Starting this week, WAMO 100 (101.1 FM and 660 AM) picked up the torch of those famous call letters, absent from the city scene for the past two years after the original WAMO was sold to St. Joseph's Missions, a Catholic talk-radio outfit.
Tim Martz of San-Franciso based Martz Communications purchased stations WPYT AM- FM in Wilkinsburg, and got control of the legacy WAMO call letters from an inactive eastern Pennsylvania station. The new WAMO started airing taped stuff in late May, and is now unrolling live.
They have some big shoes to fill. They know it, and plan on being more than Pittsburgh's urban station. WAMO had a resume of 50 years on the air in this town, and most of them were spent as audio voice and fabric of the black community.
Early WAMO DJ Mary Dee has been credited by many with coming up with the black radio formula of serving up urban music mixed with a strong component of community involvement, and WAMO became its epitome. The new ownership promises to return the station to its roots; they're already reaching out for people to join the "WAMO Street Team," which hopefully will serve as more than a PR vehicle.
We'll see how that community rep thing works out. One thing that's certain, though, is that the hip-hop, rap and urban scene needes a jolt, and WAMO can provide it. Hey, just filling the urban void in Pittsburgh will be welcome; it's hard to fathom how a region as large as ours was left without a full-time urban station.
Another aspect of city living that may have fallen below the radar is Pittsburgh's ability to draw urban acts. They were a tough enough sell when WAMO was in its heyday, but without a station to promote the show and push songs over the long haul, many national acts just bypassed the area.
Now, WAMO 100 is joining with Live Nation to bring acts such as Bootsy Collins to Stage AE on June 24th, and rapper Lil' Wayne to First Niagara Pavilion on July 23rd. With locals like Whiz and Mac blowing up and other area acts right behind them, Pittsburgh may become a destination spot for urban shows.
Hey, they're having their on-air shakedown problems. Pittsburgh is an old-school town, and they'll have to weigh that when coming up with a playlist. Even when WAMO was all that, the mix among the latest hip-hop, adult contemporary, gospel, older sounds, local flavor and talk was hotly debated. Brittany Spears and Ke$ha seem to be a stretch for an urban format, too.
But that's all stuff the station manager, Laura Varner Norman, will sort out. And she has the local cred; a Pitt grad, she was a long-time sales exec for Sheridan Broadcasting and was hired away from Philly's Radio One.
People are waiting for jocks, too. WAMO always had a stable full of personalities in the past, but haven't announced a regular schedule of hosts yet (heck, they haven't even tweeted on their Twitter account or posted anything on their Facebook page) so it would seem they're still feeling their way around in the market.
We're hoping it all works out. The market needed an urban station, and the black community was looking for a nexus to reconnect with both musically and socially. WAMO has always been that presence.
Losing WAMO wasn't bad enough. Now a monument to Pittsburgh's early R&B history, John Christian, has left us, too. Sir Walter Raleigh passed away after a long illness last weekend at the age of 92.
He was born in Virginia on March 1, 1917, and raised in Binghamton, New York. Christian attended Virginia State University, and graduated with a degree in education. Always athletic, he went on to play semi-pro baseball for the Newark Eagles.
Christian planned to trek to California in 1951 to make a name for himself, with a new set of wheels and some cash in his pocket, but he didn't get very far. He ended up in Steubenville, Ohio, where his mother lived, and eventually opened an appliance shop. And those Maytags and Amanas would soon unwittingly launch him on his media career.
His store was the only black-owned appliance shop in town, and he'd advertise on East Liberty's WILY to draw some customers, calling in his spots. One day, the station manager heard his dramatic basso profundo voice over the phone and offered him a job on the spot.
Hey, spin damp clothes or wax? That was a no brainer. In 1955, Christian came east to the Steel City, twirling disks at WILY. There he joined Lee "3-D Lee D" Dorris and Bill Powell. The trio became the original godfathers of soul for the black audiences of Pittsburgh.
He needed an airwave persona, and because of his deep and cultured pipes, Time Magazine dubbed him "Sir Walter Raleigh" in 1957. Christian liked it, and took to wearing fancy duds, a derby and a monocle, generally immersing himself in Sir Walter-ness.
1957 marked another big event - Christian joined WAMO, which had just purchased Homestead's WHOD. His morning show featured smooth R&B, often by unknown soul artists, and he greeted his listeners with the intro “Sir Walter Raleigh, the gent with the accent.”
Porky Chedwick was already there, and in 1960 Bill Powell jumped ship, too, and they became the holy trinity of Pittsburgh radio jocks to the area's hep cats, white and black, in the early sixties.
But the era of jock-driven radio soon passed, and ad-driven formats pushing top-40 sounds replaced their hand-picked playlists. It was time for a change.
In 1970, Christian switched media and began a long career as a newscaster, producer, and talk show host for WPXI-TV (then WIIC), where he, Dee Thompson, Bev Smith, and Della Crews became city pacesetters as black TV personalities. Christian also served as Channel 11's local conscience, letting the suits know when the station let Pittsburgh's black community down.
He retired from WPXI in 1992 after 22 years of TV work. But he wouldn't sit still; Sir Walter still had deeds to do.
Christian was a dedicated jogger and tennis player, and later on, he became an avid golfer. He turned that hobby into an annual charity golf tournament. His John Christian Charity Golf Classic has raised $300,000 for local charities since its inception in the eighties.
But that's all in the past now. As the poet Sir Walter Raleigh wrote:
"The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields."
Hey, WHOD/WAMO has been around even longer than Old Mon (tho not by much.) It's been the undisputed home and often the sole source of R&B in Pittsburgh since the days of Porky.
Today, WAMO 106.7 FM is an urban contemporary station, playing hip-hop hits during the week with Sunday jazz in the morning and oldies in the evening. AM 860 plays R&B and classic soul for the old school crowd.
Steve Harvey starts WAMO's day, and hey, Lynn Cullen even shoehorned a slot for her talk show on the AM side. But "The Home of Hip-Hop" is about to go silent.
WAMO spokesman Russell Bynum said yesterday that the FM station and its two sisters, WAMO-AM 860 and WPGR-AM 1510, are being sold by Sheridan Broadcasting to St. Joseph Missions, a Catholic religious programming outfit.
The sales price was $8.9 million. The deal has to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, and their OK is expected within 90 days. That's how quickly WAMO could be gone from the airwaves. Enjoy the summer's last hurrah.
WAMO-AM traces its roots to Homestead in 1948, when its call letters were WHOD. It was best known then as the "Station of Nations" because of its ethnic programming, though that changed when a certain Mr. Craig Chedwick began spinning wax for them.
A bronze plaque commemorating Porky and WAMO was even placed on the nondescript yellow-brick building that housed the studio on 107 E. Eighth St., near the Homestead Grays Bridge spanning the Mon over the Waterfront Mall, just across the City line.
It's also had studios on the Boulevard of the Allies by Mercy Hospital, where its red WAMO letters beamed over the City from high atop the Bluff. They then moved to the Chamber of Commerce building in town, and now are located on Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg.
In 1956, the call letters were changed to WAMO, representing the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers, and the station's desire to step out from being a local player to a regional powerhouse.
WAMO-FM went on the air in 1960 at 105.9 and had the most powerful signal coverage in western Pennsylvania. It also shimmied among formats during its early years, including AOR, disco, and R&B Contemporary Hits. But Urban Contemporary is what worked best, and that's been its calling card since.
In 1973, WAMO was bought by the Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation, owned by Ronald Davenport, who was then Duquesne Law School's dean (his son Ron Jr. is still WAMO's GM). Local lore claims the network was named for his home address on Sheridan Street in East Liberty.
It also purchased WAMO-AM/FM, WILD in Boston, and WUFO in Buffalo from Dynamic Broadcasting. It still owns the Buffalo station, with affiliates 1570-AM ("The Light") in Atlanta and WATV-AM ("900 Gold") in Birmingham.
WAMO-FM and WAMO-AM began separate programming in 1974. Gospel aired on WAMO-AM, Monday through Friday, and Saturdays and Sundays were simulcast with WAMO-FM. WAMO-FM was formatted as an R&B station, with gospel programming on Sunday.
In 1979, Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation finished buying out (they acquired a half interest in 1976) the Mutual Black Network and changed the name to the Sheridan Broadcasting Network.
The network moved its headquarters from Florida to Pittsburgh in 1985, where native Philadelphian Davenport had put down his roots.
In addition to syndicated music programming, Sheridan is the principal owner of the American Urban Radio Networks, bought in 1991, which provides AURN News. AURN became the first completely black-owned news network in the nation after the takeover.
It features White House correspondent April Ryan (the only African-American broadcaster with a desk in the White House), Black College Sports and the SBN Black College All-America team, "The Bev Smith Show," and the "The Light" Gospel music program, airing programs to 325 Black stations across the country.
WAMO was one of the top-rated stations in the Pittsburgh area during the eighties and early nineties. But it was about to make a strategic mistake in the mid-nineties that helped sow the seeds for its sale.
Sheridan swapped signals with Beaver Fall's WXDX-FM and moved to the 106.7 frequency in 1996. Clear Channel gave them about $10 million to make the deal. WAMO sold a strong local signal of 72,000 watts and moved more or less out of City earshot.
For years, they could barely reach into Pittsburgh's inner city until they moved their broadcasting tower from the Beaver Valley (with a trip to Greensburg in between) to Wexford in 2004. Until that shift, their highest ratings came from Youngstown, which could pull in the signals, instead of its home base of Pittsburgh, which couldn't.
The station then changed its longtime on-air identity from "106 Jamz, WAMO" to "106.7 WAMO, Pittsburgh's #1 for Hip Hop and R&B". But it was too late; it was a lost decade for WAMO.
In 2006, the station switched to an all-talk format; that flip-flop lasted about six months before the market corrected that little blip and it returned to urban contemporary music, its long-time gold standard.
So the home of Porky, Sir Walter, Bill Powell, Mary Dee, Frank the Freak, Brother Love, Zeke Jackson, Brother Matt, Hal "HB" Brown, KiKi, Ron Chavis, Sly Jock, Ray Love, and DJ Boogie will soon be a God station. Who woulda thunk?
Of course, it was all about the bucks; if you're not Clear Channel or Infinity, you're probably a struggling radio network. Switching formats too often and losing their ability to air in the City during the late nineties and early part of this decade hurt, too.
WAMO was also hard-hit by a change in the way ratings were collected by an Arbitron system known as the Portable People Meter, which critics say has a disproportionate impact on minority-targeted radio formats. A perfect storm had formed.
"This is a business decision," Bynum told the Post-Gazette. "That's the reality of the marketplace. The marketplace determines how businesses go, and industries have to change with the times."
Sheridan owners suppoedly tried to find minority buyers for the stations, but none could come up with the loot, and St. Joseph's could flash the cash. That's show biz for ya.
Besides the loss of the City's only urban music-maker, with no obvious replacement station to fill the void, a very real possibility exists of having a dependable cultural thread torn from Pittsburgh's Afro-American tapestry.
WAMO was the driving force behind promoting local hip-hop artists, with their DJs shepherding them through the club circuit like the jocks of old. And Sheridan was heavily involved in community charities and service projects, but with its flagstaff station gone, will it remain? The company says yes, but...
The move also marks the end of liberal talk radio in the 'Burgh. With the demise of the Bev Smith and Lynn Cullen shows on local airwaves, the market has finally surrendered unconditionally to the conservative talk hosts. No more different strokes in the Steel City.
And hey - what will all the four-wheeled boom-boxes cruising the City do now? Since Porky's day, car speakers have been blasting WAMO. Pittsburgh will become a lot quieter town now, in more ways than one.
Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a relatively unknown DJ named Porky Chedwick was making quite a splash here in Pittsburgh. He was a white man broadcasting "race" music; blues, R&B, doo-wop, gospel and jazz.
Some parents went as far as to call him a satanic influence on their children. In fact, the nuns that taught his future wife said he did "the devil's work."
The innuendoes were put to rest when he was commended by Senator Estes Kefauver for his work organizing youth baseball teams to combat juvenile delinquency. He even had a few kids remanded to his custody from juvenile court.
Actually, Chedwick was one of the first DJs to promote a Christian lifestyle, free of alcohol, drugs and tobacco (By his own admission, Porky's only vice was girls, although his friends say the only thing he really can't resist is coconut creme pie!)
His generosity is legendary. He's made millions, and given away whatever business leeches didn't swindle from him. One well known story tells of Chedwick giving a homeless man some change. The change was his bus fare, and he walked home so the more unfortunate guy could eat.
In a time when Frank Sinatra, crooners, and big bands reigned, Chedwick broke all the radio rules, and the kids flocked to him and his shows.
"Pork the Tork", the "Daddio of the Raddio," your "Platter Pushin' Papa," the "Boss Hoss with the Hot Sauce," the "Pied Piper of Platter," had rubbed the magic lamp, and the R&B genie would never get stuffed back into the bottle. "Porky's golden ear, breaking hits from year to year," was his credo.
He was born George Jacob Chedwick on February 4, 1918 in Homestead, one of ten children of a steelworking father. His mom passed away when he was still a child. He was raised in a close-knit, culturally and racially diverse neighborhood, which he often compared to "a secluded island," where skin color didn't matter.
As Chedwick told Wikipedia, "We all had one thing in common - poverty." The origin of the nickname, "Porky" remains up for debate, but he insists it was given to him by his mother because he was a stubby youngster.
His old Munhall high school classmates claim it was because...ah, we won't get into that, hehe.
He had changed his first name from George to the more flowing Craig Chedwick when he got his first job as a sports stringer for the Daily Messenger in Homestead and as a PA announcer at local sporting events. Then he heard about an opportunity to broadcast on the new Homestead radio station.
And so his career in radio began on August 1, 1948 with a stint on WHOD, a tiny station located behind a Homestead candy store known as "The Station of Nations," doing a 10 minute sports and music program. The station was the forerunner of WAMO.
Chedwick began playing blues and R&B records by musicians like Bo Diddley and Little Anthony and the Imperials. He introduced the new material as his "movers and groovers," and never pushed any vinyl because of payola. Chedwick spun his beloved oldies, too, his "dusty disks." He appreciated soul and put it on the air.
Most of his listeners, who tuned in for Chedwick's music and off-the-cuff rhymes and patter (he claimed "I had more lines than Bell Telephone. I was the original rapper," or "I'm going to shatter this platter and make your liver quiver"), had no idea that he was white.
A sizzling performance from a band would make him say, "This record is on fire. We're burning," (which once led to a listener calling the Homestead fire department!) or just alerting the audience that he had a "hot platter." He'd infuriate labels by turning a record over and featuring the B side if he thought it was a better song.
And Chedwick refused to play covers of those songs copied by white musicians on the big labels. As the told the Tribune-Review in 1998, "I wouldn't even play Elvis Presley's version of 'Hound Dog.' I played Big Mama Thornton's."
To this day, many of those black artists pay tribute to Chedwick for giving them their first air play and sticking with them. As Bo Diddley said "Any entertainer of my era who say they don't know who Porky Chedwick is ... they're damn lyin'! That's the cat that played the records. I know."
Besides Diddley, some of his R&B admirers are Smoky Robinson, Hank Ballard, and Little Anthony.
Chedwick essentially invented the concept of oldies 60 years ago with his "dusty disks." They were oldies even when Chedwick first played them. He bought or was given unwanted 78s, records by black acts, and dropped the needle on them.
"The falsettos, the bass, the togetherness. They wrote about poverty and handicaps I could understand. This was a message nobody was getting. I blew the dust off them. I was giving kids the music. One day they would know I was speaking the truth." He had invented his signature "Porky Sound."
Chedwick is responsible for making Pittsburgh "The Oldies Capitol of the World," a reputation it still carries today in the music industry.
Chedwick's career moved from WHOD and WAMO to KQV in 1972, and then to WNRZ from 1985 to 1986. After a 10 year hiatus, Pork returned to WAMO in 1996, then moved to WWSW in 1998 and to WLSW in 2000. Chedwick is currently spinning disks for WKHB.
Luigi Sacco, aka Lou Christie, said being cool when he grew up meant listening to Porky Chedwick. His hops and R&B revues were on the must-see list of every Pittsburgh teen. Chedwick still likes to say that he has seen "more hops than the Easter Bunny." He estimates he's done well over 7,000 of them.
It's reputed that his excellent physical condition (except for his eyesight and bad hearing - not bad for a 90-year old man) is partly due to the times he had to resort to taking the shoe leather express to his record hops. Many nights he’d walk for miles, lugging along his records, when he couldn’t bum a ride.
He did have one health bump in 1991, when Porky had a benign brain tumor removed. The troops held a benefit for him at the Syria Mosque, and they couldn't keep away the acts: Wolfman Jack emceed the show, and Jim Quinn, Bob Livorio and Charlie Appel said a few words.
The performers were Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, the Moonglows, Lou Christie, Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners, the Vogues, the Marcels, the Cleftones, Johnnie and Joe, Bobby Comstock, the Contrails and the Elmonics. Others sent their wishes by tape and letter, including the Coasters, Bo Diddley, Dick Clark, the Chirelles, Bobby Vinton, the Penguins, Danny and the Juniors, the Cadillacs, the Chantels, Marv Johnson, Phil Phillips, the Tune Weavers, Lenny Welch, Jerry Blavat, Jay Michael and Barry Kaye.
His best known story is of the time when Chedwick did a live show at the Stanley Theater. An hour before he went on the air, 500 people crowded around the building. Before the show was over, 10,000 people surrounded the theater. Downtown Pittsburgh became a parking lot.
Kids were stuck on buses in the logjam created by Chedwick's appearance. They got off, crossed the bridges and walked to the Stanley Theater to see him. He told the teens pouring into town to stop their cars and listen to the music wherever they were at because there was no more room for the fans of Porkology in the Golden Triangle.
They did. Chedwick spun "Dancin' in the Streets," and they hopped out of their cars on streets all over the city and started dancing. Pittsburgh was tied up for hours. Porky-mania had taken control. It still rules.
Chedwick has been recognized on the floor of the United States Congress for his pioneering contributions to radio and rock and roll (and countless times around Pittsburgh, including a 50th anniversary oldies concert called "Porkstock," in 1998 at Three Rivers Stadium.)
A bronze plaque commemorating Chedwick and WAMO was placed on the building that housed WAMO on 107 E. Eighth St., near the Homestead Grays Bridge. The plaque is partially dedicated to "The Bossman." September 23, 2006 was declared “Porky Chedwick Day” in Allegheny County by the elected suits.
WQED-TV has featured Chedwick on their nationally broadcast PBS R&B/doo wop television specials, taped at The Benedum Center.
He's the only Pittsburgh DJ to be recognized in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At age 88, Chedwick celebrated his 58th anniversary on the air at Hall of Fame's Alan Freed Radio Studio on August 12, 2006.
He'll be the subject of an upcoming documentary that was begun that day by Emmy Award winning producer Daniel Friedman, the son of one of the original owners of WAMO in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburghers can still find him packing local nightclubs with his sock hops, just as he has since the late 1940s. He lives in Brookline with his wife and business manager, Jeannie, and their two little dogs. (As of this writing, he's back in Florida.) The two met at a hop at the Linden Grove in 1990, and were married a few months later. His surviving sons are Paul of Mount Washington and Michael, who lives in Atlanta.
He decided to move in 2008 to Florida to soak up the sun in his twilight; Porky decided instead to come back home for good before the year ran out - there were too many old people in the Sunshine State to suit his taste. (He did move back, and is said to be looking to return to the Steel City. With our recent winters, we'd strongly suggest dual residency!)
Hey, Porky Chedwick did more to put Pittsburgh on the music map than any other performer in the City. R&B acts opened here because he made the 'Burgh the hottest soul market of his time. Oldies radio began because of his playlist. Everyone made money off of Chedwick - except Chedwick. He doesn't care.
He's what everyone in Pittsburgh aspires to be - a honest, hard working family man with a soul (and ear) of gold, talkin' trash and boppin' through life. Porky will always be the city's "Boss Hoss."
OK, Porky was the king of the radio jocks, no argument. But if he was king, Sir Walter Raleigh was the Prince of Soul DJ's in the early days of Pittsburgh R&B radio.
In 1955 John Christian starting spinning disks at WILY, an East Liberty station, joining local radio pioneers Lee "3-D Lee D" Dorris and Bill Powell, all three playing soul for the black audiences of Pittsburgh. He owned an appliance store that advertised on the station and got into the business through a bit of serendipity. The station manager heard his voice over the phone and offered him a job.
Two years later, Christian, dubbed "Sir Walter" in Time magazine for his faint British accent, left to team up with Porky at WAMO. Bill Powell joined him there. Brother Matt came on later, giving WAMO a dominant lineup of jocks.
"And that's when WAMO took off," Christian told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. "There was a segment of people who obviously appreciated what Porky was doing. They were primarily white people. When they brought on African-American talent, that's when the total community, white and black, became involved." WAMO to this day draws on a large mixed audience for its' music programming.
He used to dress up in an English butler outfit or in a white suit, sometimes with tails. Christian would sport a monacle and talk in a faux accent. He often was seen wearing a top hat or bowler. Sir Walter had very large, white mutton chops. And he referred to everyone as "M'Lords and M'Ladies."
Some thought his persona was a takeoff on satirist Lord Buckley, who would do bits with a veddy British accent and over the edge costumes. Whatever the origin, Christian's act worked like a charm in Pittsburgh. He was a popular hop jock like all the primo DJs of the era.
He eventually left radio because of "creative differences". Control of the playlist had been torn from the DJ's and given to the accountants, and Christian figured it was time to move on. A Top 40 list was anathema to the old school jocks. He then scored a long running gig with TV station WPXI.
Now he's best known for his charitable work. The John Christian Charity Trust Fund awards grants to different area social and community causes. Its' big money maker is his annual celebrity golf outing.
*****
And add the Stockdale Fire Hall in Washington county to the hop havens of the 1950s & '60s. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review and Post Gazette both just ran articles on it and a big reunion dance it hosted to celebrate 50 years of platters. Other old Mon Valley halls mentioned in the PG: the Jumpin' Jive Bee Hive and the Cougar Canteen in Charleroi, the Italian Hall in Monessen, the Blue Fox and Italian Citizens Club in Monongahela, and the Twin Coaches in Rostraver.
To the east in Westmoreland county, Harry Lattanzio's Rink in Latrobe brought in the Pittsburgh R&B jocks to rock the joint for the locals & the kids from Indiana and Ligonier.
More songs? The Girl from the 'Burgh recommends "Cry Like A Baby" and "The Letter" by the Boxtops, "Close Your Eyes" by Peaches and Herb, and "Dream" by the Everly Brothers. A few other tunes that you may remember: "Dedicated to the One I Love," Shirelles; "Houseparty," Showstoppers; "I Only Have Eyes For You," Flamingos; "Showtime," Detroit Emeralds; "Image of a Girl," Safaris; "Because," Dave Clark Five; "Wipe Out," Surfaris; "This Diamond Ring," Gary Lewis and the Playboys; "For Your Precious Love," Jerry Butler; "Chains," Cookies; "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby," Sapphires; "Forever," Marvelettes; "Up on the Roof" and "Under the Boardwalk," Drifters; "Stand By Me" and "I Who Have Nothing," Ben E. King; "Baby Love," Supremes; "My Girl," Temptations; "Midnight Hour," Wilson Pickett; "Try a Little Tenderness," Otis Redding; "You Don't Own Me," Leslie Gore; "Chapel of Love," Dixie Cups; "(Remember) Walkin' in the Sand," Ronettes; "A Lover's Question," Clyde McPhatter; "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," Platters; "It's Only Make Believe," Conway Twitty; and "It's All Right," Impressions.
Yah, yah, I know I missed a lot of 1960s music in my "Oldies But Goodies" post. And I'll miss a lot more - after all, 40 years worth of memories do get somewhat diluted as the neurons quit firing with their usual reliability. But here's a couple of additions that popped into what's left of my mind (a terrible thing to lose, take my word for it!)
How could I forget Chuck Brinkman from KQV radio? He was one of the premier top 40 jocks of the era, and the first host of "Come Alive" on WIIC - TV, a local teen dance party show. Brinkman spun disks on TV for eighteen months before handing the torch to Terry (TL) Lee. He came to KQV in 1960 and eventually worked every time slot they had to offer.
Brinkman's famous for stealing KDKA's thunder when the Beatles came to town in 1964. He and brother jock Dexter Allen got to New York to interview the Beatles. Through connections, they managed to talk their way into a seat on the Beatle's private plane to the 'Burgh, bumping KDKA's Clark Race in the process. Once here, they got the KQV banner hung front and center on the Arena stage, and Brinkman introduced the Beatles to the screeching mob, one upping Race again. Clark Race bitched about it on air for the longest time.
In 1972, he moved across town to WTAE and ten years later made a clean break from here and went to San Diego. He came back to Pittsburgh briefly and has worked the Dallas area for the past two decades, moving from an oldies format to adult contemporary.
And speaking of dance shows, some folks used to watch "9 Teen Time" from WSTV in Steubenville, which used to have a pretty strong signal into the area. Its' hosts were Wayne Van Dine, later a TV consumer advocate on Pittsburgh TV, and Stan Scott.
I ran across some more on Brother Love's Underground. Ken Reeth was Brother Love's given name, and he was part of a morning comedy team in Hartford, where he and his partner Eddie King actually did stand up gigs at the local clubs. He came to Carnegie's WZUM in the 60s and then moved on to WAMO.
After San Francisco's Summer of Love, he thought Pittsburgh was ripe for some progressive rock. Somehow he sweet talked soul station WAMO into allowing him one night a week to pump out Iron Butterfly, Country Joe, Hendrix, the Doors, Vanilla Fudge, the Mothers and others of their ilk . The show became Brother Love's Underground.
The Underground was campy and true to Reeth's comedy roots. His studio sidekicks were Frank the Freak, Raymond the Condemned, the Observer, and the Mellon Square. He would engage them in comedy skits, ala Chilly Billy Cardille on Chiller Theater with his ensemble. Raymond and the Mellon Square were the crowd favorites. Raymond would spout bad poetry while the bewildered Square would rant about those darn hippies and the events of the day.
At one time, the Underground was broadcast by Dynamic Broadcasting into Boston, Miami and Buffalo, so Brother Love was more than a Pittsburgh phenonema.
He later made a complete about face and bought a country station in California. He DJ'ed under the moniker Romeo Jones there and eventually became a director for the Academy of Country Music. Reeth also wrote one of the first e-books, Dreamland, about his radio days. He passed away in Vegas in 2005 from leukemia.
And finally, a few more tunes that fell outta the cobwebs of my mind: "Hold Me," Mel Carter; "Our Day Will Come," Ruby & the Romantics; anything Skyliner, like "This I Swear" or "Since I Don't Have You," "Cara Mia," Jay & the Americans; "Draggin Waggin," Triumphs; "Elephant Walk," Donald Jenkins; "Dry Your Eyes," Brenda & the Tabulations; "My True Story," Jive Five; "Gloria," Shadows of Knight; any Righteous Brother tune, such as "You're My Soul & My Heart's Inspiration" or "Ebb Tide," "Walk," Fenways; "Harlem Nocturne," Viscounts; "Blue Moon," Marcels; "The Bird," Rivingtons; "Come Go With Me," Del Vikings; every Little Anthony song, like "Hurts So Bad" or "Going Out Of My Head," "The Loser," Racket Squad; "Oh What A Night," Dells; "My Heart Cries," Romancers (a cover that may be better than the original), "Farmer John," Premiers; "Rinky Dink," Baby Cortez; and everything by the Beach Boys (try "In My Room" or "Surfer Girl") and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, who sang too many songs and gave me too many memories to fit on this page. Trust me on that.
That's it for now. Maybe my mind will shake loose a couple of more recollections as time goes on, and please feel free to nudge my memory if you recall things I've forgotten or missed.
Did you grow up in Pittsburgh during the sixties? Then you remember the music scene.
Porky Chedwick: The Daddio of the Raddio, Your Platter Pushin' Papa, The Boss Man, the Pied Piper of Platter, Porky was all those things and more. Porky did all the dances, and his oldies/R&B playlist - and make no mistake, he originated "race" music in this neck of the woods - had kids flocking to his hops, and he still does an odd gig or two. DJ'ing out of WHOD/WAMO in Homestead, he was the man. I can still hear his theme, "Bongo Blues" (until his Porky jingles replaced it) playing in my head.
It's said he made a million dollars at the hops and either gave it away or had it embezzled from him - and he doesn't care. He said God took it from him because He knew the Daddio couldn't handle it. One benefit of his legendary disdain of money is that it kept him clean of the payola stain that covered so many other top dj's of his era.
Once Porky played Martha Reeve's "Dancin' In the Streets" from a downtown broadcast site and told his radio listeners to stop what they were doing and dance to her beat. Kids all over the area stopped their cars in tunnels, at stop lights, and at intersections and got out and danced. Traffic was tied up for hours as it was estimated that 10,000 teens were tuned in while on their way to town to catch Porky's act.
Terry Lee/TL: He spun wax out of McKeesport's WMCK/WIXZ and featured Music for Young Lovers complete with reverb, a biggie back in the day. All the cool cars had it, along with a red light in the back seat. Every radio in the cars parked along South Park's China Wall (a lover's lane frequented by romantic teens and peeping tom police with high voltage flashlights) had his show dialed in. TL managed the Arondies and Swamp Rats (nee Fantastic Dee Jays) and played the heck out them, along with "High on a Hill" by Scott English and "Have I Sinned" by Donnie Elbert. He closed out the show with "Goodnight, My Love," not sure of the artist. He made so much money at the hops that he had security with him to get the swag home.
Clark Race: A KDKA jock through the 1960s, Race had a 50% audience rating, meaning at any one time, half the teen radios in Pittsburgh were tuned to his show. He also hosted the wildly popular TV show "Dance Party," a local American Bandstand. Everyone checked it out just to see if they knew anyone boog-a-looing or slow draggin' on live TV, or better yet, someone that had ditched their steady for a less left-footed partner. He broke Lou Christie's "Lightning Strikes" and Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet." Clark Race was also a fixture at the hop scene.
Mad Mike Metro(vich): Mad Mike's show originated from WZUM in Carnegie and was broke into different segments. The more popular were Mad Mike's Moldie Oldies and the Progressive Teen Sound, a showcase for what was basically garage and surfer rock. He's the dude that launched Tommy James' career and he was a regular at West View Dance Land. One famous story has the early Rolling Stones playing live and drawing a crowd of 200 while Mad Mike's competing gig drew 2,000. Mad Mike died in 2000.
The Other Biggies: I couldn't find much on these guys, but they were giants in the 1960s - Charlie Appel, still a part-time DJ and full time reverend, from Monroeville's WPSL (he still has a crew of followers known as the Apple Corps), Brother Love of WAMO, who introduced progressive music to the Burg, and Bob Livorio of WKPA in New Kensington, another renowned hop jock.
The Dance Halls: I'm from the South Hills, and my memory can still dredge up the Linden Grove in Castle Shannon, the White Elephant in White Oak, I think, though it burned down long ago, the Lebanon Lodge in Mt. Lebanon, Sully's in Brentwood - that burned too, occupational hazard, I guess - and West View Dance Land where everyone got down to the Battle of the Bands. Kennywood did some dances, too. A few romances and many boozy parking lot fights were started at these venues. How else would a self-respecting Pittsburgh teen kill the weekend?
The Songs: Culled by memory in no particular order: "Wisdom of a Fool," The Jesters; "The Wind," Diablos; "69," Arondies, "Whip It On Me Baby," Billy Guy; "My Heart Cries," Etta & Harvey; "You're Pushing Too Hard," The Seeds; "High Flying Wine," The Igniters; "Fried Onions," Lord Rockingham; "Love You So Bad," The Empires; "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box," The Bangers; "Someone," The Contrails; "Ain't No Big Thing," The Electrons; "High on a Hill," Scott English; "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O," Larry Dale; "Shop Around," The Mad Lads; "Love Is So Tough," The Fantastic Dee Jays; "Don't You Hear Me Calling Baby," Ronnie Haig; "Have I Sinned," Donnie Elbert; "Psycho" & "The Witch," The Sonics. Our song? "Everlasting Love," Robert Knight, "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You," Frankie Valli, and "So Much In Love," The Tymes. One song wasn't enough.
If you can remember most of these names, places and tunes, congratulations - Altzheimers hasn't won yet. And by the power invested in me by The Boss Man, I dub thee an official member of the South Park Cruisers Club, circa 1967. It was a very good year.
