Keener 13

Philip T. Yarbrough died on November 29, 2008 at age 71. When he worked as a DJ at Atlanta’s WAKE, he chose the air-name Bill Drake since it rhymed with the station’s call letters. From 1965 until 2006, he was a prominent radio programming consultant. As the 60s decade came to a close, his Drake formats dominated the airwaves and became the model for much of what radio has today become.

Those of us hard-core Keenerfans like to blame Bill Drake for WKNR’s demise.

It wasn’t his fault. Continue reading “Remembering Bill Drake” →

Just when we think we’ve totally mined all the existing WKNR memorabilia, more treasures appear. This picture of Keener’s mellifluous Ted Clark came to us from  John Maher, WKNR’s superlative newsman during the glory years. John discovered some photos he took the height of Keener’s popularity. We took advantage of his generous contributions as an opportunity to migrate much of the Keener13.com photo gallery to Flickr. Head over to http://www.flickr.com/photos/keener13/ and you’ll discover pictures from the WKNR best high school principal contest, along with shots of Erik Smith, Mike Wilton and Tom Ryan.

Miriam Makeba earned international notoriety more for her political involvement than for her music, but in 1967, her recording about “Pata Pata“, a South African dance loosely translated as “Touch Touch” had a 5 week run on the WKNR Music Guide, peaking at number 9. Her husbands included trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and later black activist Stokely Carmichael, and she worked with a diverse cadre of artists from Harry Belafonte and Dizzy Gillespie to Paul Simon. Makeba died November 10th of a heart attack after collapsing on stage at the end of a benefit concert.

Not only is Bob Berry a Contact News special correspondent, he’s also a fellow Detroit radio, rock n roll and pop culture enthusiast. He knows of which he speaks with over three decades as a broadcaster, heard in Motown on CKLW and WDRQ. Great on-air talent is an endangered species in the era of voice tracking, but Bob is still at the top of his game on Orlando’s Sunny 105.9 FM. He’s also the host of This Week in Rock and Roll, taking Chuck Leonard’s retro-rock feature from the 70s to a whole new level of sophistication and class. If you haven’t added this podcast to your regular listening agenda, do it here. Its the most useful water-cooler rock n roll information you can cram into your brain in sixty seconds.

Not sure exactly where or when these things were part of Keenerania, but Tim Caldwell got his hands on a bunch of them and was kind enough to supply us with one to scan for the archives. Want your own? You can write to him at tmc313@att.net. Click the image to see a larger version.

WKNR’s Scott Regen had a unique relationship with Motown. Early on, Berry Gordy, Jr. recognized the power that Keener had to break new music and many of the Motown stars paid a visit to the Scott Regen show. As Levi Stubbs notes in this air check, the Four Tops were Burger Club members.

But few people knew that Scott also tried his hand at lyricism, penning a song that was ultimately recorded by The Four Tops. He touches on this in his recent conversation with Sunny 105.9’s Bob Berry, mentioning a tune called “Yesterday And You”.

Recorded at the height of Keener’s popularity, it never really caught on and disappeared into R&B oblivion. Until a couple of years ago.

Retitled as “Magic Mary”, the tune can be heard on the CD collection “Lost and Found: Lost Without You”. But if you listen closely, the mix is different from the version that got limited airplay on Keener.

When Bob Green sent me this rarity, I could hear a tone superimposed on the audio at intervals throughout the record. I remembered that when Keener got a song first, they would often mark it up throughout with tones or jingles so that competing stations couldn’t steal it. Bob explains, “It’s so funny how, when we had a new ‘exclusive’, perhaps 10 minutes before WXYZ or CKLW or WJBK, we’d get it on the air IMMEDIATELY…with either a tone every 10 secs or a filtered “Keener-Exclusive’ line under. At least WE thought it was a big deal anyway.”

By Scott Westerman – Curator – Keener13.com
When you think of the great Motown male voices, Levi Stubbs stood alone. Few could emulate the plaintive wail of Edwin Starr, and while both David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks had solo careers, they are forever linked with the Temptations. Stubbs literally defined the Four Tops sound, so much so, that when he voiced the carnivorous venus fly trap in the film version of “Little Shop of Horrors”, the faithful instantly recognized him.

I saw the Tops twice, once under the stars in concert with the Jacksonville, Florida Symphony Orchestra and once up close and personal when they headlined an intimate event at a cable TV convention. On both occasions, they could sustain a nearly two hour program of sing-a-long classics that inevitably had us all dancing along. Lawrence, Duke and Obie each contributed to the Tops magic, from choreography to harmony, but it was Levi who’s unlikely baritone stamped the auditory brand on the Four Tops. Continue reading “Levi Stubbs – Tops at Motown” →

By Scott Westerman – Curator – Keener13.com
My first 45: Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker. My first LP: Shut Down Vol II by the Beach Boys. LPs who’s grooves I wore out with repeated play: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Earth, Wind & Fire. The number of LPs and 45s in my library now: 672

Remember the sound of putting a needle to vinyl and waiting for the first track to vibrate out of the grooves, through the cartridge and the pre-amp, across the amplifier’s power transistors (after adding appropriate bass and pressing the ‘loudness’ button) and along the two pairs of copper wires towards those expensive speakers that were the heartbeat of that stereo system that cost almost as much as your first automobile?

In the day, exploring an album often meant discovering a deep track, about three cuts in, that would never be selected as a single, but touched something at your emotional core (Quatermass – Good Lord Knows is one of my faves). If the LP was Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, it meant 45 minutes of bliss, interrupted only by the amount of time it took to flip the disk to side two. If it was The Firesign Theater’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pilers”, it was something you replayed until the Adventures of Porgie and Mudhead were burned, line by line, into your long term memory.

Vinyl was an experience you shared. Listening to the Bridge Over Troubled Water LP while exploring the heights of passion with a half dozen other junior high couples in the dark corners of a friend’s basement. Wondering what the heck the obscure band was that the guys at Discount Records always liked to play while you and your testosterone charged buddies were trying to sneak a peak at banned Jimi Hendrix “Electric Lady Land” album cover. Or running Funkadelic’s “I Got A Thing” over and over so your band could learn the nuances of a bass line, a wah wah peddle, and some drum licks in a hopeless attempt at imitation.

Vinyl, when mixed with the 12AX7A vacuum tubes that powered your stereo created a warmth that added an indescribable something that the best digital Pro Tools plug-in could never recreate. The LP’s cover became a work of art in itself. Sgt. Pepper’s cover launched a hundred analytical dissertations, fed the Beatle rumor mill and became fodder for trivia buffs who memorized the names and faces of every image thereon.

Vinyl, in the hands of the right disc jockey became an instrument that could create a symphony where disparate artists came together in a seamless harmonic whole to take you on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Then came one turn of the evolutionary road, where it was thought that Vinyl was as anachronistic as a pterodactyl, technically deficient and ultimately too fragile to be a permanent part of the audio archive. CDs and their successor, the MP3 were pure digital storage devices that could be identically cloned without the generational losses inherent in the magnetically arranged iron filings on strips of Mylar or the vibratory bands encircling black plastic.

For three decades we’ve believed that digital perfection was the be all and end all. But now, it seems that everything old is new again. Even as CD sales continue to decline, vinyl is in a renaissance.

The Chicago Tribune quotes Ken Shipley, co-owner of the Numero Group, a Chicago label that specializes in reissues of underground soul music. “We’re seeing the (vinyl) resurgence in all walks of life: from 50-year-old guys who want high-quality product to match their high-end stereos to 19-year-old kids who are sick of the minimalist Ikea design that has plagued dorm rooms for the last decade..Vinyl is the new books.”

Pressing plants are being brought out of mothballs and limited edition vinyl box sets are selling out, at price points that would make CD manufacturers salivate. Bill Gagnon, senior vice president of catalog marketing at EMI Music told the Trib that he expects vinyl to eventually make up about 4% of EMI’s revenue. As with everything else, its the younger generation that is driving the demand.

Will the LP supplant digital? Nope. The pure ease of carrying your entire record library around in a cigarette box that renders it perfectly and pristine first time, every time ensures a digital future.

But like the Keener generation, new audiences are discovering the same magic we remember from that first time we put needle to groove.

On October 12, 1969, Keener killed Paul McCartney.

Russ Gibb, working on WKNR-FM, heard from an Eastern Michigan University student about a series of clues that seemed to point to Paul McCartney’s death. The story took on a life of its own, both on Keener and WKNR-FM and Russ received credit for making the story of McCartney’s supposed demise a national story.

It was a Sunday afternoon in Detroit when Uncle Russ took the call. He had just played some tracks from the Abby Road album and turned to the phone lines for his customary “rap” with his listeners. Eastern Michigan University student Tom Zarski was on the line. “I was going to rap with you about McCartney being dead and what is this all about?”

Gibb told us that his mind immediately went back to the Dylan is Dead rumor that circulated after the poet’s serious motorcycle crash in 1967. He began to review the litany of rumors floating around about the current crop of rock celebrities. Tom was insistent, claiming that there were clues on the Beatle’s records. “..play Revolution Number Nine backwards,” he said.

WKNR-FM’s audience heard “Turn me on, dead man” for the first time. Russ Gibb with UM Student John Miller

The origin of the rumor is a bit more complicated. It may have had its genesis in a 1966 auto accident where Paul suffered minor injuries. Rolling Stone magazine heard the story as early as 1968 and by 1969 clues were circulating around college campuses. In the days leading up to the WKNR revelations, there were several published accounts. Tim Harper wrote an article on the subject on September 17th in the Drake University student newspaper. A similar article appeared in the University of Illinois campus daily six days later. University of Michigan undergrad Fred LaBour heard Russ Gibb’s October 12 broadcast. His article, published in the October 14 edition of the Michigan Daily as a record review parody, is often cited as providing the key exposure that helped propel the story beyond the local market. He admitted to Uncle Russ that much of his article was pure fabrication. Russ Gibb interviews Fred LaBour

I had just signed up at our all-volunteer campus station, WCBN AM 650 (at the University of Michigan) about that time and unbeknownst to our campus station manager, I called Apple Records live on the air. The fun in it was all the switching around, talking to operators, etc. (The station got the bill for the long distance call later and I caught hell for it, but it was worth it.)Anyway, one overseas operator stayed on the phone with me for the whole ordeal. We finally got through to the press office at Apple Records and I asked this woman is Paul was indeed, dead. She said in her lovely accent that, no he was quite alive and had been in the office that very afternoon.After this press lady hung up, I said to my associate, Al Hendry, “Well, I guess he’s still alive.”I didn’t know it but the overseas operator was still on the phone, live on the air and she said “I could have told you that!” There was exactly two seconds of silence, then everyone in the studio started laughing.Ken R. DeutschAuthor – The Jingle Book

Ann Arbor DJ Larry Monroe first heard the rumor from his younger brother and was talking about it on air with WOIA listeners as early as October 9th. Fellow WOIA jock Jim Curtis, the Ann Arbor air name of New York radio legend Jim Kerr — who was “Robin Stone” on Keener in 1971, called Apple in London for reaction. With the time difference, Jim got the night watchman who characterized the tale as, “.. a load of horseshit.”

By November 2nd, J. Marks had written an article for the New York Times disputing the allegations. He remembered finishing a project with Linda Eastman two years earlier. The future Mrs. McCartney expressed interest in meeting Paul but told Marks that she heard that he had died and had been replaced by a double. When the couple were married in March of 1969, Marks sent a note saying “Congratulations, whoever you are.”

RKO invited Paul Cannon, Russ Gibb and Fred LeBour to Hollywood to participate in a television show hosted by attorney F. Lee Bailey. The mock courtroom was the setting for a discussion of evidence surrounding the rumor. The program was broadcast in several RKO markets, including New York. All copies of the tape then mysteriously disappeared, adding an additional twist to the proceedings.

The Paul is Dead story peaked in America with the November 7 edition of Life magazine. The Life crew found the Beatle at his farm in Scotland and after some initial reticence, McCartney gave a detailed interview, debunking the myth that continues to interest Beatle fans to this day.

There are several versions of the Paul is Dead story. Here are a couple of the most popular iterations.

In one account, Paul was was decapitated in an automobile accident occurring in November of 1966 after an argument with the other Beatles at Abby Road studios (“He blew his mind out in a car” – A Day in the Life – Sgt. Pepper). Another version depicted a despondent Paul picking up a female hitchhiker who accidentally caused the wreck when she tried to get too close to the driving Beatle. The woman’s name was said to be Rita (“I took her home. I nearly made it.” – Lovely Rita, Meter Maid – Sgt. Pepper).

There’s an interesting postscript to the story. Chris Morton, who was in studio with Russ Gibb when during his fateful WKNR-FM broadcast visited London in the summer of 2001. He wrote to keener13.com to say, “We went on the walking Magical Mystery Tour in St. John’s Woods, ending up in front of Abbey Road Studios. I was delighted when the tour guide told a brief history of the affair, attributing its genesis to Detroit disk jockey Russ Gibb.”

Whatever its true origin, WKNR played a pivotal role in amplifying one of the more intriguing and macabre chapters of the history of the Beatles.

Paul is Dead – Some of The Clues
Holding a mirror up to the drum reveals “I One IX He Die” – Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album.	A left-handed guitar funeral flower arrangement – Sgt. Pepper Album.
O.P.D – “Officially Pronounced Dead” – on Paul’s left shoulder	“I Was” – The name plate at Paul’s desk – Magical Mystery Tour
The cover of the Abby Road album. Paul’s “burial”: John as the Clergy, Ringo the undertaker, Paul (without shoes – holding a “coffin nail”) the dead man, George as the grave digger.

Other Paul is Dead Resources:

The Paul McCartney Death Rumor by Larry Monroe – The former Ann Arbor DJ’s Memory of the event

Turn Me On, Dead Man – by Andru J. Reeve, published by Popular Culture, Ink., 1994

40 years ago, 23 year old Jose Feliciano sat before a public address microphone at Tiger Stadium. Detroit was playing in the World Series and Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell was assigned the job of selecting the talent to render The National Anthem. Jose followed Marvin Gaye, who sang a straight version after the Tigers directed Harwell to admonish the Motown superstar to keep things traditional. Today, Jose’s rendition sounds tame in comparison to the diverse interpretations we hear at almost every sporting event. But in the day it generated a firestorm of controversy. Here’s NPR’s excellent remembrance of how it happened. (Special thanks to Keenerfan Jim Feliciano for the picture and recording of Jose’s performance at Michigan and Trumbull.)

Bob Berry, Sunny 105’s exceptional afternoon guy, sent me this Starpulse article that wonders why the Republicans can’t get any good bands in their tent this election cycle. That took us back to the 1960 election when Ole Blue Eyes donated his pipes to help elect John F. Kennedy with this tune. As a bonus, here’s what a Kennedy TV commercial looked like, back before negative advertising dominated.

Detroit Garage Band enthusiasts will be interested in?Cicadelic Records new “Where You Gonna Go” collection. Two of the best garage bands from Michigan, The Unrelated Segments whose “The Story Of My Life”has appeared on Rhino’s Nuggets box set and The Tidal Waves who scored a number one hit with “Farmer John” take center stage in this collection. All of The Unrelated Segments and The Tidal Waves material are included on this CD, re-mastered from original elements. Also featued are The Boys, The Quintette Plus, The Unknowns, The District Six, The Couriers and The Lykes of Us.