SUPER VILLAIN

Super villains mostly exist in the realm of fiction. But Ajit Pai is one of the most hated people in America for a reason. He has been pilloried in the news, he has even been threatened in real life.

Early this year he clicked undo on Net Neutrality, a viscous attack on the open and free internet, and by extension the free flow of ideas, information and the free press. It was a move supported by no one, except the largest telecoms in the country: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Spectrum. This week he tore down the legal apparatus that allowed the FCC to protect the internet at all. It is the end of things.

Unsurprisingly, the former Verizon attorney felt no empathy to the actual users of the internet. He lies freely, as only a sociopath can. His video below is so awkward I cringed. Never for a moment does he cop to understanding why he is so despised. In a Vice News interview he recently admitted that the repeal poses a risk to consumers... he just doesn't care. 

Who is Bill Branch?

On November 3rd of 1947, the Chicago Tribune quoted the legendary Ebony magazine article "Sixteen Sepia Spielers" and humble bragged about the pioneering black DJs fof the greater Chicago area: Jack L. Cooper, Al Benson, Jack Gibson and Bill Branch. That local and contemporary corroboration supports their existence. Benson, Gibson and Cooper are well documented DJs. But Bill Branch at WEAW-AM... let's just say there are difficulties with the Bill Branch story.

There are exceedingly few contemporary print references attesting to the existence of Mr. Branch.  Firstly, the call sign of the station appears to be incorrect. There appears to have been some confusion on the part of the writer between the AM and FM designations. The Ebony article clearly referred to WEAW as a "kilocycle" station, in other words... operating on the AM band. But 1330 WEAW-AM didn't sign on until 1953. However, 105.1 WEAW-FM was on air in 1947, and it was brokering airtime to all comers. Note: this FM novelty also makes the obscure Bill Branch possibly the first black DJ on FM radio.

The WEAW-AM station errantly referred to in that Ebony article, began to operate in the 1950s, as a daytime-only repeater of WEAW-FM.  By the early 1970s, the station primarily aired brokered ethnic and religious programs. Then by the late 70s it tried an Adult contemporary format before backsliding into brokered programming again. In 1979, the station tried out a Christian contemporary format as "Praise 1330" and changed call letters to WPRZ. They changed calls to WEAZ in 1981 then to WSSY in 1987 with a flip to AC as "Sunny 1330." In 1990 it became WKTA with a doomed attempt at hard rock on the AM dial.

The station founder, Ed A. Wheeler, was quoted in a 1951 issue of Broadcasting Magazine referring to the station's prior FIVE years of sales, listing the sign-on in February of 1947, which can only be the FM stick. He named that station after himself:  Edward A. Wheeler.

Somewhat arbitrarily I came to believe that DJ Bill Branch was none other than the playwright William Blackwell Branch. While he was born in Connecticut in 1927, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1949... in Evanston, IL.  He enrolled at Northwestern with scholarships won from the Elks and from Pepsi Cola for oratory. At first, my theory rested entirely on name, time and place, but in reading his bibliography, I increasingly found context. For example, especially early in his career, Branch wrote dramas for television... i.e. for broadcast. Here's a partial list:

• This Way, ABC, 1955
• What Is Conscience?, CBS, 1955
• Let's Find Out, National Council of Church, 1956
• Light in the Southern Sky, NBC, 1958
• Legacy of a Prophet, Educational Broadcasting Corp., 1959
• The City (documentary series), Educational Broadcasting Corp., 1962–64
• Still a Brother: Inside the Black Middle Class, NET, 1968
• The Case of Non-Working Workers, NBC, 1972
• The 20 Billion-Dollar-Rip-Off, NBC, 1972
• No Room to Run, No Place to Hide, NBC, 1972
• The Black Church in New York, NBC, 1973.
• Afro-American Perspectives (series), PBS, 1973-74.
• A Letter from Booker T., PBS, 1987.

My best evidence is an article Branch wrote about his own studies for Opportunity magazine "The Journal of Negro Life" for the April-June 1947 issue. This was published in on or around the time he was supposedly on air. In his own words, Bill makes a passing reference to his radio resume. The reference is brief, but specific.

"I've been at Northwestern for a year and a half now and already my future is beginning to take shape. A six month's run with the famous stage hit "Anna Lucasta," first place in two nationally recognized college oratorical contests, and a berth on the growing radio show, "Democracy U.S.A." have helped to bring closer to meaning, that distant term, "the future."

And there is was. The Program "Democracy USA" was not only real, but utterly ground-breaking. It was a drama about black achievement, written primarily by Richard Durham.  (Robert Lucas also wrote for the program) Durham started out in the radio division of the WPA-sponsored Illinois Writers Project. He wrote for local Chicago radio shows in the 1940s while also working as an editor and journalist for the Chicago Defender newspaper and Ebony magazine. Interestingly, Durham is connected at both ends of this story, giving rise to the possibility that he planted the young Mr. Branch in the list. However, The only problem is that "Democracy USA"aired on WBBM-AM not WEAW. But, there is one last connection I unearthed. In 1947, Radio Daily magazine published the following verbage:

"WEAW Evanston FM station, carried more than 1,872 live remote broadcasts from Northwestern University during the station's first 52 weeks of operation and claims that was more live programs than were broadcast by all the other Chicago area stations combined." 

So Bill Branch didn't need to go to WEAW, perhaps WEAW came to him. We are left with a heap of inference. It is entirely possible that Branch was on air at WBBM on one or more episodes of Democracy USA. It is further possible that at some time in 1947 Branch bought some time on WEAW to host his own program, or that he appeared regularly on those remote broadcasts held at his own campus in 1947. But after all that context, we are left with no proof.

DJ Bwana Johnny

The word "Bwana" has a bit of an ugly history. It is borrowed from the Kiswahili word bwana which means "boss" or “master” and has origins in the Arabic word abūnā, meaning “father.” During the "external colonization" of Africa, the word was used to describe European (white) bosses, meaning "lord" or "master." Google Ngram tells us the written use of the word peaked around 1961. That year Bwana Johnny was only 15 years old, but apocryphally he had already been a disc jockey for a year. More here. It remains his most long-standing on air-name, though he had several. Including Dick Kilpatrick on KGW and Dick Johnson on KKCW.

One article from 1972 noted that he was 25 years old and already had 11 years of radio experience "since his first job as a 14-year-old DJ in Portland, Oregon." I've never found any other info on him DJing at the age of 14. But it's possible. Most official accounts start his career at KLOO in Corvallis, OR in about 1968. (But some accounts have him DJ'ing at WIRK in Palm Beach in 1965 at 18 years old.) In 1968 he was already in Billboard Magazine beside DJ Wayne Shane and R&B artist O.C. Smith in the WUBE studios. There Drake format consultants made him change his on-air name to Johnny Johnson to avoid offending listeners. More here.

He was on KJR in 1969 and somewhere in the middle of 1970 to hit 101.5 KFLY. KFLY-FM only signed on in 1966, so his resume was longer than theirs at the time.  Regardless,when he came to the Bay Area in 1969, "Beautiful Bwana" landed at 1260 KYA-AM. He moved on to WWDJ in New York to do double-duty as a music director and afternoon-drive jock from about 1971 to 1973.  He went from there to 790 WFUN-AM. Different sources have him landing there in 1975 or time traveling backward to start in 1972. More here.

It was after that he  returned to his hometown, Portland, OR as "Crazy Dick Simms" on the Rose City's legendary KISN in 1975. In about 1980 when KVAN became KARO, Bwana Johnny was a repeat interim PD and morning man through 1981. Then Bwana became "Bronco Johnny," spinning country records at KUUY in Cheyenne, WY , in 1983.  He went back to being Bwana at KSND in Eugene, OR, in 1985. More here.

He went back to being Bwana at KSND in 1985. In 2000, he worked mornings at KKBR in Billings, MT, after which he worked in production for the Seattle branch of Jones Radio Networks. After that his declining health led to his retirement. He died on October 28, 2005, at the age of 59 at which time he'd been a DJ for 45 years - a life time on air. More here. In the May 5th issue of R&R Bwana Johnny was quoted as saying:

"Early in my career money and benefits weren't the big factors. Just the idea of moving to a bigger station in a new market was motovation enough. It was nothing for me to pick up and move on. Just pack up my stuff in my car or a trailer and go. It was a great adventure."

A full accounting seems almost impossible but it includes: KLOG, WUBE, KJR, KLOO, KFLY, KUUY, KYA, KGB, WWDJ, WFUN, KSND, KODZ, KKCW, KGW, KPNW, and KKBR. More here.

Radio's Sweetheart Mildred Hunt

I often start these biographical excursions with a "best remembered for..." Alas, Mildred is hardly remembered at all. She has no biography that I'm aware of. What makes her more interesting as a historical figure is her nascent feminism. In the March 27th, 1930 issue of the Nazareth Item newspaper, in an un-credited article Hunt promotes the gender equality of broadcasting. In an article titled "Real Equality of Sexes Found in Radio Fields" she is quoted as saying

"In other professions men had a head-start, while woman were still in the kitchen or engaged in such ladylike jobs as teaching... in radio we started with an equal chance. The result is that today there are as many successful women radio singers and executives as men. And they've won their success without the aid of sex appeal, too."

The book Radio Round-ups: Intimate Glimpses of the Radio Stars, by Joseph Gurman and Myron Slager included the short bio:

"Mildred Hunt, known as the 'Crooning Contralto' ran away from boarding school at Wyoming Academy in Kingston, Pennsylvania to get into the Zeigfeld chorus. Her ability to sing was not recognized until Paul Whiteman urged her to study singing and go into radio. She cultivated her voice and followed his orders..."

It's a little patronizing, but at least she is a "star" by context and anyway that's all there is. The book Moanin' Low: A Discography of Female Popular Vocal Recordings by Ross Laird refers to Mildred as a comedienne on two tracks, and lists two cuts on Filmophone, the sound track company.

 Whiteman's involvement in her career makes sense in that Mildred would later sing with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1927 on their Victor recording "A Shady Tree."  In May of 1929 she cut two more sides for Victor "Honey" and "My Dear." Phonograph Monthly Review called the recordings "intimate" and "extremely sentimental." It may sound like an insult today, but it was totally appropriate for the pop sensibilities of the day. Her song "Ho Hum" released by Decca in 1931 was described by The Gramophone as just "pleasing." That might have been an intended as faint praise.  But a 1928 Courier-News article praised her a contralto voice and noted that she sings with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on the Eveready Hour. She was on the rise.

That year was probably near the peak of her career. A 1929 NBC press photo describes her as a "ballad singer" appearing as a soloist on a program by Roxy and his gang. Roxy is Samuel Rothafel, who began broadcasting in November of 1922. Through 1925, he broadcast his weekly variety show Roxy and His Gang live from the Capitol Theatre in New York. After that, The Roxy Hour was broadcast from the new Roxy Theatre on the NBC Blue network from 1927 to 1932. (Mondays at 7:30 PM) Her headshot further notes that the program is carried on WBZ, WJZ, WBZA, WBAL, WHAM, KDKA, KYW, KWK, WREN, WJR, KPRC, KOA, WHO, WRC, WOW, KVOO, WFAA, WSM, WSB, and WBT.

The same year she sang two songs in nightclub scenes in the film "Mother's Boy."  She also sang the theme "Redskin" for the 1929 film Red Skin, with the Ben Selvin Orchestra. She would cut some sides for Perfect Records in March of 1931 with top billing. All of her recordings together would barely make an LP today. DAHR (Discography of American Historical Recordings) has a decent listing here, but it excludes her Perfect records sessions. Honking Duck has one as well here. Then her media references stop abruptly in 1932 with a little sheet music. Her radio career appears to have abruptly faded away.