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In
the early 1960s, hit songs either came through the gas-filled tubes
in your car radio, a plug-in, toaster-size plastic device with round
dials for tuning and volume control or a battery powered transistor
radio only slightly smaller than a cereal box.
Like the distant signal of a far-away station bouncing off the ionosphere,
for millions of Boomers radio memories fade in and out – sound waves
converted to memory messages traveling from neuron to neuron in our
brain.
My first recollection of commercial radio dates to the early 1950s,
when my grandparents seldom missed an evening episode of “One Man’s
Family,” a soap opera. If we were traveling in Central,
South or West
Texas, they usually caught the show over San
Antonio’s venerable WOAI, a clear-channel, 50,000 watt station.
Granddad liked WOAI’s news as well, though he also listened to the
Lyndon Johnson family’s KTBC, a then 5,000-watt station. Indeed, most
Austinites started their day with Cactus Pryor and his family broadcasting
from their house.
When traveling in North
Texas, Granddad listened to WFAA and WBAP, powerful stations based
in Dallas and Fort
Worth. Until 1970, they shared the same frequency, alternating
during the day. The beginning of WBAP’s airtime was signaled by the
ringing of a cowbell.
Whatever my grandparents wanted to listen to was fine with me until
I became a teenager. From then on, it was a fight for control of the
dial.
On the road, if approaching Big D, I’d reach over and switch from
staid WFAA or WBAP to KLIF, Gordon McLendon’s pioneer Top 40 station.
That may have been the first time I heard the Trashmen doing “Surfin’
Bird.” |
Well... Everybody's
heard about the bird
Bird bird bird, bird is the word
Bird bird bird, bird is the word
Well…Everybody's heard about the bird
Bird bird bird, bird is the word |
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My well-into-his-60s
granddad had not heard about the bird and did not care to. Declaring
he couldn’t stand “that racket” any longer, he’d switch back to
WBAP or WFAA, whichever happened to be broadcasting at the time.
As soon as practicable after his attention went back to his driving,
I’d ease the indicator back to KLIF or whatever other Top 40 station
happened to be in range until he noticed again.
In Austin, the Top 40
station was KNOW, 1490 “on your dial.” In the early 1960s, it had
only 500 watts of power and did not even stay on the air around
the clock. But it was a vital part of any Capital City teenager’s
life.
The station’s jingle is burned into my brain: “K…N…O…Double U, the
station with the happy difference.”
Of course, occasional unhappy differences had to be reported. On
Aug. 1, 1966, I was enjoying “My Baby Does the Hanky-Panky” when
KNOW’s news department (yes, radio stations actually reported local
news back then) interrupted the song with a pre-recorded “Bulletin,
Bulletin, K…N…O…W News Bulletin.”
Then a radio newsman reported someone shooting on the University
of Texas campus, first word that sniper Charles Whitman had gunned
his way to the top of the UT Tower and was at that moment effortlessly
picking off people below with his scoped .243 rifle. That tragedy
ended the music for 16 people, but after the mourning, we were again
enjoying that summer’s hits.
Top 40 is what we listened to on the way to high school, what we
listened to as we studied after school and what we listened to on
dates. KNOW even had a canned jingle to remind UT students that
it was almost time to have your date back at the dorm, such facilities
back then having strict curfews for co-eds.
Any teenager in the mid-1960s who knew the difference between Paul
McCarthy and Hank Williams also knew where to find a Top 40 station
in whatever part of Texas they might be passing through. For Southeast
Texas, KILT in Houston
reigned as rock and roll king. Headed to South Padre? San
Antonio’s KTSA got us fairly far, then Corpus
Christi had a station and finally, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley,
there was aptly named KRIO.
Late in the Johnson administration, I moved to San
Angelo to go to college and work as a reporter for the Standard-Times.
To my horror, that town did not have a 24-hour Top 40 station, only
a low-wattage (in more ways than one) daylight-only station. Given
that one local church was vigorously collecting sinful Beatles records
to destroy, this did not come as too much of a surprise.
A year later, in the same vein, a Top 40 station in El
Paso banned any records by Bob Dylan because management said
they couldn’t understand what he was saying and suspected that if
they could, it would be dirty. Just like “Louie, Louie” and its
obvious hidden meaning.
That righteous El
Paso station may as well have been on another planet in terms
of picking it up in San
Angelo, but happily, I quickly discovered the local alternative:
KOMA radio in Oklahoma City. Another 50,000-watter, at night its
signal came in loud and strong across much of West Texas. It was
a far more entertaining radio station than the local operation,
but the music faded at sunrise.
Now, of course, the music of the 50s and 60s has faded from the
airwaves in general. Some stations offer Golden Oldies sandwiched
between ads touting plastic surgery clinics and herbal formulas
said to have the same effect on aging male boomers as Nancy Sinatra
once did, but most Baby Boomers in the mood for the sounds they
grew up with have to go to live streaming sites via their smart
phones.
Science tells
us that a radio wave never dies, it just keeps oscillating into
foreverness. Maybe someday, some distant civilization will come
to realize that “Everybody’s heard about the bird…”
© Mike Cox
February 19, 2015 column
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