The first time I was at Marina City and WCFL was the day I ditched
school in 1965. I rode downtown on the old Wabash Railroad Orland
Park Local, a train with a string of old 1920's passenger coaches that had
seats with the old musty stench of old time furniture from when you were
a kid--- (I thought I'd throw that in for atmsophere.)
I had listened to the first few months of the new Rock & Roll format
on the station and it had such a bright new sound, so I went down to check
it out first hand.
School started at 8:00 am -- by that time I was already riding the elevator
to the 16th Floor of the Marina City office building. The whole place was
brand new. There was a bowling alley in the basement and a wierd looking
building which eventually housed the new studios of WFLD-TV Channel 32 (the
second UHF station in town at the time) and those two "corn cob"
towers with WBKB-TV's (now WLS-TV) tower on top of one of them with the
famous "7" circle in neon.
The first thing you had to do at WCFL was "sneak by" the secretary
at the front desk. The secretaries at the station in those early days were
all "Twiggy" types -- tall skinny blondes and brunettes with tight
rear ends in mini skirts wearing long false eyelashes -- you know the type
-- from the mid-sixties. (Get Smart ... Man From U.N.C.L.E., 007 etc.) It's
a wonder any broadcasting ever went on up there.
I somehow, and don't ask me how, always managed to get by the
front desk. This was in the days before tight building security. I later
found out that WCFL, in latter years, regularly recieved bomb threats. So
this being in the very beginning-- it wasn't a big issue to get into the
place. The reason I was able to walk around in the studios unquestioned
was because a studio engineer, by the name of Al Urbanski, knew who
I was from the early 1960's (1962) from my hanging around the old WYNR out
on the south side where he had worked previous. At least that's my presumtion.
Jerry G. Bishop had just been hired to do mornings, replacing
Jim Runyon (who, along with Joel Sebastian
passed away years later) after a brief stint on the station. I recall Jerry
coming through the door of control room "A" and giving me a little
shit about why I wasn't in school. The engineer looked over and made some
kind of remark that I can't recall now, but it was like "cool"
that I was there and he enjoyed my looking over his shoulder.
Now mind you, this was on a business day of the week, so the bosses must
have been around somewhere ( probably in back with the Twiggy types doing
dictation or something) I was lucky to be there, and grateful for that opportunity
today.
The Jingles On The Control Room Monitor
I had heard the new jingles that Chuck Blore
did when I was listening to the station at home. I didn't know Chuck Blore
from Chuck Mangeone at the time, all I knew was the sound of his
jingles were spectacular. I had never heard station I.D.s that sounded like
Walt Disney before. A few weeks ago I was trying to figure out just
what it is that makes me like jingle music so much. I think the Chicago
Auto Show my father used to take me to at the International Amphlitheater
back in the 1950's may provide an answer.
At the auto show they used to have a big arena with a stage. On the stage
was a revolving platform that held the cars they were showing. A guy would
drive the car up on the stage from the right (spotlight following the car)
and the announcer did his pitch while a full orchestra played in the pit
(big tymp rolls and all). "See The USA In A Chevrolet" the girl
sang as the car rolled down and off after doing a few turns on the automobile
turntable. It was awesome. Yeah -- that's it! -- that's what influenced
my enjoyment of jingles.
The first jingle I heard in the studio that morning in 1965 was "Encore-Encore".
It was incredible. The sound coming out of that big RCA wall monitor (which
was up and behind the engineer--for what reason I don't know) blew my socks
off. You had to be there to appreciate it. This was in the days of transistor
radios, where the best you could get was 5k fidelity. This however seemed
like the band was right there with the singers.
I turned around to see Jerry G. out behind the microphone introducing
the oldie. His voice pounded with clarity through the speaker -- it seemed
like an etherial experience to see his lips move behind the double-glass
partition and his voice in unision reigning off the monitor behind me.
It was really cool to hang out around the station. I started flunking
out in school though. And just about that time, another station in town
started a black format. WAAF, which was located in the LaSalle - Wacker
Building just across the river from Marina City suddenly became -- W-G-R-T
Chicago 95 . The station bought the Pepper-Tanner "It's What's Happening"
series -- put on a lot of reverb in their signal (they got the reverb unit
out of an old Hammond organ) - and went on the air as GREAT RADIO. I went
nuts!! It was another hot sounding, fast paced station. All the D.J.'s over
there were black. Eddie Morrison, Daddy-O-Daly, Richard Steele and
Lon Dyson. The only white guy on the air was the newsman Mike
Sullivan. WGRT reminded me of my earlier visits to WYNR in 1962. The
stations were both owned by white folk (WGRT by Ralph Atlass - WYNR
by "Texan" Gordon McLendon) and both had all black talent
sans the one white guy (Dick Kemp at WYNR). So over a period of time
I spent a lot of energy being a help -- and bother to the staff's of both
WCFL and WGRT. recently, my mother mentioned a letter she has stashed away
in which the station management "kindly" requested that I stay
out of the station because of insurance regulations. (I say "bullshit"
on that today! -- they knew I was just a pain in the ass.)
Ron Britain was so cool. He didn't have a big head like some of the other
jocks in town. I got to stand in as the "sole" studio audience
member on a Saturday night. Ron had his big gong bell next to him on a floor
stand. He'd smash the thing with a little mallet..... "Hello Tuloo
Babes! It's King B. and these are the Rotary Connection with Ruby Tuesday!!
In all my visits to CFL, I got to do a lot of things other kids probably
only dreamed of doing in radio. Al Urbanski would let me get behind the
control board one night with Barney Pip on the air. He let me fire off a
couple of carts -- live on the air! What a thrill!
In 1967 I met Larry Lujack. He had just
come to Chicago and been at WCFL for four months. I didn't meet him at Radio
10 however -- I met him his first week at WLS when I got to be the guest
teen DJ with Art Roberts.
(By the way -- I will pay 100.00 dollars to anybody who has an aircheck
of me on WLS doing that show -- I lost the reel to reel studio copy they
gave me.) Roberts went on to program and D.J. at WCFL in 1972 (See
photo's of WLS studio and control room in 1970)
Lujack had a crew cut. I sat and bullshitted with him for twenty minutes
in the confrence room at LS before I went on the air that night. In an ironic
twist, I interviewed him for the History of Chicago Radio in 1985
as he was getting ready to leave the station. I interviewed him in that
same room -- and he remembered me from 18 years prior!
Marina City had heavy security at nights and on weekends. Larry O'Brien,
a jock at the station often let me sneak up to visit. Thanks Larry!
Playing Radio -- 1967-68
A friend of mine, Mike Scholl had a whole radio
station set up in his bedroom. We're talking about a "real"
station -- control board, transmitter equipment -- the whole thing. He had
cart machines, Ampex reel-to-reel decks, a Grommies mixer -- and turntables.
We used to use jingles from WABC demo's -- mixing them with 45 r.p.m. records
I'd get from people like Sy Gold at Music Island Distributors. Sy
was cool -- he gave me a copy of the Box Tops "The Letter"
before it even was on the air. There were a lot of local record promotion
people back then. I recall getting copies of a group called the Chicago
Transit Authority -- later known as "Chicago." This was before
any of the local groups like the Buckinghams, American Breed
or Cryin' Shames became mega-groups. Gary Loizzo, a friend of Mike's,
used to visit with him at the Olson Electronics store (where Mike
was the manager) on 95th Street in Evergreen Park -- (a suburb of Chicago).
Loizzo was the lead singer on the American Breed's "Bend Me Shape Me"
-- a real rythmatic song with a lot of brass.
Mike and fellow by the name of James Vavrina (whom I only met one time)
bought air time on the old WOPA-FM in Oak Park -- starting Chicago's
VERY FIRST rock and roll teen show. This was the first time a WLS-WCFL type
format was used on an FM station in the city. I supplied prirated Pepper
Sound Studio's "It's What's Happening" jingles for the show.
I recall sitting on the edge of my seat everytime they played them on the
air -- thinking I'd for sure end up in a Memphis (Pound Me in the Ass) Federal
Penitentiary for copyright infringement.
Ilarae Fleischman Memoirs
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