Category: Bill Drake

BILL DRAKE: ‘POP RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ OCTOBER, 1969

'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 (A.)
PART 1: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ a.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 [ b.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
PART 1: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ b.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 [ c.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
PART 1: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ c.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
 

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BILL DRAKE: ‘POP RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ OCTOBER, 1969

'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 [ d.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
PART 2: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ d.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 [ e.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
PART 2: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ e.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
'RADIO'S TOP JOCK' True Magazine, October, 1969 [ f.] (Click image 2x for largest view)
PART 2: ‘RADIO’S TOP JOCK’ True Magazine October, 1969 [ f.] (Click image 2x for largest view)

Addendum: For more on Bill Drake, CKLW RKO Radio on MCRFB.COM, see: ‘Detroit Radio Wars: CKLW Hires Bill Drake And Paul Drew; April 8, 1967‘ and ‘CKLW No. 1 In Detroit! November 4, 1967.’ (Above article property/courtesy Georgia Radio Hall of Fame).

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DETROIT RADIO WARS: CKLW HIRES BILL DRAKE AND PAUL DREW . . . APRIL 8, 1967

From the MCRFB news archives:

CKLW HIRES DREW, IN STEPS TO TUMBLE DETROIT LEADER WKNR

 

 

 

 

 

DETROIT — CKLW, the 50,000-watt RKO General operation here, has brought in Paul Drew as program director and will soon launch an all-out campaign against market-leader WKNR. Drew, former program director at WQXI in Atlanta, has slated May 1 as the day to bow with the station’s new sound — “Fun Radio.”

Paul Drew, the legendary program-director at CKLW in 1967

“Fun Radio” will include a jingles package that was custom made for the station’s and “for the sound I’m looking for,” Drew said.

Prior, there has been talk that Bill Drake, a programming consultant, was going to the station. Drake has set the program for RKO’s KHJ in Los Angeles and also revamped entirely San Francisco’s KFRC — both highly successful today in their markets. Though Drew would not commit himself, every indication is that he’ll use the same template/model that had been programmed at the two leading West Coast stations.

What will be in use will be the same playlist, rule-of-play with a shortened record format. “We’ll play whatever is necessary to play the hits, but the playlist will fluctuate.” This will not eliminate the playing of new records by new artists, evidently, as the station had played on the air about a week ago with “Sunshine Girl” by the Parade, a new record which had been introduced to the station by A&M Records promotion man Don Graham.

Already, CKLW has begun a sort of sneaky promotion campaign, in wake of their intent in placing the station at the top in the Detroit market with no holds barred. WJR, the easy listening outlet in Detroit, as long billed itself as “The Great Voice of the Great Lakes.” CKLW has aired the slogan: “The Choice of the Great Lakes.” WKNR, the leading Hot 100-formatted station in the market, is promoting a concert with Paul Revere & The Raiders on April 8. CKLW had bought a large section of front-row seats to the show and will be giving them away for free to listeners on the air, a ploy in part of the station’s ongoing blitz from the station’s promotion department.

 (Information and news source: Billboard; April 8, 1967).

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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

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