E. Rodney Jones, The World's Greatest Disc Jockey

I first found Mr. E. Rodney Jones on the back of a cassette. It was the back of the album: War Live  UA-CA193-J to be specific. (By the way, it's a fine album) Looking online for more info on the release I couldn't actually find any about the cassette, but that's common for 1970s tapes. Here's an image of the 8-track, a format which has somehow retained more cultural caché. [LINK]

So the note is just a one line attribution. "Introductions By E. Rodney Jones Of Radio Station WVON, Chicago, Ill."  This would be WVON-AM. The station moved from 1450 to the former 5,000-watt WNUS signal on 1390 in February of 1974. This particular "War Live!" album was released that same month and year, so it's pretty likely that the frequency was 1450 when it was recorded but that Jones would have been giving the station ID as 1390 WVON when he first spun the record. The band War released 13 albums between 1970 and 1979, so suffice it to say that Jones probably said their name a lot.

While researching this record I learned that The "E" in E. Rodney Jones stands for Earl. I also discovered that he has a robust discography of his own. It includes an oddity, released in 2005 the album "E. Rodney Jones, the World's Greatest Disc Jockey Presents... the World Series Of Blues & Soul Vol. 1"   [LINK])  Similar to his intro on "War Live!" Jones introduces the compilation. What follows is 19 tracks of blues and soul artists like Guitar Shorty, Ruth Brown, Jimmy Reed, Lightning Slim and several folks I've honestly never heard of.  It looks like something you'd find in a truck stop record bin. But wait is that Tom Joyner on the left?

Tom Joyner was born in 1975 so he was all of 30 years old on that album cover. E. Rodney Jones died in 2004, so this is probably his last recording at the age of 76!  The art is honestly a little cheesey, with the clip art, but E. Rodney Jones is a legend. I needed to hear this. I found a copy on Amazon for $1.50. Apparently people do not agree with me that this is a collectors item.

Jone's short bios usually say something like "The late E. Rodney Jones may have been the most prolifically-recorded of the great R&B DJs." Below is a list of just recordings where he was the writer and/or performing artist. He also produced records for folks like Mel Brown, wrote the liner notes for Major Lance and Jackie Ivory. He even wrote lyrics for Richard Parker, Mamie Galore, and Snooks Eaglin.

FORMAT	Artist	Title	Year/Label
LP	E. Rodney Jones/Lafayette Leake Trio	Might is Right	1970/Yambo
LP	E. Rodney Jones	At Heave's Grocery Store	1982/Hep' Me
45	E. Rodney Jones	R&B Time Pt. 1 / R&B Time Pt. 2	1967/Tuff
45	E. Rodney Jones & Larry & The Hippies Band	Right On, Right On / Chicken On Down	1970/Double Soul
45	E. Rodney Jones & Larry & The Hippies Band	Right On / Football	1970/Westbound
45	E. Rodney Jones & Willie Henderson	The Whole Thing / Loose Booty	1972/Brunswick
45	E. Rodney Jones	Peace Of Mind / Do The Thang	?/Tuff
CD	V/A	...The World Series Of Blues & Soul	2005/S.D.E.G.
45	War	War Live!	1973/UA
45	E. Rodney Jones	Pushing The Buck / Soul Sister	?/Double Soul
45	Syl Johnson & E. Rodney Jones	Soul Heaven/Is It Because I'm Black Pt.2	N/A
LP	E.Rodney Jones & The Prairie Dogs	Country And Western	1970/Concert Hall

Was this pay back for play back? Probably some of the time. Alan Freed did the same thing and Jones wasn't just a DJ, he was also a manager. In 1973 Jones testified (with immunity) about payola in Federal Court along with several other radio programmers. I'll re-quote the New York Times article here:

"E. Rodney Jones, program director of WVON, Chicago, said he had received a total of $2,000 on six occasions from Mr. Moore, which the witness described as “a token of his appreciation” He said he also received airline tickets from Mr. Moore... “Gifts or money have never had any influence on my playing of records,” Mr. Jones said. “If I didn't believe it was a potential hit, it wouldn't have been played.”"

Mr. Moore there would be Melvin Moore, a promoter from Brunswick records. Moore was in many ways similar to Jones. He was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist from Tulsa, OK. He performed with Ernie Fields’ orchestra and Zoot Sims, Lucky Millinder, even Dizzy Gillespie's band. In 1963 he got a straight job at Decca Decca Records as a promoter, then moved to Brunswick records in 1966. By 1970 he was their director of R&B promotions. More here and here.

The breadth of Jone's career is difficult to measure. He worked for more than 20 years at WVON-AM in Chicago with an afternoon program calling himself "the Mad Lad."That's the tenure his was best known for, but he moved all over the country which in may ways spread his style of R&B programming, he personally shaped R&B as a radio format.  

Jones was born in Texarkana, AR in 1927 (or 1928). Every biography fixates on his long tenure at WVON. But his career didn't stop or start there. A 1968 radio programming guide [LINK] gives one of the more plausible biographies of his early years:

 "[He] began his career as a band musician in Texarkana. Later became a MC., then worked a trick in Kansas City, Mo., moved to KXLW in St. Louis and WBBR in East St. Louis for 8 yrs. In 1962, the "Mad Lad" moved to Chicago joining WVON in 1963."

There are biographies that claim he worked at a local station in Texarkana, this is difficult to corroborate. The band story makes more sense. And can be corroborated. [SOURCE] We can even narrow down what station pretty easily.  Between the 1947 and 1957 editions of the radio Broadcasting annual only three stations exist in Texarkana: 1230 KCMC-AM/98.1 KCMC-FM and 1400 KTFS-AM, only adding 790 KOSY-AM to the market in 1951. That's three of the 5 radio stations in the whole state of Arkansas. He confirmed it was KTFS in a taped interview [SOURCE] for the book Black Radio : Telling It Like It Was. He also names the old top-40 station 1490 KUDL in that interview but not KXLW though the latter has many citations. KUDL signed on in 1953 so that does little to box in the time frame. But his brief time at WBBR is time-bound, they only used the call WAMV from 1961 - 1963. It's corroborated by a short "Good Guys" bio in the 1968 WVON Holiday LP.

CALL SIGN	City	Years
1400 KTFS	Texarkana, AR	1954/55?
1490 KUDL	Kansas City, MO	1956?
1320 KXLW	St. Louis, MO	1957 - 1960
1500 WBBR	East St. Louis, MO	1961 - 1962
1390 WYNR	Chicago, IL	1962
1450 WVON	Chicago, IL	1963 - 1976
1570 WBEE	Chicago, IL	1966?
940 WYLD	New Orleans, LA	1982-1986
1090 KAAY	Little Rock, AR	1984*
1310 KDIA	San Francisco, CA	1992?
1460 WXOK	Baton Rouge, LA	1994,1995
106.3 KQXL	Baton Rouge, LA	1994

I think Jones had departed WVON in 1977 or 1978 as WVON and WXOL had been forced into a time share agreement by then changing both stations. One Billboard reference in 1994 reports that he was a program director at KDIA, but that's hard to fit into his timeline. Multiple references cite his combined tenure at WXOK-AM and KQXL-FM in Baton Rouge to be more than 12 years. It seems highly likely but there are few references to confirm the dates.

E. Rodney Jones time at WVON -AM in the 60s and 70s made him a superstar. He became known to the station's audience as one of "The Good Guys," one of five radio personalities handpicked by the owner Leonard Chess. 

We don't have line ups today like The Good Guys on WVON 1390. We barely have line ups. Above is the top 45 at WVON from June 20-26 1975. The word soul today evokes an entirely different genre really. But check out those DJs: Lucky Cordell, Bernadine Washington, Pervis Spann, Bill 'Doc' Leem, Joe Cobb, Bill Crane, Jay Johnson, Cecile Hale, Herb Kent, Wesley South, Richard Pegue, Isabel Johnson, Ed Cook, Jim Maloney, Earl Law, Larry Langford and E. Rodney Jones! Don't touch that dial!  A 1972 list would have looked quite similar, missing only Langford from the list.

E. Rodney Jones is a member of the Black Radio Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Living Legend Award in the Radio Smithsonian Institute. His career spanned over 40 years but he is forever one of the Good Guys.

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

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.

The Magnificent Montague

In 1974, Billboard published an article claiming that as of that year, the Magnificent Montague aka Nathaniel Montague, had worked at 80 radio stations. He was a radioman among radiomen. He brought his style and personality with him everywhere, for better or worse. His career began in 1949 by his own recounting which means for 25 years he was on an average of 3.2 radio stations per year. It seems impossible. It might not even be true. By his own recounting in for that 1974 article, that he couldn't remember all the dates and places. He went on to say:

"For years I never lived in any one city more than six months. I was the original rebel and I had to move around the country because I was always getting fired for moving my mouth... trying to bring in unions, and things like that...  That's why I consider myself a leisure time executive rather than a disc jockey."

 And that' swhat most of the press blubs say as well. In Ebony magazine they plainly state that KSAN fired Montague and described him as "uncontrollable." But in that same 1974 issue, IBS was taking out two full pages to advertise his shows syndication. He was huge.

He's used so many different names on air: Rodney Jones, Georgie Woods, Fat Daddy, Chatty Hatty, Charlie Brown, John Hardy, and it was on WWRL-AM where he became the Magnificent Montague.

In 1965 he was blamed for the riots in Watts. Mobs of rioters in the primarily black neighborhood chanted "burn baby burn," a signature line for Montague. He had used it in reference to "hot" records. The Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story explaining where the "hep" slogan came from. The mayor and the police chief pressured KGFJ to fire him. Instead they cut his hours and banned his catch phrase. Then they cut his hours a bit more. Then whittled him down to nothing. It was no problem to Montague. He just moved onto another city and another station. Supposedly that scene repeated more than 80 times. I read everything I could find and I came up about 60 stations short. If you can add one please do leave a comment.

WVOM-AM Brookline, MA 1949
WHAT-AM, Philadelphia 1952
KCOM-AM, Beaumont, TX 1953
KTLW-AM, Houston, TX 1953
KCOH-AM Houston, TX 1954
WGES-AM, Chicago, IL
WAAF-AM, Chicago 1955-1957
KSAY-AM San Francisco, CA ? (apocryphal)
KSAN-AM, San Francisco, CA 1957-1961
KGFJ-AM Los Angeles, CA 1958 -1959
KXLW-AM St. Louis, MO 1960 - 1961
WWRL-AM, New York , NY 1962
WVON-AM, Chicago, IL
WEEJ-AM (apocryphal)
KGFJ-AM, Los Angeles, CA 1965-1967
XERB-AM, Tijuana, MX 1968
KYNO-AM / KPHD-FM Fresno, CA 1971
XPRS-AM, Tijuana, MX 1972
KPLM-FM Palm Springs, CA 1990

In 2003, Montague published his autobiography through University of Illinois Press. Think of it as an early Christmas gift to yourself. History matters. You can read about it here.

The last AM dayshare

I read that 1450 WVON-AM in chicago LMA'd 1690 WRLL-AM. It went without notice in most rags but it was also the end of the only AM share-time in Chicago. WVON who's stick is actually in Cicero, IL has signed off at 1:00 PM every day so that WCEV can use the frequency until 10:00 pm. This arrangement has been going on for decades and will only end this September. http://www.wvon.com/

In this LMA deal WVON brings its Urban talk programming to Chicago 24/7. Clear Channel owns the stick but WVON has an option to buy the expanded-band signal outright after five years. its a pretty good deal really. WRLL-AM drops their flagging oldies format WCEV presumably takes over the 1450 stick and WVON goes full-time. http://www.realoldies1690.com/

But it leaves us with only one remaining AM share-time: KWLC/KDEC on 1240 in Decorah, Iowa. It's a particularly odd deal. The commercial station KDEC shares the channel with Luther College’s KWLC. The college kids get overnights the weekdnds. KDEC gets everything else. But KDEC runs an Adult Standards format http://www.kdecradio.com/home.htm
and KWLC runs an eclectic mix of even more eclectic block programs. http://kwlc.luther.edu/

KWLC was founded 1926 , and inaugerated with a spirited reading of the Gettysburg Address. It is said to be the oldest continually operating radio station in Iowa. They began their share time agreement in the great depression as a money saving manuver which was very common then. They rode out the hard times where many others were not savvy enough to survive. But then they did something that the others did not. They stuck with the share time deal. While other broadcasters moved frequency, changed city of license or bought out their partner trying to provide full service, KWLC sat there quietly doing it's own thing. ...And now, they are the last of their kind.

WOMEN OF RADIO WEEK pt 4

 

Yvonne Daniels was known as “The First Lady of Chicago Radio,” Her silky smooth professional speaking voice garnered ratings wherever she worked. Her knowledge of jazz made her a listener favorite throughout America’s Midwest. Here's my favorite part: Most people outside of Chicago and across the country did not know that Yvonne Daniels was Black.

She began on a local AM station in jacksonville, IL but for the life of me I cant figure out if its WLDS or WJIL... Yvonne appeared on the national radar when she moved to Chicago. She joined WYNR-AM to DJ a jazz show that competed with popular disc jockey Sid McCoy on WCFL-AM. WCFL couldn't take the pressure and at McCoy’s own urging WCFL-AM eventually hired Daniels. Within two years the duo was heard in 38 states. She stuck with that station until they went Top 40.

In 1964 Daniels picked up a spot at WSDM-AM one of the nation’s first all-female radio station. Her program Daniels’ Den consistently beat out the rest of Chicago radio in it's time slot. In 1973, she moved on to WLS-AM, a big 50,000-watt powerhouse, where she became the station’s first female disc jockey. WLS beat out WCFL for number one in Chicago that year and every year for years after. You can hear clips of her at WLS here and here. Daniel's owned the overnights, her playlists remain WLS collectibles today.

hercshideaway.blogspot.com

During the 1980s, Daniels worked Chicago morning shows on WVON-AM, WGCI-AM and eventually on “Smooth Jazz WNUA.” Her career ran for more than three solid decades. Daniels is rightly credited with paving the way for future generations of both female radio personalities and specficly black women. She was a role-model and a blueprint. She died of cancer June 21, 1991. The city of Chicago named a downtown street in her honor.