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Unless otherwise indicated, all commentary
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Added August 21, 2008
The Gene Arnold Collection
I received the items below from long time Houston broadcaster Gene Arnold. He recorded most of these items in connection
with his work at KODA (1010 AM and 99.1 FM) during the 60's
and 70's.
Please let me know if you notice any errors such as links
which don't work or are not properly matched to the content.
After these recordings, you will find my own assembly of
airchecks, "A Month in the Life of KODA." It includes
recordings of Mr. Arnold and other KODA personalities of
the mid 60's. You will also be able to read Arnold's recollections
of the late Mel Pennington (later an Austin TV personality)
and of the helicopter crash which took the lives of two
fellow KODA staff members.
Kennedy assassination materials:
ABC
News, November 22, 1963
Recorded shortly before the John Kennedy assassination,
the newscast features his last speech in Fort Worth.
ABC Flair,
November 26, 1963 Recorded four days after the John Kennedy assassination,
a Flair Report compares the JFK death to the death of FDR
eighteen years earlier.
Flair normally featured lighter topics. Flair was an hour
long afternoon show on ABC which featured a still young Dick
Van Dyke.
Flair was comparable to NBC's
Monitor, heard weekends on KPRC. I would like to get
an unscoped recording of Flair, even if it wasn't recorded
in the Houston market. For more about Flair, see the "ABC
sales demo" below.
Oddly enough, a now forgotten airline strike is the lead
story. The University of Texas story is second.
For more about the massacre, please see the caption above
my picture of the UT Tower in the right column. Included
is a link to an article on the tragedy.
I took the picture of the tower while I was attending a
radio-TV seminar during the summer of the previous year.
I believe that Gordon Smith, the professor interviewed in
the newscast, was one of the main people involved in that
seminar.
King Family
concert spots
My memory about this is vague, but I think there was a heavily
promoted King Family concert which was canceled due to lack
of ticket sales. I don't know if it was the same year as
these ads, but it is possible I heard the commercials on
KODA.
ABC
sales demo
This promotional material was probably released on a 1963
phonograph record. Aimed at potential affiliates, it gives
an inside look at ABC's effort to meet the radio needs of
the 60's. Includes excerpts from Flair and Don McNeal's Breakfast Club.
Don't miss the collection of old ABC
theme music at the end. Even the Christmas chimes are
there.
Sports broadcasts:
The following ABC items include Houston sports reports
by Gene Arnold, recorded September 3, 1967 to October 8,
1967.
This stop and go recording covers about a month in the
history of KODA and KODA-FM, running from early October
to early November, 1964. I recorded each of these items
myself.
You will find the crash of the KODAbird of particular interest.
Carried by KODA-AM, the October 12 recordings feature Ted
Carr broadcasting from the helicopter.
Carr and Don Leblanc joke about buses. Carr jokes about
flying. Carr jokes about Columbus Day. You hear the Dreamliner
bus jingle.
Later, you hear KXYZ cover the October 14 KODAbird crash
and somber announcements on KODA and KODA-FM.
At the time, Joe Coffer was news director, and Gene Arnold
did both news and sports. In a 2008 email to this web site,
Gene Arnold wrote:
I was on the air that fateful
morning the KODABIRD went down. One of our listeners called
to tell us what had happened. We kept trying to contact
Ted Carr for his next report and couldn't reach him. We
didn't think too much about it at the time. We thought
we would hear from him as soon as he was ready to give
the next traffic update. When we found out they had gone
down, Joe and I immediately drove to the location where
the chopper went down. It was a horrifying scene and I
almost threw up. Ted and the pilot were still strapped
inside the remains of the KODABIRD, but their bodies were
burned beyond recognition. That is a sight that remains
with me to this day.
The same audio file includes KODA coverage of national
and international news, including a Soviet space spectacular,
the 1964 presidential race, and the departure of Khrushchev
from the Kremlin.
These recordings include KODA broadcasters Ted Carr, Don
La Blanc, Mel
Pennington, Dave McQueen, Gene Arnold, and Joe Coffer.
Also heard are Richard Fulghum (of KXYZ), Paul Berlin (of
KNUZ), Clymer Wright (of the Houston Tribune) and
Paul Harvey (of ABC Radio). Please advise me of any errors
in these names.
Do you know why Mel Pennington laughs at the Houston Astros?
It doesn't have anything to do with the performance of the
team on the field. In 2008, Gene Arnold explained it like
this:
I was in the control room with
him when he did that. They had just announced that the
Houston Colts were changing their name to the Houston
Astros. At the time, Astros sounded like a weird and funny
name to all of us. Mel, especially thought so. Shortly
after the name change was announced, Mel got out some
sound effects of people laughing. He then kept repeating
the name ASTROS over and over again, and each time he
did, he raised the laughter sound track even higher. He
broke me up when he did it. It was all in good fun. Of
course, after a while everyone got used to the name and
the jokes and laughter about it stopped. But, anyway,
that's what that was all about. I remember just like it
happened yesterday.
The attentive listener might also wonder: Why is a KNUZ
news intro (including a sponsor tag from Paul Berlin) included
in a collection of KODA material?
My memory goes like this: On the morning of the KODAbird
crash, I had tuned to KODA-AM. I knew something had disrupted
their programming, but I didn't know what. They were letting
albums of orchestra music run all the way through.
I then decided to record some news intros on the other
stations. I recorded the KNUZ news intro. I immediately
switched to KXYZ. As I recorded the KXYZ news intro, I first
learned of the KODAbird crash.
That, at least, is my recollection. However, the KNUZ intro
may have actually been recorded at the start of an earlier
hour or even on the previous day. The
Soviet space flight that KNUZ mentions landed October
13, 1964. 07:47:04 UTC.
So, again, why is the KNUZ news intro included in my KODA
related material? The main reason is that after all these
years I am used to having it right before the KODAbird crash
story. Also, by including it with the KODA material, it
keeps the KNUZ space headline near the KODA news stories
on the same subject.
Semi-technical dissertation
These technical considerations apply to all of my material
recorded in 1964 and 1965.
The audio quality can only be described as "fair."
This material was recorded on a half track mono recorder
which had just been purchased for about $65. Although the
machine was new, the audio quality was poor. The problems
are especially noticeable for items recorded near the end
of a reel.
The material was recorded on 1 mil or 1.5 mil Scotch acetate-backed
reel to reel tape. This type of tape has a tendency to break
easily, and you hear an unwanted splice during the stock
market report.
Later, the material was dubbed down an extra generation
from half track mono to quarter track mono, further weakening
the audio quality.
I have a challenge for computer geeks who know about audio
tweeking and geeking. Please take short segments of this
material and send me improved versions of the recordings.
Bonus item:
Paul Harvey reports on the departure of Santa's sleigh
The above file contains three promos for a KILT program
on marijuana and LSD. The material was copied directly from
a cart at the KILT studios.
Frank
Haley produced the program and used interviews I had
recorded in 1969 and 1970.
An exception was the Timothy Leary interview at Rice University.
It had previously aired on KILT on April
26, 1967, as part of an Alex Bennett program. KILT had
not kept a copy, so I gave them my recording from off the
airwaves.
On December 30. 2007, I received a message from Frank Haley.
That greeting is now on my Blurb Page . Hearing from Mr. Haley prompted me to dig out the
promos for that KILT dope show.
The actual one hour program follows below.
"Wow, this is really beautiful... We must be dead"
"It's a Nice Place To Visit, But . . ." That
was the station's title for this broadcast. On a flyer I
put out myself, I added the subtitle "Acid Heads Meet
Acid Mouth."
Produced by KILT Public Affairs Director Frank
Haley, the program centers around interviews with drug
users that I conducted in 1969 and 1970. Recorded at the
University of Houston during the height of the student rebellions,
signs of drug use were everywhere, and many students were
all too willing to speak into a microphone about their drug
habits.
Compare the sensationalism of this drug show to the syndicated
public affairs program which begins after it. At the time,
the style at KILT was to try make the public affairs programs
more relevant to youth and to have them blend in with their
music programs.
At times, you make have trouble hearing the interviews
under the music. Persist in listening, and you'll be amazed
by some of the things on the show. Of particular interest
is a young woman's lurid description of her LSD freak-out
while driving on a bridge near Surfside Beach, Texas.
Altogether, I hold the copyright to about two hours of
vintage interviews with marijuana, LSD, and heroin users.
Only about half of the material made it into the KILT broadcast.
I'll post the raw interviews at a later date. They were
all recorded on location, and many of them are in stereo.
KXYZ had quit carrying Mutual newscasts when it switched
to beautiful music in 1961. However, that didn't keep them
from making an ad hoc arrangement with the network for election
night coverage in 1964.
As I recall, Mutual went a long time without a regular affiliation
in Houston. They tended to specialize in stations in small
markets.
We ran their newscasts every half hour day and night all the
way till midnight.
We even taped the 10:30 PM newscast and replayed it at 11:30.
On one occasion, a listener phoned me about this. She was
perplexed because a political figure who had died just before
the live 11:00 PM broadcast was alive again at 11:30.
(This was not the last time I used an audio recording to
bring the dead back to life. Just look at all the dead people
on this web site.)
Recorded on a portable cassette radio, the audio quality
is poor, but presentable. One thing you can't help but notice
is that there are some similar news stories being heard today.
I would like to get some clean airchecks of Mutual even if
they weren't recorded in the Houston area.
I'll let the writer who contributed these items describe
them:
I enjoy listening to your web site. You’ve done a
nice job preserving a bit of history.
I don’t know why I recorded this . . . or why I still
have it . . . but I thought you might like to hear it. It’s
a short (1:18) clip from KULF AM circa 1974. It’s mostly
a Jack-in-the-Box ad ( I guess I liked the jingle), but
it also has a bit of news, including the pronouncement that
the US would be on the metric system within ten years!
You might also like to hear the Big 2 News theme from 1978
…and hear Ron Stone talk about something we’re
still grappling with today.
Thanks again!
Charles Hadlock (Dallas . . . but still missing Houston)
Web master's commentary: We have all heard since high
school that the metric system was inevitable in order to "get
in step with the rest of the world." The metric system
is one of those things which the corporate world has imposed
on consumers without any thought for how people really live.
For example, have you ever tried to work the word "kilometer"
into a country and western song? It doesn't have quite the
flavor of a word like "mile" or "league."
Imagine if Jules Verne had written 20 Thousand Kilometers
Under the Sea. Would you buy a Disney DVD with a title
like that?
Also, take a look at the Celsius temperature scale. It seems
like it was during the 70's that the Celsius scale got its
biggest push. That was when KTRH started giving temperatures
in degrees Celsius as well as Fahrenheit.
They thought it was cute to announce, "The temperature
is 20 degrees," then, pause a little, and finally add,
"Celsius!" They might as well have announced that
it was 20 degrees and yelled, "April Fool!!!" even
if the month was October.
Have you ever had this happen: You drive by a bank. The bank
has a flashing sign that gives you the time and the Celsius
temperature. By the time the Fahrenheit appears, you are too
far down the road. Thanks a lot, bank!
My big problem with the Celsius scale is that it is too easy
to go into minus degrees. The zero temperature is the point
where water freezes. Even in a warm climate like Houston,
it will normally go below freezing now and then. With a Celsius
temperature anywhere near freezing, you have to start asking,
"Was that temperature above or below?" We're not
used to that in Houston.
Another problem is that the degrees are too big. In the Fahrenheit
scale, you can quickly say that the temperature is "in
the 70's," and people have a good idea what you mean.
In Celsius, to say, "The temperature is in the 20's"
covers far too much territory.
I purposefully left out the Celsius readings. That not only
eliminated the Celsius clutter, but it made the Fahrenheit
temperatures appear in a bigger font.
You may spot the Houston Celsius temperature on a few pages
on The Vasthead. When you do, I am not trying to impose the
Celsius scale on Americans but to accommodate people oversees
who may not understand Fahrenheit temperatures.
This is a compilation of the KILT coverage of the death of
John F. Kennedy. The tape sounds like it was edited shortly
after the assassination.
Marv Miller, a former engineer at KILT, sent the recording.
The material arrived on a Scotch reel to reel tape that was
in need in splicing. It had a one mil acetate backing, a type
of tape which tended to break easily even when it was new.
(By the end of the 60's, most tapes had polyester or PVC backings.)
Thanks to Bob Edwards of ProSound Studio for repairing the recording and for converting it to digital
form. Thanks also to Marv Miller for sharing this historically
valuable material.
KILT's sister station in Dallas, KLIF, is widely remembered
for its coverage of the shootings. As I recall, even KLIF
DJ Russ Knight is mentioned in the Warren Commission Report.
This is the first time the KILT version of the breaking story
has been available. It was first posted on this web site on
September 24, 2006.
SOME PHOTO IMPRESSIONS OF HOUSTON AND AUSTIN FROM
THE 60's and 70's
A photo essay by Grady McAllister
As I explain in greater detail elsewhere, my photography
prior to 1980 was done with an $11 camera. I don't claim that the photos
below are major art or technically brilliant. Nor do they do they capture
well known events. These are just some personal impressions of life during
those two decades.
Click on any image below to view a higher quality version of the same photo.
Above: Tennis court at dusk, Freeway Manor Park,
June, 1964. The park borders the north end of the Freeman Elementary School
property. We lived in a house just across Theta Street from the park.
This is probably my oldest photo.
Below: Another shot of Freeway Manor Park, March,
1965. I recorded this foggy sunrise by aiming my camera out my bedroom
window. A few months later, we moved to another house on the other side
of Edgebrook.
Below: A lone car on Edgebrook after a late afternoon
storm. March, 1965. I deliberately placed the sun behind the speed limit
sign and waited for a car to appear. Notice the lack of commercialization
on this part of Edgebrook, located between Theta and Rodney Streets.
By the way, this image looks like the original
slide. Unlike some of the other images in this column, this photo does
not involve any computer special effects. Watch for this kind of yellow
glow whenever there are dark clouds overhead and a band of clear sky appears
along the horizon.
I shot the next two photos in Austin. I was at the
University of Texas campus to attend a Texas Association of Broadcasters
seminar for students interested in broadcasting.
Below: The famous UT Texas Tower, June, 1965. As
I took this picture, I thought about how tranquil the tower and the campus
looked in the summer twilight. The mood there was far less tranquil on August
1, 1966.
Below: The studios of KTBC in Austin, a radio-TV
combination which later became KLBJ. June, 1965.
I'm sure I don't have to explain who the owner
was. For many years KTBC had a TV monopoly which allowed it to cherry
pick the top shows from CBS, NBC, and ABC. Sometimes good luck just chooses
to shine warmly on a business enterprise. I once heard the LBJ broadcasting
venture acerbically described as "the success story of the decade."
The two photos below : The downtown Houston skyline
at sundown, November 12, 1967. The gold building with the radio tower
was the Tenneco Building. It is now the El Paso Energy Building.
The Gulf Building is easy to spot. Notice the lighted
Gulf Oil sign. It was the King Kong version of the gas station sign. It
marred the Houston skyline for only a brief time. I think nowadays the
city has laws against putting a huge commercial display on a skyscraper.
During most of its history, the Gulf Building was
an asset to the Houston skyline, and it was Houston's tallest building
for over three decades. It is now Chase Bank Building.
The Gulf Building was the home of KXYZ before it
moved to the Fannin Bank Building.
I took this picture from the observatory of the
Humble (now ExxonMobile) Building. During 1963, the Humble building had
surpassed the Gulf Building as Houston's tallest skyscraper. For a time,
it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
The observatory closed when the Humble Building
was exceeded in height by One Shell Plaza.
Click on either image below for a larger view.
Below: The sun also rises at Gulfgate, August 26,
1968. This is from the same roll of film as my two Galveston sunrises
that month. (The Galveston sunrises are on the Top
40 & Rock page.)
I had to stand in the feeder road for this shot.
Don't try that yourself. The grassy area to the right would eventually
become part of the South Loop 610. Click on this exotic image and a fuller,
but more conventional, version will emerge.
If you look past the footbridge to the spot below
the sun, you'll see big sign. I believe it is the sign for the Carousel
Motel.
Below: The sign of the Plaza Hotel on Montrose
glows in the pre dawn hours beneath a rare Houston snowfall. January 10,
1973. Click for a more realistic image.
Below: More from the first Houston snowfall of
1973. This is not a joke. My recollection is that there were three snowfalls
that year with the last one in March.
