Radio History: April 20

➦In 1935...'Your Hit Parade' debuted on NBC, as a 60-minute program with 15 songs played in a random format.

Initially, the songs were more important than the singers, so a stable of vocalists went uncredited and were paid only $100 per episode. In 1936-37, it was carried on both NBC and CBS. The first number one song on the first episode was "Soon" by Bing Crosby. The dramatic countdown to the #1 song was adopted several years later, after the show had moved to CBS.

Some years passed before the countdown format was introduced, with the number of songs varying from seven to 15. Vocalists in the 1930s included Buddy Clark, Lanny Ross, Kay Thompson and Bea Wain (1939–44), who was married to the show's announcer, French-born André Baruch. Frank Sinatra joined the show in 1943, and was fired for messing up the No. 1 song, "Don't Fence Me In" by interjecting a mumble to the effect that the song had too many words and missing a cue. One source says his contract was not renewed due to demanding a raise and the show being moved to the West Coast. As he zoomed in popularity he was rehired, returning (1947–49) to co-star with Doris Day.

Hugely popular on CBS through the WWII years, Your Hit Parade returned to NBC in 1947. The show's opening theme, from the musical revue George White's Scandals of 1926, was "This Is Your Lucky Day", with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva, Stephen W. Ballantine and Lew Brown.

Dozens of singers appeared on the radio program, including "Wee" Bonnie Baker, Dorothy Collins, Beryl Davis, Gogo DeLys, Joan Edwards (1941–46), Georgia Gibbs, Dick Haymes, Snooky Lanson, Gisèle MacKenzie, Johnny Mercer, Andy Russell, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Lawrence Tibbett, Martha Tilton, Eileen Wilson, Barry Wood, and occasional guest vocalists. The show featured two tobacco auctioneers, Lee Aubrey "Speed" Riggs of Goldsboro, North Carolina and F.E. Boone of Lexington, Kentucky. The radio series continued until January 16, 1953.

The success of the show spawned a spin-off series, Your All-Time Hit Parade, sponsored by Lucky Strike and devoted to all-time favorites and standards mixed with some current hits.

➦In 1952...the "Big Show" finished a two year run on the NBC Radio Network.

The Big Show was radio 90-minute variety program featuring top-name comics, stage, screen and music talent, and was aimed at keeping American radio in its classic era alive and well against the rapidly growing television tide. For a good portion of its two-year run (November 5, 1950-April 20, 1952), it was hosted by legendary stage actress and personality Tallulah Bankhead,

The Big Show began November 5, 1950 on NBC with a stellar line-up of guests: Fred Allen, Mindy Carson, Jimmy Durante, José Ferrer, Portland Hoffa, Frankie Laine, Russell Knight, Paul Lukas, Ethel Merman, Danny Thomas and Meredith Willson.

The show's success was credited to Bankhead's notorious wit and ad-libbing ability in addition to the show's superior scripting. She had one of the funniest writers in the business on her staff: Goodman Ace, the mastermind of radio's legendary Easy Aces. She included renowned ad-libbers in the show—particularly Fred Allen (he and his longtime sidekick and wife, Portland Hoffa, appeared so often they could have been the show's regular co-hosts) and Groucho Marx, both of whom appeared on the first season's finale and appeared jointly on three other installments.

As Bankhead recorded in her memoirs, she took the show because she needed the money but nearly changed her mind when she feared she'd be little more than a glorified mistress of ceremonies with nothing to do but introduce the feature performers. "Guess what happened?" she continued. "Your heroine emerged from the fracas as the Queen of the Kilocycles. Authorities cried out that Tallulah had redeemed radio. In shepherding my charges through The Big Show, said the critics, I had snatched radio out of the grave. The autopsy was delayed."

➦In 1961…The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved FM stereo broadcasting.

Invented in 1933 by American Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is capable of better sound quality than AM broadcasting

In the late 1950s, several systems to add stereo to FM radio were considered by the FCC. Included were systems from 14 proponents including Crosby, Halstead, Electrical and Musical Industries, Ltd (EMI), Zenith, and General Electric. The individual systems were evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses during field tests in Uniontown, Pennsylvania using KDKA-FM in Pittsburgh as the originating station.

The Crosby system was rejected by the FCC because it was incompatible with existing subsidiary communications authorization (SCA) services which used various subcarrier frequencies including 41 and 67 kHz. Many revenue-starved FM stations used SCAs for "storecasting" and other non-broadcast purposes. The Halstead system was rejected due to lack of high frequency stereo separation and reduction in the main channel signal-to-noise ratio.

The GE and Zenith systems, so similar that they were considered theoretically identical, were formally approved by the FCC in April 1961 as the standard stereo FM broadcasting method in the United States and later adopted by most other countries.

➦In 1972...Bertram Lebhar Jr., a retired radio and television station operator, who formerly broadcast sports in NYC under the name of Bert Lee and who was long a leading tournament bridge player, died at age 65.

He gave up a law career to go into radio advertising sales. He got his initial training with the Columbia Broadcasting System, switched to WOR for four and a half years, and for four years was vice president of WMCA. In 1939, he became director of sales for WHN.

Bert Lee, sportscaster (left), broke into sports announcing while at WMCA, when he had to pinch hit for an announcer who was ill. He did one of the earliest New York Rangers hockey broadcasts.

At WHN, doubling as sales director and sportscaster, he did the shows “Warm‐Up Time” and “Sports Extra” before and after the Brooklyn Dodgers’ baseball games.

On his WHN sports program “Today's Baseball,” with Marty Glickman, he gave listeners a play‐by‐play description of the best games of the day—all crowded into a quarter of an hour with sound effects.

He sold the idea of this specially compressed baseball game to a sponsor, not expecting to take part in it himself. But when the sponsor was not satisfied with the work of several announcers who auditioned for the job, he stepped up to the mike to show them how it should be done.

In his enthusiastic play‐by play description of a game he hadn't seen, Bert Lee would draw with such enthusiasm on his vivid imagination that he sometimes ran over his allotted time. When listeners, not interested in sports, sent in letters of complaint, Bertram Lebhar, executive, wrote hack apologies for Bert Lee, sportscaster.

From 1957 to 1964 he was a partner in and general manager of WEAT radio and television station in West Palm Beach. He continued as a part owner until 1966. From 1968 to 1970 he operated radio station WXVI in Riviera Beach, Fla.

➦In 1985...Flashback..From the pages of Radio&Records...

➦In 2011…Ted Quillin died (Born Theodore Quillin: February 17, 1930 in Oklahoma City). He was a radio personality who was one of the original "Swingin' Seven DJ's" who brought rock and roll into its first major market in 1958 at KFWB in Los Angeles. He was in radio for over 60 years.

Ted Quillin

Born in Oklahoma City, Quillin moved to El Paso, Texas where he finished high school and attended Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy now known as UTEP. During this time, while still in high school Ted started his broadcast career at KEPO, an ABC station in El Paso. He started as a ‘gofer’ on a morning show from 6 to 7 AM, before he went to school. He graduated to staff announcer. After that he took a job in Corpus Christi, Texas at KSIX. The program director from KXYZ in Houston heard him, and hired him as a staff announcer. From there he went to WACO in Waco, Texas. Ted moved to KELP which was a Gordon McClendon station, doing top 40. This is where he met Chuck Blore and when Chuck got the call to Hollywood he took Ted with him and Ted became one of the original "Seven Swingin’ Gentlemen", who took Rock and Roll into its first major market, at KFWB. His listeners became known as the "Quiverin' Quillin Clan."

Quillin's years in radio include: KFWB–Hollywood, 1958–61; KRLA–Pasadena, 1962–64; KORK–Las Vegas, 1964–1966, KFI- L.A, 1969; KFOX-Long Beach 1969-71; XPRS-1972, and finally, KORK-Las Vegas, 1972, when he became a permanent resident of Las Vegas.

In 2005 Ted was inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame in Nevada.

Johnny Tillotson is 86

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

• Actor George Takei (“Star Trek”) is 87. 
• Singer Johnny Tillotson is 86. 
• Bluegrass musician Doyle Lawson of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver is 80. 
• Keyboardist Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad is 76. 
• Actor Gregory Itzin (“24″) is 76. 
• Actor Veronica Cartwright (TV’s “24: Legacy, film’s “Aliens”) is 75. 
• Actor Jessica Lange is 75. 
• Actor Clint Howard is 65. 
• Actor Crispin Glover is 60. 
• Actor Andy Serkis (“Lord of the Rings”) is 60. 
• Country singer Wade Hayes is 55. 
• Actor Shemar Moore (“Criminal Minds”) is 54. 
• Actor Carmen Electra is 52. 
• Actor Joey Lawrence (“Blossom,” ″Brotherly Love”) is 48. 
• Multi-instrumentalist Clay Cook of the Zac Brown Band is 46. 
• Actor Clayne Crawford (TV’s “Lethal Weapon”) is 46. 
• Actor Tim Jo (“The Neighbors”) is 40. 
• Actor Carlos Valdes (TV’s “The Flash) is 35.

✞REMEMBRANCES

• In 1991..Steve Marriott, British rock guitarist, singer & songwriter (Small Faces, 1965-68, 75-78); Humble Pie, 1969-75, 79-83 - Eat It), dies in a house fire at 44
• In 1992..Benny Hill [Alfred Hawthorn Hill], British comedian (The Benny Hill Show), dies of a heart attack at 68
• In 2018..Avicii, Swedish musician, DJ, remixer and record producer ("Levels"; "Wake Me Up"; "Sunshine"), commits suicide at 28
• In 2021..Leslie McKeown, Scottish pop vocalist (Bay City Rollers - "Saturday Night"), dies at 65