Tommy Shannon first made girls swoon at WXRA Radio, from a location way out in the boonies. Kelly, a local talent who joined KB in March of 1958, had a rock solid audience and had a style which could be easily modified to fit into Lawrences master plan. Azar, Jolls and Weinstein held their respective positions until Azar's retirement in June 1989. The station was located at 1420 Main Street in Buffalo, New York, and the call letters stood for "Well Known Bible Witness". Click image to learn more. Pictured here in the studios of WKBW on Main Street with newsman John Zach in 1972, Danny Neaverth is perhaps Buffalos greatest pop culture star. Frank Frederics, who also anchored newscasts on WBUF-TV, reads the news on WKBW as engineer William Routh looks on. @stevebuffalo. This mix of talk, entertainment, and game show was an instant hit and led to the creation of "AM Buffalo" in 1978 to continue that tradition. What was it about the Beatles? 20 market in the country. No one could ever find it until the station gave an easy clue on the air. Henry Ford didnt invent the automobile, he was just the first to make the same car available to everyone. Stan Jasinskis Complete Christmas 1954 broadcast on WKBW Radio, with the Paderewski Singing Society. 14 market. Tom Shannon, a nationally known disc jockey who made his mark in local broadcasting in the late 1950s with the old WKBW-AM 1520, will retire March 31 as afternoon DJ at WHTT-FM 104.1, a rock. It was a McClendon station. Some images and text used throughout the site are protected by individual copyright holders. KLIF was a marvelously successful station but, I couldnt have made a better choice. 1 weather alerts 1 closings/delays. This page is not available in other languages. Before Top 40 came to KB, Stan Barron hosted the Morning Clockwatcher show, live each morning outside the Main Street studios. Stations like WBNY, WWOL, WXRA, and later WYSL and a host of others were capturing the imaginations of young people in Buffalo. ", Over the years Sandy has changed stations, formats and hairstyles but feels that Buffalo was always a good fit, saying " I managed to pick places where my personality and the things I like to do fit.". "Because I love numbers" he says. Biondi lost weight skulking about. It was not until after Beatlemania swept the nation that they acknowledged that it was a mistake to not bring them in. The proof is in a quick search of WKBW on your favorite search engine. Jim McLaughlin introduces Halloween 1973, and reminds youDont turn around. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He writes about Buffalos pop culture history. As songs like Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets hit number one on the charts, Elvis Presley was still receiving second billing to Slim Whitman and Andy Griffith in stage shows around the south. New Summer Internships jobs added daily. New Registered Nurse jobs added daily. If you watched Elvis shake his hips on Ed Sullivan for the first time, and you then listened to Elvis on the radio It wasnt likely KB, even though your memory might tell you otherwise. All contents of this site 2020 byForgotten Buffalo. He has been a talk show host since. The half hour program was recorded on these transcription records, sometime before Christmas Day 1954, for playback on that date. When the station went rock and roll in 1958, Tommy would dominate not only Western New York but also about 17 states and a couple of Nations. A month after the groups first appearance on Ed Sullivan, a couple of doors down from Sheas Buffalo, the Paramount Theatre sold out a weekends worth of closed-circuit showings of a Beatles concert. Among the others on KBs deejay staff in the mid-50s were Herb Knight, George Hound Dog Lorenz, and Larry Brownell. Lorenz wanted nothing to do with a Top 40 style format. Find out more about our newscasts, our personalities, our mobile apps, our newsletters and more - all in one place. Azar also did basketball play-by-play on St. Bonaventure basketball games on Ch 7 during the Bob Lanier era. In 1986, J. Bruce Llewellyn acquired the station and operated it under Queen City Broadcasting until 1995, when Granite Broadcasting, Inc. took control. Buffalo Bills guard Reggie McKenzie and WADV-FM disc jockey Fred Klestine. Steve Cichon is a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Despite a pioneering spirit and great imaginative programming, each of those true rock nroll pioneer stations had unique problems. Reynolds was the focus of a two-part series on The Oprah Winfrey Show concerning talk radio personalities, on which more than a dozen of Reynolds' media peers paid tribute to him. The day: November 30, 1958. [2] Here's where reporters who left WIVB landed, along with other media nuggets. Carroll Hardy, who would go on to become one of WEBRs legendary jazz deejays, was one of the many men who served as WKBWs Clock Watcher, broadcasting live from the front lawn of the radio station on Main Street near Utica every morning. The view of Seneca Street from the Cichons porch on Fairview Place. Girls scream for The Beatles on the big screen at the Paramount Theatre, March, 1964. As host of the "Don Weeks And The WGY Morning News" for almost three decades, Weeks is one of the Capital Region's most well-known and respected radio personalities. It presented, in capsule from, a regular broadcast day, on the even newer KB. Many who played a part in making those smaller stations great feel slighted by the fact that KB has swallowed up the collective memory of the early rock nroll era; but its no slight on those great stations and the folks who worked there: Its more a testament to the incredible juggernaut that KB was. According to sources, her husband is a lawyer in Chicago. Such is Buffalos Danny. First, Clint ran the Hidden Bankbook contest were a book with a deposit slip of $5000 was hidden in a remote area pasted inside a sewer pipe. In the Nations Capital, he sat on the Board of Directors of AFTRA, was a staff announcer for WPIK and WWDC, and a freelance television performer. The rock n'roll era had arrived on a respectable, long established Buffalo radio . KB was a hit from day one.. First appeared on album form from the industry periodical Programmers Digest., Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com. It was fifty years ago to the day that Sandy was first heard on the airwaves of WKBWradio. (Buffalo Stories archives). (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). It was a great break for Gramps, from his numerous jobs- from tinsmith at Buffalo Color and National Aniline, to ticket taker for the Bills and Sabres, to bet taker at Buffalo Raceway. Program from the night Joey Reynolds and Fred Klestine wrestled the Gallagher Brothers at Memorial Auditorium.. James Patterson will stay local to start his professional football career, while Justin Marshall will begin his pro career with the Atlanta Falcons. WKBW-TV followed the team to the current facility in Orchard Park, N.Y. in 1973 (known then as Rich Stadium and now as Ralph Wilson Stadium). It starts with The Perry Allen show, with an Irv Weinstein KB Pulsebeat Newscast with some of the great writing and style Irv would become known for in Buffalo over the next 40 years. The studio was on rural Niagara Falls Boulevard, in a location which soon would be the home of Swiss Chalet for the next 50 years. Dan Bongino, one of the most right-leaning hosts in the Fox News stable, is leaving the network after the Fox Corp.-backed outlet and he could not come to terms on a new contract. steve@buffalostories.com He's been inducted into three halls of famebut admits that early on, he did consider being a CPA instead of a radio broadcaster. (Buffalo Stories archives.). Four disc jockeys, brand new to the Buffalo audience were imported from major markets to from the base for the even newer WKBW. Dick was a genius, said Dick Biondi, He walked around with two shoulder holsters. She recently became a public relations manager at the Martin Group. My initial handshake with the radio station came upon landing in Buffalo, recalls Perry Allan. You hear the voice, writing and production of Jeff Kaye; the engineering and production of Al Lafler, Dan Kreigler, and many others; the voices and writing of Dan Neaverth, Jim McLaughlin, Don Berns, Stan Roberts, Sandy Beach, Jack Armstrong, Shane Gibson, Joe Downey, Ron Baskin, Henry Brach, Jim Fagan, Don Lancer, Irv Weinstein, and others. Narrated by Irv Weinstein, Instant KB was actually released on a single-sided album sized record for distribution sponsors on the local and national level. Tommy Shannon first made girls swoon at WXRA Radio, from a location way out in the boonies. In the 70s and 80s, it was difficult to spend a day in Buffalo and not somehow be graced by the voice, smile and personality of Clean Dan Neaverth, a true Buffalonian who never forgot his Seneca Street South Buffalo roots and proudly plied his trade among fellow Buffalonians proud to call him one of us. My proudest promotional moment was when the audience voted me KB King, recalls Art Roberts. The Even Newer WKBW was to be top40 formula radio, which meant a meticulously planned and programmed 24 hours per day of popular music, strong disc jockey personalities, up-to-the-second news and sports flashes and public service features. (Coast to Coast had been heard on crosstown rival WABC for several years, before that station dropped the show in favor of an in-house offering from Doug McIntyre, which led Premiere to seek WOR as the new New York affiliate.) Click image to learn more. He was less a DJ and more like a talk show host. A strong WBEN, and impending loss of WKBWs NBC affiliation combined with WBNYs success was enough to convince Anscombe to hire Dick Lawrence away from the small station. Born in Boston, educated in suburban Philadelphia, Lawrence considered Washington, D.C. his home. Some personalities are so renowned and celebrated just one name will do. But it wasnt just radio Neaverth was also a TV weatherman on Channel 7 and later Channel 2. While Program Director Jeff Kaye might be best remembered for that deep resonant voice which he used like Horowitz on a Steinway, he was also perhaps the greatest producer and writer that is to say, the greatest radio mind of the generation. KB goes KABOOM with FUTURESONIC RADIO! With hope and dreams, I turned on the ever present transistor receiver. Strictly from a Buffalo point of view, in the late 50s and early 60s, KB was one of many stations cranking out the music and antics that made for great rock n roll radio. It was built out in 1951 in the parking lot of Tabernaclewhich by the end of the decade was destined to become the home of WKBW-TV Ch.7. It was sort of weird a woman coming home from her honeymoon and on the first night shes has a pajama party? Cher. The person: Rick Azar. If you tuned to WBNY in the late 50s, you were likely to hear the voice of Daffy Dan Neaverth, Joey Reynolds (right), Fred Klestine and Henry Brach. On March 10, 2010, it was revealed that WOR would pick up Coast to Coast AM from Premiere Radio and would cancel "The Joey Reynolds Show." It was . Jeff Kaye narrates with the KB Players in The Monkeys Paw. He is followed by another top flight personality, Dick Biondi, who was most recently with WHOT, Youngstown, Ohio. For that reason, KB owns a special place not only in Buffalos pop cultural lexicon, but also for thousands and thousands of fans, who just like the ones in Buffalo, fell asleep with their transistor under their pillow, wondering where the hell Lackawanna was. The Beatles also played a concert at Torontos Maple Leaf Gardens in August 1965. During his time in Buffalo, he and fellow DJ Danny Neaverth recorded a novelty single entitled "Rats in My Room" (an expanded and rearranged cover of a Leona Anderson song of the same name). The famous Jeff Kaye produced and narrated look at KB in 1971, with jocks Danny Neaverth, Jack Sheridan, Don Berns, Sandy Beach, Jack Armstrong, Bob McCrea, and Casey Piotrowski, with Kayes thoughts and insights on each in between. Fred Klestine and Jeff Kaye, WKBW, late 1960s. Rachele Mongiovi: The Channel 4 reporter left the station last week, a move that was reported here weeks ago. The mastermind of the new format was program director Dick Lawrence who with a collection of fast talking jocks, quick colorful jingles and the latest wax, put the management at WKBW on notice. Anyone who worked at KB in its heyday has stories. Steve's Buffalo roots run deep: all eight of his great-grandparents called Buffalo home, with his first ancestors arriving here in 1827. His more famous co-workers will tell you, his credo Good enough isnt good enough, helped give KB such a great sound over the years. Reynolds excelled at comedic voice characterizations, his means of social commentary without it being directly attributable to "Joey Reynolds". The young lady who won lived 100 miles from Buffalo. Christoforosreturned to her New England area home and has taken a job in public relations in Watertown, Mass. 24 market in the country. For 70 years, more mature generations have been panning the choices of teenage girls and especially the fervor with which they make those choices. Fueled by the notion of carving out a demographic niche among Buffalo teens and very young adults, the little 250-watt station went rock and roll in a bold move that would soon change the local radio landscape forever. In another incident while at WDRC in Hartford he once referred to the then Hartford Mayor Ann Uccello as "a stupid broad" while live on the air. WKBW-AM History. Stay tuned for an eventual interview, most likely to run next week. Even though The Hound was on KB in 1955, his sound was not reflective of the station by any means. Listeners were urged to apply adhesive tape to their backs in the form of the station call letters and asked to allow themselves to tan in the sun. When the world wide web opened up in 1994, Channel 7 was the first Buffalo station online with www.wkbw.com. It is unclear why these five players asked for releases from their national letters of intent. From the earliest days of the internet, Steve has been writing, digitizing, and sharing the stories and images of all the things that make Buffalo special and unique. He was the chief rock and pop writer for 20 years and helped establish the weekend entertainment magazine. Azar signed the station on with the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen, WKBW-TV Channel 7 is on-the-air!" (Buffalo Stories archives). Dan Lesniak, right, with Cassie Lanzalaco, was a KB salesman who founded one of the stations that helped usher in the FM era of Buffalo radio as the owner of WADV-FM. The proof is in a quick search of WKBW on your favorite search engine. Amstrong was born John Charles Larsh in December 1945. What to my wondering ear should appear but a polka, hold everything! Never before, and never since, has a radio station been so dominant in Buffalo. (Buffalo Stories archives). Bono. By 1964, American fuddy-duddies had withstood the waves of bobbysoxers and Elvis wagging hips but the arrival of a moppy-headed quartet of singers from England took the genre up another notch. Tom could be seen every afternoon from 1965 until 1978, and weekends until 1995. The gauntlet was tossed to the audience, Find the individual concerned and win a swimming pool. Clues lead to the ultimate uncovering of the culprit who had in his possession a letter W.. In addition, a WKBW Community Bulletin Board was featured on all disc jockeys shifts which highlighted activities of local churches, schools and civic organizations. Career. Jack Kelly, KBs all night jock prior to July 4th, was only of the few voices to be carried over to the new format. He spent a lot of time at the apartment occupied by Allen and his wife. BUFFALO, NY In the 1960s and 70s, Buffalos WKBW Radio billed itself as one of Americas two great radio stations.Never was that more on display than on Halloween night. Cichon puts his wide range of professional experiencefrom college professor, to PBS documentary producer, to radio news director, to candidate for countywide elected officeto work in producing meaningful interpretations of the two centuries worth of people, places, and events that make Buffalo the unique place that we love. Don Yearke, known as Don Keller the Farm Feller back in the early 60s on KB, was recognized along with his KB Litter Box by a fan in Southern Pennsylvania. There were at least a couple of dozen Buffalonians in attendance courtesy of the WKBW/Orange Crush Beatles caravan, hosted by Danny Neaverth. Narrated by Irv Weinstein, Instant KB was actually released on a single-sided album sized record for distribution sponsors on the local and national level. With its clear-channel 50,000 watt signal, KB was heard all over the eastern half of North America. Western New Yorks embedded in his DNA. Michael Brocia hosted music and news in Italian on Saturdays on WKBW. We offered a reward to the listener who could first find Dick and return him to KB. Joey Reynolds was in the category of disc jockey, playing music on music intensive radio stations from the very late 1950s until the mid-1980s during his time on Z100 and WFIL. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. He spent much of his retirement in Whispering Pines, North Carolina before returning to Buffalo in 2014.[2]. Azar wrote a memoir, "Tales From Azar's Attic". On September 18, 2016, Joey returned to radio on WABC-AM in New York with a Sunday evening program, The Late Joey Reynolds Show, which ended in the summer of 2017. Having the good fortune of working with top talent I knew that the station was headed for the top. Ironically, the man who brought Elvis to Memorial Auditorium was out at KB when the station went Rock n Roll full-time. Neaverth, perhaps with his boyish good looks and demeanor, evaded arrest for his stunt. Sandy Beach started in 1968 at WKBW Radio. Such is Buffalo's Danny. Station Management promptly suspended him which created an outcry of public support from his listeners. This page is not available in other languages. In the three years the band toured North America, they never performed a show in Buffalo.[2]. Sandy Beach was in the original broadcast in 1968, Jack Armstrong was in the 1971 version, and Shane in 1973. Their 30-year tenure became the cornerstone for "Eyewitness News" and that tradition continues today. His old friends and former co-workers gathered in the studio at WBEN930amto congratulate Sandy Beach on a half century of Buffalo broadcasting. He rose to fame as a Top 40 radio personality during the 1960s and 1970s, amassing large audiences in places such as Hartford, Connecticut, Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Over the years Sandy has changed stations, formats and hairstyles but feels that Buffalo was always a good fit, saying " I managed to pick places where my personality and the things I like to do fit." A Lackawanna boy who worked in the Bethlehem plant before turning to radio, his broadcast persona was a deep, melodic voiced blue-collar everyman. As the outgoing public face of The Electric Company, Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Reggie McKenzie and his fellow guard Joe DeLamielleure were given plenty of credit for O.J. Youll hear snippets of disc jockeys Stan Roberts, Fred Klestine, Jay Nelson, Dan Neaverth, and Joey Reynolds at work, followed by a Henry Brach newscast, and a quick excerpt from Irv Weinsteins documentary Buffalo and La Cosa Nostra. Many KB commercialsand contests follow. Perlman landed at the CBS owned and operated station in Sacramento, Calif., which is the No. At "KB" and WBNY, the rock-jock rosters were dotted with the splendid talents of DAN NEAVERTH, TOM SHANNON, JOEY REYNOLDS, DICK BIONDI, PERRY ALLEN, LUCKY PIERRE, TOM CLAY, FRED KLESTINE, and RUSS "THE MOOSE" SYRACUSE. At the end of one month of this promotion, six winners were chosen for originality and clarity of the design created. Roberts was the morning personality on WKBW from 1963 to 1971 before leaving to take in Boston. Through the years, WKBW-TV has served a mix of local programming, and news that serves the Western New York community, with many viewers in Southern Ontario as well. Nicknamed The Singing Evangelist, The Encyclopedia of America Gospel Music calls Beck a seminal figure in the formative years of modern African-American gospel music. His shows aired Sunday nights on KB. For that reason, KB owns a special place not only in Buffalos pop cultural lexicon, but also for thousands and thousands of fans, who just like the ones in Buffalo, fell asleep with their transistor under their pillow, wondering where the hell Lackawanna was. In Denver, Colorado, he hosted a radio-television simulcast on KOA-AM, and launched (and hosted) the first nationwide satellite radio programming featured on more than 35 radio stations coast-to-coast. BUFFALO, NY For me, hearing the name Stan Jasinski conjures up images of my grandfather, sitting on his South Buffalo porch listening to cassette tapes of polka radio shows he had taped the previous weekend. Enter WKBW Radio, soon with the corporate backing of owner Capital Cities (now THE DISNEY CORPORATION, by the way), and its monstrous 50,000 watt signal. Frank Sinatra sang with Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and his popularity exploded when he became a singing front man himself. Prior to coming to WKBW, Azar was an actor and musician in New York City, as well as a staff announcer for NBC in New York,[4] leaving New York City after failing to secure long-term employment there.[2]. Prior to coming to WKBW, Azar was an actor and musician in New York City, as well as a staff announcer for NBC in New York, leaving New York City after failing to secure long-term employment there. The Beatles in Buffalo? One boy from Cardinal OHara High School was convinced that it was The Beatles weird looks more than their musical ability thatmade them popular. A Reynolds WPOP theme song put lyrics to the sax-laden hit "Wild Weekend", by Buffalo, NY group The Rockin' Rebels (the song had been written as a theme for another Buffalo radio personality, Tom Shannon). http://www.staffannouncer.com/kbhalloween/peopleplacesandthings.mp3. Under the guidance of Dick Lawrence, Director of Programming, Promotions and Publicity for the station, KB made a drastic change in its format by virtually eliminated all previously carried programs, both network and local, and substituting what Lawrence called, ultra modern broadcasting techniques designed to entertain, inform and serve the greatest majority of the radio audience.. These Halloween productions are brilliant examples. When station manager Al Anscombe first convinced the Reverend Clinton Churchill to make the switch to Top 40, initially, the station was stocked with out-of-towners at the direction of the man whod established WBNY as the citys Top 40 leader, program director Dick Lawrence. Starting in the mid 50s, and running through the mid 70s, its fair to say cumulatively, that nighttime KB disc jockeys like George Hound Dog Lorenz, Dick Biondi, Tommy Shannon, Jay Nelson, Joey Reynolds, Sandy Beach, and Jack Armstrong enjoyed more listeners on a single radio station during that clear-channel time in the evening, than any other station in the country.
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