Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

Remembering
Knoxville Radio 

 My age is rapidly exceeding my IQ, and getting close to the posted speed limit on the downtown interstate.  And with that impending milestone I find myself looking over my shoulder from time-to-time to take stock of the road traveled and the road that is ahead (providing The Almighty does not have other plans, of course). I’ve been a very lucky person to have been able to do what I love best for my adult career.  I’ve wanted to be on the radio since I was a child. I would hide a Zenith Transistor radio under the pillow, and jam an uncomfortable little earpiece into my ear, and stay up nearly all night listening to every station I could pick up on the AM band.  Here are some of the reasons for that and some memories from Knoxville radio when I was a kid:  The Midday Merry-Go-Round and a slightly nasal sounding man by the name of Lowell Blanchard. It was on WNOX AM 990.  But everything was AM then. Doc Johnston was a morning staple on WBIR 1240..remember, still no FM ! ● Around our house, Doc Johnston was THE man to listen to for school snow closings.

New cars came with AM only, but there was no need for FM anyway. If your dad was a big spender, you got a luxury model with a rear seat speaker.  One six-inch rear speaker.   If you were relegated to the back seat, and who wasn’t, control of the radio had to be surrendered to your parents. And they either drove with it off, or listened to something besides WKGN,or WNOX and it killed you. One reason you couldn’t miss WKGN was to find out what was going to happen to Dr. Al Adams- because yesterday he “disappeared”, or “walked away”, or was “fired” ..and no you would not believe your parent’s explanation that it was a prank

Big Jim Hess and Claude Tomlinson were big radio celebrities in Knoxville.  I am so glad to have met and worked with Jim Hess in later years. He had a laugh that could shake the rafters. He and Charley Bailey at Channel 26 were great story tellers.

Years earlier, “Claude The Cat” had a dance show on Channel 26. It was the first time I saw people actually doing “The Bunny Hop”  

Ron Ashburn’s news on WNOX was delivered with a sonorous bass voice that oozed authority.  In later years, Ron and I would see each other occasionally at the Krystal on Broadway.  He was extremely polite and gentlemanly to such a pipsqueak upstart as me. Ken Johnson was another wonderful voice.  He was on WATE 620. In Ken’s later years, I worked with him at Knoxville’s first attempt at talk radio. WBIR-AM combined local news and NBC programming from the News And Information Network. (That is a story unto itself to be saved for another day-df) Ken Johnson’s colleague at WATE was the daughter of a federal judge in Knoxville.  Ann Taylor was a broadcasting pioneer – there were not many women around doing news anchor work when she started.  She wound up in New York with NBC Radio, and was one of their stars. ● If you can remember the NBC News Monitor Beeps that introduced the pioneer program, you probably heard it on WATE.

The CBS World News Roundup, probably the longest-running news program on radio is still on-the-air, but when I was a kid, it was on WBIR.

If you sat in your car at the Tic Toc Drive Inn on Magnolia, you might have been able to hear the sounds from the T.V. A&I Fair at Chilhowee Park, while folks like Bob Baron spun the hits on WKGN. Or, you could dine at the Cherry Park Drive-In, across the street from Kay’s Ice Cream on Magnolia at Cherry Street, but the neon lights might cause interference with your radio reception.  Cherry Park Drive-In had a big..(guess what) neon cherry on its sign. Or you might drive out to Central and get a Zesto Ice Cream cone.  Zesto is the only place still standing.  

Before he was a bazillionaire station owner, Johnny Pirkle spun the hits over at WNOX with Johnny Mountain, who is a decazillionaire Los Angeles TV Star these days.  Once, when Johnny Mountain worked at Channel 26..as Bozo The Clown, he threatened to implant his nose in a very personal area of mine because I nearly fell over laughing at him trying to negotiate a flight of stairs at the station while wearing those goofy big shoes.

Joe Anderson was the consummate newsman over at WKGN, and his voice was deep and authoritative, too.  In a newsroom no bigger than a broom closet, he made the newscasts sparkle with good writing and lots of taped sound bites.  Remember when WKGN had a “traffic light” that the announcer would say was either green, yellow, or red, depending on whether there was an accident in town?  Just one crash!.  I also remember the news guys playing a sounder of some kind between stories to spice things up.

We listened to Cas Walker’s Farm And Home Hour for updates on Digger O-Dell. And we checked in with Hold That Line for the football scores. And you could hear Knoxville City Council meetings broadcast live where a voice like Walt Martin would explain what was happening. Walt’s surprised look was captured forever when a newspaper photographer snapped the shutter just as grocer/councilman Cas Walker punched somebody at a council meeting. When John Kennedy was shot, my mother picked me up after school and all of the local stations were either carrying news, or playing hymns out of respect. When the Broadway Baptst Church burned, I saw the flames leaping from the steeple as we drove across town- all the while listening to radio reports of the calamity

The Beatles swept into America and we heard “ I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Please Please Me”  and if we happened to be in a car…probably argued most of the two minutes of the song over the volume.  I never had a Beatle wig, but my friend Sammy Reynolds had one that he probably bought at Pass’s 5&10, down from Barns’ Barber Shop, which is still in Burlington.

FM is just a fad?  Tell that to James Dick who invested in FM radio and built a WIVK dynasty that dominates to this day. His continuing commitment to local news brought me back to Knoxville in 1992.  And there was another upstart FM station back in the 1960’s.  It was WEZK. And that’s where I got my first job in 1969.   Thanks,  Rudy Ennis for giving me a chance.  - Dave

• I don’t blame the district attorney for going after, the demented sex pervert who confessed to killing Jon
  Benet Ramsey.  Although the media had a field day on the story, the one-time suspect is the true cause of all the clamor in the past few days.  But I truly believe the investigation was blundered from the beginning, and it happened a long time ago.  And since that time, I worry about what fantasies he has lived out in real life while working as a teacher in several parts of the world.
• I don’t know about you, but I am Katrina’ed out.  Memorials, remembrances, commentaries, analyzing, counting, talking, talking, and talking.  And it seems the national media is fixated on New Orleans.  How about Gulf Shores and the other spots?  The most horrendous national disaster we have witnessed since the birth of The United States.  One network ended the newscast tonight with a funeral. Say goodbye to the obsession with the dead and the destroyed of New Orleans. There are other things to cover in this nation of ours.
• On the political season:  Nearly every politician I’ve ever seen has a few little parasite fish hanging off them.  They’re usually young and ambitious.  Some are honest and hard working and they really believe in their boss.                                                         There are others who only want to suck in as much power as they can by being in the proximity of powerful people. I call it the “don’t you know who I am” syndrome exhibited by badge flashers and those who have important looking credentials hanging around their neck.  They remind me of the cadre’ that always hangs around prizefighters: couldn’t punch their way out of a wet paper sack but they sure look tough when they’re close to the palooka.
• I am not much of a sports fan - I leave that to my corporate colleagues at The Sports Animal on AM 990 and FM 99.1, but I hope the UT Vols have a great season, and congratulations to coach Fulmer for what appears to be a tougher discipline imposed on his team. They’re in the public eye and kids look up to them- one way or the other.
• Nobody in the news business mentions the soldiers killed in Iraq much anymore.  I would be willing to bet that the people who loved them would appreciate a word or two now and then. I am guilty of this sin of omission, and I will try to do better to honor their memory. No matter how you feel about the war dead is dead, hurt is hurt, and as a song from my younger days says, all that’s left are golden ribbons and people alone with their memories. 
• Imagine the kind of hot dog you enjoyed when you were a kid.  The steamed bun was soft, and the weenie had flavor instead of a kind of mushy cereal taste.  The chili was spicy but not hot enough to keep you from eating two or three ‘dogs at a time.  The finely chopped onions were strong enough to walk across the chili, and the mustard added a tangy, almost sour note to complete the ensemble. The hot dog of my youth could be found at the Easy Shop on McCalla Avenue at Bently Street in Burlington.  The building is not there anymore and the street has long since lost its original name.                                 If you’re looking for the best hot dog in this area- It’s at the White Star Market on Boyd’s Creek Highway across from Seymour Intermediate. By the way, Phil White doesn’t give me a dime’s worth of anything to sing the praises of his ‘dogs. Not one hot dog. He doesn’t have to.  Since the Smoky Mountain Market slipped into history, his hot dogs are, as my mentor and great soul Ludlow Porch would say the only ones that are fit to eat.  Now, I’ll have some antacid, please.
• As they used to write in the news business -30- for now. That still looks cool at the bottom of a page.