Keener’s Swingin’ Sweeney may have had more that his fill when he quit in August 1965. Bob Green, left, looks on.
DETROIT — Frank Sweeney, music director and morning air personality on WKNR “Keener 13” radio, resigned Saturday, August 14, after completing his morning show.
Frank Maruca, program director at the station, said that Paul Cannon, former all-night talent at the Top 40 station, has been named music director. Jim Jeffries of sister station WKFR in Battle Creek, Michigan, has been brought in to handle chores on a temporary basis.
Maruca said Sweeney had been planning to give up his air time on August 23 to devote himself strictly to music director duties. He did not give any reason for Sweeney’s abrupt resignation from the Detroit station. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 21, 1965)
DETROIT FREE PRESS: “Who? Swingin’ Sweeney That’s Who!”
(Above WKNR ad courtesy freep.com newspapers archive. Copyright 2017; Newspapers.com).
A MCRFB Viewing Tip: On your PC? For a larger detailed viewclick image 2x and open to second window. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size.
Click your server’s back button to return to MCRFB home page.
On your mobile device? Tap on image. Open to second window. Take your index finger and thumb and “stretch” across the featured article to magnify for larger print view.
Missed any previous ‘Detroit Radio Back-Pages’ features?GO HERE.
WKNR Flashback: WKNR Music Guide December 24, 1964(click on image for larger view)
DETROIT— The impact of the newly formed WKNR (formerly WKMH) is being felt in the Detroit market with the station less than two months into its new Top 30 fare.
The station–long associated with soft instrumental music–was reformatted and reorganized to a Top 30 plus-one sound by consultantMike Joseph (newly-appointed vice-president, NBC-owned stations)and is staffed by Sam Holman (formerly of WABC), Mort Crowley (a KHJ, Hollywood alumnus), Robin Seymour, (veteran Detroit radio stalwart) and Gary Stevens, among others.
The station, which was in 9th or 10th place in the market several months ago, is now reporting that its morning ratings have doubled while the afternoon number have tripled. It was also revealed by WKNR that it is now tied for third place in the market during weekdays and has moved into second place on Saturdays.
Detroit is perhaps the only city in the country where there is a four-way battle among pop-music formatted stations in the market. Leading giants of the area are Storer-owned WJBK (Radio 1500); ABC-owned WXYZ (Radio 1270), and RKO’s 50,000-watter CKLW (Radio 800), located just across the border in Windsor, Ontario.
WKNR Flashback: WKNR Music Guide December 31, 1964 (click on image for larger view)
WKNR has launched a major promotional campaign in conjunction with its new programming. One hundred and five thousand two-color school book jackets are being distributed through local drive in restaurant and doughnut shop chains. A (WKNR) pop music list entitled, “Music Guide,” is being handled by 130 retailers of phonograph records (majority record shops) with 50,000 surveys printed each week. Ninety-seven Cunningham Drug Stores are distributing two and a half million serialized match books which are tied in with a WKNR on-the-air contest which has a basic $13 jackpot with $1 being added each hour the prize is not claimed. The station also effected a link with the 77 Kroger food markets in the area for a forthcoming giveaway of Top Value Stamps.
On January 31, the station will co-sponsor with the Ford Motor Company, the 17th annual March of Dimes to take place at the Light Guard Armory, located on 4400 E. Eight Mile in Detroit. Ford will be displaying several of their custom and experimental car products during the two-day benefit event ending Feb., 1st. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; January 11, 1964)
A MCRFB Note
During the two-day WKNR March Of Dimes event at The Eight Mile Armory, dance and entertainment was also provided by WKNR and Ford Motor Company, attended by some of the top record acts of that time, hit-makers and recognized popular artists both on the national and local level here in 1963 – 1964.
On the billing during the two Keener 13 March Of Dimes dates: Johnny Nash; The Riveras; Santo and Johnny; Jamie Coe and the Gigolos; Eddie Holland; Timmy Shaw; Tony Clarke; Gino Washington; Tommy Frontera; The Coronados; Timmy Shaw; The Adorables; Dee Edwards; Chris Peterson and more . . . to be there, what a memorable event that must have been! — MCRFB.COM
A MCRFB NEWS brief: 1964
Mort Crowley Laments Quitting WKNR In 1964
WKNR-AM * Mort Crowley Quits Keener 13 * FEBRUARY 1964
CHICAGO — Detroit’s “Bad Boy” Mort Crowley who hit the front pages by quitting on the air at WKNR has since become the model of deportment. Mort joined Storz-owned WDGY, Minneapolis, in July 1964 and moved to St. Louis with Storz’s KXOG last January (1965). Mort told Billboard by phone he hopes to regain the ground he lost by his mistake and noted: “Thank God, I have an opportunity to do it.”END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; July 17, 1965)
Addendum: Here’s the WKNR “Key Men of Music” line-up for January, 1964: Mort Crowley, 5 AM – 9 AM; Robin Seymour, 9 AM – 12 Noon; Jerry Goodwin, Noon – 3 PM; Gary Stevens, 3 PM – 7 PM; Bob Green, 7 PM – 12 Midnight; Bill Phillips, 12 Midnight – 5 AM.
Frank (Swingin’) Sweeney, formerly program director and air personality at WKBN, Youngstown, Ohio, replaced Mort Crowley for the morning-drive at WKNR in February, 1964. Besides doing mornings on Keener 13, Sweeney was music director at WKNR from August, 1964 through August, 1965, terminated when he abruptly quit on WKNR — as did Crowley — whom he replaced. When Sweeney left in August of ’65, Dick Purtan immediately became the new morning rise on Keener 13 through December, 1967. Purtan left WKNR in January, 1968 for WBAL-AM in Baltimore. Just two months later he would return back to Detroit radio on WXYZ-AM, March, 1968.
Mort Crowley — According to an obit-article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dated April 2, 1995, Mort Crowley passed away at his home in Miquon, Wisconsin, Thursday, March 30, 1995. He died after a lengthy bout battling prostate cancer. Mort Crowley was 63.
Recording Industry’s Record Personnel, Station Management cited for ‘Communication Blackout’ by Frank L. Sweeney, Promotion Director; Monument Records
NEW YORK — The recording music industry is suffering from a tremendous lack of understanding between record personnel (simply known in the industry as “record men”) and radio people at the management level, according to Frank L. Sweeney, former music director at WKNR, now national promotion director with Monument Records and Sound Stage 7 Records. Sweeney (known as Swingin’ Sweeney on the air in Detroit) left WKNR mid-August to join Monument Records.
“I don’t think most record people truly know how radio station people operate — and conversely, more so — precious few people at the management level understand the record business. I would like to see better liaison at the management level between the radio and record industry,” he said. “When I call at a station, besides the music librarian and the program director, I’d like to see the station manager. After all, I represent an industry which supplies him with 87.7 per cent of his product — the percentage of programming that’s based on records.”
Frank L. Sweeney, former WKNR air-personality in 1965.(Photo cropped from back of a 1965 “Keener 13” music guide).
Sweeney felt that many radio men had a generally low regard for record people that wasn’t warranted. “This relationship between radio and the record industry just sort of grew — like Topsy.” That is why he believes that a national promotion man today has to be very aware of public relations. “I want to call on a station, to get to know everybody there, even if I don’t have a record to plug with me. I want the station to think constantly, and favorably, of Monument. I want to create a new image for me and Monument — we’re sort of synonymous now. I would hope that myself, as an air-personality going into the record industry, might contribute to a better understanding between the two businesses.”
The Problem with radio, he said, is that on most modern radio stations which program the Top 40 format, the only criteria used in programming a particular record is sales… not the merit of the record itself. “We’re feeding an industry it’s programming — and free.” He said he’d once figured that an ordinary station had used roughly $2,700 in records during a year at retail prices. It isn’t that the record industry is supporting broadcasters… $2,700 probably means little over-all in broadcasting costs over a year’s time, he felt. The wrong is that station managers very seldom pays that much attention to what their station is playing. It’s immaterial to a large number of them.
“Management in radio are good hard-working people. But the truth is most of them had their basic training in sales rather than music. Some of management have precious little knowledge of programming. They say ‘Hell, we’ll play top 40’ and we’ll either do one of two things: Hire a young man whose basic job is not programming, but tabulating. Or get an old pro and turn everything over to him.
“But either way, there’s very little communication, or a lack of, between management and the man who does the programming.” The old cliche about radio stations not being in business to sell records may be, or may not be, true, he said. “But it was the choice of radio stations that records be used as the bulk of their product.”
To improve public relations between record companies and the radio business, Sweeney feels he’ll have to spend a lot of time on the road. “I can’t say the things I’ve said, and then hang around Detroit (his present headquarters) or in Nashville (headquarters of Monument Records)…. I’ve got to get out and see radio people — hopefully not only those who program the music, but the managers themselves.”END
(Information and news source: Billboard; December 11, 1965).
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1965
