How I made it on Internet Radio

What’s the problem with radio? We all have one don’t we? A problem, this is. And actually a radio. I found out about radio in the late 40s when I was in my late fives, going on my early sixes, and my parents listened to “Dragnet” and I tried to figure out how these cops could do their work and we could hear about it as they were doing it. I guess I hadn’t quite nailed the concept of acting. Still haven’t.

So with that as background, my next specific memory was that of the Johnny Otis Show in Long Beach and I was about 13, with a black cloud following me, and everybody who associated with me, around. I can’t imagine how I could have been let loose by my parents to play without someone dying on accounta my stupidity or clumsiness or downright weirdness, but there were no reports of deaths, so I guess society-as-a-whole (or a hole) managed to survive.

Mom worked, dad didn’t. That’s about as tactfully as I could state it, so neither do I. My father would have an afternoon habit I could never understand – no, not that kind of habit. This must’ve been about ’55 or so. He’s listen to an ultra-conservative Mutual Radio commentator named Fulton J. Lewis, who was a defender of Joe McCarthy, if you can imagine that anyone would want that role; then he’d get super angry, sometimes at me – face it, often at me – the he’s listen to Ed Murrow on CBS, KNX in Hollywood, to get over his anger. And those were his good days.

He either didn’t know or at least didn’t like rhythm and blues & rock n roll, but I did, so I listened to Otis on KFOX right here in good old Long Beach. I remember a contest he had: name your favorite version of Stranded In the Jungle…the Jayhawks or the Cadets. Don’t recall who won, but the Cadets cover did better.

Then came KFWB in early 1958, KRLA in 1959, KHJ Boss Radio in 1966, but the best music was that played on KGFJ and Huggy Boy on KTYM in the same time frame. That’s what radio by appointment was all about – I’d never miss it if I could. Montauge, Huntin’ With Hunter, Huggy Boy, Art Laboe – I forgot, I remember his “Name It & Claim It” on KPOP when it switched formats & they were trying to get rid of their 45s: people were stuck on “At My Front Door.” I would’ve tried, but you had to go to the station to pick up the record. I never met Montague, met LaBoe – was the only man he ever paid for liner notes – interviewed and hosted Hancock and became friends with Huggy Boy – still am.

I was in heaven when KRTH began playing oldies in 1972, but still listened to KGFJ and KRLA for current stuff – KFWB and Mighty 690 (used to listen to them and KDAY for music in the late 1950s and early 1960s) were both news by then.
Now that’s radio. Nothing else is. Except for Internet radio.