A small sample of KRSC's local, original programming: "The Local Flavors Show", all Oklahoma music from all genres on Mondays with Davit Souders at 7 pm; "B-4 The Buzz" with Brian Lunk Tuesday at 9 pm. "Hillbilly Happy Hour" is old and new music with Johnney Hall, Saturday at 9 am. "All That Jazz" with Dan & Debbie Kara is great straight-ahead jazz Saturday at 3 pm. "The Meaning of Life" is hosted by Dr. Jim Ford. He serves up a different philosophical theme along with illustrative and free-associative alternative, classic rock, blues and soul, Sundays, 3-5 pm. "Saturday Nite Trip" at 7 pm is the best in Electronica…from Downtempo to House…Drum-N-Bass to Breaks and everything in between! Here's the schedule. Folks at KRSC who have contributed to TTM include Dale ("Melvin Simpkins") McKinney and Bryan Crain. Listen online.
Rich Fisher's "StudioTulsa", intelligent talk (and it really is) at 11:30 am and 7:30 pm weekdays
I remember KCNW being "countrypolitan" a format big in Kansas City that mixed country with light rock and worked! They and KTOW in Sand Springs were KVOO's attempted rivals.
During late '72 to early '74 we went from being Tulsa's Countrypolitan Giant to Tulsa's Good Music Station 1300. Toward late '73 (I believe) San Antonio Broadcasting came in and purchased KCNW and sister station KMOD (which was not on the air). San Antonio Broadcasting later changed its name to Clear Channel Communications. That outfit has come a long way, too. KCNW was a great place to work and I count myself greatly honored to have worked with a number of radio-TV legends during those years.
KTOW-FM, 102.3 has had many formats. One of a few that come to mind are alternative rock in the early 90's (at the time there was no "alternative" it was called "Indie"). Later, it became urban contemporary, and classic country. It took the classic country format, and the call letter KTFX in 1994. Before that, the KTFX call letters were used by 103.3. Now, the former KTOW/KTFX is KRTQ, or Rock 102.3...basically a 80's and 90's rock station.
Found this KTOW-AM jingle (.wav file) on an old reel. Thought you might like to add it to the collection. This was during their country days circa 1970-71.
In a recent letter to Ed Dumit, University of Tulsa, I was remembering my early days at KWGS, the University '3200 watt coffee pot' as we used to call it. The time was around 1964, 65. I was 18 years old: I was thinking, just recently, about my show on KWGS called 'Impulse.' At that time I was also working at KTOW in Sand Springs and getting around without a car or even a scooter. On my way to do 'Impulse' I had hitchhiked to mid 11th Street at airtime, and called from a payphone. The engineer on duty, Scotty Comstock, told me this was unacceptable but I asked him to pull up music records anyway and my show by phone patch went something like this: "We're at 11th and Utica, roughly, watching limited traffic go by. Oh, there's the bus I was waiting for to get to the studio on time. Oh well. It's a pleasant night in Tulsa and I have a clear view of a rising moon. Here is Willie Mitchell, 2075." "That work OK Scotty?" I asked. "Yeah, he said, but you shouldn't be doing this. You are required to be here." "OK," I said. "Log it as a remote."
I was just noticing the picture of the reunion of folks from KTBA, KMOD, KKUL, and KTOW. I was at KTOW from 1968 until mid-1970 (at that time we played country, except for a short time when we had country during the day and soul at night; a somewhat surrealistic combination). At that time, our program director was a guy named Arthur Johnson. Art had formerly been News Director at KAKC (known there as Jay Arthur). Does anyone know where Art is these days? I have tried to find him on a couple of visits to Tulsa, but can't locate him.
Dean Kelly was Dean Jenkins' moniker while at KELi. He had worked at KTOW prior to that. He later worked for Clear Channel in sales, and was last heard on the air at Bill Payne's Classic Country KTFX, 102.3, Sand Springs (formerly KTOW-FM, as noted above) before Payne sold the station to Cox. Dean's son is local country vocalist Brandon Jenkins.
On another radio topic: Someone mentioned Hal O'Halloran's post-KTUL-TV career. I was among the regular listeners and callers to Hal O'Halloran's radio sports talk shows on various stations in the late '70s and early '80s. He was on KXXO 1300 every weeknight from 6:20-7:00 (they ran CBS Radio's "The World Tonight" with Douglas Edwards from 6:00 - 6:15). KXXO was then a news/talk station, a sister station to KMOD, sharing space in the City Bank building near 31st & Hudson. (Hal did sports updates for KMOD as well.) I started listening in '78 -- his weekly trivia programs usually offered the hope of winning Roughnecks or Ice Oilers tickets. Ken Broo was a regular guest. The show never had the audience of its rival on KRMG, but the talk was always more interesting, more opinionated, and more focused on the national pro sports scene instead of being fixated on the Dallas Cowboys and the Sooners. Sometime around 1980 or '81, KXXO changed formats (to KBBJ -- big band and jazz), and Hal turned up on KTOW 1340 in Sand Springs, which was mainly a country music station, but wanted to try its hand at sports. (Great sung news intro: "Worldwide news from the Big Gun (ricochet FX), K-T-O-W.") It had been hard enough to pick up KXXO at night, but KTOW was almost impossible to get in east Tulsa, especially at night when it dropped to 250 W. (I've owned more powerful light bulbs.) One thing that stood out about Hal was his patience, especially his patience with certain regular callers, a group of high school kids and immature young adults who called themselves the Sackheads, who saw his show as much as an opportunity for comedy as for serious sports discussion.
One of the stars in the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" is Tulsan Tim Blake Nelson, probably well known back in Oklahoma. Tim went to Holland Hall High School, then onto Brown University and eventually Julliard in NYC. What a lot of people don't know is that Tim actually made his acting "debut" at the Tulsa Civic Center and on Hal O'Halloran's sports talk show on KTOW. Blake and some of his Holland Hall buddies would frequent Tulsa Ice Oilers hockey games. With the team, being dreadful at the time, the boys from HH would wear bags over their heads, much like the New Orleans 'Aints fans of the 1980's. They were known as the "Sackheads". Hal picked up on this and had Blake and his buddies on his show frequently. I knew 'em all, too. Never knew one of them would reach Hollywood. But, then again, no one probably thought I'd reach Cincinnati!
(from Guestbook 3) Don Lundy said: The call letters for radio stations, in some cases, stood for a slogan or ownership. For instance, WLS in Chicago stood for "World's Largest Store"(was owned by Sears, Roebuck and Company); WGN,also in the Windy City, stood for "World's Greatest Newspaper" (it was owned by the Tribune). Do you know the derivation of these Tulsa radio call letters?
1) KRMG 4) KFMJ
Where are those KRMG voices of the 70's - Don Cummins and Ed Brocksmith? Does KRMG still own KWEN? I heard Boaz Raushwerger at the KWGS tribute in '97 - where is he? Is KRMG all-news yet? Does KVOO still broadcast in AM Stereo - they were one of the first though the AM Stereo thing never caught on.
Don Lundy sent me the answers to the radio questions he posed a couple of weeks back. Here it is: "As Jim Back noted KRMG was for Kerr-McGee, owned by U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr and his oil partner, Dean McGee. KAKC was for Avey, Kellough and Condon. Sam Avey was a Tulsa entrepreneur, owned the old Coliseum on 4th Street and Cincinnati (or Detroit) that burned down in the 50s, think Kellough (sp?) was a local businessman and Glen Condon was news director at KRMG in the early years. I believe this is correct, it was all part of a unit on Oklahoma history we took in the sixth grade mandated by the state. For some reason, this has all stuck with me. I had forgotten about KVOO, the Voice of Oklahoma. (according to Betty Boyd, the "KIND Voice of Oklahoma) KOME stood for Oklahoma's Magic Empire, which Tulsa was called in the 50's. KFMJ- it was owned by Tulsa auto dealer and his wife: Fred and Mary Jones. And, of course, KELi's predecessor at 1430KC was KTUL radio. (And KRAV=George KRAVis.)
I think KKUL was the soul station that took over KORU's frequency. Either Matt Bunyan of Starship Records or the late Honest John Foutz - told me of going out there to deliver records or spots. Said the studio was in a ratty old house - way out East of town by the tower. ...And to think I can still remember when you wanted to listen to classical music at night in the early 70's - KWGS, KAKC-FM, KORU, and I think the FM station in Bartleville had this every evening. All went away in time and we got commercial classical KCMA - who I guess has since been sold. Who does play classical music in Tulsa now? (KWTU; see top of page)
(from Guestbook 11) Jim Back said: Saw a comment in the Oklahoman about KOMA that I did not know. Article says the original call letters were KFJF. It was sold to the Griffin Grocery Co. of Muskogee for $10,000. The article doesn't say when that happened, but here's the interesting part: Says Griffin changed the call letters to KOMA to match their market area: K(ansas), O(klahoma), M(issouri), and A(rkansas). I always thought it was just "oma" as in "Oklahoma."
(from Guestbook 18) Mike Bruchas said: A geezerly digression on KWGS from me, too.
At the 50th reunion in '97 I was surprised how automated the station is now - back in the late 60's/70's and certainly back when a lot of post WWII guys/spouses were in school in the 50's - KWGS had a seemingly humongous staff to do all. I guess that is one thing that was brought home at the reunion - a lot of us started to learn our crafts and started our lifelong professions at KWGS - no matter the generation. We also had a chance to make a lot of mistakes and the public was generally forgiving - so that they got their classical music and/or heavy metal not offered elsewhere. There were a lot of programming slots to fill live or edited-to-tape "back then" - I am surprised now how little local original programming there is on KWGS, though the station is a well-oiled machine and sounds network quality generally. I went to TU to "learn radio", my voice never dropped to the stentorian levels of a lot of the 50's grads and so I slummed over into being a TV techie. But there is/was a great spirit of ALL of us having served at KWGS - and had a good time doing it. I hope TU's next generation of radio/tv grads get it too. I also heard "subterrania" in a form is back on a TU cable radio station on campus (broadcast by wire from dorm to dorm not off a real antenna for the general populace) but from the undergrads I spoke with at KWGS - it ain't perceived as "real radio". I remember Frank Elardo, Matt Bunyan, Tommy Roberts and others almost 25 years ago "bending the envelope" on KWGS Fri. & Sat. nights broadcasting "subterrania" music of the Grateful Dead, Hendrix, Joplin (no not Scott)- I guess what goes around, comes around!
Reading about Gary Chew brought back memories (he was my boss at KWGS.) Although this is a T-town TV board, please indulge my brief radio digression. I did news and "Sunday Sounds"(jazz/classical music mix segment) at KWGS for several semesters. Still remember Ed Dumit's Wollensak reel-to-reel recording of proper pronunciations. I learned my lesson - always listen to the tape! A fellow coworker at KWGS duped me into thinking "Modest P. Moussorsky" was really pronounced "MODEST PEE MOUSE-or-skee," and that's how I pronounced it. Got plenty of calls on that one. Mr. Chew, in his very urbane way, gently corrected me next time he saw me. I also locked myself out of the control room (where the automated NPR machines now sit at KWGS) taking a bathroom break while a record was on the air. I called TU Security to unlock the door..but they never came. I struggled with the control room door for 45 minutes. The recording ran out and I could hear the player's needle bouncing off the turntable platter's post: "SSHHH-SHH-SSSHHH." Dead air. All the phone lines lit up (didn't think anybody was listening on Sunday mornings!) I finally broke down the door, ran toward the turntable, potted down, and plopped another record on. Mr. Chew "counseled" me on that one, too. It's funny thinking about it now, but I was terrified of Mr. Chew back then.
Great stuff from Tulsey native, Terry Young!
In an effort to get more folks on the air and still be paid - we didn't have
volunteers on air shifts at KWGS when I was
If you did remote recording with the 50 lb. Magnecorders like Paul Goelz or myself - that was a freebie for the experience. Ditto later when a lot of staff did any news coverage - most had their own Sony 100 or 110 cassette recorders like Steve Smith, Lynn Wells or myself. Or we traded them to each other. Local radio "real news guys" like from KVOO and KRMG always treated KWGS greenhorns with respect - many had been in their shoes not long before. Though KWGS had a minimal budget from TU then - we had long distance service and a primitive phone hybrid for recording "actualities" and "voicers". Do you remember when radio phone patched broadcasts had that annoying beep in the background? The phone companies made that part of any non-surreptious phone conversation recording. I can remember when something happened in Alaska at Amchitka - either a volcano or a nuke carrying plane crash - we did several live and taped feeds via the phone lines. I also remember being asked to do a phoner with a local stripper - who had paraded topless downtown by the Mayo into the hands of the forewarned and waiting Tulsa PD. She was protesting her right of freedom of speech for undress....Yeah, sure. She was very logical in her reasoning but we decided not to air her soundbite. It really wasn't KWGS - didn't think we had a lot of topless dancer classical music fans - maybe for Subterrania.....
The station was located in a converted garage behind a commercial building at about 12th and Harvard. It was all reel-to-reel "elevator music." I was 18 (turned 19 during the stint) and it was my summer job in 1967. We had an on air "personality" named Jenny Wren. As I recall, she was a friend of Mike Flynn, who worked at KRAV at the time. I was really good at loading those huge reels so the 17 or so people listening to our station could hear Billy Vaughn, Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo. My station breaks were classics. NEVER could say KOCW.... always transposed and called it KCOW. I guess my COW fixation was a precursor to my being full of BULL as a politician!
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KZLI-AM, 1570, hosted by Chuck Ayers out of Tulsa. Chuck describes
the show on his site (where you can download programs in mp3): "Serving up
great classic jazz from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. All the small combo jazz
we play is organic, acoustic and piano-driven."
KKJZ
At KCNW we were honored to have some great air talents:
(from Guestbook 5) Erick Church said:
(from Guestbook 100) Ken Broo
said:
(from Guestbook
5) Mike Bruchas said:
KWGS - so many stories and so
many generations of folks worked there. When I was an undergrad - the success
of Bill Hyden and this new kid, Bob Losure - were cited by Ed Dumit -
on where someone could go from KWGS if they had the talent, voice and brains.
(Oh, yes - I listened to KTBA, too, I think it may have been ahead of it's
time, but I also think Bill Hyden was intuitive enough to see a trend changing
in music - to try the format.)
there - Ed Dumit or Bob Lauer worked
out a deal with TU. Minimum wage was $2.20 an hour then - we who pulled air
shifts - split the hourly wage and accepted something like $1.25 an hour
as a condition of being on-air staff.
One more before I give it up tonight. I may be one
of the only Tulsa TV guys who worked for a radio station called KOCW. This
was the predecessor of KMOD. It was owned by Claude Hill, who also
sold radio transmitters (I think the transmitters were CCA).
