WRKO - The Launch…

Friday, March, 12, 2010 by Mel Phillips.

(This year marks the 43rd anniversary of the launching of WRKO Boston. WRKO - The Launch has been updated and includes additional links and clips not seen before, many taken from the WRKO.org website designed and written by Shel Swartz and thanks to donations made throughout the years by WRKO personnel. The best first-hand quotes made over the years have been retained.  I never tire in updating the story that forever changed so many of the lives of those that had the honor of being part of this historic radio station)…

On March 13, 1967, WNAC, the flagship station of the Yankee Network gave way to a new contemporary radio station that many felt may have been the best ever heard in New England before or since.  There are those that would argue that it was one of the best new stations to be launched in the United States. It was called WRKO…

The genesis of WRKO occurred when General Manager Perry S. Ury dispatched Program Director Bob Henabery to research the feasibility of following in the footsteps of RKO’s successful sister stations in Los Angeles (KHJ) and San Francisco (KFRC). The results of that research indicated that it could work. There was room in Boston for such a station if it was positioned somewhere between WBZ’s variety of contemporary music, heavy news and public affairs commitment and WMEX’s more frenetic approach. Those of us fortunate enough to be entrusted to launch that station pledged to have an exciting, new, hip, top 40 station that would turn Boston radio on its ear with exclusive releases, great jocks, promotions and presentation and we delivered on that pledge…

I was fortunate enough to play a part in the success of WRKO-FM, “ARKO, your friendly robot”, the first Boston rocker in the fall of 1966 and another factor in deciding that we had to move this format over to AM. In early summer 1967, I was named Program Director of WRKO and with great support provided by Paul Power (production and music director), Harvey Mednick (promotion director), Roger Allan (news director), Chief engineer George Capalbo and one of the best general managers in America, Perry S. Ury we set out upon our mission… The following timeline has been verified by copies obtained of both local and national print media articles, memos, website information, the memory of those of us that were there and lots of grunt work by those of us who cared enough to make sure that this information was accurate.

January 25, 1967:
Paul Kelley Jr. sends an internal memo to the Blair Radio sales team mentioning a conversation he had with a salesman from WNAC indicating a format change to contemporary music taking place no later than April 1…

Early, 1967:
Alexander Auerbach, financial reporter of The Boston Globe, writes a story about the success of WRKO-FM…

January 31, 1967:
The Bennington Vermont Banner writes an article titled “End of the Yankee Network”…

February 7, 1967:
Eleanor Roberts of The Boston Traveler chronicles the demise of WNAC and mentions the rumor of a new “rock ‘n’ roll” format for the newly assigned WRKO call letters…

February 25, 1967 (Billboard Magazine):
In an interview, GM Perry S. Ury states that a format change to the “Hot 100″ (Billboard terminology) will take place in mid-March and announces the new call letters as WRKO. Perry adds: “FM and AM will simulcast from 6am to 6pm with separate programming from 6pm to 6am”. Ury also indicates that oldies will be played on FM…

Week of March 6, 1967:
All of Boston’s newspapers use “WRKO” in their radio program listings…

March 10, 1967 (Boston Traveler):
Eleanor Roberts, music and radio/tv critic of the Boston Traveler (which will soon be absorbed into the Boston Herald) mentions that the Now Crowd will debut on March 13th. The new WRKO jock lineup is now listed in all newspapers. Here’s a photo of the famous WRKO marquee with the lineup…

March 10, 1967 (Billboard Magazine):
“Vox Jox” announces that Arnie Ginsburg has joined WRKO to do 6pm-9pm and that Al Gates is already at the station…

Monday, March 13, 1967
While the staff at WNAC started using pop music and new call letters prior to this date, this was the launch of the new format with the new jock lineup: 6am-9am Al Gates (who was joined by his alter-ego “Feathers”, Palmer Payne (news) and the legendary Curt Gowdy (sports), 9am-12Noon John Rode, 12-3pm Joel Cash, 3-6pm J.J. Jeffrey, 6-9pm Arnie (”Woo Woo”) Ginsburg, 9pm-12am Chuck Knapp. Dick Burch handled the all-night show briefly (we segued music over night after he left until Jon Powers was in place). A page listing all the WRKO talent with photos and airchecks is linked here . Additional photos are also available here. A footnote on Arnie Ginsburg. Arnie was on the air briefly but would be enjoined by the Suffolk County Superior Court for violating his WMEX contract prohibiting him from working within a 18 mile radius of the Boston State House for one year. Arnie joins the WRKO sales staff…

April 25, 1967 (Variety Magazine):
Variety announces that an IBEW strike started at WRKO with jocks refusing to cross picket lines. I sat in for Al Gates from 6am to 9am and while we segued music the rest of the day, Perry Ury, Program Director Bob Henabery and other management people did the news…

May 6, 1967
Wear a trenchcoat and dark glasses, show up at the Sack Savoy Theatre at 4 a.m. and see “Casino Royale” for free. Little did Promotion Director Harvey Mednick or anyone else, expect the riot that ensued. An unruly gathering of some 13,000 Bostonians charged the theatre, injuring many, fortunately none seriously, broke windows and doors in the theatre and damaged cars parked nearby. This event made the front page of the Boston Globe and New York Times. We weren’t proud of what we created but Boston felt the impact of WRKO’s reach and we knew we had arrived as a game changer in Boston radio. The 1967 ‘Casino Royale’ premiere was recently chronicled on the SONY “Casino Royale’ Collector Edition DVD…

May 28, 1967:
There is a John Rode aircheck made on this date which indicates the strike had ended…

July 15, 1967 (Billboard Magazine):
Billboard mentions that in addition to consulting KHJ and KFRC, Bill Drake will consult the rest of the RKO chain (including WRKO) starting immediately…

August 19, 1967 (Billboard Magazine):
Claude Hall mentions that WRKO has climbed to #1 in the Hooper ratings (the first indication that we had taken over the market): WRKO 13.9, WMEX 9.9, WBZ 9.7. On Saturdays (10am-6pm) we had a phenomenal 20.1…May, 1992
The 25th anniversary was celebrated in Boston…

Additional photos & articles: Talent Heaven, Oldies LP, Boston Globe article, ‘Let it Be’ LP memo, WRKO Talent (News), WRKO Talent A to Z, AM & FM Studios, Now 30’s, Jock Lineups, FM coverage map  , (About) WRKO News, WRKO’s 1st Rate Card & Jingles…

Many thanks go to the people who provided information and a special debt of gratitude to Donna Halper who spent all day at the Boston Public Library finding every scrap of microfilm that mentioned WRKO. And thanks also to the following (in alphabetical order): the late Roger Allan, Gordy Brown, George Capalbo, Bill Hahn, Harvey Mednick, Paul Power, Frank Kingston Smith (WRKO’s Bobby Mitchell), the late Bill Todd (WRKO’s Johnny Williams) and Perry S. Ury…

Remembering the day WRKO was born, March 13, 1967…
“For me it was a day of pride and vindication for the decision to change the format and put the “Boston Rocker” on the air. My most vivid memory was an extremely nasty call from Mr. McCurdy, the head of the engineer’s union. The threat to “ruin WRKO and General Tire” for making the format move was very real at the time. As you now, they tried and failed later in the spring. In retrospect - every one involved, especially Bob Henabery and you, did a herculean job, without Bill Drake’s crews’ input. I would like to have been privy to their reaction. It was a day of true radio drama for all of us”. Perry S. Ury…
(Perry was the 1st VP/GM of WRKO after serving in the same capacity at the former WNAC/WRKO-FM)…

“For me the lasting friendships, you among them certainly, have been the best part of this adventure. In my mind’s eye, I was the luckiest of the lot inasmuch as WRKO led to KHJ that led to KFRC and on to corporate. Without you, Perry and Bob, who knows where my career might have gone? Perry told me ‘in two years I don’t want you here. It’s NY or LA’ and he was true to his word. Best of course has to be the ‘Casino Royale’ promotion (the remake DVD is now being released). 50,000 people out in trenchcoats at 4 a.m. on a drizzly morning at the Sack Savoy theatre responding to a few promos from an upstart Top 40 station barely a month old to see a crappy James Bond movie with Woody Allen as 007! Remarkable — I get goose bumps just writing this e-mail. Happy birthday WRKO and God Bless all who sailed on her”…Harvey Mednick (Harvey was our promotion director, one of the best, who wound up as corporate VP of Promotion. Some of his promotional work is seen in linked photos)…

“Mel, as you know I have a million lasting memories but probably the greatest was while working at stodgy old WHDH and reading a story about Arnie the Woo (Ginsburg) signing with the new WRKO. I remember listening to the debut of WRKO but little did I know that about a month later I’d be working there after calling Perry Ury and sending a resume. I got a call back from you and we interviewed and a few weeks later I was hired and it was the greatest experience of my life…
Paul Power (who was hired as Music Director, handled production and would become assistant Program Director). Paul was an invaluable part of the start up of WRKO…

“I vividly recall filing the change of call letters with the FCC to make it legal. I was working long and exhausting hours to prepare for the big changeover. I have fond memories of the management and staff all pulling in the same direction and the elation we still experience at the success of the legendary WRKO”.  George Capalbo was our chief engineer who put together state of the art studios at WRKO from scratch as seen in linked photos. George, like Perry Ury and Harvey Mednick would go on to work at the corporate level. I remember meeting George on a plane headed for Harris Corp. to order our automation system for WRKO-FM…

From Roger Allan: “How can I ever forget the day we kicked Boston in the ass? The Now Generation hit Boston big. It’s a ‘happening’. There was the Globe, the Herald and the WRKO top 40 sheets. We had the newest of the new broadcast styles with 20/20 News which won inumerable news awards from UPI, AP & RTNDA thanks to people like John (”the barrrrrrometic pressure”) Masters & Bob Stevens, Bill Rossi and Bob Cusack. The George Capalbo studios had the nation’s best equipment. What a time for all of us.”  Roger Allan was News Director of WRKO starting at WNAC and The Yankee Network before the call letter change…

“I was promoted from Production Supervisor to Engineer as management wanted younger guys spinning the rock for the new jocks. I was matched with Chuck “Chuckles” Knapp on the 9-midnight shift. He was the screaming DJ from Fargo (ND). My first assignment as a Prod. Sup. was to transfer “Here Comes My Baby” by the Tremeloes to cart. We first had to learn how to get ‘em tight, but not so tight as to hear the song re-cue when the tape came back to its start and not recording over the splice so it would be clean on the air. I bet I had to hear that song a half dozen times until I got it right. I was tired of the song before it ever hit the air.” (Gordy Brown, class of ‘67-’76)… Gordy was one of the best of our ‘younger’ technicians both on air and in production. Chuck Knapp loved him… 

Frank Kingston Smith a.k.a. Bobby Mitchell “Not having been part of the original cast, I was doing afternoon drive at WICE Providence. WRKO had a lousy signal into and south of Providence but another radio guy called me to dial up 98.5. I didn’t have FM in my car but when I got home and heard Arnie Ginsburg (what’s he doing there?), I listened for the next 4 hours into Chuck Knapp and said, ‘that’s where I want to be!’. Less than 15 months later, I was!. What an experience!”
“Smitch” became our production voice and was voted by Bill Drake & consultants as voicing the best original version of the “History of Rock & Roll” of all the RKO stations, including KHJ Los Angeles on the February 28th, 1969 weekend. You may remember Frank Kingston Smith when he was on WABC…

Shadoe Stevens:
“Sorry Mel, I wasn’t there yet. But there are a host of vivid memories for some other time. It was an exciting time. Congratulations on having lived through it. Good luck with the salute. Shadoe worked from 6 to 9 p.m. for WRKO and had the greatest set of pipes I think I’ve ever heard. He would leave us for KHJ, hosted American Top 40, became one of the biggest voice-over announcers in the world and then Hollywood called and Shadoe has become an accomplished actor…

Chuck “Chuckles” Knapp:
“I remember when we gave away an original oil portrait of the Sgt. Pepper LP cover to that young man in a contest. I hope he still has it and now knows how valuable it must be. I loved the games at Fenway, meeting Bobby Orr, watching Bill Russell and when Curt Gowdy introduced me to Ted Williams at that charity softball game with the Boston Playboy bunnies - wow! I remember the metro bus driver shouting hello to Arnie (Ginsburg) as we walked in Kenmore Square when WMEX forced him off WRKO by producing an area radius clause signed by Max Richmond’s brother that Arnie forgot he signed. Arnie used to intro me as “the kid from Fergus Falls, Minnesota” just before 9 o’clock. When he left I moved up into his slot and worked 7 days a week for 8 months without a day off and I loved it. Who could have known that a kid could jump from Fargo to Boston and still be practising the craft that I love. How great is that? Proudly and thanking God for his blessings.” Chuck is now living in Minneapolis. He reminded me that Shadow Stevens replaced him twice. Once when he left Fargo to come to WRKO and again at WRKO…

Ed Walsh remembers WRKO:
I was a student at Holy Cross College in Worcester when WRKO debuted and had already been listening to WRKO-FM (”R-KO, your automated all-music station.”). Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the AM until my next weekend visit home to Wellesley. Little did I know I’d start at WRKO 9 years later and stay for a decade”… Ed is now the morning anchor on WBZ Radio…

John Gorman:
“Your first week on the air convinced me to make radio my career. It was truly the first top 40 station in Boston that played rock and r&b hits without the peppering of middle-of-the-road. It was young, fresh, exciting and obviously Boston’s biggest radio success story and my preference was the pre-Drake “6-8-0 WRKO”. What other radio station, especially back then, could’ve distributed a button that just read “NOW” with nearly everyone between 12 and 20 knowing that by wearing it, you were one of WRKO’s “Now Crowd”…
John would go into Cleveland radio and have tremendous success. He also consults stations and has become a good writer whose love of radio cuts through all his articles devoted to the medium…

Michael Marcy, WAAF/14Q Local Sales Manager:“I was a lifeguard in Westborough (MA) and I could walk up and down the beach and hear one continuous song on the radio. The kids had their radios locked onto WRKO. It was amasing?”…

Sales executive Bill Wayland:
“Perry (Ury) flattered me by asking my “youthful” view of flipping the format to “rock”. Can’t recall my words but I was ‘for it’. All of us were aware of what was happening at KHJ & KFRC. WMEX had a great signal in Nova Scotia, not so hot in Natick (west of Boston). WBZ was doing whatever it was doing ‘professionally’ but this ‘youth’ found it boring. Did I know any jocks who might fit in? Well there was this crazy kid in Pensacola (FL) named J.J. Jeffrey, and so it went. One summer day, before our 1st book, I walked the length of the Irish Riviera in Southie, Carson Beach to Castle Island and I could hear WRKO all the way and back. Wow! On March 13, 1967, thanks to a lot of hard work by other people (thanks Perry), the balloon began to rise and I happened to be holding on to the string.”

J.J. Jeffrey:
“Light My Fire”! The Red Sox! ‘67 erupts with WRKO! A gathering of radio people who took Boston and New England and said “Pay Attention”. They did. The DJ’s couldn’t wait to get to “work” everyday to play the latest Beatle songs and other hits. Fabulous people to work with: ‘Smitch’, Dale, ‘Joe’ Cash, Chuck, Gary, Jon, Shadoe, Ernie, Roger, Paul, Tucker, Harry the W, Sid, Gordie, Chet, Frank, Wayland, Mike & “Woodies”. Loved the promotions! ‘Casino Royale’, Candy Apple Red Mustang, Top 500, Black Box & the Christmas Wish. And the names of the DJ’s on the marquee at 21 Brookline Avenue. What a kick to ’shepard’ over the Drake format. The Johnny Mann jingles! The engineers who made the Big 68 sound like an FM. Thank you management team, Perry, Mel, Bob Henabery and Harvey for “smoothing the way for us to rise to the top in New England. Best personal regards from ‘my villa in Dorchester’…JJ Jeffrey 3 pm-6pm on the Big 68 (said proudly)”…

Rick Coyne, WRKO Sales:
“I was still in the record business working on Gary Lewis records (on March 13, 1967) but joined RKO in 1970 and enjoyed it a lot in sales. The last reunion (25th anniversary) was a trip. So many long winded people that Joe Smith was so pissed when he finally got on that he was actually hilarious. It was a great night”…(It should be noted that Joe Smith, retired record executive who started his career in New England radio and probably the best ‘roastmaster’ in show business got so tired that he told me not to do his intro, “just get me on” and Rick is right, he was hilarious…

John Gorman, veteran radio programmer who grew up listening to WRKO raises a very good point about the success of WRKO: “WRKO never had the opportunity to be the underdog. It filled a void. Growing up in Boston, WMEX was the top choice for most, followed by WBZ but when WRKO debuted it was the true Greater Boston station. Overnight, WBZ sounded tired and WMEX amateurish. Great memories. Makes me want to watch a DVD of ‘Casino Royale’, the original.”A final comment: “WRKO’s success was truly a group operation. I never worked with a better group. My best to you and all the gang.” Perry S. Ury…

-The Beginning-

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