, he started in to win acclaim and attention at an early age. Being judged the best entertainer in southern Indiana when he was but six years of age…playing the harmonica and singing. Fifteen years ago Skeeter met Frankie. They teamed up and have remained the top folk song artists of the country ever since.
Although his pen has been idle recently, Skeeter has written and has had published many of the finest songs in his field, and he has made what his fans think are much too few recordings under the Town and Country label. However, they’ll be happy to know Skeets will record a larger series under the Columbia banner in the near future.

Among other distinctions, Skeeter could well earn the title of best dressed folk artist in the country as well because of his wardrobe of western costumes, specially designed and tailored, being one of the largest and finest in the Midwest.
Perhaps this accounts for his popularity and demand for personal appearances. For many years, Skeeter and his group of National Champion Hillbillys have had their pick of the choicest fair dates and various celebrations in this area.

His most recent appearance was a performance for the President of the United States. Along these lines, Skeeter continues to do more than his share of charity appearances for veterans, crippled children’s hospitals, etc. Skeeter now heads his own program – commercial, of course – on KMOX, and with his same 17 year sponsor, “Slack’s Big Old Fashioned Barn Dance,” heard at 10:30 P.M. on Saturday nights, and “Slack’s Ozark Varieties” heard every morning at 7:15.

Skeeter’s “home” station has been, as it should be, KMOX, The Voice of St. Louis, the CBS outlet in this area. Needless to say, he has set some of this station’s record mail returns and today, with a confidence that there is only one like him, ninety percent of his mail is addressed simply – Skeeter, c/o KMOX, St. Louis, and over ninety percent of all fan mail received at KMOX is addressed to this veteran folk artist who still rides the crest of popularity after 19 years of wonderful entertaining. I know. I’ve produced his shows for almost ten years and I’ll go along with his fans who earnestly hope we can listen to him sing for 19 years more.

Skeets Yaney – Country Music Hall of Famer

Just about everyone who heard them has fond memories of the hillbilly music duo of Skeets and Frankie. They performed for many years on KMOX. But Skeets had a broadcast career that included other stations in St. Louis.

Clyde A. “Skeets” Yaney was working a construction job when he began his work on the air at KMOX. He told a Globe-Democrat reporter in a 1950 interview that he simply started showing up at the studios at 5:00 in the morning and performing for free on the station’s early morning hillbilly program. When the show ended at 7:00, he’d walk down 12th Street to his construction job where he made $18 a week. His career gamble paid off when KMOX mega-advertiser, “Uncle Dick Slack,” decided to use Yaney as a commercial spokesman.

As Skeets told it, he took a pay cut, quit the construction gig and went to work on a six-day-a-week, two-hour radio program. He was paid a weekly salary of $15.00. More money came later, along with more airtime. KMOX listeners soon heard him daily from 5 – 7, 8 – 8:30, two hours in the afternoon and another half-hour in the early evening.

On Saturdays, he appeared on all those shows and the evening barn dance. Sundays brought a half hour program of Yaney singing hymns. As he told Globe reporter Beulah Schacht, “Didn’t nobody know me much in the early days, but if you keep pushing yourself down people’s throats for 19 years, they’re bound to remember you.”

His relationship with Uncle Dick Slack was apparently lucrative for both parties. Slack sponsored most of Skeets’ radio shows, and Skeets did lots of personal appearances for the furniture merchant. Known for his elaborate costumes, Yaney had a closet full of rhinestone studded shirts.

It was reported, with the possibility of slight exaggeration, that Yaney once received 50,000 pieces of fan mail at KMOX in one week, flooding the halls of the Mart Building studios with mail bags. He teamed up with accordion player Frankie Taylor in 1936 and the two of them were an inseparable musical team in the eyes of the KMOX listeners, who often referred to “Skeetsandfrankie” as a single artist. Yaney’s daughter Jean Lochirco remembers going to the KMOX studios as a small child on Saturday nights and sitting in the main auditorium to watch her dad perform.
“They’d put stacks of hay on the studio stage and all the chairs in the audience would fill up.”

Lochirco says the duo spread themselves thin during their heyday. “They had two hillbilly bars they were running and these places were so popular that they literally had to lock the doors to keep from violating occupancy limits. The one I remember was called “Skeets’ and Frankie’s Tavern and it was in South St. Louis, down on Gravois.They didn’t take too much time off back then. Making people happy is what kept them going.”

His long and prosperous recording career aside, Skeets Yaney made quite a name for himself on St. Louis’ airwaves. In addition to his musical performances spanning two decades on KMOX, Yaney was also known as a country & western disc jockey. He spent several years working at WEW, although only one of his biographies mentions this.

In 1960, he began a long dj stint on KSTL. As he had done throughout his entire broadcast career, Yaney continued to supplement his income with personal appearances, fronting his National Champion Hillbillies, although he cut back some during these later years. His road shows included the Range Riders, Lucky Penny Trio, Tommy Watson and Ray Periandri. Skeets Yaney received many honors over his career, including being named “Mr. Deejay U.S.A.” twice and “Most Popular Deejay in the Country,” an honor bestowed by WSM radio in Nashville. He was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame posthumously in 1980.

By it-registrationsstlmediahistory, ago

Subscribe to our Newsletter