Heavy Metal Thunder

I've been tracing back the origins of heavy metal radio shows for years now. Back in 2010 I wrote about early metal radio shows and traced all the "oldest" active shows back to the early 1980s. [LINK] I hypothesized that the earliest metal radio shows would date to the mid-1970s. [LINK] I found that program in Vinyl Edge, on WGTB, and even a few digitized recordings that confirm it's place in the history of metal.

To my surprise, I recently discovered that there was at least one predecessor in the DC metro. There was a radio program on 1500 WINX-AM named "Heavy Metal Thunder". I didn't learn that from any book or any trade magazine or even my own research. It was an anonymous commenter on this very blog. [thanks!] This ties right into the etymology of the words "heavy metal" and might be the big daddy of them all. It's so early that it makes Lester Bangs look late to the party.

So let's review the origin of that phrase. It appears in the lyrics of the classic 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born to be Wild." The songs initial popularity was driven both by airplay and it's appearance in the film "Easy Rider" in 1969. The phrase refers to the roaring sound of a motorcycle engine. This isn't conjecture, that was the explanation from Mr. Mars Bonfire, the songwriter himself. The phrase instantly hooked into some kind of cultural gestalt. This etymology exists in parallel to the Burroughs etymology; beside it, not replacing it.  The phrase appears in the book Goldstein's Greatest Hits: A Book Mostly about Rock 'n' Roll in 1970 (above). By 1978 those three words were appearing in advertisements for Burman amplifiers. I doubt Bonfire got paid.

"Hey, let's make a Peter Fonda movie. It'll have bikes— big steel mothers, with the heavy-metal-thunder understood. And grass— because no one looks as good-looking stoned as Peter Fonda."

By 1973 the phrase was being invoked to describe hard rock and psychedelic blues music. Even that phrase "Heavy Metal Thunder" reads like its the antecedent of Heavy Metal. Richard Goldstein was a writer for the New York times from 1980 to 2007. He was one of the original rock n' roll journalists. That passage (above) also ran in the New York Times, and re-running a collection of their film reviews. Goldstein had a column in the Village Voice starting in 1966 "Pop Eye." He's notable and rarely credited in the etymology and almost certainly one of the earliest musical applications of the phrase. [SOURCE] 

But Goldstein wasn't alone. In February of 1973, in a review by Mark Astolfi in MIT's The Tech [SOURCE] we find a similar metaphorical use of "Heavy Metal Thunder." (He later ran Cozmik Debris.) It does not reference Steppenwolf, but makes the leap to re-use the phrase to describe another band credited as a heavy metal progenitor:

"Deep Purple, progenitors of Third Generation Heavy Metal Thunder long before there was even a Second Generation, are up against that murderous moment which has decimated more than a few of the Big Names in rock — can they follow up the great, the near-perfect record with something close to being as good, if not better?"

Just a few months later in April 1973, The Tech ran a review by Neal Vitale for the somewhat less deserving album "Mothers Pride" by the band Fanny. He was right though, "I Need you to Need Me" was by far the hardest riffing tune on the LP.

"Mothers Pride has a wide variety of different types of songs, from the wistful, acoustic "Long Road Home," to the bitterly sarcastic, autobiographical "Solid Gold" (drummer Alice de Buhr's lead vocals reminds one of a drunk Ray Davies), to the biting, heavy metal thunder of "I Need You Need Me."

That was  a lot of background but lets get back to WINX. Some sources date the start of the show Heavy Metal Thunder to 1969, but that strikes me as dubious. I credit the Washington City Paper [SOURCE] and their 1972 date as more plausible. [SOURCE] It also agrees with Skips later interview material. Skip has had some comments over the years that help us understand the start of the program like this interview with Signaland [LINK]. 

Skip caught the front of a cultural wave. Free form FM was on the airand "progressive" rock playlists were popping up everywhere slowly transmuting into AOR. Later in the 1970s there was not only WHFS and WGTB, but also there was WHMC-AM and WAYE-AM. But nobody was doing what Skip was doing.

"Nobody else was playing heavy metal at the time. There was no DC101 in those days. HFS was playing Grateful Dead, Little Feat, and things of that nature—Bonnie Raitt. So Pentagram were fans of my show and I went over and produced a six song demo by them, and then a year later I put out a 45 by them, and a year after that I put out another 45 by them." 

Groff was born in Waltham, MA but mostly grew up in Washington D.C. Like many of his generation became interested in music when the Beatles hit hard in 1964. He became a DJ at WMUC at the University of Maryland. WMUC was a carrier current station prior to getting an FM license in 1979 for 88.1. He would have been 31 in 1979 so Skip sadly missed that boat. He was first hired at 92.3 WSID (later became WLPL) to work weekends in 1968. In 1977 he opened his own record store Yesterday and Today Records, then in 1978 he was already running his own indie record label: Limp Records. It was the start of something very punk rock.

That timing with WSID is interesting because in 1969 it changed formats. WSID did not flip directly from Soul to Top 40. In early 1969, the station went to AOR, a format it aired for almost a full year before the flip. Skip had a 6:00 PM to midnight show on Saturdays and Sundays. He was a still a U. Maryland student at the time. We don't have playlists, we don't have tapes; but in that Signaland interview he names some sides he was playing then: Vanilla Fudge, Wind, Blue Cheer, Gun, Circus Maximus, and The Seeds... this is a mix of garage rock, kraut rock, and hard psychedelic rock, the precursors of metal. 

Because his show was a success on WSID he was able to cross the street to WINX, though interrupted by a stint in the army. He was there 1969 -1974, then returned in 1976 and stayed to 1977 when he was also working for RCA. In 1981 he started working at WPGC which lasted barely over a year, moving to WAVA in 1982. There he hosted 'Rock of the Nineties.' Skip was interviewed by  DSI records in 2010 creating probably the best source material on him and his various music endeavors:

• Part 1 [LINK]
• Part 2 [LINK]
• Part 3 [LINK]
• Part 4 [LINK]
• Part 5 [LINK]
• Part 6 [LINK]

In part 2 of the interviews he described his "Heavy Metal Thunder" program's playlist: Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Sir Lord Baltimore. It ran 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM at night. This is more metal than his program at WSID. That's how he met the band Pentagram, and got their career started. [LINK] If you make it all the way to part 5 he talks about his current radio show he specifically names the Foo Fighters as a band he'd play today. I never heard his WPGC program but I can imagine it now. More here.

Skip died in 2019, and the storefront closed in 2001. But his wife continues to operate the business online. More here. They donated his papers to his alma mater [LINK]. One can imagine that in that archive might be actual playlists and maybe, just maybe... tapes.

WRKZ - radio artifact

A brand name containing the number "107" might normally be assumed to be at 107.1. But in this case Z-107 was actually 106.7 WRKZ-FM in Elizabethtown, PA. At least it actually contains a "Z". The station is no more. The callsign today resides in Columbus, OH on 99.7 with the brand name The Blitz. I also also found a pin online for our WRKZ with the tag line "Country Fun" that may also have been the name of an event. It's hard to tell now, many years later. 

I found a type of radio artifact which is normally lost. It's a coupon book, clearly a radio station give away. These sort of items are almost always thrown away when they expire or get used, so it's unusual to see one intact. Coupons also have the advantage of expiration dates; providing very specific dating. The dates here are given in October and December of 1985. The Hennigans free dinner coupon alone expires in 1986. The Burger King coupons have no expiration, but good luck using them now, 40 years later. 

106.7 in Elizabethtown today is WWKL, a Rhythmic AC with an incongruous "Hot" branding. Notably it's no longer based in Elizabethtown. Today the city of license is actually in Hershey, PA; the infamous hometown of very bad chocolate. The strange thing is that Hershey isn't really a town. It's an unincorporated community in the Harrisburg metro. I wouldn't have expected the FCC to permit that as a city of license, but there it is. The move was under 10 miles but it takes them from Lancaster county to Dauphin county and thus, more firmly in the Harrisburg market. 

From an engineering point of view the move had to be a challenge. They're boxed in by short spacing.  WWKL is short spaced to four other class B stations in the region, which makes it's move to Harrisburg very odd : co-channel 106.7 WJFK in Manassas, VA and WLTW in NYC, and on the first adjacent 106.5 WWMX in Baltimore, and WCFT in in Bloomsburg, PA.

As you can see in the image above, even the colorful map they provided split the difference; showing Harrisburg in the middle, Hershey and Lebanon off to the right, then Carlisle and Gettysburg off to the left. York and Lancaster both are noted in all caps. Everyone gets mentioned except Elizabethtown.

But when did it all happen? In the 2010 Broadcasting and cable book Hershey has no stations. It notes on WMHX which it attributes to Elizabethtown. Harrisburg has a mere 10 none of which are on 106.7. You have to flip to the E-section to see the three entries for 106.7 WMHX, 1600 WPDC-AM, and 88.3 WWEC the college station at Elizabethtown College. WPDC was an ESPN affiliate back then, but is broadcasting Oldies today. WWEC is largely unchanged. Lets go through the story of 106.7 because so much has changed. 

WMSH signed on in 1964, then the sister station of WHRY 1600. Broadcasting & cable both stations as owned by Hershey Broadcasting but does note the programming was separate as early as 1965. FM 106.7 became WEPN in 1969, and then WPDC in 1971 matching the AM stick. The 1971 issue confirms this, but they were still not simulcasting. The FM stick was MOR and the AM stick was Country & Western. This foreshadows the next change.

In 1980 the calls changed again to 106.7 WRKZ and the FM country station debuted. The station was now owned by Eastern Broadcasting Corp, who also owned the AM stick. there's no format recorded for WPDC but there's a note that it duplicates WRKZ 70%. So its' safe to say they are both country stations at this point in time. Both are still in Elizabethtown as they still are in the 2010 issue. Notes in other sources that report they changed their city of license in 1980. As the town didnt' really exist trade magazines and annuals were slow to update. Hershey appears only in parentheses until the 2013 of Broadcasting& Cable. 

The Z-107 brand and country format lasted until 2004 a long period of stability for this tumultuous station. It was briefly home to the WCAT call sign and then began stunting a loop of pop goes the weasel. Then in February it changed calls to WCPP and rebranded as "coolpop" and a mixed CHR format was debuted. Coolpop was a bit unusual for the time. It mixed CHR hits with the worst of 1970s and 1980s pop singles, what they were calling "cassette classics." Fybush asked for airchecks on  a message board, other comments savaged their top singles [SOURCE] 

One writer on a message board called it "Constant poopfest 106.7." Don't Google that, the internet is not a safe space. But I would like to state for the record, that the comment was probably me. This is where Fybush and I differ, I am absolutely a music snob. He's a kinder gentler radio geek. Billboard ran an interesting article on the format that March quoting PD Will Robinson, who does a good job making demographics sound super creepy, like they're stalking their listeners.

"Actually, we know our target listener on a first-name basis... Her name is Jennifer, the most common female name [among women] born in 1971. She's 33 years old, we know what car she drives, how much money she makes, how many kids she has, where she shops. We've really targeted the station to her needs and wants. The music blend you hear is targeted toward the aspirations of Jennifer."

Then like many other novel formats Coolpop flamed out and converted to a more familiar Adult Hits format in 2005 as Mix 106.7. But that didn't do well and it rebranded as "Channel 106.7" in 2010 dropping the 70s singles. [SOURCE]

In 2011 Citadel merged with Cumulus and they flipped the station back to country music in 2012, returning to their golden period format with the brand "Z-Country 106.7". The WRKZ calls were long gone but they found a Z in the new calls WCZY.  The format stuck around but in 1024 Cumulus rebranded a swath of country stations as "Nash." It leaned a bit more country gold. 

The corporate ownership led to another series of format flips. In 2018 it went back to CHR, and swapped calls and format with 93.5 WWKL. At the time Cumulus also owned WIOV, and it reduced their overlap for that country music audience. But it was only this year that WWKL flipped from CHR to Rhythmic AC. They are still using the "Hot 106.76" brand, but I expect it to change again.

Calling all WCPRs

There have been a lot of different WCPRs over the years. Today there are three: 1450 WCPR-AM in Coamo, PR which first signed on in 1967, also 97.9 WCPR-FM in D'Iberville, MS which signed on in 1992 and then my favorite: 740 WCPR the college radio station of Stevens' Institute of Technology. My research indicates that it was founded in 1961. There were also a few historic WCPRs, all to be untangled.

Sometimes listed at 530 AM, the station never actually had an FCC license. There is a legend of an SS Steven's and a related FCC raid of WCPR somehow using that floating dormitory to boost their signal. The boat was real, [SOURCE] but the rest remains an uncorroborated legend, though very colorful. If it helps you imagine it, the SS Steven's did have a radio room which may have been the origin of the tall tale where they "lost" their FCC license.

In 1967, the first year the SS Steven's housed students, WCPR was already broadcasting on 1450 Khz in Coamo, Puerto Rico. That means at the very least, those calls were not available. Generally speaking, Hoboken hasn't been a hotbed of radio broadcasting. RCA operated WJY from Hoboken in 1921, and it's not been home to a licensed transmitter since. However, I did find that Stevens was offering radio broadcasting courses as early as 1941 so amateur and unlicensed broadcasting are certainly on the table. 

Tying it to Stevens is the hard part. If I go back all the way to the 1920s I did find one amateur license, 2AIS operated in 1925 by H.A. Thompson at Stevens Institute. The calls go back to at least 1920 with other operators, also in Hoboken: George William Stewart and Fred Britton Llewllyn. The 1922, 1923, and 1926 listings of the Citizens Radio Call Book connect 2AIS to the "Stevens Radio Club" at 521 River Street. Perhaps this is the actual origin of WCPR, not that these things tend to have only one origin, true or not. (Back in 1915 the calls belonged to Fred Dawson of Arlington, NJ)

WCPR was always a carrier current station. The campus radio station at Steven's Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ was not even audible in the one square mile area of Hoboken. They were geographically situated such that they might be on the same radio dial as the biggest, most desirable non-commercial playlists in America: WFDU, WNYU, WSOU, WKCR, WHCR, WFUV, WFMU but they were only audible in select locations on that campus. 

But because the kids at WCPR were highly organized, they were reporting their top 5 to Billboard magazine in the early 1970s right along side what we'd later call "core" reporters like WWUH, WVKC and WLSU. That's pretty amazing. Back in the 1960s they rebroadcast WNEW off hours. Hey, when you're not broadcasting, there are no rules! [SOURCE] Then in 1976, a Brooklyn pirate radio station re-used their call letters! Was it out of ignorance or was it an homage? we may never know. But that pirate and the college station both appear in various books by the legendary Andrew Yoder.  [SOURCE] There are multiple sources but the very best is a column from Popular Communications. I quote all three relevant paragraphs below:

Tom [Macko] also goes on to tell about a station he heard last December. The station, Tom says, broadcasts on 1620 kHz from "some where in New York... Obviously it is a pirate station. I heard it playing rock music and conducting what were announced as transmitter tests. The station gave a phone number, which I called. A young man answered. We talked for a while but he said he couldn't answer some of my questions about the station's location and details. This was very interesting. Probably the FCC will shut down the station by the time this report gets printed."

You betcha! That's,exactly what happened to this rather ambitious pirate ambitious pirate station used the call letters WCPR. Actually it took a number of weeks before complaints of this unlicensed operation reached the Federal Communications Commission. And during that period,the signals of this pirate station, just above the normal medium-wave AM band, were heard as far north as New Brunswick, Canada and as far west as Illinois.

But, when the FCC did learn about WCPR's illegal operation,it took just one night of radio direction finding effort to pinpoint the station's location, in an apartment building in Brooklyn, NY. The transmitting equipment was confiscated and at this writing no decision had been made as to whether to charge the offenders with a criminal violation.

So that's four or more WCPRs detailed above. But I do have just one more which is perhaps just a misnomer: In the 1990s there was another WCPR which reported to CMJ for years. It was ostensibly based in "Peona, IL" later this was corrected to Peoria, IL. (Only one of those towns actually exists of course.) For a long time I was unable to identify that radio station. It could be our WCPR in Hoboken with incorrect metadata, or some other even more obscure carrier current station. A 1986 issue of "The Stute" does claim Stevens was reporting to CMJ at least in the late 1980s adding to the confusion. [SOURCE] In some issues both stations charts appeared side by side.

In a single issue of CMJ in 1999 I found the mystery station reporting under different calls in different parts of the issue: adds, metal chart, top 30 etc. The Peoria station was now using the call sign WRBU, That's was and very real carrier current station at Bradley University, a campus also home to the public station, WCBU. (Oddly today WCBU is operated by WGLT.) There is very little information online about this station. Today Streema lists WRBU as no longer streaming. A 2014 issue of the Scout [SOURCE] lists the station manager as Ethan Hoerr in a short article about campus group ads. Their social media posts peter out around November of 2022.  Other shows were posted later directly on YouTube but those also peter out. Below is the description they were using online around that time.

WRBU The Edge is Bradley University's Student owned and operated college radio station. Here at The Edge we strive to provide quality radio programming you won't hear on any other major station. Shows are developed and hosted by students that are unrestricted in format. This results in a wide range of programming that gives WRBU a creative and original edge over all other college radio stations (yes, pun intended).

Their old URL was buedgeradio.com and thankfully there are multiple captures on the wayback machine. But most importantly in addition to streaming, it confirms they were available on Channel 3 on Bradley Campus Cable and also on 97.7 FM on Bradley Campus in Peoria, IL —that's the carrier current signal. The station has at least two separate eras. It first started around 1968 at WBUR and ending in the late 1970s. Then it was rebooted in 1987 driven by faculty advisor Tom Richman. Early station managers include Jeremy Styniner. They are able to trace the station in that form back to the 1960s broadcasting 5 hours a day on carrier current. Bradley University also has it's own Amateur Radio Club with the calls W9JWC and a public television station WTVP which all may have shared staff and/or facilities at different times. Posts on their new website stop in April of 2022. It ends abruptly with two videos on the history of The Edge. The production value is decent, clearly NPR-inspired. It's quite good.

• PART 1 - LINK
  
• PART 2 - LINK

The problem with this 1980s reboot of WRBU is that all print sources already refer to it as WRBU. The video histories also refer to it only as WRBU even thought their CMJ reports list them at WCPR for another decade. The 2nd episode of the history confirms they were a carrier current station even in the early 1990s. On United Artists cable FM at 99.5 they could be heard in Bartonville, Maxwell, Bellevue and Norwood Illinois. This expansion, while driven by cable television increased their coverage wildly beyond their campus. In pictures I do see a CMJ poster in the background. A 1998 article confirms they were moving to a part 15 low power broadcast and that they were re-branding as "the Edge" and abandoning the call sign WRBU. My theory is that they attempted to update their calls with CMJ and realized that it was incorrect, and some limitation kept them at 4 letters. Why they didn't go with EDGE, I'll never know.

Looking at all the overlapping timelines, we can say definitely there were at least four WCPRs in 1998, its a very popular call sign. But being unable to connect the two stations WRBU and WCPR there is the possibility that there was just one more, unless this was always a typo, or yet another very clever pirate. As always... there's a mythos there.

Around The Samovar

A samovar is a metal container traditionally used to boil water for tea. There's a central tube in which you burn coal or wood to heat the water. Many Russian samovars have a konforta, a sing-shaped attachment that holds a teapot filled with tea concentrate. They're often very decorative.

The first reference I ever read misnamed the program, perhaps deliberately. It was in a truly excellent book Poland Under Black Light by Janusz Anderman. My English translated copy is from 1985.

"...a shop trainee showers people standing in line with orangeade and hides, laughing, behind the empty shelves; no one reacts; many newspapers carry reports on the bear that has shown up in the Tatra, it is affectionately referred to as Teddy, and a special correspondent reports on it for the Express; on Polish radio there's a program "Teatime Round the Samovar".

The Program at first seemed not to exist. Then I found the name variation. The was a Russian music program named "Around the Samovar."With the correct name I found multiple references. the most detailed is the March 12th 1934 issue of the Jewish Daily Bulletin in the Kilocycles column by George Field. [SOURCE]

"WEVD presents two other worthwhile programs, at 10:15 p. m. the University of the Air will be in charge of Professor Ernest Sutherland Bates who discusses "Coordination in our Present-day Life" and at 10:30 Zinoida Nicolina, soprano, Simon Philipoff, balalaika artist, Zam's Gypsy orchestra appear on Around the Samovar program."

 A 1930 issue of the Arriba record lists the program on the Columbia System at 9:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. In 1931 the Alabama Digital archives list the program in July of 1931 at 7:00 PM. [SOURCE]  The May 1931 Cincinnati Radio Dial lists the program at 10:30 on WKRC. It gives the impression that the show moved around often in it's first year.  It was some time before I found anything other than listings on radio schedules. 

The February 1931 issue of "What's On air" answers our origin questions. [SOURCE]. Columbia cancelled the program Majestic Curiosity Shop and mailed a misprint of their schedule for that month. Listeners were displeased with the mix up but we now learn that "Around the Samovar" debuted Sunday January 4th, 1931 and got their first earful of Peter Biljo and his Balalaika Orchestra. Purportedly Biljo was born in Leningrad, today called Saint Petersburg in 1893. (They were sometimes also called the Bilji Balalaika Orchastra.)  The Ogdensburg Republican Journal from that same week made note of the change in the Daily radio Highlights column by C. E. Butterfield with the arcane note

That issue of the Cincinnati Radio Dial also lists off more performers: Valia Valentinova, contralto; Eli Spivak, baritone; Eliena Kazanova, violinist, and Peter Biljo, director of the balalaika orchestra.The Radio Pictoral Spring 1931 issue took a stab at describing the program. [SOURCE] It listed the above performers and a very short description: "Around the Samovar" instead of the Curosity Shop, WABC chain at 9, with, the Gauchoa Going on at 10.30."  It included a list of the stations that carried the program: WHEC, WKBW, WEAN, WNAC, WORC, WPG, WJAS, WLBW, WMAL, WCAO, WTAR, WDBJ, and WADC. But the Cincinnati Radio Dial had more description:

"Each broadcast of"Around the Samovar" presents some new and novel phase of Russian music or some charming folk song that introduces the listener to new musical enjoyment. The programs are carefully prepared and rehearsed before going on the air, although they give one an impression of gay spontaneity."

The only problem with that story is that it very clearly appears on a WABC schedule at 9:30 PM, March 22nd 1930. [SOURCE]  It aired between the Nit Wit Hour and the Paramount Publix Hour.  More here on that Nit Wit Hour. [LINK]

The October 3rd, 1929 Brooklyn Times Union also listed the program with a complete song listing, and cited all solo performances.(below)  I had to look up Chankamanka; it appears to be made up or misspelled. Further backing up the 1929 date is a thesis paper by Martin Edmund Kiszko The Origins and Place of the Balalaika in Russian Culture. 

Kiszko goes on to describe the program in more detail then anything else I ever found. [SOURCE] It includes two extracts from a September 22nd 1929 script for the program from the Kasura collection. University of Illinois. (See pages 101 and 102.)

"One of the most popular radio programmes of the late twenties, when recordings of Russian music hit their peak, was Around the Samovar, illustrated here with copies of the original 1929 scripts (document 2). Around the Samovar featured Peter Biljo's Balalaika Orchestra and Soloists. The show's radio scripts of 1929 display a repertoire primarily made up of ballads, gypsy songs, popular Russian dances for orchestra,arrangements of Russian and European art music, and violin solos. Predominant is the use of the baritone or soprano vocalist accompanied by orchestra."

It also appears in a June 1930 WABC schedule in the Radio Digest. It seems clear that seasons of the program aired from Spring of 1929 through 1930. Wireless World even paused to call it "A little Russian Programme" in their Future Features column of 1929. That may be it's actual debut. Also on WABC in 1929 was the program "In a Russian Village." It was already airing weekly in June of 1929 , and debut on the network at 8:00 June 7th. This appear in the Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1920-1960 by Luther Sies. It's short description states that it aired in 1929 and 1930 on CBS, featuring Peter Biljo and his Russian Musicians. It appears to be very similar to the Around the Samovar program lacking only the bevy of vocalists. The 1930 Who is Who in Radio describes Peter as the Director of Russian programs at Columbia Broadcasting.

The book The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming by Jay Hickerson provides a bit of an Epilogue. In July and August of 1934 Biljo also directed the program Balalaika Orchestra aka Samovar Serenade for CBS. Then Peter Biljo pops up in 1938 advertised along choice liquors in a Russian restaurant advert.Sometime between 1934 and 1938 Peter's radio career came to an end. 

Peter Biljo died in Woodbury, CT in 1963. His earliest 78 was released by Brunswick in 1928. More here. The name of his radio program was borrowed by other musicians for their songs and albums including Leonid Bolotine, Vasily Andreyev even writer Bill Sarnoff.  The earliest appearance of his name is a 1926 issue of Billboard index of "legitimate" stage. This notes a performance of his balalaika Orchestra at Aeolian Hall backing vocalist Nadiejda Plevitzkaia alongside pianist Max Rabinovitch.  In an exciting twist it was later found that Plevitskaya was recruited by the NKVD (soviet secret police) he was arrested and eventually imprisoned for espionage in France. It's the basis of the French film Triple Agent (2004).

But getting back to the start of this query, how did Janusz Anderman hear this program having been born in 1949 in Poland? He's about 75 years old and still writing. His last book was Shaving of Losers published in 2021. He worked at Radio Wolna aka Radio Free Europe in the late 1970s. He also published the radio play "Stadion" in 1989. It's possible he became aware of those early American Russian programs possibly though radio Wolna or the then famous story of Ms. Plevitskaya. He's still alive today... Perhaps I should ask him.

DJ Shorty Fincher

I bumped into Shorty Fincher before, reading about Lucky Lang. Shorty was actually named Luther Clark “Shorty” Fincher and he was born in 1899 in Iukia, MS according to his biography in this song book. I am aware of one other Fincher song book and it's dates with a signature to 1941. [SOURCE] At that time he was on WORK in York, PA. I suspect my song book is the older of the two, being more plain, having possibly a 1937 or 1938 publication.

As is often the case his obituary reveals more information than any other source. He died in 1958 and was 58 years old so his year of birth is accurate. Had he lived to the following November he'd have been 59. At the time he was operating Valley View Park in Hallam, PA. He was also a DJ on WGCB in Red Lion. The obit is probably the source for the alsobooks.com information stating the following

"Fincher came to York county in 1940, and his large car with steer horns on the radiator soon became a common sight. For a time he had a music group called Shorty Fincher and his Prarie Pals. He was heard on WORK and WNOW radio in his early years."

It gives the town he was born in as Iuki, MS which is not what the song book says. I am assuming they're both spelling variations of Iuka, MS. Regardless the family moved to Anniston, Alabama, when he was one year old. He was survived by his wife Alexandra "Sallie" Fincher, four sons: James, Fred,  and Donald; and a daughter Nellie named for his mother. the obit goes on to name all his siblings but hiding his sisters names behind their husbands as a Mrs. so they're not worth including. it was more interesting that many still lived around Anniston, AL but some were local to York or Philadelphia. More here.

One of 14 brothers he and two others started a band, The Cotton Pickers, in 1932. The Cotton Pickers included Shorty, his brother Hamilton (who performed as the comedian "Rawhide"), Alexandra Kaspura as "Lonesome Valley Sally," Florence "Yodeling Flo" Morosco, Dolph Hewitt and Ted Buchanan on guitar.  The Cotton-pickers relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they had a regular program on KQV-AM. Around then he recorded four sides for Columbia records as the "Crazy Hillbillies Band". [SOURCE] That name is due to a sponsorship from Crazy Water Crystals. He also recorded under the name Colonel Jack [Brinkley] and Shorty's Crazy Hillbillies, as well as six other sides for Okeh. 

If you didn't know, crazy water crystals were a laxative. It was disturbingly popular. The company sponsored radio programs all over the South. The Crazy Mountaineers, Dick Hartman's Tennessee Ramblers, The Crazy Hickory Nuts, The Lone Star Quartet, Shorty's Crazy Hillbillies, The Crazy water Crystal Gang, [SOURCE]  and the Crazy Water Crystal Program itself. Their ads and sponsored programs were aired on WBAP, WPTF, WBT, KRBC and several border blasters as well.

From that 1932 group Dolph Hewitt (aka Adolph Edward Hewitt) went on to a career of his own. He got into WWVA at the age of 16, over a year before Fincher. His first performed with Frankie More and his Log Cabin Gang. In the 1940s Dolph moved to St. Louis and performed at KMOX. That went well and he graduated to an ABC Radio Network slot with Pappy Cheshire’s Ozark Champions. In 1946 he joined Radio Station WLS with the Sage Riders on the National Barn Dance. He recorded several sides for Kapp and Victor records. More here.

Back in Pittsburgh, Hamilton Fincher was hired by Doc Williams as a comedian for his band, the Border Riders. Williams and the Border Riders went to Wheeling, West Virginia, along with Hamilton. Shorty Fincher followed them shortly thereafter with the Cotton Pickers and joined the WWVA Jamboree, which was broadcast on Saturday nights over WWVA from Wheeling. Through WWVA, Fincher also co-hosted his own show, the Shorty & Sally Fincher Jamboree Show, with Lonesome Valley Sally. 

 Some sources report that Shortly was operating an amusement park at Dreamers Beach in Delaware in 1949. But a 1949 issue of Billboard reports that the first Wisconsin folk music park began operation that May in West Bend, WI.  That's about 30 miles from Milwaukee. The issue specifically says that "Valley View Park, which was operated last year by Shorty Fincher, will run this year with Nemo Lippert, of the Range Riders."  That note would put Shortly in Wisconsin in 1948. Nemo Lippert was another country artist from PA. His range Riders performed on WNOW in York. He was later on WTPA-TV in Harrisburg.

 In this part of their career, Shorty and Sallie operated their own amusement park in Hellam, PA. Purportedly the park became more of a flea market in the 1960s after Shorty died. In 1953 The Emmitsburg Chronicle of Maryland puts Shorty Fincher and Sallie at a Firemen's carnival and ox roast. The York Dispatch has them at another Firemen's carnival in July of 1954. They were playing the country version of the oldies circuit, but I'm sure they had a good time. I found one obituary that stated Shorty was a disc jockey and salesman for radio station 1440 WGCB-AM in Red Lion, PA. The station signed on in 1950 so that narrows down the time frame. While Shorty died in 1958, Sallie lived until 1987 operating the park for decades after his passing. Joan Concilio of the York Dispatch has been writing a series of articles about the park's history that are highly recommended. [LINK]