Author: George Griggs

FROM OUR COMMERCIAL VAULT . . . PAN AM AIRLINES

From Wikipedia: Founded in 1927 as a scheduled air mail and passenger service operating between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba, Pan American World Airways became a major company credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. Identified by its blue globe logo, the use of the word “Clipper” in aircraft names and call signs, and the white pilot uniform caps, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century. In an era dominated by flag carriers that were wholly or majority government-owned, it was also the unofficial flag carrier of the United States. During most of the jet era, Pan Am’s flagship terminal was the Worldport located at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

At it’s height, Pan Am was everywhere, including it’s signature skyscraper located at 200 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Now branded with “Met Life”, it is a key part of the Manhattan skyline and one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States.

The Pan Am name surfaced again on September 25, 2011 when a television series about the airline launched on ABC.

In the ’60s and early ’70s, Pan Am spent millions on radio and television advertising, touting it’s worldwide reach and superior service. Here are three examples.

*****

PAN AMERICAN AIRLINES (a)
PAN AMERICAN AIRLINES (b)
 

Loading

WKMH-AM SPOTS: MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE! ’61

WKMH 1310 LEE ALAN and DAVE PRINCE * MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE * 1961
MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE (A)
MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE (B)
MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE (C)
MOREY’S ROYAL TWIST LOUNGE (D)

Special THANKS to Greg Innis, Livonia, MI., for this audio donation!

Loading

RADIO VOICES RECALLED: CLARK REID REMEMBERED

CLARK REID WJR 1950

Aficionados WJBK’s prime as a Top 40 radio station will remember the voice of “Good Guy” Clark Reid. Reid, who worked at WJR before he played the hits, was part of a team that included Marc Avery, Robert E. Lee, and the many personalities who took on the “Jack The Bellboy” moniker at Radio 15.

Reid never really left the business, moving to the role of marketing communications specialist with the Wilding and Ross Roy agencies, culminating with his retirement in 1991.

Clark Reid passed away on February 3, 2012, ironically, the anniversary of the “the day the music died”, when an airplane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “Big Bopper” Richardson. 

CLARK REID WJBK 1956

MCRFB remembers Clark Reid with two classic audio sound bytes from his WJBK days.

WJBK-AM 1500 * CLARK REID
WJBK-AM 1500 * CLARK REID * REID JINGLE
 

Loading

THE ‘HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL’ HITS: A TIME SWEEP!

Philip Yarbrough’s impact on Top 40 radio can’t be overemphasized. Known to just about every aspiring 60s DJ, “Bill Drake” helped refine the format to it’s bare essence, generating millions of dollars of ad revenue for legendary stations like Ron Jacob’s KHJ and Paul Drew’s CKLW, when the Detroit Top 40 station first aired the program in March 1969.

Drake’s magnum opus has to be the gargantuan “History of Rock and Roll“, a “rocumentary” that covered the rock era with a depth and detail that still sounds fresh today. The show ran for 48 straight hours when it premiered in 1969. An updated version, broadcast in 1978, clocked in at 52 hours.

One of the program’s many highlights is a time sweep, featuring the musical hooks of every Billboard Top 40 number one song from 1957 to 1977.

CKLW * HISTORY of ROCK & ROLL TIME SWEEP * 1969

Loading

UP ON THE WEBSITE: JIMMY HAMPTON RADIO RECALL!

JIM HAMPTON has had a prolific career both in front of and behind the microphone. After cutting his teeth at Flint’s WTRX, Jim worked his way toward Detroit and memorable stints at WXYZ, WABX, WJBK and WCAR before taking his act WLS in 1970.

As the years passed, Jim amassed an amazing resume as a program producer, creating literally thousands of syndicated shows for independent stations. In 1999, Jim launched Greenhouse Marketing Group, “helping the biggest brands and the hottest start-ups grow their businesses with strategic thinking and ahead of the curve marketing.”

We’re honored to showcase Jim’s talents HERE at Motor City Radio Flashbacks!

JIM HAMPTON * RADIO RECALL – HR 01 (WPON) * MEMORIAL WEEKEND 2009

 

Loading

Does Anyone Know What This Is From?

If this one sounds familiar and you can’t quite place it, here’s some help. It first turned up as the march music that introduced the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The program debuted on radio in 1944, moving to NBC when television became ubiquitous. Bob Haymes (billed as “Bob Stanton”) was the original announcer,  joined by Ray Forrest in 1948. The program covered a wide array of sporting events, but is perhaps most remembered for it’s Friday nigh boxing coverage. “Look Sharp, Be Sharp” became the show’s theme when it moved to television. If you played in a marching band in the early 50s, you probably played this one often.

The Bob Haymes and Ray Forrest combination wasn’t lost on two other radio comedians when they appropriated “Look Sharp, Be Sharp” for their act. Fans of the comedy of Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding will remember it as the theme song for Elliot’s character, Biff Burns. The faux sports reporter interviewed a plethora of Goulding’s characters from “Little Lightnin'” who was beating the drum for a professional Ring-Around-The-Rosy league, to Stuffy Hodgson, the bitter veteran ball player who couldn’t find the cheese that the younger athletes had hidden in his ball cap.

Biff Burns Sports Room was a fixture from Bob & Ray‘s earliest days on network radio, right up until their Bob & Ray Radio Show for NPR in the late 70s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i_cT_6H93s

Loading

A & W Root Beer

Roy Allen and Frank Wright are the two restauranteurs who provided the initials for A&W Root Beer a recipe that Allen concocted in 1919.  At the peak of the it’s popularity A&W had more outlets across America than did McDonalds. We remember many a summer’s evening, pulling our cars up to the A&W drive-in for a burger and that classic root beer taste that came in a glass mug with the famous orange and brown logo.

Loading

Airchex Of The Week With Kevin O’Neill

Speak of Kevin O’Neill and the feedback you’ll get is, “consummate pro”, “durable”, “one of Detroit’s best”. With a career that is now in it’s fourth decade, Kevin’s story starts at 1973 at WRBR in South Bend, Indiana. While most of us pay our dues for several years in the minors, Kevin was soon batting in the big leagues at stations like WLYT, WGAR and KULF. By 1980 he was calling Detroit home and hasn’t been out of Michigan ever since. He’s best remembered as part of the WNIC brand, concluding his stay in the morning drive slot. Like many of us, he’s a student of rock history and in this segment from his Lost Gold series, you can quickly tell he still has his chops.

KEVIN O’NEILL * LOST GOLD

Loading

A WKNR CONTACT NEWS PRESENTATION: DETROIT 1965

Once upon a time, there were authentic journalists who worked at rock radio stations.

They covered the cops, city hall and the community, asked tough questions and interpreted what they heard for the listener.

From the moment the WKNR brand launched in Dearborn, Contact News was an important part of the format. With the award winning Philip Nye at the helm, Keener Contact News was the career launching pad for some of Detroit’s greatest broadcast journalists.  George Hunter, John Maher,  Ed Mullen, Bob Neil, Erik Smith, Lou Morton, Jim Brooker and Bill Bonds all sharpened their chops on the Contact News team. Listening for what passes for radio news on most stations today, it’s hard to believe that such amazing journalism emanated from a “music station”.

At the height of WKNR’s popularity, the Contact News team produced a series of annual albums, highlighting the top news stories of the year. The project was done primarily for historical purposes and the LPs were distributed broadly to schools and libraries in the Detroit area. But many were also sold to Keenerfans. The production values stand the test of time and the content takes us back to the seismic events that were happening behind the music.

Here’s a 45 minute taste of WKNR’s own radio news coverage for the Motor City back in 1965.

WKNR-AM Philip Nye WKNR KEENER CONTACT NEWS 1965 (Play 49:37 audio)

Loading

WKNR-AM 13: BOB GREEN IS THE KEENER PHILOSOPHY

Perhaps no one more typified the WKNR sound than Bob Green. He was there before there was a Keener and was involved at both the height of WKNR’s Success and in it’s 1970 rebirth under the Motor City Music banner.

After moving to Houston and forming his own successful production company, Bob took a moment to break down the factors that were part and parcel of  “The Keener Philosophy”. It’s an object lesson on what made radio great back then and what’s wrong with the accountant driven homogenized radio that exists today.

The WKNR Bob Green narrative of The Keener Philosophy

Loading