Rock Radio Scrapbook

Airchecks: 1958

Talent: FRANTIC ERNIE DURHAM
Station: WBBC Flint, Mich.
Date: 1958
Time: 9:16

He started in newspapers, moved to radio news, but found his real niche as a deejay. His name was Ernie Durham, a.k.a. "The Frantic One" or "Ernie D."

Son of a banker and a nurse, the New York-born Durham came to be a deejay quite by accident. His original career path was journalism: he got his masters degree in journalism from New York University and by the mid'-20s was working for the leading black newspaper the "Pittsburgh Courier." Later, he was doing radio news in New York when a deejay got sick at the last minute. Durham was asked to fill in. He liked it so much it he became a full-time deejay and left the news business behind.

By the 1950s, Durham had become one of Michigan's top rhythm-and-blues deejays. He was such in demand that for a time he worked at two stations - WBBC in Flint and WJLB in Detroit. According to David Carson's book "Rockin' Down the Dial: The Detroit Sound of Radio," Durham would finish his WBBC show while his closing theme was playing, then race to Detroit with his opening theme having started!

As you'll hear on this aircheck, Ernie Durham was truly "frantic," rapping and rhyming his way through every break. Behind the scenes, however, Durham was a savvy businessman who passed up the club and party scene. Back in the days where deejays picked their own tunes. Durham played a big part in introducing many a Detroit act to the Michigan audience, including a young Smokey Robinson.

Durham later went to work at WJLB's successor, WQBH, and also at WJR in Detroit. In 1992, he returned to the airwaves to host a Saturday night r&b oldies show on another Detroit station, WDET-FM. He died Dec. 2 of that year after suffering from chest pains.

To hear Frantic Ernie Durham, click here.

(The Rex Doane Collection)

Talent: HARVEY DOBBS
Station: CHUM Toronto
Date: May 15, 1958
Time: 27:01

The famous CHUM sign at 1331 Yonge St. in Toronto, where the CHUM studios have been since 1959 (they were at 250 Adelaide W. before then)

It is incorrect to say that CHUM became a 24-hour a day, seven-day week rock 'n' roll station on May 27, 1957. For one, they still had some ethnic and religious programming on their schedule. And they didn't even play rock 'n' roll all the time. Evidence of that can be found on this aircheck from May, 1958, about a year after CHUM supposedly became a full-time rock 'n' roll station. The music is decidedly MOR and the appeal is to homemakers (they called them housewives then) not teenagers. The teens got to hear their rock 'n' roll before and after school and at night. This kind of dayparting was commonplace in radio of the time.

Technically, CHUM didn't become and remain a full-time, 24-hour rock 'n' roll station until the mid'-70s, when John Gilbert's mid-morning talk show was dropped in 1977. Gilbert's show was preceded in the 1960s and '70s by Larry Solway's "Speak Your Mind" talk show. In the early '60s, CHUM even ran Moose Latreck's country music show in the late evening, while playing easier-listening tunes by day.

Harvey Dobbs was CHUM's 9 a.m.-noon announcer from May, 1957 to February, 1959.

Hear Dobbs from May, 1958 here.

(Scrapbook archives)

For more classic CHUM airchecks, visit The CHUM Archives

Talent: ARNIE GINSBURG
Station: WBOS Boston
Date: Spring, 1958
Time: 5:54

Nobody put the fun into Top 40 like Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg.

The epitome of the frantic and funny '50s and '60s jock, Ginsburg was New England's leading Top 40 personality during his nine years (1958-67) at Boston's WMEX. Everything about him stood out - there was the non-traditional voice that led to Ginsburg calling himself "Old Leather Lungs" and "Old Aching Adenoids." There were sound effects - kazoos, whistles, cowbells, buzzers, oogah, car horns (the "Woo Woo" nickname came from the train whistle he used.) There were Ginsburg's memorable live reads for the drive-in fast food restaurant Adventure Car Hop, which featured the "Ginsburger" in honour of their most vocal advertiser. Even the name itself stood out - Ginsburg used his ethnic-sounding birth name when many jocks at the time opted for on-air monikers - a move that made him seem even more human to his listeners. Toss in Ginsburg's steady stream of corny jokes and you had a winner.

Ginsburg got his radio start in 1956 as an engineer, with occasional fill-in on-air duties, at Boston station WORL. He moved to WBOS later that year where he further developed his on-air skills. In 1958, Ginsburg began his stay at WMEX, appearing on the "Night Train" show seven nights a week (he taped his Saturday and Sunday night shows.) His Friday night sock hops at the Surf Ballroom at Nantasket Beach were the place to be for New England teens for a decade. After leaving WMEX in 1967, Ginsburg moved to WRKO and later jocked at or managed several other Boston stations.

In 1970, Ginsburg appeared on the Cruisin' 1961 album recreating a 1961 WMEX show, part of a series of recreations featuring leading '50s and '60s jocks. The album begins with Ginsburg's famous theme song by the 3Ds ("Gather 'round, everybody; 'cause you're about to hear/the show that's gonna make you/smile from ear to ear/It's Arnie Ginsburg, on the Night Train show.")

On this aircheck, we hear a rather subdued Arnie Ginsburg in his last year at WBOS. No bells or cowbells and only a couple of toots on the whistle here - they would soon be a major part of his act at WMEX - just Ginsburg with the "Older Records Hour."

Enjoy Arnie Ginsburg on WBOS here.

(The Sam Ward Collection)

Talent: GEORGE "HOUND DOG" LORENZ
Station: WKBW Buffalo, N.Y.
Date: May, 1958
Time: 3:29

Nineteen-fifty-eight marked the beginning of one historic era at WKBW and the end of another.

On July 4, 1958 - as rock 'n' roll continued to sweep the world - WKBW went to a full-time Top 40 format. While WKBW had played rock 'n' roll before, it had not done so on a 24-hour basis. (To compare before and after lineups, click here.)

The beginning of WKBW as a Top 40 station marked the end of the legendary George "Hound Dog" Lorenz's involvement with the station. He had joined 'KB in 1955 and shook things up with a rock 'n' roll show in the evening and his "Hound Dog Hit Parade" on Saturday mornings. Not everyone liked his act - church bulletins railed against him - but the Hound just kept right on rockin'. His son Frank - quoted in Wes Smith's excellent book "Pied Pipers of Rock 'N' Roll" - says of his father "he felt very strongly about the music and black artists in particular. He fought hard to keep their music on the radio."

Lorenz did not wish to work within the confines of Top 40 radio so he left WKBW before the switch. He went on to found WBLK-FM - one of the first black music stations on FM - before passing away in 1972 at the age of 52.

Enjoy Hound Dog Lorenz from May, 1958 here.

(The Dan Haber Collection)

Talent: IRV SMITH
Station: WINS New York
Date: October 30, 1958
Time: 5:35

Alan Freed in the WINS studio

Long before Musicradio WABC and the WMCA "Good Guys," there was WINS.

WINS was a pioneer in Top 40 radio, beginning with the arrival of Alan Freed at the New York station from Cleveland. Freed memorably handled the nighttime shift at WINS from 1954 to 1958, before heading first to obscurity and then to the grave in the wake of the payola scandals.

According to a September 30, 1957 schedule in the excellent book "The Airwaves of New York," WINS began its mornings with "Wake Up To Irv" with Irv Smith - "A Smith Named Irv." That was followed in late mornings with "Listen to Lacy" with Jack Lacy. In middays, it was the "High Noon to 3 Orbit Universe" with Stan Z. Burns. Lacy returned from 3-7 p.m. (split shifts were common in radio then), followed by Alan Freed from 7-11 p.m. Stan Shaw handled the all-night duties.

Tragically, morning man Smith died in a car accident on January 31, 1959 - about three months after this aircheck was recorded. He was 30.

Hear Irv Smith on WINS here.

(Scrapbook archives)

Talent: JACK LACY
Station: WINS New York
Date: October 30, 1958
Time: 6:34

The good times at WINS as a music station were relatively short-lived, however. In 1965, WINS became one of the first stations in the U.S. to switch to a 24-hour news format, a precursor of things to come in AM radio.

Listen to Lacy on WINS here.

(Scrapbook archives)

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