Detroit’s Tom Clay Suggests Single Broadcast Day Themed With Music’s Past; Day’s Events
DETROIT — Tom Clay, WQTE, Detroit, suggest that stations utilize a program idea he calls “Flashback.”
He writes: “You turn back the pages of time . . . say October 27, 1944. For one whole day you broadcast as you would have on that day. Your copy department writes hypothetical commercials or — better yet — you local sponsors turn back their prices to that day.
TOM CLAY photographed during a live remote show, WQTE-AM 560, 1960.
For info as to and events of the date check your local library (one week prior date chosen). Find out what movies were playing, info on sugar, rationing stamps, car pools, etc. Your news and sports of that particular date should be pre-recorded.
If you want some fantastic news inserts get the album ‘Hear It Now,’ with talks by the late F.D.R., etc. Your jocks should read requests from the boys overseas . . . play the music that was popular then. You’ll get a kick out of playing a record by Frank Sinatra and quipping: ‘Just a fad with the kids. He’ll never last.’
On my show, during ‘Flashback,’ I read off lists of names of boys who were killed in action. Then I said: ‘I wonder how soon we will forget — 5, 10 or 15 years from now? Our switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree.” END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; October 31, 1960)
ADDENDUM: A previous MCRFB June 2, 2012 post on Tom Clay, ‘CLAY LEAVES WQTE-AM POST September 26, 1960 has been updated. To view update (see post Addendum), gohere.
NEW YORK — Now that the payola crises has abated, many displaced deejays have relocated — and at least one — Tom Clay of Detroit — is aggressively rooting for the old days when a disk jockey was king and could make or break a record.
In a letter to the trade, Clay (fired from WJBK, Detroit, last November on payola charges and now spinning records at WQTE, Detroit) lamented, “What’s happening to the day when we were really deejays and we would really make rounds of distribs for new records, get exited and predicted overnight smashes, make the charts instead of following them, play a record seven times in a row, and get people to buy the record the same day? So we had a little trouble in our biz. Are we going to crawl up in a shell and sit on our fat fannies and let the deejay die?”
Famed controversial Detroit deejay Tom Clay, pictured here in 1964.
Clay addressed special pleas to top jocks like Bill Randle, WERE, Cleveland; Howard Miller, WIND, Chicago; and Frank Ward, Atlanta. “You could tie the city in knots again,” he told Randle, “Forget teaching school. Teach the Cleveland deejays what real deejays are.” To Miller he said, “Remember when you got kicks doing shows? Are you getting too much rich making what you are doing now?”
Addressing the trio as a whole, he added, “Let’s swing again — a bunch of deejays that made their mark going out on a limb, predicting records. Now wait for it to show up on a chart… Forget your pretty voices and prestige — let’s get some excitement back in radio.”
Clay, who apparently evinces no sensitivity over his payola-headline days, concluded his letter to the trade (headed “Detroit’s No. 1 Deejay Has His Say”) with the following line: if you have any records you’d like auditioned send them. Remember, I too, was a “record consultant.”“Am I being funny? No.”
Although WQTE had said it was taking programming out of the hands of the deejays when it launched it’s new “Fabulous 56” format this June, Clay claims he is programming his own show. At any rate, he said he played Tommy Leonetti’s Atlantic waxing of “Without Love” for “45 minutes straight,” and predicted it would be “a smash hit.”
Clay exudes complete confidence in his ability to predict hits, undaunted by the fact that in a recent newsletter he informed Colonel Tom Parker that Elvis Presley’s second post-GI single was a complete bomb. The disk in questioned — released three weeks ago — is now No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Meanwhile, other displaced deejays have also relocated, but are somewhat more reticent about the whole thing. Alan Freed and Mel Leeds, ex-WINS, New York program directors, are at KDAY, Los Angeles. Chuck Young, ex-KYW Cleveland music librarian, is presently working for Cosnat Distributors in Cleveland.
Stan Richards, ex-WORL, Boston, is at WINS in New York. Joe Smith, another ex-WORL spinner, is sales promotion manager for Hart Distributors in Los Angeles. Joe Finan, ex-KYW, Cleveland, is rumored to be returning to that city at WHK. Peter Tripp, ex-WMGM, New York, is reportedly set to go to KFWB in Hollywood. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; August 8, 1960)
Former ‘Payola’ Jock Abruptly Leaves Detroit Station
Tom Clay on a WQTE remote broadcast in Detroit, 1960
Detroit — Deejay Tom Clay, who figured prominently in the payola fracas last year, has left WQTE here. “It was a question of who was going to run the radio station,” explained WQTE owner-manager Ross Mulholland.“He didn’t fit in with station policy.”
However, Mullholland said he regretted Clay’s leaving because he was “probably the hardest working man in the business I’ve ever known” and rating on his 3 – 6 p.m. show had risen rapidly since Clay joined WQTE in June. The executive emphasized that “there was no hint of payola” behind Clay’s departure.
Station’s policy calls for management to program all disks, whereas Clay wanted to pick his own disk lineup, according to Mullholland. There was also a conflict over policy on record hops and remotes, Mullholland says, which Clay conducted recently on an extended basis. Clay’s time slot on WQTE has been taken over by Harv Morgan immediately upon Clay’s departure here. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; September 26, 1960)
Addendum (UPDATED; April 11, 2014): Tom Clay’s departure from WQTE, as this Billboard, September 26, 1960 article implied, was found to be in error. Tom Clay was actually still at WQTE through June, 1961, as was evident in a brief note found in the July 10, 1961 issue of Billboard —
‘ T O M C L A Y L E A V E S W Q T E ‘
DETROIT — Apologies to Tom Clay for our story of three months ago which he said he had left WQTE, Detroit. Clay, a good sport about the whole thing, writes, “You guys jumped the gun in your story. I didn’t leave three months ago.” However, he adds, he is leaving WQTE now. In a “swan song” newsletter to the trade — tagged “My Side Of The Story” — Clay has some fascinating info to report about his adventures with WQTE management, record hops, promotions, etc.
At any rate, the official story is that WQTE is switching to a “good music policy” and “name” deejays (Clay) that don’t fit into the picture. Clay is currently open to offers again, and free-lance record programmer Bill Gavin rumored in his newsletter last week that the jock may move into Alan Freed’s vacated 1-4 p.m. time slot at KDAY, Los Angeles. END
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(– Billboard; July 10, 1961)
ALSO — MORE ON TOM CLAY (Billboard; September, 1960)
‘ C L A Y O P E N S O N P A Y O L A ‘
DETROIT — Tom Clay, (WQTE) Detroit, gives his views on payola in his recent newsletter and the results make for some fascinating reading. For example — referring to a recent Billboard story about payola –Clay opines: “So no they’re (record distributors and manufacturers) complaining they have to wine and dine and romance deejays — get them tickets to shows, etc. Don’t we even deserve this? Is this also forbidden? If taking a deejay to dinner is romancing us than they have a lot to learn about love.”
In another paragraph he (Clay) notes: “How do we actually stop money payments to jocks? You don’t. As long as you’re stupid enough to give it to them you’ll have takers. Why don’t you use your head instead of your money? Instead of complaining jocks are still on the take — do something. Put out more good records and fewer pieces of junk. Start promoting cleverly. Use every legit gimmick in the book. Get back some excitement.”END
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1960
