Nocturnal Nighthawks

The story starts with the Coon-Sanders Original Kansas City Nighthawks.  The orchestra began broadcasting in 1922 on WDAF-AM. At the time they were a share time on 730 AM with WHB-AM. They were broadcast live from the Muehlebach Hotel, which still exists today. More here. The group started in 1919, as the Coon-Sanders Novelty Orchestra.  There's nothing racial about the name, Mr. Coon is Carleton Coon and Sanders is pianist Joe Sanders. They took the name Nighthawks because their program aired late at night an approach they took around the country with them on tour in 1924. They first played in Chicago on KYW-AM. More here.

The group left Kansas City for the first time in 1924 for a three-month engagement in a roadhouse in Chicago. WBBM specialized in local, live programming, including a station promotion called the "Nutty Club." With over a million listeners in the US and Canada wiring, phoning or writing in for membership, it was clear that Program Director Charlie Garland, aka "Colonel Nut," and his crew had something good going.Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, who were named as the official "Nutty Club" orchestra. I'll quote teh St. Petersburg times from 1927...

"...the Nutty Club of WBBM, the Stewart-Warner Air theater known from coast-to-coast for its "Cuckoo Signal" and the other is the orchestra that has made insomnia a famous indoor sport —Coon-Sanders Original Kansas City Nighthawks. Under an arrangement just completed this orchestra is to broadcast exclusively over WBBM by remote control from the Blackhawk Grill; Chicago. It will be heard during the three weekly sessions of the Nutty Club, which start at midnight Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday Nights."

They actually played quite regularly on WBBM and were syndicated coast to coast on CBS after 1928. A 1926 news article described them as playing nightly there at 8:00 PM and again from 11:00 PM to Midnight Tuesdays and Thursdays. the band recorded a large number of sides for Victor, and at lease a few furtively for Vocalion. In 1928 Henry Sellinger made them an offer to bring their late night shindig over to WGN-AM. For the next twenty years they performed at the the Blackhawk Restaurant live on that Chicago Tribune radio station. More here.

In 1932 Carelton Coon came down with a jaw infection and died. He was only 38 years old. Joe Sanders tried to keep the band together, but failed. He started his own group and stayed in music until his death in 1965. The band is celebrated annually at the The Coon Sanders Nighthawks Fans' Bash in in Huntington, WV. Why it's not held in Kansas City or Chicago... I have no idea.

Kansas Engineering Experiment Station

The Engineering Experiment Station of Kansas State Agricultural College is just another part of Kansas State University. Back in In 1917 they were not. Actually they published the following self-description in their monthly bulletin that year:

"The Engineering Experiment Station was established for the purpose of carrying on tests and research work of engineering and manufacturing value to the state of Kansas, and of collecting, preparing and presenting technical information in a form readily available for the use of the various industries within the state. It is the intention to have all the work of this experiment station of direct importance to Kansas."

The Experiment Station still exists today and has actually proliferated. Today Kansas State University owns and operates 18,000 acres of Agricultural Experiment Stations in research centers in Hays, Garden City, Colby, and Parsons Kansas. In a practical sense, this is the academic lab for agribusiness. If you want wheat resistant to wheat rust and glows in the dark... this is where that would happen. Why do I bring this up?  Well they did a little something with early radio.More here.

Professor Andrey Abraham Potter was their assistant professor in mechanical engineering from 1910 to 1913 professor of mechanical engineering in the Kansas State Agricultural College. After that he was the acting dean of their Engineering division and acting director of the engineering experiment station.Because this bulletin was kept so early in the history of radio he very avidly had them include articles on the "radiophone."  It includes some very informative QSL reports.  It lists off the regular broadcasting programs in their district for potential listeners particularly on WDAF-AM, WEAF-AM, WBAP-AM, KLZ-AM, KSD-AM and WHB-AM. Among others. In a 1923 bulletin they published the following:

"To those living in Kansas the service rendered by the broadcasting station of the Kansas City Star, which has been designated by its government license as W. D. A. F., is available afternoons and evenings. The Sweeney Automobile School of Kansas City also renders valuable service from its high powered station W. H. B. The stations at Topeka, Wichita, Emporia, Hutchinson, Salina, Denver, Colo., Lincoln, Neb., Jefferson City, Mo., and the Kansas State Agricultural College supply all parts of the state with information and entertainment adapted to the communities served; while the large stations at Davenport, Iowa; Omaha, Neb.; Chicago, 111.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Atlanta, Ga.; Detroit, Mich.; Minneapolis, Minn.; St. Louis, Mo.; Schenectady, N. Y., and a number of Texas stations may be heard through most receiving sets in Kansas."

The published information on making cheap receiving sets, and making  and charging batteries to power them. They sent out their own weather reports by telegraph from a station WTG. Sadly the bulletins have little information on this service. Barry Mishkind wrote about a 1923 Department of Commerce list that had WTG broadcasting on 485 meters. There is some confusion about the station because documents self-describe it as "telegraphic." It was not a telegraph office. It just broadcast in Morse Code. Their first experimental callsign was 9YV, based in Manhattan, KS. It was first licensed in 1912 and became WTG in 1922. In 1924 the calls changed to KSAC-AM with a new frequency of 880 kHz. In 1925 they moved to 580 to share time with WIBW-AM. In 1984 the calls changed to KEXT-AM, then finally KKSU later that year.

They are generally thought to have broadcast the first regular weather information in the United States. Their daily weather broadcast in Morse code went out at 9:00 AM. In 1921, physics instructor Eric R. Lyon was running the station. Route56.com has great information on these early years. Today that station comes down to us as 580 KKSU-AM which after 78 years of broadcasting went off air in 2002 allowing WIBW to go full-time. The KKSU staff reorganized and now produce agricultural news programming for other Kansas stations, with now more than 50 affiliates. More here.

The Midnight Frolic

In the late 1920s, the Commercial Appeal newspaper ran WMC-AM. The Midnight Frolic was a late night jazz program on WMC in Memphis that was an all-request show that supposedly was broadcast from the actual roof of the Commercial appeal building.

790 WMC-AM first began broadcasting on January 19, 1923. A review of a Bessie Smith program there dates the program to at least that year. It clearly describes the program as starting at 11:00 PM and airing from the rooftop of the Commercial Appeal Building. My latest confirmed reference to it's Midnight Folic is in 1925 but it probably dates to earlier. The Book Jack Teagarden: the Story of a Jazz Maverick refers to the show:

"The Peacocks broadcast frequently on The Midnight Frolic Show over WMC The Commercial Appeal radio station. The following item from The Appeal  gives an indication of how dependent these bands were on listener requests.  'Tonight they will start their programme with a medley air.  the entire list of numbers has not yet been selected... it is hoped that there will be enough requests made to carry on through the hour..."

The band (The Youngberg-Marin Peacocks) played a couple numbers they planned on then apparently requests carried them through the rest of the live program. The Peacocks had 10 members and were able to play 25 different instruments among them... just not simultaneously. Bessie smith cplayed with a orchestra as well but the number of musicians is less than certain.

If you start to read about this, you'll find there was an unrelated program of the same name on KMCS-AM in Inglewood, CA, and one on WDAF-AM, and another on KFI-AM in Los Angeles.WHO-AM had a Barn Dance Frolic back in 1932. 1160 WJJD-AM in Chicago had both a Breakfast Frolic and a Suppertime Frolic program.  But there's a reason for all that. During that ugly separate-but-equal era many shows were divided by race into two very separate evening programs. Today that's an indication that the earlier program is the family-friendly program. The notion came from cabaret and it's at least a hundred years old, and the trail of etymology loses me there.

But it stands to reason this is something that radio inherited from vaudeville. Commercial radio was born in the 1920s and it took it's ideas for entertainment directly from the stage. In Birmingham There was a theater called "The Frolic Theater" where Bessie Smith also performed. In New York City the New Amsterdam theatre was called The Frolic as well.  I'll quote from Virtual 42nd street.

"When it was built, the New Amsterdam was the largest theatre in New York, and could seat 1800 people.  It opened in November of 1903... In 1914, the rooftop theatre was renamed Danse de Follies and  Ziegfeld added a dance floor on the rooftop.  Later, in 1923, the rooftop would be renamed again, to the Frolic Theatre."

Notice that program is also broadcast from the roof of the building.  Each of these programs at WMC, KFI, WDAF, KMCS and others probably has a connection to local theaters, and local theatre troops.