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Garnett A. Marks, born March 21, 1899, at St. Louis, Missouri, educated in and graduated from St. Louis grammar and high schools, enlisted in the 138th U.S. Infantry shortly after graduating from Soldan High school in the class of January 1917. Served in this regiment until discharged because of prolonged illness at Camp Doniphan, Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Returned home and after return to health joined the ambulance corps of the American Red Cross, serving as a driver of this unit in France until after the Armistice.

For several months after returning to the states was engaged in newspaper work as a reporter in Philadelphia, then became interested in aviation and served as an observer and photographer with the 13th Squadron, Surveillance, at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas.

First entered radio with KFI, Los Angeles, as a “song plugger” for a Los Angeles music publishing house. Later he became staff baritone and announcer.

In the autumn of 1926 he returned to St. Louis, and joined the KMOX staff.

He was offered the position of sports announcer for KMOX, and throughout the seasons of 1927 and 1928 Garnett broadcast every game played in St. Louis, and on rainy days and open dates he could be heard giving play by play accounts furnished by ticker of the most important out of town game on such days.

Thousands of letters attested to his popularity and outstanding success as a baseball announcer and the opinion was almost unanimous that he was without peer in this line of endeavor. As a reward for his untiring and exceptional efforts to faithfully serve the vast audience with accurate, up to the minute and interesting baseball dope for 1928, Garnett was given a trip to New York to witness and help describe via the Columbia network the opening games of the series between the Yankees and the Cards played in the Yankee Stadium there.

In 1929, he returned to the Pacific Coast, singing in numerous sound productions created on Hollywood lots.
When work before the movie microphone was slack, he free lanced among several of the Hollywood and Los Angeles radio stations as announcer and singer. Late in 1930 he received an excellent offer from WENR, Chicago, to come on there as an announcer, and immediately installed himself as a favorite with the listeners of that station, which was absorbed by the NBC on March 1st, 1931.

So it was not long after that his friends throughout the land heard him as a network announcer on programs emanating from the Merchandise Mart, Chicago.

Because of the uncertain health of his father, Garnett returned to St. Louis late in November of 1931. He became an announcer at KMOX.

Recently he joined the staff of WIL, where he has taken over the Breakfast Club Express and can be heard every week day from 7 to 9:15 a.m. He also acts in the capacity of WIL news reporter. His hobbies are writing and aviation, the latter not altogether meeting with the approval of his family. His favorite sports, many of which he still indulges in, and the order of their popularity with him, are swimming, football, baseball, and horse back riding. He is married and has a charming young daughter.

(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 7/16/1932).

When Viola Jeanne Chassels graduated from Salem High School in Illinois in 1931, she may have had the typical high school dreams of the time: get married, settle down, raise a family. Instead she became a well-known radio singer.

Three girls from Salem decided to cast their lot in the big city to the West. Jean, as she was known, was the lead singer in the group, which had been known around Salem as The Chassels Trio. Her mother apparently managed the group, and documentation shows Julia Chassels set her sights high for the girls.

Woody Klose, one of the popular announcers on KMOX, sent her a letter inviting the trio to an audition at 8:30 on the morning of May 28, 1932:

“This audition will make you eligible to appear on the broadcast of the KMOX Public Audition Program, which goes on the air at 9:30 o’clock, a.m…You are only allowed two minutes at the most.”

The three girls, Jean, Vivian Griffin, and Marie Hamilton had a chance to appear on KMOX, provided they made the cut at the audition.

Julia’s effort paid off. The Harmonettes, as the group was now known, were regularly featured on several KMOX short-form variety shows, which usually lasted fifteen minutes. They’d sing three selections with a piano or organ accompaniment. Most of these shows were “sustaining” at first, meaning there was no sponsor.

Later, as the economy improved and The Depression began to fade, their shows acquired a sponsor. That was due, in part, to the backing of Ted Straeter, a KMOX programmer who had a successful side business as a producer of talent for KMOX shows.

In early December of 1932, another letter came to Salem from St. Louis.

Dear Mrs. Chassels: I should like to have you and the girls come to my studio on Thursday, December the eighth at eleven in the morning, at which time I should like to discuss plans for work with the girls trio. Kindly let me know immediately if this will be satisfactory.
Ted Straeter #2 Studio Building, Taylor and Olive

Straeter and his partner Myles Hasgall were so well-known for their work that they were credited at the beginning and end of the shows that featured talent they had discovered, as found on this KMOX script from 1933: “Myles Hasgall and Ted Straeter, maestros of music in St. Louis present their regular Wednesday evening program. Tonight Hasgall and Straeter present The Harmonettes.”

A newspaper clipping of the era noted, “Union Electric Light and Power Company signed them for its KMOX Thursday night show after their first audition.”

Back in Salem, the town was proud of its radio stars. An ad in the local paper read: “Dorothy Perkins radio program over KMOX St. Louis, each Tuesday night 7:45…Three Salem girls who have made good in big time radio broadcasting. Tune in next Tuesday night and enjoy the program.”

As their popularity increased, two of the original members of the Harmonettes married and moved on, but Jean was the one constant, and it’s safe to assume there were a lot of proud people in Salem when the CBS Radio Network began national broadcasts from the KMOX studios featuring the group.

There must have been something in the air in the 1930s at KMOX. Jean Chassels met a guy at the station who was also interested in music. He was single, and he spent a lot of time working as staff arranger and pianist for the Karl Hohengarten and Al Roth big bands, even finding time for his own musical show of piano selections seven times a week. He also did some arranging for the Harmonettes.

In 1938, Jean Chassels gave up her singing career on KMOX. She married that music man, who by that time had moved to a job at KSD, and became Mrs. Russ David.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/05)

When Columbus Gregory first walked through the doors of KATZ in St. Louis, his only goal was to sing on the air. In the half-century that followed, he did a lot more.

Gregory had been raised in the South and had been assigned to Korea for his military service. While he was there he heard a friend talking about this Negro disc jockey in St. Louis who had become a major celebrity. When he rejoined civilian life, Gregory headed toward St. Louis to hear the man everyone called “Spider.”

Spider Burks was, indeed, a celebrity, spinning jazz records on the radio and making personal appearances at local clubs almost every night of the week. Columbus Gregory got a job with the railroad, and, in his spare time, began singing gospel with a local quartet called the Victory Airs. In conversations with other gospel singers, he became convinced that their groups would draw better crowds to their performances if listeners could hear them on the radio.

Gregory organized eight of the groups and arranged to buy a half-hour time block on KATZ every Sunday morning. Two groups would sing each week and every group would put $5.00 in the pot to cover the $40 weekly charge. The process worked, but, one-by-one, the groups dropped out, leaving Columbus Gregory with the contract to purchase the time.

The railroad job was not working out, but Gregory’s skills at packaging radio time and at entertaining were developing. In 1959 he got word that the station was looking for a man who can handle engineering work for disc jockey remotes and promotions for the station and he jumped at the chance. Soon he found himself in local grocery stores during the day, promoting products advertised on KATZ, followed by late night work at local clubs supporting the DJs. It was a seven-day-a-week job.

“I did that for three years, “says Gregory. “I was Dave Dixon’s engineer at night. George Logan did some Saturday afternoon things and I was called in to do all his remotes. When Dave Dixon passed, his brother Jerome took over and I was his engineer. I was Spider Burks’ engineer over at the Blue Note Club. In 1963 I decided to try to become an announcer.”

It was a logical goal because the life of an engineer wasn’t particularly glamorous. “Back then we were playing 45s and lps and I had a remote mixer. I’d always sit in the store room of the club and they had a microphone in the front for the disc jockey. I had to work off their cues. Dave Dixon’s vocal cue was ‘Night Beat Down Rhythm Street.’ When I heard the word ‘street’ I let the record go.”

Things were different in those days, according to Columbus Gregory. “The radio announcers today aren’t nearly as popular as they were back then. In the ‘50s and ‘60s in the Black community, if a person wore a military uniform, they were looked up to as really being somebody special. Radio announcers then were held in the same high regard.

“Today’s disc jockeys are searching for popularity. Back then, they weren’t searching for it. They were popular just being themselves.”
Gregory has worked with many disc jockeys over the years, but his most fond memories are of Dave Dixon. “Dave was a real guy. He wasn’t phony. If you weren’t doing your job, he’d tell you, and that’s the way to help a person. You don’t help a person by telling him ‘Oh yeah. You’re doing great. You’re great.’ “Dave would take time to tell me how to do things better, and that made me a better engineer. He was one of the nicest guys I worked with.”

In 1963, Columbus Gregory went to KXLW as a gospel announcer. GM Richard Miller doubled his salary to bring him over. Before he knew it, Gregory was holding down a six-hour shift Monday through Friday mornings. “I always included the audience in the program. I’d even take requests from callers and let the callers talk on the air. Richard Miller loved that.”

KXLW played secular music as well as gospel, and Columbus Gregory says Miller really had a knack for getting the best talent. Guys like George Logan, Jimmy Bishop and Steve Byrd were on KXLW, but one day, they were all gone. A forward thinking programmer by the name of Bernie Hayes had hired all of them away to go to work on KWK.

In response, KXLW went gospel full time, and Gregory was appointed program director. “I brought in Leonard Morris, Louis Bates and Hosea Gales. That was back in 1968. I was with Richard from 1963 to 1979, even though I began working on WGNU-FM full-time in 1976. I’d do an hour or so at sign-on for Richard before going to the WGNU studio in Granite City.

“WGNU-FM had a lot of gospel music that I had overlooked. It had string sections and bands and I said ‘Wow!’ I was on from 10 – 2 Monday through Friday, and I had people calling the station to buy advertising time.”
He later worked for over 25 years as a gospel music on disc jockey on KIRL.

Columbus Gregory’s quest to minister through gospel music on the radio kept him on the air well past the standard retirement age of 65, and he prided himself in the fact that people who listened could never tell how old he was.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 6/05)