March 14 Radio History

➦In 1912...Lester Raymond Brown born (Died at age 88 – January 4, 2001).  He was a jazz musician who led the big band Les Brown and His Band of Renown for nearly seven decades from 1938 to 2000.  Brown is probably best known for his 50 year association with Bob Hope, on radio, TV & personal appearances.  Also was musical director for Dean Martin for 10 years on TV.

➦In 1922...KSD-AM (now KTRS-AM) signed-on in St. Louis.

KSD Transmitter 1922

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch launched KSD in 1922, the first St. Louis station to obtain a broadcast license from the Department of Commerce, though WIL claims earlier operation as an amateur station.

Transmitter Building 1922

According to  route56.com, first as KSD, and now as KTRS, the station has been on 550 kHz since 1923, which probably gives it the longest record of occupancy on any one frequency of any United States radio station. With its 5000-watt signal and low frequency, KTRS actually has better daytime and nighttime coverage than 50,000-watt clear-channel station KMOX in much of Missouri.

Despite that great coverage, the Post-Dispatch let KSD slip in the 1970s and, on March 19, 1984, it even lost its historic call letters under Gannett ownership. After a short-lived all-news format, on which Gannett pulled the plug just as KSD was beginning to build an audience, KSD went to country and adopted the call letters KUSA. The call letters were restored by EZ Communications when it bought KSD-AM/FM in 1993.

The call letters were switched back to KSD on October 4, 1993.

Newspaper Ad 1936

Unfortunately, the station lost the call letters again when it was sold to the Dorsey Media Group of St. Louis. EZ's successor, American Radio Systems, retained the KSD call letters for use on KSD-FM.

KTRS is  owned by CH Radio Holdings. Actor John Goodman is a part owner of the station.

➦In 1937...The radio "Battle of the Century" started when comedians Fred Allen & Jack Benny locked horns in the ballroom of the Hotel Pierre, exchanging torrid insults that were heard by the second largest audience in the history of radio. The “feud”, incidentally, lasted for the next 12 years.

➦In 1950...Rigdon Osmond Dees III (born March 14, 1950), best known as Rick Dees, is a radio personality, comedian, actor, and voice artist, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Countdown and for the 1976 novelty song "Disco Duck".

Dees began his radio career at a Greensboro radio station called WGBG while still in high school. He worked for various radio stations throughout the southeastern United States, including WXYC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, WSGN in Birmingham, Alabama, and WKIX in Raleigh, North Carolina.

His introduction to the international entertainment arena began while working at WMPS 680 AM in Memphis, Tennessee, during the disco craze of the late 1970s, when he wrote and recorded "Disco Duck", the award-winning hit that sold more than six million copies. The song can be heard in Saturday Night Fever, in a brief scene in which a group of older people were learning to "move their feet to the disco beat".

While this platinum recording earned him a People's Choice Award, and the BMI Award for record sales in one year, Dees was expressly forbidden from playing the song on the air by station management (rival stations refused to play it for fear of promoting their competition).

Dees was fired from WMPS when he mentioned that his song, "Disco Duck" was almost #1 and his own radio station would not let him play it. The station manager said it was a conflict of interest.

After a 45-day non-compete clause in his contract was satisfied, Dees was hired by RKO Radio to do the morning show at WHBQ AM 560 in Memphis.

The success of Dees at their Memphis radio station, combined with his TV appearances and hit music, motivated station owner RKO General to offer Rick the morning radio show in Los Angeles at 93KHJ AM. Dees helped their ratings, but AM music radio was rapidly losing ground to FM. When KHJ switched to country music, Rick Dees left KHJ, taking a morning position at KIIS-FM in July 1981. In a short time, he turned KIIS-FM into the #1 revenue-generating radio station in America, with an asset value approaching half a billion dollars. Dees garnered many accolades, including Billboard Radio Personality of the Year for ten years in a row.

He began his Weekly Top 40 countdown program, still currently in syndication, in September 1983; the show was created after Dees' station KIIS lost American Top 40 to a rival station over the playing of network commercials.

After 23 years on radio station KIIS-FM, Dees left in 2004 because of a contract dispute, and he was replaced by Ryan Seacrest.

Dees has garnered many accolades, including the prestigious Marconi Award, induction into both the National Radio Hall of Fame, and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall Of Fame. He is an inductee in the North Carolina Music Hall Of Fame, the the Tennessee Radio Hall Of Fame, has received the the Billboard Radio Personality Of The Year award for 10 consecutive years.

➦In 1972...Songwriter/singer Carole King won the “Triple Crown” of the Grammys: album of the year for “Tapestry,” record of the year for “It’s Too Late” and song of the year for “You’ve Got A Friend.” She also won a fourth Grammy that year, for female pop vocal performance for “Tapestry.”

King's major success began in the '60s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting. She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.

➦In 1991...Brad Crandall died at age 63. (Born Robert Lee Bradley; August 6, 1927). He was a radio personality, voice-over announcer, and film narrator, best known for his radio show on WNBC in New York City, which aired from March 1964 to September 1971.  He greatly influence Howard Stern.

Frank Blair

➦In 1995...Frank S. Blair Jr. died at age 79 (Born - May 30, 1915). He was a broadcast journalist for NBC News, known for being a news anchor on the Today program from 1953 to 1975.

Blair's radio debut was at WCSC in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1935. Later that year, he joined WIS in Columbia, South Carolina, as a newscaster. In 1937, he became program director at WFBC in Greenville, South Carolina. Several months later, he left there to join WOL in Washington, D.C., in a role that included announcing for the Mutual network.

When NBC radio's Monitor weekend program began in 1955, Blair was one of the first news anchors.

➦In 2008..Melville "Mel" Brandt died at age 88 (Born -  June 18, 1919). He was an actor and NBC staff announcer.  Born in Brooklyn, New York, Brandt joined NBC around 1948. His radio announcing credits included The Adventures of Frank Merriwell, Author Meets the Critics, and The Eternal Light. In 1975, he announced for a syndicated radio program called Faces of Love.

He was one of the stars of the first television soap opera, Faraway Hill, broadcast in 1946 on the DuMont Television Network.  His familiar voice was heard over the second animated version of the NBC Peacock from 1962–75, announcing that "the following program is brought to you in 'living color' on NBC."

Billy Crystal is 75

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

• Actor Michael Caine is 90. 
• Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 90. 
• Country singer Michael Martin Murphey is 78. 
• Former Chicago sax player Walt Parazaider is 78. 
• Actor Steve Kanaly (“Dallas”) is 77. 
• Comedian Billy Crystal is 75. 
• TV and radio personality Rick Dees is 72.
• Country singer Jann Browne is 69. 
• Actor Adrian Zmed is 69. 
• Actor Tamara Tunie (“Law and Order: SVU”) is 64. 
• Actor Penny Johnson Jerald (“Castle,” ″24″) is 63. 
• Actor Elise Neal (“All of Us”) is 57. 
• Actor Gary Anthony Williams (“Boston Legal,” ″Malcolm in the Middle”) is 57. 
• Actor Megan Follows (“Reign”) is 55. 
• Drummer Michael Bland of Soul Asylum is 54. 
• Singer Kristian Bush of Sugarland is 53. 
• Actor Betsy Brandt (“Breaking Bad”) is 50. 
• Actor Grace Park (“Hawaii Five-0,” ″Battlestar Galactica”) is 49. 
• Actor Daniel Gillies (“The Originals,” ″Vampire Diaries”) is 47. 
• Actor Corey Stoll (“House of Cards” ″The Bourne Legacy”) is 47. 
• Actor Chris Klein is 46. 
• Actor Ryan Cartwright (“Kevin Can Wait”) is 42. 
• Actor Kate Maberly (“Finding Neverland”) is 41. 
• Singer-keyboardist Taylor Hanson of Hanson is 40. 
• Actor Jamie Bell (“Billy Elliot”) is 37. 
• Bassist Este Haim of Haim is 37. 
• Actor Ansel Elgort (“Insurgent,” “The Fault in Our Stars”) is 29.

✞DEATH ANNIVERSARIES

• In 1975..Susan Hayward, Actress (Young & Willing), dies of brain cancer at 56
• In 2010..Peter Graves [Aurness], Actor (Mission Impossible, Airplane!, Stalag 17), dies from a heart attack at 83
• In 2013..Jack Greene, Country artist, dies from complications from Alzheimer's disease at 83