Be careful what you tell people! Someone just sent this to me from a website (below) about radio broadcast history. I have no idea who the writer is - but he got the story pretty close to right. It is longish but is a great story.
Having been involved in the broadcast industry for 15 years as both contract engineer for several stations and on-air for a couple, I thought that I had heard it all (or at least most of it) before. Until this. The following story was told to me by Bob Duncan (now selling real estate) in Columbia, TN. I hope that I have recreated the scene accurately and not left any of the considerable details out due to sagging memory emissions or some- thesuch.
Here goes: Centerville Tennessee is a small town in Southern Middle Tennessee about 60 miles south west of Nashville. In the late 60's - early 70's Bob worked the weekend shift for the local AM daytimer. As with many small stations the weekend shift amounted to exactly that: You worked the whole weekend, Saturday and Sunday sign-on to sign-off. Thru the winter this was not too bad, sign-on at 7:00 AM, sign-off at 4:45 PM. During the summer months, its a different ball game. Sign-on at 4:45 AM, sign-off at 8:30 PM.
WHLP (I think) was owned by a local family and had not made any substantial money in previous years, nor was it likely to make any in the future. Due to the somewhat bleak financial outlook, the station equipment was not of the newest design or in particularly good condition.
As a matter of fact, the console was an ancient 6-channel Gates of which 2 channels didn't work. The console had 1 microphone channel, 2 turntables and 1 "other" channel. The console was sitting on a World War II military surplus desk with a military surplus table of the same vintage drawn alongside to hold the other studio equipment. A similar vintage surplus roll-around chair (you know the type, missing a caster or even a whole leg) was provided to complete the studio furnishings. Both turntables, a decrepit reel-toreel machine and a "cart" machine all set on the mil-surplus table.
The so-called "cart " machine was actually the predecessor to today's cart machines. This machine used a piece of magnetic tape several inches wide and long enough to provide something over one minute of recording time. On the front of the machine was a lever that physically moved the record/playback heads across the tape to any of about 25 tracks. Thus to play a particular spot, the DJ had to look up the track number (an illegible list was kept thumbtacked to the wall), select the proper track with the lever, and press the start button. The things actually worked very well, but like cart machines, were meant to be used in pairs. Several seconds of dead air between spots was necessary if one tried to play two spots backto-back.
For this reason a lot of spots were simply read live to give the machine time to rewind and reset. Due to the limited track availability and trouble associated with recording spots (since there was no production room), only spots purchased for long terms were recorded on the "cart" machine. This brings us to the R2R.
When an agency spot was awarded to the station it was received on a reel-toreel tape. Instead of dubbing this tape off onto the "cart" machine and taking up a precious track, the reels were-cued up and played directly.
By now (it you're still awake) you may have figured out that we have four working console channels and five pieces of equipment to regularly put on the air. Due to some incompatibility between the R2R and the "cart" machine, they could not be hooked up together on the same console channel.
Dangling under the edge of the now faded OD green table were three pieces of oft-spliced audio wire. Each lead was neatly marked with it's respective function. "TO CONSOLE", "FROM F12R", and "FROM CART". In order to change from R213 to "cart', the console wires had to be un-twisted from the R2R wires and then re-twisted to the "cart" machine wires. Being ambidextrous was a necessity if a DJ ran a tight show. To play a "cart" spot and a R2R spot in the same break required that a live spot or PSA be read while all of the untwisting/retwisting was taking place.
During the period of time that we're talking about (late 60's - early 70's), most stations had a live performance studio. The live studio usually had several mics connected to a separate mixer such that a band, quartet etc. could be mixed prior to being fed to the air board. As you can imagine a separate mixer was not used, nor was a separate mic channel available for "Studio B". Laying behind the air console was 3 pieces of audio wire neatly labeled "CONSOLE", "AIR MIC", and *STUDIO B". When "Studio B" was to be used, a manual switch over was required.
"Studio B" was a 4ft. by 12ft. closet that had been converted to a studio by installing a microphone, a piano and a window between the studios. The battered upright piano had obviously not been tuned 'for some time prior to being installed in the studio. Even more apparently the Vqno had not been tuned after being installed.
Several piano technicians had tried, but soon gave up after finding that the room was so small that the front of the piano couldn't be opened without moving the piano out of "Studio B" and moving the piano meant tearing out the wall again. Hence this particular piano was of far more worth as a rhythm /percussion instrument than one to produce pleasing melodies. To best capture the piano and the singers voices, the Altee-Lansing "blimp" microphone was suspended from the ceiling straight over and about 16 inches above the piano.
Early each Sunday morning a local quartet, "The Dixie Hummingbirds", entered "Studio B" to do their bit to spread the word of God thru gospel music. What the Humming Birds lacked in quality they more than made up with volume quantity. The Dixie Humming Birds consisted of a 335 pound bass singer (who was reputed to be the only member that could actually sing), a piano player/alto singer, a baritone and a tenor' It really didn't matter that the piano !had three "C" notes in one octave since the "piano player" only had a very rudimentary understanding of notes, keys, octaves and other musical terms.
The Humming Birds treated music as more of a contest than an art. When one member would get a little louder than the others, instead of quieting him down, the other three would get louder. This would soon turn into a vicious circle such that all four members would be singing at the absolute top of their lungs.
Being several years before the advent of the OPTIMOD or CRL modulation limiter (not that one would have been in use anyway) the on-air guy had to constantly "ride" the mic level on the board to keep the modulation somewhere under 130%. Sunday morning listeners were regularly annoyed by short periods of dead air in the late stages of the Humming Birds' performance when the Modulator PA over-current relay in the transmitter would operate, knocking the transmitter off-the-air or when the mic pot would be turned just a little to far down and go into Cue.
Early one humid summer Sunday morning "The Dixie Humming Birds" filed into "Studio B". They had to enter in the order in which they would stand due to the lack of space and the fact that with the piano player's back was against the window while sitting on the rickety piano bench. The rotund bass singer entered first, followed by the piano player / alto singer, then the baritone, and the tenor. Immediately upon cue, The Dixie Humming Birds (with the piano player keeping excellent time) launched into a spirited it slightly off key rendition of "Amazing Grace'.
Destined to be one of the hottest, most humid days of that summer, conditions in the air studio with all of its windows open was barely tolerable. Since the conversion of the closet to "Studio B" had been performed in the dead of winter, no thought had been given to ventilation for the fine new facility. Before the first hour of their two hour stint was over, "The Humming Birds" musical exertions had transformed what was already a stuffy, uncomfortable atmosphere into a tropical rain forest. The humidity was so high in "Studio B" that the window was starting to fog up.
At about the half-way point the bass singer, although still producing high volume low frequencies, had taken on a slightly pale cast. After another 15 minutes he had turned a noticeably paler shade and was weaving slightly. With only moments to go the bass singer had assumed a definite green cast and was developing a severe list to the bow. With seconds remaining the large bass singer started toppling forward.
On his way down the bassist made a valiant effort to right himself by grabbing for the piano top. But being in the midst of passing out, he missed the corner of the piano and continued to fall forward. Failing further forward his still stiffly outstretched arm finally settled on top of the key cover. Looking like a Three Stooges parity, the key cover slammed down on the unsuspecting piano players' hands. Milli-seconds later the bass singer slammed down onto the key cover which still had the piano players' hands pinned. As most people would be inclined to do when faced with possible death or dismemberment, the piano player leapt bolt upright and with his nose almost brushing the "Blimp" microphone screamed at the top of his considerable lungs, "YOUR ON MY G ** D *** FINGERS'.
As you can imagine this is the point at which things got a bit dicey. Since even now in southern small market radio it is considered at least rude if not criminal to use such language on the air. In the 60's saying "snot" was a firing offense. Bob, being quite quick of mind (at least in those days) decided that he had to get this pain induced profanity off of the air.
Like all good DJ's he already had two records cued up. Bob yanked the "CONSOLE" wire loose from the "STUDIO B" wire, twisted the "AIR MIC" wire together with the "CONSOLE" wire, flipped on his microphone and said "This next song goes out to all of the sick and shut ins listening out there today". In one motion he started the turntable and ran to help extricate the still trapped piano player. As he rounded the corner into "Studio B" Bob realized that in his haste he had started the "sympathy" song instead of his "get well song". Truly believing that no one had noticed or cared, he assisted in getting the overweight bass singer up off of the now crippled piano player and tried to continue as if nothing especially unusual had happened at the radio station that day.
The rest of the day the telephone rang constantly. Little old church ladies called to complain. Ministers called to complain. Deacons called to complain. The local bootlegger called to complain. Seemingly most of Hickman county had been listening as it happened or had at least been told in church of the morning's mishaps at the radio station and called to complain.
Do you know what the really funny thing about all of this was? Not a single complaint was about the piano player's outburst. Naw... Every one wanted to know just what did that DJ feller think he was doing?... Dedicating a song like that to sick people! What are you trying to do? Send them off early? Well I never!
The name of the song he had sent out to those sick and shut-ins was 'When the Roll is Called Up Yonder" The Dixie Humming Birds were back the next Sunday morning with a replacement player (and you thought that those were only for baseball) and an electric fan. Bob continues on for a few more weekends but still continued to get nasty calls concerning his misplay on that fateful morning and decided to retire from the broadcast business.
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