1:37am | Just as with Camelot in JFK’s days, when that special time was upon us, we know it has to last forever. KLON was that way. It was a special time and all of us who were lucky enough to work there all knew it.
KKGO was the world-famous commercial jazz station in L.A. and they pretended we didn’t exist, though we later found out their DJs, especially Chuck Niles, were fans.
When I got to KLON in late 1981, the music library was all vinyl. Racks of long play albums filled the music library. Each LP had a small piece of colored tape on the spine, blue for blues, red for jazz, green for R&B and other colors for holiday music or other specialties.
Then CDs began arriving, in very small quantities. The number of incoming CDs necessitated reserving a small shelf. I don’t recall when the first CD player was installed, but the existing turntables could accommodate 45s, 33 and even 78 rpm, so doing a vinyl or shellac show was easy.
After the arrival of Don Julian and Richard Berry as special guests on my show, more L.A. legends like tenor sax blowers Big Jay McNeeley, Chuck Higgins and Joe Houston, a Long Beach resident, came on as guests (pictured at right, Dewey Terry of Don & Dewey and Johnny Terry in an impromptu on-air concert).
L.A. Times writer Jim Dawson came in with Big Jay, whom he was managing at the time. Dawson had written pieces about Jesse Belvin and Ritchie Valens, big stars in their day, being forgotten recently. As a result of a piece on Valens, all sort of things began happening, ending in the Ritchie-themed movie “La Bamba.”
Dawson brought in a guy named Steve Brigati, who claimed to be related to Eddie Brigati of the Young Rascals, though Steve’s real name was Robinson. He came off like he was from The Sopranos before that HBO program ever hit the air. Dawson had brought him in as a consultant on the Ian Whitcomb show on KROQ, where he was wisely bounced. Brigati arranged for several guests, though he and Dawson had a bad falling out over money for liner notes and Brigati made threats against Jim.
Brigati died a few years ago; Dawson’s still my pal. We even wrote two books, “What Was the First Rock and Roll Record” – now out of print – and “45 RPM: The History, Heroes, and Villains of a Pop Music Revolution” – still in print.
Dawson, who was a longtime Larry Flynt operative edited a Flynt mag, “Sh Boom,” but is now the king of fart books, having written “Who Cut the Cheese” and “Blame It On the Dog” and is now hot with “The Complete Motherf***er: A History of the Mother of All Dirty Words.”
That’s a few of the friends I made on the show.
Suffice it to say, Dawson has had much more success with farts and mothers than he has with books about old R&B music.
Next: Bill Gardner and Huggy Boy