Bud Messner and/or The Skyline Boys

I had assumed from the beginning that Norman "Bud" Messner and the Skyline Boys were a package deal. This was incorrect.  I recently found a "souvenir folder" of The Skyline boys from WFMD in Frederick, MD: Zag Pennell, Lew Wade, Roy Parks, Dude Webb and Bill Bailey; No Bud Messner. Not that it's their only line up. This other image from the interwebs below still shares four members with the above list but Zag Pennell is replaced by Shorty King.  Notice there's no Bud Messner there either. 

I started this article about 10 years ago and in the  years since then the family of Roy Parks started a Skyline Boys website which is well researched. It's very helpful as it's clear we both have discovered different material. That site has a different group image with 6 members alongside Tex Ritter. The image is reportedly from the1950  WCHA calendar but I only know Hank Silby from the WRVA Old Dominion Barn Dance. The Skyline site unexpectedly lists him among the members; likewise Alan "Slim" Roberts was a member at that time. I would have guessed earlier but I have to accept the 1950 date. Generally speaking this is all normal. WWII was actively drafting young men at time this band was founded in 1941 and the triple constraint of family, career and travel often cause turnover in membership.

The Skyline Boys website makes clear that Bud Messner was linked with The Skyline Boys based on record releases and press as early as 1947 or 1948. I found a schedule in the Southwest Times of Pulaski, VA that puts them in a 30 minutes slot on 1230 WPUV in 1947. But there was a surprising number of variations. I have also seen releases which are billed as Bill Franklin and the Skyline Boys, or The Skyliners. It theorizes they met through WWVA. The Skyline Boys formed as early as 1941 and by 1946 Bill Bailey, Roy Parks, and Dude Webb were listed among the WWVA cast along side big names like Hackshaw Hawkins. 

From Wheeling their career took them to the Old Dominion barn dance on WRVA. The line up then was Hank Silby, Roy Parks, and Alan Roberts this lasted only 4-6 months, ending to do a tour with Tex Ritter. After the Tex Ritter tour began their Bud Messner Era which did produce at least 8 sides for Abbey Records and another 6 for Banner Records in 1949 and 1950. The continued to play with Messner through at least 1953. Billboard actually announced in January 1950 the inking of a contract between Abbey and Bud Messner.  Bud's wife Molly Darr sings on some tracks.

Bud Messner was born in Luray, VA in 1917 and began his radio career at WJEJ in Hagerstown, MD. It's about 90 miles from Luray. Per Billboard, The Skyline Boys were performing there mornings in August of 1950, unclear if Messner was still there.  Messner later had a a regular program on WCHA-AM. in Chambersburg PA. It's unclear how long Bud was there but the Skyline Boys are connected to it multiple times in 1949. The timeline is messy, that's also their time at WRVA and the Tex Ritter tour. More here. Purportedly Bud got a day job at Banner Records as their director of Folk Music. If that is true it would surely have greased the wheels for those releases with The Skyline Boys.  

Their airtime at WFMD appears to be brief as well. The "folder" I scanned above make it clear they performed on the station. One DJ is also pictured, Stephen Wainer. A 1955 issue of Billboard connects them indirectly, a DJ named New Wade who merely mentions The Skyline boys are heard daily at Wayneboro, PA; no call letters.  But in 1955 that would have to be 1380 WAYZ-AM, unless he meant Chambersburg. I found a single issue of The Carroll Record dated May 25th 1951 which listed off a few shows but notably "Skyline Boys from WFMD" for a gig on June 15th.  A July 1951 wedding announcement for Parker-Everhart confirms Roy parks is in the Skyline Boys and that they are on WFMD at that time. The Manassas Journal still connects them to WFMD as late as August of that year. Wainer was still connected to WFMD as late as 1954. There is a short ad for him in an issue of The Carrol that year. 

"8:45 to 9:15 every Thursday Morning. Listen to Steve Wainer's Sunrise Serenade. Radio Station WFMD. The 930 Spot On Your Radio Dial. Steve will bring you the Taneytown News, acknowledge Birthdays and Anniversaries and spin the best in Recorded Music, the past and present."

There's still some noise in the signal. There is a gospel group active since 1995 with the same name. There was an unrelated bluegrass band, the Skyline boys on WREL in Lexington in the late 1940s. I also found a reference to one on WKVA Lewistown and WVAM in Altoona, PA which may or may not be the same.  The geography is at least more plausible. In 1952 there's a record of The Skyline Boys performing at WYVE in Wytheville, VA Dude Webb may been employed there at the time. That's probably also 1952. [SOURCE]  Purportedly Webb also worked at WROM, WHIS, and WSVA. In 1960 after retiring from touring, Bud Messner and his wife Molly Darr bought Chambersburg radio station WCBG. Molly had her own program there for 20 years, "Molly and Me." More here.

That Drug Story About WLOZ

When you think weird, many folks think of Austin. Rod Wassenich of Austin, TX invented the whole "keep Austin weird" thing. But Austin is far from the weirdest city in America. In that category, I think Wilmington, NC is under rated in net weirdness... and it used to be much weirder. Their local college radio station, WLOZ being possibly the weirdest of all. Sadly WLOZ, was the former student radio station of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. More here. 

The rumor was that in 1981 the radio station was shut down after student DJs were caught selling marijuana over the airwaves. It sounds like an out take from the movie "Animal House." In 2001 the Student Media Board (SMB) voted unanimously to suspend operations of WLOZ indefinitely." The student paper The Seahawk opted not to say why specificity but this was not their Cheech and Chong moment. This was just the epilogue. [LINK]  The issue here was the the station had been without supervision for 3 weeks following the resignation of General Manager John Bundy. The station was dying of neglect not drug sales. They became Hawkstream radio in podcast form and petered out during COVID. [SOURCE] But that Seahawk article did refer to the infamous incident...

"Prior to 1982, WLOZ broadcast on the frequency now occupied by WHQR, Wilmington’s Public Radio station. WLOZ was forced off the frequency in the wake of an on-air drug sales investigation."

Somehow I doubt this was like Scarface.  I have not found any FCC actions related to this. It appears the University voluntarily sold or transferred the station to those nice quiet opera fans and made their problem go away. The erasure was so complete that even finding a WLOZ logo is difficult. Their FM era is documented in the usual radio year books. The 1982 Broadcasting & Cable yearbook lists the station on 91.3 at 10 watts: Karen Durda, GM; Angela Allen, PD; Jeff Newton, bus mgr; Carol Bella, MD; Linda Curtis news. The 1978 edition lists they as not on air (yet) but does list  Dr. I.G. Ciator as advisor and Rusty Waker as GM.

Broadcasting & Cable list the 1982 info again in 1984 but it was surely wrong by then because the frequency was being transitioned to WHQR by then. To my surprise the incident is referred to even in their Wikipedia article. It reads: "With some financial and fundraising help from Friends of Public Radio, WLOZ hosted the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts during the school year from December 12, 1979, until it was forced off the air in February 1981 due to a possible drug scandal."  A 1984 article confirms the supposed "drug bust" and the cable relaunch but gives the calls WSEA. Those may or may not have ever been used.

It's hard to find real hard evidence the station even existed. They appear in a handful of CMJ magazines from 1989, 1999, and 2000. The PM was TJ Blackburn in 1999. Angie Cooper in 2000. CMJ lists them on 89.3 CaFM at that time, but that may not have always been the case. The earliest citation I could find, a 1974 UNC student handbook described the station in terms that would require at least a part 15 operation, possibly more...

"WLOZ is a student operated educational radio station. With its offices in the trailer adjacent to the Physical Plant, it presently broadcasts at 91.3 FM to a listening audience within seven to ten miles of the campus. It provides valuable broadcasting and managerial experience for the staff, while also offering another means of campus communication. Interested students are always welcome to come by the studio."

It was Jen Waits at Radio Survivor who found a first-person source. [LINK] That interviewee, Michael Plumides, confirmed the story was real in all it's bong burbling glory. Different sources give different dates. One as early as 1980 Plumides put it in 1983. [SOURCE] I still have questions of course. A 1977 issue of the Seahawk reports the station has finally got it's FCC license. That means it was only an FM station from 1977 through 1983, and Cable FM from 1984 - 2000 or 1982 to 1997 depending on the source.  But what was going on before 1977? We already know WLOZ goes back at least another 4 years. 

A 1973 Seahawk article (above) which describes the FM debut of WLOZ and also cites a prior station: WCNU. I did find two sources which corroborate the WCNU calls. Even that same 1974 student handbook [SOURCE] describes a second station on campus. This one was in the student services building, not a trailer like WLOZ: 

"WCNU is the student operated campus radio station. With its office in the Student Services building (Pub), it presently broadcasts to three buildings. It provides valuable broadcasting and managerial experience for the staff, while also offering another means of campus communication. Interested students are always welcome to join the "soft explosion in Wilmington."

The 1973 Campus Communique confirms that WCNU predates WLOZ, but notably multiple staff members have programs on WFMD. [SOURCE] The language intimates the station is new, and another 1973 issue of the Seahawk confirms this and lists Mark Silver as Station Manager. A 1975 issue still includes Rusty but also lists David Davis, Craig Sexton and Greg Larrimore as staff.  Is that 1973 start date definitive? No!  It appears to have broadcast as carrier current station a decade earlier. A 2008 interview with Linda Moore reveals a different studio location and operations: 

"Campus radio was alive and well in the '60s and, as I remember hearing, from Doug Swank, who was an early advisor, the call letters were WCNU, UNCW backwards, that was the call letters and it was located over in Hidden James, in my office, at the time, and they broadcast with a little 10 watt station so that it just took in a very small area on campus. When I came, they were kind of on the move and we were able to get more wattage. Student government gave them more money for equipment. They had their own little place behind Hoggard. It was a little small wooden building that had been the campus police office that was very small but they took it over for the campus radio station. They flourished, on and off, until probably the early '80s when there were some very severe problems there with drugs..."

Though it's highly plausible. I found no records at all for those carrier current years. It was the 60s, so I'm sure that 1982 wasn't the first bong hit at the station if it existed.

Matinee with Bob and Ray

 

 

Somehow I missed the memo on Bob and Ray. They were on the air for 50 years and I completely missed the boat, discovering them only post-mortem, in the form of a beat up paperback with an introduction by Andy Rooney. Bob and Ray were Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). My own mother often said "Write if you get work!" as people left the house. It took me decades to realize she was quoting Bob & Ray.

Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers. Elliott and Goulding were both on 850 WHDH-AM in Boston. Elliot was an announcer and Goulding a DJ with a morning show. (Some biographies switch the roles and describe Elliot as a DJ and Goulding as a newscaster.) The book Bob and Ray: Keener Than Most Persons by David Pollack gives another version where Elliot presented a demo for Back Bay Matinee he based on an AFRS program. The Music Director Ken Wilson put him on air every afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00. Then Wilson paired him with Goulding to improvise banter as a fill-in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise and joke around with the studio musicians. It was a comedy recipe you see to this day on late night programs; from Johnny Carson through Jimmy Kimmel. The duo started writing skits to make it work.

Their shtick was a slight twist on the old vaudeville routine. It wasn't a matter of which one was the Straight man. They were both the straight man; something Elliott conceded to Mike Sacks, for the book Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers.  “We were both sort of straight men reacting against the other.” Every punchline is silly but completely deadpan, prefiguring Stephen Wright but without the irony. Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs." 

After a few months WHDH gave them a morning show simply called Bob & Ray in 1946.  The program started as a 15-minute slot and then expanded to half an hour. The show continued to expand. In the fall of 1947, the pair were given a daily half hour at 1:00 PM called Matinee with Bob and Ray. In 1949 WHDH increased power from 5,000 watts to 50,000 watts and wildly expanded it's coverage and the audience for the duo. After 5 years in Boston, they got a 13-week contract with NBC and started a one hour Saturday Night program in 1951. By 1952 they also had an early morning show on WNBC as well. More here.

In 1955 they signed a new contract with WBZ: Matinee with Bob and Ray but by April of  1956 they terminated their taped WBZ program because they were so busy with their network schedule. Alan Dary got the spot. Bob & ray continued to do daily shows for the Mutual network from 1955 to 1957, then CBS from 1959 to 1960, and on New York station WINS. In 1962 they moved to WHN to start an afternoon show and in 1973 WOR doing a 4-hour afternoon drive program.  In their final incarnation they started a program on NPR: The Bob & Ray Public Radio Show. That ran until 1987. They won three Peabody Awards for their radio work and were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.

Goulding died in 1990. Born in 1922 he was 68. Many assumed the 67 year old Elliot might retire but instead he became a cast member of Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company of the Air,  which briefly replaced A Prairie Home Companion on NPR.  Then he started making appearances in movies, and commercials something deeply ironic for a man who had made so many fake advertisements. Ellior once said "By the time we discovered we were introverts, it was too late to do anything about it.”

The Pure Oil Band

Edwin F. Goldman 1929

The Pure Oil Program is a bit obscure but it actually hosted Al Jolson's first radio appearance in 1929. So who was this band which launched such a legendary radio career? In the 1920s it seemed like every sponsor needed to have their own radio band. The book And now, a word from our sponsor, by Dorothy Hoober remarks on the 1920s convention: 

"Each program had its own musical group, and they were some times named after the sponsor of the program. Fran’s favorite was a banjo band called the Cliquot Club Eskimos. Cliquot Club was a brand of ginger ale. The Parkers also listened to the A & P Gypsies, the Pure Oil Band, and the Firestone Orchestra."

In the University of Iowa "Goldman Band Library" is a radio script from the Pure Oil Program as it aired on WJZ on November 11th 1925... almost 100 years ago. I'd love a scan but I don't have plans to go to Iowa this year. Short of getting that transcript, let's piece together the story.  

The first clue there is that the document is in the Goldman Band library. That would be Edwin Franko Goldman. (Sometimes spelled Franco) He was born in 1878. According to Boyd B. Perkins, "He first formed the New York Military Band in 1911 with the goal of employing the finest musicians and repertory possible."  That sentiment is echoed in a 1929 Union Banner article on the band:

"Every member of Mr. Goldman’s celebrated Pure Oil Band is a finish¬ ed solo artist on his particular instru¬ ment, and the ensemble has played together for a good many years. Many of the radio audience who have heard Mr. Goldman’s Band on con¬ cert tour, we believe will find in this weekly Saturday evening program the fulfillment of their desire for fine band music and will dial in any of the following stations Saturday evening: WJZ, WJAX, WBT, KDKA, WLW, WRVA, WSM, WMC, WBAL, WHAS, WJR, KYW, KWK, WREN, WEBC, KSTP, WTMJ, WHAM, WSB."

Previously Goldman had played trumpet in New York municipal bands which performed at the New York City parks and piers. Goldman felt that the musicianship was lacking in some of these groups. He gathered musicians he felt were the leading wind instrument players in New York City to discuss  forming a New York Military Band. After a number of private engagements, the new 40-member band began playing public shows on the Columbia University green in 1918. 

In 1923 construction forced their move from Columbia to the Mall in Central park. Starting in 1924 the Guggenheim family donated 76k to make the programs free to the public. The first show of that season attracted an estimated 30,000 people. That year they began broadcasts on WJZ and WGY. By 1925 WEAF was broadcasting them remotely and NBC began broadcasting them on their then fledgling network. They probably had 150 million listeners by 1928.

In 1929 the New York Times published an article quoted an unnamed NBC representative that the Goldman Band was "the victim of commercialism this season" Fewer program sponsors had signed off for the Summer season." there would not be three weekly concerts by the band, as it had been in 1928. Goldman still had a contract with WJZ with Pure Oil for a half hour on Tuesday nights, but he was retreating from radio. But WNYC did still broadcast their show from the park on Wednesday nights. It's clear that this incarnation of the band still broadcast as the Pure Oil band into November of 1929. 

Edwin's son, Richard became conductor in 1956 following his fathers death. The band also changed their name to the Guggenheim Band after their long time sponsor.  The live programs in the park continued until 1969 when they were moved to the Lincoln center for safety reasons. When the Guggenheim withdrew their funding the band name changed again to the Goldman Memorial Band.  The band finally broke up in 2005, now having no original members over private fund raising and a negotiating stalemate between the band's negotiating committee and the board of directors.  

Curt Peterson 1928

The NBC announcer for the program was Curt Peterson. He also did CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, Jones & Hare: the Interwoven pair, Collier's radio Hour, The Gillette Program, The Atwater-Kent Show, The Dutch Masters Minstrels. He was born in 1898 and other than a story about his bad handwriting, little is recorded about him.[SOURCE]  Peterson announced for Radio Mystery Theatre in 1975 when he would have been 77 years old. There are several other Curt Petersons, including the founder of Sabina records, and an engineer at KOVR to name a few. the disambiguation makes it difficult to track his career. But he does appear in the book Golden Throats and Silver Tongues. I did find a head shot from a 1928 radio mag. (above) 

That New York Times article seems to put an end date to this radio tale. But then I found some loose ends... It appears that in 1930 Pure Oil chose to sponsor a new band.  In the 1931 Chicago News daily Radio Station Directory [LINK] it lists Wayne King's Pure Oil Band on KYW. Those references start in 1930. [SOURCE]  The Encyclopedia of American Radio doesn't record an end to the program either. Strangely they call it a The Pure Oil Brass Band, no other attribution.  The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio makes a passing reference under Richard Himber on the Pure Oil Hour with Eddie Peabody but that was just in 1933. Himber went on to provide music for The Spartan Hour, The Studebaker Champions, Thirty Minutes In Hollywood, and Melody Puzzles into 1937.  In 1935 Pure Oil sponsored the Vincent Lopez orchestra, but I think the band name was effectively dead by 1933.

Pat Delsi and WCAM

 

In 1973 Pat Delsi aka (Pasquale Del Signore) inherited the Camden city albatross, a city-owned radio station, 1310 WCAM-AM. Municipal commercial band radio stations have always been rare but they're not unheard of in the course of radio history. The station was the oldest in Camden. It signed on in 1924 as 1270 WFBI-AM owned by Robert Galvin of the Galvin Radio Supply Company. But it became WCAM, owned by the city by March of 1926.  The studios moved to the top floor of the City Hall building at 520 Market Street after it's construction completed in 1931. 

Until 1948 the station shared time on its frequency with 1300 WTNJ in Trenton and WCAP in Asbury Park. Despite the protests of WDEL and WTNJ, the FCC allocated WTNJ to move to 1170 AM in 1949 ending the time-share and allowed WCAM and WCAP to become a full-time stations on 1310, albeit at reduced power. More here. The transmitter was in a brick building in the north west corner of Pyne Poynt Park. It was not a very secure location. The building was broken into multiple times, vandalized and finally experienced arson in 1982. WSSJ operated at low power, without staff for weeks. the transmitter building was demolished after 2003.

Delsi, that poor bastard. In 1973 he was promoted to General Manager but he was still also a DJ, talk show host, and sports announcer. If you were curious, Pat did not host the weekly Italian program “Spectrum Italiano,” on WSSJ. That was hosted by Pat’s friend Frank Medori. Seemingly he did everything else. Pat was given the mission to make WCAM profitable; a station which already had the marketing problem of being confused with WCAU in Philadelphia. But by 1978 he had succeeded. WCAM was in the black. 

Back in the 1960s, when Pat was just a DJ, WCAM was doing great. It was a strong rock n' roll station with a big local audience. But then after the payola scandal hit in 1961 they made the mistake of firing populat DJs like Hy Lit, and Jerry Blavat and basically declaring rock n' roll to be dead. They made the very progressive decision in 1963 to drop all cigarette advertisements, and gave up $13k of annual revenue. It sounds manageable, but in today's dollars that's 137k! The station also subscribed to no ratings services and had no metrics on listenership. That's a real obstacle to selling ads.

The station was losing money and by the late 1960s the city was trying to sell it off. A series of four deals fell through which notably included Jerry Wollman, then owner of the eagles, and another a private company owned by William F. Buckley. Delsi had been with the station since 1953. Mayor Angelo Errichetti told Delsi to do everything he could to stop the bleeding.  He became their 8th general manager in a period of 5 years. He chose to stabilize the station, retain all staff and focus the daytime music programs on oldies. It worked... But it couldn't stop Camden from selling off the station. 

A deal was finally made in the late 1970s and the station was sold to Philadelphia-based Wade Communications. Wade changed the call sign to WSSJ in 1980. Then that fire I mentioned in 1982. Pat decided to take back the station. Delsi started WSSJ Broadcasting Ltd. with some business partners and they bought the station back from Wade for $850k. After the 1984 purchase, he managed to hold on to it for another 15 years, finally selling WSSJ in 1999 to Mega Communications.

In 2001 Mega Communications changed the calls to WEMG spinning Spanish oldies. But in 2005 they sold it to Davidson Media. Today it's a mix of Spanish language and brokered programming. Today the original WCAM calls reside on 1590 in Camden, SC.  Pat Delsi died in 2021. Delsi's first job in radio was in 1953 at WWBZ in Vineland, NJ in 1953, and about a year later went to WCAM. It was his baby. He had been in radio for 67 years. 

Note: There are a surprising number of Airchecks on YouTube from WCAM and WSSJ but none of Pat Delsi:

• Mitch Ryder WCAM 1980 [LINK]
• Rick Anthony WSSJ 1980 [LINK]
• Nikki Duval WSSJ 1980 [LINK]
• Nikki Duval WSSJ 1982 [LINK]
• Unknown DJ WSSJ 1994 [LINK]