He was program director from 1968-1971. The owner of easy listening FM station WAYL was interested in the AM operation, to simulcast WAYLs signal and expand coverage in parts of the metro area. He came with no radio training at all in fact, he was a bartender but the station executives were impressed with his verbal fluency and vast knowledge of music. No electricity. Seriously, who thought progressive rock on AM was a good idea? John Fine was also part of this tight social group. The very next day, November 13, 1963, the stations permit was approved to change its studio location and remote control point to the Golden Valley Inn, a motel at 4820 Olson Memorial Highway. Heres one of the dune buggies. That beam was so strong that the GROUNDWAVE signal made it at night in addition to the skywave signal. Meanwhile, the engineer, who had been in the tower field, returned to the building and was just seconds from opening the back door. MOST NEGRO OWNED RADIO STATIONS INSULT TO RACE IS CLAIM. During the KFMX days, one of the frequent sponsors was the Leaning Post. Bobby Blue Bland might have been the first KUXL show, appearing on July 22, 1964. I had hired Don French to be the KDWB PD. Bob tries to give away $1,428 in WeeGee Fortune Phone Cash, but is unsucessful. In the summer, you waded through chest high weeds and as important as noting the amperage, was pulling (and, for sport, counting) any number of wood ticks that would jump on you for the ride (I counted 27 one day.). Like an acid-etching, the events of that day in early December 1969 are sharp as cut crystal. I was still in high school when this photo was taken. And it is impossible to do a newspaper search on Bob Smith. He did continue to make Wolfman tapes in the Golden Valley studio and ship them to Mexico. Almost two years since her 20-year stint with KOOL 108 came to an end, Sue Falls is returning to Twin Cities airwaves. But the Country format was gaining acceptance among older baby-boomers and melding that growth with WDGYs big 50,000-watt signal gave new purpose to the station and validation to a growing, willing audience that perhaps Country musics time was coming. The station's studios and offices are in Lakeland, Minnesota, while its transmitter is off Commerce Drive near Interstate 94 in Hudson. Doubleday Broadcasting, owner of KDWB, wasnt actively seeking an FM station at the time but offered to buy 101.3 FM in February 1976 after they were offered a rather generous deal for $750,000 that included WYOO-FM and the building in Eagan that housed both stations. What we didnt realize was how much unexpected publicity we would get in the Twin City newspapers and on TV. In late 1976/early 1977, the station rebranded itself as Y-11 (never losing its WDGY call letters) and switched to a progressive rock, album-oriented format. For more on Progressive/Underground Rock, see KRSI. Kamman went to New York, but fortunately returned to present this gift to the Twin Cities. Stephen B. Labunski was made General Manager. Although its unclear what WLOL was playing from late 1953 to mid 1955, the names of the shows are tantalizing: A playlist from August 1956 shows that it was a major early rock n roll station. Sixteen pastors gathered to support this action and expressed their concern that the investigation be impartial and representative. Contacts. After a years absence, Sam Sabean was hired back as a DJ and Station Manager, but he had to have a different name, so Sherwood was arbitrarily chosen. Front row John Hines and Larry Carolla. Address : PO Box 25130 St Paul, MN 55125. One 20-year-old was arrested. Rob flew to Dallas to supervise cutting new jingles for Y100 at the media jingle production company PAMs. Bill Hartman commandeered the U of Minnesota theater production company to help create an exterior faade that would cover a small trailer to remote broadcast from the State Fair. I hope to get some late 60's clips up on the site soon. Much More Music is simply that WDGY played, and is playing, more music with the bright pace of the modern sound. An historical archive of surveys and nostalgia from radio station WDGY 1130 AM, Minneapolis / St. Paul. Probably poached from Facebook. He said Ronn the Rajah would broadcast from 1 to 2pm Monday through Friday, and then Ronn and Billy G the Prime Minister would alternate every half hour. The switch resulted in low ratings, according to an article in the Star Tribune on September 3, 1977. On June 12, 1967, the stations application to change its studio location to 5728 Wayzata Blvd. 26w; View 1 more comment. I purchased some of the WDGY airchecks from collector Arron Mintz in Maine. It was to be a program format, readily identifiable concentrating on jazz, according to Burke. In August 1957 the station claimed to be first with Twin Cities Housewives based on a telephone poll of 388 people. WPBC: No, thats not a mistake. So many questions. KDAN may not have been muchbut it provided me opportunity and a beginning. Wee Gee spins the forgotten hits, the cruisin' classics, the legendary artists. Not sure where the photo above came from. General Manager was Marlin D. Schlottman, formerly with WLOL. In a 1972 article the Insider noted the leaky roof and yellowed wallpaper at the aging studio in St. Louis Park. Tom Wynn at his current job at KFGO in Fargo ND. Last mention in news listings was on September 13, 1983. All stations will soon be equipped with an echo chamber for ON AIR use. Thats why wed like to call your attention to the music of KEEY-AM at 1400 on your standard radio dial. It was Helm that people petitioned to have on the station more than anything, after trying him out on a trial basis starting in the middle of 1972. This and other WDGY surveys can be see at the museum along with many other radio artifacts. The names of the programs may give an indication of what the station was like, apparently dispensing a lot of wisdom and advice. For airchecks and photos, a great site is: http://twincitiesradioairchecks.com/krsiandkfmx.html. The new owner of KUXL, Universal Broadcasting, had its headquarters in Shreveport, Louisiana. Legendary Call Letters and an incredible heritage. Pleased by the response to a recent project on emotionally induced illness, Skotch said the station will devote another day to the subject in the near future. Bottom Row: Dan Halyburton, Larry E. Cummins, Jimmy Reed. Now Im back to tell you about a product, guaranteed to cure an even bigger problem. Most important, WMIN had some powerhouse disk jockeys: Bill Diehl tells the story about a car dealership called Slawik Motors that wanted to sponsor a show, but insisted that the DJ call himself Hub Cap. The station approached Diehl, but he thought the idea was ridiculous he was a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press after all. . Performers included: These groups were well known in clubs like King Solomons Mines where Soul music was a staple. Jimmy also tries to give away WDGY Fortune Phone Cash to the Williams family. Once there, scroll down. BB King performed at the Marigold on September 12, 1965. So they convinced Edwards to do it and he became Merle Hub Cap Edwards. http://twincitiesradioairchecks.com/wdgy1130tapes.html. Jones explained that Lanphier was a former Milwaukee radio and TV man, and would act as the station manager as well as owner. Standing from left to right: Steve Shannon and Ed OBrien. Helen Reddy / I Am Woman: 1972-12-01: Albert Hammond / It Never Rains In Southern California: 1972-12-08: Albert Hammond . In February 2017, WDGY added another FM translator, W221BS 92.1, broadcasting from an antenna atop Wells Fargo Place in Downtown St. We Play The Hits! After the news, you will hear the Charlie and Don jingle into the music. Proceeds were to be divided between the Minneapolis and St. Paul Community Chests. How to get it to St. Paul? WDGY "The Original Rock and Roll Station" . Hubbards Hundred Days was the headline in late 1973.. WMIN was still resisting the rock n roll bandwagon in January 1957, when it was playing Easy Listening. The team could not play high school and college teams, but would go out to small towns for exhibition games. And then, nothing. And, as we all know, anything that is natures own is good for what ails you. But its also a dance session. And well supply material so that listeners can excel in certain areas of conversation.. Channel 63 was back! It was delivered in the back of a pickup truck and weighed 2,300 pounds, made with 1,010 pounds of cookie mix, 725 pounds of powdered sugar, and 172 pounds of shortening. Somewhere theres a story about how a station staffer would drive a dune buggy around town, and the listener who guessed closest to the number of miles driven at the end of the summer won the vehicle. You can see another photo of Tom Wynn and his on air partner by clicking the following web address: http://www.kfgo.com/pages/tomanddankfgo.html. What to do next? I do believe we did have the first of the top forty station two man morning shows, at least in the Twin Cities, other than CCO. The station had a conglomeration of programs, ranging from waltzes, classical, show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, Hawaiian, religious, cowboy, and novelty. The Stewarts took a rather conservative approach in programming the station. Both KFMX 104.1 and KRSI 950 am flipped to Music of Your Life as KRSI AM-FM that day, with Don Shore as the Program Director and morning host. ! Sam also remembered that the President of station owner Crowell-Collier was pretty mad, and annoyed when the guys on the golf course started calling him Cookie, but when he got to become a celebrity as the story went national, everyone job was safe. 36 years later, Im still in the radio game with more than my fair share of terrific experiences. WDGY was different pre-Beatles. Its billed as the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, complete with nine-piece band, singers Bobby John and Jimmy Thomas and a girl trio called the Ikettes. He expressed his intent to present commercial religious shows in the morning [commercial meaning they pay for the time?]. Jones explained how Schoenbohm (whom he calls Dave for some reason) and Kamman had talked the management into limited hours for jazz, and then slowly increased. Can't Get Used To Losing You - Andy Williams 5 4. Minneapolis / St. Paul radio station WDGY 1130 AM survey chart for the week of 1970-02-13. VSNN had taken over the station on a management agreement and, in reality, nobody else at VSNN wanted the PD job. I remember that the No. More recently, KFAN experienced severe storm damage in April 2004 at their transmission site, with four out of nine antennas at their directional array in Credit River Township (near Prior Lake, Minnesota) getting blown down. As a promotion, in November 1958 Jim Ramsburg cooked up the Radio Wonders basketball team. If we had to play junky music with morally degrading lyrics, wed get out of the business.. Almost everybody in the country who had anything at all ailing them, bought into the pitch. A fair portion of its signal pointed away from populated areas, making it audible only to its intended audience in South and West St. Paul. Jim Dandy, Perry St. John, Scott Burton, George Young, B. Mason Dean. KTCR signed on on April 5, 1962, as a Country station. Stephen B. Labunski was made General Manager. Humor from a local Twin City news item. In May 1961 it was purchased by Red Owl Stores, Inc. which was seeking diversified subsidiaries. Most Top 40 and Rock listening had migrated to the FM band (which had necessitated the Mighty 1130s switch in the first place.) We needed new transmitters, new phones, new carpet, new roofs, new this and new that. (Will Jones, Minneapolis Tribune). So they had to have an engineer on duty at the KRSI transmitter to change the store announcements that interrupted the music. On December 29, 1972, KUXL announced that it was abandoning rhythm & blues in favor of a telephone talk show. It wasnt until 1964 that the community could support a station that played music that was primarily by and for the black community, and by that time young white listeners were embracing black music as well. They want smooth, slick, uncluttered radio., Ad from Minneapolis/St. The station played four categories of Country: Drake-Chenaults sales manager explained that if a station tried to duplicate the format live, youd have to get supertalented country jocks, a top-notch country producer and all the other things. I was driving my yellow Toronado through the spaghetti part of I-94 in St. Paul. In September 1956 a Will Jones item in the Trib referred to WMIN as the anti-Presley station, with a DJ called Alice Presley playing Benny Goodman records. At that point, having lost the opportunity to peacefully arrest the young man, the police decided to use nightsticks to bar the door to the hall, keeping the people in. Most Top 40 and Rock listening had migrated to the FM band (which had necessitated the Mighty 1130s switch in the first place.) WeeGee tended to be a little more conservative than KDWB reportedly even their staff wore suits and ties, but that has been disputed. Tune to the wtcn 1280 signal. An ad from October 1976 describes the playlist as Folk, Jazz, Blues, Totally Album-Oriented The Fine Rock Station. DJs could play anything they liked and anything that pleased the stations audience. CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE, WDGY Donald K. Martin contributed this undated from the late 60's - early 70's. It was fun, and by then, Charlie was on the mornings, and I did the news and the bits. There were many parts of our regular signal area where we were missing. A September 21, 1958 playlist shows jocks Bob Bradley, Tom Wynn, Jim Boysen, Dan Anderson, and Sandy Singer. To this day I am still impressed that a major country western and Grand Ole Opry star would drive all the way out to Anoka just to visit with someone who played country-western music for only 55 minutes a day. in the Minneapolis northwest terminal district practically from scratch, and most of the personnel acted as stockholders, officers of the corporation, and on-air talent. They also played some Whoopie John and Frankie Yankovic for the polka crowd. WISK, soon to be known as KDWB, was at 630, a spot no one in the listening area had ever heard, or even heard of. On August 30, 1968, a concert and dance was held at Stem Hall at the St. Paul Auditorium, emceed by Jack Harris, a/k/a KUXL disc jockey Daddy Soul. This is WWTC Spectrum. Meanwhile, the Mayor and others defended the actions of the police and laid the blame squarely on the mob.. The stations R&B programming had averaged about two hours daily during recent months when the stations sign-off time local sunset had been late afternoon. In September 1962 it was advertised as the only all news station in the country. WDGY 1130 Tapes This Site Primarily Contains a Collection of Airchecks of Numerous Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Phone : (651) 436-4000. . It was KFMX from 1974 to 1979. WTCN Radios history goes back to September 1934, and even further back if you count its predecessors, but Ill just start with the 1950s. Brother Al Tedesco wanted to call it WPIG or WHOG, but Vic protested the barnyard connotation. In about November 1973, the WMIN call letters moved to 1010kc (formerly polka and country station WJSW). The manager was Roger D. Wilson, and in an ad for sales people he called the station Katy Radio.. I sure miss those days. In the meantime, Rob flew to Dallas to recut the jingles. For his Masters Thesis on the history of WDGY, Jerry Verne Haines interviewed WDGY announcer Leonard D. Bart on June 15, 1970. In an interview given for the Rondo Oral History Project of the Minnesota Historical Society, Yusef Mgeni remembered that KUXL was a strange hybrid type of station. The station was owned by the Peoples Broadcasting Company, founded by former WCCO announcer Bill Stewart and his wife Becky Ann. Matchbook images courtesy Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, In July 1948, Chuck Mulkern had a fifteen-minute show called Hillbilly Hits.. broadcasters Kenneth Wilson (standing) and Albert Vant Flash Washington, dated to the 1940s, suggests that R&B was available at least part time to listeners in Minneapolis. Proceeds would go to a charity mutually agreed upon by the two teams. In aSeptember 2006 email Tom sent to me, he states he has been on the air for 48 years and is currently at KFGO in Fargo doing a morning news/talk show. On September 2, 1951, the station sponsored a concert by the Blind Boys, advertised in the Minneapolis Spokesman. ARSA: ABOUT: SURVEYS: STATIONS: 1970-02-13 WDGY 1130 AM ( Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota ) TW LW ARTIST TITLE WKS NOTES; 1: 4 : Sly & The Family Stone: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) 1: 4 : Sly & The Family Stone: Everybody Is A Star: 2: 1 : In April 1973 there was an ad for WWTC Spectrum, If youre not thrilled with KSTP, WYOO, KEEY, or WLOL. All things to all people, apparently: Every twenty minutes its a different color of spectrum. In August 1927, WDGYs transmitter was moved to Superior Blvd. The original call sign for the station's construction permit was WAOZ, but the station was never on the air with those call letters. Haines wrote: Rock and roll had a difficult entry into the Twin Cities market. In the first few months of operation, I would guess that WDGY probably lost as much money per month as any station in the history of radio. Airchecks and other cool things are available at: KQRS-AM first signed on as KEYD, billed as Family Broadcasting, 1948. (Minneapolis Star, October 18, 1966) Interestingly, the name of the act was never mentioned in the news reports. Our normal 5,000 watt, 6 tower, highly directional radio station was now a 1,000-watt non-directional radio station. Photo courtesy St. Paul Police Historical Society. In January 1957 Will Jones of the Trib said that the station claimed that classical music has doubled its nighttime ratings in a matter of a few weeks. Kamman left for New York in 1950. Rhythm. Here was a country station, WCOW, and on Saturday afternoon and evening, along came Mr. you dont have to listen to rock and roll! It was Storzs fourth station. But we also know that the Key Room program featured live performances by Augie Garcia, the Godfather of Twin Cities Rock n Roll, performing jump blues in 1954-55 from the River Road Club in Mendota. WDGY was certainly a much different station pre-Beatles than it was as the 60's progressed. The new schedule kept the morning religious shows, which did have sponsors and paid the bills. The fact of the matter is that 40 records plus a few extras (or extra commercials) conveniently fit into the three 55 minute periods that made up each afternoons Top 40 Show. He also says that the concept of only playing 40 records was blasphemy in the business. (The top 40 announcers were a different breed, and we had little to do with each other off-the-air.). Although they play the jingle "The Music's on Us" you will hear a little more talk compared to the typical WDGY music format. Some of the airchecks are off reel to reel tapesthat were recorded off the air by the web site creator. Beatles Concert Photos of the Fab Four in 1966 with local radio talend from Cleveland's WIXY radio - Note a young Johnny Canton and Jerry Brooke who both went on to work at WDGY. The radios had to be placed at one end of a room 6-8 feet apart and the listener had to stand about 10-15 feet away. In the summer of 1973 KSTP entered the top-40 competition with rapid-fire disk jockeys playing records in uninterrupted clusters. Will Jones reported that the ads were recorded by Dudley LeBlanc, the former Louisiana politician who sold Hadacol years ago. Shapira wrote about how difficult it was to sustain a jazz show in Minneapolis, and how Johnson, first hired early in 1971 to do the news, wanted to give it a try. July 30, 1965: Talkative Tina Turner, who interrupts her love songs to give long, impassioned discourses on life and love in the middle of rhythm-and-blues records played mostly on KUXL, will be at Minneapolis Auditorium Sunday night. WDGY, Rock and Roll Oldies Radio, playing the best oldies of the 1960s and 1970s for the Twin Cities! Johnny is on the rear of the bike. The caption to the photo below, from Minnesota Music magazine, 1980, reads. The contributed recordings fromfriends and contributors of both airchecks and other material are greatly appreciated. Rock continued to do well in Minneapolis in the eighties. The Beatles, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, ZZ Top, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Ike & Tina Turner, The Who, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana, Billy Joel, The Doobie Brothers, The Steve Miller Band, The Beach Boys, Van Morrison, The Animals, Guess Who, Neil Diamond, Herman's Hermits, The Supremes, Sam and Dave, Stevie Wonder, The Four Seasons, Blood Sweat and Tears, The Allman Brothers, Johnny Rivers, Sonny and Cher, The Moody Blues, The Spinners, Grand Funk Railroad, Three Dog Night, The Box Tops, Chicago, Electric Light Orchestra and the list goes on. Selby and Avon Streets. And it was Snyder Drug Stores. WDGY was certainly a much different station pre-Beatles than it was as the 60's progressed. In 1951 Ray Christenson was voted the most popular classical and semi-classical disk jockey in the State of Minnesota. At the time, Ray was also teaching diction to the students of Helen Stefan Model and Finishing School. First you will hear the turkey gobble sound indicating listeners should call Johnny to be a part of the WDGY Turkey Shoot. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE, This photo was taken as the car pulls into the driveway on a Richfield winter day. Suddenly it was true, 63 thats easy to remember. This was a fun station. Bottom Row: Dan Halyburton, Larry E. Cummins, Jimmy Reed. Theairchecks on this not for profit web site were recorded off the air. It was then owned by Todd Storz, one of the pioneers in programming to the baby boom generation with music that theretofor had been rarely heard on "white" radio stations. KUXL hosted the Impressions at the Marigold Ballroom on January 22, 1967. The switch was preceded by a five minute retrospective radio collage of the history of WDGY, and the first song played was John Denvers Thank God Im a Country Boy.. It was Percy Faith type music. In the September 1971 Insider, reviewer Will Shapira profiled W. Amos Johnson, who did a two-hour jazz show on KUXL each Sunday. Heres the story from Jim Stokes: KRSI originated Red Owl Stores storecast from their transmitter on what is called subcarrier. You can look it up. Call sign: WDGY Frequency: 740 AM City of license: Hudson, WI Format: Oldies Owner: WRPX Area Served: Minneapolis-St. Paul Sister stations: 94.9 El Rey Contact Address: 300 St Croix Trail S, Lakeland, MN 55043 Phone: (651) 436-4000 So far, they say, they havent found one. There were fire trucks everywhere. On November 16, 1965, the 2:00 listing in the newspaper for KUXL simply read R&B Express., Apparently the scene with the Fourteen Foxes didnt last too long. Unlike most metropolitan areas, the Twin Cities did not have a black radio station in the 1940s or 50s. Unfortunately the photos arent dated, but we do know that the band formed in 1954 when Augie returned from Korea. Other Facebook stories of the strength of the transmission: In 1952 the station was sold to a group of four local businessmen, one of which was Clarence T. Hagman. And when youre there, youre a celebrity. The Twins management got riled at the implications that its star catcher and other players were hanging around a saloon, and protested, so the Preacher toned it down. Today, the station is KTLK, News/Talk 1130, and uses a transmitter site in Credit River Township. The transmitter was destroyed by fire on February 23, 1933 and the station operated with WCCOs old transmitter. By the 1960s, the station didn't use the name itself, but the name stuck among people in the radio industry for many years to come. 1936 ad below courtesy Jeff Lonto. The last listing in the paper as WMKT was April 11, 1970. ! and the association never quit from New York to LAIt was the most visible thing we ever did..!!! KANO was located in Anoka, with the studio and tower located on a gravel road just north of the Anoka County Fairgrounds in present-day Ramsey. 1130 AM; Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. After a couple of changes the call letters became WDGY (Dr. George Young) in 1926. Station Frequency Format . WDGY, Rock and Roll Oldies Radio, playing the best oldies of the 1960s and 1970s for the Twin Cities! They both became enamored with an air check album that contained KFRC, the San Francisco powerhouse. It was a very high energy top 40 presentation featuring Dr. Don Rose and Ed OBrien. Program directors like me used the more exclusive Gavin Report from Bill and Janet Gavin in San Francisco. I sent time at my grandparents lake home on Rush Lake (60 miles north of St. Paul). Thats what caused the severe distortion, despite registering a 4 on my Wards Airline signal strength scale of 1 to 5. The only coordination was (sometimes) the Pick Hit of The Week as a freebie to a record maker.. Dr. Young died in 1945 and the station was transferred to the Twin City Broadcasting Corporation 1946. The format on the 500 watt station was folksy to the point where it may have out-folksied WCCO. Top Row: Step Up Movie, Steve Highsmith, Gregg Lindahl, Paul Johnson. Al, Nick, and Vic Tedesco, photo courtesy Pavek Museum of Broadcasting. Don Martin_________________________________________Thanks Don for letting me share on the site. Not all of the airchecks on this site were in my original personal collection. As the tower hit, a light fixture fell and narrowly missed Bob Morgan, who was on the air talking about the weather..
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