The First Black Radio Announcer (Part 6)

Charles Walton called Al Benson the Godfather of Black Radio.He was a DJ (obviously) a musician and recording artist, a record producer an ordained minister, and a civil rights activist. Born in Jackson,  Missisippi, Benson worked vaudeville as a child and relocated to Chicago with his parents in 1923. He was only 15 years old. The success of Jack L Cooper on WSBC opened the door to some possibilities in Chicago and Benson walked through it.

The Chicago Tribute wrote that he "worked as a probation officer, railroad cook and precinct captain..." He went on to found a small church under his real name Arthur Leaner. Then in 1943 he began to broadcast his church services, sermons and gospel music on 1390 WGES-AM Sunday nights. The station signed on in 1925 as WTAY-AM and in the 1920s was a 3-way dayshare with WSBT and WJKS. In 1925 Coyne Electrical School purchased the station changed its call letters to WGES. It changed hands a coupel more times and in 1941 WGES left the share and moved to 1390 kHz and increased it's power from 500 watts power to 5,000 watts. By 1945 Benson also had another program spinning blues and jump music.

Benson introduced his show with the song  "9 O'clock Beer" by the Barney Bigard Quintet. He would stay with WGES until 1962 when it flipped to Top-40 as WYNR. The new owrner, Gordon McLendon fired all of its foreign language programmers and black DJs... including Benson. (It failed and went all-news in 1964)
 Benson was popular in Chicago. He cross the street and began DJing at WJJD. But the uproar over WGES continued. There were complaints the the FCC. There was a big polish population in Chicago that just got the palm.  The FCC held hearings.. but nada.

Benson cross the street to WHFC-AM and when the station was bought by Leonard Chess it was a dream come true. Under Leonard the station became a 24/7 black radio station as WVON. But he worked only a month more and announced his retirement in 1963. He did a couple part time gigs at WAIT, WWCA and WIMS. He died in 1978.

Cliff Arquette's Wild Boat Ride.

Let us consider the legend of  Cliff Arquette. It is said that at one time, he was performing regularly at 13 different daily radio shows at different 13 stations in the Chicago market. Furthermore that he was traveling from one studio to another by way of motorboats along the Chicago River which passed through its downtown. The claim seems to originate in an old issue of Coronet Magazine. But is it true?

He began as a bit-part funny-man hailing from Toledo, OH. He started out doing a vaudeville routine with Lolly Gookins called Cliff and Lolly Nuts of Harmony. He developed a character called Charley Weaver, who was a hapless folksy old man. It caught on. (He later got into a cross-dressing bit that was big for a time.) An issue of Popular Science from 1938 called him a "Radio Comedian" noting that he was playing more than 50 parts in various NBC radio programs. That's a nice early and reliable print source, but it cites no programs or stations!

Below is a partial list of programs he appeared on. I got some from the Radio Gold Index, more from the Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning. I cant' confirm it, but many of those NBC programs were performed at WBCN, the Chicago NBC affiliate. To be honest I can't find 13 programs happening concurrently in the Chicago metro but there are more enough a few to bear this out. His uncredited appearances are surely far greater.

• WGN - Cliff and Lolly, 1933
• WISN - Myrt and Marge, 1933 -? 
• NBC - The Fred Astaire (Packard) Show, 1934-1937
• KECA - Hollywood Spotlight, 1935
• NBC - Edgar A. Guest, 1935-1941
• WMAQ - Fibber McGee and Molly, 1936-1954
• NBC Blue - The Jack Benny (Jell-O) Program, 1938
• NBC Blue - The Rudy Vallee (Fleischmann's Yeast ) Hour, 1939
• NBC Blue - Avalon Time, 1939-1941
• NBC Blue - Frank Watanabe and The Honorable Archie, 1939-1940
• ABC - Point Sublime, 1940-1948
• NBC Blue - I Love a Mystery, 1942?
• Mutual - The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, 1943-1953
• NBC - The Lifebuoy Show, 1943
• ABC - Glamour Manor, 1944-1945
• NBC - The Dick Haymes (Autolite) Show, 1944-1948
• ABC - Ellery Queen, 1948
• CBS - My Home Town, 1949
• The Dave Willock and Cliff Arquette Show, 1950
• CBS - Lum and Abner Show, 1950
• CBS - The Harold Peary Show, 1951

There is a stretch in his career when he was clearly based in the Chicago area. It starts in 1933 or earlier and running until about 1938 when his career clearly became more mobile. The Chicago river hugs Wacker Drive right through the heart of the city, splitting into the north and south branches at Orleans Street. In that era WGN was in the Drake Hotel on Lakeshore Drive. 14 blocks north of the river—but only two if you boated out and around to the Lake Michigan side. WISN however, is up in Milwaukee. It's a trip not directly traversed by any river route, nor in a time frame allowing one to appear on multiple shows per day.

But WMAQ moved to 400 West Madison in 1928 (today 2 North Riverside Plaza) and that location is 1 block off Wacker drive following the south branch. As of 1935 downtown Chicago had at least 8 commercial radio stations: WCRW, WMAQ, WENR, WGN, WBCN, WBBM, WGES, WHFC, WKBI, and WSBC. WGES was on 2400 W. Madison Street in that era, and the NBC Tower at 454 N. Columbus Drive. I have to say... this at least appears plausible.

Coyne Electrical and Radio School

The origin of the name Coyne lays with the brothers Coyne about 113 years ago. In 1899, the Coyne Electrical School of Boston started franchising. The first branch of its technical school was to be in Chicago. Other branches were later established in St. Louis and New York.  Needless to say, Coyne College has had many incarnations.  Just a few years ago it was called the Coyne American Institute. The 1908 Patterson's American Education directory just called it "Coyne's School." It was established in 1899, and in the 1920s and 1930s was the kind of correspondence school that advertised in magazines like Popular Science, Electronics World and various pulp periodicals. They still exist today, based in Chicago, Illinois with two campuses. In the 1960s they had moved up to advertising in Billboard. More here.

It began as the Coyne Electrical School of Chicago and opened in January o 1899. There is little public information on those early years but presumably they were hawking early radio knowledge, drafting and automotive skills. In 1915 they were "Coyne national Trade schools."  In 1921 they were still billing themselves as "Coyne Trade and Engineering Schools." They started advertising radio classes in 1922. It's president starting that year and through at least 1955, was B.W. Cooke. He lists himself as a "manager" in a 1915 advertisement. Interestingly in 1926 through 1948 their ads sometimes list H.C. Lewis as the president of their radio division. Both of them put their disembodied floating heads on Coyne advertisements with various titles.

B.W. Cooke was also the publisher of Automotive News in the 1930s. He was the director of the Chicago Motor Training Corporation in 1925. Coincidentally both of those were located in Chicago. An L.L. Cooke ran an electrical school with a similar M.O. just a few blocks away. I cant' prove it, but I suspect a family connection.

In April of 1925, H.C. Lewis purchased 1200 WTAY-AM from Oakleaves broadcasting. The station ran at a puny 15 watts.  It's original calls were WJOC-AM but had to change them to avoid confusion with WJAZ-AM. It had only signed on in October of 1923.  The call sign was changed about a year later to WGES-AM and increased it's power to 500 watts. Their own literature claims that it was a full time station but in fact it was a share-time with WMBB-AM. The station caused enough interference in downtown Chicago that besides losing money, it also obstructed the reception of many other stations. Lewis tried to sell it, then practically gave the station to Joseph Gunyon in 1929. Lewis was later wrote "I see absolutely no value in a school operating a radio station..."  For more on that read Educations Own Stations by S.E. Frost. Their radio program continued even without the radio station. In 1960s, the Coyne Electrical School merged with the American Institute of Engineering and Technology.