Dave Donahue's Radio Heros

Back in the 50’s, Tom Perryman, who was working for the Louisiana Hayride would get KWKH announcer Jim Reeves his first gigs as a professional singer.  Later, Perryman became Reeves manager and they would own a radio station in Texas.  Tom also worked with Bob Neal, a promoter who was a DJ like himself out of Memphis that booked Elvis.  I met them both for the first time backstage, as they were talking to a guy called, Colonel Tom Parker, and you sure know the rest of that story. Perryman, who is 87 years old, is also in the DJ Hall of Fame, still works on the radio AND manages Jim Reeves Enterprises!  He’s just received the “Texas Pioneer Broadcaster of 2013 award.

Congrats…good friend.  Nice to talk to you, see you soon. Another great DJ Hall of Famer, Terry Buford just got back in touch with me.  How ironic Terry and I work together at the ‘Radio Ranch,’ KFDI in Wichita, Kansas in the 90’s.  He played a part in the history of famous singer I never knew about until recently. 

On my trips to KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana in the fifties, a small rhythm and blues radio station caught my ear.  KCIJ or K-JOE radio as it was called.  There I met a young DJ who blew me away.  He called himself, ‘Daddy-O-Hot Rod,’ whose real name was Tommy Sands.  

Only a couple of years older than me Tommy was another kind of radio DJ hero, a white guy doing a mish-mash of Rock-A-Billy, Country and R and B on the radio. 

Tommy Sands

Back then sitting in the control room listening to ’Daddy-O’ do his bopping-n-popping’ gig on the microphone was so different than the KWKH DJ’s.  Many times after his shift, we’d hang-out at a small Chinese restaurant and talk about the future.  Neither Tommy nor I knew it at the time, but he was about ready to hitch a rocket ride to stardom. 

He’d played the Louisiana Hayride; though I’d never heard or saw him sing there.  Still, at one performance his singing abilities and good looks would catch the eye of Colonel Tom Parker.  He would sign him and in short time Tommy’s appearance as an ‘Elvis-type’ singer on the Kraft Television Theater’s production of “The Singin’ Idol” would bring him national fame.  On that TV show he would introduce a song called, “Teen-age Crush.”  Capitol records would later record it and it would climb to the top of the charts.  Tommy Sands would be one of the first real teen idols that many others like, Fabian, Paul Anka, Dion and others would follow.

Later, in 1962 I’d reconnect with Tommy when I was working LA radio.  He’d become a Hollywood actor and been in a couple of movies.  He even offered me a chance to get a bit part in a movie he was working on called, “The Longest Day.”  (Boy, did I miss the boat on that one!)  At the time, Tommy was married to Frank Sinatra’s little girl, Nancy.  I recall we all went to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go one night together, and

Nancy Sinatra

Tommy was invited to sing on stage with Johnny Rivers. Today, Tommy lives in Hawaii where he owned his own night club and a clothing store.  

By the way, I haven’t forgotten DJ Terry Burford.  It was he that would replace Tommy Sands on KCIJ radio!  Amazing Terry never told me that story!  You know, it is truly ‘remarkable’ that Terry, Tom Perryman and I continue to be DJ’s on the air TODAY!

Oddly enough, K-JOE radio was owned at the time by promoter I mentioned in an earlier blog, Bob Neal. He was the first country DJ from in Memphis and it came back like thunder when I realized it was Bob I met at KCIJ radio in the days of Tommy Sands!  He even looked like the ‘Big Bopper.’  (All these years I thought Neal was ‘The Big Bopper’!)  His connection to Elvis came while he was a DJ at KMPS.  It was Sam Philips, owner of Sun Records who first recorded Elvis that asked Bob to book Elvis on some tours.  That led to the Louisiana Hayride.  Later, Bob became Elvis’ first manager.   Bob Neal was inducted into the Country DJ and Radio Hall of Fame in 1984, years before me.  Later, he would move to Nashville and have one of the largest talent booking agencies in Country Music.

Wolfman Jack even worked at KCIJ and WSM radio at one time, but…I’ll spin his story on the turntable trail at a later point.

- Dave Donahue

Dave Donahue is a Hall of Fame DJ and Author of the book "DJ Diaries: Radio's Remarkable Listeners". Dave currently writes from his offices in East Texas, just miles from his childhood home. Often referred to as "The Real Life Forrest Gump", there's few places Dave hasn't been, and few known people he hasn't interacted with. See pictures at DJDaveDonahue.com

The First Famous Person In My Life

Who was the first entertainer I ever saw?  I always thought it was in the early-fifties when I snuck under the back end of a juke joint by a muddy creek somewhere on the outskirts near Texarkana.  I’d heard a song some local blacks had played and I could not get the beat out of my head…” Boom, Chaka, Boom Chaka, boom, boom, boom”-- “Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley, Where You Been?” I learned that the man who did this song would be at the Tigers Den, Jaguar Lounge or some other exotic wild animal named place, I think.   Yes, I’d heard the “Great Bo” himself was coming and I just had to see him, but it was the fifties and you just didn’t walk into a club full of black people, especially down south if you were white.  So, I had cruised by the club a couple of times and discovered the rear was propped up on stilts and if I crawled under there….

That night in 1954 was hot and humid, but squeezed up under the back of the joint I could see shadowy flashes of him through the cracks of the floor and a sloping wall bouncing around, and singing from above.  It was noisy, with people stomping on the planked flooring, yetl with the sweat running in my eyes, the mosquitos buzzing, and biting, I got caught up swatting and scratching to this wild music with a beat.  That night I just knew I heard the door to my musical future and history open.  A little later on I’d play that very song on the radio myself.

As I grew older, I’d somehow cemented the Diddley incident as the first singing artist I ever heard or saw in person.  (Hey, sort of seeing movement through the cracks counts doesn’t it?)

Then one day years later in about 1998…my Dad was propped back in his easy chair listening to me tell stories of the Rock and Roll fifties.  In the middle of the Diddley story he interrupted me with, “Nope, son…you’re wrong.  You saw your first famous singing star in the forties.”

Shock!

 My Daddy had been a traveling oil exploration worker; known in the 40’s and 50’s as a, “Doodle bugger.”  He’d live in as many as ten or twelve towns a year, going where ever the oil company thought there might be oil.  Sometimes, he’d pick me up from the fishing camp in the swamps where I was staying with my great-grand parents and take me with him.

His home was a small twenty-one foot plywood box on wheels; he’d pull behind his 1946 Chevy.  It had one tiny bed, in the back separated by a curtain.  In front, a small cot doubled as a place to sit and sleep and

Gorgeous George

the kitchen had a bucket for a sink, a kerosene burner and a wooden tin-lined box that held a block of ice, to keep stuff cold...uh, make that cool.  He said he’d bought it from, “Gorgeous” George.  He was a famous wrestler at the time, who would swagger around the ring throwing out gold bobby-pins from his peroxided platinum-blonde hair to ringside fans.  Daddy even had one of the bobby-pins he’d flash around as proof.

“It was in Opelousas, Louisiana”, Daddy started the story.  “We were parked behind a service station and next door to an empty lot.  One day, workers set up a couple of tents and a stage.  At first I thought it was a small carnival, but it turned out to be the Louisiana Hadacol Caravan.”

Now, if you lived down south in the forties you more than likely had a couple of bottles of this ‘cure-all’ elixir in your home.  Recommend by a doctor, (later uncovered as an ex-convict, who served time for, ‘practicing medicine without a license,’) Hadacol made bizarre claims like, “Two months ago I couldn't read nor write. I took four bottles of Hadacol, and now I'm teaching school."  Really!   Amazing as it sounds, at one time, it was the second most advertised product in America behind Coca Cola.  Stars like Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Mickey Rooney even Judy Garland and other big names starred in the Hadacol shows.

So, here was this grand medicine show, the last of its kind in the quant town of Opelousas, with its moss-draped Oaks and board-covered sidewalks.  With much anticipation I watched all the banners, flags and flash spread out over the parking lot and that night Daddy took me to the show.

The well-known Dixie Blue Boys opened the show singing the ‘Hadacol Boogie’ (a song which Jerry Lee Lewis would record later), and the tent full of cheering, clapping local folks went wild.  The show had a magic act, followed by a pitch for Hadacol, then another act…a banjo player, and another Hadacol pitch.  On and on it went, a band or a singer, a juggler or another singer or magic act and Hadacol pitches between each act, selling hundreds of bottles of this strange brew.  I’d really been impressed by the clowns and by the Indian Chief with his huge feathered headdress, his tom tom drum dance and his strange chants.  But most of the other acts got a little boring for me.  After all, I was about seven years old and as the night wore on my little dust-filled eyes got heaver.  I rubbed them until gritty tears flowed forming a muddy trail down my face.  The smell of popcorn, cotton candy mixed with the noises of loud music and shouting voices and everything seemed to jumble in my head and—

“That’s when I finally woke you up son.  You missed the biggest act of all that closed the show; The Drifting

Hank Williams

Cowboy himself, one of the biggest legends ever in music, Hank Williams!”

My, my…did I hear that, “Whippoorwill singing”?  Did I hear that, “Lonesome Whistle blow?”  Yeah, somewhat, I reckon.  Did I see that tall, skinny man in the light grey suit and white cowboy hat?  Yes, though it was all fuzzy.   Yes, I also remember the hooting, whistling voices and the thunder of the applause, and then things went black again.  I was in dreamland surrounded by clowns and Indians.

Daddy carried me back to the trailer draped over his shoulder.

Hank Williams, imagine that!

Dave Donahue is a Hall of Fame DJ and Author. He currently writes from his offices in East Texas, just miles from his childhood home. You can contact Dave via his website (new site coming soon) at www.DJDaveDonahue.com, and be sure to follow him at facebook.com/djdavedonahue.