Radio Blues and Disc Jockeys

  Bessie Smith sang the blues live on WMC, a Memphis, Tennessee, radio station, as early as 1924. The regular remote broadcasts from The Palace on Beale Street appear to have continued until sometime in the 1930s. The legacy of blues presence on Memphis radio programming eventually influenced the owners of WDIA radio, the shape of black radio, and lives of legendary listeners such as B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, and Elvis Pres­ley, whose first commercial success was the recording of Arthur Crudup's "That's Alright Mama."

     In the early 2000s, WMPR-FM in Jackson, Mississippi, devoted 11 hours per day to blues. Most blues programs are limited to certain time blocks during a radio station's weekly air schedule. One exception is WAVN-AM in Memphis, which in 2003 devoted its entire program schedule to blues. Many noncommercial radio stations (public, community, and college) have increasingly programmed blues for the past 30 years. At least one radio station in many major markets and college communities can be found devoting selected block schedules to blues. National Public Radio downlinks via satellite a blues program, Portraits in Blue, to its affiliates each week. The Handy Foundation in Memphis circles the globe to record live blues concerts and syndicates the performances in a magazine format called Beale St. Caravan. Blues programming can be heard on the internet, and the trend is growing rapidly. Emerging satellite services such as Sirius and XM had begun to provide continuous blues programming by the early 21st century.

Disc jockeys who work in the radio blues format often travel to blues festivals around the country to keep up with current trends and developments. They exchange ideas, conduct interviews with historical and leading artists, and then broadcast them on their local blues programs back home. Such periodicals as Living Blues and Big City Blues can provide invaluable cultural information for the program producer. It is fair to say that most men and women who join the still loose network of blues programmers take that step seriously. In essence, they become part of a respected culture that was pioneered by men and women who struggled valiantly to regain their human dignity and make life better for everyone. A serious blues disc jockey will know-and play-the music of Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Lockwood, Muddy Waters, or B.B. King. And the blues enthusiast-whether disc jockey or listener-might consider revisiting or discovering the rich origin of the blues radio format, which began in the Mississippi Delta "On the Arkansas Side."

Chicago: Al Benson

     During the early 1940s in Chicago, Al Benson (following the precedent of Jack L. Cooper, another Chicago entrepreneur) began purchasing blocks of time on several different radio stations to program black music, much of which was blues. An important key to Benson's success was the format he designed, which permitted him and his hired announcers to speak the language of many transplanted Southerners and to promote the products of sponsors. His use of recorded blues music and his training of young broadcasters such as Vivian Carter and Sid McCoy appears to have accompanied the rise in popularity of black disc jockeys and blues programming. Carter later co-founded Vee Jay Records and helped develop the legendary Jimmy Reed. She launched the Beatles' first recordings in the United States. Benson's block programs, broadcast on various stations, remain a major contribution to the blues radio format. By 1947 there were at least 17 blues-oriented radio programs being broadcast in the United States. Several programs aired on various stations in Los Angeles, and Leroy White and others were very popular in Detroit.

Helena, Arkansas: King Biscuit Time

     Helena, Arkansas, located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, is a small city that became home to the longest-running blues program on radio, King Biscuit Time. Shortly after KFFA Radio was established in 1941, bluesmen Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood, Jr., met with their white childhood friend, Sonny Payne, who worked at the station and helped get them on the air. Sam Anderson, the station manager and part owner, agreed to sell Williamson and Lockwood a block of air­ time, but the blues duo had no money. Anderson referred them to a potential sponsor, Max Moore, a wholesale grocer who needed to sell a huge backlog of flour from his warehouse. A financial deal was struck, and a tight program structure was agreed upon.

      Williamson and Lockwood opened their 15-minute show Monday through Friday with a theme song that was followed by an Anderson voice-over announcement: "Pass the biscuits boys, it's King Biscuit Time." Mixing performances of blues songs with casual conversation about where the duo would perform in the area, Williamson and Lockwood were a success. Listeners in a 100-mile radius of KFFA's transmitter embraced the blues program and quickly purchased all of Moore's existing supply of King Biscuit Flour.

     KFFA Radio has continued broadcasting King Biscuit Time, uninterrupted, for six decades and had logged nearly 14,000 blues shows by the turn of the century. Robert Lockwood, Jr., and the late Sonny Boy Williamson have grown into legends in both the blues and radio programming history. The show made Max Moore wealthy and the late Sam Anderson's KFFA world famous. Sonny Payne now hosts King Biscuit Time in a half­ hour disc jockey format. Visitors from around the world frequently stop in at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena to catch the program, 12:00 to 12:30 P.M. Some guests even get a chance to be interviewed live by Payne. Each year up to 90,000 blues lovers from around the world flock to Helena, Arkansas, to attend a blues festival in honor of King Biscuit Time and the return of Robert Lockwood, Jr., to center stage.

Nashville: WLAC Radio

     Francis Hill, a white woman, sang the blues live on WLAC in the late 1930s. Then, sometime in the mid-1940s two black record promoters were welcomed into the WLAC studios by Gene Nobles. One of the promoters is believed to have been Dave Clark. Nobles, white and handicapped, held down the night shift for WLAC's 50,000-watt clear channel signal, which blanketed the South, Midwest, parts of Canada, and the Caribbean. After Nobles began playing a few of the promoters' black records several nights a week, listeners began writing from as far away as Detroit, Michigan, and the Bahamas for more blues and boogie. Nobles came to the attention of Randy Wood, a white businessman in Gallatin, Tennessee, about 40 miles away. Wood bought some advertising spots to promote the sale of several thousand records by black artists that he discovered after purchasing an appliance store. Again, the audience responded and bought out Wood's phonograph stock.

     Gene Nobles was soon hosting a blues-oriented program on a radio station that many African-Americans referred to simply as "Randy's" (WLAC). The disc jockey-run show focused on promoting a C.O.D. mail-order system operated by Randy's Record Shop in Gallatin, Tennessee. The primary pitch involved promoting sets of phonograph records made up of five or six unrelated 78-rpm singles. To promote sales, one or two records were played each night from various sets called "specials" (e.g., "The Treasure of Love Special" or "The Old Time Gospel Special").

     Ernie's Record Mart and Buckley's Record Shop, both in Nashville, soon imitated the successful Randy Wood format. Each store bought time blocks, which were spread among WLAC's additional blues-oriented programming with traditional spots and per-inquiry advertisements. By the early 1950s WLAC Radio's entire night-time schedule was bought out. John Richburg, Bill Allen, and Herman Grizzard joined Nobles to formulate a powerful programming block from 9:00 P.M. to early morning, Monday through Sunday. All of the disc jockeys were white, but they addressed the audience fairly, respected the culture, and won acceptance and trust from a largely, though not exclusively, black audience. Don White­ head, an African-American, joined the news staff in the 1960s.

Memphis: WDIA Radio

     John Pepper and Bert Ferguson, two white businessmen, found themselves unable to attract white listeners or money to their newly built WDIA Radio just as Randy Wood was gaining success. While on a trip to New Orleans, Ferguson encountered a copy of Negro Digest and read a success story about Al Ben­son. The magazine caused him to recall the 1930s live radio broadcasts from Beale Street featuring the skillful Nat D. Williams. When he returned to Memphis, he sought the assistance of Williams, a black educator, journalist, and Beal Street impresario. In an afternoon block of time, Monday through Friday, Williams developed and hosted a blues-oriented show, and the radio audience bonded with his style, laughter, and cultural knowledge. Williams' success led to the hiring of other black announcers until WDIA's entire programming schedule consisted of blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel. It was the birth of full-time radio devoted to these genres.

     WDIA Radio intermingled its music with several public service announcements, called "Goodwill Announcements" by the station, to help educate and inform African-Americans living in the mid-South's tristate region: Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi. A.C. Williams, another educator turned WDIA radio announcer, maintains that the foundation of black political achievement in Memphis, which is now very organized, began with public-affairs programming on WDIA Radio. The station's 1950s programming model remains at the pinnacle of blues radio formats. WDIA's programming philosophy served as a model for other radio legends who continued to promote or program the blues wherever their career paths led them: Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert in Baltimore; Martha Jean Stein­ berg in Detroit; and Rufus Thomas and B.B. King as performers around the world.

Blues Radio Format Diffused

     The blues format was still strong in 1953 when more than 500 black disc jockeys were reported to be working in radio, mostly in block formats or part-time situations. A few years later, black military veterans returning home from service brought reports that Europeans loved the "real blues." They cited John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and others as being revered. Indeed, the Animals, the Rolling Stones, and Canned Heat advanced blues programming on white commercial radio stations in the 1960s after they included blues songs by the great African-American masters on their early albums. Curious fans who studied the origins of English rock performers became more aware of the blues. In addition, 1960s FM radio, in need of program material and open to experimentation, also began playing blues. Many young white soul radio station listeners who became attracted to rhythm and blues made additional cultural explorations and discovered the blues. The blues format increasingly made its way onto the programming schedules of noncommercial radio as the number of FM public, college, and community radio stations expanded.