The Gene Kaye Show

 

Not Danny Kaye or Carol Kaye, Harold Kaye, Lenny Kaye, Nora Kaye, Sammy Kaye, Paul Kaye, not even Buddy Kaye. There are after all quite a few successful and at least semi-famous Kayes. (He's also no relation to the Jeff Kaye whose DJ'd at WHIM, WRIB, WKBM and WBZ.) But this is the first time I've written about Gene Kaye, and Gene Kaye isn't even actually a Kaye. He's a Kolber.

Back in 1998 Gene Kolber was the honoree in an event celebrating his 40-year career in radio around the Lehigh Valley. The Laneco Christmas Spectacular is no small show, it's hosted at the Stabler area which seats over 10,000. At the time Kaye was still doing a weekly oldies show at 99.9 WODE from 6:00 to 7:00 PM Sundays. I haven't been able to confirm but I think he's still alive today and 93 years old. That flyer above is from 1964, the top single on the flip side is "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen.

Even then Kaye claimed to be the first DJ who broke an Elvis record on the air. As the story goes, he snapped a 45 rpm single of "Don't Be Cruel" right in half live on his program at WIEL-AM in Elizabethtown, KY. His show "Tunes around Town" aired 6:00 to 11:00 PM and within minutes there was a feisty crowd outside. That would have been way back in 1956. According to Billboard it was the #2 single that year, right behind "Heartbreak Hotel" also by Mr. Presley. 

Let's take a short sidebar into the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Elvis’ “That’s All Right” came out in 1954, his first commercial single. But the Billboard Hot 100 did not exist until 1958.  Prior to that, they had only 4 charts, mostly similar to what Cashbox was publishing previously (below). It's also notable that in 1956 the Top 30 "best sellers" chart was expanded to a Top 50. Not that it affected Elvis that year; all his charting singles were in the top 15.

• Best Sellers in Stores (Top 50)
  
• Most Played by Jockeys
• Most Played in Jukeboxes
• The Top 100

This is relevant because the success of “That’s All Right” was incomparable to "Don't Be Cruel" and misunderstanding those charts might lead you to misunderstand the relevance. 1956 was a huge year for Elvis; he had 5 top 50 singles that year. Elvis's success changed pop music for decades. I'm not sure why Gene busted that platter, but in 1955 Elvis had zero singles on that top 50. 1956 was year of Elvis's first and second studio records; both eponymous. Before that were only singles, mostly regional. So if the incident was before mid-March I'll believe that Kaye just didn't' see the future of Elvis yet. If it was after... I'm not sure I believe it at all. But it does appear in the September 15th issue of Billboard under VOX JOX under the sub-heading "Presley Panic."  It reports fans demanded he apologize for the incident. His unnamed sponsor responded by buying a 15 minute segment to feature nothing but Elvis. For what it's worth, the book Elvis: A Radio History from 1945 to 1955 by Aaron Webster stops before this incident occurred.

from kimsloans.wordpress.com

Gene never really went national. But throughout his career he remained a locally popular figure.  In 1959, he tried to make The Devils career, hurriedly re-recording their single "The Devil Dance" when the Capitol Records plant was on strike.There's a great promo picture of him with Jan and Dean in 1960. I thought he was just at 790 WAEB-AM in this period but his headshot is in the September 4th issue of Billboard repping WAAT in Trenton NJ and naming the Four Freshman as his favorite vocal group. I did confirm that in the May 1961 issue of Cashbox (below) The December 1960 issue notes his hiring from WAEB and his original show the Notre Dame bandstand."

"Gene has given up his career as deejay Gene Kaye ( WAAT-Trenton, NJ) to join Richard Osias in the builder’s new music firms. Kobler, a lawyer, will act as administrative liaison man between the Osias parent organization and its recently formed artist management firm, Janel Enterprises. He will help guide the fortunes of Janel, two music publishing firms, Docir and Pao, and Perri Records."

His career largely peaked in the 1960s. In 1961 he appears in 16 Magazine with Annette Funicello. In 1963 Lesley Gore was appearing at his Sock Hops. Billboard published a picture of them together in the June 22nd issue that year. Galaxies IV played his Fairgrounds show in 1962. [Source] In 1964 he appeared in Cashbox to hand an award to Bobby Rydell for being very wholesome. That same year the Beach Boys appeared at his Dance Party event on the Allentown Fairgrounds. In 1965, Little Richard, The Chiffons, and the Sir Douglas Quintet performed at Gene Key's Summer Festival of the Stars. In 1966 he appeared with the Bobby Fuller Four on the Ed Hurst Aquarama TV program. One of his few TV appearances.

I think that's the same year that Jay and the Techniques won one of his talent contests which got them signed to Smash records. Which is probably the reason that in 1968 he got a quote about the band members' draft status into KRLA Beat magazine. He began to champion local band The Cyrkle in 1966 but that ended with Sheryl Records, Inc. v. The Cyrkle  in 1968 and Kolber Vs. Cyrkle in 1969. Remember Kolber was an attorney himself. But so was Marty Fried in The Cyrkle. In a sharp reversal of the normal outcome... The Cyrkle won (so much as that is possible) and were able to collect royalties. For his part, Gene never said much about it.

If all these dates are to be believed, Kaye started out at WIEL in 1956, then jumped to WHOL in 1958, then WEAB in 1959, and WAAT in 1960. He stayed there until at least 1961. It's unclear when he started at WAEB again but he had a show by 1964 which I can confirm via the Fabulous Forty flyer below.  That 1964 line up is a solid line up: Jay "Jumpin' Jay"Sands, Ernie Stiegler, Gene "Jivin' gene" Kaye, Joe "Tiger Joe" McLaine, Gary "Daddy G" Levine, Perry "Merry Perry" Allen. I may write up the whole list some day. I found a 1962 regional survey for WAEB on line and its line up varies a bit. McLaine is still there as is Stiegler and Sands but Keys isn't. The two other faces are Kerm Gregory, [link] and Don Bruce [link].

Anyway the two surveys narrows down the window for his return to WAEB to be in 1963 or 1964. In 1968 Gene Kaye was named the National sales director of the parent company Rust Communications. But by 1969 his record hops were passé, FM radio was on the rise and free FM was on the rise. He focused on marketing for a long time. In his own words "Mitch Epstein helped me immensely after I realized that radio was no longer for me."

But he returned to the airwaves in 1988 at WAEB and played 1950s and 1960s rock, a format already called "oldies." In 1999, Jeff Frank brought back a bunch of DJs for a "Legends Weekend" to be held at WODE then an Oldies station. The DJ lineup included: Gene Kaye, Jay Edwards, Johnny Michaels, “Frantic” Freddy Frederick (aka Freddy Milander), Mickey Haggerty, Super Lou, Jim Lloyd, Barry George, Jim Reed, Bob Pharo, Guy Randall Ackley,  Neil Stevens,  Guy Harpo, Bill Sheridan and Jeff Frank. Rod Wolfe posted the tapes on Youtube. [SOURCE]

Jose Fritz Collection

By 2000 Kaye had started booking reunion concerts: Freddie Cannon, The Tokens, Lou Christie, The Angels, The Crystal all the old groups, at least the ones that were alive. In 2002 The Morning Call newspaper announce Kaye was to return to WODE again with a regular program.

Some of the best collected information out there on Gene Kaye is to be found in the book Deadwax From the Vinyl House by Justin Cipollini. You can check it out here.  Gene Kaye died in 2008. He is survived by his daughter, Suzy Kolber, who is a sportscaster for ESPN.