The WLOY uncertainty principle.

WLOY is a fine station. They're using modern equipment, but it feels familiar, and still makes me nostalgic for my own time as DJ.  I've had a private tour and I thought I knew a bit about the history of the station.  This short  synopsis, expounded on the history page, fits my understanding of the official timeline.

"Were are compiling a history of the original Loyola campus radio station, founded as WVLC in 1975 and switched to WLCR in 1976. If you are, or know, station alumni please have them email wloy@loyola.edu to help us fill in the gaps! The work in progress is here."

Founded in 1975 as WVLC, "Voice of Loyola College" changed its call letters to WLCR in the fall of 1976. The Evergreen yearbook from that year still uses the WVLC call letters [SOURCE] and the 1978 year book uses the WLCR calls, acknowledges the change and dates it to the Fall of 1976.  [SOURCE]  They even updated their signage. All is well and good at this point. 

 

But then I had to question even the 1975 date. The 1977 Evergreen yearbook has some fun tidbits. It confirmed that Loyola had a Radio Club as early as 1947, holding daily classes in Morse Code. It further states that the Radio Club bought some equipment, including a transmitter and receiver, in 1959.  (I believe this was ham equipment for the radio club, unrelated to WVLC.( The Radio Club and WLCR have separate pictures in the yearbooks as late as 1978. [SOURCE] Was there a schism? Did the ham radio nerds not mix with the music radio nerds? 

Radio staff in the 1978 Evergreen

 

WVLC stood for "Loyola College Radio." The history I know says that it closed in 1996 due to campus construction. Carrier current station tend to take siestas so there may have been earlier shorter breaks. But the Evergreen yearbook of 1988 attests to it's existence as do the ones in the early 1990s. [LINK]  The station restarted in 2002 as WLOY, the station I visited a summer ago. I checked each issue of the Evergreen and there is no mention of a radio club or a radio station between 1994 and 2002. This version is backed up by first hand accounts and the reboot is well documented in trade magazines among them their weekly CMJ reports starting around February of 2003. That all made sense. 

Then I found an article which somewhat changes the known timeline. This is in the Greyhound of October 3rd, 1995. [SOURCE] It clearly describes WVLC launching in 1995, 20 years after it's original launch with no reference to the original 1975 launch. It's also worth noting that this is written in the future tense, so we do not actually know that it came to be. Other sources give the year 1996 as the start for renovations which shut down the station for years.

The Voice of Loyola College (WVLC), with a tentative launch dale of Oct. 16, will be Loyola's new radio station. Ben Murphy has headed this project and hopes that it will be more successful than Loyola's former radio station, WLCR. 

If accurate, this would indicate the station became WVLC again in the mid-1990s before the 2002 reboot. But I can't corroborate this with any other source. The language of the article shows they were aware of the existence of WLCR, but there's no sign that they were aware that the WVLC calls had also been used 20 years earlier. The 1980 IBS Annual lists good detail on the station indicating they were active at the time, or at least very recently. [SOURCE] I have no good explanation as to why WLCR was suddenly a "former" station in 1995. 

Their stated intention in 1995 was to broadcast in a cafeteria and then later pursue the AM band. Were it only one reference why might take that as a copy-editing mistake. But the October 27, 1978 issue of The Greyhound includes an awkward sentence which muddies the waters. [SOURCE]

"According to WLCR General Manager Damian Varga, the station started broadcasting to the Loyola College Community in November of 1975. At that time, the station was known as WVLC (Voice of Loyola College) and could be heard only in the Student Center cafeteria... The call letters were changed to WLCR when the FCC informed the station that another licensed radio station was also called WVLC. The history of WLCR predates even that of WVLC in that some of WLCR's broadcasting equipment at one time belonged to an old, now-defunct Loyola College television station called KLOY, said to have been located in the basement of the Jesuit Residence."

But I think in this case the statement "The history of WLCR predates even that of WVLC..." refers to either the broadcasting commercial station WVLC and/or KLOY. I believe it is this single awkward sentence from 1978 creates some ambiguity. Depending on how you read it, one could imagine there were two different WVLCs depending on what period of time Janine Shertzer was referring to. There were at least four at the time, but only one on campus.) 

But let's talk about all the other WVLCs and WLCRs. There were a bunch. A better known commercial station, probably the one which necessitated the call letter change started in July of 1974. That's WVLC-FM on 104.7 in Cape Cod, initially a simulcast of their sister station 1170 WVLC-AM which used the WVLC call sign from 1970–1980. WVLC-FM only used the calls from 1974 - 1977.  At Lakeland College (now University) in Sheboygan DJs used the WVLC call letters for their carrier current station from 1972 through at least 1980. The modern 99.9 WVLC in Mannsville, KY only started using the calls in 1995. Thought their "Big Dawg" brand is top notch.

While we're on that topic, Kentucky also was home to the WLCR call sign in 1999 for 1040 WLCR-AM, a christian satcaster of no renown.  Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA appears to have it's own WLCR from 1949 through at least 1975. Their history cites a 1960s start but the WLCR call letters appear in print a decade earlier. That station is WRLC today licensed on the FM band. There was also an obscure carrier current WLCR in White Sulpher Springs, WV; a radio station operated at a Summer camp for boys and girls called Camp Shaw-Mi-Del-Eca. [SOURCE] Lawrence High School in Lawrenceville, NJ had a WLCR radio station on around 1981-1988. I think this was a part 15 station on FM. They started using WLSR calls around 2005 and still exist today. There was also 990 WLCR-AM in Torrington, CT which signed on in 1947. They change calls in 1958 to WBZY before any of this disambiguation ever began.

And while decades ago the FCC did ask carrier current college stations to change call signs to enforce uniqueness that largely undocumented policy was unofficially retired. Our modern webcasting WLOY at Loyola uses a call sign duplicated by 660 WLOY-AM in Rural Retreat, VA. It's a little oldies station which picked up the call sign in 2013, over a decade after the college station returned to the air.  Obviously inferior to the Loyola station.

That commercial WLOY has an oldies format and uses the brand "classic" which is not classic in the sense of coca cola or classic rock. But their bad logo might be memorable for math nerds. Converting the lowercase "l" to a pipe delimiter is an unusual typographical choice  "w|oy" . My brain reads that as it's mathematical application, indicating divisibility. The formula "w|oy" means "w divides oy". "W" being omega and  "OY" being an abbreviation for optimum yield. Math jokes are rare in radioland. I take 'em when I get 'em. 

Setting aside the 1995 WVLC mystery, was WVLC the even first radio station of Loyola College? Was it the radio club founded in the 1940s? There is a third "earliest" citation. A single issue of the Evergreen mentions a radio show at WFBR. It's undated. That station was licensed in 1924 as the successor of WEAR, the Baltimore American newspaper station. The station operated on 1180 Khz in the 1920s. They used the calls until 1990 so that doesn't narrow the window. I can't match the logo, the appearance includes no names... not much to go on. That kids suit looks like early 1940s. But that microphone appears to be a Western Electric Moving Coil Microphone which would put this in the early to mid 1930s. I wish i had more info on that one.

Superjock!

Doesn't that picture (above) of Larry Lujack just look like a DJ?  (The shot reminds me of Buster Poindexter for some reason.) He's got the coffee and cigarette, the open collar, the tousled hair and that smarmy smile that screams 100% rock n' roll, drink tickets, dirty cab rides and a hotels bars doing ludes with David Brenner.  If you've heard an aircheck before you know he's got that perfect 1970s rock DJ voice all the morning guys were still aping in the 1980s, and that includes me. 

Born Larry Lee Blankenburg, he changed his name to Larry Lujack for football hero Johnny Lujack. That Lujack played for Notre Dame, won the Heisman Trophy in 1947 and went on to play for da' Bears. Why would Larry think of that particular college football player? A man born in Pennsylvania, playing in Indiana?  You may not know it but Johnny Lujack had a radio program in 1949. The "Johnny Lujack of Notre Dame" program was a daytime adventure show, which aired as a Summer season replacement for Jack Armstrong. 

It aired three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 5:30 - 6:00 EST on ABC. Lujack starred as himself with Ed Prentiss as a sidekick. A few different radio show directories say that Boris Aplon provided music, but I suspect he may have actually been the announcer. He did radio and TV acting, but was mostly a Broadway actor but he had one of those resonant voices. I find nothing about him as a composer. An article about Chicago radio is one of the few sources that describe him at all, in this case, in a Chicago Tribute radio special [LINK]. 

"Our main villain at the time was Ivan Shark, played by a fellow of Russian descent named Boris Aplon, a fine character actor who was also a fop. He dressed fantastically, drove enormous, beautiful cars., sported a thin, sweeping mustache, and carried a cane." 

Prentis has a much longer radio career. He was the announcer on Jack Armstrong so there was some continuity there. Prentis later played Captain Midnight. More here. But let's get back to the younger Lujack.

Planters is not a sponsor, not yet anyway. 

Larry was born in Quasqueton, IA. That town had a population of 570 at the time of the 2020 census.  It's about 45 minute north of Cedar Rapids which is still not a whole lotta city. The family moved to Caldwell, ID when he was 13. It's not the big city but at least it has sidewalks. He was a small town guy that decided to go to Washington State University, probably to get the hell out of doge. But looking for work he took a summer job at 1490 KCID-AM in Caldwell, ID at the age of 18 in 1958. From there he did a stint at 1140 KGEM-AM, which is even recorded in the 1974 book Who's Who In The Midwest.

Though an influence on some of the biggest egos in radio, notably Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern, Lujack was not a shock jock. His own delivery leaned more onto sarcasm and cynicism. But that big ego was real. At the height of his popularity, his day his Midwestern popularity was probably second only to Dick Biondi; and only maybe. The Encyclopedia Britannica actually uses the word "braggadocio" to describe him. The 1977 book This Business of Radio Programming in a soliloquy about ego could not resist  the reference "disk jockey should enjoy being egotistical as does Larry Lujack..."  He was like Don Imus but kinda charming. 

So it's no surprise that his self-appointed nickname was Superjock, Which later became the title of his autobiography.  He had other nicknames: Lawrence of Chicago, Uncle Lar, and King of the Corn Belt app were used at different times. I've also seen "Superjerk" some were less polite.  But Superjock... he actually trademarked that one. No really.  [SOURCE]  [Didn't know you can do that? Yes, DJs can do that.  Let me know if you need help.] 

Superjock: The loud, frantic, nonstop world of a rock radio DJ

Between 1960 and 1964 Lujack managed to work at KNEW, KPEG, KRPL, KFXM, KJRB and then in 1964 landed at KJR in Seattle. [SOURCE] He used the Lujack name at KJR and in some ways it starts his big "rock n' roll" image. Then he switched coasts completely and worked at WMEX in Boston starting in 1966.  Lujack joined WCFL-AM in 1967 and moved to WLS-AM four months later. Lujack returned to WCFL for four years before going back to WLS for the next two decades. This time period was his golden era, mostly doing mornings. That's where all his famous bits happened, the best quotes, and most of the classic collectible airchecks. [More here]

In 1984 WLS-AM gave him a twelve year, $6 million contact, making him one of the highest-paid radio personalities ever. That's 18 Million in 2025 dollars. When their ratings declined in 1987, the station’s owner, Capital Cities-ABC, bought out his contract. The buy out was a motherlode, but it included a non-compete which locked him out of the Chicago market for 5 years. Lujack shrugged it off and retired to New Mexico. 

The end of WLS as a rock station was largely the end of Lujack's golden era. After moving to New Mexico in 1987 he only occasionally did radio work. R&R quipped "Lujack won't be able to work elsewhere in Chicago, but is accepting offers for foursomes at the golf links."  Rather than rehash the programming mistakes of Capital Cities I'll quote the FMedia Newsletter column "AM Happenings" from September 1989. They hit it on the nose. 

"WLS 890 AM is scheduled this month to switch from music to all talk. "It brings an end to what was once one of the Midwest's most popular and most successful AM rock stations. During its heyday in the '60s and early 70s, WLS was THE station for the most popular rock and roll hits of the day. It boasted such legendary disc jockeys as Dick Biondi, Art Roberts, Clark Weber, Ron Riley, Larry Lujack, Fred Winston, Bob Sirott, John (Records) Landecker and Yvonne Daniels. But it wasn't until the '80s that age and FM radio were starting to creep up to WLS. Younger listeners turned off by the station's conservative music mix defected to upstart WBBM-FM with its high-energy sound. By the mid-'80s, morning man Lujack switched to afternoons, and things went downhill from there. The station couldn't make up its mind whether to play music or to go all-talk. This ill-conceived middle-of-the-road format did in the 'Big 89'. And now, the owners of Capital Cities/ABC are finally going to switch the format to all-talk. I only wish they could've done it sooner. Everyone here in Chicago will have their own memory of WLS in its glory years as an AM powerhouse..." 

Locked out of the Chicago market by his buy-out deal he subsequently worked at a few other radio stations in new markets including a breif return to KJR-AM in Seattle. In 2000 long after the non-compete was expired, he tried a slot at WUBT in Chicago. Then in 2003, Larry and his long time partner Tommy took a show together at 1690 WRLL-AM. But that was short-lived.  Lujack did his show remotely from home, and the 1,000 signal barely covered Chicago. The older, more sedate Lujack didn't rekindle much fanfare. He still sounded great though. More here. 

Larry Lujack died in 2013 of esophageal cancer, probably from smoking. In a fit of irony, his own namesake outlived him by 10 years. Johnny Lujack died in Naples, FL in July of 2023, at the age of 98. Larry would have liked the irony.

The Assassination of April Kauffmann

apropos of nothing

It's a rare day when a radio DJ gets assassinated. Sure AM talk radio gets heated sometimes but the AM radio audience is aging. 80 year olds just are typically not able to engage in much more than tough talk. Even the median age of an AM listener by TSL is over 50. [SOURCE]  (Not to belabor the point but studies that show the majority of radio listening is at home or Gen Z are radio fans are not really plausible when the opposite is shown to be true in studies about boomers.) [SOURCE] But in researching this I found a shocking number of murdered DJs. I would not have rated it a dangerous vocation but apparently that is the case.

Anyway back to DJ assassinations. The most famous one was Alan Berg, people seem to know that name. He was killed by Neo-Nazis in 1984. [LINK] But maybe we need to define our terms a bit. It's all too easy to find DJs who are bumped off by their domestic partners, even in a premeditated fashion. In 1989 Alberto Martino a DJ at WIBF was killed by his girlfriend Lydia Alvarez. So was Mike Webb in 2007 by his partner Scott White. The murder of Stephon “Juan Gatti” Edgerton of WGOV remains unsolved. John O'Leary of WWWW and WCSX in 2021 also by his partner. More recently in 2022 Tasheka 'TySheeks' Young at WJGL was allegedly killed by the father of 2 of her kids Bursey Armstrong. In 2023 Gaby Ramos of 1550 KMRI-AM was killed by her ex-boyfriend...the list goes on. So lets limit this to premeditated murders which display at intent to achieve political or financial gain. We are excluding so-called crimes of passion, crimes of opportunity and by extension this also excludes murders with no motive at all, as in the bizarre case of the murder of WEAA's Tyra Womack in 2020.   

Not this WIBG.

Motive is difficult to parse. In other words "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" Despite all that complexity I have found one more case in the U.S. of a radio DJ who was clearly assassinated in that very sense of the word. The story is so riveting it's made it to the murder podcasts. [LINK]

Radio talk show host April Kauffmann of WIBG was murdered in 2012 insider her home in Linwood, NJ. The circumstances are strange to say the least. First let's establish that we're talking about 94.3 WIBG-FM in Avalon, NJ. They acquired those calls in 2009, having spent the prior decade as WILW and WWZK respectively. They've not held a single brand or call sign for even a 10 years stretch to it doesn't really merit digging into. However, they have been using the "Wibbage" branding and a vaguely echoic classic hits format since 2009 in an homage to the original "Wibbage."  Let's get back to that murder story.

 

In the original story, April's husband Jim, a 68-year-olddoctor, left for work at 5:30 AM, before the murder. But pathologist Dr. Michael Baden put the timing earlier, around 2:00 AM which would implicate the husband. Strangely the Prosecutor’s Office never acknowledged that Baden’s opinion was sought, nor that the pathologist put Kauffman’s time of death in conflict with her husbands version of events. Instead of a simple, the-husband-did-it tale, the prosecutor Damon Tyner, put forth the states version of events with assistance from the FBI for which they indicted 7 people. More here.

• Ferdinand Augello, 61, Petersburg, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Leader of a Drug Trafficking Network, 1st degree Racketeering, Murder (April Kauffman), Attempted Murder (James Kauffman), Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Joseph Mulholland, 52, Villas, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Beverly Augello, 47, Summerland Keys, FL - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Glenn Seeler, 37, Sanford, NC - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Paul Pagano, 61, Egg Harbor Township, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Tabitha Chapman, 35, Absecon, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Cheryl Pizza, 36, Murrells Inlet, SC - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance

According to Tyner, Kauffman planned his wife's demise after she threatened to divorce him and expose his illegal drug operation which involved the Pagan Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. We are short on first person information as the supposed trigger-man, Ferdinand Augello, died of a somewhat suspicious drug overdose a year after the killing. Then Dr. James Kauffman committed suicide while in jail in 2018. But according to their version of events James paid the Pagan's over $20,000 to do the job.  A grand jury indicted the seven and after the The remaining six defendants face racketeering, conspiracy and drug distribution charges. [SOURCE]

But years later, without those two key figures, the judicial process ground to a halt. Anecdotally, we learn that Kauffman was a volatile character, lied about his military service, in that he had none; that he made hundreds of calls to a "burner phone" in the months preceding the murder; that he tried to collect on April's $600,000 life insurance policy while in jail,  It is also theorized that what may have driven Kauffman's suicide was a brewing civil case he was even more likely to lose. [SOURCE] It has been reported that when his office was raided he brandished a Ruger 9mm handgun and engaged in a 45-minute standoff with authorities threatened to shoot himself and police.  Inexplicably Tyner described the the raids as unrelated to the slaying of April Kauffman. Even his own step-daughter thought he was guilty.

As for her radio career it's hard to find much. April Kauffman hosted "The King Arthur Show" on radio station WIBG for "several months" according to news sources. She took over the Saturday Morning program from Frank Pileggi who was the Manager of a local Pub. Even a book about the murder, Doctor Dealer by George Anastasia failed to add any color to April's professional career. At 47 years old I presume she had worked in broadcasting elsewhere. 

Leipzig Radio Station Fire 1934

 

On January 15th, 1934, shortly after 9:00 PM, the upper segment of two radio towers caught fire.  The fire started 200 feet off the ground and was exacerbated by high winds. Back in 1934 arson was called incendiarism which sounds like a religious sect for pyromaniacs. But based on that word I was able to find a number of papers which picked up the Reuters wire service coverage of the incident.  

The coverage in the Hong Kong Daily Press reads like the wire service sent out an update while they were doing layout; first stating that it was arson, then that it was spontaneous combustion. The news was quick to retract attributions of arson. The Hong Kong Daily telegraph wrote "First belief of sabotage is not discounted." 

To be honest, "spontaneous combustion" sounds less suspicious if you also read the Pinang Gazette which specifies that the spontaneous combustion happened in a condenser. (probably an electrolytic condenser)  The New York Times coverage also specifies that the tower was made of wood. 

In February of 1934 Popular Wireless magazine carried an article "Eckersley Explains" in which P.P. Eckersley briefly commented on the fire in the context of the Lucerne Plan, which he was politely critical of in a very British way. It's interesting that Eckersley is skeptical of the official story. 

"The 'Emperor of the Ether' wasn't a bad, if a somewhat soporific, title for M. Braillard. Then the Leipzig mast had headlines as high as its lattice work. Of course, incendiarism was hinted at. The station was burnt clown before one started to read it was still transmitting at the bottom of the paragraphs."

Under the Lucerne Plan station on frequencies below 300 kc could broadcast at up to 150,000 watts. Those stations 550 and 1100 kc could broadcast at up to 100,000 watts. Those stations between 1100 and 1250 kc could broadcast only up to 60,000 watts. There were exceptions of course: Moscow 1 which will continue to use 500 k.w. and Budapest, Leipzig, Paris PTT, Prague 1, Rennes PTT, Toulouse PTT and Vienna were all capped at 120 kw. [SOURCE]

 Constructed in 1932, the two 400-foot towers carried a set of aerials aloft to broadcast on 382.2 meters. In February of 1933 Braodcasting Magazine called it "Germany's most powerful broadcasting station." But the article at the time, pre-Lucerne Plan listed them at 770 kc. A year later, the February 1934  issue of Radio Index described the station content for long wave listeners:

"One of Germany's most powerful stations, famous for orchestral concerts by the Leipzig Symphony and Dresden Orchestras, and also its frequent transmission of old and new dances."

I did find BBC radio schedules for Radio Leipzig, in the Fall of 1934 so it's clear they returned to the air. But I found no coverage of the reconstruction. There is a reason I think the coverage might be missing. This is early in the history of the Reich Broadcasting Company; before the full atrocities of WWII came to bear. So I don't think wartime coverage has anything to do with it. I suspect that by January of 1934, nobody wanted to write about another fire in Liepzig.

There had been another story about a fire running in Liepzig for a year... "The Liepzig Fire Trial". Now 90 years later history remembers better the precipitating incident, the Reichstag fire. The fire happened on February 27th 1933. But the Fire Trial was at the Reich Supreme Court in Leipzig and ran though December of 1933. It was recorded, and it's testimony broadcast on the radio. After 4 months of arguments the court found Marinus van der Lubbe guilty. But we know today that this was a Nazi false flag operation. 

DJ Bennie Hess

 

 

Orville "Bennie" Hess was born in Chriesman, TX in 1914, It's is an unincorporated community in Burleson County. In the year 2000 the population was just 30 people. it's the definition of a small town. It's population peaked at about 200 in 1925. Inexplicably it does still have a post office today, it also has one restaurant, Front Street Burgers and one Methodist church. The whole neighborhood is mapped on Google Street view so you can see the locals surprised on their porches, and a dog chasing the Google car. All of this to say... Bennie had humble beginnings.

Jimmie Rodgers Guitar Sidebar:
Interestingly, his father, Vestral Hess worked on the railroad with Jimmie Rodgers who even stayed at their house on occasion. Purportedly Jimmie gave Bennie his first guitar lessons and even gave him a guitar. In one tale this is the first Martin guitar ever made though that is an obvious Texas Tall Tale. The first Martins were made in 1833. These were parlor guitars with gut strings. Even when he was born this would have been an 80+ year old guitar and completely inappropriate for a child. But Jimmie was the first country artist to endorse a guitar brand in 1928. But that was not a Martin, that was the Weymann “Jimmie Rodgers Special” Style 890 [LINK]. But he did also play Martins. That same year he was photographed playing a Martin Model 000-45; and he is known to have played a 00-18 as his Bristol sessions. Did he give a guitar to Bennie? Maybe?  The whole connection to Rodgers is based on Hess's hearsay which as you will learn... is not always a great source.

Back to Bennie: 
In 1940 Bennie Hess formed his first band, The Rhythm Wranglers in 1940 when he was 26 years old. That landed him a show on radio station 1310 KFYO-AM in Lubbock, TX. It's an odd station with tall tales of it's own. The station was founded by the Kirksey Bros. Battery and Electric Company and moved to 1310 kHz in 1932 having been on 1420 kHz since it's founding in Breckenridge, TX in 1927. In 1929 it increased power from 15 to 100 watts. 

But Breckenridge is about halfway between Abilene and Fort Worth... that's odd... In 1928 the station moved to Abilene now daytiming at 250 watts. Then in 1932 in a fit of boldness, Kirksey was approved to move KFYO to Lubbock on 1310 kHz. The full move was about 500 miles. That might be a record. Speaking of records, KFYO is typoed at KXYO in the book Sparks Out of the Plowed Ground by Bob Doll. Good book though. But AI has propagated that error onto various websites since then. They went on to make the first broadcast of a Texas Tech football game which was their patriotic duty in Lubbock. 

By 1944 Hess was performing on the Cornbread Matinee at KRLP in Dallas, TX. Other regulars on the program included host Hal Horton, Ruby Allmond, announcer Johnny Hicks, Georgia Slim Rutland, and Howard Howdy Forrester. This is not to be confused with the Cornbread Matinee that broadcast out of WKYW in the mid 1950s. That was hosted by Thorne Hall then Car Shook. The KRLP program was broadcast out of the Arcadia Theatre through at least 1948. But according to Hess, the show was carried on 43 different radio stations in Texas. But that's another tall tale. 

There is a gap in his career here where he recorded and performed with the Oklahoma Tornadoes 1946–1947 which he self-released on Opera. Multiple artists from the session appear on Gold Star and other Cajun recordings Pee Wee Lyons, Riley Clark, Floyd Leblanc in particular.  But his connection to Gold Star is tenuous.

Bennie was just kind of a grifter, all 6-foot-six of him. It permeated his whole recording career. Bennie cut his first record in 1945 for the Black And White Records. He could only be pleased by sharing a label with greats like T-Bone Walker. It is unknown how many records that sold, but purportedly it won him some appearances in western films as a singing cowboy. But Imdb lists nothing. But that might be him as the singing cowboy in the 1939 Wagon Train starring Tim Holt. More here

However Bennie used pseudonyms frequently in his career: Buddy Page, Benny Leaders, Georgia Harrison. He started his own record label Opera while still under contract to Black And White, which might be after his deal with Bill Quinn and Gulf records in Houston in 1944, but the latter might be another fib attempting to tie himself to the career of Harry Choates. But the book Cajun Breakdown by Ryan Brasseux ties him to Gold Star records, but only to leave without recording anything to found Opera records. 

Thought it was true that he signed to a major label, Mercury in 1948 and recorded a few sides. But Mercury fired him for bootlegging his own release via his bogus Opera label. In fairness Mercury hired Hess because he could mimic Ernest Tubb's style , the same way they signed Allen Flatt in 1954. Bennie Probably didn't see much of a future in that. So in 1953 he launched a new label OK'ed which aped the branding of the Okeh label. I've only seen one 78 rpm release with that imprint.

 

In November, 1955 he managed to get his own single "Queen of Sylvan Beach" reviewed in the C&W section. But it didn't become a hit. Billboard literally wrote "While he does a good job, the material is not strong enough for commercial prospects." That was the story of his whole career. Bennie had a good ear for finding talent. He could have been an A&R man for a major label. But his own recordings didn't have that certain something. He appeared in Billboard again just a month later, in a passing reference in a December 1955 issue of Billboard.

"Denny Denver, C&W deejay at WCMW, Canton OH, has Jimmy Dickens, Del Woods, the Louvin Brothers, Cousin Judy and Dusty Owens going into Memoruial auditorium there January 1 for two shows, same package plays Warren, OH, January 2 and Zanesville, OH January 3... Elsie Pierce Wilks composer of 'Turn Back the Clock to Davy Crockett' and others, has a new Christmas tune, 'Oh the Man in the Moon is Santa Claus,' which has been waxed for Jet Records by Bennie Hess..."

Bennie went on to perform on Louisiana Hayride on KWKH in Shreveport, LA with his new band The Nation Playboys. In January 1957 he's quoted in Cashbox magazine not about about his own hits, or shows, or tour dates but about the artists he's releasing on his new record label, Spade. Thus began a  trend, that Bennie's taste for rockabilly and boogie-woogie would endear him to legions of collectors in the future but never amount to personal fame and fortune.

"Bennie Hess, owner Spade Record Co., Houston believes he has something in these three recent Spade label releases: “It Hurts The One Who Loves Me”, Ray Doggett; “I End Up Crying”, Royce Porter; “Is There No Love For Me”, Johnny McAdams. Spade records are distributed locally by Gulf Record Co."

Some stories about Bennie were true. Bennie did also perform on the Big D Jamboree in Dallas on KRLD-AM and on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville at WSM. George Jones really was in his band and and Billie Collie at KNUZ who discovered Elvis really did believe in Bennie. When listing off artists KNUZ pushed in a 1954 ad in Sponsor, Bennie was top of the list. Collie it seems did try to "break" Hess as an artist. Bennie even has a brief promotional stint as a DJ on KNUZ as described by Radio Daily in October of 1949

"What  is  probably  the  largest  regularly scheduled  western  disc  jockey show  has  made  another "first" for  KNUZ,  Houston  indie.  "Rhythm Ranch"  has  a  new approach  in  that it  will  consistently  use  more  live  recording talent  than  any previous Houston  program.  Each  recording artist  will  emcee  a  15-minute  period in  "Rhythm  Ranch,"  which  hits  the air  at  1:45  p.m.  each  Saturday,  with chatter and  news  about  their  recent releases  and  bands  while  spinning their  own  records  with  the  able  assistance of  KNUZ  staffers  Ken Grant  and  Buddy  Covington. Already signed  for  "Rhythm  Ranch" are  Bennie  Hess,  Tiny  Smith,  Leon  Payne,  Ben  Christian,  Benny  Leaders, Jimmy  Short,  Collie  Cornpatch, Little  Marge,  Pete  Hunter,  Floyd Tillman,  Hank  Lochlin,  Jerry  Jericho, Jerry  Irby,  and  Woody  and Smitty. "

In 1974 after open heart surgery Bennie finally slowed down a bit. Unable to become a big star on his own, Bennie worked hard to build a career for his son Troy Hess. Troy released his first single at the age of four (some sources say two). These early recordings, on Hess's labels are ... not great.  But Troy got to appear alongside huge stars such as Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Porter Waggoner, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Troy still performs today but he didn't get the recording bug like Bennie did. More here. 

Among Troy's own recordings was a single “Please Don’t Go Topless, Mother” which probably led to some awkward moments at the dinner table. Writer Dan Beck called his young music career "child abuse", and compared him to David Allen Coe. That sure did piss off Hess but it's hard to say which he took as the greater insult. Their letters are worth reading. [LINK] Bennie Hess died November 22, 1984 in Houston (Texas). More here. Troy still has the guitar Bennie said was from Jimmie Rodgers. Bennie Hess died November 22, 1984.