Chuck Dunaway
chuck@chuckdunaway.com
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"This is the Way I Remember it" 
Episode 1
 Episode 2
Episode 3
 Episode 4
 Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7

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

About "The Way I Remember It"

While attending High School in Houston, Texas I had a group of friends who went places mainly on the weekends as a group. We were rarely seen apart.  One of my buddies, Bobby Moronko, was very good looking and got all the girls. Rose Annette Saragusa liked him a lot.  The rest of the gang were pretty average guys who would go to dances and just stand around because none of us knew how to dance. There was Kinard Daugherty, Dickie Wilson and Big John. Dickie Wilson was an adopted child and his parents indulged him by giving him anything he wanted and that included a new car. Because Dickie had the only car in the group we always went places with Dickie.  

 Since I was double promoted in school as a youngster I was the youngest and least experienced of all the guys. Mainly I acted as comedy relief to the guys who would occasionally and individually get lucky with a girl, but good looking Bobby was the only one with a real girlfriend. Bobby went to St. Thomas Academy, Dickie and Kinard went to Austin High with me and Big John attended Milby High School which was and is a very rough school in a rough part of town. You had to be tough to get by and Big John was the toughest kid in our gang.  He played football and acted as our protector. When you're a small kid you need someone to watch out for you.  

 Bobby had an Uncle named Fred Nahas who was a big radio personality in Houston. He was the top announcer at the local ABC affiliate, KXYZ, and hosted a weekly national network show entitled Saturday at the Shamrock. The Shamrock was a spectacular hotel on the extreme north end of Main Street, built by the famous Texas oil wildcatter Glen McCarthy. Glen McCarthy made fortunes and lost them many times according to legend. The character James Dean portrayed in the movie "Giant" was supposed to be based on the life of Glen McCarthy. When the Shamrock Hotel had its grand opening, my friend Bobby Moronko had his uncle arrange for us to be in the front row to see the Hollywood stars up close. I remember John Wayne pointing to the Shamrock from a stage erected in the huge front lawn and saying "mighty nice teepee Mr. McCarthy has built for you Houston."     

Fred Nahas had a deep mellow voice that sounded big-time. I was impressed with Bobby Moronko getting us on the front row, but radio had not become anything I wanted to be involved with yet. That came later when I discovered  a disc jockey from Memphis who could make you want to eat at Kapan's Restaurant and buy tailored pants from Rex The Tailor's. That man was barely older than we were, but he and others like him changed the music we enjoyed and the lifestyle we led in the early 50's. 

That is where my story, "The Way I Remember It," began .... " 

 

 

 

 

This is the Way I Remember It (Episode Eight)

I was raised in the Lone Star State, and losing my Texas twang was one of the most difficult tasks I faced. I would spend hours in front of a mirror watching my pronunciation, and practicing opening my mouth wide enough to eliminate the lazy-sounding drawl characteristic of most Texans. 

In those days, if you were playing country music for a living, you could sound as Texan as you pleased and get by with it, but if you were going to play rock-and-roll, you needed a rapid delivery, and a Texas drawl didn't cut it. I worked hard to eliminate regionalisms from my speech.

Earlier, we discussed the admonitions of the program director of KTLW to get rid of the accent, following my audition for him after I graduated from High School. He's the one who told me it wasn't "ass-burn," it was "aspirin." He also told me it was "new-clear," not "noo-cu-lar." All Texans used those pronunciations, and many natives still do. Check out President Bush: he's a Texan.

In due course, I got the pronunciation of those two words down, but I found that reading the news in Big Spring would give me the opportunity to mispronounce many other words. I was told to buy an NBC pronunciation guide, and I did. It was my constant companion, because I was hell-bent on becoming a big city player in the business of radio.

After nine or ten months of local celebrity in Freeport, I received a call from a larger town, closer to Houston. The call was from George Roy Clough who owned KLUF on the island of Galveston. I felt duplicating the fame I enjoyed at KBRZ would be a snap. Galveston and KLUF were calling,
offering me a job with more money. That's all I needed to know: bigger city and more money.

I was now up to $70 a week and didn't have to print a wrestling program for extra money. Every time I was sent to a remote broadcast they would give me an extra $5. I felt the big time had arrived, so it was "Goodbye, Freeport" and "Hello, magic isle of Galveston."

I forgot to mention that things would be a bit more expensive in Galveston with a new wife who was pregnant. And my desire to be a star required spending money on clothes to look the part.

Also, I forgot to make clear to the station management that I was interested in doing a rock-and-roll program, so it didn't happen. 

I earned the remote-broadcast money by introducing the band for a live broadcast on Saturday night from a local club. The salesman on the club account would go with me and give me an idea what to say between songs.

If you remember the Steve Allen take-offs on announcing big band remotes, then you know what I did on my remotes in Galveston.

My job included announcing and interviewing the stars who were going to perform at the notorious Balinese Room, which supposedly featured back-room gambling, courtesy of the Macio family. It was the same place made famous in the ZZ Top song, "Down at The Balinese." The club was built about a half-mile into the Gulf on stilts. The rumor was the distance from shore to the actual club allowed time to dump the gambling equipment into the ocean in case of a raid. I never got into the back room to verify that the casino actually existed, but the story made sense.

The first major entertainer I interviewed at KLUF was Al Martino, who had a hit called "Spanish Eyes." I winged the interview, and Mr. Martino was kind enough to pick up the ball and salvage it for me on the air. I told him how nervous I was, and he said he'd done more interviews than he had hairs on his chest, and for me not to worry. It turned out fine, but I wasn't quite as comfortable with subsequent interviews. In fact, I guess I hated doing the interviews. But it was a major part of my job in Galveston. Not only did I interview performers at the Balinese, I also did a twice-weekly
interview show with wrestlers.


I was invited to come to the show at the Balinese after each week's interview, so I'd put on my only suit, which I'd bought in Big Spring, and take my pregnant wife to the show and dinner.

The problem for me was this: the Galveston station was almost a carbon of the Texas City station with regard to the music I was allowed to play, and the limited time I was given to play it. Fifteen minutes here and thirty minutes there gave you no traction to become well-known. After I'd gotten
a taste of celebrity in Freeport, I needed more to keep the ego happy.

My son, John, was born after a couple of months in Galveston, and I settled with my family into a "shotgun" three-room apartment a half-block from the beach. It was nice to be able to hear the waves of the Gulf at night, but the place was expensive. Between the extra expense of having a family, the cost of the apartment, and the bills associated with bringing a beautiful son into the world, I couldn't make my car payments, and my cool pink '49 Ford Fairlane was repossessed.

It was the first and last time I couldn't pay for something I had purchased, or taken responsibility for. No longer having a car meant going to and from work by bus every day, and when I was scheduled for a remote, the salesman on the account would be required to pick me up and bring me home. I felt I was going backwards. It was not the happiest time for an 18-year-old father who wanted to rock-and-roll on the radio.

After moving to the Texas coast, I'd never sent out an audition tape. The job offers I received came about because someone heard me on the air. Fortunately, things were about to get serious: a serious offer was about to come my way, from a serious radio station in a seriously good market: the job offer that changed my life. 

I was about to hear from Jerry Hahn, the program director of KXOL in fabulous Fort Worth.

This would be the beginning for Chuck Dunaway in rock-and-roll disc jockeydom. In Fort Worth, I discovered who I was on the air, and quit trying to be somebody else. It was my confidence builder, and my entrance to big-time radio, where ratings counted. 

I discovered the Hooper Survey, and I learned its implications for a station's success. KXOL was where I became friends with Kent Burkhart, as we both began to develop professionally. 

It was where I could listen to KLIF in Dallas any time I felt like it. And I'll never forget visiting the studios of KLIF and being treated as an equal by KLIF's program director, Don Keyes. Fort Worth and KXOL were a lot of things in my life, but most importantly, it was my birth as a real DJ. 

Next: all about KXOL, and the early McLendon years. Thanks for reading.

Edited by Stacy Richardson

© 2003 Chuck Dunaway
All Rights Reserved