Left to right: The one and only Stan Andrews (on air, sales guy from 1974-84?), Bob Garrett General Manager in the day, Laure Lyon (she followed me on the air and I adored her)1977-81(?) and one of my best friends Jon Hart (KTBG FM grand poobah) 1975-91(?). The dates are probably not accurate, but I think they are close. When I saw Bob in KC at Shooting Star, we talked about how KY would help fill 60,000 for Peter Frampton or Fleetwood Mac at Arrowhead in the late 70's. "That's what we did," he said. How true. That's exactly what we did. It was no big deal. Things have certainly changed. How privileged I have been to fill a stadium with 50,000 and then greet them from the stage as a representative of your station. THE rock station in a city as cool as KC. Thanks, Bob for the whole thing. Without you and Max, I am not sure where this train would have went. To be at KY from 1979-1985 was as good of a time as a man could have.
It was MARCH 31st, 1949 when the very first 45rpm single was released. The 45 turned 60-years old yesterday and the very first one was from none other then the great EDDY ARNOLD with 'Texarkana Baby." The B-side was "Boquet of Roses," both recorded in NASHVILLE. The single was released on bright green vinyl. Why you ask? They were color-coded. Green was for Polka and Country, red for classical, yellow for children's, blue for international, cerise for rhythm'n'blues. The two formats at the time were singles and four-track EPs. The second single followed soon after with ARTHUR CRUDUP's "That's All Right/"Crudup After Hours," on cerise vinyl.
Latest Arbitron Ratings for Nashville:
#44 Nashville, TN Updated 4/2/2009 Winter '08-09 ARBITRENDS (December, January, February) 12+ Mon-Sun, 6a-12mid Pop: 1,182,900 Black: 183,700 (16%) Hispanic: 59,400 (5%) Asian: 0 (0%) Station Format Owner Win 08 Spr 08 Sum 08 Fall 08 N/D/J 09 D/J/F 09 WJXA-FM AC South Central 8.0 8.8 6.5 7.0 7.8 7.9 WUBT-FM Urban Clear Channel 7.3 8.4 6.5 7.9 6.7 6.2 WQQK-FM Urban AC Cumulus Media 5.4 5.4 5.5 6.3 6.8 6.0 WRVW-FM Top 40/M Clear Channel 6.7 6.6 6.2 7.1 6.3 6.0 WNRQ-FM Classic Rock Clear Channel 4.8 5.3 5.7 4.8 4.5 5.4 WSIX-FM Country Clear Channel 5.9 4.8 4.8 5.8 5.6 5.2 WSM-FM Country Cumulus Media 4.8 4.5 4.9 3.5 3.9 4.7 WKDF-FM Country Citadel 4.3 4.2 4.5 4.8 4.6 4.4 WWTN-FM Talk Cumulus Media 3.9 3.9 4.4 5.7 4.8 4.3 WCJK-FM Adult Hits South Central 4.0 5.3 4.9 3.3 3.3 4.1 WGFX-FM Sports Citadel 3.3 3.2 3.3 4.2 4.4 3.9 WFFH-FM Christian Cont. Salem 2.0 3.1 2.5 2.1 3.0 3.6 WLAC-AM N/T Clear Channel 3.3 3.1 3.6 4.2 3.9 3.2 WBUZ-FM Active Rock Cromwell 3.6 3.1 3.5 3.5 2.8 2.5 WSM-AM Classic Country Gaylord 2.4 2.3 2.6 1.6 2.2 2.5 WPRT-FM Top 40/M Cromwell 1.5 1.0 1.6 1.3 1.3 1.5 WRLT-FM AAA Tuned In 1.4 1.6 1.5 1.3 1.2 1.3 WNVL-AM Spanish Davidson -- -- -- -- 1.0 1.1 WMDB-AM Gospel Davidson 1.1 1.6 1.3 1.3 0.8 0.9 WVOL-AM Urban AC Heidelberg 0.4 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 WRQQ-FM Rock Cumulus Media 2.0 2.1 1.8 1.7 1.4 0.7 WNFN-FM Sports Cumulus Media 0.9 0.9 0.6 1.0 1.1 0.6 WAMB-AM Adult Standards Great Southern 0.5 -- -- -- -- 0.5 WGNS-AM N/T Rutherford -- -- -- 0.6 -- 0.5
Yes, THAT's my old station. I left it at a 2.7. Ick. They have lost more than two thirds of their listeners, but Al Brock and I didn't know what we were doing. Riiigggghhhht!!!
See ya on the other side. I won't have internet access on the farm in Willard for awhile, I will be pretty busy at KSGF and wouldn't even think about taking time off from work to post. I'll be back this weekend with news of my niece's wedding. Pictures for all. Good luck storming the castle!*
from the associated press FARGO, N.D. – One family offered their home to anyone left homeless by flooding, even sharing their security entry code. When another couple lost their house, total strangers showed up at their hotel with chicken dinners, brownies and quilts. In the neighborly spirit synonymous with North Dakota, some people have given out their phone numbers on radio talk shows, offering shelter to any listeners in need. The generosity is so common that even as thousands of people are driven out of their homes by the overflowing Red River, most storm shelters are virtually empty. "There is a different flavor up here — the type of hardworking ethic and the people helping each other up here that you don't see in a lot of cities," said Tom Hlady, who signed up through his church to take as many as nine people into his five-bedroom home. On Monday, weary residents were grateful to see the Red River retreating after its steady, threatening climb last week. But they faced a new threat: an approaching snowstorm expected to kick up wind-whipped waves that could threaten the sandbag levees. The storm was expected to arrive Monday afternoon and persist through Tuesday evening. Locals don't consider the outpouring of kindness at all unusual. Their 138-year-old city was ravaged by a fire more than a century ago and tested often over the years by the Red River. Fargo, they say, is a survivor, and one neighbor watching another's back is a way of life. Hlady and his wife are leaving this week for a vacation in Phoenix. They planned to give their home's keypad security code to the church for anyone who needs a place to stay. "People can go in, use our food, our beds and do whatever they need to do," Pam Hlady said.Red Cross spokeswoman Courtney Johnson said emergency shelters are being used by a relatively small number of flood victims. On Sunday night, three shelters in Fargo, Grand Forks and Moorhead, Minn., hosted just 257 people, including about 30 firefighters. That, Johnson said, suggests that most families found other places to stay. The spirit of outreach is all over news radio. When sandbaggers were needed urgently in nearby Hendrum, Minn., broadcasters repeatedly gave driving directions to volunteers, and hundreds of people turned out to save the town. When someone requested a windshield for emergency airboats, a listener volunteered to make one. One caller to WDAY said he had delivered a bunch of pizzas to the Fargodome stadium, where the sandbagging effort was based. Then he called back to say he would fetch a bunch of crayons, coloring books and puzzles. "Where do kids need them?" he asked. Sarah Sebranek, a social studies teacher at Fargo North High School, has seen it at every turn. Last Tuesday, when the sandbagging effort intensified, more than half of her students did not show up for classes. When her church offered free day care so parents could help fight the floodwaters, the Red Cross showed up unannounced with peanut butter and jelly, snack chips and pint-sized cartons of milk. Some parents who were not members of the church came by to help watch the kids. Women there had sandwich-making parties, helping feed National Guardsmen and other sandbaggers. "We're not heroes," Sebranek said. "We just rise to the occasion." MacKenzie Blume, a 28-year-old mother of a toddler, joined the Hladys in signing up to share her home. Her preference: Someone with a child who might enjoy her son's toys. "I guess we do unto others as we would want done unto us, the Golden Rule thing," she said. Jim and Bonnie Myers saw the love firsthand on Friday, after their home just north of Moorhead burned to the ground because firefighters could not get past floodwaters. The couple, both 73, fled to a Fargo hotel, where strangers showed up with roasted chicken, cole slaw, brownies and clothing. A woman even dropped off some homemade quilts and, for the diabetic Jim, a blood-sugar monitor. "I find it very touching, very giving," said Jim, a retired trucker. He said the charity often comes from "people who still have to fight their own fight" to save their homes. Jay Thomas, a WDAY radio personality who has helped orchestrate the gestures of kindness, says what's happening is not out of the ordinary. "Up here, it's the way we do things," he said. At the Hladys' church, senior pastor Bob Ona said he feels blessed to live in such a tight-knit place. "This will be one of those markers that we will all talk about for the rest of our lives — how people helped each other out," he said. "I think it really makes the place attractive." "It's good, and it's probably going to stay that way for a long, long while."
as a side note...THIS is what radio can do when allowed to do it. Live, local and informative, it will win everytime. Congrats to Mr. Thomas and the rest of the staff at WDAY, keeping the hope alive for all of us radio guys.
Here is a great story about a very interesting guy from The Nashville Tennesseean (a fine newspaper).... Peter Cooper The Tenneesseean 3/27/09
Dan Seals wasn't particularly interested in being correct. The singer-songwriter, who died on Wednesday evening at age 61, played a 12-string guitar that had only eight strings. It was a right-handed guitar, and he played it left-handed. "Upside down, and backwards," as he used to say.
Texas born and raised, he called himself "England Dan" when he was in a duo that recorded hit pop songs like "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight" in a Hendersonville studio. His first solo No. 1 hit was a country song about be-bop dancing, and he followed that with a five-minute ballad about a rodeo sweetheart. He was hilarious offstage, and somber on it.
"He could do anything he wanted to do," said keyboard player Shane Keister, who recorded and performed with Mr. Seals for decades. "That's the mark of a true artist: They find where their path leads."
Mr. Seals' path lead through halcyon days in the 1970s, when he and duo partner John Ford Coley scored with smooth pop hits such as "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight" and "We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again." And then it led through Nashville. Here, he began the 1980s broke and sleeping under a friend's piano and ended the decade having scored nine No. 1 Billboard country hits, including "Bop," "Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)," "Three Time Loser" and "Addicted."
The path, or at least the part of it that can be known by the living, ended Wednesday in Nashville after a lengthy battle with cancer. Seals and his friend and manager, Tony Gottlieb, had talked about the musician's impending death as if it were a particularly important gig to be played.
"That was the metaphor for him passing," Gottlieb said. "He died right at 8:30 p.m. Showtime."
Mr. Seals' life in music began when he stood on an apple crate and played stand-up bass in the family band. Not knowing that guitars could be strung in reverse to be played left-handed, he learned to play the instrument in a manner that was never taught by music teachers. He played in bands in high school, and in 1965 came to Nashville and recorded at RCA Studio B as The Shimmerers.
That group ultimately became rock band Southwest F.O.B. (short for "Freight On Board"), which featured Mr. Seals and friend John Ford Colley — that name was later altered to Coley — and Southwest F.O.B. wound up opening shows for acts including Led Zeppelin.
"Dan had one of the finest voices I've ever heard, and he could do so many things with it," Coley said. "He could sing R&B, sing the rock things when we opened for Zeppelin, and sing soft ballads, always with his own style. He played sax in the F.O.B., and he was a phenomenal sax player. And when he played guitar, he played it upside down and could make chords I couldn't begin to make."
The F.O.B. became England Dan (he loved The Beatles and sometimes sang in a British accent) and John Ford Coley, a duo that took off for California because older brother Jim Seals was having pop success as half of duo Seals & Croft on A&M Records.
Connections were made, bargains were struck, and by 1972 Mr. Seals and Coley had a hit in Japan with "Simone." In America, though, they struggled.
"We were poor, and working on that rock musician 'emaciated' look," Coley said. "We'd take guitar strings off and boil them to try to extend their lives. Dan had a 12-string guitar, and he strummed it when he'd taken four of the strings off and it sounded really rich. We figured that if he only needed eight strings, that was four less that he had to buy."
The A&M deal didn't work out, and Mr. Seals and Coley wound up in Hendersonville, at Lee Hazen's Studio By The Pond, working with producer Kyle Lehning. Mr. Seals walked in, told Lehning that what he really wanted to do was make a country record, and then sang "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight." Doug Morris of Big Three Records heard the song and signed the band.
England Dan and John Ford Coley charted six top 10 adult contemporary singles between 1976 and 1979. When the duo broke up, Mr. Seals inherited lawsuits and debts, and he wound up bankrupt. Solo pop projects Stones and Harbinger produced no hits, and Seals became busted in Nashville. The Internal Revenue Service seized most of his assets. He told The Tennessean that the IRS left him with his Karmann Ghia automobile, " 'cause it was worthless." He slept at friends' houses, or under a piano at Gottlieb's Morningstar studio in Hendersonville.
"Under a piano, as long as it doesn't fall on you, is a nice place to sleep, because you don't hear a lot of noise under there, ringing phones and stuff," he told The Tennessean in 1987.
But Liberty Records offered a deal and stuck with Mr. Seals through three low-charting singles in 1983. In 1984, "God Must Be A Cowboy" broke into the top 10, and Mr. Seals' career had new life. With Lehning producing, Mr. Seals went on a remarkable run of hits of a layered and literary nature that would seem at odds with commercial success.
"The song had to stir him emotionally," Gottlieb said. "If it didn't raise the hair up on the back of his neck, it wasn't in consideration."
Lehning said, "He pushed excellence in every aspect of the recording process. In the studio, he had a constant, light-hearted seriousness. Everything had to pass muster."
Mr. Seals' 1985 duet with Marie Osmond, "Meet Me In Montana," was his first country No. 1. He and Osmond won the CMA's top vocal duo prize, and solo hit "Bop" became the CMA's single of the year in 1986. The run continued with seven more No. 1 hits, then a No. 5 with "They Rage On," then two more No. 1's in 1990.
"He enjoyed his success, but it didn't rule him," Lehning said. "He loved fly fishing as much as being onstage and singing, and he wasn't consumed by the business."
The run ended later in 1990, and Mr. Seals never scored another top 10 hit. The record company hierarchy changed, and Mr. Seals left for Warner Bros. to little success. He carried on as a touring act. In later years, he and brother Jim toured as Seals & Seals. And then he was diagnosed with something called mantle cell lymphoma.
"I was really proud of Dan because he went off and made a career of his own in country music," Coley said. "I told him that many times. I knew he was destined for other things, that England Dan and John Ford Coley wouldn't be the end for him. We talked before he passed away. We were able to tell one another that we loved each other."
A public memorial service will be held 1-3 p.m. Saturday at the Baha'I Center, 1556 Bell Road in Antioch.
I forgot to post this earlier. On my trip to KC to see the Shooting Star boys, I had lunch with my buddy Ken Dillon. "The mayor" of Clinton, Mo. Nice TShirt, huh? Ken and his lovely are best buds and people I am glad to know. That's about all we need these days. Simple pleasures.
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million apiece severance with three stipulations: 1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed. 2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed. 3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage- Housing Crisis fixed.
Left to right: The one and only Stan Andrews (on air, sales guy from 1974-84?), Bob Garrett General Manager in the day, Laure Lyon (she followed me on the air and I adored her)1977-81(?) and one of my best friends Jon Hart (KTBG FM grand poobah) 1975-91(?).
