Booger Brothers Broadcasting System

Almost everyone knows what a Les Paul guitar is, but history seem to be forgetting Les Paul the person. Firstly, his real name was Lester William Polsfuss, He never legally changed his name. Les Paul was a stage name he started using in the mid-1930s. It wasn't even his first stage name. Paul didn't start buildings guitars until the 1940s. Before his guitar era he was a radio performer, a recording engineer, a music director and for a time ...a pirate radio operator. Whole books have been written about the mans many storied accomplishments but I'd like to focus on radio and one pirate station in particular. More here. Paul was a genius engineer his ability to build a transmitter, or even an entire radio station is not in doubt —only the details around this particular tale.

The story is fabulous, who doesn't like a tale mixing wild house parties with pirate radio and hot jazz.  But it's main problem is that his biographies skip over it. The biographical reference is admittedly brief. It appears in his 1993 biography Les Paul: An American Original, by Mary Alice Shaughnessy. Les Paul was still alive when it was published, he died in 2009. That overlap also gives it more credence, but contemporary references were hard to find.

So let's start with his early radio experiences. He received some engineering training as early as 8 years old by an unnamed engineer from WTMJ. He became a musician as a teenager. He played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and played with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, MO, on KMOX. The book The Mighty 'MOX by Sally and Rob Rains identifies corroborates that early KMOX program. It is otherwise very obscure.

A young guitar player known as "Rhubarb Red" was part of The International Oil Burner Show between 4:30 and 7 AM from 1927 to 1930."

Les relocated with Joe Wolverton's band to Chicago and started playing on WBBM with them, and then solo as Rhubarb Red. He was performing as both a country artist and a jazz solist. As Red he started recording with Art Tatum which is when his career really took off. The book Famous Wisconsin Musicians by Susan Masino also has him performing at WISN in Milwaukee, WRJN in Racine, and both KBGA and KWTO in Springfield, IL and of course WJJD and WIND in Chicago. This is further referenced in the book Encyclopedia of American Radio 1920 - 1960 by Luther Sies

"Rhubarb Red. A CW tenor, guitarist and harmonica player, Rhubarb Red appeared daily at 6:30 A.M. and again at 9:00 AM. in an all request program WJJD, Chicago, IL; and WIND, Gary, IN, 1935-1937."

That same book has Les relocating to New York in 1937. The official Les Paul website puts it in 1938, but close enough. But 1938 is definitely when he began performing with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on NBC radio.  In 1941 He returns to Chicago and becomes the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. So from his career history we can say definitively that his pirate station existed for a period of time between 1938 and 1941.

Here we have the pirate station boxed in my context. As the legend goes... in Jackson Heights, NY, Les created his own local radio station and broadcast jam sessions. His makeshift studio full of professional musicians. The station operated at low wattage and was only receivable locally, but due to the proximity of LaGuardia airport that included aircraft. Yes, the claim is that the airplanes flying into LGA would get scrambled signals of jazz music mixing with coordinates from the tower. Purportedly he solved that engineering problem with a "wave trap."

How much of that is true? Well, Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the Queens in New York City. Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford had an apartment in 40-15 81 St. That address is only about 2 miles from LGA. Most sources describe that as a studio apartment. But Les Paul in an interview said "Getting union cards jumped our pay to $150 a week and allowed us to take furnished apartments at Electra Court." Advertisements for the units described it as "The House of to-morrow, ready to-day!" The developers ran ads for furnished apartments in Down Beat magazine, specifically advertising to musicians —just as Les described. So here was have a plausible reason he had such access to professional musicians; his building was full of them!

Different versions of the tale claim that he set up his studio in the building’s basement, near the furnace room. His friends came over and they played together. But his friends at the time are now enormously famous musicians: band members from the biggest big bands of the era. Not the band leaders but the working union card musicians from Benny Goodman's band, Glenn Miller’s band, Artie Shaw's band, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey's bands, Fred Waring’s band, Bob Crosby’s band and Lionel Hampton's band. It's almost too fantastical to be real. How many of them lived at Electra Court?

I did eventually find a contemporary reference in the July 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics. I think that's Ernie Newton on bass which might make that band some iteration of the Les Paul trio. Did the FCC pay him a visit? Did he really take the  mic and announce the station name as "Booger Brothers Broadcasting?"

The Popular Mechanics article is missing the "Booger Brothers" connection but everything else is there. The general location, the famous musicians, and the broadcasting equipment stretching from the apartment to the basement. A 1953 issue of the Atkinson's Evening Post claims that Les gave the station ID as "The Booger Brothers, The Pink and Yellow network, top of your dial."  But Les went on to say "It was a good station... but the law would have caught up with us if an accident hadn't beat it to the punch." What accident? The Booger Brothers came to an abrupt end in 1941. While jamming in his apartment basement in 1941, Paul was nearly electrocuted to death. [SOURCE]

Paul describes it himself in the book The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy, 1915-1963 by Robb Lawrence. "I stuck my hand in the transmitter when I shouldn't have..." Bassist Ernie Newton knocked him free but he was seriously injured. After an ice bath they took Paul to the hospital. It took him two years to recuperate according to some sources. This is not entirely true but Booger Brothers was still off the air.

In 1941 or 1942 he moved to Chicago where he became the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. A promotional photo dated October of 1941 puts him in the Chicago CBS studio. Newspaper radio schedules still show his trio playing on local stations: they were as on air at KLZ and KVOR in May of 1942. A November schedule has him on WEOA, WCKY, WGAR, WHIO, and KMOX at different times. Some biographies have him moving to "Hollywood" in 1943. That's partly true. The only radio he did after that was for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) because he got drafted. Though he did do some films. The Bing Crosby radio show that gets connected to this move was Kraft Music Hall and he didn't appear on that program until 1945. He got his own eponymous radio show in 1950. It was a 15-minute slot on NBC with his trio now composed of himself, Mary Ford, and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton. His career never stopped but I think that's the last major radio milestone on that long and storied career I mentioned.

The Flit Soldiers

The Flit Soldiers were another group put together by Harry Reser for the network benefit of solid advertising sponsorship. It was carried on the NBC network from WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee, from 8:30 to 9:00 on Thursday nights just in 1929 and 1930.

Reser had already been in the the Okeh Syncopators, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Just a few years before Reser pulled together the Clicquot Club Eskimos, he already had the formula down. His Flit Soldiers had sheet music, post cards and magazine advertisements. their theme song plugged the product's virtues "We're in the army now / We're in the army now / Mosquitoes and Flies / You better get wise / We're in the army now."  His group already had some names you'd know: Scrappy Lambert, Billy Hillpot, and Phil Cook. Lambert and Hillpot had already played the parts of Trade & Mark for Smith Brothers Cough Drops. This was a group of professionals.

Invented by chemist Dr. Franklin Nelson m it was first marketed in 1913. While later formulations by Esso (later Exxon) contained 5% DDT, the original was mineral oil based. The modern Flilt spray by Clarke, contains permethrin and has no connection to Exxon, Harry Reser,  or Dr. Nelson.

Spareribs' Blackface Children's Stories

Malcolm Claire had a one man show as "Uncle Mal" on WLS-AM reading children's stories. His only accompaniment was an organist named Irma Glen (sometimes written as Irma Glynn.) She also worked at WENR. A 1938 radio schedule lists him on WENR as well. The two stations operated under a share time agreement from 1925 until they finally merged in 1954. More here.

The Uncle Mal program was carried on NBC Monday through Friday airing at 5:15 EST. the program was so popular he was able to publish branded collections of stories almost every year from 1939 to 1946. His titles included Tune-in Tales, Tune-in Again, Story Time, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Always New Tales, and others. The book The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio list him as variously active from 1931 - 1940.

According to an article in a 1939 issue of Radio Guide the program debuted in 1930. He began with ribaldly racist  black face routines as the character "Spareribs" which he portrayed on both the WLS National Barn Dance and a lesser known program The Sinclaire Weiner Minstrels on WTMJ as early as 1932. Strangely the segue from black face to wholesome children's classics was gradual. When his children's began he actually did it in black face affecting the faux rural accent and all. More here.

The book The Hayloft Gang by Chad Berry even dedicated a few pages to the story of "Uncle Mal."  Claire was known to emcee the National Barn dance in that era as well. The 1944 WLS Family Album indicated that Malcolm was also doing overnights from 3am to 5am in the morning. I am only aware of a single recording of his program in the Radio Gold Index making it a true rarity.

Radios Most Unrehearsed Show!

The Breakfast Club radio show in Chicago, on 1540 WLS-AM and its announcer Don McNeill. the program aired from 1933 to 1968. McNeill hosted the program for it's entire run, over 35 years. It ran for an hour on the NBC Blue Network weekdays at 8:00 AM. With the exception of his support for public prayer, he was a strictly apolitical character... something that's missing in our modern discourse. He debuted it in 1944 ostensibly to support the troops; a sentiment that was much more congruous in WWII. But even the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor he avoided the war topic and just let the new bulletins do the talking. If you get curious for more details, John Doolittle's book about the program, Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club is not to be skipped.

His radio career didn't' start in Chicago, not even in Illinois. It began 90 miles to the north in Milwaukee back in 1928. He graduated from Marquette University  in Milwaukee, class  valedictorian and started as an announcer at WISN-AM. and later for WTMJ-AM owned by The Milwaukee Journal. In 1930 he moved to Louisville and began announcing on  WHAS-AM. He tried to shop a vaudeville skit to radio stations on the west coast but that tanked. More here.

So in 1933, he auditions for an unsponsored morning program called The Pepper Pot. McNeill took over the show in June and renamed it The Breakfast Club. Pepper Pot is a terrible name for a radio shoe. It sounds like a restaurant. His re-formatted program was meant to be humorous and and topical but mostly just very wholesome and family oriented. It'd be pretty boring by modern standards. They had musical guests and both comedians and celebrities.After a few months letters started coming in with cornball jokes and bad amateur poetry. he incorporated it and the show became virtually an ad lib hour. It was called "radios most unrehearsed show" When the show was cancelled in 68' Don McNeill stepped out of the limelight forever. He wouldn't give interviews, he was just done. He died on May 7, 1996.

The Mona Motor Oil Twins

Now this is truly obscure. There are scant few references to the Mona Motor Oil Twins, and many of them erroneously list them as the Mono Motor Oil Twins. It's difficult to track down any information on the group. but we do know that they had a little something to do with KOIL. The Mona Motor Oil Company owned 1080 KOIL-AM, which signed on July 10, 1925. (They didn't move to 1290 until much later) They originally broadcast from twin towers in Council Bluffs, Iowa and then moved to Omaha in 1937.  None of my books even gave a year. Thankfully Google scans newspapers. The Milwaukee Journal newspaper mentioned the Mona Motor Oil Twins in a short article on Sept 6th 1928.

"Ned and John, the Mona Motor Oil Twins, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and station KOIL  will broadcast a special program over WTMJ, the Milwaukee Journal station from 7 to 7:30 and from 10 to 10:30 tonight. They will sing a number of popular songs of today and play a few Hawaiian guitar selections. Listen to the twins tonight over WTMJ."

That's the whole thing. I have also found exactly one 78 release by the duo titled "The Book on Etiquette/ I'm Saving Saturday Night For You" on Columbia [1340 D]. Modern complication CDs seem to list that first track as 'Etiquette Blues." That was also released in 1928. A 1927 issue of Ohio State University monthly lists the Mona Motor Oil Twins the morning of Tuesday, May 10th.My impression here is that the group was very short-lived. The Encyclopedia of American Radio lists entries for a Mona Motor Oil Trio, and a Mona Motor Oil String Quartet.

What ultimately happened to ned and Jonh we may never know.  The great depression was hard on the Mona Motor Oil Co. before the crash, the Mona Motor Oil complex was expanding down South 6th Stree. but after things were bad. Barnsdall Corp. acquired the company in 1932. They sold KOIL to promoter Don Burden in 1953. The stories about Don Burden deserve their own post and he too will have his day.

The First Directional Antenna

Directional broadcasts were very desirable in AM radio. Previously if two stations interfered with each other the only solutions were lowering tower heights and lowering the power. Both cut coverage area.

The first Directional broadcast Antenna was designed by Ray Wilmotte. This was for 620 WFLA (dayshare with WSUN) in Tampa back in 1932. It was the right solution for a specific problem. By 1947 there were 646 AM radio stations on air in America, and 39 of them were using directional antennas.

Interestingly enough the whole ordeal had to go to court. When WFLA powered up 620 WTMJ lost coverage. On appeal it was ruled that the earlier coverage area of 620 WTMJ Milwaukee should be restored. Thus the system was installed to avoid a power reduction. Coverage map Here. [WFLA moved to 940 AM in 1941 leaving 620 to WSUN which in turn changed called to WDAE.] The purpose of the WFLA antenna was two fold:

1. Protect the contour of Milwaukee station, WTMJ.

2. Reduce wasted power sent out over the Atlantic ocean. Then redirect it over land.

Its success began a series of conversions. In 1934, 700 WLW-AM, Cincinnati used a directional antenna to protect CFRB Toronto, Ontario, about 375 miles away. The FCC restricted their power output to 50 kW toward the North East.

Other early directional stations include, WOR, WADO and WEAF. All were experimenting with Bell Labs on this approach. None of them have any indications of experiments prior to 1933.

Ray Wilmotte was actually born in Paris and educated at Cambridge University in England. He moved to the U.S. to work to work on blind landing equipment for aircraft. During the second World War he worked on direction finding systems for airports and radar. Later at RCA on the development of communications satellites. In the 1970s he became a full time FCC consultant. There at the age of 78 he directed a UHF task force that developed a high-performance tuner that permitted greater use of the UHF spectrum. He died January 27th 2000 at the age of 98.