How I got started in radio.
My big break in radio was one of those times I was in the right place at the right time.
It was my sophomore year in High School and I had talked my way into being invited into the Explorer Boy Scout group that was learning about radio. One local announcer named Tom East had agreed to mentor the scouts and let them help out with little things around the station. The station was KITE radio which played what we called Middle-of-the-Road format. Think of the music that people listened to in country clubs at the time. Lots of Frank Sinatra for example.
KITE was part of a two station company and the other station was KEXL which played outlaw country. Yep, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, ZZ Top and others. KEXL was an experiment and was never supposed to make any money. It was a big tax write off for Doubleday Broadcasting. They made all the big money with KITE.
Basically the scouts and I were free labor for a lot of the things that the announcers didn’t want to mess with. Running records to and from the library, filling out paperwork and getting them food and drinks when they wanted. In return we got to watch and learn how the station worked. When I wasn’t helping with KITE stuff I was over in the KEXL studio listening to the the music my friends an I liked, and got to know the way things worked over there as well.
I worked on my delivery and eventually was allowed to help give news reports on the air at KITE. That summer I was spending a lot of time at the station and was getting pretty good as being a newsman.
Then one morning an engineer ran into the break room and shouted “Does anyone know how to run the KEXL board?” Meaning did any of us know how to play music and things. I said I did and he told me to get in there and play something because the station was silent and the announcer was missing.
I ran down the hall and into the studio. Sure enough, empty and quiet. So I grabbed the next record off the stack and started it playing. KEXL was back on the air. For the next hour or so I played music and ran the commercials at the appointed times in the schedule, and announced the station ID at the top of the hour as required by law.
Eventually the station manager showed up, apparently the engineer called him and he ran in to see what was going on. He popped his head in the studio and said to me “You know how to talk don’t you? Don’t just play stuff…say something!” So I did. Trying to sound like the other KEXL announcers I admired. The next thing I knew it was end of shift and the next announcer came in and said he listened to me on the way in and liked what he heard. He thanked me for filling in and took over.
What we discovered was that the announcer who was supposed to be on the air had put on a really long song and went outside to smoke, well, something illegal. Unfortunately there was a police car in the parking lot doing his paperwork and saw the announcer, who was arrested and jailed.
Later that day the station manager called me and said that he needed a relief announcer till they figured out what to do about the one in jail, and would I help out? Would I? Heck Yeah!
For the next two months I was the morning announcer and I had a blast. Then I needed to get back to school since the summer was ending. I went to the station manager and explained my situation. He thought about it for a while and asked me to come see him the next day, he might have an idea. Sure enough the next day he had the solution to both his and my problem. He talked to my school and they agreed to let me take a work-study class first thing in the morning. I would work at the station in the morning, then go to school for the rest of the day. It was a win-win for everyone.
For a big part of my senior year I would play music for the people I went to school with and then be sitting in class with them later that day. I got great feedback on what they liked and what they didn’t like. It was invaluable information and allowed me to be good at what I was doing.
A lot of music promoters would come to the station, artists too, and ask us to play their music. I met Willie Nelson a few times at the station and at concerts we promoted. I will also tell you first hand that the stories you hear about stepping onto Willie’s bus and not remembering stepping off of it are true. You didn’t have to smoke, just inhale.
But all good things come to an end they say and the same was with KEXL. The station was getting more and more popular and making a lot of money. Not what the parent company intended. So they sold the stations and KEXL was no more.
Was KEXL a great radio station, yes it was and in my mind it was immortalized by ZZ Top in their song I Heard It On The X. Billy Gibbons says the song is about the Mexican radio stations that all start with the letter X, and that is surely a true story, but those of us who worked at KEXL feel just a little different about the song.
By the way, there is a KEXL station today, but it is in no way related the one I worked at in the 70’s