Excerpts: Liner Notes From Where The Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968

As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles during 1965–1968, I discovered a never-ending parade of hitmaking rabble-rousing musicians, whose songs were deftly spun and back-announced by a nexus of four AM radio stations, the likes of which we shall never hear again. These station’s formats were revolutionary, setting trends for the rest of the country. And because the stations were Los Angeles-based, they broke many records locally that found their way on station playlists across the United States.

These stations—93 KHJ, 1110 KRLA, 980 KFWB, and 1500 KBLA—offered us hope, validation, and possibilities; or, at the very least, three-minute musical salvation from the hurly-burly of adolescent angst. The revolution wasn’t televised; no, it was transistorized.

KHJ was fizzy and frenetic, the home of the irrepressible Real Don Steele, the companionable Sam Riddle, the inviting Roger Christian, and those incessant station IDs, featuring The Johnny Mann Singers (with occasional instrumental segues courtesy of arranger Jack Nitzsche). KHJ hued to a new format, Boss Radio, which was built around a series of two-and-a-half-minute songs strung together with station jingles, commercials, and DJs back-announcing. It was incredibly fast-paced, allowing for a few more songs to be played per hour. Devised by programming guru Bill Drake and implemented locally by Ron Jacobs, Boss Radio was soon franchised throughout the country like fast food. KHJ quickly grabbed the poll position in the L.A. market with their wild and wiggy promotions (“The Big Kahuna” anyone?) and ingratiating charm.

KFWB, aka “The Swinging Gentlemen,” emerged from its early-’60s jazz format into a “Color Radio” lineup that championed local pop talent. Gene Weed and Wink Martindale introduced us to The Beach Boys, then crossed the Mersey to bring us The Beatles. B. Mitchel Reed started playing LP cuts in 1965, showcasing other English imports like The Who and The Kinks, previewed the latest from The Byrds, and brought the community together through the Yoda-like wisdom implicit in his vocal delivery. Another DJ, Jimmy O’Neill, hosted the Shindig! television series. In March 1968 KFWB switched to an all-news format.

KRLA gave us information with a beat, more essential than anything we were gleaning from 10th-grade algebra class. DJs were Casey Kasem, Johnny Hayes, “Emperor” Bob Hudson, Dick Biondi, Bob Eubanks, Reb Foster, and Dave Hull “The Hullabalooer,” who opened his own club to force the playlist to expand and be exposed to fresh sounds. Kasem, whose voice is as durable and empathetic as has ever graced the airwaves, brought drama and desire to dedications, consolation to the lovelorn, and an inexhaustible sunniness to his afternoon TV dance show Shebang!

It is KBLA, however, the impertinent upstart, which remains for me the station that best captured those coruscating times. It valiantly clung to its puny operating signal at the far end of the spectrum and sallied forth with the most iconoclastic programming on AM. Dave Diamond, a refugee from KHJ, changed the tenor of commercial radio with his watershed report, “The Diamond Mine.” His narratives were laced with free-form beatific musings and psychedelic ravings pitched to the underground refrains of Love, The Doors, and The Seeds. Most memorably, he produced Stones City, a Sunday-evening, three-hour tribute to those rascally midnight ramblers. Initiated by Humble Harve, the baritoned purveyor of all that was hip, Stones City was a shot across the bow of radio’s increasingly constricted formatting, and pointed the way toward the tomorrowland stage of the FM world.

Ever vigilant, I immediately discovered a new signal from a distant planet—KMEN in San Bernardino. A DJ played “To Die Alone” by The Bush. Maybe KHJ or KRLA would spin that 45 rpm, or hopefully I could hear it again on an album in the future.

HARVEY KUBERNIK

Harvey Kubernik is the author of Canyon Of Dreams, a musical history of Laurel Canyon. His previous books include This Is Rebel Music and Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music In Film And On Your Screen. In November 2006, Kubernik was a featured speaker discussing audiotape preservation and archiving at the special hearings called by The Library of Congress.