The Billboard Rhythm & Blues DJ Spotlight

DJ Spotlight was a section in the Rhythm & Blues section of Billboard Magazine. Their Rhythm & Blues section itself goes back to at least July of 1952. It was a different era. Billboard still had both weekly Vaudeville and Burlesque sections.

It's original focus was on record reviews and charts as you'd expect. That same year, Bob Rolontz took over the "Rhythm & Blues Notes" column from Hal Webman. Mr. Kal Rudman was a contributing editor to the section starting in 1964. The column had been running since the middle of 1950, and addressed R&B more seriously as an industry. It was still full of record releases, and artist signings but it also covered R&B venue news, and both radio station and record label moves. Rolontz joined Billboard as a reporter in 1951, having grown up in radio. His father owned WCAU in Philadelphia. More here.

The Rhythm & Blues section fell under Music and Record news. But it didn't run in every issue. The spotlight ran irregularly. There was one spotlight it's first month, but three times in the following April. By March there was a spotlight every week. But back in the January 2nd issue there isn't a Rhythm & Blues section at all.  Because of that inconsistency I've broken out the below chart by week to indicate not just who is featured, but also if there was a DJ Spotlight at all. No DJ appeared more than once but some stations appeared multiple times. Out of 52 weeks only 37 DJs were spotlighted, and of those only one was a woman: Ruby "Lady Cool Breeze" Lewis of 890 KBYE-AM [More here].

Perhaps the most interesting discovery is that the spotlighted DJs are not all African-American. Both Charlie Brown of WLOU and the inimitable Porky Chedwick of WAMO were profiled. In a modern context it would be politically correct to see a race-agnostic chart or feature like that. I am not sure that's how it was intended or perceived way back in 1965.

Then suddenly in November, after the DJ Spotlight on Larry Daley, the feature just stopped. If it had been in December you might have expected it to re-start the following year.  But there were no Rhythm & Blues spotlights to come in January of 1966; and none ever again. It ended as abruptly as it began, without any explanation. The timing lines up with the departure of Rolontz for a VP job at Atlantic records but correlation is not causation. 

Date	Issue	Name	Call sign	City
01/02/1965	Vol. 77, No. 1	none
01/09/1965	Vol. 77, No.2	none
01/16/1965	Vol. 77, No. 3	none
01/23/1965	Vol. 77, No. 4	none
01/30/1965	Vol. 77, No. 5	Paul "Fat Daddy" Johnson	WSID	Baltimore, MD
02/06/1965	Vol. 77, No.6	George Hudson	WNJR	Newark, NJ
02/13/1965	Vol. 77, No. 7	none
02/20/1965	Vol. 77, No. 8	none
02/27/1965	Vol. 77, No. 9	E. Rodney Jones	WVON	Chicago, IL
03/06/1965	Vol. 77, No.10	George Woods	WDAS	Philadelphia, PA
03/13/1965	Vol. 77, No. 11	Jimmy Byrd	WILD	Boston, MA
03/20/1965	Vol. 77, No. 12	Charlie Brown	WLOU	Louisville, KY
03/27/1965	Vol. 77, No. 13	Porky Chedwick	WAMO	Pittsburgh, PA
04/03/1965	Vol. 77, No. 14	Bill Curtis	WUFO	Buffalo, NY
04/10/1965	Vol. 77, No. 15	Milton "Butterball" Smith	WMBM	Miami, FL
04/17/1965	Vol. 77, No. 16	Ruby "Lady Cool Breeze" Lewis	KBYE	Oklahoma, City
04/24/1965	Vol. 77, No. 17	George Truehart	WDAO	Dayton, OH
05/01/1965	Vol. 77, No. 18	Eugene Potts	WGIV	Charlotte, NC
05/08/1965	Vol. 77, No. 19	Chuck Moore	KPRS	Kansas City, MO
05/15/1965	Vol. 77, No. 20	Eddie Castleberry	WVKO	Columbus, OH
05/22/1965	Vol. 77, No. 21	Al Jefferson	WWIN	Baltimore, MD
05/29/1965	Vol. 77, No. 22	Edward "Pee Wee" Harris	WXKW	Troy, NY
06/05/1965	Vol. 77, No. 23	Sir Walter (Raleigh)	WAMO	Pittsburgh, PA
06/12/1965	Vol. 77, No. 24	Jerry Thomas	KNOK	Dallas, TX
06/19/1965	Vol. 77, No. 25	William Johnson	WUST	Washington, DC
06/26/1965	Vol. 77, No. 26	Bob Hudson	WCIN	Cinncinatti, OH
07/03/1965	Vol. 77, No. 27	Chet McDowell	KYOK	Houston, TX
07/10/1965	Vol. 77, No. 28	Chuck Cunningham	WLOU	Louiville, KY
07/17/1965	Vol. 77, No. 29	none
07/24/1965	Vol. 77, No. 30	Tom Reed	KPRS	Kansas City, MO
07/31/1965	Vol. 77, No. 31	William "Boy" Brown	KJET	Beaumont, TX
08/07/1965	Vol. 77, No. 32	"Big" Ben Tipton	KBYE	Oklahoma, City
08/14/1965	Vol. 77, No. 33	Bill Williams	WCHB	Detroit, MI
08/21/1965	Vol. 77, No. 34	Bill Moss	WVKO	Columbus, OH
08/28/1965	Vol. 77, No. 35	Dr. Bop (Hoyt Locke)	WAWA	Milwaukee, WI
09/04/1965	Vol. 77, No. 36	none
09/11/1965	Vol. 77, No. 37	"Cousin" Herb Lance	WERD	Atlanta, GA
09/18/1965	Vol. 77, No. 38	"Skipper" Lee Frasier	KCOH	Houston, TX
09/25/1965	Vol. 77, No. 39	Larry Dean	WWIN	Baltimore, MD
10/02/1965	Vol. 77, No. 40	Clifton "King Bee" Smith	KCOH	Houston, TX
10/09/1965	Vol. 77, No. 41	Ben Miles	WANT	Richmond, VA
10/16/1965	Vol. 77, No. 42	Rick Darnell	KPRS	Kansas City, MO
10/23/1965	Vol. 77, No. 43	Ruben T. Washington	KNOK	Dallas, TX
10/30/1965	Vol. 77, No. 44	Kelson "Chop-Chop" Fisher	WWIN	Baltimore, MD
11/06/1965	Vol. 77, No. 45	Larry Daley	WCIN	Cinncinatti, OH
11/13/1965	Vol. 77, No. 46	none
11/20/1965	Vol. 77, No. 47	none
11/27/1965	Vol. 77, No. 48	none
12/04/1965	Vol. 77, No. 49	none
12/11/1965	Vol. 77, No. 50	none
12/18/1965	Vol. 77, No. 51	none
12/25/1965	Vol. 77, No. 52	none

DJ Cuzzin Linnie

A few months ago I read an all too short obituary for Cuzzin Linnie (aka Cousin Linnie, Cousin Linny) in the Dallas Observer. His friends just called him "The Cuz." It was said that Sam Cooke gave him that nickname. It was hard to cross the color line in broadcasting in the 40s and 50s. But for each format there is a demographic, and for Top-40 the DJs were as white as wonder bread™ in the 60s. Linwood  "Cuzzin Linnie" Henderson broke that color barrier when he was hired at 1190 KLIF-AM. KNON's Weird Warren Harris once said that Cuzzin Linnie was the "first guy to play soul on a rock radio station..."  It's a bold claim, but Harris was there and I wasn't.  Sadly Linwood was only inducted into the Texas Radio Fall of Fame posthumously. 

In all the hullabaloo between his tragic death and his hall of fame induction November 6th, the actual story of his rise to fame and his tragic fall has been lost. So lets get on with it. He started out at 1590 KPRS-AM in Kansas City, MO in the 1950s. He was born in 1937, so it was probably around 1958. KPRS-AM was the nation's first Black radio station west of the Mississippi River. It was founded by Andrew "Skip" Carter as a as a 500-watt daytimer with a transmitter donated by former Kansas governor, Alf Landon. I have no affirmative date on when he started there but the station signed on in 1951. The following year, Carter and Ed and Psyche Pate bought the station from Johnson County Broadcasting Corporation.It may be a coincidence, but In 1969, Carter became the majority owner and that's when Cuzzin Linnie shows up as the first black DJ on KLIF-AM.

In 1974 Linwood's career took a dramatic detour. I'll just cut right to the climax and work backwards. Allow me to quote the December issue of Texas Monthly, 1974:

"The arrest of KLIF's popular disc jockey — now ex-employee — Linwood (Cousin Linny) Henderson in September proved a cheerless and unnerving event for the station. Hendersonwas charged with (and later indicted for) two counts of third degree theft involving 37 stolen televisions and other goods valued at $13,000."

Despite the hubbub, Cousin Linnnie later returned to KLIF so his all-night show had two sequential runs with a brief interruption. It complicates his resume slightly. Consider it a brief interruption. He was at KLIF from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1977 to 1979.  Where was he from 1974 to 1977?  Was it prison?  No, while I have no firm data on that, it appears he went straight to 105.3 KXXK-FM, then a pop station. In 1977 he crossed the street to 730 KKDA-AM  a station known as Soul 73.

He remained there until station politics purged the staff in 1998. The year before that Dick J. Reavis published a texas guide book that mentioned The Cuz "The king of KKDA is "Cousin" Linnie Henderson, a thin, chain-smoking elder who refuses to disclose his age..."  He let commercial radio in 1998 at 61 years old, and began DJing at the legendary non-com,  89.3 KNON-FM.