Chuck Dunaway

Chuck and Kendall visit with the Bush family in Houston (click photos for larger views)

 The Way I Remember It (Episode 13)

Leaving Milwaukee for Shreveport was a shock to my pocketbook, to say nothing of my overgrown ego. I figured I would duplicate in Shreveport the success and celebrity I enjoyed in Milwaukee. But I was wrong about that, and my tailor-made green suit would never leave the closet again. Shreveport was a much smaller market, and opportunities were not as plentiful as in Milwaukee. Furthermore, I had been the main source of rhythm-and-blues music in Milwaukee, which made me seem unique. But in Shreveport R & B was already widely available and well-received. 

 

KENT in Shreveport was owned by the Ford family and managed by Frank Ford, Jr. The program director was Sid Knight, a man in his late thirties who'd previously worked in some larger markets. I'll never forget telling Sid, "Some of my best friends are Jewish," and being told that was not a proper thing to say to a Jewish person. Because of my innocence, I didn’t understand what the problem was, but I never again said that to any Jew. But the fact of the matter was, I was simply telling the truth, for some of my best friends were Jewish, and were in the record business.

When you're only 20 years old, you've got a lot of living and learning to do, and I took Sid's comment in stride.

Left to right: PD Sid Knight, Atlantic Records' Joe Turner (Bossman of  The Blues) with DJ's Chuck Dunaway and Bob Elliott at a KENT record hop.

Elvis was still doing the Louisiana Hayride, the KWKH counterpart of the Grand Ol’ Opry, and was nearing the end of his contract. He had been on the Tommy Dorsey CBS Television show, and was beginning his rapid rise to super-stardom. At KENT, we held a contest to meet Elvis backstage at the Hayride. Sid and I went backstage with the winner, an older lady in a wheelchair. Elvis spent a lot of time with her, talking and posing for pictures.

Even early in his career, he was very popular with young girls, so the Hayride roped off an area to contain the screaming fans. When Elvis was backstage, he was very cordial and polite with everyone, and even seemed shy.

 

What really impressed me about Elvis was his ability to turn on a congenial smile for the cameras, and turn it off after the picture was taken. It wasn't phony, just automatic. After all, who can have a smile on their face all the time? I was so impressed that I would practice smiling in front of my mirror at home, several minutes a day, for weeks after meeting Elvis. I could never achieve a natural smile like Elvis had, and I finally gave up, after realizing the smile was part of his enormous natural charisma, part of the package that was Elvis Presley.

 

The Elvis Fan Club president became a friend through my afternoon radio program, and when Elvis turned 21 she arranged for me to call him at Graceland to wish him "Happy birthday" on the air. The call lasted about forty minutes with tunes and all, and was done live. I recorded it and put it on acetate for posterity. Unfortunately, it's long gone, along with so many souvenirs of the era.

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I became friends with fellow KENT D.J. Merle Kilgore while in Shreveport. Merle and I were both born in Oklahoma in the same year, 1934. We both loved radio, but Merle’s goal was to be a songwriter.

Another Shreveport DJ was George Carlin, who was in the Air Force and working at daytimer KJOE. “K-Joe” was owned by Joe Monroe, who lived in the same apartment complex as we did.  But we never became friends. 

Art Roberts joined our DJ group at KENT shortly after I arrived. He and his family also moved into our big apartment complex in which so many radio people lived. Our families got to know each other, and Art became a lifelong friend. Art became a legendary voice on WLS in Chicago.

Merle, George and I would have coffee from time to time and would run into each other at Stan's Record Shop. Stan’s was a huge mail order company, in addition to being the major retail record outlet in Shreveport. Stan’s sponsored a fifteen-minute segment of the Wolfman Jack program from border-blaster XERF in Mexico. You could always find a DJ buddy at Stan's listening to the latest R&B records, and could get an idea of what was popular, based on the store's mail-order sales.

I would hang out at Stan's, listen to the latest releases, and play some of them on my afternoon program on KENT. Formats were becoming much more rigid, and it was getting harder to play the music we wanted: the originals, rather than the cover versions. If I protested to Sid enough about playing the "white" cover versions, he'd break down, assuming I knew more about the younger audience than he did. My good ratings spoke loudly. Being young paid off in many ways in those days.

Another friend I met in Shreveport was D.J. Fontana, whose father owned a grocery store. During that time, D.J. became the drummer for Elvis. My wife and I would go to the drive-in with D.J. and his girlfriend, and would be amazed at his Elvis stories. What amazed me even more was that D.J. received only about $100 a week when he wasn't on the road with the band. Elvis was making his first movie at the time, and D.J. was only getting a small amount of money from Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker. I saw D.J. again about seven or eight years ago, at an Oldies concert in Cincinnati, but he didn't seem to remember me.

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I became interested in a young musician who was performing across the bridge in Bossier City. His name was Dale Hawkins, and he joined us at Stan's periodically. I'd also go to the club to catch his performances. Dale had a song called "Suzie Q" and it sounded pretty good to me. I arranged to record a session with Dale at the KWKH studios after hours. It was common to record at KWKH because they were equipped for such a project; KENT didn't have the necessary facilities. The lead guitar player for the session was James Burton and the drummer was Ronnie Lewis, the nephew of Stan Lewis.

 

I remember sitting on a box of newsprint while "Suzie Q" was put on tape. We recorded only that song during that session because my money was in short supply. As I recall, the musicians performed in hopes of getting a record deal, or as a favor to Dale. After the short session, the engineer put the song to acetate and we left. I sent the acetate to the man I considered my best friend in the record business, Jerry Wexler. Dale had signed a contract with Stan Lewis, but Dale was only 20 years old at the time, so he and I went to a lawyer and were told that a contract could be executed between us with his mother's signature. The call came from Wexler that they wanted the song and artist, but wanted to re-cut it in New York with Dale and the lead guitar player, James Burton.

 

Stan's cousin informed Stan of the session, so Stan called me to discuss what we were up to. I explained it to Stan, who told me to let him handle it since he already had a contract -- invalid though it might be -- which Dale had signed in good faith. Stan warned me that we didn't need to get into a legal squabble, and he also said he'd promised Dale to the Chess Brothers. Stan said he'd take care of me without involving the radio station and lawyers and having a lot of trouble. How could I get into a legal battle with my friends Leonard and Phil Chess?  So I trusted Stan, and backed off.

I never received even the few dollars I'd spent for the recording session.

Dale was signed to Checker records and Suzie Q became a huge hit for him in 1957, and later for Creedence Clearwater Revival.

 

Dale went on to be a favorite of Dick Clark's, and appeared on the American Bandstand show several times with non-hit product. Dale told me later that Clark liked his "Aw shucks, let's go fishin’" routine.

By the way, James Burton played on Chess Brothers recording of Suzie Q. He later became an in-demand session player in Los Angeles, became Ricky Nelson's lead guitar player, and eventually played lead guitar for Elvis on his comeback tours and Vegas shows.

Chuck Dunaway in the baseball uniform with members of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce as Chuck kicks off his attempt to break the record for staying awake on the air continuously to benefit the Shreveport Sports baseball team. It was during this event that program director Sid Knight's wife (a registered nurse) gave Dunaway his first amphetamines to help him stay awake.

George Carlin went on to comedy immortality after DJ stops in Fort Worth and Boston, where his “Hippy Dippy Weatherman” character was born. George and I would cross paths several times more. Unlike D.J. Fontana, George has an impeccable memory, as does Merle Kilgore, who soon wrote a hit song for Webb Pierce called "More and More".

None of us made a great deal of money in Shreveport, where opportunities were few. But several years later, Merle Kilgore became the manager of Hank Williams, Jr. (are you ready for some football?). The last time I saw Merle, we were backstage at a Hank Jr. concert in Columbia, South Carolina, where he said, "I'm rich, Dunaway, I'm rich." It was something we all had promised ourselves, and most of the group succeeded.

My time in Shreveport was eventful, but relatively short. I left for Houston, going home to a new top 40 station attempting to dethrone KNUZ. I was about to become one of the “Supersonic Six” at KXYZ. Life just got good again. 

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited by Stacy Richardson

© 2003 Chuck Dunaway
All Rights Reserved