Lord Jeffrey, (Jeff Diamond) came to work at KUXL in 1967, when he was about 15 years old. WDGY Jocks teamed up with professionals Ed Kalafat, Bobby Cox, Jim Springer, and Corky Devlin, possibly former Minneapolis Lakers. Photo from Judy Dibble via Rick Burnetts Twin Cities Radio Airchecks. Ive been ignoring this station because I couldnt believe that Bill and Becky Ann would ever broadcast anything resembling rock n roll, but listen to this, from an article of the TV section of the Minneapolis Tribune, September 7, 1969: Anybody who has heard WPBC in recent years might have found it ludicrous to have listed to founder-owner Bill Steward the other morning as he remembered the tough radio days of 1954 and 1955. Bobby Blue Bland might have been the first KUXL show, appearing on July 22, 1964. From an ad from May 1970: WDGYA Touch of Taste.. Below is a photo thats not too great, but hopefully shows how big the winning monster was. Those shows included: TV Forecast, October 12, 1963, courtesy Jeff Lonto. More recently, KFAN experienced severe storm damage in April 2004 at their transmission site, with four out of nine antennas at their directional array in Credit River Township (near Prior Lake, Minnesota) getting blown down. Today, the station is KTLK, News/Talk 1130, and uses a transmitter site in Credit River Township. It was Helm that people petitioned to have on the station more than anything, after trying him out on a trial basis starting in the middle of 1972. Bottom Row: Dan Halyburton, Larry E. Cummins, Jimmy Reed. I was the only one there with a GRTO [General Radiotelephone Operator license]. This has been the only transmitter location for the station since it signed on the air. By 1955 the station was starting to play covers of rock n roll in with Perry Como and Doris Day. WISK, soon to be known as KDWB, was at 630, a spot no one in the listening area had ever heard, or even heard of. At night, WDGY was very strong, but could never be received clearly. Jack Thayer had started his career here, from 1942-1951. But in Minneapolis-St. Paul a good part of the year was snowbound and it was really hard to see the billboards through all that sleet. Unfortunately, by September 1976, the programs two advertising contracts had expired, and Adams was unable to find new sponsors. Listen to our News/Talk 1130 WISN podcasts here! Although its unclear what WLOL was playing from late 1953 to mid 1955, the names of the shows are tantalizing: A playlist from August 1956 shows that it was a major early rock n roll station. Hubbards Hundred Days was the headline in late 1973.. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE, WDGY and KOMA Bumber Stickers. I took this from a flight I took in 1977. All rights reserved. The roof hadnt collapsed, but the rafters were charred black. Heres one of the dune buggies. Secret Stash indicates that Bob Smith arrived in January 1965. The facts, as reported in the newspapers and in investigative reports approximate these. Much later, in 1977, Kosofsky would transfer his shares to Miriam Warshaw. In 1954 the call sign for 1400 AM briefly changed to WMNS, reflecting a change to a full service format of music, news and sports. Airchecks from 1955 57 on www.radiotapes.com seem to indicate that the music was pretty middle-of-the-road, but they did play Hound Dog on September 7, 1956 Its #1! The station was DJ-driven, with a July 2, 1956 ad touting the Fabulous 4+1: Herb Oscar Anderson, Don Loughnane, Jack Thayer, Bill Armstrong, and Bill Bennett. KQRS was close to adopting the SuperStars format, making them a major player. On WLOL. On January 15, 1969, Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Frank C. Kent announced that Ray Moss, who had charged KUXL with discriminatory practice in employment when it discharged him, had been been restored to his position. Heres a story from Rod, taken from Bullerdash, the newsletter for KSTP Pioneers: I ran the mid-day shift from 10 AM to 2 PM. U.S. Patent . This photo was taken in 1969 after he came back to replace Rob Sherwood when he left for KDWB-AM. Program Director Sam Sherwood: I so remember how Don French was on the hot seat for getting hit by such a large prizehe and I argued: Ill take the hitno I willno no, I will and thats the way it went until the cookie picture hit the front pages of news papers across the country.THEN.we became heroes, both Don and I. Notice the Catman poster on the upper wall. CopyrightWDGY Radio. In a column dated January 24, 1954, Will Jones of the Trib called Cannon a Hep Talking radio disk jockey.. Most of them were from me. One highlight of the stations programming from about 1958 to 1973 was Leigh Kamman, whose jazz programs emanated from Freddys night club in Minneapolis and featured performances by Count Basie, Ramsey Lewis, Errol Garner, and Ella Fitzgerald. Meanwhile the station was being sold, and they moved over to KQRS (which was then KEVE) to continue playing jazz after dark fell and KUXL was off the air. It was payback time. The production room was a wreck and there was no heat in the building. The Pavek Museum of Broadcasting has radio station ratings books that list programs from 1953 to 1955. A Billboard Magazine from July 9, 1966 shows that it was a 250-watt independent station operating 15 hours/day. Courtesy Jeff Lonto. So many questions. The station was fined $10,000 in March 1961 for exceeding its authorized power in nighttime operations. Bob Allards call-in show nearly caused a riot on July 14, 1978, when he hosted Nazi Steven Martinson. He was hired to do the jazz show, but moved to take over the R&B show when that opened up. On the same day, Forrest Powers, TV and Radio reporter for the Minneapolis Star, indicated that the station would start broadcasting that weekend. KDWB went on the air on September 16, 1959, as a top 40 station. The Big 5 jocks were Bob Bradley, Leigh Kamman, Don Kelly, Steve Cannon, and Jerry Cunning. (KUXL is loaded with preachers earlier in the day, but most of them are called Brother or Doctor.) Bob tries to give away $1,428 in WeeGee Fortune Phone Cash, but is unsucessful. They used KUOM AM instead of WLOL AM because they did not want to scare away their AM Top 40 listeners by playing even only one hour of the FMs classical music. KANO was started in 1956 by Jack Lemme, who owned a radio station in Little Falls. Top Row: Step Up Movie, Steve Highsmith, Gregg Lindahl, Paul Johnson. On other pages of this site I also have some airchecks (in addition to tape from my personal collection)I obtained directly from others. After he left WDGY, he actually called me a few times from his new position in Washington DC to have me do some bits for him over the phone. In April 1957 the studio was in the Builders Exchange Building in downtown Minneapolis, and the transmitter was described as WDGY Transmitter Plant, Oxboro, Minn. On July 1, 1977, the station went from free-form to album rock. In an article in the Star dated August 3, 1977, Jon Bream called the new format commercial, superstar rock. DJs were restricted to playing a list of songs chosen by a consulting firm in Atlanta. The last listing in the paper as WMKT was April 11, 1970. The station was one of the first stations in the country to program rock and roll music in a top 40 format in the mid 1950s. In 1948 the Sepia Serenade show featured black recording stars, Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:15 to 6:45 pm. In 2014, the station began broadcasting in HD. On October 30, 2021, WDGY once again discontinued broadcasting in HD Radio. I was prensent at the studio when Jimmy and Tac coordinated play of the same record at the same time on both stations. Whatever the approach, it had to be as different as was our position on the dial. If he had opened that door, the back draft would have engulfed the engineer in flame. A policeman knocked down pregnant woman, pulled her hair, and threw her into a wall. Paul caught on fire and was off the air? KDWBs general manager at the time, Gary Stevens, claimed that they did not buy WYOO-FM to shut down a competitor, but rather to take advantage of what they saw as a good deal. Well, at least with the progressive announcers on KRSI. An undated report says KEVE did a remote broadcast from the Flame on Saturday nights from 10:30 to 11:30 pm. Merle Edwards was at WMIN from 1949-55 and had shows like Merle Edwards Caravan and Merles Mad House. Bill Diehl tells the story that a car dealer called Slawik Motors wanted to sponsor a show, but it insisted that the DJ call himself Hub Cap. The station approached Diehl, but he thought the idea was ridiculous he was a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, after all, and had a recognizable name. (Minneapolis Tribune, September 7, 1976), Pharoah Black introduced Earth Wind and Fire, with the Emotions and Wild Cherry at their October 7, 1976, concert at the Met Center. Bears' Plan For No. This left KEYD (soon to become KEVE) as the only full time C&W station. In September 1979 the station became known as Musicradio I-95, playing Album Oriented Rock/New Wave. I sent time at my grandparents lake home on Rush Lake (60 miles north of St. Paul). Never would have believed this if I hadnt seen it with my own eyes!. In addition to the ones listed below, Preacher Paul expressed an interest in booking act such as Chuck Jackson, Jimmy Reed, Junior Walker, Marv Johnson (he lost $20 on that show, he told Secret Stash), Al Green, Wilson Pickett (emceed by Lord Jeffrey), Fats Domino, the Supremes, Joe Hinton, and his pride and joy the Righteous Brothers. The decision of the police to bar the door and throw teargas into the hall was roundly criticized. But Glover was probably the most popular and well-known. The January 1973 tape is poor quality. Its a NEW concept in news coverage! Scientifically Designed Entertainment $100,000 worth of better listening Big Big Big 40,000! All on the Northwests QUALITY station. Wednesday, February 10, 1965, was the first day the newspaper schedule showed Paul Anthonys name. Collins, a transmitter company located in Peoria, Ill., I think, had a 1,000-watt transmitter and a 630 crystal. For his Masters Thesis on the history of WDGY, Jerry Verne Haines interviewed WDGY announcer Leonard D. Bart on June 15, 1970. Glover finally finally took two weeks vacation in New York City and never came back. [He became a freelance writer and contributing editor for Circus, a music magazine.]. This venerable station was around for a long time, and occasionally tried on new names, including: This page, like this website, sticks to pre-1975, and tries to focus on popular music. At the time you want it. The format was Country With A Kick. There was a three tower directional array, and a transmitter that looked more like a refrigerator. Advertising sales for the stations paled in comparison to the competition, and managing both stations became a burden for the couple, so the Stewarts sold the station in 1972 to Fairchild Industries for $1.5 million. The TV station kept WTCN. In 1967, winning a Honda might have meant just a motorbike. 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